So far we've had great feedback on the book. The concise examples seem to resonate with the way that programmers learn.

When I wrote Thinking in Java, I initially tried the experiment of giving the book away as a promotion to sell seminars and CDs. With First Steps in Flex, we decided to try the reverse experiment -- give away an electronic seminar as a promotion for the book. This is a bit upside-down because, ordinarily, the e-seminar is the high ticket item, what you "upsell" towards. But this being the internet, we can try it out and see what happens.

We've tried to cover each chapter fairly completely. In theory, you could just use the e-seminars and get the same information. We took a casual, unscripted approach to the screencasts, so it feels like you are sitting in the room with us as we discuss the code.

Here's what it looks like (click on the image below to take you to the actual application, at which point you can click on any of the lessons to immediately begin viewing them; the viewer app for the screencasts was created with Flex 4):