The app is in many ways secondary to the experience. The end result showed how a team of people with diverse skills can pull together and achieve something great within a given time period. We can’t have done too bad as the project made it onto TechCrunch and sparked off something of a debate (145 comments at the time of writing). 1200 accounts have been added in the first 24 hours!

Be sure to check out the posts and videos over at www.carsonified.com and futureofwebapps.wordpress.com for more info and to chart the project from day one to four.

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There were some great presentations on the day, the majority of which are now available from the web site. You can also check out some of the tweets from the day using Summize.

Finally a huge thanks to Jean-Baptiste Feldis who came all the way of Paris for the day. He also brought me over a selection of French mustards (a personal fave of mine) which I am currently enjoying. Merci JB!

The aim of the day was to end up building a simple lifestream app which pulls in external data from services such as Twitter, Flickr and Magnolia. To achieve this we looked at the concept of OOP, creating PHP5 classes, extending them, XML, cURL, REST, SMARTY, MVC and approaches to organising your applications directories. Classes and objects are one of the hardest things to explain, at least for me, so I hope attendees went away with an understanding of their use and how to use them in their own work!

Somehow I managed to bring the workshop in on time finishing just before the required “beer o’clock”, much to the relief of my voice and most likely the groups ears! Thanks to everyone who came along and took time  to come to Bath for the day. It was great to meet you all and I hope that you found the day of use.

Thanks also to everyone who has emailed or twittered about the workshop, it’s always great to get feedback and even better to know you enjoyed the workshop. See you at the next one!

In previous jobs I have conducted training and spoken in front of large numbers of people but it’s been a while so although excited I am sure there will be a few butterflies on the day. My talk is entitled “”Cheaponomics” and I will be talking about how you can use free and cheap web tools such as Basecamp, Google Calendar, WordPress and Blinksale to streamline your project management, share company information, communicate with your team and customers and look after your invoicing.

There’s plenty of other good stuff planned for the day which can be found on the web site. It will take place at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London which is a lovely setting for the day. The conference will be followed by a drinks reception so there’s plenty of time for chat and, although I hate the term, networking.

If anyone is using a free or cheap web app in their daily business that’s not in the mainstream please leave a comment. Whilst we like to think we are up to the minute there’s often one or two great apps bubbling under that deserve a mention.

Perhaps I will see you in June. Oh yeah, it takes place on Friday 13th! Still, not being superstitious I am not worried, much!

Instead I thought I would post some observations from our six days in Miami, in no particular order…

1. Despite popular belief Miami does do cold and wind.
2. Ocean Drive is a great place to stay, the sun rise at 6.15am is something special.
3. Margaritas are great but age restricts the number I can consume and still function the next day.
4. Cab drivers in Miami are more interesting than those in London, our Russian friend with no teeth had a mean line in bad jokes.
5. Jerry’s Famous Deli in Miami is even better than the one in LA!
6. The Carnival Center is an amazing venue, powered by the one and only Jeremy.
7. The FOWA attendees were some of the nicest I have met.
8. Even in the age of the vCard not having business cards to hand out was a bad idea.
9. The amount of “Tweeting” was surprising. Chatting to Blaine from Twitter was a highlight.
10. At FOWA it felt like every other person had an iPhone.
11. Not sure why it surprised me but the majority of the speakers seemed to all know each other and live in San Fransisco.
12. Apparently (see above) “The left coast is the best coast”.
13. Americans don’t get tea, it’s either called iced or hot. Strange looks abound when plain old “tea” is requested. I actually witnessed an order for Earl Grey result in a very large cold tea latte with the bag left floating on the top!
14. Starbucks barristas do things differently than those in the UK. First up they ask for your name. Mine, despite me brandishing my FOWA name badge, always confused. Second those on the cash register taking the order turn round and ask those making the coffee if they may order, very polite. They then say “<your name here> would like…” and pass on the order. To get by and save embarrassment I adopted a “coffee name”, it was just easier. It got a bit weird when they started talking to me as if it was my real name but they weren’t to know. I am not alone, apparently @t also has a coffee name.
15. Miami airport was the nicest entry and exit to the US I have experienced, the TSA people were even laughing and joking!

The team rendez-vous’d at the office at 4.30 ready to catch the mini-bus to Heathrow. After a short detour to pick up Jo we were sipping a coffee in the departure lounge ready to catch the Virgin tin bird to Miami International. 10 hours later we touched down and were greeted by the fresh smelling heat of Miami. After a short ride to Ocean Drive we arrived and checked in at The Strand Hotel, a white art deco hotel right on the beach front. It’s always the little things that set hotels apart and for the Strand it’s Betty, the “Manager of Desires”. Seemingly it’s her job to keep us up to date on what’s going on and keep us happy with a supply of free cola, which is nice. If nothing else it’s a great job title.

I am sharing with EJS, my room mate for the duration. Our “suite” is great and comes complete with hurricane strength air conditioning, a full kitchen and two televisions and one bed! More on that later.

Ocean Drive is clearly a place for beautiful people to be and be seen. Tanned bodies on roller skates are two a penny as are the number of low riding cars and bass busting trucks slowly cruising along checking everyone out. The atmosphere is extremely relaxed and reminds me more of the south of France than anywhere I have ever been in the US. The Latin influence is very evident with ladies selling cigars at most restaurants and south American rhythms emanating from the bars. Despite being up for almost 24 hours the team got stuck into a couple of “Ultimate” margaritas, highly alcoholic, hugely enjoyable and naturally soporific.

Ocean Drive doesn’t seem to sleep. The bass rhythms got louder as the night go older and if it wasn’t for my earplugs I think i would have struggled getting off to sleep. Due to a screwed body clock I am up watching CBS news at 5am. Apparently there was an earthquake in the UK yesterday! Looks like breakfast will be taken at the “News Cafe“, a restaurant with a fantastic supply of newspapers and magazines and apparently the place of Versaci’s last espresso.

Next up it’s off to check out the venue for the workshops tomorrow and conference on Friday.