specializing in digital media technologies

Recently, the New York Times had a nice two-page article on the economics of book publishing and electronic book publishing. I’ve been thinking about writing on this topic myself, specifically about the money, as I suspect many people are curious about the financial aspects of the publishing business. However, I only have access to my numbers as a writer, so it was interesting to see the publisher side of things. I write computer books published as paperbacks, so my experience may differ from what the Times reported. That being said… (continue reading…)

I’m currently working on my next book, Effortless Flex 4 Development. This is an entirely new title for me and my first full-length book on Flex. It’ll be published by New Riders, which is a sister publisher to Peachpit Press, that I normally work with. Most of the books I’ve written have been in the Visual QuickStart/QuickPro Guide series, which has a scripted format. This book will not be, so you won’t see the step-by-step instructions everywhere (there will be some) or the two-column format. I just submitted the third chapter, so I’ve now written about 90 pages or so, approximately one-quarter of the book. Here’s the rough table of contents, for those that are interested. (continue reading…)

I’ve just started writing my forthcoming Flex 4 book, tentatively titled Effortless Flex 4 Development. I’m happy to say that the first chapter is in the can, which is always a big hurdle to overcome. The book will be around 400 pages, released by New Riders, with an expected publication date later this Spring. I may post a more detailed table of contents in time, but the rough outline consists of three parts:

1. The Fundamentals
2. Data and Communications
3. Application Development

Each part will be roughly a third of the book. As no previous Flex knowledge is assumed, the first part covers the basics of Flex development. This includes the tools you’ll use, the user interface elements, an introduction to ActionScript, and a discussion of event handling. The second part of the book is especially important, I believe, as working with data and client-server communications are what give Rich Internet Applications their true power. Unlike the other Flex books that I’ve seen, I’ll be exclusively using PHP for my server-side code. This is in part because I’m a PHP guy at heart, in part because increased PHP support is a key addition to Flex 4, and in part because I want to present Flex development in a way that doesn’t require a huge amount of cash or server requirements. The last section of the book adds more advanced concepts, ties together what had been discussed to that point, and has more complete examples.

I’ll post more details in time. If you have any questions or comments, on my book or on Flex, please share them. Thanks!