So yeah that’s it. There’s three false facts. one per tweet with the hashtag #360flexfacts. First person to get each fact, gets a shirt!

Oh and feel free to join in on the fun and make your own video with 360|Flex Facts, it’s fun!!

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I’m working on the quilted chambray nightshirts copy when who should strut through the door, but Ryan Freakin’ Stewart! (Ryan doesn’t walk, or run, or skip, he struts)

RFS: You John! Good to see you, what’re you doing here!?

Me: Hey man! Just doing a little side work. Trying to figure out how wrap up some copy, the catalog goes to press tomorrow.

You excited about 360|Flex? I’m really glad you’re sponsoring, it’s always awesome when folks in the community show their support, it means a lot!

RFS: “The only friend who hasn’t betrayed you. They only friend who won’t be dead by sunrise..” What’s this copy for?

But yeah, it’s great to be able to support you guys! I still remember the first 360|Flex in San Jose, that was bad ass!

Me: So what do you think people who attend your session will be most surprised by/about?

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First the inspiring. Doug McCune and Sam Rivello rocked the house. Doug spoke about data visualization, but not in the typical, here’s how to create the latest, hottest chart/graph/heatmap but in terms of what data viz is, where it came from “The Bar Chart was Invented”

I’ve never been a data viz guy, but his talk was great. I think the group really got a lot out of it. I think enrollment in the McCune school of DataViz is open too, there’s a suggested reading list :)

Sam Talked about life… building life in code, and how the concepts of life (the 7 requirements for something to be “alive”) can be expressed in code. We’re not talking AI, more a comparitive discussion, with cute smiley faced amoeba’s to back up the talk. (You can check out his project here) It was a great talk, and another where you’re left with that “hhmmmm” look on your face.

Of course we talked tech too, and got into code!

Ryan Stewart, Greg Burch, Faisal Abid, and even Nate Beck (Not a speaker, but jumped in to present) rocked the mic and the flat screen with awesome tech talks.

Ryan and Greg rep’ed Adobe awesomely, talking about Catalyst, mobile (Slider and iPhone), Flash platform, you name it we talked about it, including some sweet stuff we had to turn the camera’s off for :)

Faisal showed us Android and talked about Android and CF playing together. He also showed us Chrome OS, which (not surprisingly) doesn’t work if you’re not online. Seeing Android truly in action, was pretty dope, I’m more impressed now than I was.

Nate stepped up on the last day to talk about the Push Button Engine, and building Flash games. Very cool stuff!

I’m working on the videos now (Waiting for more HDD space in my drobo, UPS man is on his way), we’re going to post as much of the session video as possible.

Ad of course it was a cruise!

During the time inbetween sea days, everyone spent the day hanging out, doing excursions, whatever they wanted. Most nights we all got together for drinks, sometimes dinner, and whenever possible, karaoke.

You’ll have to ask Sam about the stair case the next time you see him :)

I have to admit, the entire experience of a cruise, with awesome tech talks, great networking, and cool people, and of course, sweet destinations, and beautiful ocean, is a great way to conference. It’s certainly not gonna replace 360|Flex, but we were on the boat with a group of almost 700. That’s a lot of people in one place for the same reason, on a cruise!

Of course everyone who joined us on the boat is coming to 360|Flex San Jose Free of charge too, so it’ll be a cruise reunion :)

Don’t miss 360|Flex, you’ll regret it, I promise :) Register now!

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BUT

we’ve got an incredible replacement! Greg Burch, from the Adobe Mobile team. You know the guys working on cool things like the Flex Mobile framework, Flash and iPhone stuff.

Yeah the mobile aspect of Adobe RIA on the cruise just went through the roof!! Don’t worry, we won’t be neglecting the rest of the RIA space. How could we with the likes and Ryan Stewart! Doug McCune, Sam Rivello, and Faisal Abid

Oh and in case you haven’t checked the tentative schedule, Faisal’s gonna be talking mobile too :)

This cruise will be something you’re gonna regret missing. If the conversations in hallways at conferences like 360|Flex, CFUnited, MAX, etc are something you enjoy and geek out on, well this will be almost two weeks of 100% hallways, conversation, geeking out, with a tropical paradise as the backdrop!

Register now, time’s running out, and boat is filling up.

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Not only will you get some awesome new stuff to drool over at MAX, but you can then spend a week sailing the Caribbean with Ted Patrick, Ryan Stewart, Doug McCune, Faisal Abid, and Sam Rivello this December.

AND

get a free pass to the next 360|Flex in San Jose, the end of February!

Register for MAX now! and Register for the RIAdventure cruise We promise it’ll be the most awesome time you’ll have with nerds on a boat!!

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One thing that is obvious is that the conference is in between to major U.S. holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas.  There’s no point in trying to avoid the subject since it’s fact.  However, instead of avoiding it, we’d like to do the opposite and bring it into focus.

For many parts of the US, this summer plain sucked.  Sunshine was rare and the thought of Fall and Winter fast approaching isn’t a pleasant thought for some.  Early December isn’t going to be filled with a surprise burst of 75 F temperatures, with blue skies and waters of about the same temperature.  It’s gonna be dark and it’ll likely be cold.

