and im stoked.

finally cf getting some love from the mothership, in a VERY public way. yes, we get plenty of love when they give us great features, but now we will have an IDE made for us Coldfusion Developers.

cool stuff.

im stoked on thermo, i mean Flash Catalyst, and im stoked on a lot of other things here that i am seeing in adobe's stack as well as their plans for the future.

man, it sure looks bright for us!

one major note that i took away from the keynote was this...

C# code making flex applications!

yes... that means, all of your old C# developers can contribute on a team that will include flex developers, thermo designers/developers and wow, everyone can work towards one common goal, a flex or air project, driven by coldfusion, designed in photoshop, whipped up in Flash Catalyst and deployed FAST!

wow.

lots more to mention, but i gotta go to my Adobe Air Bootcamp 3.5 hour hands on lab!!!

nice.

had a hefty heaping of helpful knowledge and healthy information at a smooth conference called cfunited.

so. no max. i'm certainly going to miss the peeps at max this year, as i've been going every year since 2001 :(

it's all good though i guess, apart from the time the place, and the people it's really not better for me than cfunited was.

so. with that, i hope you all take my torch to the fire, enjoy your time there, make sure you go to everything you can go to, talk to as many people as you can, do the dorky stuff, do the fun stuff, drink some beer (macromediadobe people really enjoy the meade! they are people too!! can you believe it??), hit up ray's BOF, definitely meet the cf team, and just have fun!

take pics and make sure you flickr them too!

max.

wow, what a trip. we were sick, we had a blast, we learned a lot, we saw some cool new stuff, we met some great people, and most of all, we all got to be reassured that macromedia is certainly heading in the right direction....well, with mos of their products.

im a bit tired of looking at a keyboard at the moment, and still coming down from the new orleans buzz, but i hope to get some info that didnt make it to my blog in over the next few days.

regardless, i enjoyed my third max and cant wait to be at the next, and from what i hear, its going to be somewhere on the west coast!!!

we had a great 1 hour meet and greet and talk about cf and blackstone this evening with the cf team. ben forta moderated this lively discussion that focused on blackstone, and the new stuff we can expect to see in the coming release.

not much that isnt already in the beta forums was discussed, a lot of emphasis is being thrown to the event gateway(s) and the ability to asynchronously call out to a cfm template, or a webservice, or a sms server or really, anything that you can get to on a server.

i kinda hope there will be some de-mystification soon with this new technology as ive heard some small grumblings about this being somewhat of a tough concept to grasp.

who knows, ill be trying to tackle an event gateway or two in the next few weeks.

today in the keynote we were clued in on a few new things coming your way...

codename:saffron
a rival to Microsofts clear type, saffron may revolutionize the way you view text on a computer.

codename:maelstrom
flash player 8 promises some GREAT new functionality that will speed things up in a MAJOR way. from what we saw today in the keynote, this new "cache as bitmap" setting makes laboriously loading and slow to move bitmaps zip across the screen in lightning speed.

throw incredibly flexible video and runtime alpha transparency flexibility and youve got one GREAT new plugin for the browser or mobile device of your choice.

much about flex and its new release 1.5 was on topic today, as well as a major focus on the RIA experience.

tonight we had a great time @ the welcome reception. we got to see some old faces, met some people we had only known online, and some new peeps that we hadnt met before.

the conference starts tomorrow and its shaping up to be a great one.

ive heard some new cool stuff about some new cool stuff, and damn i wish i could tell you :)

maybe more to come soon!

holy shit!

is all i can say.

we had a nice geek parade that went from the hilton uptown to bourbon street.

WOW!

what a trip. this place is like everything you have ever read about or ever heard about.

i vote right now for max 2k 5 to be here, new orleans.

WOW!

tomorrow, well, tuesday starts the real geek stuff, but for now, enjoy rue de bourbon!

and beads, VERY VERY VALUABLE!

Im posting my schedule because i think this is probably the best way to MAX-imize your time if your interested in getting the most out of CFMX its features, and sneak peeks @ blackstone.

Tue 08:00 AM 09:00 AM Using ColdFusion to Power Flex and Flash Applications
Tue 09:15 AM 10:15 AM The Future of ColdFusion: Blackstone
Tue 01:30 PM 03:00 PM Creating Your First Flex Application
Tue 04:00 PM 05:30 PM Structured Development, ColdFusion Done the Right Way

Non-Session (BOF) meetings Tuesday night:

• 6:30 - 7:30 Meet the ColdFusion Engineering Team
• 9:00 - 10:00 CFC Best Practices and Rap Session, moderated by the man Ray Camden

Wed 08:00 AM 09:00 AM Secure ColdFusion Applications
Wed 09:15 AM 10:15 AM Creating Flex Components
Wed 01:30 PM 02:30 PM Object Oriented ColdFusion
Wed 02:45 PM 03:45 PM Advanced ColdFusion Components and Web Services
Wed 04:00 PM 05:00 PM Blackstone Event Gateways

Non-Session (BOF) meeting Wednesday night:

• 6:30 - 7:30 Meet the Macromedia Web Team

Thu 10:15 AM 11:15 AM Java Powered ColdFusion
Thu 11:30 AM 12:30 PM ColdFusion Printing and Reporting
Thu 01:30 PM 02:30 PM Mobile SMS Applications Made Easy
Thu 02:45 PM 03:45 PM ColdFusion Performance Tips and Tricks