On February 2nd we will host the first conference from a series of conferences about web technologies and development. Our presenter will be Vincent Hardy, principal scientist at Adobe Systems.

See you on February 2nd!

You can find more info about this conference and register here (the presentations will be in English).

PS. I am so happy to see this finally get started as I’ve been working on it for some time.

This Friday we will host a Flash Camp in our Bucharest office. The event starts at 5:00 PM and will end at 8:00 PM. If you have questions about what was announced at MAX, if you want to find out what’s coming next, or if you want to learn how you can start mobile development with our tools, runtimes, and frameworks then make plans to be there. There are still a few seats left so you can go here and register.

This event is a premiere because for the first time I will have the pleasure of co-presenting  (a Romanian event) with one of my American teammates: Ryan Stewart. So that is another reason to be there :)

And finally, we will have a hands-on session on getting startet with mobile development with Flex, AIR, and Flash Builder. So if you never tried Flex mobile and you want to learn the basics then you have a third reason to be there.

See you Friday!

Registration link.

With almost all the bits and pieces falling nicely in place I can finally blog about the European tour we’ve been working on. Before talking about content, dates, and locations let me say loud and clear “Thank you!” to the people in our community who worked hard to make these events possible and to Magda Neagu and John Koch, my colleagues who gave us all the support we needed.

Why am I saying us instead of I? Because I have the pleasure of doing this tour together with my friend and fellow evangelist Ryan Stewart.

Here is the list:

1. November 3rd – Vienna / Austria
2. November 4rd – Rome / Italy
3. November 7th – London / UK
4. November 9th – Kiev / Ukraine
5. November 10th – Berlin / Germany
6. November 11th – Bucharest / Romania
7. November 14th – Zurich / Swiss
8. November 15th – Dublin / Ireland
9. November 17th – Barcelona / Spain
   1. We will do a session at Barcelona DevCon
   2. We will have a meeting with the local Flex and Flash user group. I will update this post once I have the location and date
10. November 19th – Zagreb / Croatia

If you want to attend one of these events make sure you register today because the number of seats is limited.

In terms of content, we will do a hands-on on mobile development with Flex, Adobe AIR, and Flash Builder. We will also have sessions about mobile development and some of the cool things we announced at MAX. And this will provide you with the perfect opportunity to throw questions at us. Actually let me re-phrase this: it will be the perfect opportunity to ask Mr. Ryan Stewart anything you want to know :).

Last but definitely not the least, if you have a cool project and you want to show it to us, please don’t be shy. Come to us after the event or during one of the breaks and we will listen to you. We always love seeing the great stuff you build and listening to your feedback. If you are reading my blog you know that from time to time I blog about cool apps and projects.

PS. If you plan to attend one of our hands-on sessions then you should have Flash Builder installed on your laptop. Also, if you have an Android phone you will be able to run all the examples on your device too (you will need a USB cable to connect the device to your laptop). Otherwise you can use the Flash Builder desktop simulator.

This week I’ll be at the ZendCon PHP Conference in Santa Clara. I will have a session on Flex and PHP mobile development for iOS, Android, and PlayBook on Thursday starting at 9:15 AM.

If you plan to attend this conference make sure you drop by to say hello. We will have a booth in the exposition area next to Zend’s booth.

I’m really excited to be part of this conference. First, it is my first PHP conference in the States – so far I’ve been speaking only at European conferences. And second, it has been a while since my last PHP conference. I think I will have a great time catching up with what the PHP community is doing these days. I already picked up some sessions that I’m sure will blow my mind :)

Now straight to the airport! A long trip awaits me!

Adobe MAX 2011 is just around the corner. Every year I feel the same: how fast the last year has passed! I guess I have a better feeling of how the time is passing by counting the MAXs :D

Anyway let’s get back to the event itself. There are many reasons for wanting to attend Adobe MAX (learning new products and technologies, staying in touch with the latest and greatest, and networking just to name few) but if you plan to start mobile development or to learn new tricks then here is a list I put together.

