Catching up on the week’s Flex news: Flex 2.0 Beta 2 has been released by Adobe Labs. Check out a complete list of changes or Sho Kuwamoto’s highlights. (Mac developers are still not officially supported by this release but the same workarounds that allowed us to try beta 1 should apply to beta 2.)

Alongside this release, Adobe launched a new competition (with Actual Prizes!) called the Adobe Flex Developer Derby.

Because of the Legal Ramifications of giving away Actual Prizes, Adobe was only able to open this contest to North Americans Who Are Not From Quebec. So some benevolent Aussies set up a complementary effort: the RocketBoots Rest of World Flex Developer Space Race, open to everyone who does not qualify to enter the Derby.

And of course anyone from any country with SWFs in your site, whether built using Flash, Flex or other tools, may enter our own Flashforward Film Festival. But we’re not handing out televisions or iPods so you should probably also enter one of those other competitions if you qualify!

In this Podcast, Lynda Weinman conducts a second interview with Jim Byrne of VitalStream, sponsor and Tech Showcase presenter at Flashforward2006 Seattle. They discuss VitalStream’s recently-launched Content Delivery Service and talk a bit about the upcoming Flashforward2006 Austin Conference & Film Festival.

• iTunes — Subscribe to our Podcast via the iTunes Music Store. (enhanced AAC)
• RSS — Direct link to the RSS for other aggregators. (enhanced AAC)
• Second Interview with Jim Byrne (AAC) — download the interview (enhanced AAC)
• Second Interview with Jim Byrne (MP3) — download the interview (MP3)
• See also: their first interview.

We interrupt our usual Flash news to mention the just-concluded Mix06 event in Las Vegas. Many of the Flashforward team were in attendance to support Lynda Weinman and her session demonstrating the Expression web tool. Lynda also hosted a great party for web VIPs where we got to hang out with some of our favorite Flash folks. (And gaze in awe at the Chocolate Fountain!)

If you’re looking for recaps, videos and podcasts, start at the official Mix Blog. If you want to see always-entertaining pictures of geeks posing with Vegas cocktail waitresses, check out Flickr. And if you are wondering how the event came across to members of the Flash community, peruse the blogs of Aral Balkan, Pete Barr-Watson, Branden Hall, and especially John Dowdell, who must have been a stenographer in a former life. ;-)

Lynda was also one of a small group of people invited to eat a steak lunch with Bill Gates. Reports from others at the table can be found here, here and here. If Lynda decides to publish her impressions we’ll let you know.

Those of us who assist with the production of Flashforward found it most interesting to peek behind the scenes at how another conference is run, and especially what it’s like to attend an event in Las Vegas. The next MAX conference will be there in late October, and it’s a city we routinely consider as well of course. The biggest con seems to be the difficulty in owning the space — you can’t compete against the Vegas razzle-dazzle, no matter how many foam-core signs you put up. And there’s the danger that some of your presenters and attendees will lose their way back to the conference in the morning…

Thanks to everyone we met there for the great conversations! See you again in Austin if not before.

Last year our friends at magneticNorth launched a fascinating project called InspireMe.tv. It centers around a series of short films by artists…

InspireMe.tv presents personal insights into creativity, filmed by the artists themselves. No script. No instructions. Just a brief to show the world what inspires them, what books are on their shelves right now, where they work or simply talk about what’s on their mind at that moment in time.

The films and associated forums have been available at InspireMe.tv for some time, but now there is also a video podcast for those who would prefer portable inspiration. Three films have been posted so far, and more will be available next week.

UPDATE: Brendan told us in the comments that a functional iTMS link is now available, so here it is. Thanks! I’ll leave the instructions below for anyone who is helped by them in other circumstances.

There is no direct iTunes link for this feed (yet) so for those who are new to this sort of thing, here’s how to subscribe to InspireMe.tv in iTunes:

1. In iTunes, choose the “Advanced –> Subscribe to Podcast…” menu item.
2. Paste this URL into the the resulting window and click OK. http://feeds.feedburner.com/inspiremetv
3. Check your Podcasts playlist to see the latest episode or to download previous episodes.

By the way, magneticNorth designed and developed our cool speaker banner, and Brendan Dawes will be presenting a session at Flashforward2006 Austin.

A week ago we announced Flashforward2006 Austin and the initial list of confirmed speakers. We’ve added some other great names this week: Veronique Brossier, Chris Georgenes, Cris Ippolite and Grant Skinner. Here’s the complete, current list (chock full o’ links):

• Aral Balkan, Ariaware
• Veronique Brossier [new]
• Matt and Mike Chapman, homestarrunner.com
• Hillman Curtis, hillmancurtis.com
• Brendan Dawes, magneticNorth
• Chris Georgenes, Mudbubble [new]
• Branden Hall, Automata Studios
• Cris Ippolite, iSolutions [new]
• Steve Kilisky, Adobe
• Kevin Lynch, Adobe
• Chris and Trish Meyer, CyberMotion
• Erik Natzke, Natzke Design
• Grant Skinner, gskinner.com [new]
• Craig Swann, CRASH!MEDIA

We are accepting speaker proposals until April 7, so if you’d like to join this list, submit your ideas!