The big RIA news today is that Silverlight is running on Linux. Miguel de Icaza has a post up with some screenshots and by all accounts the demo went well. I think this is great. These guys worked their tails off to get Silverlight implemented on Linux. They’re a bunch of awesome devs and I think that shows that people from all parts of the web are excited about RIAs. On the other hand, I’ve been talking to a lot of customers lately and one of the questions I always ask is how important Linux is to them. 99% of the time they tell me they don’t care about Linux support on the desktop.

But even if customers aren’t rolling out a bunch of Linux desktops, I think it’s still very important to support the platform. One of the great things about Ajax based web applications is that they basically run everywhere. If RIAs are to reach that status and become an integral part of the web, we need to be on Linux. Flash is there, now Silverlight looks like it will be too, and we’re looking to bring AIR to Linux soon after the first release.

I’ve been focusing on Adobe stuff here on my personal blog but I kind of miss talking about more general RIA stuff here as well as ZDNet, so I’m going to be moving back a bit and try to be more RIA-general. Obviously the fact that I work for Adobe has an impact, so keep that in mind when you’re reading.

[tags]Moonlight, Silverlight, Linux[/tags]

I’m going to be in Portland on Thursday and during the evening I’m going to be leading a workshop at the Portland Adobe Developers Group. I’ll be walking through how to create your first AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime, formerly Apollo) application. The session will cover everything from setting up Flex Builder to digging in and creating an AIR application that leverages some of the new APIs like the Database APIs, the File APIs, Native Windows, Network Status and others. It’s meant to be a very hands on session, so bring your computer and get ready to code.

The meeting starts at 5:30 on Thursday, June 20th and is going to be held in the Portland Community College Sylvania Library Building, Room 112 (Yahoo Maps Link). It will be kind of geared towards people that haven’t used Flex or AIR before, but if you’re jumping into those technologies we will be covering how to use the APIs, so you should still get something out of it. I encourage you to come by regardless of your skill level. It would be great to have some rockstar Flex/AIR guys come to help me out with getting people up to speed.

If you have any questions, drop me a note or give me a call.

[tags]AIR, Adobe, Apollo, Flex, Portland Adobe Developers Group, Portland[/tags]

The session list has been put up for MAX and there are a lot of AIR sessions to choose from. I looked through the list and put together my Top 10 sessions for anyone interested in building AIR apps. These are a pretty wide range from General Audience sessions up through Advanced sessions, so keep that in mind, but I think they cover all the bases. I didn’t include the boot camp or hands on sessions because they take up a good chunk of the day. Remember, these are just my personal choices, so I’d like to hear your feedback.

10. Introduction to Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) – Beginner – Mike Chambers – Get the basics before you dive in.

Learn the basics of Adobe AIR, the new cross-operating system runtime from Adobe. This session will provide an introduction to the basic features of the runtime along with the tools for building applications. We’ll cover building applications using HTML/Ajax, Flash, and Flex.

9. Branded Experiences with Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) – General Audience – Figure out what to do with AIR and how it fits.

Explore the advantages that an Adobe AIR experience can bring to your users. Find out what types of applications lend themselves to an out-of-browser experience and how complete interface and design control can deepen your brand awareness.

8. eBay Desktop: Under the Hood of eBay’s Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) project – General Audience – Get an inside look at an AIR application so you know what to expect.

Come along with effectiveUI to explore the design and development process behind eBay Desktop, the groundbreaking Adobe AIR application that brings online bidding to the desktop.

7. Taking a Flex Application from the Web to the Desktop with Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) – Intermediate – If you’re already building Flex applications, learn about bringing them to the desktop.

Explore the opportunities offered by Adobe AIR for expanding the reach of a Flex application. We’ll discuss the differences in APIs available in Adobe AIR as well as how to share code meant for deployment to both the web and the desktop.

6. Using Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) APIs – Intermediate – Get a solid overview of the APIs and what they can do.

Learn about the new APIs that are available as part of Adobe AIR. We’ll cover general features such as the windowing APIs, application configuration options, and updating mechanisms. This session is appropriate for both Flex and HTML developers.

