Oscar Trelles

Well, what do you know… our visit to Sydney is over, and we will be on our way home in a couple of hours. I’m currently at Sydney airport, grabbing a bite to eat while waiting for our flight to San Francisco. Funny thing is that I’ll be home in New York still on sunday, as we fly against the world’s clock.

It’s been my best vacations in a long time, and I really enjoyed MXDU. I know I didn’t blogged as I promised before, but there are so many things to do in Sydney, that we wanted to make the most out of our short visit. Well, it wasn’t that short, but we dedicated two whole days to the conference (and adjusting our clocks), leaving only three days for doing tourism. And those three days wehere maevelous.

For the people that attended my session, I’ll be posting some of the examples I showed during my presentation, and links to valuable resources related to the subject, as soon as I get home. I promised all that would be online by the end of the conference, but I already told you the story… my apologies. Next time I’ll have that prepared in advance, it’s one of the things I learned this time.

Anyway, goodbye Sydney! see you soon…

Just a quick note to let you know that my album with pictures from the conference is already up, and I’m adding some of my pictures from time to time. If you are attending the conference, you can contribute to the album too.

“Blackstone” (Tim Buntel, Product Manager):

The upcoming incarnation of ColdFusion, codenamed “Blackstone”, will be more focused on production and adaptation to the new trends on Internet services consumption.

Focusing on developers, Blackstone will save time to developers, automating the most common, day-to-day tasks, like accessing and modifying database records, processing forms and working more closely with Flash for end and middle presentation layers.

Macromedia Flex (Tim Buntel / Benjamin Elmore):

Running on Java and ColdFusion (support on .NET is expected in the future), Flex is Macromedia’s Presentation server product, currently in beta and expected to ship some time during the first half of 2004.

Flex consists on two big components:
Flex Application Framework: MXML, server-side ActionScript.
Flex Runtime Services: Events-based behaviors, including libraries of form fields validators, in the form of components.

Flex nature promotes modular development. Benjamin is doing a session on Flex this afternoon, when will go into more details, so I’ll be attending and posting some more information on the subject later.

Web Application Renaissance (John Treloar, Macromedia ANZ):

Some of the Flash applications showcased: Macdonald’s, Showtime Movie guide, Milly’s Kitchen, BOCS Ticketing

The Flash Ecosystem (Mike Chambers):

Mike introduces Central to the audience, and reveals developer’s concerns about getting started on Central development.

Following the Central application, built by Intel, Mike offers a sneak peek at an AIM Express, an application built around the AOL AIM API.

Breeze Live (Peter Ryce, Product Manager):

While facing some technical difficulties, John Treloar explains the core concepts that build up Breeze Live, compared to ‘traditional’ web conferencing. Probably the most notorious feature in Breeze is the ability to transform Powerpoint presentations into Flash.

Peter finally makes it to the Breeze Live room, from San Francisco and shows how content can be loaded and shared with other participants in the Breeze Live room. Images and video can be combined with the whiteboard to create very lively experiences.

Pods in Breeze! The Pods API will allow developers to extend and add features to online meetings and presentations, through the addition of pods, ala Central.

Flash on devices (John Treloar, Macromedia ANZ):

Flash continues to grown on the devices arena. More and more phones and mobile devices are supporting the Flash player, which broadens that market, for Flash developers.

Since Elizabeth (my wife) was the one making all the arrangements for the trip, I didn’t know we were actually making two stops, the first one in Los Angeles, and the other one in San Francisco. I tried to sleep on the first flight, but I barely closed my eyes for a few minutes. Once in LAX (the code for Los Angeles International), I spent all the connecting waiting time looking for a power outlet to charge my laptop’s battery a little. Airports that big really need to make more power oulets available to the public, as more and more people, regardless of their occupation are using laptops and traveling with them. With my laptop’s battery at 30%, we left for San Francisco.

The other thing I noticed is the lack of Verizon hotspots at these airports. As a Verizon DSL susbcriber, I’m entitled to free use of their hotspots. However, none was to be found on any of the airports we passed through. At LAX, I detected a pretty good connection from a T-Mobile hotspot, and at SFO, there was something called Boing. I don’t travel a lot, and I don’t see myself jumping between airports too much in the future, so why should I have accounts with these guys (between $20 – $30 a month, each) just for being able to check emails and blog from the airport?

