South of Shasta - General

Along for a Ride with Side-Car

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:45:00 -0700

I was teaching some classes in San Francisco recently. While walking down Geary looking for a taxi, I saw a woman talking about Side-Car. Having nothing to lose (except my life! ha!) I gave it a shot. It worked out quite well, and was indeed cheaper than a taxi. (I still can't believe this is a viable business model.) Sure beats the dude earlier in the evening following me up Geary Blvd trying to get me to go to a speakeasy....the password is "books" in case you were wondering. :)

Will definitely look into using Side-Car next time I'm in San Francisco, and would love to see them expand into the Sacramento area!

-nolan

New Year Resolutions for 2013

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:54:00 -0700

I'm not going to post my entire list of resolutions this year. Some of them were personal and/or music-project related and don't really fit the theme of this blog. Also, the list is rather long...I may have bitten off more than I can chew! :)

While I do have several tech-related resolutions too, they are basically "read that book that I bought ages ago and never did anything with", or they're related to projects that I don't want to publicly announce just yet. But the gist of the resolutions (the tech ones anyway) are:

* Spending more time with PhoneGap
* Spending more time building native iPhone and Droid apps
* Work on a couple ColdFusion open source project ideas i have
* Consolidate some custom/legacy websites i maintain into Mura sites
* Read the aforementioned books, and possibly blog about them

The actual list is a bit more tangible than that -- meaning I have specific projects/goals to achieve with PhoneGap, specific books I plan to read and blog about, etc. I find I work best if my new year resolutions are similar to "annual objectives" one might receive from a Department Manager at work, rather than declarations like "I shall try to be a better programmer"...it's pretty hard to measure that!

Also on the list are fun things:

* Watch 5 classic movies I have never seen before
* Learn 5 new recipes (I've gotten really into cooking and eating/being healthier this year)
* And the music-project stuffs that I mentioned above

So what's on YOUR list of resolutions for the year!? Anything worth sharing?

-nolan

Readability, self-documenting code, and CFLib.org

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:17:00 -0700

I'm famous! Kind of! Not really! But I just got another function approved for CFLib.org. (This brings my total up to 3...I wonder how many I need before I win a prize, but I digress). This newest function is getMeridiem:


string function getMeridiem(required date dateTime){
    return timeFormat(dateTime, "tt");
}

As you can see this UDF is not super fancy; it returns the "am/pm" portion of a datetime, and it's literally just 1 line of code. You might ask why I'd write such a small UDF, since I can clearly do the exact same thing like this: timeFormat(dateTime, "tt"); My answer is simple: readability and self-documenting code. The first time I submitted this UDF to CFLib.org, it actually got rejected, because the person approving code that day felt "it's always gonna be better to use a built-in function than a UDF that - for all intents and purposes - does the same as the built-in function". That of course makes a lot of sense. But then I got to thinking about another UDF I use often, also found on CFLib.org: the CharAt() function. As you can see, this too is just 1 line of code:



/**
 * Returns the character at a certain position in a string.
 * 
 * @param str      String to be checked. 
 * @param pos      Position to get character from. 
 * @return Returns a character. 
 * @author Raymond Camden (ray@camdenfamily.com) 
 * @version 1, December 3, 2001 
 */
function CharAt(str,pos) {
    return Mid(str,pos,1);
}

But the big difference is, CharAt() is more readable and self-documenting than the built-in CF code. Let's look at these 2 lines: Mid( "this is sample text", 6, 1 ); CharAt( "this is sample text", 6 ); They both do the exact same thing. If you know what Mid() and CharAt() do, I feel the CharAt() function is just a tad easier to read, making the project overall go that much quicker for me (and my team). The same thing is true here: timeFormat( Now(), "tt"); getMeridiem( Now() ); If I know what the "tt" mask does for the timeFormat() function, these might both be equally readable. I'll be honest with you: I don't remember all the masks, I look up at least half of them whenever I use date/time functions in CF. So in that case, getMeridiem() makes the code more readable and self documenting, again making my life a tad easier and the project that much more efficient. Of course, this is only true if I remember what "meridiem" means, and I've had to Google that before as well. :) After thinking about CharAt() and how it compared to getMeridiem(), I re-submitted my function to CFLib.org, along with a few more notes on how I felt it was the same as CharAt() in terms of what the benefits are to using such a small UDF. The same moderator that rejected my function before, now agreed with me and approved the UDF! Sometimes UDFs don't have to solve a huge complex problem. If all they do is make the code more self-documenting, that can be enough of a benefit to the project to use a UDF over built-in code. (I was on a C++ project once where the lead developer would wrap the assert() function in 3 or 4 different names -- he had one called "pre_condition(), another called "post_condition()" and a few others too. Each wrapper called assert() and nothing else -- but by using the different wrapper functions, when we'd go back to read the code we were able to determine a little more about when/where/why these asserts were supposed to be true, making the code that much more self-documenting which benefited all of our team.) -Nolan

