Feed: Ben Forta's Blog - Data Services - AggScore: 67.5

One of the most talked about MAX keynote demos was the FedEx Custom Critical shipment tracking dashboard as presented by FedEx's Adam Mollenkopf. And now RedMonk's Michael Coté has posted an interview with Adam where they look at the app, discuss the business case, and explain why the solution was built on the Flash Platform and powered by LiveCycle Data Services. [Via Duane Nickull]

The new and greatly improved Adobe Cookbooks is now online. New features include:

• Many more products/technologies
• Improved navigation and search
• Recipe requests - for developers who can't find the code sample they are looking for
• Related recipes - that appear in a side bar of all recipe pages
• Cookbook Explorer - a visual display of top cookbook recipes and contributors
• New contributor recognition features - profile pics, links to blogs, links to community profiles

I am in Washington Dulles airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Paris, and then on to Bangalore, India. This is my 4th trip to Bangalore, and this time I'll be meeting up with fellow platform evangelist Serge Jespers for several days of meetings with customers, partners, and press, and a full day 1000 attendee event Adobe DevSummit (which still has a few spaces left, if you have not signed up yet).

I'll be back in India next month to present at the Adobe Devsummit in Bangalore on August 4th. Fellow Adobe evangelist Serge Jespers will be joining me, along with the local evangelism team, for a full day event that will cover Flex, Flash, Catalyst, ColdFusion, Data Services, and more. They are expecting 1000 attendees at this event, and they expect it to sell out, so register quickly!

Yesterday's Adobe Developer Day in Bucharest was a success. Over 200 attendees attended multiple sessions, with presentations from Adobe SVP Digby Horner, Adobe Romania Director Alexandru Costin, fellow evangelists, Mihai Corlan, Miti Pricope, and Cornel Creanga, and other speakers. I presented an opening keynote session, and an afternoon session on ColdFusion. I also got to meet with local press, and took part in a live Romanian Business IT TV show (was supposed to be for 30 minutes, but we were cut off at 24 minutes because the TV station broke away for a speech by the Romanian President, oh well, I guess he has seniority!). I am now in Prague, and tomorrow we do it all again. Once again, I am presenting an opening session, and am also presenting a session on Data Services. The event will take place at the beautiful and historic National House Smichov, and a large crowd is expected here, too.

I am in Bucharest, and today I took part in a full day Adobe Developer Day. I head to Prague tomorrow for an event there on Thursday. Next week I'll be in Moscow for customer and partner meetings, and to present at a FlexCamp on Tuesday, May 26th. If you're in either location, please drop by!

I'll be spending much of next week and the week after in Eastern Europe, starting in Bucharest where I'll get to present at an Adobe Developer Day, and then on to Pargue. Adobe Czech Republic is hosting a full day conference on Rich Internet Application development and the future of the Internet, and I am presenting several sessions. Registration is now open.

Simon Horwith has posted a 4 part series on ColdFusion Architecture for RIAs. He covers ColdFusion Components, Ajax, Flex, LiveCycle Data Services, and more. Not a lot of new info here, but a very worthwhile introductory read. Click for Part 1, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

I am back stateside. The past few days were insanely intense, but were actually fun. It's been too long since I did one of these country-per-day tours. European ColdFusion Specialist Claude Englebert and I met with about 400 developers, talking about ColdFusion 9 plans, Flex, AIR, Data Services, and more. And the response was incredibly positive (although I was somewhat dismayed by how few people had taken a look at LCDS and BlazeDS, many seem to still not understand what these are). For those of you looking for the LCDS examples I was referring to, here is what you need. And as a reminder, for any and all ColdFusion related questions in EMEA, Claude Englebert in your man.

I just got back from presenting to the UK CFUG tonight. 140 developers showed up for 2 hours of LCDS, Flex, and a sneak peek at Centaur and Bolt. The crowd was great, highly interactive, and full of questions (a few of which I even answered). And tomorrow I have to be up ridiculously early, leaving the hotel at 5:00am to catch a train to Brussels. Pictures coming soon.

I'm heading back to Bucharest, Romania! Adobe Romania is hosting a full day developer day on May 19th, 2009, with sessions covering Flex, AIR, LCDS, and more. I am scheduled to present several sessions including an opening session. Fellow evangelist Mihai Corlan has posted more details on his blog, along with a registration link. Mihai will be there, as will evangelists Miti Pricope, Cornel Creanga, Adobe SVP Digby Horner, and more. Registration is open, and some sessions are already sold out!

Adobe partner Universal Mind has announced the private beta of SpatialKey, a next generation information visualization, analysis and reporting system, designed to help organizations quickly assess location based information critical to their organizational goals, decision making processes and reporting requirements. An intro video has been posted, as has a complete feature list. The app is built using Flex and BlazeDS.

I can't read any of it myself, but, a RIA Day attendee has posted this detailed report in Polish. (The pictures are self explanatory).

It's early Tuesday morning in Milan. MAX Europe started yesterday with a keynote by Michele Turner and Mark Anders. The content was similar to the U.S. keynote, but with local partners and examples highlighted. The Fiat AIR app in particular was a thing of beauty, and the crowd loved the Cocomo demo by evangelists Serge Jespers and Andrew Shorten (I'll post links to those doctored images when I get them). I presented my 3 hour hands on Flex/AIR/ColdFusion/DS lab yesterday, and this time all worked flawlessly. Phew! We're now backstage prepping for the Day 2 keynote. Tim Buntel and I are reprising The Agency, slightly modified for the local audience, and with local agents recruited to join the fun.

I just arrived in Wroclaw, 4th largest city in Poland, home to about 650,000, and the location for RIA Day 2008 today. I am presenting an opening session as well as a session on data services. Other sessions are covering Flash, Flex, AIR, and ColdFusion. We're still a couple of hours from start time, so not many people here yet. But, apparently, the event sold out entirely within two days, so am looking forward to a packed room. Which reminds me, I have to finish my opening presentation ...