Kerala Adobe User group was honoured to conduct an event at Amrita Institute, vallikkavu where the flex developers team were able to communicate with Adobe Professional Arul Kumaran. Arul was the one who motivated us to conduct this event even when he was only available for couple of days.

Aneesh anand from Amrita made all the arrangements in coordination with Kamal Bijilani of the E-learning team at Amrita.

The Venue, Amrita Institute.

Although it was 3 hours travel from ernakulam, we made it by starting early and hiring a taxi.

The Audience

Audience were mostly starters in Flex along with some expert project leads with Java background.

The Celebrity

Arul started with the history of flash and how the whole evolution happened. He took time to answer all the queries and also demonstrated his Open Source tools which can make life easier for any Flex developer.

The Support

I made myself available as support, mostly adding bits of information to what Arul was sharing. There was a small interacttive session on game development where I tried to answer queries on gaming and 3D in flash.

The Sight seeing.

Aneesh took us around the ashram and we had the chance to see the awesome seaside view from a multistoried building. It was breathtaking and all of us enjoyed the same. On the way back we talked a lot about technology and life in general. For me it was the chance to meet up with a great person who was really down to earth and eager to share experience, that mattered the most. End of the day I was a richer guy with a new friend and lots of professional information.

Society for Rich Internet Application – Rich User Interface has come up with Indian version of Flash Camp.

The agenda for the event.
Eminent expert speakers.
Check out the site to know more.
Register here.
Showcase your apps here to get cash prices.

The organisers were happy to provide 100% free passes for early birds from Kerala User Group. If any members need a pass , ping me or comment on this thread. There are only limited free passes, do let me know at the earliest to get those.

Dont miss this.

I had the privilege although accidentally, to take manage the Adobe workshop at MEC.

From Drop Box

I was informed only a couple of days prior to the event by Harish Sivaramakrishnan about the event at Model. It was a flex workshop and Adobe representation was impossible because of traveling restrictions over the Ayodhya verdict coming out that day. It was a as short a notice as it can get, so it was really hard to find people to take up the workshop. My expertise in Flex was that of a novice and I was not apt to take the workshop. After calling in a lot of favours and being denied by many, I got confirmation from Cabot Solutions. Mr. Shibu Basheer was really forthcoming and ready to provide a team of Flex experts for the event.

So i decided to take sessions on introducing the flash platform, Flex and AIR and then let the team from Cabot take the workshop. I could not create new slides and those adobe sent were not tailored to my suiting. So i decided to adapt the Key note by Ben Forta for the AFPS event. Everything went smoothly, and we did eventually run out of time. There was little issue with the flex version being dicstributed among the students and the goodies from Adobe. Goodies including Tshirts were sent by courier to my addres and it didnt reach on the date of the event. I later on delivered it to Sreedhar, the student coordinator.
Sreedhar did a wonderful job coordinating the event and also letting me have the snaps of the event.

Adobe summit was held on August 25/26 at Nimhans convention centre, bengaluru. Me and Aneesh anand represented Kerala User group for the event. These turned out to be most valuable days for me as I had the privilege of meeting many of my twitter friends and flash veterans in person.
I have tried to aggregate some presentation slides found on slide share here
The summit page has all the presentations listed here.
The official photos of the event can be checked out here.

I had reached right on time as my bus from Kochi only reached at 9 am. Thanks to Anand and Gitcy for providing accommodation where i could freshen up and reach the event venue by 9.30. An auto guy did cheat me for Rs.80 for a drive from Madiwala to Nimhans, which actually was around Rs.40.
I was amazed to find Sunil Nair, from Ahmedabad User group just standing in front of me in the registration counter queue. We formed a good team and were together for the full event.
First event was Keynote bu Ben Forta and truth be said, i was just there to see him in person. The Session was basic overview of the platform and mostly evangelism. After the session we had coffee break were we saw the long queues forming up and lots of networking happening. After this there were parallel sessions running which gave most of us difficult choices to be made. I chose Spark Internals, PixelPlay, Realtime Social games, Object oriented concepts and PaypalX for the day. I missed AIR 2.5 and realtime web sessions which could have been real useful for me. One of these sessions about social and realtime gaming got cancelled and this was real loss for the game developer in me.
Met Himanshu Mody and Yash mody from Teknopoint, the main sponsors of the event. Himanshu gave me nice goodies – RIA badge, UG manager Badge, RIA Cup and Flash class diagram posters. A big thanks to teknopoint.

