Monthly Archives: October 2006

I’ve never been a super huge fan of Cairngorm, or frameworks in general. I like them, I think they help, but they can also overwhelm the project. In CF, I like Model Glue, in Flex…

I might have to change my tune on "Car gram/care gorm", after hearing what Stephen Webster has to say at MAX (Where are your preso materials dude!?). Stephen’s preso was an eye opener. It didn’t so much reveal things I didn’t know, as much as it clarified what I did know.

So with that said I hit up labs and DL’ed the latest version (2.1). I’ve been a little stagnant on my development of my internal Flex app so I figured I should give it a better foundation before getting too much farther. So it’s being re-engineered to run with Cairngorm.

We’ll see, but I’m optimistic.

Well since for whatever reason, I got no wifi love from the free AP for MAX, here’s my blow by blow… in one blow.

Day 1,2, and 3

Keynote: Great. Cool stuff. and holy hell, Blue Man Group! That’s cool! The keynote touched on the typical cool things keynotes do. Cool new things in Flash, Photoshop, Fireworks, etc. All very cool. One funny thing. They fire up a mac to show some cool flex stuff. NO ONE made a peep when they fired up the MAC VERSION OF FLEX BUILDER. I looked around to see if any one registered it… If they did, they didn’t make a peep. I was ready to dance in the aisle.

The welcome party on Monday night was cool. Found most of my old coworkers and friends, met some cool folks, like Terry (BTW, congrats on Wharton getting a MACX Award, very dope).  I didn’t stay too long, wanted to go grab dinner with the wife… glad I didn’t eat much, Dave ended up with food poisoning, no bueno

Day one sessions were good. had a really good time in all. Took a peek at MAXUP (thoughts on that below). Unfortunately since this isn’t day by day. I can’t recall what I saw, when I saw it. So here’s what I liked over all three days.

Stephen Websters Cairngorm (cargram) preso. I’ve been using it for a project, but that preso really filled in the gaps for me. I just track down the slides.

The guys at Pattern Park did a good preso on design patterns in AS, but they wasted about 20 minutes on fluff. I know how to make a project in FB, I know what patterns are, i know what UML is. They walked (slowly) through a lot. Once they got to the meat, I was impressed.

The designing more usable apps in Flex, was great! I had to bail before they got to the Flex code, but just the content on design choices and such was worth it!!

The day two keynote was eh. my friends all bailed. Since I don’t do Flash, especially flash game dev. Most of what was said was uninteresting, other than the "oh that’s neat" factor.

Day three keynote, we all skipped to get a nice breakfast at the grand luxe. I like skunkworks stuff and all. But I don’t need to see what is coming after what’s almost here to be jazzed about Flex, CF and Adobe in general. I already am, and don’t want to spend the next 18 months or more wishing X feature was out now.

So MAXUP…

Neat idea, bad idea

mini conference, short topics, barcamp style… cool
a mini conference that takes away from a conference I paid over 2 thousand dollars to attennd, not cool. Why ask people to choose between 15 minutes on a topic that they might like to miss an hour on a topic they paid for?
Maybe if it was just at lunch time..? THat’s be cool. But I couldn’t justify missing a session I paid for to see 15 minutes I wanted and maybe 45 I don’t.

Cool idea, and as a one day affair for free locals would probably eat it up. Even a few unlocals probably.

So that’s what’s on the top of my head.. I may come up with more as I’m doanloading the PDFs of the presos and going over my notes.

we made it. Landed Friday night. It’s been a while since either my wife or myself has been to vegas… Smoke Sucks!

Check in is easy the Venetian operates like a Fry’s, the next person holds up a little sign and a traffic control suit sends you to the next open check in clerk/person. Neat.

We ended up in the Venezia tower.. Holy crabcakes! This place is swank. Fax machine in every suite! Nice stand up shower, seperate the tub (I love those).

We got in late and met our friend who was in town for the weekend and hit up the Grand Luxe Cafe. Think Cheesecake factory with a different color pallet. And think open 24/7! Good stuff.

Saturday we met some other friends who were in town for a conference, not MAX (she’s a doctor). I should say we met them after we slept until freakin’ noon! Jeebus!

We had lunch at the Noodle Asia (skip it), then headed over to the Mirage for Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden… NO! it was  not THAT secret Garden, don’t go there.

The garden wasn’t a well kept secret, lots of tourists found it before we did. But the ig cats are cool and you’re really close to them. The dolphins are cool too, but just a word of advice. It’s not a show, things are random and unscheduled…. they emphasize that point when you get in.

We did a little hanging out, then hit th indoor gondola rides… kinda cool. Worth 15 bones, once.

Dinner wasn’t until 10:30 so we hit up Tao (swanky, trendt nightspot de jour) for drinks. Skip the watermelon martini-thing. No bueno.

Dinner was at the Mix at THE Hotel. Nice! Very nice! Pricy, but then again this is Vegas and this was at the top of THE Hotel at Mandalay bay.

Satrday night ended with some cruising around the hotels around Mandalay and checking out the Vegas Monorail, which isn’t free FYI.

Today, Sunday brunch at the RIO, followed by finding the nearest 24 hour fitness.

I’m pretty sure "boredom" and "Vegas" go together about as well as "Secure" and "WIndows"

But in case you’re worried that you’ll have nothing to do when you’re not absorbing the wisdom of the MAX presenters… Ben Forta has you covered. However since I’m a nice guy Here’s the copy-paste from Ben’s blog.

• Sunday: MiniMAX at "The Beach"
• Monday: Tao (at The Venetian) starting 8:30, cover is waived, no line with Max Badge
• Tuesday: V Bar (at The Venetian) starting 7:30, cover is waived, no line with Max Badge
• Wednesday: Max Special Event
• Thursday: V Bar (at The Venetian) starting 7:30, cover is waived, no line with Max Badge
• Friday: Las Vegas Dreamweaver Users Group event

I won’t be at MiniMax, It’s likely the wife and will be at most of the nightly activities… Drinking with nerds… her favorite past time… she married me.

See you there!