iPhone | RIAs, And This Is What the Internet Looks Like … Without Flash

February 21, 2008 by g.

Hey, there is the Wall Street Journal quoting Ryan Stewart!

"No one aside from [Apple Chief Executive] Steve Jobs has any idea if or when it’s coming," Ryan Stewart, Adobe’s chief spokesman for its Internet-based applications, wrote on his blog last week. "Everyone I talk to doesn’t know anything."

Yes, and the following video sums up the iPhone’s web experience today (very, very web 1.0):

The Wall Street Journal article is headlined Adobe, Apple Hit Flash Point.  If you don’t have access to wsj.com, macdailynews.com graciously repeats a bit more of the article’s content [click here]

Two more excerpts:

The lack of Flash Player is an oft-cited reason for not buying the iPhone, according to a number of Apple online user forums.

Another theory is that Apple may be developing its own player, given that Adobe’s products for cellphones are essentially the only choice now available.

When I presented last year at TODCon on "The Case For Flex 2", I had included material about Quicktime as a contender in the rich media space. Is the reason that Apple has posted on the iPhone a big sign saying "Flash Not Welcome Here" because Apple (following in Microsoft and Java’s footsteps), has it’s own "Flash Killer" in the offing?

Early this year Ted Patrick wrote "I think Apple has an entry into the RIA market in store for 2008."  And Ryan was thinking along the same lines back in late 2006, writing "Apple is going to make a play in Rich Internet Applications".

Time will tell.

btw, Congratulations to Ryan on his apparent promotion!  I see reported in the Wall Street Journal that you are now "Adobe’s chief spokesman for its Internet-based applications".  In all seriousness, you truly have been doing great work since announcing 9 months ago "I’m Joining Adobe".

 

Posted in Flash | 5 Comments »

Adobe AIR | 2-day Training for JavaScript, Flash and Flex Developers

February 13, 2008 by g.

Note:  This post was updated to reflect a change on the Toronto dates (from March to May)

AIR is insanely great!  Brilliant in fact.

If you work with JavaScript, Flash or Flex then this training is for you.

Adobe AIR is a new cross platform runtime.  Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh today (Linux and mobile announced).

The AIR runtime has 100% of the capabilities of Adobe Flash Player 9 
   *PLUS* APIs for interacting with the local operating system (Files, NativeWindow, Clipboard)
   *PLUS* APIs for interacting with an embedded web browser (WebKit, same as Apple Safari)
   *PLUS* APIs for interacting with an embedded SQL database (SQLite)

Flash and Flex developers already enjoy 100% of the capabilities of Adobe Flash Player 9, so all of the "*PLUS*" statements above are what AIR offers new for Flash and Flex developers.

JavaScript developers also enjoy all of the AIR APIs  *PLUS*  also new for JavaScript developers is 100% of the market leading rich media Flash APIs too!  Wow!  See this link for the "JavaScript Language Reference for Adobe AIR":
http://livedocs.adobe.com/labs/air/1/jslr/

We are proud to announce that we are among the first to be offering Adobe AIR training for JavaScript, Flash and Flex Developers.  And that our first classes will be in Las Vegas!  Following are the dates and a link to the course registration page (to register, be sure to select the "Buy Course Now!" banner along top):

Our goal is to keep training affordable.  For hands on interactives, attendees will need to bring their own laptops.

Our next scheduled 2-day AIR workshop will be:

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments here.

Please forward this link to all who you think might be interested.

Posted in Adobe AIR | No Comments »

Breakout of the Browser and Security Sandboxes Now! | For JavaScript and/or Flash and/or Flex Developers and Designers | Adobe AIR Training | Sign Up and Learn About AIR Now

February 12, 2008 by g.

Note:  This post was updated to reflect a change on the Toronto dates (from March to May)

Breakout of the Browser and Security Sandboxes Now! | For Javascript and/or Flash and/or Flex Developers and Designers | Adobe AIR Training | Sign Up and Learn About AIR Now

Do you work with Javascript OR Flash OR Flex?  Now you can use 100% of your existing skills and create standalone applications!  We will train you on the Adobe AIR APIs which give you the power to create apps you could only have dreamed about before! 

Adobe AIR gives Javascript OR Flash OR Flex developers great new APIs. Adobe AIR enables you (and your applications) to break out of the browser and out of the security sandboxes enforced by browsers and the Flash Player.

