Waldo Smeets .com on Rich Internet Applications » Wayback Archive

Belgium and Netherlands bring 100+ designers and developers to Adobe MAX Europe

Waldo Smeets — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:32:54 +0000

Adobe MAX Europe is less than a month away, and we already have more than 100 registrations of designers and developers from Belgium and Netherlands. Whilst MAX is a great event to network across Europe and to meet experts from Adobe, it apparently also is a great opportunity to meet your local colleagues! So if you are from The Netherlands or Belgium and have not registered yet, you have no excuse to go to your boss and get his approval…. you are not the only one going and maybe your competition is, so you should

Given that Benelux is only a small region in Europe, MAX promises to be a gigantic European web developer event!

Attending Adobe MAX Europe, Barcelona

Waldo Smeets — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:37:32 +0000

I will be attending Adobe MAX Europe, which takes place in beautiful Barcelona, and will also present a session on Flex Builder 3. MAX Europe looks like one of the best conferences we’ve had in Europe since ages, I am really looking forward to learning a lot from all the European experts and the Adobe employees…. yes, even for me as Adobe employee MAX is a great opportunity to learn from colleagues.

I know that there will be a big crowd of designers and developers from The Netherlands and Belgium, so if you haven’t decided on joining yet….. make sure you do and join our party

My colleague Andrew Shorten has been posting some discount codes (ECM297), so be quick and get your discount before the end of this week.

New Year, new blogsystem

Waldo Smeets — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:44:04 +0000

I’ve decided to update my blogsystem as I felt that the old blogman_v2 CFC didn’t meet todays blogging standards any longer (no trackbacks, no comment spam filtering, no trackbacks, no tags etc). I first refused to move away from this ColdFusion application because it’s the only serverside language I really know and thus could maintain. However, after realising I actually never went into the code anyway, I decided it wouldn’t heard to use a pre-build PHP system.

Lazy as I am I picked WordPress as my new blogging tool. I didn’t really choose between other tools like MovableType. I was inspired by some good looking blogs from Wietse and Niels and decided to just implement the systems they used.

So here it is, my new blog powered by WordPress 2.0.5 and K2. Increadible how easy everything is to set up, the plugin concept is really awesome. Current style is based on the Theme fSpring which was design by Fredrik Fahlstad (sorry Fredrik, I think I screwed the design with my custom header image ) and which I first saw at Wietse his weblog. There’s a new link for RSS Entries (I’ll update the old URL to redirect to this one tomorrow) and for RSS Comments.

I wrote some custom ColdFusion code to migrate all posts from the old system to the new, as well as some additional HTML and CSS to integrate the theme into K2. Since it’s soo long ago that I wrote any HTML or CSS and because there are some really old HTML posts (back till 2002) migrated, I am sure some pages might break.

So if you notice something is broken, please leave me a note. Feedback is also welcome!

Known issues:

It seems that trackbacks don’t work yet

Interested in testing the next release of Dreamweaver – in Dutch?

Waldo Smeets — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:02:02 +0000

Adobe has had several products localized into Dutch in the past, at Macromedia this never was the case despite requests from users. One of the many good things of the Macromedia – Adobe merger is that we now plan to localize Dreamweaver into Dutch!

So, we are looking for native Dutch-speaking web developers that are interested in testing the next release of Dreamweaver, in Dutch! If you feel like having time to help us, please send me an email in Dutch at wsmeets-ad-adobe.com with the subject line “Dreamweaver testen in het Nederlands” and I’ll forward your contact details to the product team. All non-Dutch requests will be ignored.
Update: We’ve received an incredible amount of requests and have closed the beta program. Thanks a lot for your interest!

Note: I am not responsible for the testing program, localization nor the selection of beta testers, I’m only just the messenger of the good news to the Dutch community. I am not looking for testers of any non-Dutch products. I have no clue whether other programs will be localized, when things will be available etc. So don’t even ask me for more information ).

