If you’d like to learn how to use Adobe’s Creative Suite tools to easily and portably create websites and apps for tablets, smartphones, and mobile devices there’s a new 2¼-hour course you’ll be interested in…

Guru Paul Trani teaches an extensive free class with 18 video chapters that will take you step-by-step on how to create portable content that will run on both Apple iOS and Google Android devices with a wide variety of screen sizes using a single code base. Basic usage of HTML5 and CSS3 is covered, as well as how to bring in Adobe’s recent additions PhoneGap (for building fast, cross-platform mobile applica­tions) and Typekit (for delivering custom web fonts).

The first half of the video series employs Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5 to develop both websites and apps, with steps on how to convert a website into a portable mobile app. The tutorials then move on to using Flash-based tools (with Adobe AIR) to build multi-platform mobile apps. We already know that Flash Professional CS5 can be used to build apps for the iPad and iPhone, but this takes it a step further. The videos guide you all the way through to how to publish your app to your device and to the Android Market (which shows immediately) or to the Apple App Store.

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You may have heard of the recent releases of Flash Builder 4.5 (formerly Flex Builder, and now part of CS5.5), plus ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion Builder 2…

And we’ve written about this particular offer before, but it bears repeating now that we have these major product refreshes for both Flex and ColdFusion.

Adobe will give you full versions of these premium devel­opment tools ($249 – $1,299 values) absolutely free if you qualify! And if you don’t, you might know someone who does and could benefit…

Free copies of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 Standard are given for non-commercial use to: (a) students, faculty and staff of eligible educational institutions, or (b) software devel­opers who are affected by the current economic conditions and currently unemployed.

The ColdFusion products are also available for free to educational customers, to use for learning purposes only and not for production use. Complimentary installation support is available, and if you are a teacher and would like ColdFusion 9 for multiple systems in your lab, you can request up to 30 education serial numbers.

So if you can qualify yourself for any of these categories, please go ahead and download your free software here.

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Adobe this week launched a new initiative to bring some of their best and most favorite font faces to wide use for textual content on virtually any website. The new Adobe Web Fonts offering is designed to work seamlessly with the browser and computer of any site visitor, and thus allows website developers to move past the limitations of the narrow set of web-safe fonts we have been using since the web began. Some of the over 120 200 typefaces being made available are Myriad, Minion, Trajan, Chaparral, Text Pro, Cooper Black, News Gothic, Adobe Garamond, and Bickham Script.

Previously, the only consistently certain way to display these font faces in portable fashion on websites was via static images. For standard textual content, website developers needed to stick to a small set of browser-safe fonts guar­anteed to be available on all platforms (both Windows and Mac systems) – like Arial, Times, and Verdana. But now you can display your website text in your choice of many fonts and have it look great while being usable, flexible, searchable, editable, and indexable. This really is going to change web design.

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With the final releases of new Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2, Adobe is hosting a new series of free webinars introducing the new multi-screen web content and applications development capabilities of the Flash Platform. You will discover the exciting new features of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 and learn the best practices from leading industry experts on how to create unique experiences and optimize web content, video, and applications across desktop and mobile. Here’s the session list, with detailed descriptions available on the registration page:

Best practices in optimizing web content for Flash Player 10.1
Tuesday, June 22, 9AM–10AM PDT — Watch Free On-Demand

The quickest way to build cross-platform apps with AIR 2
Tuesday, June 22, 1PM–2PM PDT — Watch Free On-Demand

Rich Internet App development with Flash Builder 4 for Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2
Wednesday, June 23, 9AM–10AM PDT — Watch Free On-Demand

Multi-screen web content development with Flash Pro CS5
Thursday, June 24, 9AM–10AM PDT — Watch Free On-Demand

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[UPDATE (May 17th) – All sessions were recorded & are now available for on-demand viewing.]

Adobe Developer Week 2010 begins today worldwide and will showcase Adobe end-to-end web devel­opment tool suites and solutions. This is your opportunity to learn about the Adobe Flash Platform, including Flash Professional CS5, Flex, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst CS5, AIR, and other Adobe technologies for free, directly from Adobe evangelists and product managers. Speakers include Ben Forta, Ryan Stewart, and many others.

These technology experts will present live, online webinars and demos, with the oppor­tunity to ask questions during interactive Q&A sessions. There are twenty hour-long present­ations throughout the week and you can sign up for as many as you like, and you may be eligible to win cool prizes such as Flash Builder 4 and CS5 Web Premium.

Here’s a preview of some of the topics to be covered this week:

• Introduction to the Adobe Flash Platform
• What’s New in Adobe Flash Builder 4
• Building Multi-Screen Applications with the Adobe Flash Platform
• Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 for Developers
• New Features in Adobe Flash Player 10.1
• Building Mobile Applications with Flash Pro CS5: Create a Game
• Adobe ColdFusion 9 and Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5
• Creating Sexy Applications with Flash: Designer-Developer Workflow
• Flash Builder 4 for Dreamweaver CS5 Users
• Building Desktop Applications with Adobe AIR 2.0
• Advanced Features in Adobe Flex

Visit the Adobe Developer Week site for more details and to enroll for free.

Adobe has just started a new program of giving away full versions of some of its premium development tools ($699 – $1,299 value) absolutely free if you qualify…

If you are an educational customer or an unemployed developer, Adobe would like to lend a hend. Simply certify you are a student, faculty or staff of an eligible education institution, or currently out of work – and the software is yours to download for non-commercial use.

Get your free products here.

UPDATE (June 9, 2011) – With the two new version releases out recently, the products now available for free at this site are ColdFusion 9, ColdFusion Builder 2, and Flash Builder (formerly Flex Builder) 4.5.