Beginner

• Getting Started with ActionScript 3.0 (Lab on Monday, October 3, 2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.). If you are new to Flash Platform mobile development then this lab will help you learn ActionScript 3.0 the language used for creating Flash applications including those running on mobile and tablets.
• Introduction to Flex (Lab on Monday, October 3, 2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. and Tuesday, October 4, 8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.). If you are new to the Flash Platform, then understanding how the open source Flex framework works will help you a lot.
• Flex Mobile Boot Camp (Lab on Monday, October 3, 2:45 p.m. – 6:45 p.m. and Tuesday, October 4, 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.). This boot camp will teach you the basics of Flex and Flash Builder mobile features.
• Developing High-Performance 2D Mobile Games with Adobe AIR (Lab on Monday, October 3, 12:45 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. and Tuesday, October 4, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.). If gaming is your poison and you are new to our platform then this lab is for you.

Intermediate / Advanced

• Flash Professional CS5.5 for Mobile – Android and iOS (Lab on Monday, October 3, 2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.).
• Building a Flex Application for Tablets (Lab on Monday, October 3, 2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m., Wednesday, October 5, 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., and Wednesday, October 5, 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.). In this hands-on session you will build a complete Flex app for tablets starting from scratch.
• Advanced Mobile Application Development (Lab on Monday, October 3, 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. and Wednesday, October 5, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.). This lab is presented by the guys behind Conqu – one of the best task management apps for iOS, Android, and PlayBook built with AIR, Flex, and Flash Builder. So you will get a chance to learn from the best.
• Developing an iOS Application with Flex and Adobe AIR (Lab on Tuesday, October 4, 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 5, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m., and Wednesday, October 5, 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.).This 90-minute lab will cover how to create and simulate an iPad application in Flash Builder, and will walk you through the steps of creating and deploying IPAs onto your personal devices.”
• Deep dive into Molehill (Stage 3D) (Session on Monday, October 3, 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.). Although this feature is not yet available for mobile it will be soon. If you plan to do advanced 3D stuff then you shouldn’t miss this one.
• Flash gaming deep dive (Lab on Sunday, October 2, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.). You will learn the ins and outs of creating games using popular game frameworks like Flixel and PushButton Engine. You’ll also discover how to use Molehill to create stunning 3D for games, and we’ll show you how to use advanced techniques such as blitting to help with performance.
• Programming a 3D First-Person Shooter Game in Flash (Session on Tuesday, October 4, 8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.). Learn more about how to build the next generation of action games with the new Flash Stage 3D API. This session will cover the key steps required to create advanced first-person shooter gameplay, such as creating a scene and adding a person, movement, shooting, camera following, animations, and more, all in the context of 3D.
• Mobile Apps from 0 to 90: Powered by ColdFusion (Lab on Tuesday, October 4, 8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.). This intermediate hands-on is all about building mobile apps that consume ColdFusion data.
• Unit Testing ActionScript and Flex (Lab on Monday, October 3, 12:45 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., Tuesday, October 4, 8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, October 4, 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., and Wednesday, October 5, 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.). No matter how ninja you are (or you think you are) bugs are to be found everywhere. Join this lab to learn about unit testing for ActionScript and Flex.

I want to call out these sessions:

• Design to Release: Building a multiscreen mobile application (Session on Tuesday, October 4, 8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.) presented by Renaun Erickson.
• Adobe AIR App Demo Showcase for Sony Tablet Devices (Session on Tuesday, October 4, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.) presented by Ryan Stewart and Taichi Takayanagi. Watch live demos of innovative applications built by your peers that take advantage of the unique capabilities of the new Android Sony Tablet devices.
• Deploying Flash Professional Content Across Screens (Session on Wednesday, October 5, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.) presented by Paul Trani. Discover specific workflow enhancements available in Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5. This session steps through the process of deploying Flash Professional content on mobile platforms, including Android, BlackBerry, and iOS.

My team has been working lately on a number of mobile applications so we have lots of experience earned first-hand. I encourage you to attend Renaun’s, Ryan’s, and Paul’s sessions.

See you there and don’t forget you’ll be able to watch the keynotes online if you don’t plan to attend the event in person. Let’s rock the house once again!

On June 20th we’ll host a Mobile Camp in the Bucharest Adobe office. If you want to learn about mobile development for Android, iOS, and PlayBook using Adobe tools and frameworks make sure you’ll be there.

For my session I was thinking of showing AIR applications and how you can build them. I’m also open to the idea of letting you show off your mobile apps created with Adobe AIR and Flex/ActionScript. So, if you have such an app just send me an email and we will see how we can fit this in my session.

