Hollywood East comes to Boston... or not

Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray has better things to do... What?!?!

The Boston Globe reported today on the progress of a legislative bill to increase tax breaks for Plymouth Rock Studios, a.k.a. Hollywood East. Former executives from Paramount Pictures have been planning construction of a massive $420 million studio located less than an hour south of Boston, expected to have over 1.2 million square feet with 14 stages AND "50,000 square feet of the world's most advanced Post Production facilities"!!

The Massachusetts House of Representatives discussed the bill this week, and its destined for approval in the state senate next, but according to the Globe, Senator Therese Murray is blocking the additional tax incentive by claiming that its "not at the top of her agenda". The Senate's not even going to think about it.

Taxachusetts, er, Massachusetts has been hemorrhaging residents for years because there's not enough high wage jobs and out of control housing costs (a problem that continues in the area despite the nation-wide housing crisis). Hollywood comes to Boston and wants to drop a huge chunk of change, but now Senator Murray's too busy to help give the state a massive shot in the arm?

The opportunities for creative professionals in film, photography, audio, animation, and other computer specialists would be a boon for the state, and New England. According to Plymouth Rock Studio's website:

Plymouth Rock Studios will employ over 2,000 skilled professionals and generating billions of dollars in direct and indirect economic benefits to the Plymouth area and the Commonwealth.

And where is the brand spanking new Massachusetts Creative Economy Director Jason S. Schupbach in all this? He should be in Senator Murray's office tearing her a new lobbying on behalf of Plymouth Rock.

Geeze... Massachusetts, please get a clue!

  Google Wants to Get into Your Genes

The Biotech startup 23andMe aims to take genomic analysis up a notch, up several notches really, by bringing genomics down to a personal level backed by 21st century technology. In an SEC filing in May 2007 it was disclosed that Google floated 23andMe a whopping $3.9 million in addition to an previous loan of $2.6 million. [Via Bio-IT World]

As it turns out, this is not mere business nor even coincidence since 23andMe's co-founder Anne Wojcicki is none other than the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Wojcicki briefly commented that her goal is to use proprietary software tools, "to allow individuals to gain deeper insights into their ancestry, genology, and inherited traits and, ultimately, the option to work together to advance the overall understanding of the human genome."

As a software engineer and former biologist, I'm all for it. I wish Google and 23andMe many years of happiness and bliss together. Now if 23andMe only had an office in Boston...

(Funnily enough, the URL for the Bio-IT article ends with first base. >insert Beavis and Butthead snickering< *hee hee*)

  Video: The Streets of Bangalore India

You'll never complain about the traffic in your town again! Driving in Bangalore, India is not for the faint hearted. Bangalore has undergone an extreme population explosion in the last decade with the growth of the IT Industry. In my experience, Bangalore has unparalleled traffic congestion and chaos compared to anywhere in North America or Europe.

The first 3 minutes of this video are the last stretch in our daily commute from the Leela Palace Hotel to the Adobe office on Bannerghatta Road along the IT corridor. Starting at 4 minutes into the video is a backseat view from a ride inside one of those yellow-capped auto rickshaws from the office to the nearby Forum Mall. It was as much fun as an amusement park!

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  Top Companies Using ColdFusion MX

At various conferences I've heard from customers that are trying to make the case for using or continuing to use ColdFusion when pitching ideas to their decision makers or executives. One the most frequent requests has been for Adobe (or Macromedia at the time) to publish a customer list which customers can take to the table.

Such an article was recently published, detailing a partial list of the world’s top companies using ColdFusion MX application server. Of note is a list of ColdFusion quick facts at the end that might be useful as an elevator pitch should you ever find yourself squeezed in with your VP for a few floors.

I would add that countless ColdFusion applications run on private intranets of companies like these which are therefore unavailable to search engines that tally application server popularity based on frequency of file extension.

World's Top Companies Use ColdFusion MX
In use at 75 of the Fortune 100 companies and at more than 10,000 other companies worldwide, ColdFusion MX is one of the most widely adopted web technologies in the industry. Here's a partial list of customers (with links to case studies) who rely on ColdFusion for its signature server-scripting environment.

For years Ben Forta has maintained a similar list, Who's Using ColdFusion?.

This blog entry was picked up on Ray Camden's blog and drew a long series of comments worth checking out.

  Adobe MAX 2006 on Flickr

My week in pictures... on Flickr.

Adobe MAX Developer Conference, October 23-26, 2006, at The Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada.

MAX 2006, the annual Adobe user conference, offers the Adobe community an unprecedented opportunity to learn about Adobe software, interact with industry experts, connect with other Adobe software users, and have lots of fun.

Choose from over 100 unique sessions organized into eight tracks in topics such as web design, rich Internet applications, and mobile and devices.

Connect with other members of the Adobe community at a variety of networking opportunities, including the community lounge, sponsor lunches, and "Birds-of-a-Feather" sessions.

See also the Adobe MAX 2006 Flickr Pool and all photos tagged with Adobe MAX 2006

  Fastest Growing Tech Companies and the Rebounding IT Job Market

CNN Money published an article on the rebounding of the IT job market, citing the best places to live for jobs in IT, as well as which companies are growing the most and which skill sets are in demand.

Where the tech jobs are now
The IT job market is rebounding, but where you live matters.
Plus: Do you have the hottest skills?
By Anne Fisher, Fortune

To my surprise, Adobe was ranked 4th in hiring, although 91st in growth, and Red Hat ranked 2nd in growth, six percent higher than 3rd ranked Apple Computer.

