Rapid change presents opportunity as well as challenges. Open source isn’t just about being cost-effective, it’s leading in innovation. You can change the game in your business, your community, or even the world. OSCON brings together people like you from across the open source universe to learn, inspire each other, and collaborate.

Join O’Reilly in Portland this July to:

* Explore the benefits and challenges of building scalable applications for the cloud
* Use open source to target Android, iPhone and other mobile platforms
* Understand how and when to use NoSQL databases
* Learn best practice from experts in Python, Java, Ruby, Perl, PHP and JavaScript
* Use open source effectively as part of your business strategy
* Learn how to foster contribution and adoption of your open source projects

At OSCON, you’ll participate in hundreds of sessions covering open source languages and platforms, practical tutorials that go deep into technical skill and best practices, inspirational keynote presentations, an Expo Hall featuring dozens of the latest projects and products, fun networking events and activities, and the best “hallway track” around.

Why participate?
The lofty reason: Like O’Reilly, you want to “change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.” That’s our mission, and we’ve been fortunate enough to build a community of passionate, committed people who love to learn and share their knowledge as they work towards a better world for us all.

The “nice, but what’s in it for me” reasons: reputation, recognition, and rewards.

1. Get Recognized: “Find interesting people” is a core activity at O’Reilly, and an important component of our success. We see Answers as an important way to discover and connect with our next authors, online instructors, videographers, and speakers.

2. Build Your Reputation: You’ve learned a lot, why not get credit for all that knowledge? As your submissions to Answers are voted up, your personal reputation on the site increases. At launch, your reputation will be based solely on your participation in O’Reilly Answers. Soon, we’re expanding across oreilly.com, so the book errata and book reviews you’ve submitted, books you’ve registered, and conferences you’ve attended, will add reputation points. You’ll also earn badges to mark accomplishments and milestones.

3. Earn Rewards: Glory is great, but discounts and deals are nice, too. We want to reward your contributions to the O’Reilly community. Shortly we’ll have a point-based system in place that you can redeem for books, training, courses, and conferences. Details soon, but in the meantime, any actions you take now will count towards your total points.

This is just v.1
The best part of any project on the web is watching it take on a life of its own. With that in mind, we’re looking forward to *your* suggestions about where O’Reilly Answers should go, what features should be added, and what benefits and rewards we can offer all of you.

I’d like to acknowledge the projects that have proceeded Answers and inspired us, such as SitePoint Forums (we distribute their books), StackOverflow, Yahoo! Answers, Knol, and many others. They’re great resources, and we think the O’Reilly community can create a useful site that’s, well, a different kind of animal.

One last thing: O’Reilly Answers is in beta and you may encounter bugs. We’re still working on many improvements to the site, such as feeds for each tag, but would love to hear your suggestions for features and improvements. Please send any suggestions/questions/bug reports to answers@oreilly.com .

New and recently updated titles you might especially want to check out include:

* Joe Kissell’s “Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac”
* Steve Sande’s “Take Control of iWeb: iLife ‘08 Edition”
* Ted Landau’s “Take Control of Your iPhone”
* Brian Tanaka’s “Take Control of Permissions in Leopard”
* Joe Kissell’s “Take Control of Easy Backups in Leopard”
* Matt Neuburg’s “Take Control of Customizing Leopard”

Also be sure to check out the latest ebooks from Macworld:

* “Macworld Mac OS X Hints Superguide, Leopard Edition”
* “Macworld Total Leopard Superguide”

Although print versions of our books are not included in the sale,
print copies ordered from within an existing ebook are still
discounted at the cover price, not the price you pay during the sale.
So, if you buy a copy of “Take Control of Switching to the Mac” for
$5 during the sale, clicking the Print link at the top of the first
page will still save you $10 off the normal print price. (For older
ebooks that predate the Print link, just click the Check for Updates
button and then click the Order Print Copy tab in the Web page that
appears.)

Agenda for FlexCamp Cleveland:
8:15 – 9:00 / Registration & coffee/bagels
9:00 – 9:50 / Keynote Presentation - Ben Forta (Adobe)
10:00 – 10:50 / Building Your First Flex App - Mike Krotscheck
11:00 – 11:50 / Creating Flex Components - Doug Pierce & Curtis Gayheart
11:50 – 12:50 / Lunch (provided)
1:00 – 1:50 / Flash, Flex and the Prepaid Gift Card - Scott Andrews
2:00 – 2:50 / Intro to OOP for Flex Developers - Kris Schultz
3:00 – 3:50 / Intro to AIR - Adam Lehman (Adobe)
4:00 – 5:00 / Open Q&A with presenters

The iRizer’s sleek, interlocking design adjusts to 4 different heights – helping to prevent neck and wrist pain by raising your laptop’s keyboard and screen to a more comfortable angle. Perfect for home, office, or travel.

Ideal for home, office, or travel, the iRizer helps prevent neck & wrist pain by raising your laptop’s keyboard & screen to a more comfortable angle.

Whether you’re tall or petite, whether your desk is too high or too low, the iRizer’s sleek interlocking design lets you adjust your laptop to the height/angle that’s most comfortable for you – 20°, 30°, 40°, or 50°.

For maximum comfort, use the iRizer together with a separate keyboard & mouse, and turn your laptop into a more comfortable desktop computer. The Matias Folding Keyboard is a great addition to the iRizer.

For those times when you’re without an external keyboard (on the road, on a plane) the iRizer puts your laptop’s keyboard at a more comfortable angle for typing, allowing you to lean back in your chair and straighten your wrists, as recommended by leading
ergonomists.

The iRizer allows air to circulate freely under your laptop, so it runs
cooler and quieter.  Your battery will last longer and it may even extend
the lifespan of your computer.

Increased productivity and streamlined workflows—Photoshop CS3 comes with a wide array of new features and improvements to existing ones, but if there’s one thing you will notice immediately, it is this: Compared to previous versions of the software, Photoshop CS3 is just faster. As of December 1, 2006, beta versions of Photoshop CS3 are performing 40% faster than Photoshop CS2 on Intel-based Macs. The new Photoshop also gets you there faster with streamlined workflows stemming from new preset capabilities, redesigned palette management, and compatibility with the newest systems—including native Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) on PowerPC and Intel processors, and Microsoft® Windows® Vista™.

Unrivaled editing—How do you improve on the kind of editing power and performance that are the professional standard in digital imaging? By going the extra mile in protecting the ultimate quality every step of the way, and by making even more of the features professionals rely upon live and re-editable. With Photoshop CS3, you can now apply, adjust, add, and remove filters at will, without starting over. Enhancements to color correction include easier, more powerful monochrome conversion, an improved Curves adjustment, and cloning and healing tools that now feature preview overlays and multiple source points.

Breakthrough compositing—Whether it’s a peak-to-shore panorama or creating that one perfect shot from a series of images, Photoshop CS3 makes compositing faster, easier, and better. Speed compositing by automatically aligning and blending layers. Make an image selection with one stroke of a brush. Perfect any selection edge in a easy-to-use, intuitive dialog box.