I first heard of Adobe Flex from a friend through MSN chat. He told me it is one of many RIA technologies out there like Microsoft Silverlight, AJAX and JavaFX. Then it was during a team meeting my co workers started talking about Web 2.0, avatars and RIA. Since then, the words Adobe Flex have been stuck in my head so I have decided to take a look myself.

Adobe provides a getting started guide with Flex 3, the current version of Flex which you can take a look here. It covers from building a basic application to a more advanced application. And by the way, you need to get a copy of the SDK (software development kit) in order to compile the xml-based MXML source code into SWF file (basically Flex creates Flash content just like any other Flash contents you see on the net).

I won’t go too technical just like my other blogs as this is intended to be a overview. But I will write about the pros and cons.

Pros:

Cons:

I love Flex so much I have decided to redesign my site using it as well, its not done yet but you should get the idea
Project Mobius

As usual any comments/feedbacks are welcome and I hope you enjoy this review!
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This is my first blog and first product review, I have put in a a lot of efforts into writing this. Ok, let’s get to the point.

For your information, I have been a web/graphic designer for more than 10 years, I am not saying I’m a professional (skill wise) but I can say I know enough to judge that this Web Design Mastery is a good read for those wanting to know more about web design, promoting your own website, whether for business or personal purpose.

From the site it shows you the topics that are covered extensively in 8 volumes. If you are really interested, you can just go straight to signing up for a free trial which contains 77 pages of the full 500+ page ebook and no I don’t gain anything from anyone by signing up for the trail version ebook and that’s not why I’m here.

I got myself a copy of the trail ebook by signing up on the site, you can unsubscribe from the list once you receive a link to download the trail ebook through email (note if you are using yahoo or hotmail accounts, the email will most likely be in your junk mail folder). By the way its in a form of PDF, you will need Acrobat Reader in order to view it, you can get it here.

I have read through the content and honestly, even for a trial version, it covers a lot of the concepts and ideas of how to plan, create and promote your website. I am not going in details about the content, if you are still reading and interested, try it out yourself But there are a few key points that I should point out:

• Be passionate about what you do, in this case web design. You will be very disappointed if all you want is easy and quick money. There is no such thing, as least most of the time!
• Don’t be cheap! Invest money to make money. Personally I think it also motivates you to work hard for the money invested.
• Build a website in an ethical way, for example, don’t use images without the person’s permission.

If you made it all the way down here, I am really happy because my blog was worth reading. It means a lot to me if you could leave me feedback as well, even the negative ones please as I want to improve and get better at blogging. Finally, if you are truly interested about web design, get yourself the trial copy now and start making that site that you have always dreamt of making. It is also rewarding to see your own creation for the first time. I hope I have enlightened you a bit about web design (I used these two words so much I know!)

Feel free to check out my site!
Project Mobius

Thank you for reading and I will continue to try my best to produce quality reviews!
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