DuroMedia

This years Adobe MAX Conference will be held in San Francisco from November 16th to the 19th. With it less than a week away, lets just say I'm getting pretty stoked. This will be my first time attending MAX, and my first time attending any webdev conference period.

Why Should I Care?

Well, you shouldn't really. I'm probably the most excited about the whole thing. I understand if you're not. However, I will be blogging from the event. So for those who can't attend, hopefully I can share some of the goodness.

What Kind of Goodness Can We Expect?

I've setup a loose schedule of sessions and labs that I will be attending. He's some of what I will be covering on my adventure:

• Advanced ActionScript APIs
  • How to craft ActionScript libraries using sophisticated and advanced techniques. Use custom metadata to make your code easier to read and provide greater code reuse. Learn how to harness the power of the Proxy class to give subclasses an easier way to access data.
• The Holistic Design Process for Interactive Agencies
  • Examine what it takes to produce rich interactive experiences from business development through deployment. Learn how to repurpose information at each phase, including creation of templates and documentation, and how to apply accrued knowledge toward the final product. See how custom-built tools can help you increase efficiency and reduce mistakes. Discover how R&D, preparation, and organization can improve the quality of your product.
• Adobe AIR Core Concepts for Developers Who Use Flash
  • Building applications for Adobe AIR using Flash Professional. This session will focus on the core concepts of Adobe AIR development, including basic application structure, creating custom chrome, leveraging local resources, and application deployment. Special consideration will be given to leveraging features in Flash Player 10 (now in public beta on Adobe Labs) and integrating with HTML.
• Developer Best Practices with Flex
  • How Flex developers can benefit from using Thermo, Adobe's upcoming interactive authoring tool for designers (first previewed at MAX 2007). We'll discuss how Thermo can help Flex developers build and extend user interface components for designers to integrate with Creative Suite to create visually compelling RIA experiences. This session will cover best practices, coding conventions, and processes to maximize collaborative workflows with designers for Flex development.
• Designing and Building Web Experiences in Flash CS4 Professional
  • This session will discuss in depth some of the expressive design and animation features of Flash CS4 Professional that give designers and developers amazing new capabilities to create compelling web experiences. Learn how to integrate 3D and video authoring into Flash CS4 Professional workflows and how to combine your content with other tools in Creative Suite 4.
• Developing Rich Applications with jQuery and Adobe AIR
  • Learn from Ed Finkler, an expert on the jQuery library, how to build a desktop application with Adobe AIR and jQuery. jQuery is a fast, concise JavaScript library that simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages. jQuery is typically used inside a web browser, but it's now possible to use the library to build rich desktop applications.
• Encoding Video for the Highest Quality and Performance
  • Make video look the best it can. Get a deep understanding of optimizing H.264 and VP6-S for the highest quality and smoothest delivery experience. Learn how to tweak the encoder for maximum quality in Flash Player and Adobe AIR. The session will focus on understanding the H.264 codec and how you can deploy a larger frame size using new multibitrate technology. This is a great companion to the session on multibitrate video.
• Wireframing Experiences and Applications
  • Learn how to use Adobe Thermo (first previewed at MAX 2007) to build user interface wireframes for interactive experiences and applications — before creating visual designs or writing code. Iterate and collaborate with designers and developers, and communicate your ideas by incorporating interactivity and animation directly into your wireframes.
• Flex Framework Features to Support Large Applications
  • Learn how to leverage the Flex framework to build large applications. You'll learn about features like modules, as well as find out how to set up an application topology that supports using different versions of Flex and serving content from multiple domains.
• Flex in the City: A Single Developer's Diary
  • Great ways to incrementally adopt Flex into the dynamic web applications you build today with ColdFusion, PHP, Ruby, or other server technologies. In this session you'll learn how to start using Flex without needing to throw out your existing web app and start from scratch.
• Making Money with Adobe AIR
  • Adobe AIR is a groundbreaking technology that allows RIA developers to leverage their existing skills and code libraries to create cross-platform content for the desktop. This session will focus on evaluating ways to generate revenue from the technology. Specifically, it will examine the business potential of Adobe AIR from the perspective of an RIA developer. We will explore a variety of opportunities, discuss how to promote AIR to customers, and identify related technical and business challenges.

That's a Whole Lot of Goodness

You got that right. :) This years conference filled up fast, and some of the more popular labs were sold out before I got my ticket. Even with that, I think that I'm going to learn a lot in three days.

San Fran here I come!