Adobe has posted a build of the Flex 4.5 SDK, code named "Hero", on their open-source site. This build does not contain features that rely on future versions of the Flash Player or AIR runtime, which is to say there's no AIR for Android goodness in here. Still, the new build adds the much-anticipated Spark DataGrid, a few other Spark components, and a number of bug fixes.
Working Audio Data Demos -- the new Firefox has a very sweet audio data API and some nifty demos like delay pedals, a beat detector (YouTube) and a JavaScript text-to-speech generator. (via jamesaduncan on Twitter) Estimating the Economic Impact of Mass Digitization Projects on Copyright Holders: Evidence from the Google Book Search Litigation -- [T]he revenues and profits of...
John Wilker has started a contest over on the 360|Flex blog. The requirements are simple and the stakes are high - tell John why you want to go to 360|Flex in the comments and John will pick someone to win a free pass to 360|Flex in Washington D.C., September 19-22. Entrants will be judged on "zest for life and creativity", and the winner will be chosen by midnight on 8/30 (that's soon.) What are you waiting for - go leave a comment on the 360|Flex blog!
Maxim Mossienko and Kirill Safonov, IntelliJ Developers at JetBrains, join us to discuss the improvements in the IDE, and how it works in Flex development. Special appearance by Joel Hooks. Ryan Gardner and Leif Wells cohost. Note: This episode...
Have you ever wanted to create an authentic looking Andy Warhol silkscreen? One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Warhol was known for his avant-garde paintings and screenprintings. Remember Warhols garishly colored celebrity images of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, or Mao Zedong? In the studio he called The Factory, Warhol took an assembly-line approach to his high-contrast, silkscreens and produced art as a mass consumable, like a t-shirt or a pack of gum. Its not surprising that his art is still popular today, and there are lots of one-click Warhol solutions. But if you want the real thing, join Deke McClelland in the final episode of this dekePod series, as he dissects Warhols process, and shows you how to use Photoshop to render your favorite portrait in bona-fide Warhol magnificence.
Signs are our friends. They help us observe the rules when we actually need to know the rules. We dont all speak English, and tourism is a huge industry, so signs need to be language-independent. Which is why a vocabulary of immediately identifiable symbols is essential to every working artist and designer. So if symbols are so important, why are most such an indecipherable mess? Computer icons! Laundry instructions! Or Dekes favorite: What you shouldnt throw into an airplane toilet! Learn what works and what doesnt in this laugh-out-loud episode of dekePod.
They say you cant be too rich or too thin. So how about getting rich by making others thin? Plenty of experienced retouchers make small but enviable fortunes shaving body fat off already lithe models. But rather than showing you a present-day example--honestly, how many underfed waifs do we need to see made skinnier?--Deke takes us back to a time when ideas of beauty were very different: the High Renaissance. In those times of mean circumstances and manual labor, body fat was a thing to be envied. How best to take a well-fed model rendered by the likes of Raphael and make her look like a modern work of art?
The ocean is a different world. Where else can you cavort with colorful animals a thousand feet or more above the Earths surface? But the romance of the sea comes at a price. Just as the watery depths rob our lungs of air, they rob our eyes of color. Its not uncommon for an underwater photo to lack any information in the Red channel. Which is where coral, clown fish, and our very own skin tones live. Fortunately, Deke knows how to summon a Red channel back from the dead. Watch this dekePod and learn how to create underwater images that will satisfy your inner Jacques Cousteau.
If you use Photoshop, then you probably browse your images with Adobes Bridge, which shows you thumbnails of your files. Good news: The Bridge lets you preview images without going to the trouble of opening them. Bad news: Those previews result in large cache files that eat up your hard drive. Worse yet, they permit others to track what youve been looking at. Even if youve long since destroyed the original file, the thumbnail persists! Learn how to protect yourselfand maybe even save your job.
Adobe's landmark pen tool defined an industry. But to the uninitiated, its reliance on anchor points and control handles makes it as approachable as first-year algebra. Until you see it's nothing more than a mating ritual: The points are boys and the handles are girls. Once you get that, it all falls into place.