this is portable

It seems a bit weird to be reviewing another conference already. I’ve been to two now in the last couple months after a long stretch of not going to any at all.

This time around, I went to FITC Chicago with Ben, Wayne and Joe and we definitely had a good time. The social highlight for us was getting to meet the FlashEff guys in person. If you want to hear us talk about it all, check out the PittMFUG podcast ep. 21.

How about I talk about the sessions…

PV3D Workshop,  Ralph Hauwert

This was the first time I’ve had a chance to make it up early enough to attend a workshop before the actual conference started. The Papervision3D workshop was definitely a good choice. I was a little worried when I heard we’d be working with Flex Builder most of the afternoon since I had next to no experience with that tool.  but, Ralph did an awesome job coaching us Flex Bulider noobs through the basics.

The workshop was pretty intense, as Ralph was trying to fit almost two days worth of content into a one day session. But it was a great jumpstart into using Papervision. I definitely got a solid understanding of the basics which will make playing around with Papervision much more fun for me.

I’d highly recommend attending a Papervision3D workshop if you considering it.Just make sure you’re comfortable with AS3 if you haven’t already, as Papervision3D 2.0 is all AS3 all the time.

Session Highlights

A.viary.com - Avi Muchnick

I’ve checked out a couple of the aviary apps here and there and I thought they were cool, but I didn’t fully appreciate them until this session. Avi talked a bit about what goes into building the A.viary apps and some of the thought process behind them. The things they are doing with these apps are truly amazing.

Orchid - Samuel Agesilas

Sam has to be one of the best presenters I’ve seen in a while. He was absolutely hilarious and completely informative all at the same time.  Orchid is a UI framework for AS3 that makes some of the more cumbersome aspects of AS3 easier to work with.  What kind of things? Things like setting up listeners and skinning components without needing to use CSS or AS3.

Adaptable Interfaces - Jon Ruppel

This was probably my favourite session for the day.  Jon showed some great prototypes of interactions that were amazingly flexible and organic.  He also showed some client work done by schematic, including some pieces that didn’t make the cut.  It’s always cool to see things like that.

If you’re you’re wondering what the heck an “adaptable interface” is,  schematic’s web site is a great example.

Beyond the Knowledge: The Art of Playing - Erik Natzke

Yeah, this was the second time I saw this presentation by Natzke. But who cares, his work is gorgeous. The fact that the presentation was a little different than last time was cool, too.  If you haven’t seen his work,  check out natzke.com and be impressed.

So, overall Chicago was a good time.  It was like a calmer verion of the Toronto  FITCs I’ve gotten used to.