Just a quick reminder post that there will be no October PittMFUG meeting due to Flashpitt. Flashpitt is taking place on the same day our meeting would have been, and it’s a whole lot more content and fun than we could ever fit into a PittMFUG meeting.

As you might have heard at our recent meetings, Flashpitt 09 is coming up in just a few weeks.  We’re really excited to be involved in bringing a conference like this to our city again this year.  Some of the folks doing sessions include Jer Thorp, Odopod, Seb Lee-Delisle, Dan Mall, Stacey Mulcahy and more.  It’s a great chance to take a break from the daily grind to learn and be inspired. It’s not often we have this kind of representation of the international Flash community in town!

If you want to catch all these great speakers and meet the folks behind the Flash blogs you read,  attend the conference portion of Flashpitt.  But get your tickets now.  Early Bird Conference Tickets are only around until September 13th. Don’t forget to check the most recent PittMFUG newsletter for a discount code, too.

We know a lot of you have been looking for some Action Script training around Pittsburgh, so we should point out that Flashpitt is also offering a full day’s worth of Action Script training  the day before the conference.   Whether you’re totally new to Action Script or are looking to make the transition to AS 3.0, the The Beginner and Intermediate Action Script 3.0 workshops will get you there.   Taking both workshops will run you less than $200, so it’s a very affordable chance to upgrade your skills.

Flashpitt 2009
Workshops – Thursday October 15th
Conference – Friday October 16th
Flashpitt.com

Adobe is launching the FlashBuilder 4 and Flash Catalyst Tour in full force! Next week we will be having a joint user group meeting with the Pittsburgh Cold Fusion Users Group for an official pre-release event! Join us at IMPAQT as Adobe sends Adam Lehman, Adobe’s product manager for ColdFusion to talk to us about the advancements in CF, FB and FC! There will be swag, giveaways and food! Make sure you head on over and RSVP for an extra chance at an iPod as well! This is on our normal meeting night so make sure you show up at IMPAQT instead of at New Perspective! Directions and the RSVP form are available at: http://pittsburghadobe.eventbrite.com/

The 2009 Web design and development Spring
Conference is just under two weeks away! To kick things off, we are giving away a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium or Design Premium to one lucky attendee that registers for the event before June 2. This is valued at over $1500! To be entered, register through our e-commerce site by going to http://sbconference.com and clicking Register Now at the top of the page.

General admission tickets are only $65, students get in for $20. This is an outstanding price for the world-class caliber of Web professionals that will be presenting. For instance, renowned CSS guru and author of “CSS: The Definitive Guide” (O’Reilly), Eric Meyer will be giving us all a taste of how JavaScript Will Save Us All. Adobe Platform Evangelist Kevin Hoyt will be teaching us the Top 10 problems with RIA that you never knew existed. Stephanie Sullivan and Greg Rewis, authors of the recently published “Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4″ (New Riders) will be delivering our keynote, as well as presenting on topics from CSS to AJAX.

More of a developer than a designer? Join Fusebox core lead Adam Haskell as he dissects this popular web application framework, or learn to incorporate the desktop into your web applications through An Introduction to Adobe AIR 1.5 with Ben Pritchard.
Interested in bringing interactivity to your site through JavaScript? Why not learn from the lead of the jQuery UI build & release team, Richard Worth, as he helps you understand this popular JavaScript library through his hands-on Learning jQuery UI workshop.

This is just a sample, in all 19 Web professionals will present this year.

Visit http://sbconference.com for a full roundup.

Those of you in the Pittsburgh area may want to check out the ART AND CODE symposium going on March 7-9 at CMU. I just got an email from Drew Trujillo (Dr. Woohoo) who will be presenting some “adobe-centric” presentations on “Hijacking Photoshop and Illustrator with Extendscript“, “ExtendScript” and “Getting Started with Extendscript“. Be sure to check out the info at the ART AND CODE symposium site also!

Fellow MFUGer, Isaac G. turned in this lead on the ART AND CODE symposium coming up March 7-9 at CMU. For more details, visit the site here: http://artandcode.ning.com/

Tickets for Flashpitt2008 are on sale and there are still early bird tickets left! Check out http://www.flashpitt.com/register to get your tickets.

We’ve also started to announce our speakers list, and it’s definitely a great list so far. Speakers confirmed for Flashpitt2008 include: Big Spaceship Julian Dolce, John Lindquist ,Stacey Mulcahy, Ben Pritchard, Jose R. Rodriguez and Craig Swann.

Our speakers are coming from places like: Big Spaceship, Papervision3d, Schematic, Fuel Industries, Pixelfumes, New Perspective, JRVisuals and CrashMedia.

Our speakers page will be updated with the remaining speakers as they are confirmed.

If you were at the last meeting and haven’t used your PittMFUG discount code yet, now is the time! We’re down to less than 10 tickets avialable for that discount code.

Hey MFUGers, we just received a local Flex conference announcement some of you may be interested in. Please read the following details from Mick Keily of the Cleveland Flex Users Group:

Thanks to everyone who attended the AIR/Flex 3 Release Party last night. I think this was the largest turn out we have ever had for any of our events. It was great to see so many new people as well! Those of you not on the mailing list should signup! There is a form on the right side of the page that will allow you to subscribe to the mailing list. Don’t forget the next meeting will be on March 20th, 6:30pm at New Perspective.

30onAIR
Don’t forget about submitting your 30onAIR videos! You don’t have to do it at an MFUG meeting. You can upload your own at anytime. Just be sure to tag it properly (follow the directions). Be on the lookout for MFUG members you know up there! Details and videos at 30onAIR.com.

Pictures
I took a bunch of photos at the party last night. You can view them here: http://flickr.com/photos/55758862@N00/tags/release/. I figured I would throw a couple of the prize winners on here as well:

Tonight Kevin Hoyt visited the Pittsburgh MFUG and CFUG groups and gave a presentation on Flex 3 and all of the new features that are available. He also gave a brief overview of the newer features in the Adobe Integrated Runtime. What I found most interesting was the descriptions that he gave of the Flex workflow, how Flex fit into the Adobe family and how easily Flex and Flash can work together. Those of you who didn’t show, and there were many of you, missed a great presentation. Kevin gave away a copy of Flex Builder Pro, the Adobe Web Bundle, and iPod and a lot more. You can get some pictures of the event here.

Remember, we are having an event this February 28th for a special event! Make sure you show up! You can get more details here.