Should be a good time. If you are in St. Louis and have any interest in Flash, Flex, or Catalyst think about coming.

Tickets still available.

www.flashcampstlouis.com

The main focus of this three day convention was the presentations and sessions on a variety of topics such as pixel manipulation, animation, programing design patterns, accessibility, broadcast media, sound, and video. What comes to mind are all of the tasty tidbits of knowledge smoothly gulped down like a frosty IPA.

Day one started out with a series of workshops. My workshop of choice was Papervision 3D presented by John Grden and Andy Zupko. The first half with John was a great overview of basics. The next half included the advanced and new features of PV3D. John and Andy kept a steady pace making sure that the attendees were involved throughout in the session. I was most impressed with the new amazing features of layers and effects. Keep in mind that this was only a day workshop that is covered in two days.
Good job guys.

The next two days consisted of breakout sessions and keynote presentations. Unfortunately
I could not attend all of these presentations. From what I've heard from the attendees,
everyone was pleased with the content presented throughout the conference.

Briefly... I will go though some of the session I did attend:

• Building Social applications with Christophe Conraets was great eye opener to projects you can do with Actionscript API for Facebook and Adobe Flash Collaboration Service (formerly named "Cocomo"):.
• Joa Ebert presented some great tools (including Hobnox Open Source) and development disciplines.
• Every time I attend a session related to Big Spaceship, I'm always entertained as well has inspired. Jamie Kosoy gave us a backstage look at the process of Big Spaceship... Very cool. From Ten fundamentals of the process, my favorite was number 6: Buy the developer Whiskey! … indeed … (Make mine Bushmills, Sam).
• Dr. Woohow gave an exceptional presentation of mixing it up with applications to create
  some amazing visual landscapes.
• Doug Marttilla attempted to go through ten design patterns within an hour and succeeded. By presenting his own insight into each pattern, he gave an overall good presentation. You rock!
• Who couldn't learn a thing or two about video production from a guy like Robert Reinhardt, A true innovator. It was a power packed session. He's got a really great project coming up - VideoRX.

The bigger presentations at the Castle were outstanding even with a ruckus beer festival going on. Grant Skinner… Mark Anders… Andre Michelle... Gmunk... Keith Peters… Chuck Freedman … Mario Klingerman and of course Hoss Gifford. (I may have missed a few presentations... my apologies)

Of course... there were the parties and beer tastings at the end of each day at The Castle.
This was challenging place to incorporate speakers on stage with the combination of socializing,
beer and food. Unlike most of the conferences there was better chance to meet and talk to more people in this forum. Maybe it was added element of beer. It all seemed to work out well. I don't
think anyone was thrown out for rude behavior ... (Todd ?).

Favorite events: (Day 2) The Flash is Right with Host Philip Kerman and (Day 3) Toussaint and the China Band

The convergence of learning, drinking, and hobnobbing for three days was a success for the organizers and partners. All who attended were treated to the best talent, not to mention some
great micro-beers. Special shout out to the Park Plaza Hotel- great venue.

Having gone to a few out of town conferences on Flash, design and development, I was happy
and proud that this one was held in my own backyard, Boston.

Cheers!

Joey Lott (author and co-founder/partner at The Morphic Group) has embarked on a cross-country lecture series.

Joey will be speaking to hundreds of developers across the nation on best practices in Flex, Flash and AIR development. As well as teaching, Joey will also be spreading the word on career opportunities at The Morphic Group. 

Here is Joey's tour schedule:

Detroit - September 23

St. Louis - October 4 - AS3 Apex in St. Louis
Presenting Flex, Actionscript, and Flash. Space is limited so please RSVP.

Cleveland - October 9 - Cleveland Flex User's Group
Presenting Flex, Actionscript, and Flash.

Harrisburg - October 10 - Central PA Adobe User Group & Central PA Flash User Group
Presenting "How To Architect Flex Applications."

Philadelphia - October 22 - Philadelphia Flex User Group
Presenting Flex, Actionscript, and Flash.

Raleigh - October 25 - More information to come.

Lafayette - November 3 - Acadiana Adobe User Group
Joey Lott, author of the upcoming O'Reilly book Programming Flex 3 will speak on "How to Architect Flex Applications," as well as answer questions! Join us to welcome this noted Flex author to Acadiana!

Austin - November 5 - Austin CFUG
Joey Lott is internationally recognized as one of the pre-eminent authorities on Adobe Flash technologies. A best-selling author and frequent speaker at industry conferences, Joey strives to inform, engage, and empower his audience.

Tucson - November 10 - Tuson Adobe User Group
3pm at the Arizona State Museum

How To Architect Flex Applications:
When building Flex applications the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You may know how to work with the pieces of Flex (layout, styling components, data components, etc.) but it's still rather easy to get tangled up and frustrated when trying to stitch the piece together into a coherent application. In this presentation we'll look at strategies you can use to build Flex applications in the best way possible. Rather than presenting one boiler plate solution as the "right way" this presentation looks at the bigger picture and common patterns you can employ.

Phoenix - November 10 - GoToAndStop.org
We have the great opportunity to hear from Joey Lott on November 10, 2008 @ 8 PM. This will be our last meeting of the year due to the holidays and isn’t on our normal meeting date because of Joey’s travel plans. He’ll be in Tucson on the 10th presenting earlier that day and will make it here at 8 PM to speak.

Las Vegas - November 13 - VegasFlex
We will be having an extra super special event with Joey Lott (yes, THE Joey Lott) giving a presentation on How to Architect Flex Applications.

Santa Rosa - November 24 - http://nbaug.com/
Joey Lott will be presenting on a variety of Flash-related topics. Joey works with ActionScript during the day, and by night he's a super-secret international man of mystery, rescuing animals and children from harms way, righting wrongs, working for global peace and the rights of all living beings and the environment. Joey is the author (or co-author) of a veritable arsenal of ActionScript and Flash-related titles, including the ActionScript Cookbook, Programming Flash Communication Server, and the Flash 8 Cookbook. In his free time he likes to write poetry, pursue competitive origami, and train in the art of aikido

Salt Lake City - December 2 - More information to come.

Seattle - December 8  - http://www.seaflexug.org
Joey will be speaking to the Seattle Flex User Group on December 8^th at 6:30pm at the Adobe campus in Seattle.  He’ll discuss deep linking in Flex applications.  The Seattle Flex User Group meets monthly to hear from distinguished Flex developers and network with one another.  Past presenters have included members of the Flex engineering team, inventors of technologies built around Flex, and businesses whose services are built with Flex to name a few.  The meetings are open to all who are interested, regardless of experience.

> For additional information click here