Thomas Joos | mobile application developer

The last couple of weeks I have spent some time together with my colleague Erlend. Not just to have some beers, too bad, but to prepare Boulevart’s new online communication platform. Erlend did a wonderful job doing the design and together we discussed the structure, what type of articles should be on the new blog, why people should come and have a look around. This week we decided to go live, feel free to dive in to a brand new Boulevart experience at blog.boulevart.be. As you might notice it does not really act as ‘just a blog’ and that’s why we like to give it the more fancy ‘online communication platform’ title.

I already prepared 2 articles but it might be a good idea to just start at the beginning: in ‘the bigger picture’ you’ll find everything you need to know about the new blog, what it stands for, why we will be spending time on it and so on..

The bigger picture
No need to panic, labs.boulevart is not dead. We will keep encouraging our developers to share their technological expertise, covering Flash, Flex, Air, Mobile, HTML&CSS, php, .NET, … So what’s this new blog about then? On a regular base we will provide quality articles giving you front-row seats in our visions and beliefs. Next to that we’re also focussing on the latest and newest cases, you’ll get a glance at the final result and find out the ins and outs directly from those who designed, developed and managed it. Via our blog you’ll get a closer look at Boulevart: see what happens behind our scenes and how we experience everything that’s going on here.

Maybe I should consider working for theFWA because a while after I blogged about my colleague Wim’s new experimental portfolio, it got included in worlds most famous webgallery: theFWA.com. Congratulations Wim, it does not happen much that an individual works up his way into the ‘website of the day’. Keep it up! If you missed the experimental experience, no need to panic: http://www.wimvanhenden.be

The Adobe Usergroup posted a report of the latest mobile madness meeting. Feel free to check out the official review (thanks to frankwatching) or have a look at the recorded video material. You’ll find my session there as well, next to other interesting topics. I did not really saw a way to embed the video  ( maybe i’m getting more and more blind? ) so I just pasted a little screenshot below.

Yesterday I gave a session at the Mobile Madness Event, hosted by the Adobe Usergroup Netherlands. My session, which was titled ‘from concept to development’ focussed on everything that happens before we start programming our mobile application here at Boulevart. Attendees got an inside look on how we prepare, create and finetune a mobile concept, how important a good application flow and user profile is etc.. I really had a great time in Amsterdam, big thumbs up for the AUG Netherlands for organizing such a quality Usergroup meeting. There were over 300 registrations which resulted in the biggest AUG Meeting ever in the Netherlands! For the first time there was live interaction with the audience, having 2 big screens streaming twitter, flickr and sms feeds coming from the attendees, which resulted in live interaction, reporting and immediate feedback, super cool! I was second in line after Serge and I hope I manged to inspire you to get started with that killer mobile application! I uploaded my slides for those who missed the session or want to have a second look at them :) Feel free to give me any kind of feedback, just drop me a note in the comments or send me an e-mail.

You don’t see them very often these days ( or at least i’m missing them ) but my colleague Wim Vanhenden released his personal website this week and to be honest: it is a little bit experimental. Hmm, let me rephrase that last sentence: it is totally experimental. Take a look around at wimvanhenden.be and let this Belgian internet artist know who your favourite band is and what you are thinking to let him take you on a journey. I know Wim put a lot of effort in this website and I really like the result. It has been a long time since I came across a personal portfolio that was focussing more on art and experience than on content only.

In WebDesigner’s 13th edition I got published with an interview as a result of the Max Award we won in Milan. In the ‘Behind The Scenes’ section I’m talking about Flash and the iPhone, Boulevart and my vision on mobile in general. I’m very proud to represent Boulevart in one of the most cutting-edge multimedia magazines in the Netherlands!

[crossposted from labs.boulevart]

Last week, Luc, Wim and Thomas went on a business trip to Berlin and Luxemburg. Nothing to be really that excited about. A few guys flying to Germany to have some meetings, what about that? Well, they did not really flew over there actually. No, they also didn’t traveled by train or by car. As real mobile nerds they used a mobilehome!

It was Luc who came up with the idea. “ Would it not be great to use a mobilehome to get there? Driving, eating, sleeping and working together in a big car… what’s not to like?” Because Wim and Thomas were affraid to get some serious beating from Luc, they smiled and gave him the big thumbs up! Luc arranged everything and last Wednesday they picked up the mobilehome and off they were. If you thought Wim would immediately buy a six pack and get himself comfortable… you’re quite wrong! Wim was not feeling very well. (we think by loosing his hair he picks up a cold very easy ) so they bought some basic food supplies and started driving towards Berlin.

With a stop every once and a while they moved on quickly and after an 8 hour ride they arrived in Berlin. As real truck-drivers they managed to find the way without any problems. Feeling quite hungry this Boulevart trio started looking for a place to eat and after a short walk they arrived at a place called “Alex”. Before entering Wim quickly gave the others some extra advise: “Whatever you do, don’t mention the war!”

