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.

 

Let me tell you the story of this guy who just created a new blog design and wanted to have a nice caricature of himself to put in the About part. After searching on the web for an affordable solution, he finally found this company called Fast Icon (now Caricature Icons) which is doing really nice drawings. So on June 20th he ordered the caricature and sent all required pictures. Let’s add one more detail before going further, there is this nice quote on their website :

How long does this all take?

Each Caricature icon is completed in around 3 days, depending on complexity. However, because of the number of orders we get, most caricatures are delivered within a week or two of receipt of your picture/s by the artist, sometimes sooner.

One week after, this guy sent a 1st email to inquiry about the lack of communication – did the order arrive or not ? He got a really fast reply saying that they “really lament the delay in the delivery and communication lack [...]“. Well sometimes, “Shit happens“. He finally get the first sketch of the caricature on July 9th. And… and… nothing. He tried to get back in touch 3 times (July 17th, August 6th and September 26th) without much success. So he decided to introduce a ticket to 2checkout (the e-commerce solution used by Fast Icon) and, “Oh Miracle!” he got a reply the same day (October 9th) saying “We had a work overload that left us slower, but you will receive an update of your order today.”.

Who will guess how it will end ? Okay, let’s go to the conclusion : yesterday, after again no news from Fast Icon, the guy introduce a request to 2checkout to be refunded, what they have done immediately. It’s a bit sad to offer services on the web and not being able to communicate properly – a delay of 3 months deserves at least a decent explanation.

I wanted to share this story with my readers because I think that this is what a blog is made for, share experiences (bad or good). Of course, any similarity to anyone alive or dead is just a coincidence

 
I’m a ColdFusion developer for almost 10 years now and I’m starting to wonder why ColdFusion is not making the buzz on the web anymore (even with version 9 on the way). Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that since the release of Flex2 and all those RIA technologies which are currently invading the web space, ColdFusion is hiding somewhere doing only furtive apparitions on some blogs – I even heard that ColdFusion is a phase out product on which you cannot rely anymore !

I had some hope when I heard about the success of Scotch On The Rocks conference (sorry for not being able to attend it), but in the end nothing really changed – except maybe in UK and US ?

I think also that Adobe could do a better promotion of ColdFusion: this year at Flash on the Beach, there were those pins that you can grab for free at Adobe booth. But look at the picture, none of ColdFusion (btw if any exists, I’m interested ) ! The product was only mentionned twice during Adobe presentations. I think that it should have disserved few more words to describe how great the couple Flex/CF is to develop RIAs.

In Belgium, it seems that our CFUG is trying to get back from it’s grave (which I applaud), but the way it’s done doesn’t seems to be so efficient :

• they’re using facebook events to communicate !
• the Belgium AUG has not been informed on it - a few months ago I tried to ask AUG members if they would be interested in a CF session but got only one reaction.
• moreover it’s lead by someone from Adobe – which is, in my point of view, a bit strange.

I hope that I didn’t offend anyone here (Kristen, Ben, Raymond…) and please don’t misinterpret what I’m trying to tell : I still love ColdFusion (which is my main development platform), I greatly encourage Community events, but I think that Adobe could/need to do a lot better.

 
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/2008/07/10/just-like-a-phoenix-from-the-flames/ http://cyrilhanquez.com/blog/2008/07/10/just-like-a-phoenix-from-the-flames/#comments Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:28:17 +0000 Cyril H. http://cyrilhanquez.com/blog/?p=6

 
Yeah I know, it’s a bit too much but I needed to find a catching title to announce my return to the blogosphere .

WHAT, You didn’t notice that I stopped blogging !? Or worst, you didn’t know I was already blogging somewhere else ?! Well I must admit that you probably didn’t miss anything

To make it short, I left terapad because I needed some extra features that they couldn’t provide, moreover a new banner appeared that you could remove for (only)$14.15 per month, which is in my opinion quite expensive !

So I’ve decided that it was the right time to buy my own domain name, and I’ve setup this new blog that I hope you will enjoy. Now the hardest part is starting, to feed it with interesting content !