Jeffry Houser's Blog - Writing and Presenting

360|Flex comes to Washington DC in September

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:04:00 -0400

In my 8th grade year book we had the opportunity to write biographies for each other. Most of them were slightly humorous; and many had us dying in weird and bizarre ways. What happened to me? After replacing much of my body parts with computer hardware, I electrocuted myself during a failed world takeover by falling into the reflection pool between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I strongly recommend you make a trip to 360|Flex DC this September to welcome in my new world order. There will be Zombies involved. Thank you Brian Nolan. 360|Flex, if you didn't know, is my favorite Flex conference, and it will land in DC on September 19th. You can register here or try to respond to their call for papers and get yourself a presentation spot. Note: Image stole from http://www.visitingdc.com/memorial/washington-monument-address.htm

Bullet Proofing Flex Components - By Jeffry Houser - Recording

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:26:00 -0400

The recording from my recent presentation I gave at the Online Flash Platform Meetup group is now available. The presentation was a Flex 4 modded version of my Bullet Proofing Flex Components presentation.

Jeffry Houser's 360|Flex San Jose Session Survey Results

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:38:00 -0400

I tend to Tweet a lot more than I blog. A lot of questions--and answers--that would have previously turned into blog posts are now summed up in 140 characters or so. Brevity is hard; and I'm constantly impressed by my own personal technical support structure. You probably know I spoke at 360|Flex in San Jose a while back. As part of presentation, attendees get to rate my performance. The results for this year are in. I like to give my thoughts about the results.

The Stats

First, I'm bummed that the average rating was 3.3158. One a scale of 1-5; I like to be higher. At least it's not low; but just mid range. This is not too be completely unexpected as I was dealing with something entirely new to both myself and most of the Flex Community. Deepa showed up to listen in and ended up fielding a lot of questions near the end. Thank you to Deepa. ( Deepa's domain appears to be expired, so I am not linking to it ). Aside from the average rating, 89.47% of respondents found the session informative. That is a much nicer number.

Was the speaker authoritative?

I never worry to much about this question, especially when I speak about Building Flex Components. I have unique experience, thanks to Flextras. One comment is spot on:

On things he had researched he was, but as questions got outside of that, not so much.

This is very true. I know what I know; and don't try to BS through what I don't. A few folks give a nice shout out to Deepa for covering me on some of the other questions.

Was the session informative?

A lot of presentations are intended for beginners, and I believe this one was too. I covered a lot of stuff at a high level, without getting too dirty into the details. I was a bit worried because there were two other presentations--before mine--that covered similar topics. But, we all had a slightly different take; so it didn't turn out too bad and I was very well received. This is especially flattering:

This has been the most useful session for understanding the differences in philosophy between Flex 3 and 4. The very simple examples were amazingly good at showing the principles without "fluff."

I've been told similar things in the past about both my presentation and writing style. I can take complicated things and break hem down into small digestible chunks. Another comment here:

This session was a lot better than I was expecting. Not sure what I was expecting, but it was much more useful than I anticipated.

Thank You! Except I probably failed a bit in the topic description; or perhaps even the topic title. I'll admit the topic title was a bit open ended. I do better when I'm direct without hyperbole.

Were the Slides Useful?

I also get picked on for slides being sucky. It's not my strong suite; never has been. My slides got rated better here than usual, although someone commented that a few went by too quick.

Additional Comments

I love the catch all question and be sure to add them to every survey.

The teamwork between Deepa and Jeff was really good as well, and it was great she was here as this is brand new and it would be hard for anyone outside Adobe to know every detail.

Someone understood my ignorance on a few of the topics. Thank You! I leave with one final quote:

it was exactly what it needed to be.

Thanks! I can't think of a better way to finish of this post.

Flash and the City: 3 weeks away

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:21:00 -0400

Flash and the City is coming up quick. This is a conference in New York City all about developing apps for the Flash platform. I'll be there speaking about building Flex Components, a topic near to my heart: Flextras will also be a sponsor.