New Droid 4 Phone -- got app recommendations?

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:30:00 -0700

For the last week or so, my trusty Droid 2 had been starting to freak out, needing to be rebooted several times a day, locking up in mid-text message and so on. This morning I just bit the bullet and upgraded to a Droid 4. I've never been one for keeping tabs on all the latest apps and such, I tend to find something I like, and stick with it...perhaps longer than I should. :)

Any new-ish apps you'd recommend? Things I'm looking for include...

A killer todo list/outline app.
A way to backup -everything- on the phone in 1 place/app ala the way Blackberry does it (and ideally save said backup to my laptop, not in the cloud).
Any music-making apps. I have Virtual Recorder. Other fun keyboard/spacenoise/emulator things out there you like?
Games! Duh! :)
Are there GOOD Remote Desktop and FTP clients?
A good email client for my non-gmail account(s)
Other stuff you think I just can't live without.

If I take a while responding to text/email/voicemail, it's because I'm still getting this badboy configured. Wasn't I supposed to...ummm...actually work today?

-nolan

Sacramento CFUG is Becoming Sacramento Interactive Developers Group

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:34:00 -0700

As you may know, Seth Duffey and I run the Sacramento ColdFusion User Group. After a lot of consideration, we've decided to rename, rebrand, and rebuild the group into something new called the Sacramento Interactive Developers Group. In addition to ColdFusion topics (we would never abandon ColdFusion -- it rocks!) we'll be covering a wider variety of web/mobile development topics. Several other local user groups have recently disbanded, or gone on hiatus. We're hoping our new group's wider focus will help fill in for people that attended these other groups, as well as make it easier for Seth and I to continue running the group in the future.

Below is the email we sent out to members of the Sacramento CFUG e-list earlier this week. We'll be launching the new group's website, etc, over the next few weeks. Seth and I are really looking forward to the new group, expanding the possibilities beyond ColdFusion-centric topics, and seeing how things go.

As always, we will be looking for presenters (both local and remote), topic ideas, and any other forms of feedback and support people can contribute!

-nolan

----------

Big changes with SacCFUG

There are some big changes happening with the Sacramento ColdFusion Users group... Starting in September we're going to be known as the Sacramento Interactive Developers Group!

This new group is going to have a more general focus on developing applications for web, mobile, desktop, game systems, and any thing else we can think of.

More information, details on our first meeting in September, and a new website coming very soon.

What are the goals of this change?
To broaden the skills of our members, to expose all of us to complimentary technologies, to increase group attendance and participation, to keep all of our members skills evolving.

Does this mean we wont talk about ColdFusion?
We're always going to be interested in ColdFusion and will still have presentations on CF topics, this change of focus will help members learn complimentary skills.

Why are we changing the group?
We've had dwindling attendance recently and few volunteers to do presentations. In addition the web/mobile environment has changed substantially in the last couple of years, and based on survey and direct feedback from SacCFUG members you have expressed a lot of interest in expanding our focus.

What kind of topics will this group cover?
Web Development, HTML5, JavaScript, User Experience, iOS, Android, C#, Flex, ColdFusion , Ruby On Rails, more...

