Flash Forward NYC 2003

Got here just in time for the first session of this years Flash Forward in New York City.

Day 1:

Got here just in time for the first session of this years Flash Forward in New York City. New to this years conference (and the very reason I can get this article up) is the wireless connection in all the seminar rooms as well as an Internet Cafe. This years Flash Forward is also host to an enormous amount of vendors showcasing the newest technologies in software and hardware as well as a great variety of Flash books.

The first session was a good one to get started. Robert Reinhardt went over some examples of Rich Internet Applications using, among other things, the Flash Communication Server. Next up, I went upstairs to listen to Nigel Pegg from Macromedia talk about components. He did a cool example of building a component to resize the datagrid component, and answered a lot of good questions about the ideas behind components. Finally before lunch, I headed back downstairs to catch the third session of Robert Reinhardt where he explained a lot of the interesting applications he showed in the first section.

After grabbed some lunch, and headed back in for the afternoon sessions. To start with, the gurus of video from ESPN were back wow showing off all the great things they were doing on their site with integrating video. And finished up the sessions with Philip Kerman talking about his experiences and strategies with building Rich Internet Applications and topped it off showing a cattle auction application he had built complete with animated auctioneer.

And after all the sessions were over for the afternoon, they held an author signing session in one of the halls where all the major authors of Flash books were available, and Robert Hall even drove up from Philadelphia for the meet and greet.

Day 2:

Started out today with the keynote, and there was a lot to see. Macromedia anounced a new version of there product Breeze (which is why everyone in attendance got a personal cooling fan with Breeze on it). The new version will be called Breeze Live, and should be available in a few months. Also in the keynote, Macromedia showcased a lot of interesting applications currently online using Remoting, and the Flash Communication Server and Mike Chambers even came up and showed the new DRK with some really nice graphing components. They even hinted at some of new things in the pipeline for Flash which sounded really interesting.

After the keynote, I went to the first session in one of the main halls with Brendan Dawes talking about building websites and applications with the user in mind, he called the talk "Designing for my mum". After that, it was the people from mixed grill showcasing their new application called intro. Intro is a social experiment that has become quite popular among attendees and is designed to find people with similar interests. The app was so popular in fact that it won a Flash Film Festival Award for applications.

Following a quick break for lunch, it was Erik Natzke showed some of his experiments in navigation, design and interactivity. He even went into detail regarding the now famous page turning navigation. Next up was Samuel Wan discussing collaborative environments using the Flash Comm Server. He went into how to build a real time slide presentation and even showed off with a lego robotics controlled web cam that anyone logged into the application could control. And the final session of the day in the room was Hoss Gifford who talked about ways of increasing Flash productivity to make more time for recreational activities. He showed a good number of very humorous and well done examples of his work and went over many formulas you do not often see in Flash presentations.

To end the days events the Flash Film Festival was held. This year 16 awards were handed out including the peoples choice.

Day 3:

Started a little later today (thanks to last nights post film festival party) and missed the first session. The next session was with Veronique Brossier on the drawing API. This session was more than just a simple how to draw with Flash, Veronique went through many examples of and reasons for using the API. Some of the applications in fact were entirely made with the drawing API including a small paint program that weighed in at only 3k in file size and had the ability to animate the drawings themselves. Her session was so well done, I actually went upstairs to her Q and A session to see more with drawing API.

The first session after lunch was Josh Ulm talking about some of the ideas behind making an Internet Application "Rich". He went over a site built for Microsofts SPOT technology on watches in particular. Next up was Branden Hall talking about algorithms in Flash. As usual with his talks, he wowed the crowd with a Flash based tank game where the tanks moved around the screen independant of each other and shooting at one another in attempt to become the victor. On top of that, he showed off some work him and Joshua Davis have been doing with video. And the last speaker of the day in the main room was Vas Sloutchevsky, who spoke about interface design techniques and showed many examples interactive navigation systems including the new Madonna site.

After the raffle for door prizes, the conference was over. Having gone to the previous New York conference, I can honestly say that this one was great!! Not only were all the speakers I saw very knowledgeable in what they were talking about, but the range of topics that they eached covered made each session fresh and different from the others.

I can not wait to see what they have next year.

 

 

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