Go on, you know you want to come. Head on over to http://www.fxug.org.nz/meetings.html and sort yourself out to come one down and meet some new people. Its what all the cool kids are doing.

If your not in the city/country we will be doing our best to organise a remote session so you can see some of the cool things being shown. I will also post updates after the meeting of anything to note. But really thers nothing like being there in person.

Yep not to be outdone by Nokia and their web server I took my IMate smartphone and installed a webserver on it. ON THE PHONE. And now flash lite apps can access any .net functionality that it wants like turning on the GPRS, accessing contacts, dialing numbers, sending text messages….

Its all completely hacked and I wouldn't recommend it for production, but it is pretty cool. If I really wanted I could write remote control for the phone too. So that I call webpages from my desktop and tell my phone to do stuff.

How to do it:

download and install the vxWeb web server on your phone. It runs a freaky cgi style execution which I made a simple cgi interface to .net dll assemblies. Let me know if you want the cgi interface wrapper. Against that .net interface I just place methods and classes which can be called. 

I just used a simple rest xml post using flash lites xmlsocket to call .net assemblies, and load the response.
Now this is on the phone. The flash lite displaying on my phone calls localhost (the web server on the phone) and  passes an xml structure defining what I want the .net assembly to do. The webserver calls the .net and tells it to do stuff. The .net responds and returns any data needed back (like contacts).

Whats the next step? Well I see there is a CE driver for my phidget so I might try remote controlling my phidget through my phone through my wireless network or GPRS to steer my car lol …….. all very geeky but fun.

Heres a photo of the vxWeb Server running…not much I know but it pretties the page up.

Freakin cool if its true!

Adobe Giving Away Free Flex Books?

If it is true I bet it took balls to talk management into doing this.

P.S.  

How do we do things down this end of the planet? We go hard. I even had to look up the word "piste" to check it had no reference to alcohol

Web on the piste is: "is a web technology conference with a focus on rich internet technologies. It is aimed at web developers and designers of all levels and anyone who is interested in learning about building rich internet applications and how they are revolutionizing the internet."

    – but then you take a look at day 4 5 and 6 in the agenda…Friday, Saturday, Sunday – Skiing (well snowboarding for those of us who have a little more class )

But even as a conference it stacks up to be a very impressive deal. I am now scratching together my pennies to head down there. And remember that if you are thinking of comming over from the States (80% of my readers) once your here things are really inexpensive, almost half price with the dollar) 

For more info check out David Harris's blog,  Kai's Blog in Black, or the webonthepiste.com (everytime I say it i think of the alcohol reference, is that wrong?)

I cant wait to play!!!! mind you that means it will be the 17th here for us shy kiwi's but hey,one extra day wont hurt. I have many things planned to play with and no doubt many people out there do to.

For the official scoop: check out Ryan's post ( love how he uses the word "around" the 16th just to cover his a$$ )