Thoughts, ideas, tips, musings, and pontifications (not necessarily in that order) by Ben Forta ...
NOTE: This is my personal blog, and the opinions and statements voiced here are my own.
June 18, 2009
I just posted some thoughts on MAX BOFs over on the Adobe MAX blog.
The MAX team has published their first press release announcing Adobe MAX 2009. Just be warned, the cool Flash video at the bottom of the page is loud!
June 2, 2009
 The annual Adobe MAX Awards is our awards program that recognizes the best uses of Adobe software for creating engaging experiences. Submissions are being accepted now through July 31 2009, and nominations for projects other than you own are being accepted though June 30, 2009.
The top three finalists in each of eight categories will be invited to showcase their work at MAX 2009 in Los Angeles, CA. Winners will be announced live at the MAX event.
May 19, 2009
I guess it's officially MAX season. The MAX 2009 site is now live (and Agents B and F even made it in to the intro video).
April 14, 2009
Haven't submitted your MAX 2009 session and lab proposals yet? Hurry, the Call for papers and topics closes tomorrow.
April 2, 2009
Ted Patrick, aka Mr. MAX, has posted an entry explaining how sessions and content selections are going to work this year, building on a new process introduced for MAX 2008.
March 25, 2009
At MAX 2008 in San Francisco, we announced the date and venue for MAX 2009. Lots of you have been asking about plans for Europe this year, and we were unable to respond while we went over the numbers to try and make things work. Unfortunately, MAX Europe 2009 has fallen victim to the economic downturn. This has been an excruciating decision to have to make. MAX Europe in 2007 and 2008 were great events, and we hope to host MAX in Europe once again in the future, but there will be no MAX in Europe in 2009. That's the bad news. The good news is that we are going to make more of the MAX experience available online, making far more content available to a far bigger audience and doing so far quicker, too. Ted Patrick has posted some thoughts on the MAX blog.
March 3, 2009
Title says it all. Go to the MAX 2009 Call for Sessions and Labs page to propose content for MAX 2009 in Los Angeles, CA.
February 2, 2009
I presented a MegaLab hands-on session in San Francisco and Milan, and introduced lots of developers to data-services powered Flex and AIR apps. The session walked Windows and Mac developers through a dozen hands-on apps that started with basic data integration and worked all the way up to data synchronization and offline support and more. Unfortunately, due to a corrupt ZIP file, Mac users were unable to follow along in San Francisco. If you'd like to try the session yourself, here is what you need:
- RealTimeDS.zip [400MB] is the complete server containing TomCat, LCDS, ColdFusion, a database, and more.
- RealTimeDS.pdf [200KB] is the student hand-out.
All of the instructions are in the ZIP file. Enjoy!
January 29, 2009
During the MAX Japan keynote we announced that Adobe AIR has been installed 100 million times since it's release less than a year ago! We also announced that Flash Player 10 had been installed on 55% of computers in its first two months! TechCrunch also just reported the story.
January 22, 2009
EcoDrive is an AIR based application that uses data collected by your Fiat car to help drivers adjust their driving style so as to improve fuel efficiency. The app was shown during the keynote in MAX Milan. Andrew Shorten and Serge Jespers recently spent some time with Fiat and with AKQA who built the app, and have posted this video report. The video runs about 20 minutes, and is well worth watching.
January 13, 2009
I know, we just wrapped MAX in the U.S. and Europe, and MAX Japan is still a week or so away, but ... MAX 2009 is just 9 months away. And, believe it or not, I am already involved in MAX 2009 planning e-mail threads, which, truth be told, is cool and exciting and sick and twisted all at the same time!
While demoing the ORM features in Centaur (CF9) and Bolt (the CF IDE) during the MAX keynote, I showed and executed some code, and this snippet appeared on the screen for a short time: <cffunction name="getAJAXGrid" access="remote" output="false" returntype="Any">
<cfargument name="page">
<cfargument name="pageSize">
<cfargument name="gridsortcolumn">
<cfargument name="gridsortdirection">
<cfif arguments.gridsortcolumn eq "">
<cfset arguments.gridsortcolumn = "DESTINATION_ID">
</cfif>
<cfset var Destination = EntityLoad("Destination", {}, "#arguments.gridsortcolumn# #arguments.gridsortdirection#")/>
<cfset var startRow = ((page-1)*pageSize)+1>
<cfset var endRow = page*pageSize>
<cfset var qry = querynew("destination_id,location,description")/>
<cfset QueryAddRow(qry,arraylen(Destination))/>
<cfif arraylen(Destination) lt endrow>
<cfset endrow = arraylen(Destination)/>
</cfif>
<cfloop from="#startrow#" to="#endrow#" index="i">
<cfset querysetcell(qry,'destination_id',Destination[i].getDestination_id(),i)/>
<cfset querysetcell(qry,'location',Destination[i].getLocation(),i)/>
<cfset querysetcell(qry,'description',Destination[i].getDescription(),i)/>
</cfloop>
<cfreturn QueryConvertForGrid(qry, page, pageSize)>
</cffunction>
I have now received three e-mails asking if that code was real or not. And the answer is yes, that is real code generated by Bolt, and it really was running in Centaur. Really! And yes, I know the code is not great (heck, it's not even that good, good thing we're not shipping yet). But, you have to wonder, what made them ask? And did we inadvertently let a CF9 enhancement slip out of the bag? ;-)
December 19, 2008
No, that's no a typo, Adobe Hair it is.
