The Adobe Acrobat PDF Portfolio Navigator Developer Contest is open. Use Flex and Acrobat to create an original and innovative PDF Portfolio Navigator, and you could win prizes, fame, and publicity!

Hemanth Sharma recently joined the Adobe Platform Evangelism team in India. He has posted details (including a video) on how he created a simple game in Flash, showing the same code running on desktop computers, tables, and even devices.

ILOG Elixir has long been the definitive Flex charting library, and IBM has announced the availability of the beta of IBM ILOG Elixir for Flex 4.

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch reaffirms that we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR, and notes that we are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others.

A Flash Player preview release, code-named Gala, has been posted to Adobe Labs. This Flash Player introduces support for H.264 video hardware decoding on Mac OS X 10.6.3 (the most recent release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard). The hardware acceleration functionality in the Gala preview release of Flash Player is expected to be included in an update following the release of Flash Player 10.1.

Pete Freitag has announced that he has updated his invaluable HackMyCF to detect a BlazeDS vulnerability that was fixed a couple of months ago.

The new tarmac delay rule goes into effect this week, and DOT Secretary Ray LaHood has promised that the rule will be strongly enforced. Some passenger advocates have hailed the new rule as a landmark breakthrough. Some have even cheered the denial of airline requested exceptions for specific airports where delays will likely be beyond the airline's control (JFK as an example). Leading the debate has been FlyersRights.org, the self-proclaimed "largest non-profit consumer organization representing airline passengers". Well, they don't represent me.

I have flown millions of miles, literally. I have flown every major airline in the world. I have flown in and out of more airports than I can recall. And yes, I have dealt with delays and cancellations and bad weather and emergency landings and long tarmac waits and mechanical problems and aborted take-offs and ... you get the idea. I also know lots of people in the airline industry. Heck, I am on a first-name basis with multiple pilots, flight attendants, and airline representatives. So I think I am more than qualified to voice an opinion on this one. And my opinion is that this rule will become the poster boy for the Law of Unintended Consequences.

I know that it's popular to bash airlines, especially with baggage fees (and hand luggage fees!) and fare increases and charging for select seats and no free food and so on. But, the reality is that airlines are still losing money. And they actually don't make much on completely full flights! There is absolutely no way airlines are going to risk fines of up to $27,500 per passenger (that's over $6,000,000 or so for a typical Boeing 757).

And so now airlines will do the only thing they can do, they'll cancel flights earlier or more often. And for those of us who live on the road, life is going to get just a bit more painful as a result.

Congress, DOT, and FlyersRights.org, thanks for nothing!

During Developer Week, learn about the Adobe Flash Platform, including Flex, Flash Builder, AIR, and how it integrates with Creative Suite 5 technologies. This weeklong event features free, live webinars presented by Adobe technology experts. See live demos and have your questions answered by the experts during interactive Q&A sessions. Register and attend whichever sessions suit your needs and you will be eligible to win a copy of Flash Builder 4 Professional or Creative Suite 5 Web Premium.

Google VP of Engineering, Andy Rubin, has posted comments regarding Adobe AIR on Android.

I am writing this from the front of the convention center in Beijing, China, where we are hosting out first Annual Adobe Flash Platform Summit. (It's not an official annual event yet, but seeing how well this has come together it absolutely needs to be!).

There are 1000 chairs in the hall, and the facilities people are running around to find more. There are over 200 people outside queuing up to pay to get in. The keynote presenters, organizers, interpreters, are all scurrying around. Ed Rowe is eyeballing his keynote notes. The buzz in the room is palpable. This feels like MAX.

Music fading, lights, cameras, action ...

The San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate has posted a piece entitled Apple's ban of Flash angers iPhone developers.

John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly, Program Chairs and founders of Web 2.0 Summit, have penned an An Open Letter to Apple Regarding The Company's Approach to Conversation with Its Peers and Its Community. The letter is indeed somewhat self-serving, and admits as such. Still, it's well worth the read.

Want to speak at MAX 2010? The Call For Speakers is now open!

Fellow Adobe Platform Evangelist, and Flash platform guru, Michaël Chaize, has a new blog. Knowing Michaël, and his creations, you'll want to watch this one.

digg labs provides a broad and deep view of Digg. Tens of thousands of URLs get submitted to Digg every day, and digg labs projects look beneath the surface of the Digg community's activities to expose all of this content. Check out the Flash based 365, arc, and swarm views.

The Microsoft Kin site is up, powered by Adobe Flash. I'm excited about Microsoft's next phone OS, and am glad that Flash can help them sell the story! Really!

The New York Times has posted a news story on an Android based Google tablet. And according to the story, Eric Schmidt did say that the Google the device will run Adobe Flash content and games.

The Wall Street Journal's Kara Swisher video interviewed Kevin Lynch over the weekend. And Kevin slams back at Apple hard, pointing out the "Protectionist Strategy," and calling it "Bad for Consumers".

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch has posted his thoughts on Adobe and Macromedia, the CS5 launch, multiscreen apps, Apple's SDK license changes, and more.

As much as I understand the fiscal realities, these tweetpics by Japanese Astronaut Soichi Noguchi make me sad that NASA funding is being slashed. Here's hoping that some of the new programs and thinking materialize.

A user just asked me whether we'd be releasing ColdFusion 9 language support for Dreamweaver, which reminded me that among all of the recent discussion relating to ColdFusion Builder, many users do indeed use Dreamweaver for ColdFusion development, and will continue to do so.

Yes, we did release ColdFusion 9 extensions for Dreamweaver. You can download the MXP from the ColdFusion Support Center Downloads page. That same page also contains links to the Report Builder, additional ColdFusion server components, SOLR installers, and more.

Peavey Electronics Corporation is one of the largest audio equipment manufacturers in the world, and are the creators of highly acclaimed amplifiers, speakers, instruments, sound software, and more. And http://www.peavey.com/ is powered by ColdFusion.

[Via Jeff Murphy]

The Adobe AIR team discusses building apps for the Apple iPad using AIR. And Christian Cantrell shows a single app running on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad.

Check out the new video: Adobe Flash: One Web. Any Screen.

(Wow, I need that Dell device!)

ColdFusion Builder has been out for a few weeks now, and lots of initial comments and thoughts are in. Some think it should have been given away for free, others think the price is more than fair. Some think it's missing key features, others think it's already making them more productive. And on and on and on.

One thing that we can all agree on is that ColdFusion Builder is a v1.0 product with lots of potential, which is why the team is already working on the next version. And to help drive that version, they'd like your feedback via an online survey.