Teaching a 5-day Java Boot Camp

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:24:00 -0700

I'll be teaching a 5 day Java Boot Camp from August 6 to 10 here in Sacramento. There are a FEW spots left in the class if anyone would like to sign up. Ever wanted to get more Java experience? To understand more of what happens under the hood inside ColdFusion? Or how to write native Android apps? This class is a good starting point for such topics. :)

You can get more info over at the Academy X website.

Hope to see some of you there!
-nolan

Look who finally updated the website!

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:53:00 -0700

2011 was a busy year for us, to say the least. South of Shasta grew and grew, hiring extra developers, taking on more projects, bigger projects, learning new technologies (or delving further into things we already knew). I spoke at NCDevCon (and got stranded in Texas for a day while trying to get home), spent a week at Adobe MAX in Los Angeles, spoke at various local user groups, and lucked into a last minute ticket to MuraCon where I learned more about Mura CMS than I ever thought possible.

Now it's 2012, and like many out there, South of Shasta has its own set of new year resolutions we plan on sticking with -- one of which is to keep this blog updated on a regular basis. There are lots of new things in the works we're excited to share with you all. I'll be speaking at the cf.Objective conference in May, some open source projects are in the works, and our friends at the Sacramento ColdFusion User Group have changes coming that we'll be sharing with you as well.

We're starting the new year off with a few UI updates to the website. You'll notice a new "jobs" page in the main navigation, and some other UI enhancements, hopefully making it easier to find info around here (which will become more and more useful as new blog articles and other content is added in the coming months). If you notice any issues with the site, please drop us a line.

I'm looking forward to all that 2012 has to offer and sharing it via the blog as much as possible.

Happy new year.

Nolan Erck / South of Shasta

Part-time Software Developer Wanted.

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:01:00 -0700

I'm in need of a "backup developer" to help with overflow work and to split some larger projects. Most of the work can be done from home, however I'd prefer you be on-site at my office in East Sacramento at least 1 day a week (this may go up/down with the complexity of each project, may become a non-issue over time). On average I can keep you busy 15-20 hours a week. Ideally I'm looking for someone with regular amounts of free time, that likes working on a variety of projects, and has the know-how to help solve problems.

Requirements are like so:

Exceptional communication skills -- This is not boilerplate text; if you're prone to sending 3-word emails (i.e. "i don't know"), then this is not the job for you. I need to know when you're stuck, what you've tried, how I can help, what information you need from the client, etc. You will also need to provide regular updates on the progress: what's done, which roadblocks do you need me to address, etc.
Be reachable -- To compensate for doing a majority of the work remotely, you need to be reachable semi-regularly. You'll need an email address, cell phone, and ideally an IM client of some sort that you check often.
Experience working in deadline-driven environments.
Exceptional attention to detail.
Ability to "figure it out" -- We get lots of new requests, lots of new technologies need to be researched, solution ideas explored, etc.
Ability to "hit the ground running" -- Figure out what you need to solve problems, and generally be as productive as possible while working on the projects.
Ability to see "the big picture" within projects -- If you're changing an item on the back-end, how does it affect things on the front end? Should all of that be tested before the code is handed off to the client?
Ability to multi-task and be self-sufficient -- An average day here consists of writing code for 1 or 2 medium-to-large sized apps, fixing bugs / maintenance issues in older sites, maybe going into IIS and blocking an IP address for a spammer, and doing R&D on which jQuery plug-in will be most effective in an upcoming feature. The ability to effectively flip between such things is critical.
3 to 5 years of ColdFusion development on a currently supported platform (i.e. CF 8 or 9), writing both procedural and object-oriented code (or a similar back-end language, with a go-getter attitude and willingness to learn ColdFusion quickly). Ideally you've used at least one of the current CF frameworks on a "real world" project, and can learn similar frameworks without too much hand-holding. Experience w/ Model-Glue or Fusebox would be preferred.
You must have your own development machine (preferably a laptop) running ColdFusion 8 or 9, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, a Subversion client of some kind, and a Remote Desktop client.
Extra points if you know PHP, .NET, Flex (especially w/ the Mate Framework), and/or have written Facebook apps before.
Double-extra points if you've written Adobe AIR apps, or done any mobile development on a current platform (PhoneGap, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or something similar).
Experience with all the current practices for building public facing websites -- This would include: writing table-less XHTML/CSS sites with 0 validation errors, writing JavaScript functions, using jQuery, using FireBug, etc. You understand how to test sites in a variety of browsers, you know the current practices for how to support old versions of Internet Explorer, and have dabbled in newer things like HTML5 and CSS3.
Ability to thoroughly test your own code -- Obscure business rules are one thing, and definitely require help from the clients. Making sure a form passes basic validation, or that the page matches the approved design, etc should all be no-brainers, and need to be done before marking the tasks as "completed".

