Yesterday Liz Frederick published the list of the 2010 “Adobe Community Professionals (ACP)”.

ACP is a rebrand of the “Adobe Community Experts” program to avoid the confusion with the Adobe Certified Experts(ACE) . I’m very glad to be part of it for the second year and I will do my best to deserve it.

Thanks again to Adobe and the Community team!

Happy New Year 2010 to my readers!

We are already the 16th January and my latest post is at least 3 month old… shame on me! After Adobe MAX conference things went crazy and I had very little time between my work and family (I have 2 kids, 2 and 6 years old and a family member is currently at the hospital), and as I’m quite active on twitter, I neglected my blogging duties - sorry

2009 was a mixed year for me: almost no time to learn other advanced techniques not related to my project, not enough time to play more with the “fun part” of the Flash Platform (Flash Platform services, 3D engines…), I missed many well known conferences [...] But let’s have a look at some positive facts:

Work

- my current project is still going on in 2010: it’s a multilingual document management, workflow and reporting system built using Flex3/ColdFusion 8/Java/Oracle.
- at least 4 projects at the European Commission are now using Flex – I’m not aware of every projects, only those where I met the team. I know that more people at the Commission have express their interest in the technology too which is a good sign for 2010.
- some big Belgian companies in transportation, telecom or media have now Flex projects ongoing, expect more to follow.
- my Adobe Community Expert status: thanks again to the wonderful team at Adobe!
- the launch of ColdFusion 9 - no, it’s not a dead technology :-)

Conferences

 I attended probably less conferences than in 2008 as I had to pay for my expenses in 2009 (another story) :-(

- Multi-Mania in Kortrijk (Belgium)
- my 1st Scotch on the Rocks in London – and made a “quick greetings” in Brussels
- my 1st Adobe MAX US in Los Angeles
- several Belgium AUG meetings

I love attending conferences, not only for the interesting topics and the well known speakers, but also for the networking part. Again last year I met several friends that I only knew from the internet (twitter, blogs, Community Experts…)… I really enjoyed talking to them!

Gadgets

- finally bought a HTC Hero, after months of hesitation – I’m really enjoying it!
- I have finally a complete HD installation with my brand new AV receiver Denon AVR-1910: I’m now able to enjoy Dolby TrueHD and DTS MA.

Others

- I’ve seen for the 1st time Kylie Minogue in concert at the Hollywood Bowl – What a show!
- the same for Star Wars in Concert at the Nokia Theatre in LA.
- I visited Universal Studios Hollywood – really loved The Simpsons ride.
- my first flight in an Ultralight aircraft.

I’m probably missing some other facts and events…

I won’t talk about my resolutions for 2010 but more about “directions” that I will try to follow:

- definitively more blog posts! That’s why I subscribed to Project52
- be ready for Flex 4, AIR 2 and other products like Flash Catalyst.
- learn mobile development with Slider: Flex mobile framework and Elips Studio 3.
- attend more conferences if I can.
- do more talks: I just need to find some interesting topics not yet covered.

I think that’s all for this post. Again Happy New Year 2010, lots of love and happiness your life and I hope to see you around very soon.

This post is maybe a bit out of topic, but I wanted to promote this particular TV show – Dollhouse – and avoid the frustation of seeing it not renew for a Season two (can you hear me Fox?).

About Dollhouse (courtesy of watchdollhouseweek.com)

Created by Joss Whedon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”,”Firefly”,”Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along”…) and starring Eliza Dushku (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”,”Tru calling”, …).

Echo is an “Active”, part of a highly illegal and underground group of individuals who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Actives know no other life than the specific engagements they are in  at that time, confined between missions to a secret facility known as the Dollhouse. After each scenario, Echo returns to the mysterious Dollhouse where her thoughts, feelings, experiences and knowledge are erased, and enters the next scenario with no memory of before. Or does she?

As we are approaching the end of Season One, it’s the right moment to rewatch – or watch for the first time – past episodes (season finale “Omega”, airing 5/8).

Not convinced by the plot? Then you should read this from “intriguing” to “freakin’ brilliant.” Don’t forget Aalso that episodes of Dollhouse are available at any time via Hulu, FOX On Demand, iTunes, and Amazon

If you like, don’t like or if you have any questions, leave a comment here, or tweet (see @watchdollhouse for updates) and add #watchdollhouse hashtag when talking about the show.

To close this blog post, here is GrindHouse promo of Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chroniclas/DollHouse that I really like

 
No, the point here is not about being a rockstar freelancer (although it could be easier to imagine sometimes) but about the opportunity to become a developer freelancer.

There are first those fantastic videos from Jesse Warden “Being Independent and Making Money Using Flex”. Then came Flash On the Beach and those “inspired session” where the main message was, in short terms: “Quit your job, go independent, do what you really want to do, make money and have fun!”. And finally there are my friends in the Flash/Flex community who are independent and happily living from it.

Since several days|weeks|months, I’m a bit torn between answering to those sirens and not moving at all. And I have always this question in my mind:

“Is there a right moment in a life and/or a right place to become a freelancer?”

