Game Developer and Paper Pusher
Tip of the day
Tip of the Day – AS3 Language Reference for your iPhone
01575 days
Today was my first real day as Senior Adobe Developer for T-Mobile… and to be completely honest with you guys… I’m completely exhausted and uninspired at the moment
So… with an honest intent to keep up my 30 day tips streak… I’m going to tell you to check out Mike Chambers’ new iPhone application. It may seem silly, but I find having the AS3 Language Reference on my phone incredibly useful at times. For example, when I’m flying, when I have no internet connectivity, or when I’m out at lunch and am trying to brainstorm a solution.
Learn more about AS3 API Reference iPhone application.
*Nate passes out*
Tip of the Day – LinkedIn… A Flex (and Flash) developers best friend
11576 days
This evening my wife informed me that there were over 16,000 job cuts announced today here in the state of Washington. Grabbing a few of the headlines from King 5′s website.
- Home Depot to cut 7,000 jobs, close Expo chain
- Sprint Nextel to eliminate 8,000 jobs
- Microsoft feels the pinch, cuts 5,000 jobs
- And who can forget… Adobe Company Wide Layoffs, Pulls out of Macworld Expo
It’s getting nasty out there. So my tip today is to let you in on some of my secrets to becoming successful on LinkedIn, even in a time of economic downturn.
Even though I attribute much of my success to being totally awesome… here are some of my tips for success on LinkedIn besides using LinkedIn Jobs:
Never be rude to recruiters
They may just be able to save your bacon someday. When I get an email from a recruiter… even if it’s for a job that I have no interest in. I always respond with a polite, “I’m sorry, I’m not interested at this time. Please feel free to add me as a connection on LinkedIn” response. Given today’s economy… if I was to lose my job, I’d want a group of recruiters willing to help me out.
Update your status
Not many people update their status. Which is a benefit for us, because your status updates show up on the homepage of your connections. It’s a great way to get noticed.. especially if you are connected to recruiters, see above tip.
Recommendations really help
Another great way to get noticed is to have well-written recommendations. Receiving recommendations I’ve found, is a lot like a credit score… sometimes they just take time to grow. Future employers like to see recommendations from many sources over the years. Not just 6 recommendations in the past 2 months.
Also… don’t go on a recommendation spree writing a recommendation for every single connection you have, you will lose credibility.
Answer questions in your respective field
Along the same lines of credibility, LinkedIn Answers is an excellent place to establish your credibility with the community at large. From a high level perspective, answer questions about stuff you know and earn expertise.
Join groups relating to your field
An example of this is the Adobe Flex Developers group, it’s a plethora of job postings all over the world. Also be sure to subscribe to the digest email for updates about the group.
[Seriousnote]
I hope that any of you whom have lost your job, and are reading this post know that any joking in this post is in jest. I’m connected with many recruiters (especially in the Seattle Area) who are looking for talented Flash and Flex developers, go ahead and send me a connection request and I can make an introduction.
[/Seriousnote]
Anyone reading this post is welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn.
Tip of the Day – Having an affair with Flash
01577 days
Expert Flash developers such as Grant Skinner, Keith Peters and Mr. Doob didn’t become Flash experts overnight. Take a look at Keith’s old labs page, or Grant’s Gallery Incomplet. These guys have been playing around and experimenting with the Flash platform for years.
Maybe you’re one of those people who say to themselves, I simply don’t have enough time to screw around with my own stuff… I’m way too busy… I need my insulin… I don’t know anything about math or physics. Well, cut the excuses and make the time! All it take is twenty minutes a day. Twenty minutes a day turns into more than 3 full work weeks a year. Don’t believe me? Here is the math:
20 minutes * 365 days / 60 hours / 8 hour work day = 15.2083 work days
If you’re like me, once you start experimenting those 20 minutes fly by, and before you know it your significant other is yelling at you that dinner is ready.
For example, it’s been snowing off and on here in Seattle. As I was gazing at the window watching the snow come down, I decided to try my hand at writing particle systems. Particle systems are something that have always intrigued me but I never could “find” the time. So instead of putting particles in the back of my mind (and ultimately never getting around to them), this weekend I researched and spent a few hours learning about particle systems. And I programmed this (move the mouse around):
It’s nothing breath-taking, but you know what… I know how to write a particle system now.
Tip of the Day – Mocking up your application / website
41578 days
If you’re not sure what a mockup (or wireframe) is… it is a basic UI design of an application or website.
Here is an example mockup:
And now it’s actual implementation:
For a long time, I used Adobe Photoshop for all of my mocking up needs. However, last week that changed. Now my weapon of choice is Balsamiq Mockups. This handy little tool has pretty much all of the Flex components, and allows you to quickly put together a blue print of your application.
I also need to mention that when creating mockups, don’t go too elaborate with graphics. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I spend hours thinking about and creating a mockup, only to have the graphical elements picked apart by the client, “I don’t like the colors” or “What is this Lipsum crap?”.
The “napkin drawing” (or coaster drawing if you’re a big drinker) approach is the best route to take, because it forces the clients to pay attention to what elements are there, and not what they look like.
Balsamiq Mockups… best $79 I’ve ever spent.
Tip of the Day – Learn Object-Oriented Programming
01579 days
Object-Oriented Programming is the staple of the entire Flex Framework. Some key concepts you need to know to be taken seriously as a developer are encapsulation, polymorphism and inheritance.
I’m not going to do a full OOP write-up today in a tip, but I am going to share with you how I learned Object-Oriented Programming.
A while back I was browsing Barnes and Noble, looking through the Web Development section, when I came across a book titled Object-Oriented ActionScript For Flash 8. Now at the time, I had decent understanding of OOP, but wasn’t really using it much within my Flash Projects. So I bought it, and was glad I did.
Going back and looking at the code in some of my old projects, I sometimes don’t know what I was thinking… or I realize how I could have much better programmed the solution.
Anyways, if OOP is something you’re interested in (which it should be), I highly recommend picking up Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0.
Also, DevArticles.com has this post dealing specifically with OOP in ActionScript, if you’re too cheap to pick up a book.
Tip of the Day – Update your copy of Flex Builder
31580 days
by Nate Beck
in Tip of the day
So I had one of those moments today… I was programming along using Cocomo and Flash Player 10, and things just were not working. I was getting all sorts of obscure errors.
Well, I decided to check my version of Flex Builder… turns out I hadn’t updated to Flex Builder 3.0.2 yet. I know that it’s been out for a few months now, and I updated Flex Builder on my PC at work, but for some reason I forgot to update it on my MacBook Pro.
Well thankfully, updating Flex Builder is a very easy thing to do.
- Help > Search for Flex Builder Updates.
- Flex Builder will check to see if there are any updates.
- Make sure you select the Flexbuilder 3.0.2 update.
- It downloads.
- Then opens up this panel, click OK, and follow the steps.
- It makes you close out your copy of Flex Builder, and your web browser.
- Come on little installer, you can do it.
- Woot.
- And my problems all went away.
If you are behind a corporate firewall or Adobe Updater is blocked for any reason, you can update Flex Builder following the steps on the Adobe Flex updater website.