Meanwhile I met Vipin chandran, Team from Impelsys, Aneesh and team from Amrita, Muhammed Khan, Mrinal Wadwa, Saurabh Mathur, Harish sivaramakrishnan, Saurabh Narula, Mariam DH- The great game dev I was really looking forward to meet, Arul Kumaran from Singapore UG and many more. Great thing was meeting the 3 musketeers from RIA RUI via Prabhakaran.
I went ahead to check the device demos at the Adobe stall. I was really happy to see Csharks flash site loading easily on a nexus one.

Food at noon was excellent and i did skip one session time to communicate with all the people who had come for the event. Me and Aneesh tried for the Intel App-up key chain but lost.

Day 2 was basically for designers and yet more developers turned out.

From Drop Box

All the three keynotes were good ones and we got to know more about the sponsors and companies who put up the stalls for the event. I found iPlotz team as a sponsor for the event and felt happy to see a team from Kerala making it big. I chose Visual experiences with Flex, mobile design considerations, Multiscreen design, Less verbose AS3 and passion driven development sessions for the day. I really missed out on Brain power and Interaction do’s and don’ts which were both rocking sessions.

I could relate to whats Arul was talking in both of his sessions and passion driven development felt heartfelt. At the end of the day I had to rush back to catch my bus back to Kochi, but I was certainly a satisfied man. More than the sessions, the opportunity to meet these great people was well worth every effort. Congratulations to the Adobe Team and Saltmach for this wonderful experience. After the event I got the Tshirt, certificates and Adobe branded watch I also came across one of my seniors from college days representing TCS as they were one of the sponsors for the event.
Write up on IGDS event at same venue

From Kadug

Gods own developers usergroup successfully organised the first ever Adobe launch event in Kerala. It was the launch of Flex 4, Flash Builder, Cold Fusion Builder and Flash Catalyst. The event took place at Woods Manor Hotel Conference Hall on April 10 which included sessions for the full day with food and snacks.

Behind the scenes.

I had attended the IGDS event at Bengaluru for which Adobe was a sponsor. For the event i got a chance to spent some time with the Adobe team at their booth and met Harish Sivaramakrishnan, Hemant, Ramesh and others. Harish was really interested in conducting an event in Kerala and told me to go ahead with organising a launch event. It was Harish who was the mentor and support all along.

Back home I communicated with some of our active member and co manager Jerry Don and got great response from them. Musavir, Thazleem, Ajith Manmadhan and Jerry made themselves available for multiples meetings for planning and execution. Each one of them were busy with their work and yet were available online for collaborating live. A big thanks to google docs, gtalk, google groups and gmail without which this would have stayed a dream.

We were not sure if to conduct the event for students at an educational institution premises or for techies at a hotel conference hall. Ultimately we decided to try and push the event for techies. This was really a tough job as we needed to confirm atleast 50 attendees and we had only 10 days to confirm that. Also we needed a sponsor other than Adobe and get a good conference hall booked. Toobler helped a lot with the registration page designs and we used wordpress plugins by Binny VA for event registration. I am more than happy to say that we got 80 plus registrations within a short time. We had to restrict to 50 people as we had booked a conference hall which cost Rs 300 per person as food was planned.

Musavir for sponsorship from Bridge India at the nick of time and everything afterwards became so easy. Hugo Messer, Bridge CEO was really helpful and supportive of the venture. Bridge were also trying to promote their open coffee event which again was an event aiming for social gathering of techies.

We received Tshirts and some gift checks from Adobe before the event. I also ordered half yearly Adobe swag for the user group and we successfully distributed those on the event. Bridge also provided their sponsorship before the event and we were all set. We had a hard time getting the right venue as many of the available Hotels had their conference halls booked as it was year end time. Toobler helped out here too as they had their client visiting and we bought a combo package from Woods manor at a good price.

Musavir was the one incharge of getting the flex banners printed and he did so exceptionally well which again was extremely economical too. Also for the event we had Thazleem buy the gifts for the speakers and others helped pack those. We also had help fro one of our active members with taking photos of the event as well.

