Monthly Archives: November 2007

YouTube Provides Downloadable Multi-file Uploader. Why Not Use AIR?

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I can’t sleep and I have an early flight to catch tomorrow so I was surfing around and saw that YouTube is now offering a downloadable client that lets users upload multiple files at one time and in tandem the file size limit has been raised to 1 gig. It’s a great idea, but the multiple file uploader is only available for Windows. This seems like it would have been a great AIR application and part of me wonders why they didn’t build something like this using AIR.

YouTube Uploader

I realize it’s Google, and they do whatever the hell they want, but it would have been easy to support Mac and Windows at the same time. Maybe the lack of Linux support got them to roll their own. I didn’t see any APIs that would let someone else write an uploader in AIR.

[tags]Adobe AIR, YouTube[/tags]

My First Thermo Meeting

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On Tuesday I sat in on my first Thermo team meeting. It was actually my first product meeting at Adobe so it was exciting a couple of different fronts. I hadn’t actually been able to see the “sausage being made” on the product side before and it was pretty cool to watch. I can’t talk about specifics in the meeting but this was a general team meeting so we discussed things like features, milestones and schedules. I think Thermo is a pretty exciting product and after MAX I got the impression that other people felt that way too, so I wanted to post a few thoughts.

First, the Thermo team is top notch. Listening to guys like NJ and Ethan Eismann (from our XD team) talk about the designer developer workflow. You are all in good hands when it comes to the people deciding what goes into the product. I also learned that this team is planning on being very open with the community. They want to build off the buzz that they got at MAX and want to include you in the process as much as possible. With that in mind, I’d love to hear your feedback and take it back to the team. Eventually I’ll be blogging about specific features (I still need to find out what I can and can’t blog about) and timelines, but until then I’ll be blogging about some of the theoretical designer-developer conversations that come up. And I’d like to hear how you guys do things now and how Thermo would fit into your workflow. What tools are you using now to design your RIAs? What’s missing? What are your pie-in-the-sky features for a tool like Thermo? You guys can have a big impact on this product, so feel free to drop me a line any time with ideas, gripes or questions.

[tags]Thermo, Designer Developer Workflow[/tags]

Adobe AIR, Thermo, ColdFusion, and Flex now Facebook Brands

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Facebook rolled out brands today so that companies can create products and services that will appeal to the kids. Those kids can then tell all of their friends how awesome they think said brand is. Since the Adobe developer groups on Facebook have all been pretty popular, the Flex team created a Flex brand. Then I went through and created brands for Adobe AIR, Thermo, and ColdFusion.

What’s in a brand? No idea. One of the unfortunate things about our Facebook groups is that there isn’t a lot of discussion or community there. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because our community is still going strong, but as a Facebook junkie, I wish I had more time. I’ll be trying to update the brands with events and info that might be useful. Maybe even try and foster some discussion. Join away!

[tags]Facebook, Thermo, Adobe AIR, ColdFusion, Flex[/tags]

Yahoo Japan Flex Version of Yahoo Mail

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Yahoo JapanWhile we were in MAX Japan the Yahoo Japan team announced that they were building a Flex version of the Yahoo Mail client. Yahoo Japan and Yahoo America are actually two separate companies so this isn’t an indication that Yahoo here in the states would move to Flex as their mail front end, but the Japanese team did tests and found that Flex was faster than the Ajax version so they built their own.

Yahoo Japan Flex Version of Yahoo MailThere is a news article here discussing it but I don’t read Japanese and the Google translation was kind of poor. They announced this at the keynote at MAX Japan but I hadn’t seen it in writing until now so waited to post it. In Japan Yahoo is the major portal for email, search auctions, and everything else. One of the buzzwords they used was a “Lifestyle Portal” which seemed appropriate after hearing how much market share all of their properties have.

[tags]Flex, Yahoo Japan, Ajax, Yahoo Mail[/tags]

Talking Rich Internet Applications in Switzerland

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Talking Rich Internet Applications in SwitzerlandI’m going to be in Switzerland next week and have a few cool events planned. The main event is a talk at the Java User Group Switzerland about RIAs. I’ll be giving an overview of different RIA technologies and the use cases for each one. I’ll also be doing some demos. As part of that, we’ll be going up to Pilatus, a mountain in Switzerland, to have a Mountain Talk on RIAs. Everyone is welcome, so f you’re interested, drop me a line and I can get you details.

Finally, I’ll be doing a presentation at the Adobe User Group in Zurich on AIR, Thermo, and Flex. Should be a great RIA-filled week!

[tags]Zurich, rich Internet applications, user groups, Pilatus[/tags]

Redmond Developer News on SAP and Adobe AIR

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Redmond Developer News ran a post about Adobe AIR which I thought was interesting because it has a Microsoft developer slant. They list the obvious issues, things like Microsoft’s developer base being bigger but they also seem to misunderstand Adobe AIR a bit or at least the Flash platform, which is indicative of a lot of developers I think.

They describe Adobe AIR as doing “for Adobe what Silverlight 1.1 did for Microsoft — advance the RIA platform from simple media delivery into a true application development and deployment vehicle.” I actually think Flash Player did that, but maybe they mean that the two technologies complete the story for both companies.

The main point of the post was to highlight some of our partnerships including NASDAQ and especially SAP. Seeing the traction that AIR and Flex have in the enterprise has been awesome. Redmond Developer News is correct when they say that there are still some perception issues with Flash but we’ve been steadily making inroads in a lot of high profile companies. Developers should take note of that.

[tags]Adobe AIR, SAP, Redmond Developer News, Flex[/tags]

Registration Open for Flex Camp Boston

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Registration Open for Flex Camp BostonBrian Rinaldi is hosting Flex Camp Boston and registration is now open. The speaker list is really great and part of that is due to how great the Flex ecosystem is in the Boston area. There will be a lot of Adobe people there and a lot of great community members. It is targeted at the intermediate-advanced crowd, so I think this will be a very valuable camp for people who have been to so many of the beginner-intermediate events. Registration is filling up so you might want to register as soon as possible. The fee is $5 because they wanted to make sure people who register are serious about going.

[tags]Boston Flex Camp, Flex[/tags]

Finally. The Secret Diary of Bruce Chizen

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This made my night. After having to deal with Fake Steve Jobs and Fake Steve Ballmer, I can finally have a Fake CEO to call my own – Fake Bruce Chizen. When I first saw this link I was kind of skeptical, but you know what? Whomever writes this is smart. They know our technology and they know the landscape. It’s a very funny blog if you follow the company which means it has the perfect storm of ingredients to be a success.

Step aside Fake-fakers. Adobe’s in the house. I can’t wait to see what this blog cooks up.

[tags]Adobe, Bruce Chizen, Blogging[/tags]