I had like a butt-load of gangs at my birthday

One of the many highlights of my 32nd year was the discovery of Napoleon Dynamite. So for my 33rd birthday, I decided that it was time to gather some friends and allow the Napoleon in all of us to come out. Who said being 33 meant you had to have a boring birthday party? I mean, I had a superhero costume party for my 30th! Maybe it's just that I've never grown up or something ... it's my Peter Pan complex ... whatever :)

So last night over some tots, nachos and beers (including a wicked dark ale home-brew created by my mate Dan ... hooyeah!) we had a very Napoleon time, including a mythical beast drawing competition. We were going to have a karaoke-style dance off later on but time just got away from us. And we even forgot to have my "Pedro for Presidente" birthday cake! That's okay though, I'll have it on Sunday (my real birthday) with some other mates.

So in the immortal word of Mr N. Dynamite, "Just listen to your heart. That's what I do."

Phil "Napoleon" Slade ... uuuuhhhhhhhhh

Pedro "Dale" Sanchez offers you his protection

Tanya "Deb" Rankine - I liked her sleeves, they were real big.

"I might build her a cake or something"

Turning 33 with my 3 little ladies (and my main lady taking the picture - love ya babe!)

Strongbad finally goes Flash Video

I always find that levels of respect for your work in the online world is often tied with being able to name the "old days" through references to versions of software you started on (like, "I've been using Flash since it was called Future Splash"), tools you once used (or, "I begain programming websites with BBEdit, Notepad and Corel Draw v1.0"), or online phenomenons you know about from way back. Let's see, how about Joe Cartoon (and more specifically the Frog in the Blender), or Battlemail (I recently found another Battlemail warrior - ahh the memories) ... am I sounding cool(er) yet?

For me the ultimate has to be Strongbad and the Homestar Runner site. For years now you've been able to track the growth of the Flash tool with the increasing production quality in the Strongbad email cartoons. And now, Strongbad has included Flash video in the latest installment. Now don't get TOO excited, it looks more like video converted to a SWF or just embeded in the main movie, not FLVs or anything, but hey, it's a look they're going for ... you'll see what I mean anyway. And apart from the video, it's a pretty classic Strongbad.

Rock on Strongbad.

The Mobile DTV Alliance

From IT News: Mobile phone giant Nokia has teamed up with other technology firms to promote the DVB-H technology standard for mobile TV, Nokia said on Monday.

... The Mobile DTV Alliance said more than 10 DVB-H network trials are under way or have been completed, including in Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Britain and the United States.

Mobile TV has been in Australia this summer, with the international cricket series being braodcast live on the 3 (Hutchison) network. Steps towards creating open standards for mobile TV will surely bring the common mobile handest closer to the mobile entertainment and communication "hub" we've been looking forward to!

Moket Sponsors Mobile Monday Melbourne

Moket has just organised to become sponsors of the Australian "chapter" of the Mobile Monday global community - Mobile Monday Melbourne. Keren Flavell of OMG.tv was kind enough to get in touch with us and invite us to participate. Sponsorship of such an event seemed liked a very good idea, since the audience that gathers is just the right mix pf people Moket needs to be getting in front of to not only promote our products but also evangelise Flash Lite as a platform for the next generation of rich mobile applications. Plus Marco always raves about his times at Mobile Monday Rome. Thanks Keren - looking forward to the first meeting we can attend.

SE on a winner with Walkman phones

From IT News: It seems Sony Erricson has done better than expected recently, with mobile sales up and 2006 looking solid. The Walkman range of phones have been a winner for the handset manufacturer, with the range getting more upgrades in the near future (3G versions, etc). Maybe an improved port of Flash Lite ... hmmm ? The SE phones had a browser based port for some time, but then it disappeared from some handsets. Would love to see a more reliable commitment from SE to Flash Lite, especially on these music-orientated handsets. Imagine some of the cool UI you could build around music players ... ahh .. dare to dream.

Internet users judge website in less than a blink

From ITnews : Interesting research showing how quickly you can win or lose your audience on the web. They do qualify the findings though by adding that basically there's no accounting for taste - personal preferences for what is a turn on or off is just that - a personal preference. So while designers need to consider how quickly a design can influence the user's experience, there's silver bullet to make it right everytime for everyone.

Seoul Travel Diary #7 - Home and Certified

Back home in Australia now where the weather is considerably more tropical than what I described in my previous post! I nearly melted getting back off the plane, after a fairly quick aclimatising to Seoul winter.