AIR apps are easy to make, deploy and bring to market.  They are cross-platform:  Windows and Mac today (Linux and mobile announced).  Truly write once and run everywhere!  And all using 100% of your existing skills programming with Javascript OR Flash OR Flex!

And Javascript teams especially stand to gain by getting direct access to 100% of the Flash APIs!

We are proud to announce that we are among the first to be offering Adobe AIR training.  Following are our first two North American dates:

The training sessions above are unique in that they cover all three authoring options for Adobe AIR:  Flex, Flash and HTML/AJAX/Javascript.  If you work with any of these technologies then this training is for you.  Please forward this link to all who you think might be interested.

In addition to the sessions listed above, we also offer Adobe official training courses, one specific to using Flex to build AIR apps, and the other HTML/AJAX/Javascript.  (Custom and private onsite classes are available upon request.)

The core power of Adobe AIR are:

  • allowing organizations and developers to use their core competencies with web development technologies (Flex, Flash and HTML/AJAX/Javascript), to develop stand-alone desktop applications too.
  • simplifies cross-platform development by requiring development for single target runtime.
  • total branding and possibilities for increased customer affinity.
  • robust APIs for network aware applications, graphics, file reference, embedded SQL data, and more!

For more on Adobe AIR, see the Adobe AIR Developer Center: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/

Posted in Adobe AIR | No Comments »

News Flash: Stephen Elop (former Macromedia CEO) Joins Microsoft Replacing Retiring Co-President Jeff Raikes

January 10, 2008 by g.

Wow!

I always had a very high regard for Stephen Elop. I have long felt that the culture of an organization reflects (to some degree) the personality of the CEO. Macromedia did amazing things as an independent company.

When Adobe and Macromedia merged, Stephen joined Adobe as the president of Adobe’s worldwide field operations. When Stephen left Adobe in December 2006, knowing what an awesome (and unique) talent that he was, I fully expected him to be picked up to head something big. But Microsoft?! Wow!

Stephen, best of luck at Microsoft! I do hope that Adobe continues to dominate on the web (including successfully fending of Microsoft’s Expression and Silverlight business initiatives).

Here is the link to Microsoft’s press release:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jan08/01-10CorpNews.mspx

Posted in esoterica | 1 Comment »

MAX 2007 Recaps — THERMO

October 29, 2007 by g.

MAX 2007 has been a big event, traveling to 3 cities with over 6,000 attendees in all.  (This week is the last stop, in Tokyo.)

I caught MAX 2007 in Chicago.

I have been going to MAX since the Macromedia days.  MAX 2006 was the first Adobe MAX and came only 10 months after the acquisition of Macromedia had closed.  At MAX 2006 many of the big preview announcements centered on the integration of former Macromedia Studio products into Creative Suite (Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks and Contribute).  With the successful shipping earlier this year of the amazing CS3 I was interested to see what new surprise announcements our good friends at Adobe might have in store for us this year.

As time permits it is my goal to blog about six announcements by Adobe at MAX that I found most interesting and/or exciting.

  • Thermo
  • SaaS (Software as a Service):  Share, Pacifica, CoCoMo, Photoshop Express, Buzzword, Scene7
  • DRM in Video via FMRMS (Flash Media Rights Management Server)
  • AMP (Adobe Media Player)
  • Flash Player 10 (with advances for text and 3D)
  • Acrobat with Flash Player

First up, Thermo …

THERMO

Thermo may have been Adobe’s best kept surprise announcement for MAX 2007.  Thermo is basically a Designer IDE for generating MXML.  Wow!  The announcement and demonstration of the Thermo prototype was amazing.  Thermo really boosts the Flex designer/developer workflow. 

Videos of the demo of Thermo at MAX 2007 Chicago is up on YouTube in three parts (thanks Aral):

Following are two observations about Thermo.

AN MXML DESIGN TOOL BY THE BEST FOR THE BEST. 
Lightweight rich apps are the future.  It is a competitive world out there.  Adobe currently is dominant in the lightweight, rich app space and announcements like Thermo highlight brilliantly that Adobe is intent on not ceding any marketshare in this rapidly exploding space.  On the design side, my sense is that in the market for design software over 9 out of 10 designers choose products in the Creative Suite.  With CS3, Adobe added extensions in CS3 products to support design of MXML based applications (most notably extensions in Fireworks).  With Thermo Adobe is clearly applying its unparalled design expertise to bringing to market the best possible visual appplication design tool.  And as an FYI, one of the biggest Flex application design shops is none other than Adobe themselves (check back for my forthcoming post on SaaS).  So Thermo is an IDE Adobe is building both for the market and for themselves ;-)

