The July/August issue of the Edge Newsletter is out and I got a guest spot as the tour guide for the on AIR Bus. I think the video turned out well and should give you a general idea of what the tour is about and more importantly, what the bus looks like. Lots of good stuff in this issue including using Spry widgets in Dreamweaver, extending Flash CS3 components, and how introNetworks is using Flex.
[tags]Edge, Adobe, On AIR[/tags]
TweetNot my words, but I agree with them. Tom Yager from Infoworld talks about how Adobe is well positioned to bridge “the desktop/mobile divide” and I like his take. But I think it’s a little bit more than that. Adobe and Microsoft are very similar companies (though Microsoft is just a smidge bigger than we are 
. One of Microsoft’s strengths is that because they monetize their platform so well, they’ve done a great job of putting it everywhere. Think about the devices that run Windows Mobile, the Xbox, Windows itself and Internet Explorer. Platforms are good and platforms with multiple touch points are better. I think that’s a big reason why the web took off, it was basically a universal platform.
Adobe is, in some ways, Microsoft with a cross-platform bent. The Adobe platform is all over the place. Flash Player in the browser, Adobe AIR on the desktop, Flash on phones, and video game consoles; it’s big part of the web. Web 2.0 is all about content and getting it to your users. That’s the great thing about these open APIs and stuff like tagging – it makes it easy to create and consume content. Recently the content has gotten richer and Adobe has been there to help make that transition easy. Because Flash was everywhere it was easy to use Flash video – the ecosystem was in place to distribute rich media content.
As all of these “touch points” converge, developers are going to look for the lowest common denominator when trying to reach their users. Flash provides that. No, it isn’t open source, but we keep pushing what it can do. Silverlight has made us push even harder. We want to build an ecosystem that developers enjoy using. We’re still working to do that, but in the meantime we’re continuing to push forward and keep the platform as broad and as platform neutral as possible. I think the Web 2.0 crowd and web developers in general have a lot to gain from looking at Adobe. We want to help you reach more people with the kind of experience you want them to have.
[tags]Flash, Web 2.0, Adobe, Adobe Platform[/tags]
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I noticed that we’ve got a new RIA news aggregator on the block, Planet RIA, put together by Canoo. So far it seems to be aggregating a variety of Flex, Flash, Java and Ajax blogs, so it’s missing the Silverlight/WPF cross section, but I think they’re in the process of adding more feeds. I like the clean interface and the limited number of feeds that they have. I hope they add more good feeds but still keep the aggregator on topic which can be a tough thing to keep in balance.
Definitely something to keep an eye on though, and I like the fact that it has some Java-based news. I miss that part of the spectrum when I’m looking around.
[tags]Planet RIA[/tags]
TweetQuick housekeeping item. I had screwed up the install for the WordPress Mobile plugin so people were getting a “page not found” error when they tried to look at my blog on their phones. I’ve fixed it now, so you can view all of my posts in a lightweight version. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Adobe is a tools company, that’s how we make most of our money. And usually we do an awesome job (ie Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, etc). But sometimes it seems like we don’t quite hit the mark. There’s a poll over at Ajaxian about whether or not Dreamweaver should be taken seriously by Ajax developers and the results so far are interesting. 21% of people (113 votes) use Dreamweaver. The majority use a simple text editor (43%) and 24% use some kind of Eclipse based tool.
Now with Adobe AIR, Ajax has become an area of focus for a lot of us. It’s good to see Dreamweaver continue to have a lot of traction on a site like Ajaxian, but the complains in the comments about design view show there is still some work to do. Expression Web is a phenomenal tool for Ajax development, so I hope the introduction of Microsoft puts the Dreamweaver team into high gear (but MSFT dropped the ball in not supporting PHP). We’ve also got JSEclipse sitting out there on labs, but I haven’t heard what we’re planning on doing with it. I used that tool before the company behind it was bought by Adobe, so I’d love to see it make a comeback and become an Eclipse-based product that Adobe could sell to Ajax developers.