My last day in Seoul was pretty out of the ordinary. I took an organised tour to the DMZ - basically the border of North and South Korea. It was an eye-opening experience to see first hand the very real tension between these two countries - separated by ideology and history, but unified through family links and hopes for the future. We visited the new train station which will open shortly and join the north and south via rail link, as well as one of the tunnels dug by the north to infilltrate and invade the south. The tunnel was perfect for what I'll generalise as the North Korean soldier's size, but not too comfortable for tall Aussies!

All up the trip was very successful, and hopefully wil be the start of many more trips with Moket. And don't worry, I won't blog about every trip from now on :) Thanks to James, Bill and John from Adobe who looked after me so well over there, and who of course made it worthwhile by passing me in my instructor certification exam :) Bummer to go all that way and fail! And to the Korean guys I met and ate fire chicken with, much thanks also for making it a very memorable visit.

Now, back to work in Australia!


The fence and razor-wire go along the whole southern bank of the Hangang River, with these small guard posts every couple of kilometers - and aren;t the soldiers in there happy about their posting!


A South Korean soldier guarding the Imjin rail line - second last stop on the southern side of the border.


There's the first North Korean guard post on the other side of the DMZ. Through the coin-operated telescopes, you could see the 2 guards with their machine guns standing on their platform looking bak at you.

Seoul Travel Diary #6 - My first snow

Now for all you in parts of the world colder than Australia, this will sound a little silly, but I have never seen falling snow before ... until tonight! I was talking to my wife on Skype when I received an email from Kim Chi Talbot ... "Hey mate, look out the window ... SNOW!".

Not being one to mess about, I quickly grabbed my camera and headed downstairs to the hotel lobby, raced out the front door and sure enough ... there was white stuff on the ground and falling from the sky. I put 2 and 2 together, and BAM ... at nearly 33 years of age I finally get to see snow. It's pretty piddly snow mind you, I'm not exactly going to be out making a snow man or anything, but I was pretty chuffed. The guy at the front desk was have a good ol' laugh to himself, seeing this grown man laughing outside at this stuff falling from the sky :) So the snow has made 2 people's night :)

Seoul Travel Diary #5 - Aussies like to walk apparently

There's been a lot happening since the last travel update. My certification actually happened a day earlier than I had expected, so there was more time for me then to play the tourist.

I decided to head out on my own and see what I could find. I ended up at the centre of Seoul - City Hall, a palace nearby, and then at the top of Seoul Tower. I looked on the map and thought that things weren't far away, especially the cable car stattion which takes you up Namsan Mountain to the base of Seoul Tower. After walking for 45mins through central Seoul I thought maybe I should have taken a taxi! The view from the tower however was well worth the effort - 360 degree views of pretty much nothing but city ... and more city ... and buildings. This is a freakin' huge place and it's all built up - hardly any natural surrounds left like parks or anything. I wisely chose to get the subway home from the nearest station, as my feet and back were ready to leave me there.

So after my long distance adventures, last night James, John and I went out into Itewon to find some place to have a quiet drink. After much walking, discovering hidden mosques in back alleys, and avoiding many Nike-rip-off stalls, we found a quiet little Japanese place where John was able to shine with his Japanese language skills. We had some interesting discussions on Flash Lite, the current lack of Flash-enabled handsets, and maybe some possible ways forward in the short term. Great having a chance to talk directly with the guys who are right there on the front line with Flash Lite, and to make them aware of our own issues and questions from the developer's perspective. A very fruitful evening.

Today was then the organised tour which I ended up going on with this other New Zealand guy from another hotel. Nice enough guy, but if he told one more joke about how Australians were the kiwi's poorer cousins, I was going to start a diplomatic incident! We toured the main Gyeongbokgung Palace (much larger than the one I saw yesterday), the National Folk Museum (got some pics for James of the Kim Chi exhibit!), as well as the Namdaemun and Insadong markets. I got some cool stuff for my family back home, as they would have sent me back if I got off the plane without presents :) There's just so many people in this city - doesn't matter where go.

The tour guide though was extremely impressed when I told her where I had walked yesterday. I could even remember names of streets and landmarks, so I knoew where I was today. She said that when she had visited Australia, she remembers asking for directions and people told her how to get places by walking, not by which bus or train to catch. "You Austraians just love walking don't you!".