  Cringley Speculates About Apple's Plans to Win the OS and Application Markets

In this week's edition of I, Cringely, Bob Cringely reflects on Microsoft's struggle to maintain dominance in the OS and applications market while the project schedule for Vista withers on the vine. Furthermore, Bob speculates that for Apple to remain competitive, eliminate its vulnerabilities, and even beat Microsoft on technical merits, Apple will have to entice independent software vendors to continue developing applications for OS X. Just how will Apple do that? Bob thinks Apple will buy Adobe.

Killer Apps: For Apple's Windows Strategy to Work, It Must Replace Microsoft Office and Buy Adobe Systems
by Robert X. Cringely, April 27, 2006

  Jeremy Allaire Interview on the Charlie Rose Show: Watch the Video

Guest host Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, interviews Brightcove Founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire for the Charlie Rose show on April 26. Mossberg's introduction to Allaire and some of the questions posed to him follow:

Tonight I talk with Jeremy Allaire. He's been called a serial entrepreneur. His first venture, the Allaire Corporation, focussed on building internet based applications [ColdFusion]. He later joined [sic] Macromedia as its CTO. There he helped develop the Flash Player into internet's dominant media platform. His new venture, Brightcove, which he founded in 2004, is on the forefront of convergence. Its goal is to bring down the barriers between television and the internet. The company has already attracted major investments from Time Warner and IAC interactive, among others.

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  Stanford the Golden Goose of Silicon Valley

Stanford still fertile for valley tech ventures

Via ACM TechNews, the San Jose Mercury News reports on the world-class graduate programs at Stanford and the endless stream of bright scientists and engineers flowing into Silcon Valley, thus seeding businesses including Google, Yahoo, Hewlet-Packard, Cisco, and VMWare.

Not in Silicon Valley? The Stanford Center for Professional Development has an extensive online curriculum with video recorded lectures.

  Fortune Names Adobe as One of "America's Most Admired Companies"

Fortune Magazine ranked Adobe as the second most admired "Computer Software" company in America. Out of the 10 top finalists in this category, Adobe scored above SAP, Microsoft and Electronic Arts. The 303 companies that earned their way onto FORTUNE's list were divided into 65 industries and then, ranked in their industry according to eight key attributes of reputation. Adobe earned its highest scores for its "quality of products/services"  and "employee talent." See the Adobe snapshot showing the breakdown of the points earned.

  CIO Magazine on AJAX for the Enterprise

Via ACM TechNews, CIO Magazine presents an editorial regarding the origins of AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML), on the topic of its origin and grassroots adoption as well as pitfalls in the Enterprise space. Given the AJAX technology suite and its recent inception as such, the author can only speculate regarding its future, but suggests that too much hype could put AJAX in disfavor right along with the blink tag.

Read the full article

  Tim Bray, founder of XML, discusses open source, XML, WS, and blogs

Via ACM TechNews, in an interview with InfoWorld, Tim Bray, inventor of XML, discusses the future of open source as a business model, the origin and successes of XML, and the growth and impact of the blogosphere. He thinks the end is near for closed source and software business will sustain itself through subscription support models, and he mentions that there's no money in selling IDEs given that there are three excellent IDEs out there now for free. In his experiences, bloggers are much more accessible than the authors of formal publications and while inaccuracies are bound to occur in both formats, the record is more likely to be corrected in the blogosphere, and quicker too. Curiously, Tim ends the discussion with a hint that Sun JVMs are soon to support scripting languages like Python.

Read the full article

  IEEE Computer Society Courses for Spring 2006

At the recommendation of a friend I recently joined the IEEE Computer Society, which has a local chapter in Boston. I'm just starting to discover the benefits of membership with this prestigious group, and today's newsletter revealed a wealth of very interesting local courses sponsored by the IEEE. Courses seem to generally run on a single Saturday or a series of weekday evenings so that working professionals can attend.

Upcoming courses that immediately appeal to me include a series of evening lectures in May on Introduction to Java Servlets and JSP, and a full day course on the Eclipse Development Platform and Application Framework.

One other very tantalizing course is How to Build and Maintain a Profitable Consulting Practice, on March 25th at the Lexington Sheraton.

Check it out.

  Apples, Softies, and Trains

Three Apple engineers and three Microsoft employees are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three Microsoft employees each buy tickets and watch as the three Apple engineers buy only a single ticket. "How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asks a Microsoft employee.

"Watch and you'll see," answers the Apple engineer. They all board the train. The Microsoft employees take their respective seats but all three Apple engineers cram into a restroom and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, "Ticket, please." The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.

The Microsoft employees saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the Microsoft employees decide to copy the Apple engineers on the return trip and save some money (being clever with money, and all that). When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip.

To their astonishment, the Apple engineers don't buy a ticket at all. "How are you going to travel without a ticket" says one perplexed Microsoft employee. "Watch and you'll see," answers an Apple engineer. When they board the train the three Microsoft employees cram into a restroom and the three Apple engineers cram into another one nearby.

The train departs. Shortly afterward, one of the Apple engineers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the Microsoft employees are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, "Ticket, please..."

  Adobe Production Studio Premium software released today!

From the press release about the new Adobe Production Studio:

Adobe Systems Incorporated today unveiled Adobe Production Studio, an extension of the Adobe Creative Suite family of products. The most complete post-production software solution available today, Adobe Production Studio combines full new versions of Adobe's world class video and graphics applications—Adobe After Effects 7.0, Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, Adobe Audition® 2.0, Adobe Encore 2.0 (also announced today, see separate releases) and the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Illustrator® CS2—with time-saving innovations such as Adobe Dynamic Link that deliver a highly efficient workflow experience. Adobe Production Studio also integrates Flash Video (FLV) export capabilities to provide video professionals with a new, fluid method of delivering content to the Web using this ubiquitous Web video standard.

Read the entire press release in the Press Room on Adobe.com.