Finally, we will have a special guest: Sanyu Kiriluta of RIM. She is EMEA Team Lead Developer Relations. If you haven’t seen a PlayBook and want to find more about it, then join her session.

We might have a special guest for the keynote. I will update the post as soon as I have more information.

In the mean time go to the registration page and see you on June 20th (if you don’t know how to get to our office, take a look here)!

I’m happy to announce that at the end of this month (April 30th) we will have a Flash Camp in the San Francisco Adobe offices. If you want to be sure that you get a seat register here now (it is a free event).

The event will be focused on mobile development using Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5. It will be a code-camp style event, with sessions in the morning (10:00 – 12:00) and building code in the afternoon (1:00 – 5:00).

Of course it will be a good opportunity to meet people from the teams (Flash Builder and Flex SDK).

See you there (probably a little bit jetlagged)!

One of the best conferences I attended and spoke at in 2010 was gotoAndSki() Norway. I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of. I mean it was quite small and the location was rather remote. So, why do I think it was so good? First of all, the guys behind this event are amazing. I met them at the first Flex Camp in Oslo back in 2009 and I enjoyed their company during the event and afterward, while doing some late night A/B testing of different types of beer :D (Does FlashMagazine.com and Jens Christian ring a bell?)

Second, conferences have always been about people and connecting people. Of course a good track of sessions and speakers makes the backbone of any good conference, but without the social network there would always be something missing.

And this is exactly where Jens and his buddies excelled this year. They had a great idea to organize a three day conference and put the sessions in the evening/night and the social activities during the day. This way all the attendees had a chance to really talk and know each other better while skiing, trekking, eating Norwegian food, and yes, drinking beer.

People think that going out and drinking lot of beer after the last session it is the best way to make acquaintances. I’m not saying it is a bad method. I’m just saying it isn’t necessarily the best method for a bunch of developers. I mean just imagine–you’ve always been a geek and loved to code during
high-school/university and you haven’t partied that much. Naturally, you decided to become a software engineer and here comes your first conference. Surprise, surprise if you want to bond with the attendees you have to be a beer master :D. Is this cognitive dissonance or what? Apologizes for my rant :D

Jens idea was to have the conference organized each year in a different country. So, I’m proud to announce on my blog that the 2011 edition – organized by Fernando Colaco – will take place in Switzerland, January 27-29. There are only 100 tickets, so if you want to experiment something different in a beautiful country hurry up and register here.

I just checked the sessions and I have to say I can’t wait to attend them – you can learn about making games, working with Arduino, developing for TV, Flash accessibility and much more.

In the end I want to take my hat off to Jens and Fernando for putting together an event like no other, at least here in Europe. And I’m curious where it will go next year!

PS. Fernando sent me a message telling me that actually they decided to have a summer edition and a winter edition in the same countries each year. What can I tell? They broke my heart; I had a vision about organizing one edition in the Carpathian mountains maybe with the help of my fellow evangelist, Ryan Stewart.

I’ve finally finished uploading the recordings from the last week’s Bucharest Flash Camp 2010. I want to thank you, guys, for joining and staying with us late in the evening. I think it was one of the best camps we’ve had in our office and one of the reasons was you – because you asked a lot of questions and we had a lot of interaction.

The event was in Romanian.

I apologize for the aspect ratio. It seems we made a mistake in the recording settings.

#1: Building Android Apps with Adobe AIR – Mihai Corlan / Adobe Systems

Download Slides

#2: Anatomy of a Flash Application – Alexandru Chiculita / Adobe Systems

Download Slides

#3: Video @ Adobe – Horia Galatanu / Adobe Systems

Download Slides

Live Streaming – Dragos Dascalita Haut / Adobe Systems

Download Slides

Swiz & Robotlegs – Marius Mate / Adobe Systems

Download Slides

Smart systems and the Flash Platform – Miti Pricope / Entrepreneur

Download Slides

Today, we’ll host the last Flash Camp of this year in the Adobe Bucharest office. And because every time we organize an event in our office, many of you ask for live streaming or recording, we decided to do just that :D

So, today December 7th starting at 5PM (Romanian time) you’ll be able to watch the live streaming here: http://corlan.org/flashcamp/

One more thing, we are optimistic that everything will go right with this live streaming/recording. However, the setup is quite complex. My friend Dragos Dascalita (who will have a session on this subject – how to set up live streaming) took care of all the tiny bits (2 professional video cameras, audio/video mixer, server infrastructure, and so on). And because there are so many parts involved there is no guarantee everything will run accordingly to the plan.

