Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth Betas Available

If you want to stay on top of Adobe’s vision for new media, the best place to go is the Adobe Labs. There you’ll find the latest innovations, and next creations from the engineers that make creatives squeal like giddy school girls.

The Lightroom 2.0 beta was recently made available for download, and now bleeding edge creatives can checkout the next releases of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth. These products, used for web development, web prototyping, and audio, allow you a sneak peek at the future of the Creative Suite, and a glimpse at the integration between products. Cross-media publishing should be on your brain, as new Adobe products continue to blur the lines between web & print products allowing a smoother exchange of files, and better workflow.

If the betas are any indication, the CS4 release looks to be the next stage in creative evolution.

Weekend Recap…

Jamee & AmyPardon the misspellings and poor grammar, but I’m still waking up (who am I kidding, F7 spell check coming right up). Before I kickoff the weekend recap, it appears Cyn had a guest poster Friday & Sunday. The direct post links seem to be down, but look for guest post #1 & #2 as I’m still chuckling.

Well the weekend was an adventure. I have MANY pictures to go through and I intend on sorting sometime today amidst all the chores Michelle & I left undone before heading out of town. As I mentioned Saturday night, we spent the weekend in Austin. It was Jamee’s birthday Sunday and our good friend Amy flew down from Michigan to join in the celebration. I met both Jamee & Amy while hangin’ out at Michigan State (no I never actually attended, I just got drunk there on many an occasion). It had been a couple of years since Amy’s last visit so it was quite the birthday treat. Here’s a quick recap of our weekend:

Thursday – Amy flies into Dallas from Detroit. We grab dinner for three at Applebee’s and toss back some Perfect Margaritas.

Friday – Michelle, Amy & I drive to Austin. Except for the two hour delay trying to get out of Dallas, the drive is mostly uneventful. Sorority screams and high pitched squealing ensue after arriving at Jamee’s place. The birthday celebration has officially begun. After settling in and hugs followed by more hugs, the five of us (Amy, Jamee & Scott, Michelle & I) make our way to 6th street which is the club district in Austin. As it was Game 3 of the NBA playoffs, we just had to start off the evening at a sports bar. Amy & Jamee went next door to a brewery after dinner while Scott, Michelle & I watched as the Spurs took Game 3 away from the Mavericks.

We took our victory celebration over to the Ginger Man and joined what was now a large group of people wishing Jamee happy birthday. From the Ginger Man we moved on to Poly Esters for some disco dancing & karaoke. Needless to say it was a long night which ended with my recap of Game 3 at 3am.

Saturday – For some reason everyone slept in pretty late. The day didn’t begin until Noon and required massive amounts of coffee as motivation. Jamee’s friend Juliet offered to host a crawfish boil (yes, new experience for me too). We packed the truck and drove out to Lake Travis where Juliet has the most AMAZING house overlooking the lake (this is me green with envy). Scott labored all afternoon preparing 100lbs of crawfish. By the end of the night Juliet was walking next door to ask her neighbors to come and take a few pounds of leftovers. Never has such a small party gorged themselves so thoroughly. The evening wouldn’t be complete without some fireworks and a small brush fire.

Sunday – Jamee’s birthday!!! Woo Hoo!!! While still a late morning, we managed to pull ourselves together and head out to Hamilton Pool. This by far was the highlight of the weekend. Yup, Michelle & I are only jobs away from moving out of Dallas. The park only allows 75 cars in at one time so we had a bit of a wait before we were able to enjoy the pool. Unfortunately, we arrived in the late afternoon, so we didn’t have time to really take in the scenery. I snapped off some quick pics along the trail to the water, but next time I’ll get some better photos. After lounging in the water we drove out to the Salt Lick Barbecue for dinner. WOW! Can you say tasty eats? On a Sunday evening we had ourselves a 45 minute wait, but it was well worth it. GINORMOUS portions of ribs, brisket, pork, chicken with side plates of potatoes & coleslaw – YUMMY! Oh and if you’re ever out that way, the Salt Lick is BYOB.

Now I know what you’re thinking – you did manage to watch the Spurs game Sunday night right? Well, fortunately Michelle is ALWAYS prepared and although dinner did not include a TV, she did manage to bring her headset radio. In-between drinks and the occasional morsel she spouted out game scores for Scott & I. You’d think after gorging ourselves two days in a row that the food coma would have set in quite nicely. Seeing as it was Jamee’s birthday we left the Salt Lick and moved on to Lake Austin for drinks at the Hula Hut. We sat outside drinking “fish bowls”, Michelle announcing game scores while I took pictures of the ducks and Jamee & Amy caught up on all the latest gossip.

We closed the bar out and briefly thought of going back to 6th street before heading home. Jamee & Scott fired up the “ghetto tub” and we had ourselves one last night cap before passing out… err… well Michelle & I had one last drink. Rumor has it the birthday girl &amp company stayed up until 4am, hence the slow moving and hangovers the next morning.

Monday – Yeah, I know what you’re thinking – Why didn’t YOU stay up partying `til 4am? Well seeing as how a 3-4 hour drive absolutely sucks with a hangover; I figured I’d make the smart play for once. It was fun pouring Amy into the car and watching Jamee attempt some for of morning conversation in-between sips of coffee. The drive back to Dallas went quicker than we anticipated and Michelle & I dropped Amy off in record time for her flight home.

So there you have it. I’ll get to the pictures later and hopefully post them today. But first I’ll go wake up Michelle and get some stuffed french toast for breakfast.