5. XD: Initial Visions for the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) Experience – Intermediate – Jeremy Clark – Learn about the design side of AIR.

While the capabilities of Adobe AIR clearly combine the reach of the web with the power of the desktop, the highly engaging experiences enabled by this platform are just coming into view. Join Adobe’s Experience Design team, XD, as they showcase real applications and discuss a vision for the future of desktop experiences built on the Adobe AIR runtime.

4. HTML and Script Bridging for Flex Applications in Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) – Intermediate – Christian Cantrell – Start learning how to make Flex and Ajax talk in your app.

Learn how HTML and Flex can work together in a single Adobe AIR application via script bridging. We’ll discuss the Adobe AIR APIs that every application developer needs to know to provide maximum flexibility in development choices.

3. Local Database Access with Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Data Synchronization Strategies – Intermediate – One of the most important parts of AIR, so a good session to be in.

One of the most exciting capabilities of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is that its embedded relational database and the database access API allow you to save data locally for offline operations. In this session, we will discuss the challenges this new capability introduces: What are the appropriate design patterns for working with a local database? What is the right level of abstraction between inlining SQL statements and implementing a full featured ORM system? What are the different strategies for data synchronization between your local database and the server? Join us for answers to these questions and more.

2. Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) Security – Advanced – Lucas Adamski – Get information on how to handle security in your AIR app.

Desktop application security creates different requirements for developers. Find out how the Adobe AIR security model will affect your application and what best practices you should follow to build more secure desktop applications using Adobe AIR.

1. Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) Tips and Tricks – Advanced – Daniel Dura – Put all the pieces together and polish off your skills.

Hear from product experts on how to best leverage Adobe AIR for your desktop-enabled rich Internet applications. Learn development best practices along with when and where to use available APIs.

[tags]Max2007, AIR, Adobe, Flex[/tags]

I just noticed that Lucas Adamski, a Platform Security Strategist here at Adobe, has a new blog. He’s going to be covering some technical information on security and the platform:

In this blog I’ll be focused on providing some genuinely useful technical info on emerging threats, and addressing application development best practices.

[tags]Security, Adobe, Flash, AIR, PDF Reader[/tags]

Oliver Goldman just posted on his blog about the Seamless Install feature for Air and how you’ll be able to leverage it for your own applications. This is a gigantic, gigantic feature because it’s going to make it really easy for you to deploy Air applications and get them installed on your users machines whether they have the runtime or not. the Air SDK has the source code for the badges that you’ll see on the Showcase site which let you tie into the Express Install feature. Here’s the experience for the user:

When they click on a badge, it will check to see if they have Air installed. If they don’t have it installed, it will use Express install to download and install the runtime on the machine. On a good connection this takes about 90 seconds and one click. After that happens, the badge will handle the downloading of the .air file (your application) and hand it off to the newly installed runtime so the user clicks through the steps to install the application. If the user already has the runtime installed, the badge detects that and will just handle the downloading of the .air file and passing it on to the runtime.

The experience here is really, really great, and I was happy to see that we’re letting our users create badges of their own so that they can make sure installing Air won’t be a pain for their users. I encourage you to check out the showcase page and try it for yourself, you’ll be impressed with how good the experience is.

[tags]Air, Express Install, Flash[/tags]

Digital Editions, the eBook reader that has been up on labs for a while has finally been released and it looks like we’ve signed up a lot of partners. For those who haven’t heard of Digital Editions, it’s a desktop application based around managing and reading eBooks. It was built using Flex 2 but came around before Air, so it isn’t an Air application but it is cross platform for both Windows and Mac (Linux is coming). It’s obviously very focused on readability and supports PDF, the XML based OPS/EPUB standard from IDPF, and Flash. It also has some support for DRM through Adobe Content Server but it is optional for both PDF and the EPUB format. While it isn’t Air, it’s a cool integration between PDF and Flash.

The final edition has a number of tweaks based on user feedback. It incorporated a new user interface and added support for bookmarks, highlighting and text notes as well as a feature that lets users organize content into virtual bookshelves. The Digital Editions has a collection of free books that you can download and try out once you’ve gotten the client.

