In Sydney for webDU

Well I've arrived in Sydney now for this week's webDU conference ... it's going to be great. Met with an old boss and workmates of mine today who now work in Sydney, and then had a great meeting with the guys from Tigerspike, talking about Flash Lite and the potential there. I even tried out some of my session content on them for practice :)

I'm staying at Star City during the conference which is both handy and very nice digs. Tonight is the ANZ user group meeting downstairs, so hoping to make it to that or see who else is skulking around the place who might want to go and get a drink or something.

The webDU mobile game has been getting around very well and getting some nice feedback from it, so thanks everyone.

Anyways, more webDU updates as they happen. My broadband network card hasn't been working since I got here (could be the actual network as it turns out!) but the conference has wireless connectivity anyway. I was going to say I'll blog from sessions, but that's poor conference etiquette I think - standing up the front and seeing people typing away at their laptops rather than listening to you speak ... it's a modern day scurge I tell ya! So instead, I'll do a daily wrap up! Later ...

Play webDU Celebrity Head

Our latest Flash Lite 1.1 offering is a roll call of the who's who of the web-world (well, those speaking at webDU anyway!) ... webDU Celebrity Head.

We took a different approach to the "conference companion" application this year ... made it a bit more fun. Nectarine have become famous for their webDU (and previous MXDU) Flash animations and characters, and our game is based around the caricatures of the speakers from this year's conference line-up. Thanks to Steve for providing the Flash "heads" for the game, and to Scott and Alessandro for helping me test it :)

Countdown to webDU

The webDU 2006 conference is on this week, and things couldn't be busier! Why is it that when you have time away from the office planned, and work has been slow, that it suddenly picks up with short turn-around jobs!? Can't complain about the work but it has made the last week or so very hectic, and the couple of days before the conference this week even crazier.

I'm really looking forward to meeting some guys who haven't been to webDU (or MXDU) before, as well as some guys who have become quite good friends. I'm sure Geoff and the crew have an awesome couple of days planned, which all kicks off with an Australia/New Zealand Adobe/MM user group meeting on Wednesday night. My Flash Lite session is on Friday, but I'm looking forward to Chris Blair's session on Zodal's mobile products and how they're tackling Flash Lite.

I'm putting the finishing touches on our annual webDU Flash Lite app as well. Last year we did maybe one of the first ever Flash Lite conference guides which went down very well. And without big-noting ourselves, we did see a LOT of Flash Lite conference apps starts appearing shortly after that! This year we did something a little more fun while still delivering some practical conference info. Will post it up shortly ...

Moket now an iriver u10 reseller

If you're in Australia, then Moket is your new supplier of the Flash Lite enabled u10 multi-function player. Many of you will already know of the u10, or at least heard of it's Flash Lite 1.1 capabilities. We at Moket decided that it would be a good option for us to also stock and resell niche devices that can play our content, and the u10 was a great place to start.

Watch out for more u10 content and online content services from Moket this year, as we look to expand the range of customers our content is designed for. While we get some of the ecommerce finalised, if you're interested in knowing more or purchasing a u10, then just email sales@moket.com.au and we can help you from there.

Flash Lite gathering pace

Having a chat with Alessandro this week about the recent spate of announcements from majot handset manufacturers regarding their adoption of the Flash Lite player. There have also been numerous reports of game developers working on Flash Lite versions of their products in anticipation of the seemingly imminent landslide of FL compatible phones and devices.

It certainly seems that the Flash Lite boat is finally setting sail, just as we all hoped it would. Sure, there are still various issues and arguments surrounding timings, implementations and restrictions on different devices, etc. But hey, at least it's getting out there right? Even just the "chatter" amongst industry people, even here in Australia, has gone up a notch ... it's getting very exciting!

There's some news brewing with Moket also that we're looking forward to hopefully releasing shortly, plus the webDU 2006 conference in only a couple of weeks ... it's all happening folks.