Reading List 2010

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:49:00 -0700

Not as many books as I would have liked (is it ever?) but here's what I read during 2010...

Final Witness - Simon Tolkien
Flex 3: Developing Rich Client Applications
If These Halls Could Talk: A Historical Tour through San Francisco Recording Studios - Heather Johnson
The King of Torts - John Grisham
The Business Side of Creativity - Cameron S. Foote
Charm School - Nelson DeMille
*#^% My Dad Says - Justin Halpern
The Five Love Languages - Gary Chapman
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary - David Sedaris
Talking To Girls About Duran Duran - Rob Sheffield
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
Stumble On Happiness - Daniel Gilbert

In Progress (will be finished in 2011)-

The Geometry of Design - Kimberly Elam
Designing for Web Standards, 3rd Edition - Jeffry Zeldman
Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby
-nolan ?

Back from Max! (and vacation)

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:27:00 -0700

I arrived back in Sacramento, late Wednesday night after spending the last 4 days at the Adobe Max conference in LA. (I actually traveled there by boat, arriving in Long Beach, via a cruise ship from Mexico...I'd spent the previous week with my dad and various other relatives celebrating his 60th birthday).

From my perspective, Max was a huge success! Adobe really went out of their way to get some great partnerships and announcements lined up for the conference. Each attendee walked away with a free Droid 2, not to mention several other goodies. On top of that, I ended up doing very well in the ColdFusion Unconference raffle...winning so much stuff that I actually had to give some prizes back! A small side effect of there not being a "only 1 win per person" rule, which I'm sure they will change next year! :) I gave back the license for Flash Builder / ColdFusion Builder, and kept the ColdFusion 9 Enterprise license I'd also won. :) (Though now that I think about it, I've only got 1 client that might have a use for it -- if they don't need it, I'm not sure what I'll end up doing with the license.)

I'd like to thank Ray Camden, Charlie Griefer, and Ezra Parker for running the CF Unconference -- the presenters were all top-notch. We had a variety of intermediate / advanced talks, all of which were very informative. I especially enjoyed the "Why Use a Framework" discussion we had on Wednesday afternoon (a last-minute addition) -- thanks again to Charlie for spear-heading that and filling in at the last minute.

...And they didn't get upset when I ended up winning multiple prizes...I wasn't cheating, I swear! :)

I've got various notes from the presentations that I'll post as time permits. Being gone for 2 weeks (vacation + max + travel time), several clients are vying for my time now, which of course takes priority.

As is typical with me, I left Max feeling very inspired, and am looking forward to working on some new project ideas now. Now if only I can find time to actually DO them...

-nolan

Back from CFinNC!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:33:00 -0700

