FlashGuru Blog

Flash extrordinaire Colin Moock will soon be heading off to visit ten cities of the world, providing a full free day of Actionscript 3 training in each one. Anybody wanting to learn how to program with Actionscript 3 from scratch should checkout the website and sign up. Colin will be coming to London, where and when is to be announced.

Aral has the lowdown on why Adobe need to change their policy on covering expenses for presenters at MAX. Controversially in the past they have not paid for speakers flights and/or accomodation for the duration of the conference, similarly the speaker support is apparently “the worst” of all related industry events.

I was hoping that things would change when Adobe took over, but at present, its not looking that way. At $1000 per ticket surely they have some spare cash lying around to cover speaker expenses

A new user group has been formed in London to bring together like minded individuals interested in the Flash Platform. The first gathering will take place on the 22nd June at Play Bar on Old Street. Come along, get some drinks down, watch the presentations and talk about all things Flash. More info at www.lfpug.com

So, a good start to the day on Tuesday, when we started our mission over to Barcelona. We caught the easybus from Baker Street in London and it was supposed to take us to London Luton. There was only me, Tink and Mogs on the bus, so we were having a drink and a chat, literally 10 minutes into the journey, the driver was cruising down the bus lanes on Finchley Road and smashed straight into a little yellow MG, crushing the left hand side and flipping it round 90 degrees.

The poor little car which was being taken for a test drive by the local garage, probably in there for a little service was most likely a write off. My laptop took a beating, but the big beauty is still working, and we were just a little shook up, but luckily nobody was hurt.

We made it to London Luton in the end, after we were put on another coach which didnt have any air-con (hot and sticky) and the rest of the journey was plain sailing. We arrived in Barcelona about 10pm, then after a quick settling into our sweet little apartment in the centre of town, we headed out to explore, naturally the beer started flowing (i dont usually drink beer) when we headed over to the ramblas for a bite to eat. We even had our own live entertainment while we were eating, which consisted of three prostitutes bitch slapping some poor guy with sticks, i guess because he didnt pay or something, classic.

Then we explored the side-streets and ended up in some local Spaniard bar for more beer. We met two American girls and a guy from Canada, guess where in Canada? Edmonton, he he… i was shocked, ive been to Edmonton for Grant Skinners wedding, and obviously Grant is pretty well known around those parts i hear. Anyways, he turned out to be a bit of a nutta, and decided that we should go to the beach at 5am and go skinny-dipping, he was straight in there, swimming away, got out and was shaking away because it was pretty cold

All in all a great night, we didnt go to bed until 8am, so slept until 4 in the afternoon. Lastnight was a great night too, it was Tink’s birthday, which ill blog about later. As for OFFF, we didnt make it to the conference today, since we didnt wake up until 6pm.

Been very busy lately, so its time for a little sun and relaxtion. Im heading over to OFFF in Barcelona to get some inspiration and soak in the spanish culture, yay to the siesta! Ill be out there for four days, then we are heading down to Alicante on Costa Blanca for a good 10 days of beach action. Ill be hanging with Tink and Aral is heading over to Barcelona now aswell i hear. If your there, say hi.

Last week i was at Mix 06 in Las Vegas. Big props/thanks to Lynda.com and Microsoft for bringing the usual suspects together to play Halo and party in Vegas. Flash has taken me to see quite a few places in the world, but Vegas is something else.

I didnt see much of the conference, after 3 weeks of late nights and flying in and out of Sydney, Hong Kong and Washington D.C i was pretty wiped out, so some serious sleeping had to be done. I did manage to keep up with the rest of the crowd in the Adobe suite (as it came to be known in the Microsoft camp) thanks mainly to a bathtub full of red bull, alot of which was consumed by me

As always it was great fun to hang out with Mike C, Mike D, Danny, Chafic, Grant, Beau, Hoss and Andries. I will of course make a more serious post about my thoughts on the new Microsoft Expression suite very shortly but for now, id like to talk about the fun that was had.
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Who’s that strange man in the background, and what’s with those dots? Dust on the lense maybe.

This is Me, Tink, Grant and Bobbi in Waxy O’ Conners fulfilling our appetite before the Adobe Launch Party. Steak for me and Bangers and mash for Grant

We arrived at the launch party at just after nine, by which time the apparently dull keynote had long been forgotten and the drinks were flowing at the free bar. The free bar being the place were us and the rest of the Flash Envoy conveniently located ourselves for the rest of the evening.

I was interested to hear from some of the other attendees that the only mention of Macromedia or Macromedia Products in the whole of the keynote was that the aquisition had closed, which is fair enough i guess considering it was a party for the launch of Adobe Production Studio which doesnt include any of the Macromedia products, but still a little strange since they invited a bunch of Flash dudes.

I felt a little out of place amongst all these presumably photoshop/after effects users and me and Grant were saying it was pretty weird going to an event and not knowing many people. The venue was a gay bar, Rich Leggett came suitably dressed with pinkish stripey shirt and all and the music was along those lines aswell for most of the night (Madonna et al), although it did pick up in the last hour or so, at which point the empty dancefloor became a pit of jeering, swaying half-cut Adobe employees and others, which was hilarious to watch from above in a drunken gaze.

The little Flash Envoy at the party consisted of in no particular order, Grant Skinner, Me, Richard Leggett, Stewart McBride (Temporarily), Aral Balkan (For a little while), Tink, Sean, Dave Williamson, Mike, Daniel Brown and some other guys from AKQA. Was nice to meet Dan and Mike with whom ive never spoken before, both top blokes.

All in all a good night, but the highlight of the night, for me was when the Flash Envoy on leaving the event decided to “borrow” the Adobe Marketing Product Boxes which were left behind on the stage and conveniently re-erect a pyramid structure outside one of the Adult Sex Shops in Soho for a group hug.

Till next time. More piccies here.