The conference started with James (Ward) giving an overview over the state of Adobe’s software development platform.
Adobe is in a transition, moving away from people using tools to create flash content, to people creating software on their platform. Flex has been around for about around five years and started as a way for developers to create flash content. Today that tool is a platform for software development.

There are three critical pieces in this platform:
1. Runtimes
These are the critical core technologies and the software development stack.
Web runtime, Flash player, desktop runtime, AIR and mobile runtime (yes, they are currently working on this!)
2. Tooling
Flex SDK, Flex builder/Eclipse space and many different community tools
3. Integration
How do we actually connect these client-side applications to our backend servers and services?
BlazeDS -> open source product to connect to a Java backend
LiveCycle Data Services

Seen from the SDN community perspective Adobe still plays an active part.
Andre Salazar has recently joined the community, after Mathias Zeller left to work on Genesis.
Adobe is the title-sponsor for the RIA hacker night during this year’s TechEd. (so far it is confirmed for Las Vegas)

The technical integration between SAP and Adobe continues, and worth mentioning is:

• BlazeDS/LiveCycle Data Services
• Closer integration, into the development tools we already have, for instance with the Flash islands in Web Dynpro.
• FLOB, Flex integration into BSP.
• Muse; the Flex NetWeaver Business Client. Comment from Thomas Jung: Version 1.0 is available with ERP Enhancement package 2 and higher. Version 2.0 will be used for Business by Design. Version 3.0 will take all the good version 2.0 features and bring them to the core Business Suite as well.

One of Adobe’s tasks a head is to incorporate developers, as they struggle to understand them. (they get the designers)

One of the longest discussions of the day, was the discussion about the SAP-Adobe alliance ecosystem. I covered this discussion thoroughly on SDN, hoping to get the conversation started there.

James Ward also showed us the coolness of Flex/AIR applications:
(can you imagine the effect of showing potentially new customers something like this?)

Worth mentioning is also the Conference 2.0 aspect of this event.
We were live-streaming via Ustream.tv and tweeting about it at the same time, allowing those not physically present to engage in the conversation.
We had around 15 friends watching and chatting via Ustream.tv, and another bunch following us on Twitter.

I hope this was only the first conference of many to come!

Thank you James for organizing this, thank you James for stopping by, thank you Craig for editing the footage and thank you all for the great discussions!

You can find my flickr set from the event here.

Part 1:


Part 2:

It is now possible to watch the technical sessions online here.

There are 77 videos all together, and they cover a wide range of subjects.
AJAX and JavaScript, Maps and Geo, Social applications, APIs and Tools and, finally, Mobile are all represented. What I found most interesting were the videos about Android, this introduction for instance or Inside the Android Application Framework.

Under the headline ‘Data Access’ AT&T informs:

“In order to use data such as email, Google Maps, YouTube videos and web browsing, AT&T recommends using iPhone in a 3G or EDGE Network (coverage viewer), or from a local Wi-Fi connection.”

A group of kids (elementary school) has formed a “mini-laptop-club”, where they draw their own laptops and pretend to email each other.
Their designs really blew my mind and made me start thinking about how a computer keyboard might look like in the future..

You can see the designs here.

Thanks Boing Boing.

January is coming closer, and the only good thing about that (hopefully) is the new Office 2008 for Mac. Not so much because of all the new features, but mainly because the suite finally runs natively on my Intel Macbook Pro.

But if you want to take a look at some of the new features in Office 2008, Microsoft has launched this site.

This is what you can take a look at:
• Interacting with Entourage
• Presentations & Publications
• Themes & Templates
• Elements Gallery
• Document Elements
• Publishing Layout View
• Officeart
• Smartart Graphics
• Building Charts
• My Day
• Toolbox
• Ledger Sheets

Link

Artist Billy Chasen took an iPod, blew it apart, and encased it in resin.
..and it still works!

More pictures at Gizmodo here.

T-Mobile have apparently trademarked the use of the color magenta.

I also didn’t believe it at first .. but this picture says it all:

Chris Pirillo has published his Top 100 Mac Apps list here.

It is a pretty good list, but there are a couple of programs missing..
What about Transmit, Coda, TextExpander for instance.
But still, the list is definitely a good one, and worth checking out if you think you are in “need” of some new apps..

Just a couple today ..
I was happy to see that Arstechnica is updating the roundup of Leopard-ready software. I am still waiting for my can’t-live-without-software to show up on that list, before I go out and buy myself a Leopard.

Leopard-ready software roundup (with updates)
Visit Arstechnica here.

Leopard vs. Vista: Feature chart showdown
Visit Engadget here.

Apple OS X Leopard Round Up - Day 2

Apple OS X Round Up
Gizmodo

Our unabridged Apple OS X Leopard Test Notes (24 Hours and Counting…)
Gizmodo

All About Leopard: Gallery, Apps, Impressions
Engadget