Earlier today Adobe announced a public beta release of Flash Player 10. Some of the new features include 3D visual effects, a new text rendering engine, and changes to how the player handles dynamic sound loaded at runtime. If you are interested in learning more about the significance of FP10, check out the current blog buzz by visiting the links below. I've trolled through the latest content and hand selected some of the most informative and interesting blog posts.

Flash Player 10 available on Adobe Labs
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/

Public Bugbase powered by JIRA
http://bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Flash Player team member Tinic Uro takes us on a tour of the new features
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Wired magazine covers the release (by Scott Gilbertson)
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/05/flash-player-10.html

FlashMagazine.com on FP10's new text engine
http://www.flashmagazine.com/news/detail/flash_player_10_feature_new_text_engine/

FlashMagazine.com on using FileReference to load and save files
http://www.flashmagazine.com/news/detail/flash_player_10_new_feature_load_and_save_files_using_filereference/

FlashMagazine.com on PixelBender (formerly known as "Hydra")
http://www.flashmagazine.com/news/detail/flash_player_10_feature_pixel_bender/

FlashMagazine.com on Dynamic Streaming in FP10
http://www.flashmagazine.com/News/detail/flash_player_10_feature_dynamic_streaming/

FlashMagazine.com on Dynamic Audio Generation
http://www.flashmagazine.com/News/detail/flash_player_10_feature_dynamic_audio_generation/

FlashMagazine.com on 3D support in FP10
http://www.flashmagazine.com/News/detail/flash_player_10_feature_3d_support/

Grant Skinner on building FP10 demos
http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2008/05/building_the_fl.html

This years Summit special event was held at South First Billiards, a rather large pool hall. They must've had 20+ pool tables. For the first hour and a half or so I played pool with Martin Dombroski, Bernie Dolan, and Christine Harold. I used my Flip video camera and shot two short videos of Bernie and I breaking. Check 'em out.

Me opening the game with a decent break.

Bernie Dolan opening the game with a decent break.

The first official day of the Adobe Community Summit was packed full of interesting talks from several key product players. This years summit is my third and every year it seems to get a bit better. The time spent with Adobe folks is invaluable and the information shared allows members of the Adobe community (Adobe Community Experts, User Group Managers, and Adobe Champions) to prepare for the future in ways not quite possible in the past.

The first person on the podium was Michele Turner, manager of the Adobe Technology Platform. She gave the keynote address discussing Adobe's general technology strategy. She also covered an overview of Adobe's 2 year technology roadmap. There are certainly some exciting things coming in the future.

Following Michele, was Scott Fegette, a long time Dreamweaver user, and video/audio production god. Scott talked about what we're likely to see in the next version of Dreamweaver. His talk was very well received as he is a dynamic speaker and always a crowd favorite.

Mike Chambers, another crowd favorite, took the stage next to walk through the current happenings with Adobe AIR. Most of what he covered is already public knowledge and just a recap what has occurred over the last 3 months since the launch of Flex 3 and AIR 1.0. He did share a few new tidbits indicating AIR has a bright future ahead.

After Mike's talk we broke for lunch. During lunch I had some great discussions with Peter Bell, Bernie Dolan, and David Harris on all things ColdFusion. Peter has walked through the fire of what is application generation and has an unbelievable amount of experience in this area. When he talks, I listen.

Kicking things off after lunch, Doug Winnie discussed how Adobe really has a strategy for reaching both the designer and developer and the workflows that integrate the two.

Next up was Steve Heintz who talked about Flex, both today and in the future. I couldn't remember if I had heard Steve speak before but he did a really nice job talking (conceptually) on what Adobe plans to do with Flex in the future.

One of the most impressive presentations was by Jen Taylor and Doug Benson who showed off some of the new features in the next version of the Flash Authoring tool. There were several jaw-dropping moments that caused me to "double-take" to be sure I wasn't seeing things. About all I can say, is Adobe has been busy on the Flash Authoring tool!

After we all wiped off the drool, Steve Heintz joined us again to talk about Thermo. Thermo's been a seemingly super secret tool with very little information about it shared with the community. That didn't change much with Steve's presentation, but he did give the impression Thermo has a clear focus and purpose which. It will be interesting to see how the community takes to Thermo as more information is shared in the future. I'm hoping this years MAX conference will bring more news on Thermo.