Oh, almost forgot, the event is in Romanian so I apologize to those who want to participate but don’t speak Romanian.

The end of this week will find me in Iasi, Romania. I was invited by professor Sabin Buraga to talk to his students about the Web. My friend, Cosmin Varlan, has seized this opportunity and put together a Flex Camp on Saturday morning.

If  you can pull yourself out of the bed early enough on Saturday :D we are waiting for you at the one and only one Flash Camp Iasi:

• Where: Facultatea de Informatica a Universitatii “Al. I. Cuza” / Sala C309
• When: 27th November / 10:00AM
• Agenda:
  • Keynote (Mihai Corlan) – What’s new at Adobe
  • From virtual reality to augmented reality (Sabin Buraga)
  • Developing Android Applications with AIR, Flex, and Flash Builder (Mihai Corlan)
  • ActionScript Outside the Box (Alexandru Perieteanu)

You can register for the event here. See you there!

Later Update: You can download my slides from here.

On December 7th, in the Adobe Bucharest office we will host a Flash Camp. And believe me this is one event you don’t want to miss.

This time we chose to have more speakers and at the same time to have sessions that go beyond the basics. Here is the schedule so far (I might add another session):

1. Keynote – Mihai Corlan / Developer Evangelist / Adobe
2. Building Android Apps with AIR, Flash Builder, and Flex SDK – Mihai Corlan / Developer Evangelist / Adobe
3. All about live video streaming – Dragos Dascalita / Computer Scientist / Adobe
4. Playing with Robotlegs & Swiz – Marius Remus Mate / Computer Scientist / Adobe
5. Hardware acceleration in Flash Player & Adobe AIR – Alex Chiculita / Computer Scientist / Adobe
6. Smart systems and the Flash Platform – Miti Pricope / Entrepreneur

You can “meet” some of the speakers if you watch this video (please note it is in Romanian because the event will be in Romanian too):

The event will start at 5 PM and you can register here.

Tomorrow afternoon for Europeans I will host a webinar together with Kevin Schroeder of Zend on mobile development with Flash and PHP. I hope this will be the first in a long series of webinars on this topic (after Adobe MAX 2010 I plan to do more).

In the meantime, if it sounds interesting don’t hesitate to register here.

There are many ways to keep track of the passing time. Some of us, with less imagination :D, use calendars. Others prefer to count children/grandchildren and I’ve been told that there is a new breed that uses a dot notation suffixed by Beta. Still some of us use MAX notation: for me this is the fifth MAX and I can’t wait to go there and enjoy the show. Talking about a show, if you haven’t seen Serge’s latest masterpiece, maybe you want to check it here: MAX Unaward.

Getting back to me (sorry Serge) this year I finally have the opportunity to speak on the subject I enjoy the most: Flex and PHP integration. If you want to find more, I’ll wait for you on Wednesday, October 27, 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM.

Of course I am not the only one packing my bags for MAX from the EMEA team. Serge Jespers will do a session on creating assets for mobile component skins with Flash Catalyst. Michael Chaize and Anne Kathrine Petteroe will talk about real-time collaborative dashboards for mobile and desktop. Mike Jones will take a deep dive on Flash Pro CS5 while Tom Krcha will speak about the ins and outs of creating P2P multiplayer games. If your type of talk is more about architecture, then you shouldn’t miss Piotr Walczyszyn’s session on dependency injection frameworks. And finally, our boss, Enrique Duvos will have a lot of fun with layouts in Flex 4.

That’s it folks! See you soon in LA!

The summer is almost over (at least in the northern hemisphere :D) which means you are in one of these two situations: either you just came back from vacation or you’re about to take one. Either way, I think you’ll find (some of) the webinars we are doing this month quite interesting. As usually, they are free; you just have to sign up and show up. A word of warning: because all four of these webinars are delivered by EMEA platform evangelist, we decided to schedule them in such a way that works for Europeans.

