The general topics slated to be covered are:

• Getting Started (Intro, project types, pros/cons, comparison to other editors)
• Shortcuts ('QuickFix' code generation, refactoring, searching, etc.)
• Integration with Eclipse (SVN, ANT, XML, and other helpful plug-ins)

I will speaking on the third item, Integration with Eclipse, presenting an introduction to simple ANT integration and workflows, along with some of the Eclipse plug-ins I use on a regular basis.

Here are all of the details from the flashpdx.org site:

David Knape, Jon MacDonald and Matt Gitchell will show how they use the FDT development environment in their daily work.

When: Thursday 10/15 11:30 - 1:00pm
Where: Second Story 714 N Fremont St #200

Pizza will be provided, seating is limited to 25.

Please RSVP with shane {at} secondstory {dot} com

PowerFlasher, the makers of FDT, have generously donated a copy of FDT Pure edition for a raffle, and will send discount codes to anyone who provides an e-mail address for the raffle.

(Don’t know what FDT is? In short, FDT is a professional code editor for ActionScript. More info on FDT at http://www.fdt.powerflasher.com. )

I'll be posting more about The Good in the very near future, but as for Twitter, I tweet quite often (you can follow me here, @jonmacdonald) on a varying number of topics from everyday life to serious Flash platform development. In either case, I have come to find that I can distill most of what used to be a full blog post down to 140 characters or less instead of putting a bunch of filler around the main point just to have enough content to form a blog post.

I see this being the case with most of the Flash/interactive community these days as most of the blogs I used to follow via my RSS reader have been all but abandoned in favor of the author's Twitter account. And for most topics, this works quite well: more to the point, easier to share, and certainly easier to post information quickly.

I do plan on continuing to post to this blog when a longer discussion is merited, such as my posts from conferences such as FOTB and the upcoming "what I have been up to for the past six months" post.

So, if you feel abandoned by my lack of posts, my apologies again and don't worry: you can find me on Twitter.

It is an honor to be a part of this book with such open source Flash community members as Chris Allen, John Grden, Wade Arnold, Carlos Ulloa, Moses Gunesch and others. You can read bios of all the authors on the book's bio page.

I am wrapping up the last round of review this weekend, and the book should be published and available in July. You can pre-order the book on Amazon.com today for about $31.

I've only had a few hours to play with my new rabbit, but I have to say, this thing is at one of the highest levels of usability I have seen in awhile. The developers (Violet, out of France) went to great lengths to make sure the thing just works. Their website is extremely easy to use, and setup was a breeze once I found a small note with a bug fix for those with Apple's Airport wireless routers.

The best use I have found, however, is why I purchased two of the devices: you can "marry" two 'tags and then whenever you move the ears on one device, the ears will move in the exact same position on the second device. So the rabbit in the photos with the pink ears is for my girlfriend who is moving out of town this week. I thought the rabbits might be a cool way to keep in touch over the long distance, and "marrying" and sending messages between the two rabbits will allow for just that.

One other quick thing I should note is that there is a very large developer community surrounding these 'tags. There is a public API that is fairly well documented, and developers have made a ton of cool services available including NabAIR, an Adobe AIR application that allows you to control your (or someone else's) 'tag through a simple desktop application.

I'm interested to hear feedback, so please leave your thoughts in the comments!

Overall the process is actually fairly simple - the artwork gets loaded into CorelDraw (oh how we were missing Illustrator) and then you print the design just like any other document. The printer driver allows you to select the settings for the laser engraver such as power, resolution, and dithering modes. After a test run on paper to ensure everything was lined up properly, we etched directly onto the laptop.

The hardest part was picking out and customizing the artwork. It is permanent, and as such the task of choosing artwork made me feel like I was getting a tattoo. Because I earn my living as a Flash Developer and I spend much of my day working on my laptop, the design had to be something I was sure would stand the test of time. For that reason I decided to choose something that had a retro feel, but also a bit organic and edgy. I think that was accomplished with this design, and once the process was finished I felt I had chosen correctly.