I made it back from CFinNC, late Sunday night, extremely jet lagged, but in one piece, and very happy I made the decision to go. First, I want to thank Dan Wilson, and the rest of the folks that helped put this conference together. Not being able to attend MAX this year, I was very happy there was another ColdFusion-related conference, so soon after MAX. The fact that it was over a weekend made it much easier to schedule. As you may have read on CFCDev, Dan and I exchanged several posts about information on the conference website, what was/wasn't up to date, etc. Eventually, Dan and I took the conversation off-list (and off-email, talking more in person at the conference), and what became very clear to me is how genuinely personal he takes his work in the CF community; putting together this conference was no exception, and I think the quality of the CFinNC conference is proof of that. Everything seemed to run very smoothly -- registration was quick and painless, parking was a snap, wifi was up and accessible throughout the venue, the staff were all very courteous and happy to help. Nothing about the conference seemed out of place, or an obvious indicator that this was a newer project -- I was quite happy with how well everything was organized. Session highlights for me included: Mike Brunt -- 10 Steps To A High Performing ColdFusion Application, Clustering ColdFusion Great talk on performance testing, and all kinds of related items. Mike came with a real world demo that required not one, not two, but THREE laptops to get everything running (so it looked like it does in the real world) -- talk about putting a serious amount of effort into your lecture! My only regret is meeting Mike just minutes before I had to leave for my flight home; I was unable to say much more than "nice presentation" before I had to go. He was wearing a Beatles / Sgt Pepper shirt; I suspect we would have gotten along quite well. :) Jason Dean -- Intro to Securing CFML Applications I met Jason at cf.Objective(), and caught his other talk on security. This one is the precursor to said cf.Objective() talk. Both are worth checking out; not too much overlap, you'll learn something new at each one. And you can play the drinking game "take 2 sips every time Jason says 'validation'". :) Brian Kotek -- Intro to the Swiz Framework Nice first look at Swiz, with some notes on how it compares/contrasts to Caringorm, what Swiz is/isn't, how it can help w/ event handling, auto-wiring and tons more. For anyone new to Swiz, this was a great introduction. Andy Matthews -- jQuery & AIR: Desktop Development for the Front End Designer While in NC, I was staying with my friend Rob who is typically known as a .NET developer. Half way through this presentation, I was tempted to call Rob and have him come watch -- I'm continually impressed by AIR/JavaScript fun that can be had in projects. Andy did a great job with this; very well put together presentation. Definitely worth checking out. Joe Rinehart -- CF Inspirational Session I was not sure what to expect from the "Inspirational ColdFusion" session. Joe gave a great talk about what he's been up to for the last year-ish, how he'd moved away from CF, and how he's coming back into the fold. His presentation was hilarious, and it was one of the more comical yet compelling presentations I've ever seen. Joe missed his calling as a sitcom writer. :) Rick Root -- Using Java in ColdFusion Applications Rick gave a great introduction to using Java classes in CF. This is a topic that I often see on lists/blogs, but it's always done as the answer to some other question, so the context of said blog posts often makes it hard for people to see that "first look" at how you can dip directly into Java from ColdFusion, and utilize both to improve your applications. That's where Rick's presentation came into play; don't go if you're already doing big crazy things like writing your own Hibernate wrapper for CF7, but if you want to see just how the CF data types are tied to Java data types under the hood (and how to utilize the power of both), then Rick's talk is worth checking out. Bob Silverberg -- CF9 ORM - Part 1 and 2 Admittedly, I've been kind of dismissing the Hibernate integration in CF9 up until now. Partially because none of my clients have upgraded yet (tho 1 is talking about doing so), and partially because between Transfer and/or some homegrown things, I haven't really had a need to learn much more about it. Bob's talk was so good that I have now officially started "drinking the Kool-Aid", and want to start using CF/Hibernate whenever possible. I may very well (ahem) "borrow" content from his preso and give a similar demo for Saccfug later in the year. I would like to have seen a code sample in action, but the code presented in the slides was clear and "real world enough", that maybe that's not necessary. It was also good seeing the familiar faces that I met at cf.Objective() -- Ben Nadel, Jason Dean, and others I'm forgetting -- as well as catching up with my friend Rob who moved to NC several years ago. North Carolina is a really pretty area -- trees everywhere, decent weather (and this is coming from a spoiled California punk *g*), and EVERYone I met was extremely nice and polite all weekend. Even the grits I had for dinner were pretty good! :) Nice job, CFinNC, I hope you do it again next year. -nolan

Back From CF Objective!