December 15, 2008
Adrian Bridgwater attended MAX Europe in Milan, and comments on our sneaks session.
December 7, 2008
I've posted some pics of MAX Europe in Milan, Italy, last week.
December 3, 2008
I got the chance to chat with Simon Bisson at MAX Milan, and he shares his thoughts over at IT Pro on the future of ColdFusion in a piece entitled The ColdFusion Renaissance.
December 2, 2008
It's early Tuesday morning in Milan. MAX Europe started yesterday with a keynote by Michele Turner and Mark Anders. The content was similar to the U.S. keynote, but with local partners and examples highlighted. The Fiat AIR app in particular was a thing of beauty, and the crowd loved the Cocomo demo by evangelists Serge Jespers and Andrew Shorten (I'll post links to those doctored images when I get them). I presented my 3 hour hands on Flex/AIR/ColdFusion/DS lab yesterday, and this time all worked flawlessly. Phew! We're now backstage prepping for the Day 2 keynote. Tim Buntel and I are reprising The Agency, slightly modified for the local audience, and with local agents recruited to join the fun.
December 1, 2008
You'd think a keynote is a keynote is a keynote. Once it's been done once, then recreating it elsewhere should be a cinch, right? Unfortunately, it never works that way. And right now folks are scurrying around backstage, checking and testing and tweaking and fine-tuning and ... 15 minutes or so to go! In San Francisco, Serge Jespers and Andrew Shorten provided live blogging of both Day 1 and Day 2. Both Serge and Andrew will be on stage during the keynote today, and so the live blogging will be performed by evangelism team members Mihai Corlan, Tom Krcha, Piotr Walczyszyn.
November 30, 2008
I am in the Milano Convention Centre here in Milan, Italy, location for MAX Europe 2008. We're sitting backstage, working on keynotes, tweaking demos, figuring out staging, and waiting (MAX keynote prep work involves lots of hurry-up-and-wait time). MAX Europe attendance has exceeded that of last year, just as we did in the U.S. this year. It's going to be a fun MAX!
November 26, 2008
As a follow up to my MAX session on data services, an attendee e-mailed me to ask me to explain the differences between the various connectivity options supported by LCDS and BlazeDS. I replied with a link to a post entitled BlazeDS and LCDS: Channels, Channels Everywhere on Damon Cooper's blog, and am posting it here as well in the hope that it is useful to others.
November 24, 2008
 Well, two mini-me's actually. ;-) These adorable paper figurines were created by the very talented Brazilian, Cláudio Dias (the same guy who sold a Darth Vader model to help pay his way to MAX). The one on the left is me in a CF shirt, and the one on the right is everyone's favorite superhero, Scorpio Man (complete with mask, cape, and tail)! Check out Cláudio's other creations on paperinside.com, you'll be amazed at what he's created.
On, and I posted a few other MAX US 2008 pics, too.
November 23, 2008
Last week at MAX we introduced Alchemy, the project that lets you compile C and C++ code to run in the Flash Player. Branden Hall of Automata Studios (aka Agent Branden from the MAX keynote) has posted an excellent post on how Alchemy works. And on a related note, Flash Magazine has a brief story on a very important C based application that has been ported to Flash Player, ID Software's genre defining DOOM.
November 22, 2008
It's never too early to start planning for MAX 2009. Earlier this week, during my Day 2 keynote, I announced that MAX 2009 in the U.S. will be in Los Angeles, at the newly renovated L.A. Convention Center, October 4th-7th, 2009.
November 20, 2008
MAX US 2008 is over, and the general consensus is that this ranks as one of the best to date. The venue was great, the content was superb, the special event is being praised by all ... I think that most people would be astonished if they knew how much time and work goes into creating and producing MAX, and when it all comes together as it did this year, well, that's pretty phenomenal. Oh, and among the comments I heard tonight was this one: "this was so much fun, it felt like Macromedia MAX". I agree. And with that, I head home tomorrow for the weekend, and then it's off to Europe to do it all again!
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