Harish himself came as the special guest from Adobe, even when he was extremely busy with all the events he had to attend. He took total control of the event and his presence itself gave a new level to the whole event. We hope he will be continuing his support for KADUG and we hope to make more events. Vipin Chandran, Flash/Flex expert from Impelsys came down to take special session. He told the audience how ActionScript 3 is an extremely powerful tool and how it can be used for just about anything. We cant thank him or Harish enough for what it meant for our UG.

Other sessions were handled by Me and Thazleem which actually covered Photoshop CS5, Flash CS5 sneakpeaks and ColdFusion Builder overview. Diana Kulke from Bridge enlightened the crowd on Open coffee event which many of the attendees attended a few days after wards.

All together it was a wonderful team effort culminating an very successful event with more than 55 people attending. Every one were happy even when they came from different walks of life and were professionally working in different techs. All had something to take home from the event and we hope we will continue this legacy.

Official report will follow in another posts

Thanks to Binny VA, we can log the tweets of the #kadug event. This is a timeline frozen version.

http://twitterkerala.com/apps/tweet_freezer/

@csharks: Proud to be part of the #kadug Adobe launch event along with Adobe , Bridge and @toobler
at 10:37 PM, 06 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Bridge India is sponsoring the #Kochi Adobe event http://www.bridge-india.in/ #kadug
at 10:59 PM, 06 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Registrations for #kadug event is over 60, calls for Polls and Lots … some unlucky ones are not going to get the seats.
at 02:30 AM, 07 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Call came from Copyrights authority to take permission to play recorded music for the #kadug event. Unless its fake, its good follow up
at 02:52 AM, 07 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: www.godsowndevelopers.com member list just expanded, thanks to the #kadug event. See you all there
at 05:04 AM, 07 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Event program details of tomorrows Adobe #Kochi Flex Launch event http://is.gd/bl04p #kadug
at 09:20 PM, 08 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Setting up my mac mini for tomorrows #kadug event
at 11:17 PM, 08 Apr 2010

@Sunel: @JuwalBose trust you are getting geared up for the event. Will miss it but the event will ROCK , I am sure. Cheers #kadug
at 11:56 PM, 08 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Had a lot of holidays this month and lots happening. Thank god as work went better than normal. Need to conc at work after #kadug event
at 01:29 AM, 09 Apr 2010

@thazleem: Finally going to start preparing for my #cfbuilder presentation @ Adobe Event. God help me or help the listeners tomorrow #kadug
at 01:33 AM, 09 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: @thazleem dont do, dont do… dont leak such things, you loose the edge LOL #cfbuilder #kadug
at 02:16 AM, 09 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Yeah @hsivaram @yadurajiv lots of others too… we had to strip more than 30 people from the interested list #adobeugtour #kadug
at 03:10 AM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: @hsivaram @juwalbose hey!! yay!! yis!! yet again #adobeugtour #kadug
at 03:23 AM, 09 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Will be joining @flashchemist and @hsivaram for Adobe Launch event today #kadug. Meet all you confirmed participants too
at 07:38 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@prasanthkumars: see you all guys at Adobe Launch event #kadug
at 07:42 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Looking forward to meeting @binnyva @AravindJose @vmsajan for the #kadug event today
at 07:52 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Confirmed participants (through call) for the Adobe Launch event today please try to be there at 9.30 for registration at venue #kadug
at 07:53 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Off to #kadug venue, woods manor, #Kochi
at 07:56 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: RT @JuwalBose: Looking forward to meeting @binnyva @AravindJose @vmsajan for the #kadug event today
at 08:26 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: http://twitpic.com/1egbol – #kadug #adobe #kerala venue
at 08:43 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@jerrydon: Kerala flex launch event started #kadug @hsivaram presenting flex php webservice wizards
at 11:25 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: finally got here at #kadug meetup at cochin!! I’m an hour and a half late almost
at 11:31 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@jerrydon: @hsivaram on a 15 min video player development #kadug #kerala
at 11:33 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: @hsivaram giving a talk on Flash Catalyst which actually is an awesome tool for building your UI ^_^ #kadug #adobeugtour
at 11:35 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@jerrydon: Happy to see more than 50 people in the hall http://twitpic.com/1ehqxa #kadug #kerala #adobe #flex launch event
at 11:39 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Everyone listening intently to what’s new in Flash Builder #kadug #adobeugtour
at 11:40 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: with @JuwalBose @binnyva @AravindJose #kadug #adobe #kerala event
at 11:45 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Love that UI? want to reuse!? you can reuse your Flash Catalyst UI in any of your Flex Apps #kadug #adobeugtour
at 11:46 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: http://bit.ly/clUMO7 s awesome #kadug #adobe #kerala
at 11:46 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: with @zeqox @JuwalBose @binnyva @AravindJose #kadug #adobe #kerala event.awesome demo by adobe guy
at 11:48 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: If you are into Photoshop, design your UI there, import to Flash Catalyst and get fxg, the new flex4 markup #kadug #adobeugtour
at 11:49 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: @zeqox s birth day celebration !! @#kadug #adobe #kerala event wow ! congrats @zeqox happy B day to u
at 11:50 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Catalyst generates generic and ok code, you will once in a while need to tweak it, but its does a good job none the less #kadug #adobeugtour
at 11:50 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Flash Catalyst works brilliantly with an Illustrator workflow #kadug #adobeugtour

