Upcoming Speaking Engagement - Introducing Flex Templates
Webmaniacs Conference - Washington, DC
May 19-23, 2008
Brice Mason
Simply put, this session is about putting the generation of Flex applications in the hands of the everyday user. Using a set of core Adobe technologies including Dreamweaver, Flex-Ajax Bridge (FABridge), and Flex, we will walk through the development of a Flex templating scheme. Leveraging the power of Dreamweaver templates, we will provide hooks into the rich experiences that Flex offers, ultimately producing a product the end user can implement without knowledge of JavaScript or Flex.
ColdFusion Metadata Magic: Part One
December 11, 2007
by Brice Mason
Developers are writers. Each day we are tasked with telling a story through the software we create to a varied audience including other developers, technical writers, managers, and users. In addition to the code we create is usually a set of documentation which is produced with the same amount of care and attention. While I'm sure most of us would rather create content which includes semi-colons and curly braces, well-written, consistent documentation is one of the keys to a fluid software development team. The task of documentation doesn't have to be as daunting as once thought. This article will show you how to generate, maintain, and version standard documentation for all your ColdFusion components (CFCs) automatically in less than 100 lines of code.
Adobe AIR Xdrive Picture Syncing: Part 5
February 15, 2008
by Brice Mason
On Tuesday I demonstrated the use of a proxy to upload pictures from AIR to Xdrive via drag and drop. Today we wrap up this series by showing you how to download files from Xdrive to AIR using this same technique, but this time using a context menu control.
Creating Accessible Web 2.0 Applications Using AXS
February 11, 2008
by Brice Mason
Web developers are the ultimate communicators. We often are tasked with realizing the vision of an entire team whose job is to market, promote, and service their stakeholders. But what happens when your users are limited, or even excluded from, the experience you worked so hard to offer them? Whether it be a case of reduced vision, dexterity, or hearing, a growing percentage of users experience some form of barrier to accessibility. Although helping users overcome these barriers is itself enough reason to start designing for accessibility now, a variety of other factors, including government regulation, profitability, and user perception all are important motivations to design to support accessibility. In this article, I will describe and demonstrate some of the most common accessibility features you can incorporate into your Web 2.0 applications by using the AOL AXS JavaScript library.
An Xdrive Primer
February 6, 2008
by Brice Mason
AOL's Xdrive Data Service Platform (XDSP) is a complete virtual storage system you can use to enhance the services you offer to your users. Not only does it provide you with 5 gigabytes (GB) of user-allocated storage to start (and more, if you want), Xdrive also includes a set of services you can use to create, manage, and support a unique experience for your user base. This article will walk you through the development of an Xdrive client utility developed using Yahoo! User Interface Toolkit (YUI), a popular JavaScript library used to enable rapid application development.
10 Steps to Mastering the Adobe Flex-Ajax Bridge (FABridge)
June 15, 2007
by Brice Mason
Although currently in beta state, the Adobe Flex-Ajax Bridge (FABridge) has proven to be a simple, easy to use library which exposes Flex applications to traditional DHTML applications. However, current documentation, code samples, and general misinformation are preventing the exercising of this important technology. This article will present 10 simple steps to becoming a master of the FABridge.