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September 30, 2007 / Filed under: Adobe, Events, Web Development

Last night I attended the Adobe On Air Bus tour in Chicago, and was excited to be there. We ate, drank, played video games, and oh yea - learned quite a bit about Adobe's latest technology for deploying desktop applications, AIR.

Suffice it to say, I am rather eager to jump in and start developing AIR applications.

The Chicago event was the last stop on the "Summer Tour," which began in Seattle on July 10, and continued to almost 20 major U.S. cities.

Having learned about the event from Andy Atkinson, who had attended in Minneapolis the night before, I found the opportunity to attend the event in Chicago very hard to resist.

For one thing, it was completely free, when most events cost you a fortune for registration (getting your company to handle the cost always helps).

It was also very elegant and organized. As soon as I arrived at the front door of the building, I was greeted by staff and directed to the main room.

The food was phenomenal. An assortment of fine cheeses, fresh vegetables, and delicate appetizers (the crab cakes were fantastic) individually served by the wait staff. In accordance with a "Chicago theme," there was also hot dogs, which I didn't get a chance to try. There was also an open bar all night, with plenty of beer, and Red Bull for those interested in coding all night.

Upon arriving, we received a free "schwag bag," with some goodies:

Included was a t-shirt, discount hosting coupon, O'Reilly book for developing AIR applications (which was subsequently written by the very same individuals giving the presentations), and software on CD.

They were also giving away four free copies of the Adobe CS3 suite of applications. I found this rather shocking, as this software costs well into the thousands. I didn't stay long enough to be considered for the free software, but somebody won.

Overall I had a good time, and hope to attend similar events like this in the future.