Adobe MAX 2008 Day 2 Overview

Since I’m so late in covering the rest of my MAX trip, I’ll just hit the highlights and link to extended coverage elsewhere.

[MAX] The Evolution of Google’s Maps API for Flash CS4 Professional and Flex

Did I mention how much we drank at the end of day 1?

[MAX] General Session

Hey, whadda ya know? They had a section way up front for all us Adobe Community Leaders. Cha-ching! 10th row, center baby!

This is what all us ColdFusion faithful had been waiting for. The new Bolt IDE is on the way: CFC introspection from both the CF and Flex Builder perspectives. ORM built into ColdFusion 9. Lots of cool new things on the way. You can watch the whole Day 2 Keynote on YouTube, thanks to a user named willymx. The video below jumps straight to the Development portion of the keynote.

[MAX] Enterprise-Class SaaS Workflows

Don Taylor, the CTO of a company named Benefit Focus gave us some insight into how they built their Software as a Service product.

[MAX] Architecting ColdFusion for Scalability and High Availability

Brandon Purcell gave a great overview of the hardware and software architectures behind massive ColdFusion sites. If you have a site that’s seeing more traffic that your one or few servers can handle, you might want to drop him a note asking for the presentation. It’s a must read for figuring out some (sometimes) simple solutions for settling down your high traffic applications.

[MAX] Delivery of a Mission Critical RIA for NATO

“Adobe Consulting and ESRI will discuss the real-world implementation of a Mission Support System for AWACS aircraft, built in Flex for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).”

Looks and handles like a RTS video game, but its oh so real. Very impressive handling of real-time, mission critical data.

[MAX] Sneak Peeks

I was so worn out, I decided to skip the Sneaks and went back to my hotel to get ready for the party later that night.

[MAX] Customer Appreciation Event

This event was much better than last year’s in Chicago (but nothing can top the party we had in Vegas in 2006).

The California Academy of Sciences was our host for the night. Put a bunch of tech geeks in a museum with a massive rain forest and open bars every few feet and, well, it’s just something you have to experience for yourselves. If anyone knows the name of the jazz group that performed that night, you know, the one with the Theremin instead of a guitar, please let me know. I want their CD.

Those of us that grabbed tickets for their new (digital) Morrison Planetarium got an extra treat. Absolutely amazing presentation of the universe.

I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area.

End of day 2

More bar crawling. I got to meet many more people from the ColdFusion blogging scene. You couldn’t throw a rock in the bar at the Marriott without hitting someone of note (not that we were throwing rocks, mind you).