After a lovely steak, some beers and a cuba libre they started looking for their little version of the four seasons. Thanks to Luc, who seemed to be a walking gps device, they were quickly on the road again, looking for the first parking in order to get some sleep. Quite handy you might think, sleeping in a mobile home. You can see for yourself how comfortable it was.

A good night sleep and a healthy breakfast later, they drove to the centre of Berlin. They parked somewhere in the suburbs and with a taxi they drove to Alexander Platz, still having some time to prepare the meeting. A drink and a good lunch while finetuning the presentation killed the extra time. After a nice meeting they were planning on attending the Berlin Filmfestival but there was no time for that. The mobilehome’rs needed to be in Luxemburg the day after. Thomas was very dissapointed missing Katie Holmes but he understood time was running out.

After riding all night, in serveral shifts, the trio arrived at Luxemburg where they had a quick breakfast and another meeting. After that they first visited our partners at Cronos Luxemburg, before heading back to Belgium. If you think using a mobilehome does not have a downside.. By the time Wim got over his cough, Luc managed to get one as well and at the time of writing he is still staying sick at home.

Get better soon man!

Today, FITC has send out a press release in order to inform all attendees that there is a whole range of mobile FITC Amsterdam content available. As some of you know, I kinda have my share in this one:

Toronto, Canada [January x, 2009] — Adobe Max Award08 winner Boulevart is busy putting the final touches on a mobile content package for FITC Amsterdam, a two-day event focused on the art and craft of Interactive design and technology. This is the second year for FITC Amsterdam, which takes place February 22 – 24, 2009 at the Felix Meritis European Centre for Arts and Sciences. The Boulevart team includes Mobile Consultant and Flash® Lite™ expert Thomas Joos, a graduate of the Technical University of West-Flanders.

“Thomas is on the cutting-edge of rich media for mobile and typifies the kind of sharp, young creative minds that make our events a success,” says Shawn Pucknell, Founder and Executive Producer of FITC Amsterdam.

Beginning today, FITC Amsterdam attendees can download mobile screensavers, wallpapers, and a 2009 event guide at http://www.fitc.ca/amsterdam/mobile. All content was developed by Boulevart using Adobe® Flash® Lite™, a powerful runtime engine for mobile and consumer electronics devices.

[...]

You can download the entire press release here. Go and check out fitc.ca/amsterdam/mobile and if you are attending make sure you don’t miss FITC’s mobile boat this year!

We’re only 45 days away from this cool event, and according to Shawn its going to be a GREAT ONE! Tickets are moving fast, the parties are starting to come together and the schedule is up and running! They are almost close to being old out so if you have friends, co-workers or other cool people you know who’d like to come over you might let them know to hurry up!

I’ll be doing a session on Flash Lite optimization and I seem to be facing some tough competition with Serge Jesper’s Flash Catalyst session. Nevertheless I’m really looking forward to it. If you are attending and wan’t to have talk or drink just leave me a comment or send me an e-mail and we’ll catch up in Amsterdam!

Playr is a Flash Actionscript 3 class built to take the heavy lifting off your hands when building any kind of music player appliction in Flash, Flex or AIR. Yesterday Ronny released an update on his blog and it all looks very promising! Ronny has put up a dedicated site for Playr where all of the information, code examples, downloads are gathered. Almost a year ago, I started playing with the first version of Playr. I was working on a RIA project for school called ”Interlude”.

The main goal of Interlude was to provide an flex/air based mp3 player which offered you a user friendly music management tool. For the beta version, I was planning to implement  a smart playlist generator,  using the last.fm api and a cool personal mood feature. Via last.fm Interlude looked for similar artists and generated a playlist filled with matches from your own music collection. The mood feature allows users to create their own personal moods. This can go from ”music@work”, ”workout music” to ‘’sex music” and allows them to tag their mp3 files. Whenever they feel like creating a playlist based on what mood they are in, this feature allows them to quickly generate an optimized playlist.

This all sounds very cool but I never had the chance to finish it. I just did not had the time to work out the first beta version, and as some of you might know, in the beginning of the second semester I started my internship @ Boulevart and from that point things went very fast. Any way, the good news is that my colleague Maarten (flex developer) fell immediately in love when I showcased Interlude at the office. He decided to bring it back to life so we will be announcing the first beta version of Interlude soon. Here are already a few screenshots from the first designs.

There still is a lot of work to do, and I think Maarten will kick my ass if he sees the standard components, but hey its a start no? :) We will be using Ronny’s Playr class in this project as well. If you want to stay tuned on Interlude and if you are interested in beta testing send me an email at thomas.joos[at]boulevart.be