ROKSMedia, Inc. Partners with Business Catalysts

Just signed up a few days ago as a Re-Branding Partner for Business Catalysts and I think Adobe has done a good job on this platform. I was able to get the ROKSMedia website up and running with a full e Commerce solution in a few days. It uses most of the popular payment gateways , in my case I went with Paypal , they only took 2 - 3 days to complete.

Once I had the re branding completed I started upgrading my existing customers to this system. Now I can finally control all of my customers online businesses myself with out having to rely on a third party hosting service. And best of all they are all in one place, and I can sign on to the system with one admin login and administrate any of my customers websites that are in the system.



I am able to concentrate on creating the customer experience more now as I do not have to set up or manage multiple systems or databases as the platform takes care of everything for you. The Web Apps feature makes it possible to build just about any type of web app you can think of all with point and click. Rapid prototyping and customer approval has been sped up with very good results.

You are able to customize every aspect of the look and feel via HTML and CSS. I was able to integrate custom Flash assets ( SWF's ) with ease and even integrate them into the Online store and the custom Web Apps I have designed with the system.

If you need any type of help the support system is top ranked as they have pretty much thought of everything. There is a online wiki that is complete with many video tutorials and has some amazing amounts of tips and tricks to customize your or your customers online business to your exact liking. Plus other support for partners that I have found to have answered every question I have had so far. Once you get to know what is in the online wiki you can create a FAQ on your site that easily points your customers to very detailed instructions to solve their problems.

Thanks Adobe for another tool to help us manage and take care of our customers.

If anybody would like more information and a discount code to save you some money when you sign up, either fill out this form or email me and I will email you the discount code and the information.

Adobe should offer a Cross Platform Serial Numbers

I am very confused with the recent post from Steve Jobs in the recent days about Flash and the attacks on Adobe. If I could switch my Serial numbers of my Master Collection, I would go out and purchase PC's for development and start boycotting Apple product altogether. I am just locked into my software purchases which are Language specific. I am loyal to Adobe because they have always been there for us from the beginning and never have abandoned us.

My I-phone drops more calls then I can count and the applications in the Apple store are the same as any out there, some get developed correctly with a proper budget, and others hardly run because they were not developed correctly. I think Apple is scared of how fast our community would adapt and build components to make I-phone applications that blow away anything that has been built to date for that platform.

I say give us an option as to switch licenses to different platforms and see how many people stay on the Apple bandwagon. For me it is the Killer software these days as the platforms they run on are fairly similar.

Go get FlexFormatter

The clouds parted and I got my prayers answered. Ernest Pasour created a very nice formatter for AS3 and MXML. I am so happy I can't even stop smiling right now. Everyone should go give this guys some money... this has been needed way too long and a much overdue feature that should have already been added to Flex Builder.

Go Get FlexFormatter Free!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Earnest your the best!

Rich

Update:

You can install via the Flex Builder Menu bar:

Help - Software Updates - Find And Install

then Search for New Features, and add a new remote site with this URL:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/3/26/2380069/UpdateSite

and then follow the instructions to install.

Creating Custom Panels for PhotoShop CS4

I can't believe the amount of creative work I have been finding myself doing these days. I find myself wanting to better my workflow constantly. I like that Adobe keeps coming up with cool and useful solutions for us to play with to help us get the work done as fast as possible.



I downloaded a very useful tool from http://labs.adobe.com the other day named Adobe Configurator 1.0. This very easy yet powerful tool which is an Adobe Air app built with Flex that will allow you to customize Photoshop. It is almost like having a scene or level builder for your favorite game. It can help you build custom panels with tools and commands that you need and use frequently. It also keeps them conveniently organized together. It helps you seriously speed up production work and helps you stay in the groove with everything just the way You need it!


The Opening Splash Screen


An Empty Panel on the Canvas.


The Tools Accordion selection exposed.


The Command Accordion selection exposed.

For the programmers that need a little more, there are plenty of options for you as well. You can embed a swf that can talk to Photoshop via the PatchPanel AS3 framework and build a custom GUI in Flash or Flex to control not only Photoshop but most of the CS4 Suite for some crazy automated desktop publishing solutions.


This is the script text editor.

I had to let my baby (BrandDoozie) go!

I had to make the biggest decision of my life recently. I know it was one of the most painful decisions I have ever made. After three long years of development on the BrandDoozie projects, It is time for me to say goodbye.

I have lived with this project the whole time I was working on it. From the time I woke up in the mourning, (if I ever got to sleep that night) to the time I lied my head down, I thought about this project. Even when I could sleep - I would still be dreaming about BrandDoozie.

Recently I have been working with a team of programmers & developers doing projects for Cisco/LinkSys. I was introduced to some very talented developers that are part of the team Everest Solutions Group have pulled together and I enjoy being a part of it.

Now I have started a RIA development & consulting agency and I am excited about the ideas & opportunities I will get to explore. When not doing client work ROKSMedia Inc. will focus R&D primarily on Adobe Enterprise solutions controlled by rich clients built with the Flex & AIR SDK's.

I am very excited about the ability to Blog more now that I will have a little more time on my hands. I cannot wait to share some of the common challenges we all face with building applications like BrandDoozie and the solutions I was able to come up with to solve those challenges.

I hope to be able to set up my Video Blog very soon.

It is truly amazing how many talented people we have in the Flex/Flash community and that Macromedia Community passion of days ol have spread all over Adobe and it is continuously growing. I have so many people to thank for getting me through some very tough times and I will try to make time to thank you properly.

To all the Bloggers who take the time to share with all of us. Thank you - I will start doing my part now. :)

I can even get to some of the shows now like MAX - Yeah! Hope to see you there.

Adobe Soundbooth® beta performed with absolute grace!

I had to Produce, Capture and Edit a Promo Video for BrandDoozie recently and I was under an extreme deadline. I had just recently switched back over to the Mac.(PowerBook Pro) and realized I did not have any sound editing software installed yet.

I remembered the last time I was browsing labs.adobe.com they had a beta of the new Adobe Soundbooth posted. I was seriously sitting there with the actor on the set and realized the sound from the camera was not going to work.

Just a few minutes later I opened up this really nice program with a very elegant interface. No time to play right now had to see if this pretty software could use my M-Audio drivers and sure enough Adobe thought of all that.

Roll Sound, Roll Camera

So far everything was going as expected.

But what about the fine tuning tools. I am using Pro AKG & Shure Microphones but sometimes you want to fine tune things. First I always like to Normalize the files in a project. And of course it is right there easy to find in the process drop down menu along with other handy processes you will commonly use.

After perfectly capturing all the takes, I played around with some of the other menu items & panels and was amazed at all the pre-planning that went into this product. I will have to do another post going over some of the cool features they packed in there.

Thank you so much Adobe. Once again I can rely on you for quality software even in Beta. Plus I got to try it for FREE.

BrandDoozie.com selected Adobe "Site of the Day"!

When I woke up this mourning I was thinking this day might suck being Monday and all. As it turns out it wasn't all that bad of a day. I got an Email from Adobe that read

We've selected "BrandDoozie: Marketing Materials in Minutes" as an official Adobe Site of the Day.

We have a solid team at AtomicCurve and everybody who works here had their hand in the process of building the Branddozie website and the Application(RIA), always putting in long hours and great ideas. I always knew I was part of a great team, so it feels good when your peers and others seem to be enjoying your work.

Not too bad for a Monday. :)

Congrats Guys

P.S. Hey! We miss you Juan.