Here is the list:

• Building Multi-Screen / Interconnected apps for Android and desktops (Mihai Corlan) – Friday, Augst 20
• Summer Cocktail: Doctrine 2, Zend Framework, Flex, and Flash Builder (Mihai Corlan)- Tuesday, August 24
• Advanced P2P programming in Flash (Tom Krcha) – Friday, August 27
• Presentation Model pattern with Flex and Swiz Framework (Piotr Walczyszyn) – Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Enjoy!

I know it has been way too hot lately, especially here in Bucharest. I have good news. First, next week the weather is expected to be cooler.  And second, I plan to host a Flash Coffee Meetup in Bucharest! The event will take place next Tuesday (June 22nd) at Grand Cafe Galleron (near La Mama restaurant, P-ta Romana) starting at 5PM.

There are only 15 tickets so hurry up and use this link to register. I’ll pay for the coffee and bring an Android phone with Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR installed on it. Thus we can enjoy a good cup of coffee on a cold day (something that we’ll pretty soon miss :D) and talk about the latest Flash Platform and mobile device news.

You can register here. See you next Tuesday.

The Adobe MAX Awards 2010 competition is open (the deadline for project submission is August 13th – hope you are not superstitious :D). This year’s categories are:

• Advertising and Branding
• Digital Publishing
• Enterprise/Government RIAs
• Entertainment
• Multiscreen
• Social Computing

Good luck!

This August (25th – 26th) if you live in India and you work in the IT field then you really should consider attending Adobe Flash Platform Summit 2010 in Bangalore, India.

This is a two day event, and more than 2000 people are expected with tens of sessions and international speakers. You can read more here and you can register here (you can save 60% if you register before June 25th). If you want to propose a session then hurry up because the window is closing on June 21st.

The time has passed at warp speed and MAX 2010 is closing in. It’s only natural to open the Call for Speakers. So why do you wait? Just go here and claim your spot for glory! The call for speakers will close on May 3rd.

Later Update: Almost forgot to tell you: this year my fellow evangelist Ryan Stewart is the man in charge of the content. Because he’s all smiles, please guys, submit a lot of content! Let’s give him a run for the money :) And if you want to see more topics on Flex and PHP, we definitely have the man inside :D

On April 19th, Transylvania Flex User Group from Cluj-Napoca, Romania will have a Flex Camp. If you are interested you can read more here and you can register here.

Maybe your PHP is good, as good as Bruce Lee’s Kung Fu. Maybe your Flex skills are excellent or perhaps you are a beginner. Either way, you may be wondering what you can do with PHP and Flex. Well, don’t wonder anymore! Just come to my webinar and bring your friends with you.

This Friday (February 5th) I will do a webinar about Fx Gallery. What is Fx Gallery? It is a Drupal module for displaying images. The idea behind this project is pretty simple: there are many popular PHP projects (CMS, blog and forum platforms, electronic shops and so on) and probably for any one you could create a new module/plug-in that uses the expressiveness of Flex to bring more value for its users.

I developed this module together with my friends from Fx{r}, Stelian and Andrei. This gallery displays pictures from Flickr, Picasa, and Drupal installations. It was built using the Flex 4 framework, and a little help from Flash Catalyst. At the time of this writing we are cleaning up the code in order to make it available as an open source project. Thus anyone will be able to see how it was made or extend the module by adding new features.

At the webinar you can see the module in action, learn about its architecture, and hear how it was made.

The event is free, though you have to register here.

Next Wednesday (January 27th) at our office we will have a cool event. It will not be a typical technical event with slides because the host will be none other than Mark Anders. He has many stories about Flex, Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder.  So, if you are in Bucharest next week and you want to know more about the Flash Platform, especially internal stuff from one of the people who started the whole Platform, be there. The event is free, though you have to register here.

Mark Anders led the creation of .NET, Flex Builder, and Flash Catalyst (yes, before joining Adobe he used to work for Microsoft).

On December 2nd, together with Roy Ganor from Zend, I will host an e-seminar about PHP and the Flash Platform. We will show you how you can create a Rich Internet Application using the Flex framework, Illustrator, Flash Catalyst, and Flash Builder 4. Then we will show you how to connect the Flex application to a PHP backend and how easy is to debug the PHP and Flex code using Zend Studio 7.1 and Flash Builder 4.