Anyway… we had to wait three hours for our connection to Sydney, so we had dinner and plugged the laptops for full charged, as we purposedly brought work to do, so we could avoid getting bored during the 13.5 hours flight. Oh yes, I said 16 hours before I realized I was wrongly adding the 3 hours of waiting at the airport. I was planning to work on my presentation during the first hours of the flight and then try sleep, so I would be fressh enough when arriving in Sydney in the morning. But it turns out that even after 24 hours awake, I just can’t sleep when flying… I mean, I slept by inertia at intervals, but not as one should to be well rested.

That’s how we made it to Sydney. We are just finishing unpacking, and I’m hacking a wireless access point to post this entry

I’ll be posting some pictures and updates later tonight.

Time is up. Tomorrow at noon I will be on my way to the JFK airport, after finishing packing and doing some last minute shopping. That’s how the trip down under begins. We will be doing a stop in San Francisco, and then 16 hours to Sydney, arriving on Monday at 7:15 am (local time, Sunday 4:15 pm EST). Last time I checked, the flight is packet, so I might find some other MXDU speakers/attendees at SFO.

I plan to spend that first day getting to know the city. I really like to walk, so after I get everything set at the hotel, I’ll hit Sydney streets, walk around and take some pictures. That same afternoon, there’s a meeting with the local CFUG, which will take place at Star City, MXDU’s venue. That’s Day Zero.

On Tuesday MXDU starts. I will be attending several sessions, mostly ColdFusion-related since I’ve decided to really get into it. The session I’m presenting is the last one in my track that day. Then on Wednesday… well, I’ll be posting more information as things happens.

I’m preparing a public photo album, when I’ll be posting some pictures from the conference, and maybe getting some other people to post theirs as well. We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve changed servers over the weekend, and by now propagation should be complete. The funny thing is that for a moment in the afternoon, the site was apparently broken, since most of the rendering scripts weren’t working. I got real worried for a while, until I found the answer: newer installations of PHP (4.2 and on) don’t set environment variables as globals.

I have to be one of the worst organized coders around, although I try to make code look organized. The sad true is that most of the core scripts on my blog system were written in a very amateurish style, since I actually learned PHP programming when building this thing. then I patched it over an over again… and well, never took care of certain details, some times I’m just too lazy

So, this morning, instead of just turning register_globals back ‘On’, I decided to finally get dirty and fixed all my scripts to look for data in just the right places. I also took advantage of the situation and added a couple of features I wanted in the blog for a while now, like showing the number of times a post has been viewed; it will be useful later to keep track of the most popular posts, and stuff like that.

So, regarding the server changes, some may have experienced delays and/or 404 errors during this period. Also, if someone sent me an email and it got bounced back, I apologize for the inconvenience: I’m still here

I was very disappointed when I didn’t find any Central samples after downloading the latest DRK. I mean, where else can sample Central applications have that kind of exposure? Well, actually they would reach a broader audience if offered for free, and not only to DevNet subscribers. And you know what, that’s exactly what is going to happen.

Not so long ago, a discussion on whether the DRK6 should include Central material started over at Josh Dura’s blog after he asked for input on sample content he was being asked to provide. A few people, including myself, commented that if something can help central gain momentum would be including samples central applications in the next DRK.

Today, DRK6 was released and not central samples where to be found. aSH happened to post his concerns about the subject earlier today, and after reading his posting I found a comment by Mike Chambers, saying that the reason for not including Central material in the latest DRK is because sample Central applications will be available for free at the DevNet site. Although he didn’t disclose any dates, it is a good thing they’re doing here.

It has been brought to my attention that many people, specially outside the US, are having trouble accessing this site. Some are getting a GoDaddy ‘parking’ page, and that’s been confirmed with a quick look at my stastistics pages. So, I’m looking into this right now; sorry for any inconvenience.

It seems like everybody has catch the contagious Central fever. Amazing Central themed desktops are being offered by Eric Dolecki and Josh Dura, and then there are Central songs by Eric and JesterXL! Man, I wish I had their free time… If anybody needs a singer, I’m your man *ahem*.

On a side note, I want to thank Mike Chambers and the Central team, for the goodies I got in the mail last week. Although ‘sky blue’ is not exactly my color, that nice T-shirt makes a great addition to my collection (those I never wear but like to see in the drawers). But the coolest thing on the package it this little pen-like USB drive, complete with its carrying strap, and containing the Central SDK. If that isn’t good developers relations, I don’t know what it is.

All this kinda puts me in the mood for some Central development…