Flash tidbits, struggles, revelations, and teaching

Things have been a bit hectic the last few weeks. I finished up some work for a client, rushed out to LA for Colin Moocks ActionScript bootcamp (quick drive from Vegas), got back to Vegas in time to wrap up some other work and get the final exam written for the ActionScript class I am teaching (today was last day of class and their final projects were due also).

But I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. My wife and I are taking off to Cabo this coming week to enjoy some much needed rest. I am looking forward to relaxing at the resort, doing some swimming, snorkeling and eating lots of good food. I had to turn down two projects this week because I wasn’t about to work while on vacation. I know better than to do that (besides — wife would shoot me )

So things will be quiet for a week, but I hope to come back with good stories of sun, surf, and seafood!!

Yesterday afternoon, Dell delivered my new Dell dual-core Pentium computer. Wow — this thing is huge. We’re talking Apple G5 huge… but it is fast and quiet (normally). I was struggling with getting the Dell XPS or a BoxxTech dual AMD system (Opteron) and I couldn’t wait for the dual-core AMD X2 systems (mid to late June at best). So when I saw a good deal on this system on Dells site, I jumped on it.

I started yesterday evening with moving files over to my new system and re-installing software. FYI — Find a software audit program (there are freebies out there) that will dump a list of all the software you have installed so when setting up your new system, you don’t forget anything. I wasnt concerned abou forgetting any big apps, but all the little utilities and freeware that I have come to rely on.

Quick impressions so far of Dell dual-core:

• Its Big! My Mac Mini sat on top of my old Shuttle box. Its now lost behind the Dell.
• XPS box feels a bit flimsy with so much plastic.
• It is quiet.. until you get both cores crunching — then it sounds like a jet engine taking off.
• It is much much faster than my 3 year old AMD XP2700 processor.

First I would like to say a major thanks to Jen deHaan for publishing both the recent tidbit on the MediaPlayback scrubbing event and for the ObjectDumper back awhile ago.

Jen is not the first or the only person to post these gems on Flash and probably not the last. But my question is, when we blog about these great finds, is anyone recording it and/or posting it in the LiveDocs and making sure that during the next update that everyone gets updated docs? If you don’t catch it when its ‘hot’ at the top of FullAsAGoog or MXNA, does it disappear into obsecurity, forever lost into the depths of blog-dom?

I would hope not, but I am afraid it may be doing just that.

Hopefully everyone finds me okay. I recently transferred my domain and changed hosting providers. The upgrade greatly increases my storage space (was 150 megs, but now up to 2 gigs) and with a 100 gigs of bandwidth, and moves me back to Linux/Apache/PHP from Windows/IIS. IIS isnt’ bad but a lot of the PHP stuff I like to run works better under Apache.