You can register for free here. The webinar will start at 6:00 PM Central European Time (9:00AM Pacific Standard Time) on December 2nd.

LATER UPDATE:

You can download the slides from here, and next week the recording will be available you can watch the recording over here (you need to have a Zend account).

On November 21st in Cluj, Romania there will be a new RIA event hosted by the local Flex User Group. The name of the event is Flex vs Silverlight vs AJAX. My friend who organizes the PHP Geek meetings from Cluj, Mihai Brehar will be the moderator.

The event starts at 10:30 AM and ends at 2.20PM. Although the event is free, you have to register. The event’s location is Betfair Romania, 69-71 Brancusi street, Cluj-Napoca.

Last week I visited Zend headquarters, and I had an interesting talk over there. One effect of this meeting is this: we will start to do webinars together with Zend.

If you want to find more about Zend Studio and other products related to PHP from Zend, or learn more about the integration between the Flash Platform and PHP (Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, Flex framework) you shouldn’t miss this opportunity. I know that webinars don’t offer the same experience as in-person events. On the other hand, you can attend them from the comfort of your own home, there is no traveling involved and no need to convince your boss to let you attend the event.

We haven’t set the first event date yet, but it should be in the first week of December, and probably it will be in the evening (Central European Time).

Keep an eye on my blog for the exact date and time.

UPDATED with the final details!

After successful Flex events in Bucharest, Craiova, Timisoara, and Cluj it is time to have a great one in Iasi. So, if you want to learn more about the Flash Platform, meet other people from the community, or just get your first taste of Flex come on October 31st to  Dublin Pub: str. Vasile Conta nr.30 (Fundatie – Casa Studentilor area). You can register here.

Here is the almost final program of the event:

Now, wouldn’t be nice to start a Flex User Group in Iasi too? This would make much easier to create events like this one in the future.

I’ll update this post with the exact time and location soon. See you there!

I took some time to think about what I saw at MAX 2009 last week. Although I knew what the announcements would be, the way we chose to package them was a surprise for me and, at the same time, the crowd’s reaction was an interesting barometer. Because it is one thing to think that your kid is the smartest one around and another thing to have others telling you the same.

First of all, more of the announcements were Flash Platform related compared to last year’s MAX. And please notice that I used “Flash Platform” and not some more specific terms like Flex, Flash Player, or AIR. I think almost everybody is now comfortable with this term and understands what it means. We first used  Flash Platform on a large scale during the June launch of beta previews for Flex 4, Flash Catalyst, and Flash Builder 4. It is a nice surprise that in only three months you have embraced this.

Going back to the the Flash Platform news, I think one of the biggest was the preview of the Flash Player 10.1 for mobile. Today Nokia, Android, Palm, and Blackberry are on board for delivering early next year the first smartphones with full support for Flash Player 10.1, and this makes iPhone the only one without Flash. You’ll have goodies such multi-touch and accelerometer. Of course, we also announced that the next version of Creative Suite will let you develop Flash applications that target iPhone (they are compiled to iPhone native code). Later on this year you should be able to play with this new version.

The Flash team did great work to optimize Flash Player for mobiles. They reduced the memory footprint by 50% and optimized the execution so your battery will not run out of juice when playing Flash content. Furthermore as you might expect for mobiles, when the Flash application is not in the foreground it reduces power consumption even more. I’m sure this is only the beginning and the Flash team will continue to improve and innovate further around mobiles.

To tell you the truth I can’t wait to have devices and play with this technology to build Flash apps. I just have to have a little more patience and to convince my boss to approve a new phone for me. Having one platform to target all kinds of screens and devices is one step closer.

AIR 2.0 brings to the table many of the features you’ve requested in the past year. You’ll have raw access to the microphone. You’ll be able to package your application as a native installer and run commands and system executables from within your application. You’ll be able to open any documents with the system default application for that particular file.

On the same track of improving the performance for devices that don’t have the same power as computers, Intel and Nvidia demoed chips that bring HD playback capabilities (nice and smoothly) using Flash Player to netbook devices.

During the Sneak Peeks there were three cool demos. The first one showed how to swap code during debugging in Flash Builder (you can change the body of a function/method during the debugging and continue to debug, no need for restarting the debug session). Then there was Ely’s demo on a Flex framework for mobile. As a former Flex Builder engineer I am very excited thinking about having these two features available soon. And finally, the Rome demo an AIR application and browser application that can create digital content using animations, drawing tools, and text layout tools. It can even import Photoshop documents and display all the layers set in the original document.

