This is a sketch that iChameleon did for me at the last xmas party ... yes, of course they got it from this web site :) There's one for every associate ... it was a fun night.
Right, forgot to mention, my business card says I'm "The Rob" :) again, we all have nicknames... if you get to know me you would find out that I'm not _that_ egocentric... heh...
Due to legal and trademark issues, the formerly known JavaScript FlashOject has been renamed to SWFObject... The author said he doesn't really like this name, but he wanted to keep the 'object' part in the name.
There's a new link for the project page, so update your bookmarks.
By that way, if I didn't mention this before in previous posts, using the FlashObject or SWFObject helps to overcome the lame M$ decision in blocking all activeX content, including SWF Movies. Even if you don't use the express install features, the fact alone the it helps with SEO'ness and is not affected by M$'s latest change in IE security policies, is worth trying.
Abode announced yesterday that Flash Player 8.5 Beta, very well known by Flex Developers and Beta testers, will be the official Flash 9.0. The features of this release include the ECMAScript Edition 4-based ActionScript 3.0 language and a new ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM2), which dramatically exceeds the performance of previous players.
The performance gains are massive... i.e. in a particular example, loading a large dataset in a flash grid took 20 seconds in Flash 7, 15 seconds in Flash 8, and less than 5 seconds in Flash 8.5, or 9 ...
The new authoring tool, code named Blaze, is still no where near the door... but it is expected the Flex 2.0 builder gets its final release by the end of the first half of the year... thus you should expect it sometime in June.
Max Kiesler gathered information on 50 Ajax toolkits and frameworks and the post if getting lots of attention lately ... I know because ajaxCFC happens to be the first framework he lists and I'm getting numerous hits through his site.
My only complaint is the font size he uses, hehe, I'm looking at it in my 27' flat screen and it's HUGE! Anyways, I digress... In the same token, check out the Osaf Ajax libraries wiki page... it's not new, but contributors have done a great job pointing pros and cons of many of today's leading Ajax frameworks.
I'm back from D.C. .. wow, what a gorgeous city ... I really loved it. I spoke about Web 2.0 in front of a 150 people crowd... My setup had two laptops, one for the slides and one for live demos. The slides were projected in a huge screen, and the live demos showed in two 50' plasma screens in the sides. 
I stayed at the Dupont area, filled with restaurants... Had dinner at The Palm, a really good steakhouse in the Washington area. The trip was great, with the small exception of a 7-hour delay on my flight back ... I could not get anything done Wednesday ... The worse bit, is that I even have a Verizon Wireless card, which works EVERYWHERE, except that the Dulles airport ... I can't describe my frustration ...
The entire presentation was recorded in a Breeze format, but I have to get permission to post it... I'll keep you posted.