We know that people work out their holiday schedules years in advance.  Alternating between one set of parents to the other is the norm.  Or always going to Aunt Bess is the way Christmas/Turkey Day is spent.  If that’s the case, by all means, go.  Don’t let us disrupt a time honored tradition.

However, what if there’s flexibility in your plans?  If you can spend some time with your significant other and maybe the kids alone, while learning about stuff that’ll make you a more valueable employee (or indie developer), why not?  The cruise when all costs are said and done is not much more costly than many other conferences.  Though, how many shows let you spend quality time with your family, enjoy an early Christmas in paradise and still learn about the nitty-gritty of the RIA space?

Only one show does: RIAdventure 360.  Therefore, we’re making the case for you to head on home and chat it over with the family.  We did.  You can even do what we did, which is ask the extended family to join us.  Send them this link so they can learn all about the cruise.  No sense in not making it a party.  This way, there’s no reason to feel bad if Aunt Bess decides not to come.  She had her chance to make up her mind.

The RIAdventure Cruise conference is gonna be like no even ever before.  It’s a concept that will evolve over the years and only get better.  The thing you have to ask yourself is do you want to be there at the start?  Or do you want to be a latecomer and hop on the bandwagon after it’s been through a few rounds?

We’re all trailblazers and we’re willing to bet you are too.  In that case, work out the plans.  Get things in order and we’ll see ya aboard, matey!  Head on over and buy your tickets now!

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We’ve added three more names to the list of speakers for the cruise. ‘Speakers’ is a bit of a misnomer in this case though. Sure each will have a session slot to present to the group, but really these are the heavy weights that attendees of the cruise will be spending 7 days with, talking about Adobe and RIAs, and even a little non Adobe awesomeness (Android anyone? and I’m sure Tom and I can weigh in on iDevice stuff if it goes there).

Alongside Ryan and Doug, we’re happy to have Sam Rivello (360|Flex alum), Faisal Abid, and …. drum roll…. Ted Patrick!

Yeah that’s right! Not only has Ted risen from the platform evangelist ashes like the phoenix, but he’ll be joining us on the cruise to talk all things, Adobe RIA. He and Ryan will be kicking the cruise off with an awesome keynote.

Check out the speaker bios over on the RIAdventure site’s speaker page!

Make sure to register early and secure your place on the boat! Register Now!

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InsideRIA and InsideMobile!

The goal of each event is twofold:

1. We want to give developers an opportunity to get down and dirty with each platform.  This way an attendee can walk away knowing which technology feels better for them.
2. We want to bring together developers in those spaces for more open ended conversations that are technology agnostic.  This way you can talk about the general problems and frustrations of the space vs the indidividual technology.

For InsideMobile, there could be a “How do I update a table view in WebOS vs Android?” session, but there will also be generic sessions, such as “How to lay out your app for a small screen size”.

InsideRIA will leverage the awesome community of the InsideRIA blog. The conference purpose is to provide a real world connecting point for Silverlight, JavaFX, Flex, etc developers.  There will be opportunities to explore the different techs, but also to discuss generic topics such as “What does Rich mean?” or “How do I design a RIA?”

Both events will be at our famous stomping ground, eBay Town Hall, birthplace of 360|Flex and 360|iDev. Each event will be 2 days: One day of pre-conference training day to get hands-on with the various techs. The second day is a multi-track event, filled with traditional speaker led sessions.

You know Tom and I, so this won’t be some weak sauce marketing event showing off “Roadmaps, future features, etc” that’s for the birds. This will be hands on and/or deep dive nitty gritty details from developers actually building in these platforms.

This is also the Call for papers! Have a mobile or RIA topic you’d like to propose? We’re very open to topic ideas!  Send us an email!

If you’ve worked with us, the format is the same:

Name

Email

Blog/twitter

Bio (with pic)

Title

Description

Track

Level (100 – 300)

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Today we’re announcing the all new, 360|Flexy Tour.  The tagline that finally won was “I gotcha custom component right ‘ere!”  Some of the other forerunners were: “PurePYT” and “360|Flexy: An Open Shirt Project”.

John and I knew that not every speaker would be prepared to go on this tour.  Therefore, after much deliberation we settled on someone who shall remain nameless.  When we approached this speaker about the tour, he had 2 things to say:

1) $#!^ yeah!  When does it start?

2) There’s gonna be drinking involved, right?

Loving this person’s enthusiasm, we wanted to get started right away.  Therefore, like all new Flex projects, we did a couple of private Beta shows.  We managed to snap a few pictures.  We’ve blurred out the innocent attendees (some of whom are still traumatized, errr…I mean are satisfied customers), but we left the speaker loud and clear.  He’s so outta his element that it’s pretty tough to recognize him.  If you want to be added to the notification list of the show or want to be a “speaker”, drop a note in the comments.

We’re looking at support from Adobe on this.  Rumor has it we may land Ryan Friggin’ Stewart as a co-headline for the tour.  And yes, he’s confirmed that the pink polo will indeed be making an appearance!

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