Serge Jespers demoed a cool game built using AIR and how you can distribute and make money using Flash Platform Services. I think this was the missing link of our Flash Platform story. Using these services you’ll be able to distribute and monetize  your applications more easily.

Speaking of the missing link, I have to remind you about the Omniture deal. We’ll see some interesting things in the future regarding the integration between Adobe technologies and Omniture services.

And since I mentioned Photoshop, during the same Sneak Peeks there was a cool effect demoed. Basically it is a smart heal brush that can intelligently removes parts from a photos and replace with suitable parts from the rest of image. You can remove persons, ugly buildings that ruin a beautiful landscape, wires, scratches, and so on.

ColdFusion was another product with great exposure and I think it was well deserved it. I know that in Europe ColdFusion is not the number one server-side technology, but if you’ll have a look at it, I’m sure you’ll find places to use it even in the enterprise world. As Miti loves to say it is just an amazing bus services platform, a product that can glue together different pieces from the enterprise world. ColdFusion 9 has an amazing set of features, integrates with Java, BlazeDS, and LiveCycle Data Services, can generate PDF, plays well with the Flex framework and finally has an excellent IDE built on top of Eclipse. Did you know there are more 800,000 ColdFusion developers out there and the trend is up?

While I’m talking about the enterprise, it was cool to see the FedEx application that allows them to see what their trucks are doing in real time and then redeploy the trucks according to the specific needs in time and space. It is built using the Flash Platform. Sometimes I hear people say something that annoys me a lot: “Well Flash is a cool thing, but for the enterprise world is just eye candy”. People who think this better think again. There are simply too many examples of enterprise applications that rely heavily on the Flash Platform in order to offer features, experience, and usability.

Of course there were many more things worth talking about, but these are, for me, the closest to my heart and mind. If you weren’t at MAX, then you can watch it online (http://max.adobe.com/online). Having said this, I can’t wait for the next year’s MAX. The countdown started and time passes in a blink. Are you coming?

PS. Thanks to everyone who took the time to talk with me and share his/her ideas and thoughts, including old friends and new friends.

My friends from the Transylvania Flex User Group dropped me an email announcing a Flex event on October 15th. Here is the agenda:

MX.EVENT – Transylvania Flex Group – October 15th

17:30 – 18:00 Intro
18:00 – 18:45 Flash/Flex from a Product Owner perspective (English session) by Mattijas Larsson (Product Manager at Betfair)
18:45 – 19:00 Break
19:00 – 20:00 Welcome to Cairngorm 3 by Dragos Dascalita (Engineer at Adobe Romania)
20:00 – 20:10 Break
20:00 – 20:40 Flash Exotics: LocalConnection by George Iosif (Flex Developer at Betfair)

The event will take place at Vitrina Business Center, str C. Brancusi nr 69-71, Cluj Napoca, and you can register for free here  http://flexcluj.eventsbot.com/ .

Tomorrow I’m gonna fly out to Adobe MAX Los Angeles 2009. This will be the fourth MAX for me. And I have to say that it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve attended before, because somehow it is always at least as exciting as the first time. Maybe even more now than before, because I know more people and MAX is also about meeting old friends and making new ones.

Having said that, let’s talk about my MAX. I will do a lab together with Cornel Creanga and Miti Pricope (BlazeDS and LiveCycle Data Services in the Cloud; btw there is still room for my lab if you are interested), I will be TA for another two labs (Creating custom components in Flex 4 and Building Media Experiences in Flex with Open Source Media Framework ), you can meet me at the Ask the Evangelist area (Tuesday noon) and Platform Demo Station 2 (Monday noon).

Between my duties I hope to have the time to see the keynotes, sessions on Flex frameworks and Adobe AIR. And of course, to talk with you!

If you can’t be there, then you can watch the event online. For the first time you’ll be able to see the keynotes and the most interesting news online using MAX Online (October 5th and 6th). You can join ten minutes earlier and watch the behind the scenes action. Besides these live streaming keynotes you’ll be able to see the top three session of the day from each track (Design, Develop, and Envision) using on demand video. Starting with October 11th you’ll be able to see all the sessions on demand but Labs and BYOL.

