Too bad for us we're too busy to make it out to Vegas this week for MAX. I'm counting on all of you who got to go to make lots of blog posts over the next few days to really keep us distracted from getting done what we stayed home to do :-) Come to think of it. my first blog posts here were during MAX 2004 in New Orleans. I installed BlogCFC just as the opening general session was getting underway and just kept going from there...

Should be an exciting and interesting conference with the presentations on CF. Flex. Apollo. LiveCycle and who knows what else. It's an exciting time to be an Adobe developer - the Macromedia experience was great. but the potential for what we'll be able to do with the tools we love when backed up by a much larger company is so much greater.

That last sentence makes me look like a serious fanboy...but I guess that's about right. We're using more and more Flex and PDF in our apps every week - Flex for a better user interface and PDF for easier and more attractive presentation output. Behind all of it is ColdFusion (and consistently using Mach-ii for many good reasons). We've made a pretty good living off of these tools. We enjoy using them. we enjoy learning more about them and for that I think we're all thankful. Happy programmers are productive programmers!

Apollo has me very excited. Now that we've ALL been making the non-techies more efficient and informed with our web apps. they seem to start wanting that same information in an "offline" format as well. Apollo sounds like it will make the creation of those apps easier and faster for us native web developers. Of course. the success of that effort depends entirely on uptake of the client runtime. Not a minor hurdle by any measure. But if we can build them quickly and easily. using a familiar development paradigm (ooh. awful word choice there) Adobe will dramatically increase their footprint on the desktop - in a good way. not just through a bloated Acrobat Reader install ;-)

I'm rambling. so i'm going to get back to work. Please don't hold back on the news from MAX! We back home may have to hold a company-wide mini-MAX at Bethlehem Brew Works this week just to sorta feel connected to you all (minus the lectures. workshops. schwag. long-lost friends and flaky wireless)!

For those not in the know. "BOF" stands for "Birds of a Feather" in geek-speak. At last year's MAX. Ray Camden orchestrated a great BOF session on CFC development. He's asking for help convincing MM to schedule a time slot for it again this year. Pitch in and drop a line to conference@macromedia.com in support of the idea!

Registration for MAX 2005 is now open. Get over to the registration site and save $200 before the end of August!

Rob won't say it. but I will.

Where's the *awesome* ColdFusion content? So much has changed with CF7 that we could spend hours just tearing it apart and thinking of cool. innovative ways to build the core services that business rely on. I see sessions on Flash forms. CSS. and reporting services. One on security (always important). And then there's this.

Will this be a "laptops out" kind of seminar where the presenters are poking at stuff while speaking "geek" and showing the possibilities OR will it be a three hour marketing overview? I'll be at MAX regardless. but i'd have to say this is the only CF session that i'm really interested in attending. Even last year. the BOF discussions were far more valuable to me.

Let's see CF sessions on frameworks (vitally important now). great open-source CF apps. shootouts between top-rated CF software packages. actual implementation of funky-fresh CF apps using the latest features. and a solid session on "how to get your boss to buy CF licenses." I hear a lot of people talking about all of these topics on a regular basis - imagine if we were able to get them great answers at the conference. I know people would show up to all of these.

With those kinds of sessions. we should be able to more effectively sell CF and as a result. the RIA vision once we have the framework in place. You're not going to teach a CF guy how to do Flash. but you can teach them Flex.

Focus on your dedicated core and grow from there. Macromedia. You seem to think your core is Flash. Nobody reviles ColdFusion except those not in the know. Many of us who have been around since the Allaire days remember "developer oriented" conferences. At least back then even the small guy could afford server licenses. I don't know of too many small businesses or sole proprietors shelling out the cash for a Flex package. no matter how great it is. CF is a professional grade app server with an entry level price point. Flex is a pro grade app server with a pro level price point. You gotta focus more on the upsell. not the cold sell!

