Tom doesn’t drink caffeinated drinks. I more than make up for his share of intake. We were checking out hot spots for our next 360|Flex,and stopped in for a Grande Mocha Frapaccino (My weakness). Who should be sitting there, sipping another non-caffeinated drink as well? Our pal H. Paul Robertson, speaker at upcoming 360|Flex San Jose 2008.

Tom and I take a minute to pull up a seat at his table. Paul’s already working on his presentation.

“So Paul, who should come to your session?” Tom asks, trying to get his MacBook Air to connect to Starbuck’s AT&T Wireless.

Taking a sip of his steamed milk or hot cocoa, Paul says, “The main audience is developers who have used or are planning to use the SQLite database functionality in Adobe AIR, and who care about getting the maximum performance out of their database code. The session will be more useful for developers who already have some database knowledge and experience, but you definitely won’t have to be a hard-core SQL junkie.

I’m also hoping that some developers who are at the advanced/expert level will come and participate and share their ideas. I don’t want this to be a one-speaker show — I know that I don’t know all the answers and all the best tricks, so I want to have others share their expertise too.”

“Very cool.” I say, slurping frapaccino through my straw. My MacBook Air has been on the wireless since we sat down, Tom is still fussing with his. “Why should they come?”

“To learn tips and tricks for improving database performance in Adobe AIR’s SQLite engine. To get a better understanding of how the SQLite engine works in AIR and what things can affect performance.” He looks back down at the screen, fingers flying over the keys. I think I see a few powerpoint stick figures on one slide.

“So what would you say the goal of your session is?” Tom asks as Yahoo! Maps finally starts to load for him.

“Hmmm. My answers are definitely going to start sounding redundant. My goal is to help people identify specific aspects of the AIR SQLite implementation that may negatively affect performance, and learn techniques for improving performance. I also hope that along the way attendees get a better understanding of how the database engine works, to help them be able to architect their applications better.” This time he doesn’t look up up at us, dedicated guy. He’s still got months to go until 360|Flex San Jose.

Tom asks, “What two sessions are you looking forward to most?”

Without even thinking about it or grabbing a copy of the schedule, Paul says “Ben Stucki: How to build a framework; Brad Umbaugh/RJ Owen: Diving deep with the Flex component lifecycle; Eric Ko: Implement Reflection in ActionScript; Ryan Stewart: Synchronization online and offline with AIR and LiveCycle DS; Tony Hillerson/Juan Sanchez – See the Data, Be the Data; Renaun Erickson – A Testing Approach Spanning Dev to End User”

“Cool.” Tom says, closing his laptop after getting directions to our next stop.

I start to close my machine down too, time to visit another hotspot. “What would you like to tell people about 360|Flex, if they’re on the fence about attending?”

This one gives him a bit of pause, “Hmmm. I guess the fact that I couldn’t narrow my ‘sessions I’m looking forward to’ down any smaller than 6 is a pretty good sign.”

“True dat.” Tom and I say in unison.

It’s always good to hang with our first time speakers. Tom and love meeting new folks and expanding our community one person at a time. 360|Flex San Jose 2008 will be Paul’s first time at a 360Conferences event. If we do our job right, it won’t be his last.

Wanna see Paul in action? Want to check out some of the can’t miss sessions on his list? You better register now before it’s too late.

So Tom and I were walking into In-n-Out and guess who was coming out, Christopher Keeler! Chris is doing a session at 360|Flex San Jose on High Definition Video and Flex Hands On. We sat down with him to chat over Double Double’s Animal Style with fries well done.

Tom was actually having a 5×5, so Chris and I made him sit at another table, those’re just darn messy!

“So Chris, why should folks go to your session in San Jose?” Tom asked between bites.

“You can get a hands-on experience with HD shooting, lighting, and get THE BEST encoder settings.” Chris replied, reaching for his chocolate shake. When I opened my mouth to ask who should be sitting in the chairs in his session, he added, “Anyone who is interested in producing and streaming HD video in Flex.”

I was wondering what the goal of his session was. “What are you hoping people get out of it?”

He offered, “To teach people that its not just point and shoot. There is a lot that goes into making good HD videos.”

“I do like HD” Tom said, reaching for more ketchup packets.

As Chris finished up his burger, I asked him what two sessions he was looking forward to the most (besides his, of course).

“Advanced Video Streaming (Dave Hassoun) & Data Visualizations(Tom Gonzalez)” was his reply as he stacked his stray. Standing up, he added,”Tell anyone sitting on the fence about 360|Flex San Jose this: If you’re into Flex (or want to get into it), then you need to be at this conference. It’s the “end all, be all” of Flex events.”

Chris has been to two other 360|Flex events, so he should know.

Wanna join Chris? Learn about ? Maybe grab a Double Double? Register now!

Tom and I were approached by EventVue, a few weeks ago. After seeing how cool it is, and how much better our attendee experience can be, we were sold!

So what’s it do? Well it slices bread, toasts it, makes pies (not cakes), and combs your hair.

ACTUALLY!

EventVue ties in with our other partner, Eventbrite to create a user account when you register for 360|Flex. From there you’ll be able to: Create an attendee profile that links in your blog, twitter, etc. You’ll be able to set tags that apply to you, that other people will be able to search (location, interests, etc.). You’ll be able to search for other attendees from your city. You’ll be able to record a small video introduction of yourself, that we’ll be showing throughout the conference.

The main goal and benefit of EventVue is to enable you attendees to connect more. You’ll be able to connect with each other before, during and after a conference. You won’t be spammed by recruiters or people selling something. It’ll be a private little universe where only you attendees can connect with each other. Not registered for the show? Not allowed into the circle.

We know how hard it can be to find, let alone connect, with others at conferences. This is one of the reasons we keep ours small. However, even at our size, there’s still a need to help like-minded folks connect. eventvue will remove some of the largest barriers to you finding and connecting with others.

We’re really thrilled to take EventVue out and kick the tires with 360|Flex San Jose 2008! eventvue and eventbrite are already working behind the scenes to get this going.

If you’re going to want to be allowed into the inner circle, you better register now. Once we’re sold out, there’s no way in.