Leonard Nimoy hosting MAX Awards (+exclusive rehearsal photo)
Adobe MAX is now only 2 weeks away and I’ve been hearing some amazing rumors about what we have lined up for you. One of those things I heard a few weeks ago was that none other than Leonard Nimoy will be hosting the MAX Awards and Sneak Peeks together with our own Ted Patrick.
Rehearsals are well underway and an anonymous source just sent me this picture from last week’s rehearsals. ;-)
You do not want to miss the MAX Awards and Sneak Peeks! See you in Los Angeles!
Adobe MAX – Are you smarter than a Flash evangelist?
I’m not entirely sure how I got tricked in to this… We are so going to get our behinds kicked ;-) but I’m sure it will be a lot of fun!
On Day 2 of this year’s MAX, on the community pavilion stage, we’ll be hosting a game show that pits 4 experts from the greater Flash community against 4 Adobe Flash evangelists. We’re calling the game “Are You Smarter than a Flash Evangelist?” and right now we’re taking your questions (and answers) to make this a quality, “infotaining” event. Got a Q/A that will flummox our contestants? Send it to us: [email protected]. Can be multiple choice, single answer, techy or not so techy. The more the better.
SO WHEN IS THE GAME?
Tues Oct 26 at 4.30pm PT – MAX Pavilion stage, LACC
WHO IS PLAYING?
The Adobe team: Lee Brimelow, Ryan Stewart, Michael Chaize and Serge Jespers
The Community team: Stacey Mulcahy, Chuck Freedman, Elad Elrom and Jesse Freeman
WHAT’S THE ACTUAL GAME?
4 rounds of questions – the 4th round will be Family Feud style survey question which we’ll also want your input on, stay tuned for a link! – and then a final Lightning Round of Q/As.
WHAT WILL THEY WIN?
A mug. Probably a beer. Lots of bragging rights.
WHAT DO I DO NEXT?
Besides emailing us Q/A’s to [email protected]… Join us at MAX 2010. Here’s how to convince your boss. Already convinced? Here’s where to register for MAX.
Creating Mobile Component Skins with Flash Catalyst “Panini”
I realized this morning that MAX is just around the corner and I didn’t even tell you about my session yet. Now how did that happen? I kinda got caught up in working on the MAX Unawards application and completely lost track of time. All of a sudden it was the middle of September and I realized that I didn’t even book my travel for MAX yet… Aaah… Time flies when you’re having fun! ;-) I’m working on an extra app for the MAX Unawards by the way… It’ll make it even more fun! More on that next week!
Now… About my session at MAX. I’ll be talking about Flash Catalyst and more specifically about the upcoming “Panini” preview release. I’m going to demonstrate how Flash Catalyst can help you build skins for the upcoming Flex “Hero” framework.
Learn how you can bring bitmaps and FXG designs into optimized components for mobile using the upcoming Flex “Hero” framework. In this session, Serge Jespers, Adobe Flash Platform evangelist, will demonstrate how you can create basic static skins for Flex Hero mobile components using the upcoming “Panini” preview release of Flash Catalyst.
Click here for more info about the session and click here to register for MAX. See you in Los Angeles!
Upcoming events
The next few weeks are getting pretty full again but I wouldn’t want it any other way! I have some really amazing conferences/events on my calendar and wanted to share with you where I’ll be the next coming weeks.
- Flex Camp Amsterdam – September 22nd – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
I’ll be talking about AIR for Android. I’ll be showing a bunch of cool demos and will obviously also show you how you can build applications.
- Sneak Preview – September 24th – Genk, Belgium
I’ll be talking about Flash and HTML5. I’ll talk about both technologies’ strengths and weaknesses and hope to debunk some of the myths surrounding them.
- AppsMarathon – September 27th – Brussels, Belgium
The future is mobile! At AppsMarathon I’ll be talking about Flash Player 10.1 and AIR on Android and how you build apps for mobile using the Flash Platform (and maybe/probably some other stuff as well ;-))
- Flash On The Beach – September 27th-29th – Brighton, UK
Flash On The Beach is one of my favorite conferences. Due to unforeseen circumstances I had to miss it last year but I’ll make sure that never happens again! FOTB is due to sell out today so hurry up if you still need to get your tickets! I’ll be doing a session on AIR 2 and will also do a “beyond the basics” hands on session on Tuesday and Wednesday on Flash Catalyst.
- AUG Belgium – September 30th – Genk, Belgium
The Belgian Adobe Usergroup is doing a special “After Summer” event. I’ll be talking about something I can’t talk about yet. ;-) More on that later.
- Adobe MAX – October 23rd-27th, Los Angeles, USA
I know I probably say this every year but… MAX is going to be fantastic this year. Don’t have your tickets yet? Early bird pricing ends in 5 days!
I hope to see you at (at least) one of these events!
Give yourself a MAX Unaward
If you follow me on Twitter you probably saw my tweets about a new secret project. Today I can finally reveal it to you.
I actually started this project somewhere mid-June. It all started with working on a widget for the Cannes Lions festival. I realized that it was probably a good idea to start thinking about a new widget for MAX. With close to 1 million views, last year’s MAX widget was a huge success (I was just checking the number before posting this and it actually passed the 1 million mark and is still generating views every day) and I thought it would be cool to try and match that number this year (although I realize that that’s a pretty big target). I knew I wanted to do something with video and more specifically do something with personalized video… and it had to be related to MAX. Once the storyboard was approved we recorded the video in a studio in Hilversum in The Netherlands. That was right before my trip to Japan. When I came back I started building the app and have been working on it for the last 3 or 4 weeks.
So… Without further ado… I present you… The Adobe MAX Unawards!
There are a couple of people I really need to thank for their help.
First and foremost: Wim Vanhenden. I think Wim is one of the most talented Flash developers in Belgium… but I decided not to use his Flash skills for this project. Wim is actually the host of the MAX Unawards show. Don’t ask me why but when I started working on the storyboard for the application, I almost immediately thought of Wim for the role of the host. I think it worked out great and we had a lot of fun recording this!
I also want to thank Klaasjan Tukker and Ton Frederiks for helping out with recording the video in the green key studio.
Big thanks also go to Paul Burnett. Paul worked on the personalized text pieces in Flash CS5.
This project would also not be possible without the help of Influxis. Thank you, Jerry, Grant, and Noe! If you ever need any Flash Media Server hosting you have to try these guys. Their custom admin panel alone makes it worth every penny.
UPDATE: Obviously also a big thank you to all the beta testers who gave me a ton of valuable feedback.
I just realized that this blog post is now starting to sound like an acceptance speech for an award… ;-) I should have just created a video for it! ;-)
I hope you guys enjoy the application. I’m looking forward to seeing what awards you give yourself and the creative acceptance speeches you create for it. Oh… and… Hope to see you at MAX!
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