Let me explain a bit: I mostly agree on all those encouragements for being a freelancer, but I think that it’s missing an important factor which is your familial situation (and maybe age).

Don’t you think that you’re seeing things differently when you are single rather than married, when you have kids or not, when you are 20 or 40 ? Don’t you think that it’s easier to be a freelancer when you reached a certain level of expertise than when you’re a noob? It’s not a question of being afraid, it’s more a question of responsibility.

Maybe an example will help you to understand my point of view: Imagine a 35 guy who is an IT consultant for 10 years, married with kids and a home loan ongoing (any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental). Do you really think that switching to freelancing at that particular moment of his life is right? Of course it will probably bring more money in the household [“Money, get away. Get a good job with good pay and youre okay. Money, its a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. New car, caviar, four star daydream, Think Ill buy me a football team.” – Pink Floyd] but is it worth the sacrifice of your week-ends and family life? It doesn’t mean that this guy is not passionate about his job (Oh no!). I think being 20 (and gifted) or being 40 with no more kids at home is a better moment in a life for being a freelancer.

I first wanted to do a deeper analysis, but finally I decided to make the discussion more opened. So what’s your opinion? Please feel free to share your thoughts here.

 
What is Flickchart ?

Flickchart is a website that lets you rank movies to create your own personal list of favorites by using the Flickchart matchup system : their pairing system shows you two movies, and you decide which of the two you prefer (for any particular reason). If you haven’t seen one of them, just skip it and the system will choose a new one.

Everything starts with the most popular movies, then the more you’re ranking, the more obscure movies the system will show you. Their rating system is pretty simple compared to others which use some sort of point value – stars, a 1 to 10 scale, percentages, or even tomatoes. The goal ? Find out what really are the “Best Movies Of All Time”.

My review

You know (or maybe not) that I’m a huge movie (and TV show) lover. So I couldn’t resist Flickchart’s calling. First, the interface : it’s quite pleasant. A central panel is showing you the posters of the 2 movies which are in competition. Just choose your favorite by clicking on it or, if you haven’t seen it, discard it using the button below and a new one will be chosen. I had no particular problem at that point except sometimes  slow response time – I had to wait around 10s – especially when I discard a movie. A trailer can be seen (in a nice pop-up window ) by clicking the proper icon. You can also send a comment on the current matchup or start a discussion with other users. You have the option to rate amongst all movies, the ones in theaters, by year or by decade. I should not forget to mention that on the left is Your Top 20 Of All Time !

If you’re searching for a specific movie, you will get some information (not as detailed as IMDB), some statistics, his global ranking, the trailer (if available) and cool stuff from this movie available on eBay. The most interesting thing here is the ranking history but I think that if a user could add some comments on the movie itself and not only on a matchup could give a plus to this section. And maybe a “best quotes in this movie” ?

The discussion panel is showing the top ten ones with the last comment. You have to click on the number comments to read them and agree or disagree. Nothing special here – I haven’t use it yet – but where this fan number comes from ?

The charts let you have a look at “The Best Movies Of All-Time”, “The Worst Movies Of All-Time”  and  “Movies Currently In Theaters”. It could be nice to be able to generate some other statistics, like a ranking/chart by director, actor, genre (sci-fi, drama…) … to see if there’s any trend.

Finally your profile is showing your favorite movies, the one you haven’t seen and your last posts in the discussions.

My feelings on Flickchart : after the first few votes, you will see that your Top 20 doesn’t really match your opinions. Give it some time, the more you’re rating, the more accurate it will be : I think that more than  one hundred ratings are necessary. It’s quite fun to see those matchup generated (sometimes it’s quite hard to decide), but it became also a bit monotonous after a while. So don’t stay on it for too long, instead go back to it regulary. I think the social part could be greatly enhanced : you should be able to compare your taste with your friends, send direct message (is it possible ?) or even suggest your own matchups. What about some gadgets to display on our websites too ? An API maybe (it’s my coder side which is talking now…) ? And I think that some performance tuning could help before opening it to the public.

Conclusion : I would recommand to any movie lover to give a try to Flickchart : nice interface, lots of fun with their matchup system, very promising !

]]> http://cyrilhanquez.com/blog/2008/08/01/my-flickchart-review/feed/ 2 http://cyrilhanquez.com/blog/2008/08/01/get-your-early-bird-ticket-for-singularity/ http://cyrilhanquez.com/blog/2008/08/01/get-your-early-bird-ticket-for-singularity/#comments Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:32:50 +0000 Cyril H. http://cyrilhanquez.com/blog/?p=59

 
Singularity is a web conference covering a wide range topics including web standards, accessibility, web application development, Flash, Flex, and scalability.

It’s the first environmentally-friendly conference by saving on thousands of flights and the resulting carbon emissions : speakers and attendees interact with the conference locally at real-world gatherings called local conference hubs. If you’re not yet convinced, just have a look at this wonderful lineup of speakers.

Early bird tickets cost just $99 (inc. VAT). Buying a ticket gives you access to the three day conference, all local conference hubs, and to recorded sessions after the conference.

I will let you know about the Belgium local hub, but if you will attend, or want to help in setting up the hub or are Interested in sponsoring just let a comment below.