Jeffry Houser's Adventures at the premiere Flex Conference

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0400

I'm sure plenty of folks will be writing about the recent 360|Flex conference in San Jose. Once again I think that John and Tom hit it out of the park. But, my opinions are probably biased since I've become good friends w/ both of them. Instead of writing the obligatory ego praising yes-man post; I thought I'd share this video of my slippers. Tom found it hard to believe that I wear through a pair of slippers every few months. But, it just so happens that a home body like me wears slippers more than shoes. My shoes last a long time; but I burn through slippers quickly. Why were we talking about foot apparel? It's just one of the many awesome conversations I had about 360|Flex. Don't worry, though. There were plenty of Flex and AIR and HTML5 related conversations too. Here are some of my other thoughts, in random order:

I was walking through the hotel corrider on Saturday and was recongnized as "The Flextras Guy". It is a bit odd to be recongnized for something other than producer of The Flex Show.
The Flex Show got to interview a bunch of conference attendees. Blaine did most of the interviewing. I did the editing. Because of a paperwork snafu; I held off on posting Tom's exit interview. Bad us! If we don't work it out, I'll give the recording to Tom / 360|Conferences and they can post it on their respective sites. I can be pretty particular about having all my ducks in a row. We hope to get this addressed soon. I also delayed some of Elad's talk about Flash and the City. It wouldn't be appropriate to put such a long 'promotion' in episodes paid for by a competitor. They'll show up soon, though.
I started drinking Pepsi again. Tomorrow is detox time.
I think I really screwed up my community keynote minute by not preparing. I spoke a bit about The Flex Show, which was great. I spoke a bit about Flextras, which was also great. Tom told me to mention the Flextras Friday Lunch podcast; but it just didn't come out of my tongue. That was a mistake. I could have also used it to push The Flex Show USB Drives and AskTheFlexpert. Oh, well.
The last day of the last session, had a Panel about the future of the Flash Platform. This rocked. It works out really well to bring everyone back together for the final session. I was surprised so many people stuck around for it. Usually things are empty by end of the third day of a conference.
They had panels on Day 2 also. Between keynotes, panels, and parties, attendees started and finished the day together. I got to be on the final panel. For the first time I felt I contributed positively to a panel. I've never seen such a large crowd hanging around on the last day of the conference. I hope I was as brilliant as I thought.
I got a lot of good feedback on my presentation comparing Spark and Halo architectures. I was a bit worried about content repetition because two other people were using a similar "slide deck." Additionally I had less Spark experience than either of them.
Deepa covered me by showing up and answering a handful of questions that were beyond the realm of my experience. She actually apologized for 'taking over' when I went to thank her. I was thankful to have her there.
I did not get to be interviewed on RIA Radio. They were just too busy w/ other folks and I didn't get the chance to slip in. But I hope to make that happen soon. Zach thinks it'd be awesome to have "The Flex Show" folks on RIA Radio, and vice versa. I think it'd be fun too.
I am starting to know more and more people in the community by name. Although I met a bunch of new faces too. Some of them were twitter friends that I met for he first time. More people seem to know me than I know them, though. That will, hopefully change, over time.
I got to meet Dan Wilson in person. Despite the fact that I've been a bit of an ass about not liking model glue he didn't beat me up. I appreciate that.
This is the first time I got to chat w/ Jesse Warden in depth. We met briefly at RIA Unleashed, but this time we had some free time to speak. He is a bundle of energy.
I spoke to Ted Patrick about the stuff that I'm doing with Flextras. He said he thought it'd be interesting if Adobe had some type of program to certify components for quality. I thought it was an interesting idea; although I'm not quite sure how it would work. There is a huge difference between a "one off" components and a component that is built to be easily extensible and bullet proof.
Kevin and Liz may be the most sickeningly adorable couple ever; but it gets me high to see two people so in love w/ each other.
I did not get to have dinner w/ John the final night. It's a bit of a bummer; as we have become pretty good friends. I really enjoy our off-air chats. Thankfully we did get in some face time at dinner the day before.
If none of that is appealing to you; we also had Screaming Monkeys from Digital Primates and Root Beer Floats.

Only 20 discount tickets for 360|Flex are Remaining! Get yours now!

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:49:00 -0400

I'll be speaking at next year's 360|Flex conference in March 2010. There are only twenty tickets left at the discounted price of $499 before the price goes up to $599. Register now. San Jose is a hot bed of technology and the 360|events in the area always sell out. Don't wait, because once tickets go they are gone. I'll be speaking about the differences between Flex 3's Halo component architecture and Flex 4's Spark component architecture. I spent a lot of time working on components for Flextras, so I hope to be able to impart some useful knowledge to ya'll. Why else would you want to go?

