Almer/Blank Labs

I spent most of my time at Adobe MAX 2009 at the FITC Unconference. This year placed in the middle of the exhibit hall, and with a stellar lineup of speakers including Ralph Hauwert, Robert Reinhardt, Phillip Kerman, Joshua Hirsch, Grant Skinner, and Joa Ebert (among many more) -- and featuring free Influxis beer -- turnout was excellent and the vibe was really cool. I'm sure FITC will be posting some pix of the event soon, but I took a few myself and posted the album on Photobucket (what's this with monthly limits on Flickr?!?! I've posted two albums there in my life, but made the mistake of trying to post a third right after the 2nd -- lord knows that's the last time I'll be trying that one). Oh, and my talk, Hearing Pictures with The Ludi Machine went really well. Because of IP-ownership issues, I can't post the work I showed (I don't own the sound files I used), but the code wasn't the important part anyway. The 25 minutes of talking before getting to the code was the really fun part. I started out with 2 people in the audience but ended up with a full house, including at least a dozen standing by the entrance. I don't want to post the slides yet. This was a first shot at something -- using a funky platform like the Unconference to try out something new -- and it worked out well, so I want to invest more time in making this a meaningful lecture, at which point I'll start making parts of it available online as well. I've included a totally-unfulfilling snapshot of a Ludi-powered sound-board in action, translating a snapshot from the Hubble telescope into 'music': Kudos to Shawn Pucknell, Erin Kelly and FITC for running such a great event and Kudos to Adobe for giving him the platform to do it right in the belly of the beast.

LAFlashapaloozastock IV was last Saturday and it was a fantastic event. As with LFPS 1 in October 2005, this event was timed to precede MAX, in part to bring some of MAX to the members of the community who do not attend the conference. The talks throughout the day were really well received. Autodesk opened up with some really neat stuff, including a Flash workflow, and extended clips from 2012. Chuck Freedman from Ribbit demonstrated some really fun interaction between Flash and the microphone. Matt Snow from Adobe showed some really cool work of Flash working on set-top boxes, integrating with HD video. Joshua Hirsch from Big Spaceship discussed maintaining a creative environment, and showed off a really neat twitter application that pings tweets and averages out emotions from emoticons. And we closed with 'the Joshua Davis show', which is always a blast and a source of inspiration to a ton of Flash designers and developers out there. We closed with a party -- and quite a party it was. Certainly the wildest we've had in the four years we've been doing this. Featuring Influxis-powered kegs, MTV-infused martinis, and a great American-style BBQ dinner, we lubricated attendees for the main events of the night: a burlesque show, featuring a pole dancer, a funky magic show, and quite the limbo contest. Videos from these are posted below. I wish I had time to post more on the event. But it was a great time with a great turn-out. Again, a special thanks to all sponsors, without whom it would be simply impossible to throw an event this large and cool for the community FOR FREE. Particular thanks to Adobe, Autodesk and Ribbit for stepping up as main sponsors, and Influxis (who sponsored the party) and MTV (who sponsored the martini bar). Of course, big shout out to Almer/Blank for hosting! I've posted some of my photos of the event on Flickr, and we'll be posting more photos as we have time to compile them. That said, my favorite photo of the night is this one, in which one LA Flasher reviews his new book from O'Reilly (which he won in that night's raffle), proudly ignoring the pole dance going on right in front of him. This is exactly how you can tell you're at an LA Flash event. My favorite video of the night is this one, in which Joshua Davis contributes his graffiti to the LAFlashapaloozastock Art Wall. Two more videos from the party are compilations of the pole dance and the limbo contest. Share and enjoy! Pole Dancer Limbo

Yesterday afternoon I had the privilege of addressing a crowd of over 100 at MAX. Apparently, the slides and source code that accompany the talk were not placed on the attendee extranet at MAX. So, per request of some of the attendees, I am posting the files here. (If you were one of the people who attended, thank you very much for turning out.) Included are:

• All code files (62 flas, and associated AS files)
• Slides used during presentation
• Extended slides for home reference

As you can see, the subject was 'Practical ActionScript 3', which is a one-hour version of a day-long (8-hour) curriculum I have created, and teach through the Rich Media Institute. I will be teaching the full-day version of this workshop on October 24th in Toronto and November 7th in Los Angeles. A 3-hour online version is also available through the RMI (that hasn't yet been updated for Flash Player 10, as the live workshop has). I'd also like to take this opportunity to note that I will be teaching a full-day version of my new AS3 workshop, 'Working With and Extending Events in ActionScript 3 (on October 25th in Toronto and November 8th in Los Angeles). I know 'Events' isn't often treated as it's own subject, worthy of an entire day-long course, but in my experience this is an incredibly useful subject -- events are really the key to functional fluency in AS3 and once you understand them (which really isn't *that* difficult) you can basically do anything you want in Flash. It's designed to accompany Practical AS3 (which is why I'm teaching it the immediately following day in both Toronto and LA), and I would really strongly suggest you consider enrolling. UPDATE So turns out Adobe captured the whole talk and posted it on Adobe TV. Share and enjoy!

The event program for LAFlashapaloozastock (Saturday, October 3rd, 10:30A-10P) went to press last night. Gonna be an exciting event this year. Special thanks to Evan Squire ( evansquire.com ) for producing the hottest creative we've yet had for an LFPS. A preview image is included, and you can download the high-res PDF.

As part of hosting LAFlashapaloozastock IV, the RMI is hosting two workshops: the Joshua Davis one, which I mentioned a couple of days ago; and also, a pretty unique (and FREE) opportunity to study Add Communication to your Applications with Ribbit. I say that this workshop is unique because, well, you really can't find this topic anywhere. Ribbit's functionality (allowing you to bring voice and phone into your Flash work) is pretty darn cool (and again, certainly unique), and this course is not only free, but also taught by a senior Ribbit engineer -- direct from the horse's mouth, as it were. I'd say that, as usual, you can save 20% with code 'laflash', but again -- it's FREE. Do not miss this great opportunity to beef up your Flash skill set.