Monthly Archives: October 2007

Using Dopplr for Fun and Family

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The Dopplr guys are awesome. That post sums up one of the major reasons I like Dopplr it’s got a sophisticated elegance to it. For those that don’t know, Dopplr is a way to track your trips and the trips your contacts are taking. We’ve used it a bit at Adobe and most of the evangelists are on it (but I’m not sure how up to date all of their stuff is). I’ve also started using it for me and my wife. I’m really bad about sharing my trips with her, but for some reason I’m really good at putting it in Dopplr. So I just invited her to Dopplr and now both of our schedules are available and we keep Dopplr as kind of a central calendar. I’m not sure if that’s pathetic or cool, but at the end of the day I’m a Web 2.0 junkie and Dopplr makes my life easier…..with pretty colors.

If you want an invite, let me know. There is also a Dopplr challenge going on, so feel free to jump in of you’re part of those companies.

[tags]Dopplr, travel[/tags]

New Flex Builder Pricing

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Adobe Flex Builder.pngI just posted about the new Flex Builder pricing over on the on AIR blog but I wanted to put it here as well because I’m really excited about it (and I’ve had people ask me about it). As of November 1st, you’ll be able to get Flex Builder for Mac or Windows for $249. There will also be a “professional” edition which includes charting, the profilers, and Flex automation testing for $699.

Update: Just got some info on upgrade pricing:

  • Flex Builder 2 to Flex Builder 3 Standard Upgrade – $99 US
  • Flex Builder 2 with Charting to Flex Builder 3 Professional Upgrade – $299 US
  • Trade-up from FB Standard to FB Professional – $499 US

Also, what ever happened to the Fb rune? I like it.

[Icon from KoreGraphic]

[tags]Flex Builder, Adobe, Flex[/tags]

Join the A-Team

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Adobe Consulting is hiring! If you want to build some really awesome RIAs and work with the teams who are actually creating the technology and platform that you’re building on, this is a great opportunity. We’re looking for a bunch of rock star designers and user experience ninjas to help build our applications.

This team is really, really fantastic and they have a ton of reach. One look at the job locations shows you that they work in all parts of the world, so this isn’t one of those teams that only hires in San Francisco. It’s a great way to work for Adobe and you get to work on projects that are absolutely a blast to build.

Feel free to send me your resume to pass along to the team. And if you have any questions about working for Adobe, I’m happy to answer them. Coming over here was the best decision I’ve ever made (well, second to getting married).

[tags]Adobe, job, Adobe consulting[/tags]

Patch for Adobe Acrobat 8.1 Vulnerability

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Update: Just saw a link to the security bulletin.
We’ve released a new version of Acrobat (8.1.1) that closes the security hole found a little while ago (ZDNet coverage). Kurt Foss just posted the news over on the Acro bytes blog and I wanted to post it here as well. I think this was the first big vulnerability since I joined the company and since there is a lot of interest in using PDF inside of AIR I want to make sure everyone hears the news and updates their version of Acrobat.

Version 8.1.1 links from Kurt:

[tags]Acrobat, Adobe, Security[/tags]

AIRApps.net Becomes O2Apps.com

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O2 Apps.comAIRApps.net, one of the first communities out there for AIR has changed its name and re-branded to O2Apps. They’ve got a ton of community stuff over there and a lot of good resources for AIR. One of my favorite things is that they give you free Flash Media Server capability to use in your AIR app when you sign up for an account upload your first AIR application (you get free free POP, CVS, FTP when you sign up).

They’re also opening up a beta test for their E-Commerce application which will help AIR developers monetize their applications (which is a hot topic).

[tags]Adobe, AIR, O2Apps[/tags]

A Yahoo! Mail Client Built With Adobe AIR

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The online/offline use case for email is probably the one everyone is most familiar with. Unfortunately, as people move towards online email services they lose the ability to integrate directly with the web application and take it offline. Doing something like this is a perfect use case for Adobe AIR and Ryan Kennedy and Dave Glass have built one for Yahoo! Mail.

Ryan was actually at MAX speaking about the application but I didn’t get to see his talk. Since then he’s put up a couple of good posts on his blog. The first one is about some of the security changes we made from Beta 1 to Beta 2. The second one is actually a mini-tutorial on using BBAuth (Yahoo’s Browser-Based Authentication) and AIR together. Both are good reads for Ajax developers who are building AIR apps.

[Thanks to Guillaume for the pointer]

[tags]Adobe AIR, Yahoo Mail[/tags]

Xbox Live Gamer Tags

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digitalbckcntryI finally got Xbox Live set up and running so I can join the rest of you in losing to Mike Chambers at Halo 3. Right now I pretty much suck at life because I only have 25 gamer points and I came in second in my first Halo 3 online game. My friends list also looks pretty pathetic, so I’d like you guys to help me fix that. If you’re on Xbox Live and want to game on, let me know what your gamer tag is (either email or in the comments if you want more people to add you). I know the Adobe community rocks the Xbox and I want to have friends in every time zone so I can always find someone to play. My gamer tag is digitalbckcntry.

[tags]xbox, halo 3, gamertag, personal[/tags]

Which Companies is Adobe Investing In?

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Remember that big pot of money that we set aside last year at MAX to invest in companies that are doing cool things with Adobe technology? You probably recognize some of the names on the list of companies that are taking advantage of it but until Danny Dura started digging around, we hadn’t seen the new investment portal that Adobe has created to highlight some of our current and past investments.

The list of companies is impressive and I hadn’t realized just how many we’ve invested in. It’s also fun to look back at some of the companies we invested in back in the early days (Netscape?). What this should tell you is that we are still very, very interested in good companies that are doing things with our platform. If you think you fit that description, feel free to submit a proposal. I’d also be happy to answer any introductory questions you have about what I’ve seen and how it works.

[tags]Adobe, Venture, Fun, Investment[/tags]

I Want My Applications To Be This Cool

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I Want My Applications To Be This CoolWhy do I love Flex/AIR because this is the environment they came from. That site is a ton of fun. It’s not all that useful, it’s not going to appeal to business users or enterprises, but there is something engaging about it. The landscapes are well designed, the interactions are very natural and the whole thing is beautiful. And it’s just Flash. It’s the kind of experience that the Flash Player enables.

I’m not sure what the right mix is, but I want applications that we build to be this beautiful and this well-designed. Flex/Flash/AIR all come from the same clay so it’s just about combining the right elements together (in the right proportions) to get something that is valuable from an application standpoint as well as a design standpoint. It won’t happen overnight and there will definitely be some terrible examples out there, but ultimately I hope tools like Thermo get us closer to this. I think the software we use everyday can be both fun and usable.

Props to Stellargirl for the link.

[tags]Thermo, Design, Applications, Fun[/tags]

Evangelist Personas

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Evangelist PersonasI’ve always thought Adobe had the upper hand with the RIA Mountaineer and the RIA Cowboy. But I was oh so wrong. How can any of us compete with the Silverlight Ninja Warrior?

I do like Lee as the RIA Astronaut though. I think he evens us back up. He is a fan of the UFC.

Also, I feel really bad because this year I didn’t do any mountaineering at all. I should probably get on that. Maybe after we do the mass evangelist push for AIR AIR shipping I’ll go bag a peak. I should probably start getting in shape.

[tags]Evangelism, Blogging[/tags]