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Flashmove is a Singapore Flash Usergroup that is dedicated to the Flash community of Singapore.

Flashmove is organising its June Usergroup meeting at Adobe Singapore. The following is the Agenda:

Flash CS 3 (Flash 9) has gone adobified. With a new sleuth of features that gives designers a cutting edge in visual creation.
Flash CS 3 gives you the new design integration and layout enhancements.
The components have also improved it’s ease of skinning.
If you are new to Flash, let us walk you through how using Flash CS3 is easier than it’s the predecesors.
With the integration of the good features from Adobe and Macromedia, Flash CS3 is bound to bring the needs of designer and developer into one seamless application.

To add to the vibe, there will be a feature presentation on Flash Mobile by Adobe.

Includes lucky draws, book discount coupons and quizes for everyone!

All these and much more in FlashMove 6th Anniversary Celebration and we look forward to seeing you there!

Presentation One: Flash Mobile by Adobe

Presentation Two: Flash CS3

Presentation Three: .NET Remoting in Actionscript 3.0 and MySQL

Venue: Adobe Office, PageMaker Room (Suntec City Tower 3)
Date: 9 June 2007
Time: 10AM - 1PM

Register yourself here: http://flashmove.com/fsug/

Ever since my idea of ShockOS (which I guess a lot of people around the globe had the same idea at the same time) in Feburary 2006, a lot of ‘webos’ has been popping up all over the webosphere.  A few to name like desktop2 , ghost, yourminis, etc. The core idea lies in the user logging into a page that simulates a desktop. The interface is usually the same as to a desktop operating system. Built with either AJAX or Flash, the user can manipulate their files, access their social networking services, view their photos, videos etc. Some build the services themselves (i.e., their own server storing the files), while some tap into other public API, like Box.net, backpackit, etc, to allow for data persistence.

Personally, I feel that it is very hard to ‘locked’ users into using such ‘desktop’ services. Simply because its easy to cross the line between ‘bloatware’ and being ‘full functional’. Web OS usually throws in a lot of services like widgets, music players, photos viewing, etc. Thus, it makes them ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’. Currently, I am using Flickr to store my photos, Box.net to store my files. When I need videos, I go Youtube. When I am hungry and need to feed on some RSS, I go Google Reader. Each of this little applications serves my needs and each are chunking out new features everyday. Web OS is an exciting idea, but it fails to ‘lock in’ the user. For example, if you suddenly feel the urge to see 1 particular photo you have on Flickr, will you log into your webos (and maybe it has a widget that pull photos from Flickr), or will you go directly to Flickr. On the other hand, if the Web OS is providing its own storage services, do you not think that it is dangerous to put all the eggs into 1 basket, especially will the statistics of ‘only 1 out of 10 web 2.0 startup will survive’.

End of the day, I think simplicity is good. Twitter is a very good example. Its does just 1 thing and it works. If you have a idea, focus on that idea. If you want to conquer everything and wants to throw in everything including the kitchen sink, be reminded that it is impossible to please everyone.

Web OS tends to lose focus. When you lose focus, you will be unable to lock your users in. I still love to create mashups myself, but in terms of a web 2.0 business model, it might not be the best idea

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