FlashPitt08 Recap
Well, it has been 1 week since FlashPitt today. I thought it was high-time that I get a blog post together to cover the event. First off, FlashPitt far exceeded my expectations. We were 4 tickets short of selling the entire event out! We even had two attendees from Portugal attend! I knew things were going well when several of our speakers started their sessions by saying how impressed they were by the turnout and by the passion of the people attending the event.
Flasheff
Flasheff was one of our primary sponsors for the event. They gave me the opportunity to present the Flasheff product for them since they were not able to attend. If you get the chance, check out Flasheff to see what it is capable of.
AS2 to AS3 Migration
Following the Flasheff preso, Wayne Lincoln and myself co-presented a session entitled AS2 to AS3 Migration. We stepped through things such as the capabilities of the two AVMs, using EventListeners and getting familiar with the Display List.
Favorite Sessions
It was nice to get my sessions out of the way first thing in the morning. I had the opportunity to sit in some really great presentations. Here is a recap of some of my favorites:
- The Keynote – Lee Brimelow: Lee gave a great presentation on the future of Flash and covered a lot of CS4 features that many of us are waiting to use on a day-to-day basis.
- Physical Computing – Julian Dolce: Julian really pushed the boundaries of using external interfaces with Flash. He demonstrated the use of external circuitry, RFID and socket servers to communicate with Flash. This was a great inspirational presentation which was full of information. Julian also posted info related to his presentation on his blog.
- Re:Discovery – Craig Swann: Much like Julian, Craig was able to demonstrate many non-traditional means for interacting with Flash. Craig used a web cam to do some extremely amazing things with Flash.
- Golan Levin – To close the day we all we treated to a presentation by Golan Levin. This was by far my most favorite presentation of the day. The kicker is that none of the work he displayed was created using Flash! You would think that would put a damper on things but you would be wrong. Most of the work he did could translate to ActionScript but the majority of it was written in multiple different languages. I would have loved to had this session video taped. It floored everyone at the conference. I think it left most of us speechless. Go check out Golan’s work. You won’t be disappointed.
Pictures
If you were at FlashPitt and took some sweet pictures, post them for all of us! If you are looking for pictures, visit the FlashPitt08 pool on Flickr to get a peek at what you missed!
Looking Forward
I think there is a good chance that we will have a FlashPitt09 next year. I am looking forward to it already! If you didn’t make it this year you missed out! Thanks to all of the loyal MFUGers and locals that showed up and thanks to all of you who traveled a good way to get there as well!
October 17th, 2008 at 9:41 am
actually, we did sell out. we sold those last 4 tickets at the door. pretty amazing, huh?
October 24th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Hey Ben! I think next year, you guys could try to also raise money for one lucky person (erh uhm, Flasher), to receive some kind of check towards their education costs, wherever they are studying. This would be so positive. Next, get the car buffs involved. They are always willing to show up. Cars–Flash? Yup, Have them “Flash” their car’s attributes and “live-post” them at the event[reciprocity and support at its best] and challenge Flashers to one-day create a “Flash Show-off” site to demonstrate their AS3 prowess. Ask Taco Bell to sponsor “our” RTB campaign and build on that. You and I can create an awesome RTB site begging for bandwidth. Next year won’t be better, it will kill all else.