TODCON is always a key event for the Dreamweaver community, despite it's small size. I should say because of -- not despite -- it's small size. Everybody is accessible, and by the end of the conference everybody ends up knowing each other. This year it was even better, as Adobe sent over a dozen representatives to meet with the attendees to gather feedback. They sent some of the top-level people on the Dreamweaver team, including the product manager Kenneth Berger. I got to talk shop for quite a while with Randy Edmunds (formerly from the Drumbeat team) and former Interakt guys Lucian and Christian. I also met and reconnected with some people I've known through the newsgroups and the Dreamweaver community. Being Vegas, there was also gambling, drinking, and eating. I played a bit of poker and went down a little, but didn't get to play very much. Mostly I was preparing presentations and socializing, with a little poolside relaxation mixed in.

I also didn't see a lot of the presentations, but of the ones I saw, the keynote was the most interesting -- showing the cool new features of Photoshop CS3 and Fireworks CS3, which I have not used yet. I was sorry I didn't get to see any of the Flex presentations, but CFUnited at the end of the month will have quite a few of those.

Next year TODCON will likely return to Orlando, but if you have a chance to get to one you really should check it out.

I'll be a blues traveler for a week -- heading to Mississippi to go on a tour of some of the sites down there -- and ending up at the Sunflower Blues Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi to see some great blues. Little Milton was scheduled to play, but died this past week. RIP Milton. 92 year old Honey Boy Edwards will be playing. He was one of Robert Johnson's contemporaries in the 30s, and has numerous stories of Johnson. Also in town will be Charlie Musselwhite, Sam Carr, and Pinetop Perkins, who is also in his 90s. Also, there is a documentary filming all week at the Ground Zero blues club in downtown Clarksdale by the guy who did Deep Blues and Last of the Mississippi Jukes. Ground Zero is part owned by the actor Morgan Freeman.

In between blues we'll be playing some poker at the Horseshoe and also in Biloxi upon arrival. Wish me luck. ;-)

Info on the Paradise tourney here: http://www.paradisepoker.com/promotions/2005/million_freeroll/

TODCON was a great experience, as usual, and I love the fact that it was in Las Vegas. Holding a conference in Las Vegas pretty much guarantees that no sleep will be had. Between the sessions, the eating and drinking, the socializing, the shows, and the gambling, there is little time for sleep. I picked up a cold while I was there, probably from the smoke, dry air, and lack of sleep, but it was a fun time.

One of the sessions that I particularly enjoyed was by Neil Giarratana on using open source software. He showed a presentation of Mambo, the open source content management system for PHP that was awesome. I may be converting some sites to use the system. As part of Mambo, he showed an amazing online HTML editor that is also open source: TinyMCE. This editor blows away all the other HTML editors I've tried in the past, as it seems to work great with Firefox and Mac browsers. I'll have to do some more experimentation with it.

Dan and Angela from Cartweaver gave away a ton of prizes, including copies of Cartweaver, a year of hosting, and a whole box of books. There were also major giveaways from Webassist, Interakt, Kaosweaver, and of course from Ray West, who puts on the TODCON conferences. Chris Flick was there doing the cartooning thing, of which he is the master.

What would Vegas be without gambling. I did a little, but played only Poker. I am not a big gambler and especially don't like playing against the house, so I avoid games like Roulette and Blackjack, and especially the slot machines. Poker, on the other hand, pits you against other players, and a player with a good knowledge of the game can do quite well. Unfortunately, I didn't. You know what they say -- what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. In this case, it was my money that stayed there. We played mostly at the Excalibur, where the conference was, but also tried out the Bellagio, where I have played last time I was there, and saw a few familiar faces in the card room (Johnny Chan, Mel Judah, and Sami Farha, from the WSOP and WPT television shows.) It was fun. I left a few bucks shorter, but it was worth it.

Tuesday night a group of us went to the Zumanity show at the New York, New York casino. What an amazing performance. Some of the performers were tremendous athletes who made it look easy to fly around the arena on a silk scarf or do handstands on one hand on the edge of a plexiglass pool while doing a split. It really had to be seen to be believed. The costumes were great too. ;-) If you saw the show, you know what I mean.

Previously...

More TODCON links:

TODCON Death Match

Some pics...

Christian Cantrell's blog

Kim's blog

Update 5/4/2005: More TODCON links...

Pics from Sheri

Chris Flick on TODCON

John Olson on TODCON

Chris Flick's TODCON strip starts here

Pics from Jim Babbage

Edited 10/1/2007: Fixed link to Mambo.]]> http://www.tom-muck.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=60 http://www.tom-muck.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=60 Sat, 30 Apr 2005 23:20:10 GMT After much searching, I've finally discovered a good use for the web -- online poker. Yes, the web is not just a place for stale news, advertisements, and Amazon.com. Poker is both fun and profitable if you play your cards right, so to speak.

Online poker is quite different than online casino games, where the odds are stacked in the house's favor. In online poker, you are playing against other people. If you are better at the game than the other players, you'll end up a winner. Although I've been playing online for a while, I played in my first live poker tournament last weekend in Atlantic City (Borgata) -- no limit Texas Hold 'em. I was unsuccessful, however the experience was great and I am ready for the next one. I busted out at approximately 27 out of 50 opponents. My losing hand was an AK offsuit which I betted strong before the flop and was re-raised all-in. The raiser was sitting on pocket queens, and I had roughly a 50/50 shot at it after we turned our cards up. Looking back, it was a hand that I would not typically go all in with unless I was on a large stack or in a better position. I was able to play for about 2 1/2 hours, with a few good hands and a few successful all-ins. Next time I'll do better. 

My problem was that I have never played in a live situation before, so I was a little nervous at the table. I've been playing online for a while, and feel relatively confident of my abilities, but playing live was new to me. I wish I had gotten there a day earlier to play some ring games and get a feel for the tables. The entry fee was $220, but there were opportunities to re-buy and add-on. I generally do not like tourneys that allow rebuys and add-ons, because it gives players incentive to play crap hands if they know they can just buy more chips if they bust out. Also, at the first break, everyone bought more chips using the add-on. This stacks the odds against anyone who doesn't add-on. The add-on was $200, and I had to go for it because everyone else at the table did the add-on -- I couldn't sit there with $1200 in chips when everyone else had $6000 or more. So in all the tourney cost me $420. I made most of it back playing ring games the next day (mostly 6/12 limit hold 'em). The prizes for 1st and 2nd were $10,000 entries into another tourney. I think 3rd and 4th paid out a few thousand dollars as well.  

If you're interested in finding out more about online poker, check out Poker Pages at http://www.pokerpages.com. I usually play at Party Poker, which has over 40,000 players (use the link to get a 20% bonus on any money you deposit). They have freeplay and play for money, but if you play in the freeplay games there is not much skill involved -- most of the people there are bad players and stay in on anything. If you want a good free game, sign up with Poker School. The people there take the game seriously and you can play for free in a situation that feels more like a real money game. Absolute Poker is good too, although a little smaller in size. The free games there are not as wild as the Party Poker free games. Also, Paradise Poker has great tournaments every night where you can win $5-10K on a $30 entry.

See you at the tables.