Flashin' It @ AIGA Philadelphia

I had an opportunity to present Flash to a fantastic audience at an event hosted by the Philadelphia chapter of the AIGA. During the session, I promised that I would share some of the resources I mentioned during my marathon 4+ hour session:

Developer Connection - www.adobe.com/devnet
Design Center - www.adobe.com/designcenter
(Both of these sections are organized by products and categories. If you are new to Flash, check out the 'Getting Started' pages.)

Adobe Events - www.adobe.com/events.
Adobe runs a lot of live events globally, but you can always attend a live eSeminar on a variety of topics and products. Check out this link.
Or you can watch a recorded eSeminar at your convenience at - lots of great stuff here. For example, here's a list of all the Flash-related recorded seminars.

Other non-Adobe (free) resources:
gotoandlearn.com
kirupa.com

Other non-Adobe (not-so-free) resources:
lynda.com
totaltraining.com
xtrain.com

Bridge Home - if you have Bridge CS3 installed on your computer, you can find a lot of the resources listed above right inside Bridge Home ('home' icon at the top of the Favorites panel).

Also, if you're looking for a particular resource on Adobe.com, you can try the search feature on the site - or you can use Google (e.g. "cs3 video workshop site:Adobe.com" - which will search for the keywords 'cs3 video workshop' within the Adobe.com domain).

Lastly, if you're interested in working with video in Flash, I would highly recommend the book Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Video Studio Techniques by Robert Reinhardt. Very good information covering all aspects of video - from shooting video to encoding to deployment.

One other note: if you're interested in AIR, the Adobe Media Player or Flex 3, check out Adobe Labs - http://labs.adobe.com.

On the road to Memphis

I'm in Memphis today to present Flash to the local AIGA chapter. Actually, since my colleague Josh Margulis is officially credited as the presenter, I only provided some assistance. As one would expect, the AIGA folks were pretty creative about promoting an event which takes place on Valentine's Day!

Since I haven't had a chance to present with Josh before, I was really looking forward to it. The only hitch was that it ain't easy getting to Memphis from Toronto (and then from Memphis to Philly where we're presenting at an event the next day). 

So just to give you a little peak into the life of an SE, here's my itinerary for Feb 14:

4am ET - wake up

4:30am-4:50am - car service to Toronto airport (YYZ)

4:50am-5:50am - get through customs & security

6:25am - YYZ to Chicago, IL (ORD), arr 7:18am

8:25am - ORD to Memphis, TN (MEM), arr 10:13am CT

10:45am CT - Get to event venue (by smelly cab)

3pm - Finish up session (skip lunch), wait 25 mins for a cab back to the airport

4:20pm - Get to the airport, eat a crappy lunch/dinner

5:55pm - Start writing this blog entry

6:57pm - Fly from MEM to Charlotte, NC (CLT), arrive 9:30pm ET

10:15pm ET - CLT to Phialdelphia (PHL), arrive 11:35pm

12:20am - Check into hotel

So that's 1 province and 4 states in a 20+ hour day. It might sound like fun, but it wears on you after a bit..

But in the end, it's worth it. I get to do what I love (talk) and I get to meet some great people. For example, the AIGA folks gave me a couple of parting gifts: a 'Day for Flash Lovers' t-shirt AND a Sun Studio, Memphis shirt!

Live at Macworld!

Today is the last day of Macworld and I’m in the middle of one of my last sessions on Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium. It’s been a great conference (see the recap of the keynote below), but I’m ready to go home and sleep in my own bed.

For those of you that missed my sessions, here are some web resources to help you learn more about the new features of the web suite:

• Adobe resources
• Developer Center
• Design Center
• CS3 Video Workshop
• Online eSeminars (live)
• On-demand eSeminars
  
• Non-Adobe resources
• Gotoandlearn.com
• Kirupa.com

A few other sites I referred to during the week:

• Adobe Labs (new technologies from Adobe)
• Hulu.com (video on demand)
• FlashOn (Adobe showcase gallery)

Macworld Day 3: Celebrity Sightings at Macworld

It's been an interesting couple of days at Macworld - more because of the people I've met at the conference than anything else. Today, I was scheduled to do 4 theater sessions at the Adobe booth, along with several customer meetings, so the day flew by.

