Flash on the Beach Miami Cancelled

January 15, 2009 at 2:51 pm · Filed under Conferences, Flash on the Beach

I thought I would post a quick note here since I mention Flash on the Beach often -- it was announced today that Flash on the Beach Miami will be cancelled this year. An email sent out to those who had purchased passes included the following statement:

It is with huge regret that we have taken the decision to cancel FOTB Miami. Our intention was to bring FOTB with its awesome speaker line up, fantastic networking opportunities and of course terrific FOTB vibe to the USA, but low registration numbers have meant that we would not be able to deliver the high calibre event that Flash on the Beach has become well known for.

Looks like even conferences are having problems with the down economy, which in reality, makes sense. I was excited about the conference coming to the States, so I am obviously disappointed to hear the news.

One thing did pick up my spirits a bit, however: John Davey decided to not only refund everyone's registration fees, but also provided a free pass to FOTB Brighton 2009.

Looks like I will be going to Brighton this year, after all!

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FOTB Miami passes only $99 for the next 48 hours

January 12, 2009 at 9:31 am · Filed under Conferences, Flash on the Beach

For the next 48 hours you can get a full three day conference pass for Flash On The Beach Miami for only $99 (as opposed to the regular cost of $359)!

When you purchase your ticket use promo code RSKNUTS1 and you'll get the discounted price. I bought my tickets at the "super early bird" discounted price and paid more than this - so $99 is truly a great deal.

Note that this promotion only lasts 48 hours and is ending at midnight PST on Wednesday 14th January.

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Lee Brimelow Speaking at January FlashPDX Meeting

January 11, 2009 at 4:42 pm · Filed under Adobe, Flash

Lee Brimelow, Platform Evangelist at Adobe, will be speaking at the Portland Flash user group (FlashPDX) at the January meeting on Thursday, Jan 15 at 6:30pm.

Here is the description from the FlashPDX blog:

Join Lee Brimelow as he describes the recent changes and additions to the Flash Platform. New tools like Flash Catalyst along with major updates to Flash authoring, Flash Player, and Flex means a lot of new things to stay on top of. This informal session will allow you to get answers to your questions directly from Adobe.

I have seen Lee speak several times at various conferences, and it is always both informative and entertaining. If we're lucky he may even include some MMA action between his slides...

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SWX v2 beta Released, Public Gateway Updated

December 20, 2008 at 6:38 pm · Filed under Actionscript 2, Actionscript 3, Flash, Flex, Open Source Flash, PHP, Remoting, SWX

I have just pushed SWX v2 beta live on the project's Google Code page!

Along with this release the public gateway has also been updated to use SWX PHP v2 beta and allow for AS3 support. You can find documentation here, which shows how to use the new AS3 API as well as provides an introduction to the new Simple Call and Custom Call methods of interacting with your SWX gateway.

Lastly, Folkert Hielema has contributed an updated Twitter service and a new Identi.ca service. Both of these services are live on the public gateway (you can test them in the Service Explorer) and also available in the SWX PHP download available on the Google Code page under "Featured Downloads".

I will continue to work on updating the SWX blog with new documentation, but until then please refer to this documentation - it should provide you with everything you need to get started with v2.

If you notice any issues, please log them here. For support or to discuss the new release, please use the project's mailing list.

This release has been a huge effort by the SWX development team, and has been in the works since September. I'm sure you'll enjoy using it as much as we've enjoyed coding it.

Can't wait to see what you build!

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Flash and Flex Conference Price Comparison, 2009 Edition

December 18, 2008 at 4:48 pm · Filed under Adobe, Conferences, FITC, Flash, Flash on the Beach, FlashForward Conference, Flex

As the New Year is upon us and we start to budget for conferences in 2009, it is time for the annual Flash conference price comparison post. This year the comparison is a little more in depth because it has more significance with the world's (and especially US) economy hitting some hard times. As a refresher, you can see my posts on this subject from 2007 and 2008.

I was prompted to start looking at conference prices for 2009 when I heard that Flash On The Beach Miami's Super Early Bird pricing has been extended through Christmas. John Davey, the conference organizer, sent me a short email stating, "I think everyone is worried about the economy, and although it is worrying me too, I think a show of 'giving back' will be appreciated." I agree, John. And, thanks!

So, without further delay, here is a breakdown of pricing comparing some of the 'major' Flash/Flex conferences:

When looking at the table, you'll no doubt notice a few things right off. First, FlashForward continues to be the most expensive conference of the bunch at about a whopping 50% more expensive than FOTB or 306|Flex for the standard ticket price. I should mention that FlashForward has not posted their prices for 2009 and the table includes their 2008 pricing. Since the conference just changed hands last year (it was purchased by Beau Ambur of Metaliq) and they dropped the prices at that time, it is most likely safe to assume that they will keep the prices as-is this year.

Another item to consider is that with a new edition to be held in Miami, Flash on the Beach no longer requires international travel. My prior comparisons all had to take into account a flight to London and the very lopsided exchange rate for US Dollar to British Pound. With that no longer being necessary, FOTB is now even a better bargin for those of us in the States. Especially when you realize that all of the headlining speakers from the Brighton edition have also committed to speaking in Miami.

360|Flex has always had some of the lowest prices for a conference. They started out with all tickets priced at $360, but had since risen the price to $480. For their next conference they are taking a new approach of tiered pricing. As you can see above, the first 100 tickets are at the old $360 rate, the next 200 are at the standard $480 rate, and the last are at a premium rate of $550 (which is still about half of the cost of FlashForward).

Of course there is always the extra costs that go along with conferences like flight and hotel. Those certainly add to the cost, but for the most part are the same across the board (except in the case of international travel and/or exchange rates as mentioned previously), so I don't take those into consideration here.

What are your thoughts on the price of conferences in 2009? Am I missing any conferences that you would like to see added?

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SWFAddress 2.2 Released

December 18, 2008 at 10:37 am · Filed under Actionscript 2, Actionscript 3, Flash, Flex, Open Source Flash, SWFAddress

Rostislav has announced the release of SWFAddress 2.2 this morning, with a large number of enhancements and bug fixes:

• Refactored JavaScript implementation
• New SWFAddress.swc AS3 component
• New CS4 based Splash screen sample
• New Digg API sample
• New up() method for easier deep linking path navigation
• New XSS protection that doesn't affect special characters
• Support for Internet Explorer 8
• Support for custom HTTP status messages in the SEO sample
• Improved title handling
• Improved unload event handling for IE
• Updated Rails sample
• Fixed getBaseURL() for AS3
• Fixed Safari 2.0-2.0.3 support
• Build-in fix for the Firefox 3/Mac OSX blinking effect
• Additional onLoad fix for application/xml content type
• Fixed optional options parameter for the popup method
• Cross platform build script
• Various optimizations

This looks to be a major release, and took over seven months of development. I remember speaking to Rostislav about this release back at FOTB 2008 Brighton, so he truly has put in a lot of effort. Here's hoping it gets wrapped into the expected new Gaia release.

The new version is available for download here.

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