Tonight I'm laying low and resting up as it's an early start to the DMZ. I'm sure to get some cool shots there - photos that is, I don't want any other kind of shots to or from the North Koreans thanks very much. I fly home tomorrow night then after what has been a great time in my first foreign land. Wonder what'll be next?

Seoul Travel Diary #4 - I passed!

Just a quick post to let you know that today I passed my stand-up exam (teaching a unit of this Flash Lite course back to the Adobe guys) and am now a Adobe Certified Instructor for the Flash Lite 1.1 Mobile Application Development course. Woohoo! Next step is to work out some frameworks to get some courses happening back in Australia. One thing that I should point out is that the course focus is slightly different to what I originally thought it was. Rather than being aimed at Flash developers who want to learn about Flash Lite, it's rather aimed at other mobile developers (J2ME, etc) who want to see how to start using Flash to author Flash Lite content as an alternative to their previous ways - to turn them from the dark side to the Flash side of the Force. This actually is better for us since there is more people in that category, so we have more potential students.


Kim Chi Talbot, some Adobe Instructor guy, Bill 'How do you say bathroom in Korean' Perry, John Troll Koch - at Macrodobia office, Seoul.

I also booked some tours for myself today since the formal part of the trip is over now. Monday I'm visiting some old palaces and temples around the region, then on Tuesday I'm going to the DMZ - that's right baby, Kim Jong-il country ("What do you think of that now Hans Brix!?" ... Team America). Should be a real experience looking over the razor wire!

Anyway, I'm off tonight with the Adobe guys again (I think we're giving Korean food a break and going Italian or something) and some friends of the Perry's ... we're going to order James a kim chi pizza ... I'm sure there'll be some fun stories to post when I get back :) Until then ...

Seoul Travel Diary #3 - Kim Chi and Fire Chicken

Well today started a little seedier than the day before. Seems like my lilly-white Aussie stomach didn't fully agree with my previous evening's downtown cullinary escapades. I had a bit of good 'ol tummy-ache at about 3am, when I realised I'd eaten way too much, and of food that I didn't actully know anything about! All part of the experience ... that's what I keep telling myself.

I found my way to and from the subway without any problem today though - felt like a real local, and eve tried to pronouce the name of the station to the ticket window guy ... but he looked at me with such a puzzled look, I had to revert to pointing to it on the subway map. Can't say I didn't try!

Anyway, the second day of the course went very well. Bill showed some great stuff with FL 2.0 and with how to customise elements of the authoring tool (Flash Pro 8) for mobile development. Very useful for some of the guys in the group who work for handset manufacturers and device GUI developers. James finished going through the course units to prepare us for certification tomorrow. At the end we were handed a feedback form to fill out, to let the guys (especially James) how we thought the training sessions had gone. Since it was all in Korean, and with some encouragment from John Koch I must add, I completed my form for James as best I could (with tongue firmly planted in my cheek), but I'm not sure if it was the kind of feedback he was looking for ... or maybe it was just because I misunderstood the questions ;) Love ya work James, really man.

Tonight we all went out for dinner as a group. We first went to a place where you all sat on the floor at little tables. Bill's wife Rebecca was kind enough to delve into her Korean heritrage and order for us. A spread of beef soup, rice, kim chi (spelling not sure of, but however it's spelt, Kim Chi Talbot wanted more!!!), SPAM, grilled fish, some kind of roasted/sauced up almonds, and many other side dishes that I didn't know about. then there was the Korean beer - CASS. As it said on the bottle - The Sound of Vitality. After quite a few of these (Compeh!!) I wasn't feeeling exactly vitalised, let me tell you. We then went a bar next door for more Cass beer, some kind of rice snacks ... and FIRE CHICKEN. Oh my sweet giddy aunt ... it took literally an hour and a couple more beers for me to start feeling my lips and tongue again. After a while talking to John about his band Troll (www.trolltrolltroll.com), chatting to Sunny (Adobe) about Nokia and their perceived lack of enthusiasim for Flash Lite developers, and learning from the rest of the gang how to say "I can do it" in Korean (not that I can remember it now unfortunately - it involved more beer), I wandered home on the subway with some of the guys who were going my way.

So here I am again, just going over the unit from the course that I have to deliver tomorrow to the Adobe guys to pass my certification as a Flash Lite Mobile Developer Instructor. Looking forward to also starting other sight-seeing around the place. Going to check out some palaces and markets that aren't far from here. So with that, good night ... more tomorrow.

