Well, the Flex Developer Derby will officially end today (yes, this time they mean it) so get your entries in.  I would like to point out 2 very cool entries that I can only assume are in the Just Freakin Cool category.

Onyx - is a flex video mixng tool created by Daniel Hal that is “Just Freaking Cool”.  It allows you to add filters and effects to a video while it is playing.  You have to check it out at http://www.onyx-vj.com/demo/

flexDraw - is a flex drawing tool created by Mitch Grasso.  It has a full set of drawing tools including shapes, text, and image manipulation as well as image loading via Flickr, printing and saving capabilities.  When testing it, there seemed to be a few bugs yet to work out but was otherwise a very cool application.  Check it out yourself at http://www.boomslide.com/flexDraw/

If you haven’t seen this new proof of concept project from Adobe yet, you should check it out.  It uses a concept of using remote services like Blogger.com and del.icio.us for data storage via Read/Write RSS by allowing users to capture notes during meetings and assign tasks within those notes to individuals. Underneath the hood, NoteTag stores notes as blog entries, formats tasks using a microformat, and uses tags to link tasks (from notes) to people. NoteTag uses a preliminary set of Kiwi Project component libraries, including an AtomProtocol library, a simple TagServerProtocol library, and an extended RSSRW library that supports setting data in an RSS feed.  NoteTag is a Cairngorm 2 application and requires Flex 2 Beta 3.  You can read more about it and download the source code at http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/NoteTag

StatPods has gotten a makeover and has also added Yahoo mapping showing the last 100 visits to EverythingFlex.com. The diversity is pretty amazing. We receive visitors from all over the world. Flex is certainly gaining in popularity and Flex 2 is sure to have a global impact.

There appears to be a problem with certain versions of Flash Player 9, if you have a problem viewing the map data, please post your comments here are include your operating system, browser type and version, and flash player version (right click and choose About Flash Player 9 to see version number of player).

Steven and the Cairngorm team have released the newest version of Cairngorm for Flex 2 beta 3 and there are 2 key changes that will break your Cairngorm 2 alpha code.

• The addCommand() method in the FrontController is now accepting a String with the *name* of the command, rather than a new instance of the command so your addCommand() method will now look like this:

	     addCommand( MyController.EVENT_LOGIN,  LoginCommand );      ***CORRECT***

	     while the previous version accepted an Object and looked like this:

	     addCommand( MyController.EVENT_LOGIN,  new LoginCommand() );   ***INCORRECT***

• The signatures of the onResult and onFault methods in the commands have also changed and should now look like this:

public function onResult( event : ResultEvent=null): void       ***CORRECT***
public function onFault( event : FaultEvent=null) : void
while the previous version looked like this:
public function onResult( event : ResultEvent): void     ***INCORRECT***

public function onFault( event : FaultEvent) : void

Just install the new swc in the user_classes folder and make these 2 small changes and you should be ready to compile.

You can read more about Cairngorm here and download the latest version here.

There is a nice article actually promoting Flex as a gui for java applications in the new JDJ.  This is a great sign and hopefully will finally start to give Flex the legitimacy that is has been looking for in the Java community.  Those of us who have been using Flex 1.5 and 2 with Java already know how powerful and easy it is to create compelling gui’s.  Now it is time for the rest of the Java world to see the light.
Here is the link: http://java.sys-con.com/read/210991_1.htm