Update: I changed the title because I didn’t do any development on this so saying ‘we’ is dumb of me.
[tags]Digital Editions, PDF, eBook, Reader[/tags]

It looks like the Flash Player is a winner in the publishing category for Webware’s first annual Top 100 Web 2.0 sites and services contest. With 100 winners, and 10 in the publishing category, it would have been tough if Flash hadn’t have been included, but it’s cool to see that it was and Silverlight also made the list, so RIAs had a good showing.

Now Rafe says in the analysis that he isn’t ranking the technologies, but I think Flash might have ranked second in the publishing category. Maybe it’s just that he’s not ranking them overall, but he mentions that Firefox placed first in the browsing category with Opera in second place. That’s exactly how they’re listed on the winning page. He also talks about Drupal placing higher than Typepad and Vox, and Drupal’s listed third in the publishing category. So I think Flash Player won second place behind WordPress which isn’t too shabby.

Also a shout out to yourminis for making it in the browsing category.
[tags]Webware 100, Flash Player, Silverlight[/tags]

I’m starting my 4th week here at Adobe and took a bit of time to reflect on how it’s going. I’ve been traveling a lot, which is great, and I’ve been able to meet some cool customers and talk to the engineering teams at a level that I NEVER could have as a blogger. So for those of you wondering if Evangelism really is the dream job – it is – and the team I work with makes it even better.

But there’s been a huge downside to being an insider. Adobe is doing so many cool things that I’m not allowed to talk about. It’s not just me wanting to break news (but that’s part of it) but also that there are a lot of misconceptions out there about what Adobe is planning or isn’t doing. I think it’s like that at any big company, but in the past 3 weeks I’ve seen a bunch of blog posts about different topics that I wish I could respond to. And before I started, I was writing those exact same posts questioning what was up with Adobe or whether they were hearing what the community was saying.

After three weeks, I can tell you that they definitely do. We’re planning much further ahead than I would have imagined and those ideas are in large part really good. There are some things I wish we would move faster on, but in general we seem to be moving at a good pace. I think a lot of you are going to be pleasantly surprised over the next year about what we’re doing across a ton of products. We’re innovating in a lot of different ways inside Adobe and I’m going to be a happy camper when I can post and discuss them.

It’s hard being such a geek and having all these cool things you can’t talk about…but it’s worth it

[tags]Adobe, personal, evangelism[/tags]

I am not a big fan of WebOSes. I just can’t seem to figure out what all the fuss is about or why I would want my entire desktop trapped inside a browser. But today Stan Schroeder had a roundup of 10 WebOSes and while I’m still not sold (at all) I thought that these WebOS companies and their users might be well served by incorporating Air (the artist formerly known as Apollo).

As far as I can tell the main benefits of the ‘WebOS’ are that you have access to all of your “applications” from anywhere and that you can store a lot of data on someone else’s servers. Other than that, I don’t really get it. And I put applications in quotes because we aren’t just talking about web applications here. We’re talking about web applications running on a fake operating system, running inside a browser.

But in order to get some of the benefits of the WebOS, you have to spend a lot of time changing preferences, uploading files and customizing it to fit your needs. This is where Air might be a good fit. If you can install a WebOS client on your main machine, then easily drag and drop files onto the WebOS or customize the desktop, then it might make the WebOS easier to use when you aren’t on your main machine. If the main benefit of a WebOS is that it’s a portable version of your computer, then Air might let you keep things synched up pretty well between the WebOS and your main OS.

But I still don’t buy the WebOS thing. Not at all.

[tags]WebOS, Rich Internet Applications, Air[/tags]

I got back from New York City late last night so I’m spending a good chunk of today going through email. If you’re waiting for a note from me, I apologize and you should get a response today. But I also wanted to make sure that if you wanted to get in touch with me, you knew how. I’ve always had a contact link on my page, but it was hidden in my increasingly cluttered sidebar. I’ve moved it up to the top so that more people can find it. I’ve got my email address, my IM information and now my cell phone number on it. Feel free to use any one of those if you need to talk to me. Also, I haven’t been able to test the new links with IE6, so if the page looks messed up, drop me a note.

[tags]Ryan Stewart, personal[/tags]