Andrew Shorten @ Adobe

Adobe, together with a number of our partners across Europe, are running a series of half-day workshops to help you get up to speed with building applications using ColdFusion 8.

In addition to getting a general overview of what’s new in the latest version of ColdFusion, there will be more in-depth sessions on building ColdFusion-powered Rich Internet Applications with Flex, using ColdFusion to create AJAX-based web applications & PDF documents and using the ColdFusion Server Monitor to fine-tune applications for high performance.

The dates/locations confirmed already are as follows – download the linked PDF document for more information and for the registration form:

• Cologne, January 20th – Register
• Amsterdam, January 22nd – Register
• Brussels (NL), January 27th – Register
• Brussels (FR), January 28th – Register
• Paris, February 3rd – Register
• London, February 5th – Register

The team is working on additional dates for Barcelona, Zurich, Milan and Stockholm – I’ll update this post with additional details when they are confirmed…

With MAX 2008 in San Francisco over, focus now shifts to the companion event happening in Milan at the beginning of December.

Just as there are new, Europe-only, sessions at MAX in Milan, there are also a set of Europe-only MAX awards up for grabs at the conference. Voting for the awards is now open, so if you get five minutes, take a look at the Finalist Gallery and vote for your favourites. Winners will be announced before the Sneak Peak session at MAX in Milan.

At the LFUG meet-up last week it was clear that not everyone was 100% sure about what goes on at MAX and why they should go, especially given the current economic situation. So, here is your 5 minute guide to what’s happening at MAX, who’s going from the UK and how YOU can go for less…

What is MAX?

From wikipedia… “Adobe MAX is a large annual event held by Adobe in North America, Europe and Japan. The purpose of the event to provide unique opportunities for those in the computer design and development industries to connect and learn the latest cutting-edge technologies that Adobe releases.”

This year’s European event is taking place December 1st – 3rd in Milan, Italy. If you’re interested in Adobe’s technology roadmap, new product announcements or want to learn more about the Flash Platform and Flex through hands-on labs and over 50 Flex developer sessions then MAX Europe is for you. Use the session browser to explore all the sessions at MAX.

Who is going to MAX Europe from the UK?

This year, there are a host of speakers travelling from the UK to speak at MAX, alongside Adobe product managers, evangelists and designers & developers from all around the world. Here are some of the sessions from UK speakers:

• James Whittaker (RefreshingApps.com), “Perfecting the user experience in Adobe AIR”
• Samuel Williams (LBi), “Building Flex applications with PureMVC”
• Neil Middleton (Monochrome), “Structuring your development team and getting the work done”
• Mike Jones (FlashGen), “Debugging and profiling with Flex Builder”
• Rob Bateman (Away3D), “Finding Away3D”
• Stefan Richter (FlashComGuru), “Building collaborative applications with Flash Media Server”
• Carlos Ulloa (Papervision3D), “Advanced Papervision3D”-
• Rick Williams (AKQA), “Anatomy of a seriously sophisticated AIR application”
• Dom O’Brien (Glue London), “Interactive Video Campaigns”

We’re planning to hold a get together dinner on Sunday night in Milan, in conjunction with the LFUG, for all attendees travelling from the UK – come and network with UK Flex developers before the event starts, pick up your exclusive MAX T-Shirt and plan out your agenda for the conference. There is a rumour that Adobe are sponsoring some drinks

How do I justify the cost?

In the current economic climate, it can be challenging to justify the cost attending conferences – if you do need to sell it to your boss, then I think MAX is better positioned as 3 days of intensive training; in which case, at around £400 (book using discount code UKI816) it’s pretty good value. Travelling to MAX in Milan from the UK doesn’t need to be expensive – I’ve listed some low cost options for flights and hotels below; and you could always consider room sharing to reduce the cost further… why not post over on the LFUG forums for a room mate?

EasyJet have return Gatwick<->Milan flights from around £50.
BA have return Heathrow<->Milan flights from around £100.
Hotels – there are hotels on Expedia from around £45 a night staying near the Central Station. A map of recommended hotels is available here.

Why else should I go?

Well, keep an eye on Ryan Stewart’s blog for another BIG reason to attend MAX Europe…

Following my post about UK speakers at MAX Europe, one additional session has now been confirmed – Dom O’Brien from Glue London will be speaking about Interactive Video Campaigns; one of the campaigns that Dom and the team worked on was Desktop Keeley for The Sun newspaper. So, if you want to know how they made Keeley come to life in an AIR application this session is for you. The full session description is below:

“We’ll take you through the whole process showcasing our latest work for brands such as Bacardi, The Sun newspaper, The Royal Navy and Royal Marines, Philips and Virgin Money. From idea creation; to channel planning; to doing the shoot; to post production; to building the application. We’ll aim for you to leave with a better understanding of what’s involved and what to think about when approaching campaign work.”

You can register for MAX Europe in Milan here.

We’re gearing up for MAX Europe which is happening December 1st – 3rd in Milan and I’m pleased to say that we’ve got some great speakers travelling (under their own steam ) from the UK to Italy to present at the conference.

The MAX Europe session finder is not quite up to date yet, so here’s a list of the UK speakers and their sessions, each of which is exclusive to the European version of MAX 2008…

• James Whittaker (RefreshingApps.com), “Perfecting the user experience in Adobe AIR”
• Samuel Williams (LBi), “Building Flex applications with PureMVC”
• Neil Middleton (Monochrome), “Structuring your development team and getting the work done”
• Mike Jones (FlashGen), “Debugging and profiling with Flex Builder”
• Rob Bateman (Away3D), “Finding Away3D”
• Stefan Richter (FlashComGuru), “Building collaborative applications with Flash Media Server” 
• Carlos Ulloa (Papervision3D), “Advanced Papervision3D”
• Andy Hood (AKQA), “Anatomy of a seriously sophisticated AIR application”

With all these great sessions confirmed, alongside other speakers from across Europe, including Marco Casario, Nicolas Leirmann & Mario Klingermann, and of course, presentations from Adobe Evangelists, Product Managers and Engineers, it should be even bigger and better than last year’s event in Barcelona.

MAX Europe early-bird pricing has been extended until 19th October, so a full conference pass currently costs 720 Euros (inc VAT). Flights from London to Milan with Easyjet are currently around £50 return, including taxes.