Books I've recently read and recommend!
The Acrobat Connect recording for Tuesday nights ColdFusion Powered AIR meeting with Zach Stepek is now available. Zach gave an excellent talk with tons of great information on powering your AIR applications with Flex using Web Services or Flash Remoting (AMF). The recording is 1 hr and 25 minutes and includes all Q&A.
Watch it here:
http://mmusergroup.adobe.acrobat.com/p83838845/
The general CF and Flex/AIR community are invited to attend a presentation tonight broadcasting from the Nashville ColdFusion User Group. Zach Stepek, Director of Interactive Development at Crave Media Group, LLC and author of Foundation AIR: Creating Desktop Applications with the Adobe Integrated Runtime, will be presenting ColdFusion Powered AIR. Barring any technical difficulties the preso will be available via Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional at the URL listed below. If the recording turns out, I'll post it to Charlie Arehart's UG TV sometime after the event.
WHEN:
March 18, 2008 at 6:30pm CST
I was recently interviewed by Dan Wilson, a zone leader at DZone, about Flex, AIR, and the twitterAIR application I created. The interview has been published and you can read it or vote on it using the links below.
Read the article:
http://ria.dzone.com/articles/meet-man-who-set-twitter
Vote it up:
http://www.dzone.com/links/the_man_who_set_twitter_free.html
So there's this new thing called AIR. No I'm not talking about what you breathe or what gets compressed into scuba tanks for divers (like me) to inhale while exploring the depths of the ocean. Of course, the existence and release of Adobe AIR isn't news to you unless you've been hiding under a rock since June 2007.
While attending the annual Adobe Community Summit last year (in June) I got my first real peek behind the curtain of a pre-alpha product called Apollo. I'll admit it, I was a skeptic, especially considering Apollo wasn't Adobe's first try at creating desktop applications that were "Web-aware." Previous to Apollo/AIR, Macromedia had created a product called Macromedia Central that didn't get beyond version 1.5. Nor did it ever really get released into the wild. And while we could ponder for hours why Central didn't work Adobe's AIR is destined for greatness. The real success of AIR will come not only because of it's ubiquity in being a multi-platform runtime, but also because of it's accessibility and ease of entry to the developers of 2008. Using the tools, code, and paradigms we're already used to developers actually want to get into rich Internet applications on the desktop. In some cases I've seen programmers almost salivating at the thought of extending their application's reach to the desktop. If you don't believe me, just check out a few of the "Why AIR?" testimonies on http://www.30onair.com.
Over the next few days I want take some time to show you Adobe AIR. What better way to do this than to discuss a few AIR applications that I'm using on a day-to-day basis. It really hit me the other day when I noticed I had 3 AIR apps running on my desktop. The realization that AIR had staying power was extremely evident in that moment. Not only was I running "for fun" applications - like the one discussed below - but I was also running productivity and communications applications. These types of apps are what really pull you in because once you've used them you can't imagine losing the rich experience that adds so much to what might be a miserable one.
Recorded in Nashville, TN at the Flex 3 / AIR 1.0 launch event on 2/25/2008.
Recorded in Nashville, TN at the Flex 3 / AIR 1.0 launch event on 2/25/2008.
Last night the Nashville Flex User Group and Nashville ColdFusion User Group held a special Flex 3 and AIR launch event. We showed the exclusive user group video produced by Adobe which included an inside look at the AIR project and the team behind the release. I gave a presentation on the business case behind Flex and AIR which included info on all the new features of Flex 3 and initial features of AIR 1.0.
We had food and drink and celebrated the event with a Flex/AIR cake (pic below). Lastly, I recorded eight 30onAIR videos which have been uploaded to YouTube and will be blogged here over the next few days.
Thanks to all those who came out for a great event. Congrats to the following people for winning our giveaways:
Enrique M. - Adobe Flex 3 Professional
T Scott C. - Sony Playstation Portable
Scott L. - ActionScript 3 Cookbook by Joey Lott
Steve B., Cutter B., and J.J. M. - Limited Edition Adobe AIR 1.0 Launch poster
twitterAIR has been updated for AIR 1.0 skipping right over AIR Beta 3. Not much has changed in the new version though. I squashed a few bugs, got rid of the zip file download (which means I can't track downloads anymore) and implemented a seamless badge install.
If you don't have the latest AIR runtime (1.0) on your machine, the twitterAIR installation will install the runtime for you. If you're running an older version of twitterAIR, just use the badge install to update your copy.
For more on the announcement of Flex 3 and AIR 1, click here.
Get twitterAIR here!
As you may have heard, Adobe has announced the release of Adobe Flex 3 and Adobe AIR 1.0.
Flex 3 is a feature-packed release, adding new UI components like the advanced datagrid and improved CSS capabilities; powerful tooling additions like refactoring; and extensive testing tools including memory and performance profiling, plus the addition of the automated testing framework to Flex Builder. Adobe AIR is game-changing in so many ways, delivering rich applications on the desktop, enabling access to the local file system, system tray, notifications and much more. Now you can write RIAs on the desktop using the same skills that you've been already using to create great web apps including both Flex and AJAX.
For a more in-depth look at Flex 3 and AIR 1.0, come out to our special meeting tonight at Dealerskins! Adobe is sponsoring this meeting with food, giveaways and a raffle copy of Adobe Flex Professional. We'll also be giving away some special goodies that won't be announced until tonight.
Links you should check out:
AIR Showcase
http://labs.adobe.com/showcase/air/
AIR Marketplace
http://www.adobe.com/go/marketplace
Adobe Open Source
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/site/home
Sample AIR apps
Adobe Sample Apps: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/samples/
Digimix: http://www.digimix.com/
AOL Top 100: http://music.aol.com/help/syndication/desktop-widgets
eBay Desktop: http://desktop.ebay.com/
Google Analytics: http://www.aboutnico.be/index.php/google-analytics-air-beta-sign-up/
Parleys.com: http://www.parleys.com/display/PARLEYS/Parleys.com+V2+BETA+Program
twitterAIR: http://www.trajiklyhip.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/2/25/twitterAIR-v120-for-AIR-10-Released
Opensource BlazeDS
http://opensource.adobe.com/blazeds/
30onAIR
http://www.30onair.com/
Flex Showcase
http://flex.org/showcase/
Mike Chambers and the Adobe crew have announced the Europe version of the onAIR bus tour. Full details are on the onAIR site. You can also read Mike's blog post about the event.
Lastly, there's a Facebook page with tour info.
