The Ghost of FlashEurope

With the recent email sent by Craig Swann regarding FlashEurope, it is clear that the event is definitely no more. Further more, the suspicions of the conference being just a scam appear now evident.

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From: Craig Swann
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2005 7:14 AM
Subject: >>> FLASHEUROPE UPDATE <<<

Thanks for your time, your patience and your understanding.
Sincerely
Craig Swann

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Aral (Balkan) has put together a the whole story on a recent blog post, highlighting some of the most important happenings. In short, and according to the comments left over at Aral's blog by people that wanted to attend the conference, many of who paid for their tickets won't be able to get their money back.

It is really a shame that so many people have been affected by the organizers of FlashEurope, and this shouldn't be the end of the story. The person or persons involved in this scam should be prosecuted by any means possible. If there's any way in which I can be of assistance, please let me know.

More reading:
Aral Balkan | The sorry end of FlashEurope
Flash Magazine | Beware: FlashEurope is a scam
Martijn de Visser | FlashEurope a scam: it's "official"

Virtual Bartenders

A little something to forget about the Adobe/Macromedia, at least for today. If you ever met the Subservient Chicken, you are gonna like this one. These are two bartender girls that will obey your commands... to some extent.

For example, don't be disappointed if all they can offer you to drink is "beer", although this might most probably be because the application is hosted by Beer.com

You can have some fun trying to find the secret commands, just keep it clean. "Kiss me" works quite well, but if you shorten it to "kiss", they will kiss each other. You can also get them them into a cat "fight", and other things you will have to figure out yourself.

Adobe to acquire Macromedia

I'm still trying to make my mind: is this good or is it bad? As everything in life, nothing is completely black or white, and the merger of Adobe and Macromedia is no exception. There are always trade-offs. For example, the concretion of this merger would mean that Flash and everything Flash-related would have the support of a bigger institution, however I wonder how will that affect Macromedia's company culture and relationship with their developers.

Marketing wise, Adobe feels to me like a dinosaur whereas Macromedia has a more fresh and innovative attitude. I don't know about you, but the only Adobe product I use on a regular basis is Photoshop, and then a little Illustrator every now and then, ever since Macromedia left Freehand to die of boredom. In the other hand though, Adobe's print products are second to none and their video products have an important market share too; it almost seems like they where preparing for the merge since while ago, ever since Adobe realized their web products were inferior.

There are lots of questions we probably won't get answers to any time soon. All we can do for the moment is speculate and hope for the best. One thing is for sure though: the world is not gonna change because of this merger.

But, what about the name? Adobe Flash MX 2006 anybody?

More reading
Macromedia's Press Room: Adobe to acquire Macromedia
About Adobe: Adobe and Macromedia

Powered by Detroit: Wrap Up and Session Notes

Attending Powered by Detroit was a great experience for me, as it was the perfect opportunity to get out of my "traditional" discussion circles and interact with a bunch of Coldfusion developers. From my point of view, Powered by Detroit was a big success, not only because the results were good for a first time event, but also because it aims to bring down the barrier that sometimes separates people developing in platforms that are actually designed to work together.

I did a session that covered a series of Usability topics typical of Flash application development. I think it went well, considering that it was the last session in the last day, and that in the room right next to mine there was a panel discussion with Ben Forta, Michael Dinowitz and Simon Horwith. If you want to check out what it was about, I have published my notes and examples here. These are the same files that should come in the DVD that will be sent to all the attendees.

Also, I have uploaded some pictures to an album in Yahoo! 360, and you can see them here.

Powered by Detroit – Day 0

I woke up unusually early today and arrived to the JFK airport before my morning coffee, more than enough time before my flight to Detroit. New York looks very gray today, and for once I'm happy to leave it behind, as Powered by Detroit attendees will be enjoying of sunny days in Dearborn (or at least that's what the Weather Channel says).

Since this is my first visit to Detroit, I would like to make some time to visit the Ford Museum and others they have over there, and that's the reason I'm arriving at about noon today.

(Uh, that's my flight, I'll continue later)

So, here I am. I just checked-in in the hotel and, as expected, the first I did was plug my computer to the network.

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Update: After lunch, I met with Brajeshwar and we decided to go to the Henry Ford Museum, and you can find here some of the pictures I took.

More Viral Marketing: Yahoo! 360

I just started trying out this new thing, and although I can't tell how much content would I be able to add or with what frequency, you can find my speca at Yahoo! 360