johnwilker.com

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!

I helped Adobe quash bugs

This past weekend, a few folks who’d never met got together at the EUI office for some good ol’ fashioned nerd fun. Adobe Seattle held a bug quash, and allowed developers all over the world to help out.

Denver Come quash Flex SDK Bugs!

EffectiveUI is hosting a group of people to get together and quash bugs with Adobe. Adobe is hosting the official effort in Seattle, and opening a connect room for developers all over to participate!

When you register make sure to sign up on the Bug Quash site to get the instructions on setting your computer up for SDK Development.

How to ruin a brand and influence people

On a smaller scale but equally disastrous, Adobe is extending their brand confusion to their community. A little history: Adobe created Flex Camps a while back, as one day events for Flex developers to come together to learn and network. Topics ranged from beginner to advanced, and were generally well received. There have been Flex Camps all over the world.

At MAX adobe decided that the community was confused about Flash, Flex, the platform and everything.

I think the confusion is Adobe’s. No one I’ve met is confused about what Flex is or what Flash is.

What a stupid AIR problem to have

Lately I’ve become very fond of the expression “This is a stupid problem to have”, the other night I got to use it in relation to AIR.
I’m working on a tool to view (hopefully) live survey data for when we have booths at conferences. We’ve come up with a simply iPhone survey, and want to [...]

MAX 2008 Day 2!

Day to of MAX, is well, kinda like Empire Strikes Back, without the Luke screaming like a girl part. I’d say the General Session today however was very Revenge of the Jedi (yeah I’m old skool, look it up).
General Session
Adobe’s guys advertised day 2 as a must attend general session, which frankly, it usually ain’t. [...]

MAX ‘08 Day 1 Recap

Looooooooong day.
I’m about to pass out, but wanted to get my thoughts on MAX ‘08 day one down on paper.
For Tom and I, MAX San Francisco, started on Sunday. We ran some errands, put stickers on our fliers for 360|Flex Indy, and then headed over to Moscone for some socializing. We hit up the community [...]

SF wrap up

Flex training was great. I have a much clearer understanding of the technology and different aspects of using it. Rob Rusher is a great teacher of this course.
Saw a few sites, we went to the Coit Tower one night. THe group from class was supposed to go out Salsa dancing with Rob, but I ended [...]

San Francisco, Day 3

Nicole and I are in SF this week. She’s working remotely, I’m attending som Flex training at Roundpeg.
We flew in saturday morning, drove from San Jose to SF. Not overly impressed with the lands between the two cities. We arrived in SF and worked on finding the hotel. I hate renting cars, but Hertz and [...]