Flex 4 is launching soon, you're not going to get any better Flex 4 information than at 360|Flex, with several sessions dedicated to just Flex 4 features!
Sunday is an extra day of hands on on training that is free for all attendees. If you're a beginner go to Garth's Flex 101 Hands-On session. If you have more experience, take a look at the class on the MATE framework or connecting Flex to hardware like the Arduino.
Flextras will be offering a special gift to all attendees that you don't want to miss.
The Flex Show will be podcasting the event again too.
Did I mention you get to meet me in person? If 100 people sign up using my own personal registration link; I'll shave my head before the event, or during the event if that is your preference. I get a lot of karma points if you use the link and you costs you nothing extra.

Behind the Scenes of The Flex Show

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:11:00 -0400

Today I will be presenting at an Adobe Tech Wednesday entitled "Behind the Scenes of The Flex Show - Trials and Tribulations of Producing a Podcast." John should be joining me for a bit of it. If you're interested in learning more about how we create the audio podcasts, then this is going to be a great way for you to do it. Join us here at 10:00am PT (Los Angeles) / 1:00pm ET (New York). Calculate that into your own time zone using the Time and Date world clock converter. Note, presentation is over, here is the recording

Reviewing Jeffry Houser's Bullet Proofing Flex Components Sesion Survey Results from 360|Flex Indy

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:00:00 -0400

That's a long title. I got my session results from 360|Flex. As I have done in the past, I thought some discussion might be in order. 100% of people found my slides useful. 100% found my session informative. Wow, that seems like a bug in the survey result system. Either that or I'm really getting better at this. Most of the comments were really positive:

Once again a great speaker, right from the source.
I liked how Jeffry covered a good range of topics in a slide and code format.
Learned all sorts of cool things about how do keep your code reusable and clean.
He did a good job explaining what it takes to create stable components
Awesome presentation, very informative by an excellent, very knowledgeable speaker.

Thank you for the kind words everyone. There were some sound problems:

The room had a loud air conditioning unit in it and the speakers were not on, so listening to the presentation was difficult.

Believe it or not, all I needed to do was turn on a mic. Of all people at the conference, you'd think I'd have been able to figure that out. But, i was in the room earlier for a different presentation and the speaker was going without a mix, so I assumed--perhaps incorrectly--that it was an issue. I did ask someone from the crowd to go let "The desk" know, but no one moved. I wasn't sure what to do, so decided to just go with it. I should have tested the mic in the beginning and gotten help earlier instead of having a conversation about stickers on the back of my computer. I had two detractors:

Seemed to know his stuff, kept the session rolling, stumbled a little bit here and there.
kind of unprepared.

I know I've been more prepared for sessions in the past, but I still thought things went pretty well. I believe the stumbling was due to the fact that I didn't have the session memorized. And often had to look up the specific line numbers of where to go next when I was showing off the code for Flextras components to illustrate the examples. Yeah, if I had rehearsed it an extra 100 times it would have been better. If those were the only complaints I guess I didn't do too bad, though.

He mentioned that this session was a "spiritual sequel" to another session, but that session wasn't at this conference.
Would like Breeze recordings for download later

The other presentation is available on-line. This one is my favorite recording of it. But, here is another one. I expect to be giving the presentation on-line via connect at some future point. But I have no specific plans yet. And one final comment:

Jeff had some sweet hair.

What can I say; I love my hair. I'm told it would be longer if I got the split ends chopped off more than once every 3-5 years. The full comments are here.

Your Demos are Ugly - Jeffry Houser presents about Flextras @ Hartford CT Adobe User Group

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:44:00 -0400

I'll be giving a presentation at the Hartford Connecticut Adobe User Group entitled Your Demos are Ugly. One of Flextra's customers actually contacted me to tell me that the demos were ugly. And he's right, design is not my strong suit. Our demos are ugly. This presentation will focus on demoing the two existing Flextras components and we'll discuss some tips for making the demos look more flashy using effects and styles. You can join us on-line if you want. The presentation starts at 7:30pm EST. Convert the time to your local time zone here

Meet Jeffry Houser at 360Flex|Indy ( or get me on-line today)

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:20:00 -0400

I just got accepted to speak at 360|Flex Indy! The show will be going down May 18-20, 2009. My presentation will be entitled "Bullet Proofing your Flex Components." I'll be speaking about some of the lessons learned while building the Flextras line of components. If you don't want to wait until then to get a piece of me, I'll be holding a live demo and Q&A today. The presentation part will be short, then you can ask me anything. Just go to this Connect Room at 1pm EST today, Friday, February 13th. Use TimeAndDate.com to find out when this is in your own time zone. Back to 360, you can check out the other great 49 speakers on the schedule. Tickets are cheaper on a first come, first serve basis! So buy your tickets asap at http://360flex.eventbrite.com to get the best possible price. See you there! ?