Adobe zoekt Nederlanderstalige webontwikkelaars die willen helpen met het testen van een nieuwe versie van Dreamweaver, in het Nederlands! Heb jij tijd om ons te helpen met het uitbrengen van een goede, Nederlandstalige volgende versie van Dreamweaver? Stuur dan een email met onderwerp “Dreamweaver testen in het Nederlands” en met je persoonsgegevens naar wsmeets-apestaartje-adobe.com en dan stuur ik ze door naar het Dreamweaver team.
Update: We hebben enorm veel aanmeldingen gekregen en hebben inmiddels het beta programma gesloten. Hartelijk dank voor de interesse!Â

Opmerking: Dit gaat alleen over het testen van een Nederlandstalige Dreamweaver versie. Ik zit niet in het localisatie team en beslis dus niet wie toegelasten wordt of niet. Ook weet ik niet of er nog meer Macromedia producten in het Nederlands beschikbaar zullen komen, wanneer het beschikbaar komt etc. Vragen hierover zullen dan ook worden genegeerd

Presentations of Adobe Business event posted

Waldo Smeets — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:46:55 +0000

We’ve posted the presentations of our Adobe Business Connect events online. This event was targeted at business managers and IT managers and included great case studies by customers (not all in English) in the Benelux region. I’ve posted direct links to RIA presentations below:

Slides Robeco on their product selector solution and why they choose Adobe Flex
Slides SNS Bank on why they have online live customer mortgage advisors using Adobe Breeze
Slides Joh. Ensched on their Amsterdam Airport Schiphol noise monitoring solution
Slides Dexia BIL on why they have made Adobe Flex 2 a part of their IT Strategy
Slides Belgacom TV on their vision on consumer portals and how they implemented it using Adobe Flex 2 for their BelgacomTV portal

There is more on SAP Interactive Forms, LiveCycle and Acrobat on the Amsterdam and Brussels edition pages.

JavaPolis 2006 RadRace – Any Adobe Flex participants?

Waldo Smeets — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:50:34 +0000

JavaPolis 2006 is approaching quickly and like every year there will be a RadRace. This year a team of LogicaCMG will participate using Flex 2 as part of their development tools! Obviously this team is my favorite Last year they already won the encouragement award – or something like that – with Flex 2 alpha, even though they had almost no Flex experience because the alpha was just out for a few weeks!

I wonder if there are any other European developers considering to participate using Adobe Flex?

ps: Adobe will again have it’s own booth at JavaPolis to bring Flex, ColdFusion and LiveCycle to the attention of the Java developers. Let me know if you are a Flex developer and planning to attend JavaPolis, we’d love to get to know you better.

SNS Bank to use Adobe Breeze for online Mortgage advice

Waldo Smeets — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:22:02 +0000

Today Molblog announced that the Dutch SNS Bank will use Adobe Breeze for real-time online mortgage advice and sales. I am sure this will be one of the worlds first implementations of online mortage sales of this kind; it’s very close to the experience or a real-world meeting with your advisor, but without the hassle of travelling.

I’ve joined several test sessions (I happen to be buying my first house, so it’s very close to my real world) and I think it’s an awesome experience; Customers looking for a new mortgage contract can contact one of the SNS Bank advisors online, through Adobe Macromedia Breeze. Whilst using voice over IP and video over IP customers can receive detailed information through presentations and shared applications and will leave the meeting room with a customized quote from the bank.

All of this is made possible through Adobe Breeze and the Flash Platform, of course, and thus will be accessible to almost anyone. The service will go live later next month.

Blogging wireless from train on my way home

Waldo Smeets — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:13:05 +0000

This is fantastic, free wireless internet in 1st class of the train from Amsterdam to where I live. Since my trip takes about an hour and halve, this is great for my productivity (and pleasure). I’d never have thought to see this happen in my own country

Another reason why Flash Video: Microsoft stops development of Windows Media Player for Mac

Waldo Smeets — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 22:39:21 +0000

Need I say more? “We have no plans to provide future updates or product support for Windows Media Player for Mac,”

Finally officially working for Adobe Systems Benelux B.V.

Waldo Smeets — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 22:14:13 +0000

I’m glad to report that I now officially work for Adobe. In The Netherlands the companies did not merge untill yesterday, so one month later than in the US and we only heard about our new roles today.

The old Macromedians moved into the Adobe office in Amsterdam and I got introduced to the new team. I’m really looking forward to work with this bigger sales force and with all these new products.

In the short term, not a lot will change for me. I think the biggest changes will be that I will not be covering Scandinavia anymore, as they now fall under an other region. For those I’ve been in touch with over there, I’ll inform you within two weeks when I come back from my trip to the States.