eFug.org: the Edmonton Flash User Group
eFug is the official Flash User Group for Edmonton, Alberta. We are committed to fostering community and professional excellence among Flash professionals in Edmonton and area. We deal with a variety of topics relevant to working with Flash, including development, design, animation, marketing, multimedia and business practices. We hold regular gatherings on the third Monday of each month.
We hope to serve as a promotional and educational force in the community, evangilising Flash and related technologies to businesses in Edmonton and worldwide.
If you have any questions or comments regarding efug, you can contact us by filling in the form to the left. Thanks!
September 08, 2008
September efug
We have a stellar lineup for September's efug, commencing on Monday, September 15th, 2008 @ 7:00pm.
As per usual:
The Billiard Club
10505 82 Avenue NW
Second Floor of the Historic Post Office Building
Come get the skinny on 2 killer projects that have recently launched out of our local community:
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Christopher Caldwell: Caldwell Creative
Case Study: Cricothyrotomy
A look at the development process of an online surgical simulation.
This case study will take a brief look at the process, learning methodology, development, co-ordination, and resources required to create an e-learning application developed for the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry. This application contains multimodal instruction, illustrative support, audit trails, surgical activities and simulated procedural competencies required to augment existing medical training. This simulation is designed to provide third year medical students a safe way to become proficient at procedures that are not commonly encountered in a traditional teaching environment.
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Ryan Matsikas / Nick Johnston: gskinner.com
DIRECTV SUPERCAST SHOWCASE (Adobe / Blitz / DIRECTV / gskinner.com)
Are you a die-hard NFL football fan? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to watch live NFL games on your Macbook, or 30" cinema display? As a DIRECTV customer, you can gain access to real-time video (in both fullscreen and mini mode), near real-time highlights, and game stats in a clean UI.
From building custom animations using a combination of programmatic code (GTween/TweenLite) to using Flash & Flex assets deploying to both AIR and the web, the overall goal for this presentation is to discuss techniques used to embed assets and give a brief under-the-hood look at the app which uses the Pure MVC framework.
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As always we'll be enjoying five-buck appies, happy-hour drink prices and swag giveaways to lucky attendees.
Hope to see you there, invite your friends and colleagues!
Additionally, I'd like to extend an invitation to an industry event that is occurring in Edmonton (free of charge) on September 23rd, once at 9:00 am and then again at 10:20 am at:
Centre for Excellence in Print Media
NorQuest College
10135 109 Street, Edmonton, AB
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Paul Trani: Adobe Systems
Assets in Motion: Cross Media for Print Professionals
In the future, successful printers will need to adopt new business and growth strategies in order to prosper. Ways to connect more meaningfully with new and existing customers. In this session, Adobe will discuss the latest trends in communication and show how the tools available in the Adobe Creative Suite will enable you to put your assets in motion -- extending your print communications to the web, video and beyond
Paul Trani is a passionate and knowledgeable 15 year veteran of the interactive design and development scene as well as a respected speaker nation-wide on all things Adobe. Paul has spent many years as an Adobe Certified Instructor, courseware developer, and trainer. He is also an Adobe Community Expert who contributes weekly through numerous forums, blogs, and Adobe online and live seminars, reaching thousands annually. Using his degree in Illustration, a background in Motion Graphics Design and ability to write high level code, Paul has created first-class cross-media projects for diverse clientele such as Bacardi, Neutrogena, Adobe, Best Buy, Hallmark Channel, Qwest, Western Union, Lucent Technologies, IBM, and Sprint.
When Paul is not inspiring the community through online or live events, he can be found at Starz Entertainment where he is the Senior Designer leading a talented design department to create award-winning experiences across multiple media. Paul’s blog can be found at http://www.designupdate.com
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If you are planning on attending Paul's session, register here to get your free lunch:
Assets in Motion
Posted at 10:43 AM
July 09, 2008
July efug: Grant Skinner et al
After a short break, we're up for some summertime fuggin'.
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
The Billiard Club on Whyte (map and address in the left-hand sidebar)
7:00pm
Chief Architect & CEO of gskinner.com, Grant Skinner is going to shed some light on his design process and tools.
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Designing With Flash?
While much better known for laying down code than for laying out websites, I still love dabbling in interface design when I have an excuse. Lately, I've found myself doing almost all of my conceptual design in the Flash IDE, instead of Photoshop. This has very obvious workflow advantages, but I would also make the contentious argument that Flash is now a *better* tool for designing certain types of sites. I've even used Flash to design HTML sites, which I then rebuild in part with Photoshop - this is a complete reversal of my workflow from two years ago.
In this informal session, I will talk about the new features in Flash that have made it such a useful design tool, my design process, and some of the things I think make it a better tool for certain projects than Photoshop.
Designers may find this talk useful for their own process. Developers might find it useful to convince the designers in their lives to work in Flash - wouldn't that make the designer developer workflow so much more peaceful?
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After Grant's session, we will be having an informal open-podium portion of the evening. This is an opportunity for you to share with the local community a cool project you've been working on, a sweet Flash feature/tip you'd like to share or simply show a stellar use of Flash you've experienced recently. Contributions are limited to 5 minutes max, and will earn you a ballot of some of our larger prizes of the evening.
Don't forget that the Billiard club offers us happy-hour drink prices and five-dollar appetizers all night long — hope to see you there!
Posted at 10:24 AM
March 31, 2008
FitC 2008 efug Smackdown
Monday, April 14th, 7:00pm
The Billiard Club on Whyte Ave
10505 82 Avenue NW
Second Floor of the Historic Post Office Building
As the 2008 Flash in the Can (FitC) Festival draws near, we've put together an evening you don't want to miss! Mark it down.
Flash superstar Grant Skinner has agreed to present his 2008 FitC session that he will be sharing in Toronto. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to enjoy a world-class session, free of charge, amidst five dollar appies and happy-hour drink prices. As always, we'll be swaggin' it up, and yes — even giving away a full commercial version on Adobe Creative Suite 3!
If you are able to make it out to Toronto, FitC has generated a discount code for all efug members to receive 10% off! Your discount code is: EFUG331
Here is the skinny on Grant's sess:
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My Favourite Things
When the client bites,
When the run-time error stings,
When Flash makes me mad,
I simply revisit my favourite things,
And then I don't feel, so bad.
A fun trip through some of the code, concepts, and approaches that have particularly intrigued or interested Grant while doing visual experimentation in ActionScript. This session has a particular focus on visualizing important concepts in coding, and using unexpected approaches to tackle tough problems in interesting ways. No "girls in white dresses and blue satin sashes", but there will be virtual "snow-flakes that stay on my nose and eye-lashes".
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More about FitC:
Break IT! Break your tools. Break your patterns. Break the norm. Break the standards at FITC Toronto: The Design + Technology Festival. FITC Toronto is the largest event of its kind in Canada and a highlight of the international conference circuit with over 1,000 attendees from more than 15 countries.
FITC Toronto is where the world’s top designers and developers come together to share their insights and expertise across three subject areas: creative, technical and business. Sessions cover all aspects of the creative process, explore the latest developments in rich media technology, and provide insight into the ups and downs of running an Interactive business.
This is the 7th year for the three-day festival, which also includes a kick-ass Awards show, a speakers’ series devoted to experimental art and programming, a large scale interactive art exhibit as well as some very cool parties.
FITC Toronto 2008
The Design + Technology Festival
April 19 - April 22, 2008,
Hilton Toronto, Canada
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Hope to see you there — bring your friends and colleagues!
Posted at 09:20 AM