at 11:52 PM, 09 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: puppet wrap awesomeness by @JuwalBose #kadug #adobeugtour
at 12:07 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@jerrydon: @juwalbose explaining Puppet wrap #kadug #kerala #adobe #photoshop
at 12:08 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: @JuwalBose on stage . showing new tool called Puppet wrap n #photoshop cs5 .its a interesting tool #kadug #adobe #kerala

at 12:08 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Content aware fill in Photoshop CS5 blows everyone away all the time, but I’ve seen it enough times now #kadug #adobeugtour I want moar!!
at 12:12 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: more content aware fill awesomeness!! ^_^ blowing us away yet again!! CS5 launch in two days!! #kadug #adobeugtour
at 12:15 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Thazleem giving a talk on Cold Fusion and Cold Fusion Builder #kadug #adobeugtour

at 12:18 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@jerrydon: @thazleem speaking on #coldfusion and cf builder #kadug #kerala

at 12:20 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: writing less code and faster applications.. mmm.. is that a trend now? #kadug #adobeugtour
at 12:21 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: http://twitpic.com/1ei2dn – #kadug #adobeugtour
at 12:25 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: http://twitpic.com/1ei2r6 – Tazleem talking about ColdFusion Builder #kadug #adobeugtour
at 12:26 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: http://twitpic.com/1ei3g6 – #codfusion #adobe on stage #kadug #adobe #kerala

at 12:29 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: http://twitpic.com/1ei46y – adobe pl stop this .designers beware cs5 content aware tool s …no words.clone stamp u dead ##kadug #adobe #ker

at 12:32 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: I went with PHP a long time ago, but CF9 looks interesting #kadug #adobeugtour
at 12:36 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: http://twitpic.com/1ei9h8 – more Cold Fusion Builder everything from an SQL editor to an FTP client and much more #kadug #adobeugtour
at 12:54 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: http://twitpic.com/1ei9ou – food, will be had soon #kadug #adobeugtour
at 12:55 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: http://twitpic.com/1eimoz – food tiem #kadug meetup #adobeugtour ^_^
at 01:53 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@jerrydon: Fun with AS3.0 from @flashchemist #kadug
at 02:00 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: post lunch sessions kick off with a look at the evolution of ActionScript #kadug #adobeugtour

at 02:11 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: ooooh sumopaint is awesome.. http://www.sumopaint.com/home/ #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:12 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: http://twitpic.com/1eiud3 – a quickie application using Flash Builder #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:27 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Faster, Smaller and rich applications really fast using AS3/Flex4/FlashBuilder #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:31 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: http://www.eclipse.org/ Eclipse is pure awesomeness #foss #kadug #adobeugtour

at 02:32 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@hsivaram: Really nice talk by @flashchemist at #kadug . #adobeugtour

at 02:35 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Yes! @flashchemist nails it down by saying that as3 is awesome and fun!! #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:37 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Does flash need JSON parsing out of the box? give your feedback to @hsivaram #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:40 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: @JuwalBose goes back on to show us what is in store for us in Flash CS5 omg awesome #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:42 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: new skins on video import + improved que points + realtime playback on stage(i think we already had that?) #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:47 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: oh! no more component inspector! things show up on the properties panel ^_^ #kadug #adobeugtour

