Having spent the day in Micro$ofts tech ed conference having the M$ products pushed at you I felt a little like I had been to an Amway meeting. Mind you what did I expect it is the "microsoft" tech ed. Saw Vista in action in all its Beta1 glory and if it does all its sposed to I think Microsoft may have secured its OS market for the next few years. Security is really getting the going over in the OS.

This is something Macromedia have really tightened up on in the next release of the player and I wonder if anything was influencing this.

The biggest new for me really was the talks on "INDIGO". 

 Indigo is microsofts all in one answer to remoting, webserives, ajax etc. Basicallly they are building something of a bable fish for .Net to tie into many systems and data layers. I have just downloaded the beta and along with the supplied beta of VS 2005 I will have a little look into the possibility of writing a serialiser for flash comunication. Note only the possiblility….not actually do it. I have had a few issues with flash webservics and .Nets complex data strctures in webservices so Indigo might provide the answer for this.

 I personally think it would be a really good idea for Macromedia (no wait macrobe) to open up a bit of an SDK for the boys and girls on the Idigo team to create a translator for .Net. I realise this is what comunication server is for but in my eyes many enterprise level customers arent going to go for another server technology. And something like this could really open up the RIA market and give flash exposure to many enterprise customers. Because I cant tell you how many M$ data grids I have just torn my hair out over and whished I could just make them in flash. So much of the data displayed in .Net is just so boring ….flash could prove to be a big hit.

 Competing against CF could be a problem, but I dont so much see it as competition but more opening up access to other customers. CF has its place, and I cant really comment because I have really been down that track.

Finally  I cant wait to see where old bill takes vista, but Im glad to see that my company isnt the only one with sales people controling the naming of certain features. *remembers the incedent of hot folders becoming Service bureus WTF!!! Now all the new M$ features have new names and even the developers admit they dont understand them fully.

Just got home from registering from tech-ed. The New Zealand Microsoft whoo-haa. Got the obligatory free laptop/stuff bag full of software etc. Problem is it doesnt have the ability to hold the Pig (my new lappy). Surely there is a XL range  for the well endowd laptops out there.  See:

So I am offering a trade. If anyone has a Timbukto red flash satchel they could swap it for this limited edition geeky looking Microsoft one. Bit disapointed there.
Anyway the next three days will be spent listening to microsoft people talk about microsoft products and filtering through all the cr*p to find the usefull information. Hopefull they bring out Vista/Longhorn in the keynote and I will inturn bring out the mobile and take a few quick snaps.

But seriously if Mike Chambers finds his way to this blog and takes pitty on me being stuck with a nasty bag and dares me to take the red flash satchel into the sparkle keynote (sparkle is Micro$ofts answer to flash) Im up for a challenge. Ill even wear my ipod in listening to Ogg encoded mp3’s hehehe.

Things seem to be abit quite on the flash fron this last week. Everyone must be hidden away playing making flash8 swfs.

The Kiwis played the Safa’s (South Africans) in the tri nations rugby lastnight and once again it came down to a real nail bitter, but the boys in black (New Zealand) won…..just! The also showed off the new haka. Im now wondering if everyone knows what the haka is? Do you…..comment below. Any way it was really fierce but somehow lacked that feeling of nostalga.

Anyway Im not at the conference all day for the next three days so if I can slip away for a while I hope to do a blog posting about what it is I actually do for right hemisphere and what we do as a company. And how Im slowly turning them to flash ….like I did my last work place (for RIA’s)

Yep the blogs are out Google is taking Msn and Yahoo head on, with its new chat software. But wait theres more! free voice much like Skype. Have just contacted Wes from Gush who has checked and yes Gush supports Google chat. Gush has the coolest UI and rss reader (see the screen shot below)

You can download Google Talk at talk.google.com. But that is only windows at the moment but Try Gush if your on either platform for the pure chat experience. Might be time someone developed a widget for http://www.konfabulator.com/  to tie into the jabber network. Anyone up for the challenge?

 It seems Google is making more and more moves in trying to take over the internet. At least they have realised not many people are willing to pay much for online services. Also Courtesy of www.flashant.org guess where whitepsp.com leads to. Wow thats a bold move from microsoft! Also type failure into google and do a search!!! Guess who comes up at number one! But wait look at number two! Now click on the number two link…….LOL  Looks like even the google developers get to put easter eggs in there spidering software.  I think its time I started putting them in my software. I wonder if Macromedia has with flash (anyone?). Mind you I think you must choose carefully after the recent one found in Grand theft auto.

Finally Sorry for the lack of flash in this post but I have been stuck in C# world for the last few weeks on a project. Following up my FDT post, man it is great. Still only a version 1 release so more to come and if they play thier cards right they could lock out Zorn from alot of Flash developers. I am only dreading the moment I have to go back to the flash IDE when my 30 Days are up (. Have to start saving but Im reluctant till I know how Zorn will pan out.

Just a quick post to point people to check out and trial the 30 day trial of FDT. I cant wait to get home from work and give it a go… This will be an interesting one to watch with Zorn (Macromedias answer) being worked on currently.

 NOTE: "The FDT can only be installed by downloading it with the Eclipse internal software installer. Just follow the installation instructions below and enjoy the comfortable way of easy installation and configuration." so if you dont have eclipse alread you may have to download the latest stable release.

I was worried there would be no trial of FDT but thank goodness they saw it in thier hearts to release with it. I shall update with my first impressions tonight. Im still putting aside some coin for Gproject (Grant Skinners Flash IDE implementation of a project panel).

UPDATE: Yep Im home now and man FDT Rocks. So much easier!! Although I have taken on board a few comments that this really only applies to the larger of projects. I also forgot how nice the Eclipse IDE is. Having been stuck in VS.NET for the past few months doing C#, it was a refreshing break which renewed a few pains about features I dont like in VS. Next week Im off to Tech ED which is a Micro$oft  roundup of new technologies. Wish there was something coming up in the Pacific about Zorn (hint hint Mike Chambers ;o) )

After only a few hours I can see the benifit FDT would have for a group of developers working on a project. Tie it in with subversion version control and you would be onto a winner. A big "NICE ON BRUVA" goes out to the dvelopers at FDT for producing a really nice product. My Next question will be how Zorn handels the pricing for its two versions and how Gproject holds up in the meantime, when I save the coin (its coming Mr Skinner!).

Yep its an affectionate name for something that reminds me of an american car. Shes Big, Ugly in a sexy curvey way, and has loads of power under the hood.

Shes a Toshiba  P30 3.3 Gig  with 1 gig ram  17 inch Wide screen  64mb ram Nividia graphics card and a 1 hour shelf life.  I like it as a protable desktop which doesnt sacrifice the power. Plus I got it cheap  second hand from Toshiba as an exrental refurbished with a 1 year warentee. Basically she hums along well.  I am pleased.