The time has come yet again. This week is “Amsterdam week” – doing several training sessions for our Dutch partners and a seminar for their customers. Should be a lot of fun, as the subject is Flash Media Server, Adobe Media Player and Flash video. I have to admit that I’ve actually had a lot of fun preparing for the sessions. I always enjoy getting the opportunity to delve into a new version of our software – and the newly released FMS 3 is truly a revolution. Not only did we drop the price (significantly), but we also piled on the features, including not only the ability to stream H264 content (in addition to FLV), but also to “automagically” encrypt video on the fly. This is done by simply adding an “e” to “rtmp” when creating the link to the stream. That’s it. And to make it even more amazing, it works with live video as well as recorded content. There’s tons of other cool stuff, but you can read about that yourself. In fact, I’d recommend the article that Kevin Towes recently posted to the Developer Center.

Finally, for those that missed it… there was a recent flurry of Twitter activity around a marriage proposal that I made to my co-author (and love) Stephanie Sullivan. Little did we realize just how much the “rest of the world” cared – LOL – it got picked up by Wired News! Prost!

The German/English web site, Create or Die, conducted a video interview with Rufus Deuchler, Jason Levine and myself during our recent tour through Germany and Austria. I unfortunately forgot to put up a link to the interview in one of my previous posts. So, as I wait to go to the airport to head for SXSW, I thought I’d add this little bit of hilarity for your amusement.

The concept behind Create or Die’s interviews is actually quite funny itself. Instead of an interviewer asking the questions, they chose to print the questions on cue cards. We each had to read the question and then respond. It made for a lot of fun. Additionally, I have to say that I was impressed by the level of research that Felix (our interviewer) had done. Specifically, he had scoured the web for interesting tidbits about each of us, and had questions relating to them. And, pay close attention, we even reveal the release date for CS4… ;-)  Cheers!

Tomorrow the annual gathering of geeks known as South By Southwest begins, and yes, that means I’ll be packing the bags to head to the Lone Star state. It should be a lot of fun, as Adobe will be well represented. In addition to three “meet and greet” sessions known as Clicks, which are new this year, there will be several of us participating in panel discussions and demonstrations.

I will be conducting a session on Sunday (at the obscene hour of 11:30am) on “Responsible Web Design“, together with Stephanie Sullivan. During the session, we’ll be taking a look at web standards from a “standardista” approach (Stephanie) and how Adobe is addressing these issues within our software (me, duh!).

We had hoped to field an Adobe team for the annual bowling tournament, but unfortuntely, the team registration filled up faster than an Irish pub on St. Patty’s Day. Fortunately, Stephanie was able to secure two spots for herself and me on the Yahoo! team – so we’ll be slugging it out and helping them beat back the Microsoft team (get it?!). Wish us luck!

But of course the main Adobe event is sure to be the Adobe-sponsored party on Monday night at the Dirty Dog from 8-11pm. There’s sure to be a packed house – because “open bar” is like a mating call for geeks. If you’re in town for the conference (yeah, right – you’re in town for the parties, be honest), then I hope to see you there.

Now, back to packing… where is that crate of Advil that I bought at Costco?! Cheers!