As a HUGE Linkin Park fan, and an ever-growing Jay-Z fan, I’m very interested in this unusual new album release: Collision Course.

If you’re not familiar, Linkin Park is one of the best-selling rock bands (one of the pioneers of “rap-metal”) of the last few years, and Jay-Z is one of the best-selling rap/hip-hop artists of all time. Both of their latest albums, Jay-Z’s “Black Album” and Linkin Park’s “Meteora” were among the best-selling albums over the last year.

In this new album, the two artists have mixed songs from the two albums together, providing a unique blend of two genres.

And you can get a taste of the new album via their cool Flash-based site (there’s the Flash hook…).

http://www.lpjz.com/

Didn’t get a chance to do a post yesterday. I was having too much fun in Melbourne and was too “tired” when I got back to my hotel room.

The seminars in Brisbane and Melbourne went extremely well. Both audiences were very lively and offered great feedback. It makes it so much easier to present when the audience feels pitty for you and laughs at your stupid jokes (keep that in mind, future audiences).
On Thursday Brian Chau (Macromedia SE) arranged a get-together with some local developers and user group members in the lobby of the Melbourne Westin (amazing hotel, by the way - highly recommend). I got to meet some of the guys from the Flash design shop, Nectarine. If you’re not familiar, they were responsible for the pre-keynote intro animations for the MXDU conference in Sydney.

Overall, this was a fantastic tour. Thanks to everyone in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne for coming down and listening to us “shout slogans at you” (Simpsons reference - Ranier Wolfcastle) for a few hours in the morning.

I’ll leave you with a pic of Melbourne that I shot from my trusty Treo 600 from the river walk.

Just arrived in Brisbane - my first time here. Wow, what a beautiful place. I’m now convinced that Australia is the greatest place on earth (even though I still don’t understand Cricket).

We’re staying at the Conrad Hotel which is, apparently, the old Treasury building. It’s a beautiful hotel.

(Taken from my Treo 600, which I intend to do a post about later)

The only strange thing I’ve encountered so far is the placement of the handle on the door to my room. It’s only two feet from the ground. I actually have to bend over to slide my electronic keycard in. I’ve never encountered this before. I have a few guesses that consider the age of the building, but I’m still not exactly sure why the handle is so low.

In any case, we’re about to head off to Daniel’s Steakhouse for what’s been described as a “fantastic dinner”. If it’s anywhere near as good as last night’s dinner in Sydney at Wildfire I may never leave this country.
G’day!

Well, actually, I’ve been here since Saturday. However, today was the first of our three seminars in Australia.

Brian, Leesa and I met at the Powerhouse Museum this morning around 8:15am and there were already dozens of people there waiting. By the time we started the seminar we had around 300 people filling the auditoreum.

Brian started with a fantastic 30min demo of Contribute 3. Leesa then gave a superb demo of Captivate and Breeze. I then spent 45mins talking about Flash video and a few comments about the Flash roadmap.

Summary of my presentation:
- For a long time, web video experiences have sucked
- Pressing “Play” should mean “Play”, damnit!
- Most media players are huge, confusing downloads
- My dad doesn’t know what “Select your media player and your connection speed” means
- There’s got to be a better way…
- There is a better way…
- www.cnet.com
- www.redbullcopilot.com
- www.vodafone.com/futurevision
- www.microsoft.com/mscorp/innovation/yourpotential/main.html
- Flash Player 6 is on over 95% of Internet-connected desktops worldwide
- Other media players are more than 30% less prevalent
- Three key advantages to Flash video:
1) Widest reach
2) Full creative control
3) Rich, interactive and contextual
- Three ways to deploy Flash video
1) Streaming Server (FlashCom or Flash Video Streaming Service)
2) Progressive download of external FLV
3) Embedded video
- Macromedia Video Kit overview
- How to encode FLV using the FLV Exporter that ships with Flash Pro, or Sorenson Squeeze
- A quick summary of some of the things that we’re working on for future versions of Flash

I’ll try to post my presentation in Breeze so you all can check it out.

And during the holiday season at that!

www.amazon.com

This is great to see. I love how video has become an integrated component of the web browsing experience - finally.

I hate clicking “Play” and being taken to a pop-up window, choosing one of three players, choosing a connection speed, downloading the 13MB player that I don’t have, fumbling around for the free version, accidentally giving over control of all media types on my computer because I didn’t uncheck all of the “Default player for…” boxes, remembering to go back to the page that had the video, reading the help system on how to play the video, waiting for the default “X Media Player” skins to load up, waiting for the gratuitious add to play through, and then, hopefully, WATCH A FREAKIN VIDEO!!!

Imagine if we had to do all of that to view an image in a web page.

Please select your image viewer:
- Super Global Mega Corp’s JPeg Viewer
[ ] High quality (SDSL at 256K and up, Cable in small neighborhoods, Frame relay, T-1, Fiber Optic)
[ ] Medium quality (ADSL, Cable in large urban neighborhoods, ISDN, Satellite)
[ ] Low quality (28.8Kb, 56.6Kb dial-up, GPRS)
– Don’t have Super Global Mega Corp’s JPeg Viewer? Download here for just $9.95 per month

- UltraHyperCon’s GIF Viewer
[ ] High quality (SDSL at 256K and up, Cable in small neighborhoods, Frame relay, T-1, Fiber Optic)
[ ] Medium quality (ADSL, Cable in large urban neighborhoods, ISDN, Satellite)
[ ] Low quality (28.8Kb, 56.6Kb dial-up, GPRS)
– Don’t have UltraHyperCon’s GIF Viewer? Download here (13MB download ~ 3hrs 25mins over 28.8Kb)

- SuperDuperUltraMegazord’s PNG Viewer
[ ] High quality (SDSL at 256K and up, Cable in small neighborhoods, Frame relay, T-1, Fiber Optic)

[View help system for assistance here]

Sorry. Got a little carried away there…

Click below to find out by watching this great Flash presentation that uses Flash video to best express the future of technology.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/innovation/yourpotential/main.html
Skip intro, then click on “Take a step into the future”.

I’m in awe. Such a fantastic piece of work.

Enjoy:
http://www.billyharveymusic.com/

Macromedia evangelists Brian Chau and Leesa Lee will be presenting a three-hour seminar with me on Tue (Sydney), Wed (Brisbane) and Thu (Melbourne) of this week.

Brian will be demonstrating Contribute 3, Leesa will demonstrate Captivate and Breeze, and I will be showing off the wonderful world of Flash video.

Please stop by and say “hi” if you’re in the area.

Event information here:
http://www.macromedia.com/ap/events/1104_vtwp_seminar_anz_ap.html

Well, this one is a little more interesting for some.

*Note - some people might be offended as the content is intended for mature audiences.

I spent, sadly, about 2 hours trying to figure out commands that she responds to. There are a lot of them.

http://virtualbartender.beer.com/

Sorry for the blogging hiatous. I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with 8ball planning.

I’m currently in Sydney, AU to do some press interviews focused on Flash video and “the impact Flash has had on Web culture” - according to the briefing I received from our PR agency. Where to begin on that one…

In any case, I’m “just chillin” in the Sydney office - which is very cool - so I thought I’d put my trusty (and crappy) Treo 600’s camera to work and share a snapshot of the Macromedia office in Sydney.

Apparently the office used to be a “Ginger Beer” (aka GingerAle) brewing plant - as far back as the early 1900’s. The office space that we occupy reminds me of a San Francisco/NY SOMA loft.