Good news! MAX U.S. early bird discounted pricing has been extended until September 19th. And the MAX Awards submission deadline has been extended until September 12th.

Just a reminder, MAX U.S. Early Bird Pricing knocks $200 of the regular price of an event pass, and you have less than two weeks left to sign up at this discounted price. MAX U.S. Early Bird Pricing ends August 31st. Sign up now!

BOFs (Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions) are informal MAX get togethers, a chance to meet, chat, share, and learn in a less structured and highly interactive environment. We host dozens of BOFs each year, from the ever popular "Meet The Team" sessions, to technical in depth chats on highly specific subjects, to brainstorming sessions around all sorts of technologies, and much more. And once again, we are inviting you to suggest BOF topics. Here's the form.

I previously mentioned that I'd be presenting a MegaLab session at MAX this year. The session is titled Getting Started with Real-Time Flex and AIR via LiveCycle Data Services, and it'll be a massive bring-your-own-laptop hands-on event where we'll build Flex and AIR apps powered by LiveCycle Data Services, BlazeDS, and ColdFusion. The idea is to give you first-hand experience building apps that leverage messaging, push, data synchronization, online/offline processing, and more. We'll make sure your laptop is configured and ready to go (you'll get setup instructions a few weeks before MAX, and we'll have techies present on the day to help you, too), and you'll walk away with knowledge, and a fully working environment of your own. Fun stuff!

But, as we've started to plan the content, we've determined that 90 minutes is just not enough time, and so the MegaLab sessions (all three, including mine) are now 3 hours long! (Well, 3 1/2 hours actually, but we'll give you a 30 minute break in the middle).

The MegaLab room will accommodate at least 200 attendees, so there will be plenty space for you and your laptop. But, these sessions are already being signed up for, so don't miss out on this MAX first, and register now!

The Adobe MAX Japan 2009 site is live (in Japanese, of course). Registration and session info will be posted shortly.

Adobe and EffectiveUI are sponsoring a contest on ScaleNine.com named Skin to Win Challenge. You need to create a skin for Flex, and could win a MacBook Air (with SSD), a copy of Adobe CS3 Master Suite, a copy of Adobe Flex Builder 3 Pro, and a ticket to Adobe MAX. The deadline is October 10th, 2008, and details are posted online (as is a gallery of skin examples).

The MAX Awards are our equivalent of the Oscars, kind of sort of, and each year at MAX we present awards for all sorts of products and projects built on Adobe products and technologies.

And we are now accepting nominations for this years MAX awards. You can submit an award nomination yourself, or you can nominate on behalf of someone else.

All nominations must be in by September 5th, 2008 (or August 25th, 2008 if you are nominating on behalf of someone else).

With the recent spate of hacking attempts targeting ColdFusion sites, we've added a much needed MAX session entitled "Hack-Proofing Your ColdFusion Powered Sites". Scott Stroz will present the session which is not listed on the MAX site yet, but will be shortly.

Title says it all. Registration for MAX 2008 Europe in Milan is now open!

We'll be debuting a new session format at MAX North America this year, the MegaLab. I'll be presenting one, a getting-started crash-course session on LiveCycle Data Services and BlazeDS entitled Getting Started with LiveCycle Data Services on Monday, November 17, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm. I've posted details on the official MAX blog. This one is expected to sell out pretty quickly, so if you want to take part, sign up now!

It's official. The dates for MAX Tokyo are January 29-30, 2009. I hope to see you there (as well as in San Francisco and Milan).

Check out the MAX introduction videos, and especially the last 1/4 of mine. ;-)

What's an "unconference"? Imagine a technical conference without strict rules and timetables, a more free format, more interaction than sessions, lots of presenters discussing topics of their choosing, casual seating arrangements ... you get the idea. And MAX North America this year will host 4 Unconferences, including one on ColdFusion. And, Ray Camden has announced that he's leading the CF Unconference. ColdFusion has a major presence at MAX this year, which is a great reason for you to be there!

The MAX USA 2008 site is now up, and the schedule is now online too complete with the session list. Register now!

Oh, and the site background is interactive, and apparently there are hidden puzzles in there. Have you figured any of it out yet?

O'Reilly InsideRIA is sponsoring a Flex 3 Cookbook Cook-Off, and the grand price is a ticket to Adobe MAX in San Francisco and $500 on O'Reilly books.

MAX 2008 registration is now open at the Adobe MAX site. Right now we've only opened registration for MAX U.S. in San Francisco. Registration for MAX in Milan and Tokyo will be opening shortly.

Instead of different URLs each year, we've created a new address for MAX. From now on, you'll want to visit max.adobe.com.

Click here to propose MAX 2008 sessions and speakers.

The Adobe MAX 2008 site, with dates and locations, is online. Registration is not open yet, but there is an option to sign up for a mailing list so you'll know when registration opens and more.

MAX Japan has been scheduled for January 29-30, 2009 in Tokyo. Details to follow.

Hold the dates! MAX Europe 2008 will take place in Milan, Italy, starting Monday December 1st, 2008. More details to follow!

I've presented training sessions hundred of times, many of them hands-on sessions, and many of them sessions that were simultaneously translated in to other languages. But I had never attempted a hands-on session with simultaneous translation before - until today, here at MAX Japan. And it was quite the experience. The session went well, it was the same Hands-On ColdFusion Powered Ajax that I presented in Chicago and in Barcelona, but with a twist. My hand-out notes were translated into Japanese, and the attendees were using the Japanese version of ColdFusion (with Japanese Dreamweaver on Japanese Windows). Getting the machines set up was fun enough, but the real challenge was providing help. I was looking at ColdFusion error messages in Japanese and trying to figure out what they meant by the few English words and the Java stack trace, clicking on Windows and browser dialog boxes by trying to remember what button was in where, typing on a Japanese keyboard (finding : and / and # and % was fun enough, but the tiny space bar meant I kept hitting keys that switched languages), dealing with invisible embedded characters that threw off the compiler ... as I said, quite the experience. In addition, some of the instructions seemed to get lost in translation. For example, the instructions said to "Type the following between <cfcomponent> and </cfcomponent>", and several typed those exact words into the CFC. And so on. Fortunately the session run for 2 1/2 hours (instead of the 1 1/2 in MAX US and MAX Europe), so we got through all of the content. Still, it made for an interesting afternoon!

I just arrived at the Hotel Nikko in Tokyo, venue for MAX Japan which starts tomorrow. I have several sessions that I need to present, and so before I do anything else, I need to walk around and figure out where everything actually is. I'll be back ...

We're in the middle of the MAX Awards here at MAX Europe in Barcelona. Next up is Sneak Peeks (I am going to be presenting the CF/AIR sneak), and then comes the party. In addition to the keynote yesterday, and the Sneak Peek momentarily, I also presented a hands-on ColdFusion Powered Ajax session, a session on ColdFusion and AIR, and a (rather heated) BOF discussing ColdFusion in Europe. It's been hectic, and we're not done yet. Still, this has been an amazing first MAX Europe, and planning has already begun for MAX Europe 2008.

MAX Europe started this morning, and it's great to see the crowd and feel the enthusiasm, especially as this is the first MAX here (prior attempts never materialized). The opening keynote here starts at 11:30am local time (any minute) - the stage is ready (and massive), the room is full, the music is blaring, lights are dimming, the intro video is starting to roll ... wow, is it just two weeks since we did this in Chicago? Definite sense of déjà vu!