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This week I attended to the first ever Adobe MAX in Europe. It was held in beautiful Barcelona, which is a reason on its won to visit MAX of course. I was joined by two of my co-workers at Lost Boys, we had a great time attenting to the various sessions. The two things that are still on top of my mind now that I’m back in The Netherlands, are AIR and Thermo.

Regarding AIR, I have to say I underestimated the technology upon hearing about it for the first time. When it was first announced, I got some rather unpleasant Macromedia Central flashbacks, but after seeing the various demos and playing around with it for myself, I’m convinced that AIR may have a bright future ahead. Sure, the runtime still measures 10 megabytes at the moment, but Adobe has been smart about the way that install can be triggered; through the (browser embedded) Flash Player (from version 6.0.65 and up). Also, the ability to drag files/links/data/etc to and from(!) an AIR application has great potential. Especially the mixing of desktop applications and online services and websites offers some very interesting perspectives. You can download the beta version AIR from the Adobe Labs site.

The other application that really stood out goes by the codename of Thermo. Thermo allows designers to quickly trow together a clickable demo of their artwork. After importing for example a Photoshop file, it is relatively easy to convert parts of the design into functional components that actually respond to user input. What’s more, an application or demo created in Thermo can be loaded into Flex Builder, as Thermo generates Flex code. Then, a developer can further improve upon the elements the designer already put together. This may allow for a much smoother workflow, although Thermo has often been perceived as a demo-creation app, not as a collaboration tool. Adobe though targets Thermo as an app that would actually allow the designer to create an initial setup of an application, which is then finished by a developer. I’m not sure if this is really going to happen, but Thermo is most definitely a very interesting technology to watch closely. More about Thermo on Adobe Labs.

Apart from these two highlights, MAX 2007 has been great. As always, Natzke’s presentation was fabulously inspiring and I also very much enjoyed the sneak previews on some of the new technologies like seam carving that Adobe is working on. If you didn’t make it this year, make sure to attend next time there’s a MAX event near you!

Last week, the first meeting of the revamped Dutch Macromedia Usergroup, to be called Adobe Usergroup from now on, was held in Amsterdam. Topics were Flash CS3 integration (with other CS3 software like Illustrator and Photoshop) by yours truly, PaperVision 3D by Ralph Hauwert and Photoshop and 3D by Niels de Keizer.

A lot of people dropped by to attend to the sessions, so we had a great afternoon and good conversations. After the presentations, we had dinner and in the end we were kicked out of the restaurant at 1:00 AM. So I think it is safe to say the first meeting was a great success.

We (the usergroup management) want to broaden the audience for the AUG to not only include Flash and Flex developers as we did traditionally, but also organise sessions for designers, motion graphic designers and professionals from user experience and interaction disciplines.

We are also looking at inviting some of the Big Names to come over to Amsterdam and show of their work and ideas.

So, if you live in the Netherlands, keep an eye on the website and make sure you pay us a visit at the next meeting!

As I am one of the Dutch Macromedia Adobe Usergroup managers, I received a letter from Adode (in pdf, of course! that goes into some detail about the recent acquisition of Macromedia and how that relates to the community.

There is some explanation about the new positions some of Macromedia key figures now have at Adobe and how Adobe is looking forward to continue working with the community.

The letter doesn’t say anything about the open source movement specifically though, which is a bit of a pity. On the other hand, it takes a lot of work to successfully complete a merger of this magnitude I guess, so we will just have to be patient.

Read the Adobe Community Letter.