Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

ff05: day three wrap-up

The wifi in the hotel room died on me Friday night and was still out by the time I had to check out Saturday at noon. Yesterday was all about playing catch-up and getting ready for the week ahead, so I haven’t been able to post about the final day of the conference until now.

So … the wrap-up:

• Great session on mapping in Flash by Darren David and Mike Migurski, the guys behind Mappr, among other things. It’s a lot to wrap my head around, but hopefully once I have a chance to review some of their code, I’ll have a better idea of how to plot latitude/longitude data in Flash (and figure out some of the logic behind IndyJr).
• Michael Ninness, of lynda.com, offered a Red Bull-fueled foray through various tricks for improving your workflow from Photoshop / ImageReady to Flash. A coworker of mine had attended this session at the San Francisco conference, but it was still edifying to see his presentation in person.
• The Flash / AJAX session was interesting, but the presenters lost me when they started delving into the code behind the Flash JavaScript Integration Kit. A big part of the problem was environmental: We were all packed into a small conference room with a low ceiling, so only the folks in the first couple rows could get a clear view of the projector screen. I like the philosophy behind the Flash / AJAX idea, though: Instead of just doing everything in Flash, let Flash and basic HTML do what each are best suited for, and have them talk to each other as needed (as in this example).
• Portfolio review / inspiration sessions by Nando Costa and Geoff Lillemon, and by Erik Natzke. I’ve seen parts of Natzke’s presentation before at previous conferences, but his work is still a thrill to look at (if a bit intimidating to ponder all the math involved) and he’s definitely refined his presentation style.