Don’t forget about Twitter. You can follow @Adobe and @AdobeMAX to see the breaking news and community insight (use #AdobeMAX tag if you twitter about MAX). I will twitter (@mcorlan) and blog as often as possible to cover the event.

I wish you an amazing MAX!

If you want  to twitter about MAX and see all the tweets that are MAX related (#AdobeMAX) you can use this sexy app MAX Companion (you can install it from here).

Once you have installed the application you’ll see that there are three main features: Twitter, Sessions, and Places. The Twitter feature, as I said, helps you send messages with the official Max tag (#AdobeMAX) and see all the messages sent about MAX.

The Sessions feature displays your schedule. It is an easy way to keep an eye on what you want to attend so you don’t miss anything.

And the last one, Places, displays maps so you can quickly find your way around MAX.

Finally, whenever you tweet from the application you are automatically entered for a chance to win a copy of CS4 and Flex Builder (your Twitter id is linked to the MAX id). Good luck!

If you want to learn more about Adobe AIR and you plan to attend Adobe MAX 2009, then you should book these sessions:

• What’s Coming in Adobe AIR 2 by Christian Cantrell. Adobe AIR allows developers to build rich Internet applications (RIAs) that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems. In this session, you will learn about the planned capabilities of the upcoming release of Adobe AIR 2.
• Designing Applications for Desktops and Mobile Devices with Adobe AIR by Arno Gourdol. See how Adobe AIR has made it possible for web developers to build cross-platform desktop applications. Learn how the platform is expanding to enable the delivery of applications not just for desktop operating systems, but also for mobile devices.
• Building Mobile Applications with Adobe AIR by Aditya Bansod (2 sessions). Learn how Adobe is working to bring Adobe AIR development out of the desktop and onto a mobile phone near you. We will cover how the AIR SDK and platform will evolve to add capabilities to help developers mobile enable, test, and publish their content. Mobile computing and mobile applications provide publishers and developers with exciting opportunities to get their products into the pockets of millions of people.
• Explore Deployment and Distribution Options for Adobe AIR Applications by Oliver Goldman. Learn how to get your AIR applications to your users and how to keep them up to date. We will discuss important considerations for distribution on the Internet or an intranet, including impacts on your auto-update mechanism. We will cover existing deployment options such as badge installation and IBM Tivoli support. Finally, we will explore the new deployment options that will be available in Adobe AIR 2, including the native installer support required to use some of the advanced new AIR 2 APIs.
• The Future of Digital Publishing: Delivering News through Adobe AIR by Jeremy Clark. Learn from Jeremy Clark of Adobe’s Experience Design team how his group has leveraged Adobe AIR, Flex, and the Text Layout Framework (now in beta on Adobe Labs) to help the New York Times and others reach new and existing customers with a revolutionary desktop news application.
• LATER UPDATE: AIR Boot Camp BYOL by Duane Nickull and James Ward. Everything you need to know in order to get up to speed with AIR, Flex, and Flex Builder 3/Flash Builder 4.

You can register for the sessions here.

If you want to stay informed about what events we are doing, here is an easy way: the Flash Platform events calendar. It uses Google Calendar, so you can subscribe to the calendar and  follow it via XML or iCal.

You can read more on the Adobe Flash Platform Blog.

If you plan to attend the Flex Camp Iasi (October 31st 2009) then you can go here and register yourself. As with all the Flex Camps it is a free event. See you there soon!

Event location: Alexandru Ioan Cuza University. Stay tuned for the agenda and the conference room.

From the Adobe evangelist team Miti and I will be there. Some people from the local community will have a session too.

If you live in the Iasi area and you want to learn more about Flash, Flex, and AIR then you should mark down October 31st. That is when we’ll have a Flex Camp in Iasi, Romania.

Magda has already posted a call for papers. If you want to be a speaker just go ahead and send us your topic; in case we receive more than the number of available sessions we’ll have to turn down some :(. For more details see Magda’s post (it is in Romanian).

Serge’s super secret project is finally out there. Code named Project Quindici, the project is actually a MAX Widget.

You can find some interesting MAX facts, and tweet them right from the badge. You can see testimonials, or record your own testimonial. Enjoy!