What I took away from FITC Toronto

I’ve just returned from the premiere Canadian new media trade show known as Flash in the Can. My head is now full of hope and inspiration for the future of rich media, and dynamic desktop applications.

There were so many wonderful things worth mentioning, and I fear I’ll only be able to only scratch the surface in a single article, so consider this a brief overview.

Let me start by discussing the potential for Adobe’s new product Air, which is a platform allowing flash developers to create dedicated desktop applications using all the same scripting and abilities of Flash CS3.

Before attending FITC I didn’t really appreciate the usefulness of a new platform to host Flash based applications. But now that I’m aware of its easy-to-use built-in SQL database, and the potential to access dynamic data both locally, online, and the possibility of syncing the offline with the online I’m eager to dive far deeper into this new dev platform. I’m thinking this would make an excellent platform for an Intranet, among other incredibly useful apps.

A few major websites such as PayPal, EBay, Google Analytics, FaceBook, and others have already built or are developing desktop versions of their huge and complicated sites to allow users a faster and more feature-rich experience then was ever possible before. In many cases it will allow their sites to operate offline which is a pretty major ability both for the company and their users.

Here is Adobe’s current Air app showcase site.

One other thing I took away from FITC was the incredible work being done by a few people in the realm of code generated artwork.

Flash has long been a favorite tool among groundbreaking designers to avoid the limitations of old-fashioned HTML/CSS styles, allowing the sites to be presented in ways that are near-impossible in most other traditional ways.

I strongly recommend viewing the work being done by Joshua Davis, Erik Natzke, and my personal favorite Grant Skinner. Skinner has managed to create some beautiful, natural looking trees and grass, entirely with code. It would take many pages to get into the details of how this is possible, but it essentially amounts to porn for Flash coders.

Anywho, it was a fantastic conference that will forever influence the way I approach my work.

Jersey Day Polaroid Gallery

This Flash implementation takes a series of photos (either by a Flickr RSS feed or an xml file with the list of photos) and then randomly spreads them out on a surface like a stack of Polaroid photos. The photos have captions, as if they were written on the bottom of the Polaroids. You can drag the pictures around, and double-click on them to open them in a larger view. You can also cycle through the pictures by clicking on the right and left arrows.

These photos are from a recent theme day we had at BSL; Jersey Day. The cool thing about this gallery is that you don't have to know anything about working with Flash. It's incredibly easy to add your own photos and post it to your server. It took me about 5 minutes.

Click the image above to see the gallery.
You can download everything (including source .fla if you want to see how it was made) here.

Open Source Everything

One of the big changes building on the Web over the past years has been the availability of increasingly sophisticated applications - for free. Some web developers who at one time invented from scratch are now becoming expert integrators of open source applications. It's an exciting development because it means more of us can be creative and inventive. You'd be amazed by the number of really impressive websites are built using open source applications like WordPress, Joomla, or SilverStripe. Or the incredible knowledge-sharing possibilities of wiki-based intranets and extranets.

Open source software isn't quite the same thing as social networking sites or web-based APIs such as Google Maps. Facebook, Myspace or even Blogger offer users free access, but are supported by data mining and advertising to pay for the servers, development and technical support. Open source systems are hosted on your own servers (or the servers you pay for), and stand apart from other installations of the same system.

Conceptually, though, open source and social networking sites share a basic principle: pooling knowledge and sharing expertise create value. Many open source systems are designed by individuals and groups who believe in collaboration (and the possibility that their system will catch on and they can go to IPO). I am constantly amazed and impressed by the dedication of core developers and the more casual contributors who bring tools into the digital commons.

Some links:
www.joomla.org
www.silverstripe.com
www.wordpress.com
Top 10 Wiki Engines:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TopTenWikiEngines