Looking Forward, Looking Back
It’s been an interesting year. More so than normal years. It’s also the end of a decade, so I’ve got some thoughts on that too. Fair warning. This is a longy.
Decade first:
in 2000 I worked for a company that was basically an IT Staffing firm that decided to get into software. I worked internally on a web app that would (in their terms) revolutionize staffing. I bailed, they failed, it was 2000, that happened a lot to a lot of people and companies.
I spent most of the 2000’s as a programmer, first doing ColdFusion, then moving to Flex. It never occurred to me to try out M$ tools, or any other. I liked Macromedia (Now Adobe) offerings and stuck with them.
Events, fun and why i do them
360|MAX
Adobe MAX is the annual “geek out” for those of us doing anything with Adobe technologies. It’s a huge event, costs a metric buttload, and is usually pretty over the top. It’s also hugely fun, and a great way to see folks who don’t come out for other events typically. It’s also nice to attend an event that I’m not organizing, or at least not organizing much of.
360|Conferences does an unconference at MAX, to bring some community to the event. It’s always a good time, we get some great speakers to give us some time and share what they know. It was really cool this time that we had some more interesting topics; Arduino/Flex interaction, How a rock band uses Flex/AIR and even iPhone in their performances, etc.
It was a good time.
Next time, we’ll limit talks to 30 minutes. It’s about double the sessions, but I think 30 minutes is a good time slot, we can get more great topics going.
The funnest part of my job (If I can call it that) is doing different types of events. They’re not just always the same event over and over. Even 360|Flex and 360|iDev, while super similar, and based on the same ideals, are vastly different. Then throw in Ignite, 360|FlexPress, and hopefully a Festival of Books, and it’s just a great time bringing people together!
Jailbreaking your iPhone, the joys
You can argue stability, blah blah blah. but I’ve never found the exisitng iPhone OS 100% stable either, so that’s a fairly spurious argument. It’s surely a matter of personal taste, but having been re-introduced to the possibilities a jailbroken iPhone possesses, I’m finding that it’s very tempting to make that leap on my main phone.
Overall I think the jailbreaking community is definitely on to something and seems to be really becoming mainstream. It was pretty cool to load up Cydia and see the store that was announced at 360|iDev in March. Saurik and crew have done an awesome job. They’re bringing a level of choice and control to the iPhone that Apple has taken away from us. As a consumer I can’t fault with that at all.
Why I bought an iPhone 3GS
I’ve got my 3GS (so space any more in the name) now. It’s great.
I just got it, literally, a few days ago. No I didn’t rush out to order one at WWDC after the keynote. I didn’t go wait in line at an Apple store, or any other variation on fan boy-dom. Oh and I could have, because I nver bought a 3G and bought my 2G on ebay, so I’ve been contract free for a while.
No longer.
I wasn’t sold on the 3GS. for one thing, it’s still aesthetically ugly IMO. It’s plastic, which I don’t like. I don’t like it because plastic feels crappy. I don’t like it because when the 2G came out, Apple made a big deal about plastic sucking and the aluminium body being so nice. I agree.
WWDC from a first timers perspective
Keynote line: Tom and I got up early and waited in it. We’d never done it before so wanted to see what it was all about. We didn’t get up crazy early, but still waited outside for I think 2 hours, we were numbers 404 and 405 or something. About an hour before the keynote the line moves inside, where they’ve put out coffee and donuts and stuff. Then the line essentially breaks down into mayhem to get up the 4 escalators then mad rush into the keynote room. Why we waited in line to be ran past I don’t know. Why we waited in line when Apple could have let us get in and get seated earlier, I don’t know. Other than it’s a nice way for Apple to show everyone who’s in control.
360Flex Indy, done
It was nice for Tom and I to share that InsideRIA, InsideMobile, and 360|iDev are in full force effort mode, coming in rapid succession this summer, starting in July. We’ve partnered with O’Reilly for the first two, and that’s crazy exciting. Tom and I have been working with our Pal Steve at O’Reilly on this idea since mmm well it probably started on the Ebay Town hall patio at the first 360|Flex, yeah it’s been a while in the making. The partnership should really open some door’s for O’Reilly and 360|Conferences.
I build community, organize events, and rock!
It wasn’t a bad break up at all, or anything like that. Anthony and I had several conversations about my role at the company and how best I fit with the company’s needs and goals.
This is why Journalists suck
Then we got an email from a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, asking for a press pass to 360|iDev. She was interested in talking to Jay Freeman about Cydia. We extended our warm welcome, hoping that as “Beat reporter for iPhone” an iPhone developer conference (first of it’s kind since O’Reilly pulled the plug), put on by developers would be interesting. Turns out no, that’s not an interesting story.
360Coldfusion, very interesting
Tom and I thought about doing a CF conference, after I think 360|Flex Seattle. The reason we never went forward with the ideas was CFUnited and CF.Objective().
I’ve thougt CFUnited was over priced and didn’t really offer enough to be worth the price, since I attended in 2005. I’ve never attended CF.Objective(), since by the time it got started up, I was moving into Flex development, but since it bills itself as the Enterprise CF Conference, I found it odd that it was dribbling extra technologies, moving away from CF.
Ignite Denver 2 Don’t miss it!
360|iDev is in a week and a half and then…. IGNITE DENVER!
It’s gonna be cool! We’ve got some cool submissions for topics! Learn to fly, Why you suck at driving, RJ is gonna try to do the history of Rome in 5 minutes again, and Dude where’s my solar powered car?
I’m glad to be back [...]
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