Seoul Travel Diary #2 - Where the streets have no names (that I can recognise)

Today's training sessisons went very well, covered a lot of ground in the course and had a pretty cool Japanese lunch to boot. Here's a few of the highlights from the day:

• The subway (see previous post)
• Lunch (did I already mention that I enjoyed lunch?)
• The toilets at the training centre with the electronically warmed seats! Oh what a feeling!
• The subway home - much less frantic than in the morning, except I got lost from the station getting back to the hotel. Oh well, saw some more of the locals :)

OK, but here are some way cool experiences that made Day 1 memorable ...

I was talking with James, Bill and John (Adobe) about accommodation. The guys are staying at the Marriot, not that far from the training centre. They have their own stories to tell of their trip this morning, but mine were better :) The hotel where I'm staying is really nice - inside. But it's in a fairly ... umm ... "dodgy" back alley / street in downtown Seoul. Not the place where the guys have been on other business trips. At first I thought that I wasn't going to enjoy it very much, and told them that I was staying on "the strip" and would need them to call the police if I didn't get back tomorrow morning. Anyway, they were a little envious I think that I was getting to see kind of the "real" Seoul. So after I got back tonight, I asked the hotel guys where I should go and eat. One of the porters took me through some pretty small and smelly alleys to this place that's no bigger than one of our bedrooms back home. There inside was a family, a few tables and chairs, and a kitchen all in together. It was like a throw back to M*A*S*H - I had my 2 day leave pass to Seoul and me and Hawkeye were out to sample the local cuisine. The dinner thay made me was absolutely fantastic - amazing food, spices, soups ... I have no idea what it all was but it was great. It was like this little place was my special Seoul hideout, there was just me and the owners eating at the same table - them showing me what I was doing wrong (was using chop sticks for the spoon food, and the spoon for the chop sticks food ... dummy!) and laughing at things I said even though I know they didn't speak English. Amazing experience. And to think at one stage I thought of just finding a McDonalds.

I had also told James that I was going to go on a photographic exploration of "the strip" and see what I could find. I found heaps of everything I would never normally experience. For a start, there traffic and people EVERYWHERE - like taffic jams at 8pm and guys riding their scooters through the crowd crossing on the pedestrian crossing and the footpath. There were the food vendors on the footpath selling everything, and the market stalls where I got a dodgy copy of the new Narnia movie for $4 (just for fun - I saw it onthe IMAX screen after Christmas, so nothing is going to beat that!). I took photos and video of life passing by and just enjoyed finding small things like Oasis tour posters in Korean, or ice on the street.

So here I am now back in my hotel room where my fingers (and cameras!) and finally thawed out from our little sojourn. I spoke to my kids tonight on Skype - felt very close even though I'm miles away in a foreign country, how cool. Anyway, I have some emails to read before geting some sleep. Cheers.

Seoul Travel Diary #1 - Hello Seoul!

Well here I am in sunny Seoul - although the sun doesn't seem to be having much affect in keeping me warm! It's intensely cold for a Brisbane boy, but an amazing city with just so many people! Dang! The Flash Lite instructor course is underway - meeting lots of cool people from all over the place. The hotel I'm staying at is pretty cool (or warm) and is for international travellers. It's a 40min subway ride to the training centre, and man are those subways packed! I couldn't believe how many people got crammed into the carriages, but no one complained or got flustered, just quietly squashed up against the next person and looked down. The Korean people seem very dignified, very quiet and shy, but in a hurry! People are just running everywhere, and walking pace is quite a few clicks more than my normal Aussie stride. Maybe it's all in effort to keep warm when outside? That's all for now ... more thoughts tonight.

Flash Lite'n all over the world

Thought I'd just make one final post before I jet off to Seoul for the Flash Lite instructors course. Spending today getting the office in order - even though we're still closed for the holidays there's plenty to take care of. I've also been putting in some hours over the break on a couple of products that will hit devices in 2006 - Dojo Monkey mainly. It's been a good project as it's brought a few development issues to the fore which we'll know for next time. File size is an issue for us right now, just trying to pack it all in a reasonable size. Anyway, will tell you more about it as we get closer to launch. The Dojo website will be launching in late Jan, with the game being offered to our distributors in Feb.

Well, next time I post here it'll be about 50 degress colder than what it is now, and I'll be in a foreign country for the first time. More from the northern hemisphere soon ...