Or maybe i've just grown cheap in my late 20s ;-)

What a week. It's been great to meet up with all of my old friends at the conference this year. Rob. Ray. JB. JG. Selene and Dave. Emily. Elaine. Amy (both of you). Eddie. Todd. Matt. and insert-your-name-here-because-im-still-not-with-it...it was great to party with y'all and celebrate another year of MAX. To the new additions to the crew. thanks for coming out and making this year a heck of a lot of fun.

Oh. that's right. i was here to learn something too...

Sessions that I went to on OOP and Advanced CFC development were awesome and at a sufficiently high technical level that I felt they were very much worth my time. It's pretty much a consensus among the more senior developers here that there aren't many sessions geared towards the kind of stuff that we need to learn - frameworks. best practices for project management. superhardcore coldfusion. stuff like that. Perhaps a PM track wouldn't be a bad idea in the future though I don't know how well it would sell to most "average" folks.

Last year. strangely enough. i got a lot out of the Central late-night coding session. It wasn't about the platform - I haven't touched Central since then - it was more about the opportunity to whip out the laptop and just sit and code among other geeks in an environment where you can get instant feedback. I know we have hands-on workshops here at MAX. but what i would like to see are sorta hybrid BOF sessions where we sit and code something for fun without a 90 minute time limit. For example. a Mach-ii BOF would be great for those who want to follow up Hal's presentation with a little bit of actual implementation. I'm not of sufficient skill to lead or mentor one for Mach. but I would be willing to help sponsor one on something like Farcry.

Many of us learned these technologies and many others just by getting our hands dirty. Maybe that's a way to really add value to the conference experience in a way that isn't at all driven by marketing. but more by the ability to connect the mind of the developer to the keyboard in a place where you can shape that first impression.

Windows BSOD got in the way of this demo. so he talked about the stuff we already knew was in Blackstone ;-)

Central SDK for Flex....ooooh....

Windows Alpha transparency in the player...aaaaah....

auto hiding/docking for the Central console. just hte way it should be.....oooooh....

Chromeless flash apps sitting on the desktop...that's what i've ALWAYS wanted to do!

New Flash Player is gonna blow the drives outta your PC. Performance and graphical rendering are massively improved and sooooo nice to see.

The codename you're looking for here is "Maelstrom."

Authoring Environment ("8ball"): (wish i knew just how cool some of this was) same kind of deal...add drop shadow to movie clips. blend the clips with background bitmaps. stroke drawing improved with ability to change the corner properties. Can also apply gradients to strokes. Shapes: can now draw them in "object" mode so deleting shapes on top of other shapes doesn't remove a chunk of the underlying shape.

Saw this stuff at Community College on Monday - it's new to most here:

The vertical toolbar from HomeSite is back. baby. yeah!

XSL creation is MUCH. MUCH easier than before and absolutely rules. I hated rolling those by hand.

When bound to an XML data source .you can now drag/drop data fields out into the page and have Dreamweaver automatically handle the XSL transformation and insert the proper repeating regions based on the structure of the XML data source. Suh-weet!

Code collapse...long time coming (back). really missed this feature.

A zoom tool...allowing you to visually zoom in on a particularly problematic table layout in design view and figure out what's happenin. I needed this a few months ago!

Record your audio at the same time as you record your screen captures. saving a ton of time going back over your demo and laying down audio after the fact.

Narration is done simultaneously. adding a more natural progression through the creation process.

Great thinking!

(someone take away those damn whistles!)

After the recording is done. you can still adjust the audio/slide timing as well as insert silence if necessary.

Focus has been on solving problems finding content in the Macromedia website.

RSS feeds have been added throughout the support center including the Forums.

Improved search. allowing you to target particular products or types of content you're looking for. Results come back fast (it's a dev box) and results are CATEGORIZED (hallelujah!). Also has a side pod containing "Best Bets" that are usually the answer you're looking for. "Search within" is also supported.