The new Belgian Adobe usergroup : the 360° approach
Feb/101
Last month the Belgian Adobe usergroup “rebooted”. The renewed usergroup came with a new website and a 360° approach towards Adobe’s products. They reorganized and have now 6 different interest groups (SIG) : Video, Photography, Web, Design, Print and RIA(enterprise). Every Adobe product fits inside 1 or more SIGs.
The new website enables their community to define what products they use and what SIGs they want to link to. The new site wants to enable sharing of information and ideas.
The goal is to organize every month one AUG event, linked to 1 or more interest groups. Next one coming up is the “Design SIG” event in Antwerp. Yes, indeed … Antwerp. The rebooted AUG wants to host their events in different cities across Belgium.
At the moment all content is in Dutch (except for the RIA sessions), but I’ve been told they might add other languages in the future …
The event list contains 6 events and topics look really promising. The “Video SIG” event in march looks impressive. Check out the website and get subscribed ! You can follow them on twitter : @augbe
Congrats to the team driving the new AUG !!!
Maybe we’ll see each other at the “Design SIG” event on Feb 25th in Antwerp ?
From vision to reality : Open Screen Project
Feb/100
It’s great to see all the news coming by from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
After talking for a while now about the Open Screen Project, it’s clear we are getting close to a first release of Flash player 10.1 for mobile. It’s amazing to see the number of devices that are shown at the Adobe booth. Numerous pda’s and netbooks are showing a beta version of the flash player 10.1 for devices. Finally a full web experience on mobile devices ! On Adobe TV you can get some demo videos.
Ofcourse we all know that for mobile the applications are as important as the browser when we are talking about a web experience. Adobe AIR already provided you on a desktop a flash experience outside the browser. Adobe announced this week also Adobe AIR for Android, with a plan to get AIR on other mobile platforms.
See it in action :
So yes … Open Screen Project is a great vision, brought to reality thanks to all of the OSP partners. I’m sure there is more to come on this subject !
Back to business !
Nov/091
Holidays are over again for me and it’s back to business … Let’s have a quick overview on what happened at Adobe while i was gone …
RIM and Adobe expanded their collaboration
At Adobe Max we already heared about RIM joining the Open Screen project. In this announcement Adobe commits to make sure that with the next version of Creative Suite you’ll be able to create content for the Blackberry devices. Through the OSP RIM allready commited to provide flash player on the Blackberry devices. Check out the press release here.
Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0 on labs.adobe.com
Announced on MAX and now beta available on labs.adobe.com. At this moment you can find the windows, mac and linux versions online. More info on new features on labs.adobe.com.
New release of acrobat.com platform
Very exiting new release of the acrobat.com platform. You will find some new features like presentations and tables (spreadsheet). The file management interface has got a lot better and more intuitive. There is still a free version so check it out
Social : integrate with social networks
We already had the Actionscript library to connect to facebook. This library has been extended with support for other social networks. Check it out on http://labs.adobe.com
Those are the most important updates from Adobe.
Next stop is the Adobe Usergroup xl meeting next week in the Netherlands. They have got a nice program and it’s happening in Amsterdam.
What happened to Cocomo ?
Oct/090
I get this question quite a lot lately. What was announced on http://labs.adobe.com as Cocomo, is today known as the “Adobe LiveCycle Collaboration Services”.(LC CS) The service is no longer beta.
For who doesn’t know it yet … LC CS is a set of Flex components you can integrate into your own application. These Flex components offer you online collaboration capabilities like a chat window, webcam integration, multi-user whiteboard, VOIP, … You can see it as Acrobat Connect building blocks.
As the word “service” implies, these Flex components will use a hosted service provided by Adobe. If you want to use these components you’ll need to have an account to use these online services.
Wanna get started ? Checking out the LC CS developer portal might be a good idea 
Fans of Pascal Obispo can create virtual flowers using the Flash platform (Nascom)
Oct/090
This Flash app generates “virtual flowers” that fans can share with Pascal and other fans. Main screen shows flowers with the messages.
Become a star with new Telenet website by These Days
Oct/091
Always wanted to be a conductor of an orchestra, but never had a clue where to start ? http://veelplezier.telenet.be might be a good place to start
These Days have build a great Flash website where they use video tracking to put your own face in 3D on the conductors face.
Be a star and check it out
CrossMedia marketing seminar presentations online
Oct/090
Last week we organized a seminar in Antwerp to support our partners that are building solutions on top of InDesign Server. Each partner invited a customer to talk about their web2print projects. If you missed it, you can still check out the presentations by downloading the PDF portofolio that contains all presentations.
What should you remember from Adobe Max 2009
Oct/090
What were the hightlights from Adobe Max 2009 ? Let me list the most important announcements …
1. Flash Player 10.1 for smartphones, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices
A Flash Player that will provide all functionality of the latest Flash Player on pc’s and mobile devices. This version of the Flash Player will use the GPU from devices to offer a good rendering quality which will provide a great user experience on all devices. Get all the details on labs.adobe.com.
2. Google and RIM join the Open Screen Project
The Open Screen Project, the catalysator of Flash on mobile devices, welcomes 2 new and very important members. With Google and RIM the Open Screen Project covers most of the Mobile market with Google Android and Blackberry.
3. Adobe AIR 2.0 announced
The next version of AIR has been announced. Beside having Flash Player 10.1 there is also a new version of WebKit included. There will also be the possibility to call native programs, access USB storage devices and multi-touch and gesture support. All the details can be found on the AIR team’s blog.
Watch online to this Max session talking about Air 2.0.
4. Flash Media Server : Improvements on RTMP / RTMFP (peer assisted networking) and support for HTTP streaming
Get all the details on the blog of Kevin Towes, product manager for Flash Media Server
5. Flash Catalyst beta 2, Flash Builder 4 beta 2 and LC DataServices beta 3 available on labs.adobe.com
6. Create iPhone applications with Flash CS5
No Flash Player on the iPhone yet. But with Flash CS5 we can help the mobile developer by letting him export his Flash Mobile projects to an iPhone project. So you only need to develop once for different platforms / devices. Some example apps, and a link to subscribe to get notified of a public beta can be found here.
7. Shibuya : Earn money with an AIR application.
It’s a a try & buy licensing model for AIR applications, which can be integrated into your AIR applications with online a few lines of code. Adobe takes care of the handling of trials, payment, … through online services. Check it out on http://labs.adobe.com.
8. Slider : Flex Mobile
Still early but a mobile version of the well now Flex framework, code name Slider.
9. Release of LiveCycle ES 2
Release of the new version of the enterprise solution from Adobe. Check out the official website.
“Pepsi Max It” (Proximity BBDO) wins Max Award !!!
Oct/090
Great news coming from Max LA ! The Adnerds have been rewarded with a Max Award in the category Advertisement. You can still check out the project here. Congrats guys ! And when is the party ?
Can’t attend Adobe Max ? Thank god there is Max Online !
Sep/090
Great news for everyone that can’t make it to LA due to time or budget limitations. Adobe announced today that it will stream the keynotes live ! Also other sessions will be made available online, possible with a delay.
Get registered here : http://max.adobe.com/online/
Adobe Belgium events
- Adobe MAX 2010 October 23, 2010
- Maak kennis met de Adobe eLearning Suite September 15, 2010
- Be collaborative - be competitive September 14, 2010
- Adobe Pulse Live: The Adobe Flash Platform for the Enterprise September 9, 2010
- Adobe Pulse Live: Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 2 September 2, 2010