Tonight I got one of the “coolest” emails you can get: I’ve been invited to give a session at gotoAndSki(); Switzerland on January 26th, 27th and 28th, 2012, which is really awesome. Unfortunately I haven’t been to this conference before, but I’ve heard very nice things about it and let’s face it, skiing during the day and conferences with diner at night is not your typical conference setup. So I’m really looking forward to it.

Now, about my session, it’s going to be titled “Database Driven Mobile Applications: the power of ORM”. Now, some of you may think “what the hell is ORM?”. Well let me reassure you that it is not magic, but it does some really magical stuff.

ORM allows you to create database driven applications by writing virtually no SQL statements.Normally, this type of feature is restricted to the server side of your application, but now you can use this server-side feature on the client-side in an AIR application.

This session will talk you through the basics of using ORM in AIR and how to “automagically” synchronise your local data with a remote server. Whether that’s a PHP, Java or ColdFusion, it doesn’t matter. That’s not all: we’ll go one step further and take that ability to create database driven applications onto the mobile platform as well. Just like that!

If you are digging this and the other topics presented at gotoAndSki(); make sure you get your tickets in time to enjoy the conference and the gorgeous surroundings of the Swiss Alps. I hope to see you there: switzerland.gotoandski.com

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to present at Flash Israel on February 22-23. There were a lot of topics I could choose from, but looking at the list of speakers that were already selected, such as Ben Forta, Lee Brimelow, Grant Skinner, … I knew I had to come up with something mind blowing.

So, after doing some soul searching I reached back to my experience with Phidgets and Arduino. Over the past year I’ve been experimenting with both and found out I love playing around with electronics. Now the great thing about these two brands is that their components can be accessed through Flash technology.

This is exactly what I’ll be talking about, showing some actual real-world applications as well; even using the mobile phone to control these devices. I can’t tell you exactly what I’ll be doing because that would ruin the scoop of my main demo. But I can tell you there’s a laser involved! So if you happen to be in the neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Israel next week, be sure to come over and enjoy all the awesome speakers.