It seems like Macworld attracts all kinds of people - even celebrities. While there were no Brangelina, Tomkat or Britney sightings, I did see Richard Dreyfuss (near the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus) and Sinbad (near the Apple booth). I didn't have a chance to talk to Mr. Holland's Opus, but I did get to listen to Sinbad rave about Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. I didn't realize that the guy was so into technology, and specifically, Adobe technology! To top it off, he was quite entertaining, so definitely one of the day's highlights.

My encounters at the conference inspired me to try my hand at the ol' Six degrees of Kevin Bacon game.. and thanks to IMDB.com and Google, I found a link!

• Richard Dreyfuss was in Stand By Me with Kiefer Sutherland
• Kiefer Sutherland was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon
• Kevin Bacon hosted Saturday Night Live when Phil Hartman was a cast member
• Phil Hartman worked with Sinbad in Houseguest.

The conference has also been good in terms of seeing some of the Adobe celebrities - John Nack (Photoshop PM), Richard Galvan (Flash PM), Chris Orwig (photographer extraordinaire and all around nice guy) and some others.

Macworld First Impressions

Today was my first official day at the Macworld conference in San Francisco. I got into town yesterday afternoon, visited the Adobe booth while it was being set up and then went for dinner with my colleagues, Adam Pratt and Colin Fleming. I'm sorry to report that I reneged on my promise to visit Shalimar in the Tenderloin, and went to Naan 'n Curry on O'Farrell instead. The food was actually pretty good, although Shalimar definitely has a better ambience - whereas Naan 'n Curry felt like a Pakistani/Indian restaurant in a US city, going to Shalimar is like visiting the Indian subcontinent.

But I digress. I showed up at the Adobe booth this morning around 9:50am while the Steve Jobs keynote was going on in another building. The Apple booth was right behind Adobe's, entirely hidden by a ceiling-to-floor black curtain that ran along the perimeter of the booth. As Steve made his announcements, portions of the black curtain would fall, revealing a giant poster of whatever gadget had just been shown on stage in the next building. I suppose it was like a striptease for geeks.

While this was going on, members of the media started gathering by the black curtain so they could be first to touch the MacBook Air or whatever. They got their chance once the keynote ended - all the curtains and other physical barriers came down and media & joe public alike rushed the Apple booth. It was fun to watch, but I can't say I wanted to join the masses.



In terms of the keynote itself, I have to say that I was a little underwhelmed with what Steve & Co. had to show - and I'm willing to bet that a lot of attendees would agree with me. A few people suggested that maybe Apple is working on something huge and just couldn't get it done before the show, so they went with whatever they had. Others observed that Steve wasn't his usual self, and himself seemed less excited than he normally is.

As for the rest of the conference, I had a chance to walk around the floor a bit today and plan to do some more of it tomorrow and Thursday. I can't believe that there are so many different companies making iPod/iPhone cases and covers!

On a positive note, Adobe has put up its staff at the W, which is right across from the conference venue (Moscone Center). I ended up in a standard room, but like every other W, the furnishings are very interesting.

On the road...

I'm at an Adobe staff conference in San Jose all week, so haven't been able to get to the blog the last few days. For an employee that works away from a major office, these types of conferences are great for getting some rare face-to-face time with my colleagues. Every year I'm amazed by the incredible talent at the company - just great people to work with!

Anyway, getting the skinny on all the new and exciting things happening at the company.. but unfortunately most of it is confidential, so you'll have to wait, but I promise it'll be worth it.

There is a large event planned later this week to officially celebrate Adobe's 25th anniversary - I'll try to post some pictures afterwards of your fav Adobe personalities gettin' down.