360Flex San Jose 08: Creating Flex Components by Jeffry Houser

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:36:00 -0400

It looks like my 360Flex Preso Video was finally released. Although I think I gave a great presentation, I do not think it turned into a great video. But, hopefully you'll find something useful from this. Definitely weird to see the Adobe Logo plastered over this; I'd swear it wasn't there on the presentation I reviewed.

Jeffry Houser's 360Flex San Jose 08 Intro to Components Session Reviews

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:00:00 -0400

I just got the session reviews from my 360Flex session on Building Custom Components. This is a huge boost to my ego. You can review them here, if you're so inclined. Here are some of my comments to the comments:


He didn't know everything...
Composed, not afraid to say, "I'm not sure. Anyone else know the answer to..."

I got the impression from speaking to people that I'm one of the few presenters who said "I'm not sure". No one knows everything, especially me. I'm fine with that! I know when you're up in front of a crowd, it can be pretty scary. I often joke that to prepare for a presentation I would crawl up in a ball and cry. As a presenter, you want to be seen as the expert; you want to be seen as authoritative; you don't want to be seen as some bumbler who got his speaking slot through clerical error. I used to be afraid of not knowing stuff. BSing an answer will just frustrate those in the audience. Coders can smell BS a mile away. I think perhaps producing The Flex Show has given me a breadth of experience that makes me believe it's okay to flaunt my ignorance. I'm talking to a new person every other week on some topic I know next to nothing about.


Really brought the audience into the presentation
Jeffry did a nice job, was comfortable and interactive
The speaker was good and kept the audience engaged.
Loved his style

I've done enough presentations that I'm starting to produce my own style. I ask the audience a lot of questions and try to get a good back and forth going. I'm very comfortable with that style. I don't like lectures, so I try to keep it interactive. At 360Flex, I did a fantastic job of keeping that interaction going. I'm glad most people enjoyed that.


He spoke as an expert
He knew what he was talking about
Very knowledgeable. 
The speaker has great experience and is very authoritative... and it showed.
I'll never complain about a prepared speaker

Thanks, thanks, and thanks!


Step by step....I wished all the speakers took this path.
Should give a presentation school to some of the other presenters.

I don't believe I can offer any control over what other speakers do; and I hardly think I'm fit to train anyone in public speaking. But, thanks for the compliments. But, of course not everyone was completely happy, here are some of the complaints:


The information covered was rather basic
great session, but a little too basic

The session was intended to be an intro / basic session. I even billed it as such in the program guide and added a disclaimer slide in the beginning of my preso. When playing with many guitarists, I developed a theory on the world. If a guitarist says "This song is easy" it means "I know how to play it." If a guitarist says "That song is hard" it means "I don't know how to play it." I think coders are the same way. Introductory and basic content is all from the perspective of the person receiving the info, and what they already know.


The interactive style seemed to get in the way a little

I've heard this before in other presentations. Some people don't like that style of presentation. I can understand that. I personally hate soliloquy lectures and am not successful giving presentations like that. I feed off the audience like a performer.


Really impress upon speakers that are doing a session heavy on code to show the process, not the the end result of their work.

I'm not sure if this was directed at me specifically, or an overall comment to John and Tom about all presentations. Writing code takes time. It takes even more time when you write it on the fly in front of people. It is not practical to write each sample on the fly during the presentation. For that you really need more time; such as with a hands on session. Did any of the presenters write lots of code on the fly? For those interesetd, I'll be giving the same presentation at 360FlexCamp in Jersey.

Reviewing My 360Flex Survey Results

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:00:00 -0400

The 360Flex have posted the results of session surveys. Here are mine. Based on a few other speakers I spoke to, I got a lot of responses (20 once you discount the joke review I filled out for my own session). I thought my session went great, and was in a room with 40-50 people or so. I felt I was able to facilitate a discussion with my attendees (as opposed to just lecturing them), which is what I aim for. I was really worried about having to "repeat the questions", which the ""signers" asked me to do so they could relay to the hearing impaired attendee. But, I think I did pretty good with that. A few comments that I felt were worthy of mention:


 Very nice personality; funny and easy to listen to.

This is a huge boost to my ego. I don't usually think of myself as funny (although I can be sarcastic), but I'm glad you were entertained.


 ...he was able to facilitate the audience for answering those he did not have knowledge on.