at 02:49 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: new compressed document format instead of fla ~ xml based zipped file format mmmm.. sounds very familier #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:52 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: http://twitpic.com/1ej01i – @hsivaram busy taking pics of the event #kadug #adobeugtour
at 02:54 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: text formatting and handling text in flash looks awesome! Huge improvement!! #kadug #adobeugtour
at 03:07 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: raffle tiem!! #kadug #adobeugtour I hope I win!! lol
at 03:12 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: unlucky as usualy, didn’t get anything in the raffle lol #kadug #adobeugtour congrats to all those who got stuff ^_^
at 03:22 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: Thats it for today, I have to catch a train back to Trivandrum in the next half hour so Im outta here! #kadug #adobeugtour

at 03:31 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@yadurajiv: It was fun! #kadug #adobeugtour met @jerrydon @flashchemist @hsivaram @juwalbose @vmsajan @thazleem @flexcfcoder ^_^ yay
at 03:32 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: met adobe evangelist @hsivaram hey ur session was awesome #adobe #kadug #kerala event
at 04:31 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: @shibubasheer its was a pleasure. hope we can talk more on how we can take this forward.expecting whole hearted support, thanks a lot #kadug
at 05:47 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@thazleem: Back from #kadug. Feels like all the effort finally paid off gr8. Extremely happy and satisfied. looking 4ward to more feedback now.
at 05:54 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: @flashchemist @shibubasheer @yadurajiv @zeqox @vmsajan @hsivaram @binnyva @AravindJose @jerrydon @thazleem @musavir Thanks DUDEs #kadug

at 05:58 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@thazleem: @JuwalBose @flashchemist @shibubasheer @yadurajiv @zeqox @vmsajan @hsivaram @binnyva @AravindJose @jerrydon @musavir Thanks DUDEs #kadug

at 06:01 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Organised something impossible with a great team and minimum effort. Fortune always favours the brave #kadug
at 06:15 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: http://twitpic.com/1ei46y http://twitpic.com/1eimoz http://twitpic.com/1ei2r6 http://twitpic.com/1ej01i #kadug thanks @yadurajiv @vmsajan

at 06:20 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: @yadurajiv lets hope @hsivaram will sent you a raffle tshirt #kadug #adobeugtour

at 06:24 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Guys dont forget to blog about the #kadug event and win the Flash Builder and Cold fusion Builder license. #kochi
at 06:38 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@teknopoint: Awesome !! RT @JuwalBose: RT @jerrydon : Happy to see more than 50 people in the hall http://twitpic.com/1ehqxa #kadug launch event
at 06:43 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@abhilash_s: #kadug event was too great and met adobe evangelist @hsivaram and lot of friends .
at 06:53 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@jerrydon: New friends I got from #kadug @zeqox @yadurajiv @vmsajan @binnyva @AravindJose

at 07:01 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@prasanthkumars: back from #kadug event. got new friends and an Adobe T-Shirt
at 07:17 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@ajithmanmu: #kadug was just amazing..thnx all for coming…GOD rocks….
at 08:51 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@binnyva: Going thru #kadug tweets now.It was a great event!Nice talk by @hsivaram @flashchemist @JuwalBose and other people whose ID is unknown to me
at 09:18 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@abhilash_s: Got Adobe T-Shirt from #kadug event.Thanks to #kadug.
at 09:24 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@prasanthkumars: anybody like to exchange their smaller size Adobe Flash platform T-shirt with my XL sized one #kadug

at 09:31 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@prasanthkumars: http://twitpic.com/1elqsu – #kadug
at 09:37 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@prasanthkumars: http://twitpic.com/1elr3q – #kadug Ajith and Arun
at 09:38 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@prasanthkumars: http://twitpic.com/1elspt – #kadug Bobin,Ansar,Sujeesh, @abhilash_s,Arun, @jerrydon,@prasanthkumars,@ajithmanmu,@JuwalBose,@thazleem,Anish
at 09:44 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@prasanthkumars: http://twitpic.com/1elszs – #kadug
at 09:45 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@zeqox: #kadug മലയാളത്തില്‍ “കടുക് ”
at 09:47 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@libinmb: entho nna ethuRT @zeqox: #kadug മലയാളത്തില്‍ “കടുക് ”
at 09:54 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@zeqox: @libinmb Kerala Adobe Developers User Group aka kadug
at 10:02 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@libinmb: @zeqox ok #kadug