The new Monkey has an Aussie connection

The cult-hit Japanese TV series "Monkey" has be reinvented and re-released for a new generation. "In the world before Monkey, primal chaos reigned," but kids these days didn't know that before now. Apparently the new Monkey is a blinde-haired punk rocker ... I wonder if Pigsy and Sandy will get similar make-overs?

And apparently they shot some of the new scenes in Australia ... cool :)

ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1573069.htm

LG and BenQ jump on the the Flash Lite express

Let's cross now to Bill Perry, reporting LIVE from 3GSM in Barcelona ... Bill?

"Thanks Dale. Well we've had some extraordinary events here in the past 24 hours. On just the first day of this conference we've witnessed 2 big players in the mobile handset manufacturing industry announce that they're launching handsets this year, and even as early as April, with implementations of the Flash Lite player. LG Electronics and BenQ took advantage of a frenzied audience to make these announcements, and Dale, I'm sure you're just as excited about it as we are here. This is Bill Perry live at 3GSM in Barcelona. Now back to you in the studio..."

> LG Electronics Signs Licensing Agreements With Adobe for Flash Technology

> BenQ Mobile Licenses Flash From Adobe For Integration Across New Handset Business

Feeling creative?

For the past couple of weeks I've been heavily involved in lots of business meetings for Moket. We're moving into a period where we'll be preparing the company for it's next step in evolution (more to come...), and so I've been spenindg a lot of time selling the Moket vision. Since I'm pretty excited about the future of Moket and what we're going to achieve (talk it up Dale, talk it up!), the more I talk to people about the whole thing, the more excited I get. And I find that the more excited I get about it, the more creative I feel. Now for some creative types, just the thought of managing the growth of a business would be enough for them to run to the hills, but not me for some reason.

So the other day, after many meetings and discussions on the business, I started to feel very inspired to do something I have always wanted to do - author a story for a Phantom comic. It helped that I had been working with some guys in the US on the Moket Comics business plan (again, more later ...). I had this quick thought of a story line, and within an hour or so I had a synopsis and detailed outline of the general story and characters. Very cool!

Don't expect it to be hitting the shelves in the next month or anything though ... I have to try and find a publisher who can look at it for me and hopefully won't tell me that maybe I should stick to Flash :) But the moral of the story (this story, not my Phantom story) is when you're feeling creative, or an idea pops into your head - get it down! Grab a dictaphone or leave yourself a voice mail. Write something down or sketch it out in a notebook. Find some way of recording that creative thought because you just don't know what it could become.

So, if there's anyone from FREW or Egmont, or any other publisher of The Phantom that wants a rip roaring story of rock'n'roll, secret societies and stolen government secrets, you can send an email to comics@moket.com.au and we'll talk ;)

For those wondering where Mossyblog had gone!

Scott's asked me to blog this for anyone interested, and so he can get the word out re: Mossyblog's recent (temporary) demise

MossyBlog went down a couple of weeks a go, due to the fact that it was hosted on an internal machine within a company I once worked for. Now, as a favour for displaying BestRates.com.au logo on the site, it was hidden as a "sponsorship" style site. MossyBlog gets actually a lot of hits per month, which suprisingly enough justified the "sponorship" i guess... that or it was a favour. Since two of the my old team at Tourism Queensland left, in return so did the site as basically there isn't anyone there to protest its deletion. I currently have MossyBlog on disk here (backedup thankfully), and will get around to putting it online again ASAP.

At present, I'm in a new career path (Management) which has me running around looking after a few large projects (worth millions). As a result, my coding capabilities have had to ride in the backseat for a while, simply due to the fact that my time has been consumed as of late.

That being said I had hoped to have it up online tonight / kill some more of my tasks etc.. Sadly though, the company I work for (Qld Rail) went on Strike this morning and as a result, my workload become crazy again (as I work in the Marketing side of things).

So, fear not, it will be back online and I have a tonne of rants I wish to blah about, but at present time is just not there. In fact, shock horror, I haven't yet had a chance to see Flex BETA... now everyone who knows me, knows that clearly illustrates how busy I am.. as if I let something like that slide.

Scott Out.