I will be speaking at TexFlex this Friday November 13th. If you were ever interested in Adobe Flex, Flash, application development etc. this is the event for you. Check out the line-up!

My presentation will be on “Working with Designers”

• I will discuss the differences between traditional designers and UI designers
• How to find the right designer for your project
• How to best communicate with designers
• And talk about ways to improve the Designer/Developer/Business relationships and work flows.

See you there!

My first year at Adobe MAX and it was awesome! Great vibe from everyone, great excitement, and overall great atmosphere. I didn’t know what to expect, I had no idea Adobe goes all out like that, thank you so much for doing all this for the fans and users!

The staff was very informative, and ready to help you out when you had questions or got lost on your way to the next lab. The sessions were very casual and informative, even though a couple seemed somewhat basic, I was hoping to get more in depth in some of the labs for Catalyst for example, but being such a new product, having introductory sessions makes sense. I did learn some neat tricks that I didn’t know though, so in the end I was satisfied.

Some of the coolest stuff was during Sneak Peeks, some will make it to the market some will not. The Adobe Rome project really stole the show though, unbelievable what can be accomplished with actionscript, 200k lines of code to be exact, still once you see what it can do you will be surprised it only took that 200k. Think Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks combined, with a slick and minimalist UI design that removes any unused clutter from the workspace, and you have Adobe ROME. I really can’t see this project ever making it out to market though since it would really cut into Adobe’s profits Buying ROME would mean no need to buy the full suite anymore. Anyways, below is a video of it in action!

Dan Goldman also showed a very cool “content aware” spot healing brush that just makes removing things from photos so quick and easy its unbelievable, that tool I am sure is being shipped with CS5. Photoshop has a history of updating their favorite cloning and healing brushes in every version of Photoshop. My wife will be so excited when this comes out, it will make her post photography work so much faster. Check out my HD video below.

Another cool sneak was the smart paste in Dreamweaver, being able to just copy and paste flash files, spread sheets, images, and videos straight into your html files, WTF!? Video below.

Also, on the next video Chewbacca displays some awesome physics in flash, wow!

Here is a link to the Adobe Max photo stream on flickr, enjoy!

It is almost time for Adobe Max! (I need to start packing at some point). I figured I can share my schedule of sessions and labs for the next 3 days, and also give the first time goers like me some info on what to look for and how to prep, courtesy of Jonathan Campos

Monday

• General Session
• Flash Catalyst 101: Hands on Lab
• Introducing Flash Catalyst Beta 2 and What’s Ahead for Flash Catalyst
• Structuring UI Design Comps for Use in Flash Catalyst
• Meet the Teams

Tuesday

• Photoshop CS4: The Essentials of Image Enhancements for Web and Flash Designers
• General Session
• How to Visually Design and Prototype Websites
• Advanced Interaction Design and Designing for Data in Flash Catalyst
• Sneak Peeks and 2009 Max Awards
• Max Bash!!!!

Wednesday

• Down and Dirty Tricks in Photoshop with Corey Barker
• Design Websites that Grab People: Building Online Communities

Since this is my first time to MAX I made sure to take some tips from Jonathan Campos, so here they are:

DON’T MISS THE KEYNOTES OR THE SNEAKS!
These are the singular biggest and coolest reasons to come to the conference. From new technology to experimental technology these are by far the coolest things you will see. Monday and Tuesday morning are the keynotes and Tuesday night before the big Adobe bash are the Sneaks.

Also, note that the Sneaks are right after the Max Awards – a place to see some of the coolest pieces of software developed in the last year. So go see the cool software of last year and stay for the cool technology of the next year(s).

Bring your business cards
After the keynote and the sneaks the main reason for Max is to network. If you don’t leave with at least one good contact at the end Max you didn’t talk to enough people. This is the biggest collection of rockstars you will ever hope to have, talk to people, ask for their contact information, and make sure to follow up.

At night I highly recommend keeping your ears open for the places people are going and go out. When networking even the brightest stars like to dim their lights a bit over a pint and a shot – or in my case, some Jack Daniels. Even if you aren’t a drinker go out and chat people up. Some of my favorite memories are filled with discussions of code and theories when we are all 2 sheets to the wind.

I can tell you now, don’t plan to go to every single session that you put into your session schedule

Also, visit Adobe’s resource page for all your social media needs. http://max.adobe.com/resources/

So there you have it! See you at MAX!