I had every intention on posing everyday but as Keith mentioned internet was a tad sketchy, but really it was ok because it made me stay off my laptop. I have to say though that this was maybe the best FiTC so far. The new venue at the Hilton was great. The layout was better and everyone had more room to move about the conference even though it had the highest attendance.

Here is a break down of presentations.

Day 1

John Grden & Chris Allen’s Red5 presentation was pretty good. But man John really loves the Rush, and he can really play guitar. They showed some of the midi and recording capabilities of Red5 which are pretty cool.

Then I went and saw Hoss Gifford’s Based on a True Story. Hoss is a great speaker and a lot of fun. He’s always been hilarious when he hosts the FiTC awards and it carries over into his sessions. He talked about creating narratives for your content, and did a pretty good job of illustrating his point by creating stories for videos that where just your every day viral video. And by the end of it he had you thinking that it was true. And Hoss’s rants are always a treat. If you ever run into him ask him about his thoughts on Flashturbation.

Evan Roth’s Graffiti 9 to 5 presentation was one of my favorite sessions at the conference. I would talk more about what he showed but it’s really better to just go and experience it for yourself. Pretty much everything he showed is on his site http://graffitiresearchlab.com/

Then came the Keynote. They didn’t really show or say anything new, so if you read the blogs and have read about Apollo or CS3 then nothing was really that new. The one thing that they mentioned though is that for Flash Player 10 they are working on a profiler so you will be able to see what’s in memory, what objects are still being used, etc.

Day 2

I wasn’t feeling too hot in the morning so I missed the first couple of sessions. But I did make it to Robert Penner’s Session where he showed his new Motion features in CS3. They may not be some of the most sought after feature upgrades but I have to say they are great. I really love the copy as motion feature.

In the next set of sessions I jumped in between 2 of them.

Grant Skinner’s session on the new AS3 components was great. It was really great, as Aral put it, to hear about them from the horses mouth. I have to say creating the components is a pretty big undertaking. The biggest thing is trying to make them work for a majority of the people, which, I can only imagine, is really hard because everyone has different needs and wants different features. But I have to say I have they did a great job on them. I think they meet all of their objectives, which where, easily skinnable, extendable, and light weight.

I also jumped in on Danny Stillion from IDEO’s session. He talked about their process and showed how they prototype and wireframe their ideas so they can get to the best possible project.

Then I went to Andreas Muller’s presentation and really enjoyed it. He talked about interactive design and showed us the projects that he has been working on. He also had some of his interactive installations set up in a room at the conference. If you are interested in interactive design or installations I recomend checking out his work at http://www.nanikawa.com/

Kenny Bunch’s presentation Time Shifting Entertainment was great as well. He works with a lot of entertainment companies and showed what he is working on for them and also talked about where the industry is going. He also showed a little application that he built for the PS3.

I skipped out on John Maeda’s presentation because I was completely exhausted and he is presenting at OFFF in Barcelona in a couple of weeks, so I am planning on catching him there. But everyone who I talked to about it said it was great.

Day 3

Keith Peter’s Apollo presentation was good as well. One cool thing he said was that you can turn any Apollo app into a screensaver by renaming the file with a .scr extension.

Then I checked out the Chumby presentation. It’s going to be shipping in late June when Flash Lite 3 comes out and I am really looking forward to getting my hands on one. They talked a lot about the specs and how the system is going to work. If you don’t know what Chumby is I suggest you check out their site. I think most of what they talked about is up there.

One of my other favorite presentations was Marcos Weskamp’s session. Marcos creates some of the best data visualization pieces. His most recent work is the Wieden and Kennedy site, which is the coolest agency site out there. I had a chance to talk to him later that night which was pretty cool. If you aren’t familiar with his work you can see some of it at http://www.marumushi.com/

I got stuck out at lunch and missed Carlos Ulloa’s Papervision3D session. It was one that I was really looking forward to and kind of disappointed that I missed it.

And to wrap up the conference I sat in on Stacey Mulcahy’s AS2 to AS3 session. It was a must for any developer looking to make the switch to AS3. She hit on all the important points and had some great videos that helped lighten up the room.

Awards show

Ok this needs to be a separate post.