Mon, 18 May 2009 19:14:00 -0700

I got home late last night from CF Objective (stayed in town through the weekend to visit with friends and do some touristy things). Overall it was a great experience, and well worth the time/money! This was my first CF Objective, and I must say it was incredibly inspiring! I learned quite a few new things, and am excited about blocking off time to implement them in my current projects. The keynote was very informative. Nice to know that our "dying language" ColdFusion has done nothing but grow steadily over the last few years -- the keynote mentioned somewhere around 800K estimated CF developers now! We also got a nice sneak peak at some of the things coming in CF9, the new Bolt IDE, and Flex 4 (including a name change, that's already been blogged everywhere, so I won't get into that here). Thanks to Troy Pullis for coordinating the Star Trek IMAX outing on Thursday. I'm by no means a die-hard Trekkie, but this movie was so well done, that didn't matter! I highly recommend it, even if you are only peripherally familiar with the Star Trek story lines (or just like well produced sci-fi movies). It was great to meet some of the folks that author blogs I've been reading over the years -- Ben Nadel (who was easily one of the nicest people I've met in ages), Jason Dean (thanks again for carpooling us to/from the Star Trek film, and for dropping me at the Light Rail), Dan Vega, Bob Silverberg and everyone I'm forgetting due to jet lag. :) I took notes on the various presentations which I hope to post later; they need to be cleaned up before they'll be of any use to other people. Hopefully time for that soon, but with all the new things I learned, it'll be hard to prioritize everything! :) Now if you'll excuse me, I want to rewrite all my apps with DSLs, Transfer ORM, ColdSpring, Flex, ValidateThis, Model-Glue, and Peter Bell's IBO library. ;) -Nolan

Going to cfObjective!

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:40:00 -0700

Yesterday I slipped in just before the "early bird pricing" went away, and registered for cfObjective! Minneapolis (and That Dog references) here I come! The music geek in me is hoping to find time to look for the old Twin Town Records building. :) See you there! -nolan

Reading List, 2008

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:53:00 -0700

Once again, I am one of those nerds that keeps track of all the books he reads in a given year:

Nobody Likes You: Inside The Turbulent Life, Times, and Music of Green Day - Marc Spitz
I Am America (And So Can You) - Stephen Colbert
Jump The Shark: When Good Things Go Bad - Jon Hein
Giving: How Each of Us Can Change The World - Bill Clinton
Clapton: The Autobiography - Eric Clapton
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong - James W. Loewen
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground 1981-1991 - Michael Azerrad
George's Secret Key To The Universe -- Stephen and Lucy Hawking
Rock On: An Office Power Ballad - Dan Kennedy
Sound Advice On Recording & Mixing Guitars - Bill Gibson
Things The Grandchildren Should Know - Mark Oliver Everett
Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways To Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done In Less Time - Brian Tracy
My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary Of Kevin Smith - Kevin Smith
Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived to Tell My Story - Brian Welch
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity - David Allen
The Heroin Diaries -- Nikki Sixx
Love Is A Mix Tape -- Rob Sheffield
When You Are Engulfed In Flames - David Sedaris
High Performance Web Sites - Steve Souders

Highlights/recommendations: "Things The Grandchildren Should Know" is totally brilliant. I want to invite Mark Everett to Christmas dinner. "My Boring-Ass Life" -- the middle 150-ish pages is slow-going, but the parts at the end about Die Hard, jury duty, and Jason Mewes' heroin addiction are worth the wait. "Nobody Likes You" -- I'm a sucker for anything Green Day, and this book does a great job of explaining how they are anything but a flash in the pan, or trend followers. I've always stood firmly behind my love of Green Day, and this book just adds to my justification for doing so. :) "Love Is A Mix Tape" -- Great true story. Music nerds everywhere will love it, even if he does spend a awful lot of time talking about indie bands that I don't particularly enjoy. "The Herioin Diaries" -- Nikki Sixx's diary from 1988, at the height of his heroin addiction, published for the world to read and learn from. Wow, I read a lot of books this year about heroin addiction. Hmmm... :) Not as many as I wanted to complete, but I did start forming 2 new bands, recorded several others at my studio, started a new "web development/design" business, and well, lots of other stuff that took up a bunch of time. :) I've got a few more that are still "in progress", so I'll save those for the "2009" list. -nolan