Good conversational communication style

This is the vibe I shoot for when presenting, so I'm glad that at least two person 'got it' and enjoyed it.


 He didn't think AIR was broady applicable

This is true, and I'm not ashamed to say it. In fact I did say it in the intro to my presentation. I do not think AIR 1.0 is primed up for wide adoption. The business case for AIR, as I see it, is that it makes it very easy to write "Partially Connected" applications.


 More for beginners.

I was very torn whether to tell John and Tom that my preso was a "100" level or "200" level. I went with 200 level. Maybe I shouldn't have. I went with 200 because there is a lot of code that I just glaze over because it was not the focus of the presentation. However, the beginning of my preso deals with things such as "What is AIR and why do we care?" and "Why do we care about code reuse?" That is very intro stuff. However, I made the audience answer those questions to make sure we were on the same page moving forward.


 ppt skillz = -1

Oddly someone else said that the slides were useful. The presentation was not about powerpoint, and I think I used it well enough to communicate what I needed to communicate. I'm fine with not being a powerpoint wizard.


He had a hard time answering alot of the questions. It seems like he was relatively new the Flex. I felt like the attendees wanted more answers than he was able to give.

This was sentiment echoed a couple times in the comments, and that surprised me. There was a question or two that I didn't have answers to. I wish I remembered what they were. I don't remember being totally clueless, though. I'd rather say "I don't know" than to BS an answer so I look like I know stuff.


Was a little short

I find it hard to fill up fifty minutes worth of time. 80 minutes scares me. I've spoken to other presenters who have expressed chagrin about the 80 minutes presentations. However, I also know many presenters who could fill up 3 hours without a second though. And for those that read this far, thank you! Postcards for The Flex Show will be making appearances in the attendee swag bag at two separate Flex Camps:

Flex Camp Oklahoma City: March 13th, 2008
Flex Camp Wall Street: April 18th, 2008

There is a chance (schedule permitting) that I'll be at Flex Camp Wall Street recording interviews for The Flex Show, although I'm out of the office the day before it for a separate event, so I'm not sure. But Mike Labriola said he used to have my laptop model and may have some extra batteries I could "acquire" from him, so... I need to figure out April's schedule. Are you going to be at Flex Camp Wall Street? Would you like to listen to me podcast (live) from Flex Camp Wall Street?

Want to get together at 360Flex?

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:39:00 -0400

I'll be speaking at the next 360Flex. 360Flex is the premiere conference focused on Flex and AIR topics. It takes place on February 25-27, 2008. I'll be there talking about code reuse between Flex and AIR. As if three whole days of Flex goodness wasn't enough, ll attendees are invited to participate in a hands on Flex 101 session on Sunday the 24th. This is a free all attendees. This is an astounding deal and the conference is full of the standard networking type parties you'd find at standard conferences. If you're coming in early enough, I plan to get a group together on Saturday evening to go to The Varsity. I had a similar get together in Seattle, and a dozen of us (give or take) took over the space needle for an evening. The Varsity sounds a lot more down to earth, although just as touristy. Let me know if you want to join along You can catch an early version of this presentation at the Boston UG before I leave for Atlanta.

CF101 Archive: July 2004 What's the Best Approach to Software Development

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:01:00 -0400

Disclaimer: This article is being reposted in accordance to my contract with sys-con. I had them change the default contract so that I could post articles on my personal site. This is the sixth article I wrote for my beginner's column in the ColdFusion Developer's Journal. I'm not quite sure if the title is mine, or something sys-con created. The focus is really a high level overview of different software development life cycles and talks about my approach. These days, I often push a "rapid prototype" into the requirements phase, instead of in a design phase. I can tell based on my writing that I had my college text books open while I wrote the first half of the article. In this article I talk about putting a lot of code in a single template vs separating them out. From page 3 of the PDF:


I've worked on sites that have tried to put a lot of the functionality into a single template, such as create, edit, and delete. I've had much better luck maintaining templates that don't do everything in a single template. There's also less processing because you don't have to figure out which "actions' of the template you're supposed to be executing. Using this method can make code less portable than having everything in a single template. If consistent naming conventions are used, this is rarely a problem.

This is really a good description of how I view software development, and is one of the reasons I've never been an avid fan of Fusebox or Model Glue. I prefer many short "to the point" templates over a single big all encompassing one. I'll be releasing articles, once a week, on Friday around noon until I'm out of articles. It should take 30 weeks or so, and make for good lunch time reading at the end of the week. By my count, I have 29 articles remaining to post.