[tags]Ajax, JSEclipse, Dreamweaver, Adobe[/tags]
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I saw this post about a CrunchGear meetup in Budapest and Warsaw and got to thinking. I’ve see other meetup groups that just get together informally over beers or something and the ones I’ve seen have been based around blogs. Mine isn’t big enough to do something like that but what about an informal Adobe meetup every once in a while?
I obviously travel a lot and I’m a pretty big fan of beer, so would you guys be interested if I hosted informal meetups in the cities I’m visiting? It wouldn’t be Adobe sponsored/endorsed but we could talk about anything Adobe related. How far in advance would you need to hear about something like that? Would you be up for getting beers with other people doing Adobe stuff? It would probably start by being Flash/Flex/AIR focused but I’m a CF guy as well and we could even expand it into Photoshop and Illustrator eventually.
So am I crazy? Would that be fun?
[tags]Adobe, Meetup[/tags]
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I just saw that there is a big article about using Flex and PHP together over on the O’Reilly LAMP portal, ONLamp.com. It looks like it goes from setting up the Flex Project in Eclipse through creating a form with a PHP/MySQL back end. We’ve been focusing a lot on the Java community because Flex Builder is built on Eclipse and Flex is very easy to pick up for the Java crowd. But with the open sourcing of Flex there’s been a lot of interest from the broader web community. Rich internet applications are cool and they’re becoming more open and easier to develop for all the time. So if you’re a PHP developer who is looking at Flex, this is a good way to get started.
[Via PHPDeveloper.org]
[tags]Flex, PHP[/tags]
TweetThe Seattle Flex User Group is doing something very cool for 360|Flex, the Northwest Charity Flex Jam. The group went out and found an organization, Northwest Harvest, that needed a rich internet application built. Northwest Harvest worked with Ali Danali, the user group manager, to put together a program plan and a bunch of developers at 360|Flex will be involved in coding the spec. By the end of the conference we hope to have a fully working application for Northwest Harvest that the user group will help support.
This kind of thing puts a huge smile on my face. It’s going to be a great way for developers of all levels to get involved in a Flex project that ends up as a good cause. You get to work in a team with some really great Flex developers and do good along the way. They’re going to have a room dedicated to it throughout the conference so you can drop in and do as much work on the app as you feel like. There are prizes that will be given away to participants. I hope this is a huge success and the start of a big trend.
[tags]Northwest Harvest, 360Flex, Coding, Charity[/tags]
TweetMike Downey just blogged the rumor that Colin Mook‘s Essential ActionScript 3 book is the best selling O’Reilly book ever. When you think about it, the news shouldn’t come as a shock. It’s number 4 on Amazon’s best seller list and Programming Flex 2 saw a TON of interest and was one of the best selling books that O’Reilly has published. Colin’s book, since it covers AS3, is a broader audience. Combine that with the fact that book sales are constantly growing and I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Colin has taken the reigns of best seller. If/When I get confirmation I’ll post it, but for right now, congrats to Colin.
[tags]O’Reilly, ActionScript 3, Colin Mook[/tags]
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I have a small confession to make. I used to really, really, really want a MAX award. We got a couple of them at Wharton but never the team that I was on. Getting recognized as part of a project that stood up to everything the hardcore design and developer shops were doing would have been a big rush. But now I’m with Adobe, so I’m pretty sure that I’m no longer eligible, but I still have a soft spot for them. And now that I’m evangelizing Adobe AIR I want a ton of AIR apps to win MAX awards this year.
If you’re doing something great with any of our technologies, make sure to submit it for a MAX award. I’ve talked to a lot of you and I’ve seen some great applications. The deadline is approaching fast, so fill out the paperwork and apply. It’s great publicity and it’s great developer-cred too. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll get them answered. Here are the categories:
[tags]MAX, Adobe AIR[/tags]
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