MAX 2008 overall pros and cons

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:29:00 -0700

Overall, I'm been very happy with my experience at Max 2008. I ran into several familiar faces, met the fine folks from The Morphic Group, heard lots of talks on interesting topics, and got some pretty sweet swag to bring home. :) When I get time later in the week, I will start posting my reviews of the various presentations (and maybe other bits as well if they haven't already been Twittered to death). For now, I'd like to share a few overall pros and cons of the conference as a whole: Pros -- 1. Everything was extremely well organized. From (quite literally) the second I walked in, I had people informing me of where to go, how to register, etc. We were given handy pocket guides with the conference schedule, and a nice book with several blank pages for taking notes. Kiosks were available for attendees to print up-to-the-minute schedules, and so on. I heard a few reports of people not being able to enter different talks because the bar-code scanners weren't working, but I only heard that a couple times on the 1st day (so I'll assume that was the exception, and that it was remedied by the the time Tuesday's presentations started). 2. Plenty of space. Whether I was at the expo floor, or eating lunch, or in a presentation, I didn't feel cramped anywhere. It was always (for me) pretty easy to find a semi-quiet spot to set up my laptop, or just make a few phone calls without worrying about being shoved out of a hallway by masses of folks trying to walk by (as can easily be the case at big shows like this). 3. The party! Wow...that party Tuesday night was great! Adobe bussed everyone to the Academy of Sciences and we basically had free run of the place for the night. Tons of food, great exhibits, and lots of things to keep us geeky people entertained all night. I'm not much of a drinker, and have been to many parties that consist solely of drinking alcohol (boring folks like me pretty quickly). This was not the case here! I stuffed my face on dim sum, enjoyed the planetarium, the aquarium, and generally ran around silly until I was too tired to continue. :) I'm definitely making a return trip to Academy of Sciences when time permits! Cons -- All that being said, I do have a few pieces of "constructive criticism" as well... 1. (This one is half for the "powers that be" behind deciding which presentations get booked, and half for the presenters themselves.) Do. not. use. your. presentation. as. a. sales. pitch. I sat thru WAY too many presentations where 10, 15, or even 20+ minutes were spent talking about what the presenter's company does for a living (often, it had nothing to do with the topic at hand). Please, save that for the expo floor! I paid money and used my time to schedule attending this session so I could learn something. If I want to learn about your product, I'll ask the folks at the booth. A quick slide and a minute of "I'm from company X, we make thingie XYZ for the Photography industry" (or what have you) is fine, but please let's realize there is a time and place for more extensive self-promotion. During a technical lecture is not the place, despite what your VP of Marketing may tell you. :) 2. If the bulk of your presentation pertains to features in not-yet-released software, please SAY SO in the TITLE. As a general rule, I don't build products in pre-release software. For me, that's defined as anything still labeled as "beta", "alpha", "preview" or any other variant of "it's not for sale just yet, and we don't guarantee it works". (If a client asked for something, i will of course break this rule on a case by case basis, but generally I stick with what is "released" as my technology stack.) I lost track of how many presentations I sat thru that ended up being "Flex 4 only", but weren't listed as such in the schedule. Was this a mandate from Adobe? Were folks "forced" to include some percentage of content about the not-yet-released Gumbo (that Gumbo Preview DVD doesn't count as "released"...it can't even be installed in a non-default folder without Bad Things Happening). I spent present-day money and used present-day time to learn present-day improvements to my skillset. When Flex 4 (or whatever the product is in question) is out, then maybe i'll be interested. Until then (or at least until it's very late in the beta testing phase), not so much. Other folks came here via a boss's dime. Said boss may be waiting at the office to ask the age old questions: "so, what did you learn? can you justify the cost of this expo?". I assure you, that most of them don't want to hear "yes, i learned things that ONLY work 8+ months from now, IF all the things in the Preview release stay in the final product, and IF you spend even more money to BUY it". Want to guarantee that small companies won't send anyone to Max 2009? Yeah that'd probably do it. There's no "return on investment" with present-day technology stacks in that situation. I did attend several "what's coming in the next version" talks, which were appreciated. It's good to see what is coming in the next version, but I wanted to balance that with information I can use right now. "Hiding" Gumbo content in talks that are not properly labeled makes it difficult to find that balance. And the reverse is also true: many people may be "bleeding edge junkies", and they didn't attend the talks because "with the upcoming version of Flex" wasn't in the title. That's all for now. I'll post "mini reviews" of the various sessions as time allows in the coming weeks. --nolan