Peter Elst

Hej Danmark, vi ses snart!

When planning my schedule for 2009 got some good news from Skills Matter, my training partner in the UK, we’ll be taking the “Core ActionScript: Object-Oriented ActionScript in Practice” course to Århus, Denmark.

If you’re not already familiar with this particular course, its a two-day introduction to Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0 with a strong focus on Flex. You’ll learn about concepts like classes, inheritance, encapsulation and polymorphism but more importantly learn how to implement it in real-world projects.

Hope to see you there!

 
More information here: http://skillsmatter.com/go/ajax-ria
 

When you go to conferences as much as I do and meet up with old friends and acquaintances, the number one question is: “So, Peter what have you been up to?”. I realized that, unless you follow me on twitter and actually read the dozens of messages I post there every week, fairly few people have a clue what I’ve been doing these last few months.

Well here goes, apart from the Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0 courses I teach in Belgium and the UK, I spend a good bit of time tech reviewing several books. Two great titles that are coming out soon are AdvancED Flex 3 (Friends of ED) and the Adobe AIR Cookbook (O’Reilly).

I’m also co-authoring a couple of books, one that has already been announced is AdvancED AIR Applications (Friends of ED).

Turns out I’ve so far attended 10 events and conferences this year, presented a total 12 sessions and have enjoyed every minute! That said I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep things going at that rate.

While I’d love to be in the position to speak at all conferences that would like to have me over, unless my basic travel and accommodation expenses can be covered (which thankfully and increasing number of conferences are able to do), I’m going to have to become very selective in what I take on. I’d prefer to spend my personal travel budget on community events that genuinely have limited resources or are just starting out. That’s not a dig at Adobe MAX by the way, there are different reasons why I won’t be speaking there this year.

The ActionScript Conference in Singapore is going to be my last conference speaking engagement of the year and have not confirmed anything for 2009 as of yet.

We’ll see how things go, after Singapore I’m heading to India for a couple of weeks and will get back to business again by the end of November.
 

I’m excited to be partnering up with Comtaste for their “Meet the Guru” training sessions starting this October in London.

October 13-15th, I’ll be doing a three day course on “Programming ActionScript 3 for Flex 3“, covering everything you’ll need to get started with ActionScript 3.0 development for your Flex-based Rich Internet Applications.

Later that month Marco Casario is doing a “Flex 3 and Flex Builder 3” course and Koen de Weggheleire will be teaching “Developing desktop applications with AIR, Ajax and Flex“.

Needless to say these are going to be great events and a fantastic opportunity to get up to speed with the latest Adobe technology has to offer!

The courses take place at the Lafone House, The Leathermarket – Weston Street in London. Its a bring your own laptop event, course material that attendees get will include the books “Flex Solutions: Essential Techniques for Flex 2 and 3 Developers” and “Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0“.

If you use the discount code “Peter” you’ll get a 5% discount when registering for the training. Hope to see you there!
 
More information and registration here
 

I traveled to London yesterday to do an “In-the-Brain” session on ActionScript 3.0 with the wonderful people at SkillsMatter.

Had a nice group of enthusiastic people turn up, gave away a few copies of my “Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0” book and went out to the pub afterwards. This session was a little teaser for the “Core ActionScript: Object Oriented ActionScript in Practice” course that I’ll be teaching with them starting in April.

Thought I’d share the slides for those of you that weren’t able to attend. Nothing fancy but always enjoy looking back at the Flash authoring environment throughout the years. We’ve come a long way!

I’m really looking forward to my In-the-Brain session at SkillsMatter in London next Wednesday evening, February 13th.

I’ll be covering the basics of ActionScript 3.0, new features of the language and several examples of inspirational projects (mostly from the vibrant open source Flash community) that show the power of the new virtual machine that was introduced with Flash Player 9.

If you’re in the area and want to attend this free event, just register on their website.

Starting in a April I’ll also be teaching the 2-day “Core ActionScript: Object Oriented ActionScript in Practice” course — the first few dates have been announced on the SkillsMatter website. Further dates for my “Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0″ course in the Benelux will be coming soon.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

I’m excited to announce that I’ve finally got my training curriculum worked out and will start delivering courses on ActionScript 3.0, Flex and Adobe AIR in early 2008.

As many of you know I’ve spent most of last year traveling and speaking at various conferences. I saw this as a great opportunity to try out different ideas, get feedback and fine tune my training material. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and constructive and would hereby like to thank everyone that sent in their thoughts.

I’ve joined forces with training partners SkillsMatter (UK, Ireland and Scandinavia) and Multimediacollege (Belgium, Luxembourg) to deliver these courses and am available for custom training and consultancy worldwide.

More information as the courses roll out, in the meanwhile I’ve got a first event happening at Multimediacollege:

» AfterHours, January 17th – An indepth look at AIR API’s

I look forward to the first training events kicking off in the next few months. If you’d like more information on the various courses and training solutions feel free to get in touch!