at 10:03 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@aravindjose: Photos from the Adobe event http://3.ly/2n2 #kadug
at 10:41 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@vmsajan: @hsivaram @jerrydon @thazleem @JuwalBose @flashchemist @shibubasheer thank u guys #kadug #adobeugtour

at 11:38 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@thazleem: Checking out tweets and pics of #kadug event… and wondering who will be the lucky one to get those licenses…
at 11:56 AM, 10 Apr 2010

@flashchemist: http://twitpic.com/1erdnt – The dudes behind Kerala Adobe User Group! Well done guys #kadug
at 09:23 PM, 10 Apr 2010

@zeefu: Kerala Adobe User Group successfully launches #adobe #flex launch event #kadug http://bit.ly/cM9lE3

at 11:22 PM, 10 Apr 2010

@hsivaram: Landed. Heading to the office directly. Had a great time with #kadug folks in Cochin #adobeugtour
at 08:20 PM, 11 Apr 2010

@zeefu: Patiently waiting for #adobe #flex launch event report from #kadug
at 08:53 AM, 12 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Lot of work pending..need to upload #kadug photos and write its report too…
at 08:39 PM, 12 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Last weeks #kadug venue http://is.gd/bqom0 Woods Manor #Kochi

at 08:48 PM, 12 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: The #kadug Team http://is.gd/bqosW after #Kochi event
at 08:49 PM, 12 Apr 2010

@JuwalBose: Special sessions by @hsivaram and @flashchemist http://is.gd/bqouY http://is.gd/bqovw #kadug
at 08:53 PM, 12 Apr 2010

This is the press release for the upcoming event on April 10 Saturday at Woods Manor, Kochi.

The Kerala Adobe user group in association with Bridge, India will conduct a launch event for Adobe’s latest product and technology releases at Hotel Woods Manor, Cochin on April 10. The products and technologies in focus includes the Flash builder 4, Flex 4, ColdFusion builder and the soon to be released Adobe CS5 software suite, which includes Adobe’s flagship product, the Adobe Photoshop. The details are available on http://godsowndevelopers.com/kad/launchevent/

The limited seats event is completely free with sessions on all the Adobe’s latest technologies and products. Speakers at the event include Mr.Harish Sivaramakrishnan, Adobe evangelist who will speak about the Flash Builder 4 and the Flash Catalyst and other experts. Food and refreshments will be made available to all participants for free. The event will also mark the first time that Cochin is included as a destination in its worldwide promotional tour by the software giant, another mark of Cochin’s rising superpower status in the IT world.

Though the event is mainly targeted at developers and designers, the event is planned to be helpful to entrepreneurs and business persons as well with networking session to meet and interact with fellow entrepreneurs and developers. Entrepreneurs can also find out how to benefit from these new software wonders by Adobe. There will also be many contests and even more prizes. Interested persons can register for the event by logging onto http://godsowndevelopers.com/kad/adobe-launch-registration/, the official website of the Kerala Adobe user group, God’s own developers.

Make use of this wonderful opportunity.

Thanks to Bridge, Toobler, Csharks, UST Global

February 19th 2010 marks the 20th Anniversary of Adobe Photoshop® and Adobe is getting together with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) to celebrate the anniversary of the software that changed the face of photography and design forever.

The Photoshop 20th anniversary celebration on February 18th at 7:30 p.m. pst will be streamed LIVE and feature Photoshop luminaries including NAPP’s Scott Kelby, John Loiacono, Adobe Senior Vice President and General Manager, Creative Solutions Business Unit, NAPP Photoshop gurus Dave Cross and Matt Kloskowski, Adobe Photoshop star Russell Brown, and other key members of the Adobe Photoshop team. This fun-filled night will feature a walk through Photoshop history, a glimpse into the future, and celebrates all things Photoshop.

It’s easy to attend! Sign up at http://www.photoshopuser.com/photoshop20th, and come back to that page on February 18th at 7:30 p.m. pst for an amazing history-making night.

