AfterHours Mega Session 2006 review
19 05 2006This years AfterHours Mega Session was brilliant as expected, some very cool and inspiring presentations — definitely not the predictable blend of topics you already see at many other events.
[update] my presentation is now available for download
Ton Frederiks from Adobe gave an introduction to After Effects, followed by myself on the history of the Flash IDE and ActionScript (will post my session notes asap).
Unfortunately missed part of Eddy Kinderman’s session on usability but the last 10 minutes were pretty cool to listen to. He gave answers to such age-old philosophical questions as why classical paintings don’t have a delete button or why french fries come in small, medium and large portions.
After lunch Serge Jespers did a session on “Flash beyond the browser” showcasing some very cool electronic gadgets running Flash Lite and ran us through building a door bell and light switch using MakingThings widgets and some ActionScript code.
Wim Vanhenden and Frederik Humblet showed the update to their TradeMart application (going from Adobe Illustrator via SVG to Flash) , this time discussing a version for PDA. Cool stuff!
Steven Verbruggen and Nicolas Lieren talked about the Bikkembergs Football project they did recently. Was great to hear they used open source tools for the job. Its quite impressive how they managed to pull it off with a FAMES setup (Eclipse, ASDT, XML Plugin, Swfmill, LuminicBox, CVSNT) using the natural entry point method to create a lightweight components based framework for the site.
Other AfterHours regulars, the Emakina guys discussed some of their recent projects for Escape TV and Electrabel. There were some technical issues but they ended up having an amusing talk. Something interesting they did for the Electrabel project was use the Flash 8 displacement map to create a realistic Quicktime VR type effect in Flash.
We ended the day with a little b’day celebration for Serge — his age is subject to a non-disclosure agreement so unfortunately can’t comment on that 
One of the other highlights of the day was of course finally meeting up with ActionScript Hero who came over especially from Paris.
Thanx for the report Peter! Sooo pitty that I couldn’t be there today:-( (especially to sing “happy birtday”
for Serge).
Thank you so much Peter..
oh i forgot..The Object Oriented Actionscript for Flash 8???T_H_A_N_K Y_O_U!!!I’m from Greece, i order it from the UK..I received it a week later..I’ll keep it in my hands for ever..AMAZING!!
Thanks..
Thanks for the kind words Savvas, glad you like the book!
Hi, great presentation peter ande thanks for the signed book (Christel gave it as a b-day gift).
Keep on flashin!
no problem Brik, hope you had a nice b’day — enjoy the book!
Hey Peter I saw your ping on Tink’s blog. Are you still in London on Thursday evening? If so why not contact me and get a chance to meet Ben Watson over some nice wine….
my bloody blog host is all screwed up so please email me if you’re interested http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/001650.html
jgovernor AT redmonk.com