Kevin Miller writes...

We're all back from Malta, so I thought I would take a moment to share my
experiences of the conference with you.

First, let me thank the organizers for holding this in beautiful Malta. I
know they put a lot of hard work into organizing the conference.

This was the second Revolution event in 2006, the first being RevCon West
2006 in Monterey, California. No matter how often and extensively we
exchange emails there is no substitute for real face to face contact. This
event also allowed a higher turn out of Europeans though there was no
shortage of North American participants.

A cozy village atmosphere, pleasant weather, helpful friendly staff and a
comfortable hotel were the backdrop to some excellent and entertaining
talks, extremely useful feedback and revelations of the future direction of
Revolution.

The presenters were all excellent! Scott Rossi's imaginative and beautiful
use of the new graphics capabilities of the Revolution 2.7 series was very
well received. 2006 introduced several major advancements in Revolution 2.x;
not only was Revolution the first non-Apple cross-platform tool available to
support both Universal Binary compilation, and the first to support direct
compilation for U3 smart drives - it also received a brand graphics engine
with new capabilities. Scott Rossi's Tactile Media designs user interface
experiences a broad base of clientele and his presentation put the new
technology into a new perspective for those present.

Alex Tweedly presented a session on how to create networked applications
with Revolution. Revolution includes built in support for both standard TCP
and UDP networking. Alex's session discussed which type of networking you
might want to use in a given circumstance. He then went on to demonstrate
the intricacies of using UDP networking. The session was well presented and
the content useful for anyone building network applications.

Runtime Revolution Ltd Technology Director Mark Waddingham, and software
engineer Marcus Van Houdt presented a well received roadmap for Runtime
Revolution in 2007. The talk by Mark Waddingham on was one of the highlights
of the conference for many. It is fortunate that this presentation was
scheduled for the end of the day, as this allowed it to over-run a little,
with his audience glued to their seats. Something of a tour de force, I'm
not sure if how managed to present all the 22 pages he prepared, but he did!
His detailed and coherent discussion of the future technology gave everyone
a new perspective and grasp of the detail of the plan. It was helpful to
take a step back and look at the big picture.

I think Marcus's talk in particular seemed to strike a cord with the
attendees. A great success, and very beneficial to the next round of
Revolution releases.

Great conference, great experience, thank you all for coming and I hope to
meet even more of you next at the first Runtime Revolution conference
organized in the USA in 2007!

Jo Hernandez writes...

I am back again... this time from our European Conference - EuroRevCon 2006. I've dropped off my luggage, poured (another) glass of Pinot Grigio and am ready to fill you in on the finer points...

Set on the beautiful Island of Malta, we were greeted by stunning landscapes and scenery, accompanied by great weather, but more importantly the two conference organisers Jim Sims & Cloe Mifsud, were there in person, to collect each attendee from their flight. The Friday night 'Drink and Dinner Network' was a great way for each attendee to introduce themselves - and as much as it was fantastic to see so many old faces, seeing them welcome and integrate the new faces, made me smile even more.

Kevin Miller, CEO of Runtime kicked off the Saturday proceedings, followed by an 'Animated' talk from Malte Brill of DerBrill Software. Eric Chatonet talked us through the thought process for creating well thought out stacks, whilst we were able to watch Björnke von Gierke struggle, whilst he made a chat application before our very eyes! (Sadly I was advised I had 'chatted' enough and didn't get to test it to its limits).

We were glad to see Andre Garcia re-united with his (much travelled) luggage - and of course to see him in a change of clothes, which was almost upstaged by an AnimationEngine game, created during a coffee break.

There was much anticipation for the Sunday Sessions in which Mark Waddingham , David Brooks & Alex Tweedly were allowed to 'beat their chests' and talk us through some of the more complex aspects of rev and specified why/how to use these features properly. It was also great to see spontaneous presentations in the break times, allowing attendees to display their wares and ask for any assistance in moving forward.

Mark Wieder and our very own Golden-Boy of Graphics, Scott Rossi were on stage to bring the session's home and lead us into the Prize Ceremony for the " Win a Mac Mini with MacFormat and Runtime" Competition.. this was a brief prize giving, due to exceptionally high demand for a snippet of David Hasselhoff aka 'The Hoff' and his new single, complete with video*.

Much 'Glee and Grig-lio' then followed until the early hours of the morning, to make this another hugely successful conference for organisers and attendees alike, to be proud of!