Who knew this software that revolutionised graphics editing and photo touching was this old

Recently with the launch of the iPad we have this new controversial issue of HTML5 vs Flash. Some even term it as the ‘End’ of flash. Millions of bloggers out there has celebrated this issue and it has overblown into such big proportions that all the concerned companies have released posts to clarify the issue. Primarily the issue started with Apple vs Adobe rivalries in limelight.
Apple Steve Jobs comments can be read here
Adobe CTO Kevin Lynchs response is here
Adobes John Nack has some interesting thoughts here and here
Some other random posts, here, here
Read a neutral post for all web designers.

So responses boiled down to some points which can be stated as :
* Apple will only allow beneficial markets/players/technologies on their turf. They want to move their business forward and make people use their technologies and services. This is a fair point for any business.
* People think that HTML5 is some kind of flash killer and they believe that its gonna replace flash within few years. DUMB.
* Flash is still annoying, still crashes browsers, still is a closed black box. It is EVIL.

I just wanted to clarify what i think about all this and would like the community to add their thoughts.

Flash works on majority of the browsers, in almost all the operating systems and hence is called multiplatform deployment tool. Doing that calls for some technological marvel and its is not simply displaying formatted web page but streaming audio/video, live collaborating or engaging people with multi user collaborative games. So it tend to use up more memory and occasional system crash. Thne again these crashes are not attributes of flash, but it strictly depends on the coder behind the development of the specific software. Also number of crashes = popularity * bugs, so it doesnot really mean that flash player is a buggy software as its is the most popular third party software out there.

Its been some time that Adobe has opened up flash and also given out the open Flex compiler. Many third party tools now deploy swf content and it can even be dynamically created. So if there are still people who think that flash is a black box, then we should let them crawl out of the rock under which they are now living. Accessibility and DOM searching is a bit of a problem with flash. If you make your entire site in flash then it may not be readable by crawlers/bots unless engineered properly. Currently flash content is made searchable for Yahoo and google and its being worked upon. Again for better accessibility we can mix Flash with other technologies to deliver RIA and use flash where it marvels. Checking out Adobes sites itself will give you all pretty good idea how they have successfully engineered their sites with the right blend of flash, coldfusion, ajax, acrobat, flex etc.

Regarding HTML5. Lets just think again, do anyone really think that HTML 5 will be complete in all its specifications in 5 years from now and be adapted in all browser platforms? People tend to believe it will ultimately be able to do all that flash is capable of doing and be an open standard. Well do they really think flash will be all the same after 5 years? . Flash was a pioneering technology invented back in time when such stuff was unimaginable. It let users see videos, play games, browse porn, click ad banners and what not. Now it has laid out standards for such things and one open technology is trying to close the gap. Thats extremely great and my only concern is if it will be so much easy to build games on HTML5 and it ends up using less system resources at runtime. Flash will evolve as it is doing now. 5 years from now the open standard will be coping to make everything happen which flash does ‘now’ and flash will be doing some thing which is unimaginable/revolutionary at this point.

So lets welcome HTML5, the technology which takes the burden away from flash and lets it evolve, helping it redefine the web once again. Lets try respecting revolutionary technologies and people behind it. It takes a lot of courage and skill to think ahead and succeed. Every one deserves their bit of respect.

Reposting information from Ramesh

The Product Management teams of Adobe Flash Platform Development
tooling are visiting Bangalore for a few days this January.We
are inviting developers on the Adobe Flash Platform
(specifically Adobe Flex and Adobe ColdFusion), to interact with
the product management team.This is a great chance to share your
experiences and provide feedback.

We have already sent invites to a cross section of the developer
community in Bangalore, to attend this meeting in person. This
meeting will happen on Jan 19 at 6.30 pm.

To enable developers from other Indian cities participate, we
are also setting up a voice conference on 21st Jan, at 4pm. I
had earlier written about remote participants dialing in to this
meeting, but we have decided to decouple the two meetings.

For attending the teleconference, interested developers must
register at http://meetflexcfpm.eventbrite.com. The conference
bridge details will be sent over mail to those who register at
the site.

Feel free to circulate this message to key members (active
Flex/CF developers within the user groups you lead); who may be
interested in attending the teleconference.

Please do note that we have limited capacity for the audio
conference as well; and therefore request you to register your
interest ASAP and login to the conference bridge in time.

Cheers
Ramesh