Most everyone should know by now Ed Sullivan is moving into a new role within Developer Relations at Adobe and he'll no longer be responsible for managing the user group program. There's no real replacement for someone like Ed, but Rachel Luxemburg will be taking on the task.

To show appreciation for Ed's influence and leadership in the program for so many years, Bob Flynn and the Indianna University Multimedia User Group, and other user group managers, recorded a video where they try to determine the perfect parting gift for Ed. I recorded the video presentation with my Flip camera and have made the the video available below in four parts. The last video is the presentation of some special gifts the user group managers bought for Ed.

Ed Sullivan Farewell Video - Part 1

Ed Sullivan Farewell Video - Part 2

Ed Sullivan Farewell Video - Part 3

Ed Sullivan Farewell Video - Part 4

Ed Sullivan Farewell Gifts Video

Way back in January I gave a sneak peek of an Apache article I had written for the Fusion Authority Quarterly. During the welcome reception of the Adobe Community Summit (last night) Terrance Ryan came up and said he had read (and enjoyed mind you) my article. Up until that moment I didn't even know it was released.

If you're interested in understanding Apache more I encourage you to check out my article. While you're at it, why not purchase a subscription to FAQU? It's an excellent magazine available in print and PDF versions.

Last night, at the Adobe Community Summit welcome reception Rachel Luxemburg was introduced as the new user group manager for Developer Relations at Adobe. Rachel replaces Ed Sullivan who has been an amazing manager in this role for many years. Ed is a stalwart in the Adobe community and will continue working with the community in his new role in Developer Relations.

Rachel hails from New York City but currently lives in CA. She's an avid blogger and twitterer and has been a ColdFusion user as well.

Please give Rachel a warm welcome to Adobe and the Adobe community.

Yesterday began rather early with a quick trip to the Nashville airport. After roughly 6 hours in the air (Nashville - LAX - SJC) I landed in San Jose and grabbed a cab to the San Jose Fairmont, a really nice hotel in the downtown area.

Walking into the lobby of the hotel I was greeted by several smiling faces, Dee Sadler, Jim Pickering, David Schmidt, Buck Sommerkamp, and more. After a dropping my bags off in the room and catching up with folks we headed to Cupertino to visit Apple's infamous headquarters. While there we perused the on campus Apple Store, bought swag, and took a photo or two (in Flickr stream below) next to the "1 Infinite Loop" sign. I picked up a few Apple branded goodies including a pen, mouse pad, shirts for the fam, and a coffee mug (I love cool mugs).

Back at the Fairmont everyone gathered in lobby and chatted. Adobe Community Experts and user group managers were arriving one by one with each arrival marked with loud "Heys!" and hugs. While talking with Dee Sadler I described the Adobe Community Summit as the summer camp for adults. Most everyone knows everyone else through the different Internet channels we communicate through every day. Events like the summit work to solidify friendships because we spend an insane amount of time with one another at Adobe HQ, off campus events, hotel lobby chat sessions, and lunches and dinners through downtown San Jose.

Shortly before 6:00pm we headed over to Adobe's offices 4 blocks away. All the experts, user group managers, and several Adobe employees including Ed Sullivan, Stacy Sisson (the new Adobe Community Experts manager), Rachel Luxemburg (the new Adobe user group manager in Developer Relations), Jonathan Wall (Ed and Rachel's boss), and Mike Chambers, occupied the patio area just outside of Adobe's huge cafeteria. Adobe served beer (they ran out again this year) and appetizers to help everyone unwind and visit with friends. I don't know the exact numbers but I heard a report that over 150 managers and experts are in attendance this year. That's at least 50-60 more than last year marking an attendance high since the summit started in 2006.

After mixing and mingling with old (and new) friends we had two breakout sessions. One for the managers and one for the experts. Each grouped discussed their program, what was working and what wasn't and how as members of each respective group we can help the Adobe community grow further. It was a great first day.

I haven't taken many pictures yet, but they'll all be loaded to the Flickr photo stream below if you want to check them out as the week progresses.

Flickr photo stream

I received an e-mail over the weekend stating I had a package at the office. When I arrived this morning some Mahalo swag was patiently waiting for me. Here's a photo of everything but the beach tote. Thanks Jason Calacanis and the crew at Mahalo HQ!