A big thanks to Joe at Engrave here in Portland, Oregon for spending a few hours helping me get everything perfect. Joe posted a few photos we took (including the two above) to his Flickr account last night, and the design is already getting some great feedback.

Update: Here's a short video I shot with my small Canon Powershot last night of the laser in action:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.jonnymac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/engraving_video.swf" height="340" width="400" /]

Update 2: Looks like someone posted this to Digg! Also, I've gotten a few emails asking about the artwork. It is an illustration I found on iStockPhoto, which I then put a few hours into customizing. So yes, it is unique, but you can find a similar illustration on iStockPhoto.

Some of you may already know, but in early October I switched jobs and started working full-time with XPLANE as their Senior Flash Developer. While XPLANE has been in existence for over thirteen years, the interactive arm of the company is fairly new. Because of this, the Portland office still has that start-up, new company atmosphere and feeling. In fact, besides the amazing potential, it was probably the major reason I decided to join the team.

So why hadn't I posted about switching companies earlier? Well, the corporate website was very dated and didn't clearly state what we do. Funny considering we are all about clarity in communications, right? :) But as of Christmas eve, a new website (in Flash!) has gone live at http://www.xplane.com.

The best feature (from a Flash developer's perspective) is the usage of SWFAddress. I had posted about SWFAddress's ability to allow deep-linking and bookmarking of Flash sites a few months back, and this was the first project to use it. I have to say, it was very easy to use and the developer was very responsive to my bug reports and helped me to resolve them in a very timely fashion. And, it's open source to boot.

So go check out the new site. I'm interested in hearing your comments!

Update [2007.01.02]: Looks like the new design is being very well received. Word is spreading as bloggers have found the site and the internet linking engine has taken effect. In the first week the site was live the number of visitors has just about tripled!

After receiving the email I quickly hopped online to see if others were having the same issues, and I quickly found all types of internet rumblings about people receiving the same email.

Looks like Apple is having some type of supply issue, and there are theories abound on the internet. Also makes me wonder how many people could have possibly gotten their order in before me -- I placed it no more than 20 minutes after the updated MacBooks appeared on the Apple Store site. Crazy.

One hint though -- if you call Apple's customer support, they'll give you free 2-day shipping for the delay. I guess it's better than nothing...

Update: With Apple releasing the MacBook updates this morning, things are starting to come together. Looks like they split their allotment of chips among the two notebook lines (MacBook/MacBook Pro) and the demand was better than expected for the MacBook Pro's. At least Apple is being "egalitarian" and spreading out the good stuff to both consumers and power users.

I've been waiting for the new MacBook Pro's to be released for a few months, and when I saw they came out this morning I decided to take the plunge. If nothing else, it'll be nice to have a 17" laptop that doesn't weigh 20 lbs!

Check out the new specs here: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
I'll write up a review when it arrives. Until that time, let the 7-10 business day countdown begin.

Having full Outlook e-mail and contacts on your phone is more liberating that you think. But, in order to actually get real-time push email you have to have access to a Microsoft Exchange Server and use it for your email. This might not be a problem for larger businesses, but for a small business this can be costly and excessive.

I started searching around and found that my (then) web hosting provider 1&1 Hosting offered hosted Exchange for less than $7 a month. I signed up and was happy for a couple of months, but a few weeks ago I switched over to a service called 4Smartphone and haven't looked back. So, I thought I would share since I searched for days looking for the right service provider.

While the service is great, I'm just generally impressed with how well everything syncs between Outlook, my Treo, and Outlook Web Access (the included webmail client). Microsoft seems to have gotten this right. And while the 700w is a bit bulky, it is nowhere near the size of a Blackberry, but still has all of the functionality. Now whenever I'm heading out of town for a few days, I rarely take my laptop unless I've got actual development to do.