Wow! eBook – Blog

Book Description

There are two types of new photographers: those satisfied with their low-cost point-and-shoot cameras, and those more enthusiastic photographers who recognize the limitations of low-cost equipment and want to improve their pictures. No longer satisfied with simple snapshots, the enthusiast moves up to a more complex digital camera-one with interchangeable lenses and manual controls-to satisfy their artistic urge.

Assuming little to no knowledge of photographic terms, techniques, or technology, Beyond Point-And-Shoot is intended to help smooth the transition from photographic newbie to “real” photographer who is experienced, in-control, and passionate about their craft. Author Darrell Young explores various types of interchangeable-lens cameras, focusing on those with larger imaging sensors, such as digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras.

Learn how to get the most out of your camera’s automatic and semi-automatic exposure modes, as well as how to move beyond those modes and take full, manual control of your camera. Watch your photography improve as you discover how to apply important photographic principles, such as depth of field, white balance, and metering. With this newfound knowledge you’ll move beyond point-and-shoot and begin taking truly great photographs.

Other topics include:

• Camera types Download Now »

Book Description

AdvancED ActionScript 3.0 is a fresh look and new approach to utilizing valuable, structural techniques and methods that are commonly used in the field of rich interactive application development. With each method broken down into different strategized explanations, you’ll find the approach most suitable for you. Whether it is an example you can utilize as-is, or one you can start with and develop further, you will have a glossary of definitions and organizational concepts at your fingertips.

Object-oriented programming (OOP) and design patterns are not new to the field, but can often be overlooked in their value. They are, at times, not only overwhelming to learn, but difficult to put into practice. However, they are useful because they create a structure that can be broken down, rebuilt, and reused.

• Provides the building blocks required for the implementation of OOP
• Addresses problems and concerns regarding OOP
• Offers solutions on how to approach and utilize OOP

What you’ll learn

• Understand the benefits of OOP
• How to structure code
• Explore new techniques
• Recognize patterns used by professionals in the field Download Now »

Book Description

Did you know you can take your Flash skills beyond the browser, allowing you to make apps for Android, iOS and the BlackBerry Tablet OS? Build dynamic apps today starting with the easy-to-use Android smartphones and tablets. Then, take your app to other platforms without writing native code.

Pro Android Flash is the definitive guide to building Flash and other rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the Android platform. It covers the most popular RIA frameworks for Android developers—Flash and Flex—and shows how to build rich, immersive user experiences on both Android smartphones and tablets. You’ll learn how to incorporate multimedia, animation, and special effects into your apps for maximum visual appeal. You’ll also cover advanced topics, including input methods, hardware inputs, deployment, and performance optimization.

What you’ll learn

• Deployment of Flash and Flex to Android
• How to take your desktop RIAs and adapt them for mobile devices
• How to integrate Android hardware inputs from the camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer
• How to build an immersive user interface using Android audio and video assets
• How to integrate styling and artifacts from a professional designer
• Best practices for mobile performance tuning and optimization

Who this book is for
This book is intended for developers who are looking to build rich Internet applications (RIAs) for the Android platform, especially Flash and Flex. Download Now »

Book Description

Developing Blackberry Tablet applications using Adobe Flex 4.5 for mobile will walk you through creating your 1st AIR on Blackberry application. Next, you will learn how to interact with the devices camera, gallery, accelerometer, GPS, multi touch display and native services using Adobe Flex 4.5. Finally, you will learn how to compile your application and deploy to BlackBerry App World.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Hello World
Chapter 2 Application Layouts
Chapter 3 Permissions and Configuration Settings
Chapter 4 Exploring the APIs
Chapter 5 Working with the File System
Chapter 6 OS Interactions
Chapter 7 Publish to BlackBerry Installer
Colophon

About the Author
Rich Tretola, an award-winning Flex developer, is the Rich Applications Technical Lead at Herff Jones Inc. He has been building internet apps for over a decade, and has worked with Flex since the original Royale beta was introduced in 2003. Rich is highly regarded in the Flex community as an expert in RIA, and is also an Adobe Community Expert. He has authored or co-authored a number of books on Flex and AIR, and has a popular Flex and AIR blog at Everything Flex. Download Now »

Book Description

Ready to put your ActionScript 3 skills to work on mobile apps? This hands-on book walks you through the process of creating an Adobe AIR application from start to finish, using the Flex 4.5 framework. Move quickly from a basic Hello World application to complex interactions with Android APIs, and get complete code examples for working with Android device components—GPS, camera, gallery, accelerometer, multitouch display, and OS interactions. No matter how much Flex experience you have, this book is the ideal resource.

• Use Flash Builder 4.5 to create and debug a Flex Mobile project
• Choose a layout option to determine which files Flash Builder auto-generates
• Select permissions that control which devices can install your app from the Android Market
• Explore APIs that enable your app to interact with specific Android OS features
• Learn how to read and write text files, browse the file system for media files, and create and write to an SQLite database
• Use the URLRequest class to open your app in the browser, place calls, and create emails and text messages
• Load web and video content into your app with StageWebView
• Publish your app to an Android installer file with Flash Builder

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Hello World Download Now »

Book Description

With this book you’ll have fun exploring the graphical and animation side of the Flex 4 SDK. There are other books out there on Flex, on Flex 4, and on RIA technologies in general, but they generally don’t cover the techniques that help you write cooler applications. This book is specifically about the graphical and animation technologies in Flex 4 that enable better user experiences: the “fun” stuff.

Flex 4 is a powerful and flexible set of libraries that enable rich client applications running on the Flash Platform. In particular, Flex makes it much easier to write robust GUI applications than it otherwise might be with just the Flash authoring tool and APIs. For example, Flex provides a rich and extensible component library, databinding for easy communication between objects in the application, and the declarative MXML language that enables you to write your GUI logic in a very simple and straightforward way.

Flex sits atop the powerful Flash graphics engine, and provides all kinds of great capabilities for drawing shapes with various fills and strokes and using image-processing filters to change the way things appear. Flex 4 also has a new component model which enables a very flexible way of changing the look of your components. Flex also offers a “states” model that makes it easy to describe what your application and GUI components look like at different times in their life. And Flex provides rich animation capabilities that make it possible to animate anything in the GUI, which enables rich experiences for the user as objects in the GUI gradually change from one state to another instead of making sudden, discontinuous changes. Download Now »