MXML SYNTAX EVOLUTION. 
I am a Flex/Flash/ActionScript developer.  When the Thermo demo went into code view the tag syntax you see includes tags that are beyond those for the Flex Framework components (see in this recording at timecode 4:37:  http://youtube.com/watch?v=lGdr3dCmxe4).  WOW!  At MAX the presenters offered no discussion of the code syntax but clearly Adobe has in the works the articuation of new XML based schemas.  MXML offers a declarative, tag based syntax that serves as an alternative to code based ActionScript for instantiating the classes of the underlying Flex Framework.  So it appears Adobe is now creating additional classes and XML schemas. 
Note 1:  This new syntax has even made an appearance in the public Flex Bug and Issue Management System on an issue with the milestone "(Planning) SDK Post Moxie".  You can view the issue here: https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/SDK-12636
Note 2:  Although outside of Flex and MXML, even Flash CS3 has introduced a limited XML schema to support copy-and-paste for timeline animations in the form of the Motion XML Elements.  See docs here or demo here.

For more on Thermo, watch the following placeholder page on labs:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Thermo

Also Julie Campagna, who manages the Adobe Edge newsletter, will be recording a demo about Thermo soon (per comment here).

Posted in Flex | No Comments »

Flex eSeminar Series: Flex Video Integration

October 17, 2007 by g.

This coming Tuesday October 23, 2007 we will be delivering for Adobe an eSeminar on Flex Video Integration.  You can find further details about the eSeminar and register for it here:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=462539

This session will be a variation on a session delivered earlier this month at Adobe MAX 2007 in Chicago.

Flex, as part of the Flash Platform, possesses all of the power for delivering and acquiring video on the Internet as has been done by YouTube, on major TV broadcasters’ websites, by UserPlane (now a division of AOL), and by countless others.  And with the Flash Platform now being extended to also target the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), Flex is also taking video into desktop applications.

At the vanguard in creating Flex based video apps is none other than Adobe themselves.  Flex based video products that Adobe is shipping or bringing to the market include:  Adobe Premiere Express, Adobe Media Player and a forthcoming hosted service for real-time collaboration and multi-user applications code named CoCoMo.

Next week’s eSeminar provides a whirlwind tour of resources for building Flex based Video apps.  We will start with introductory material, but will quickly move to showing video in the context of complex Flex applications. The eSeminar’s focus is on providing a roadmap to working code.  Full code is available for all examples, many of which are described in detail by other sources.  The eSeminar will be only 1 hour long, but we will provide you enough code to successfully build your own projects ;-)

Code demos in this eSeminar will include:

Regarding the Flex eSeminar Series, following are other titles remaining in this current series:

  • Flex for the PHP Developers  (Oct 30, 2007)
  • Flex for the Java Developers  (Nov 6, 2007)
  • Rich Internet Applications – The Big Payoffs  (Nov 13, 2007 & Dec 4, 2007)

For details for all of the sessions above, and to register, see the following page:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=462539

 

Posted in Video on the Web, Flex | No Comments »

Adobe Expected To Lower The Cost Of The Flash Media Server (aka FMS)

September 19, 2007 by g.

So says Dan Rayburn (I am just copying the title of his recent blog post which you can find here:
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2007/09/adobe-expected-.html 
Note:  though Dan lays out the case for why Adobe should be lowering FMS pricing, he was unable to attribute any sources in his post as to whether or not this will be the case.

Elementary business strategy says that in contested markets, over long time horizons businesses can achieve either one of two things:  a) high margins, or b) large market share.

An example is the Macintosh.  Back in the late 80s and early 90s, Apple pioneered and very successfully brought to market the first mass market GUI operating system.  Strategically Apple chose to pursue high margins over market share … and today the lower priced Windows operating system still retains the market share that it gained at that time.

In the case of FMS, Dan Rayburn lays out, in the post at the link above, a pretty good sense of what goes through customers’ minds when evaluating (and reevaluating) using FMS for video streaming applications.

The story of Flash Video is a stunning business success story.  Coming from having no true video support (up through Flash Player 5), to being the current de facto standard for video on the web today.  It all started with the introduction in 2002 of true video in Flash Player 6 and Flash MX.  This initial video support was via streaming only and required FMS (then known as Flash Communications Server (FCS)).  Flash Player 7 changed the game even more by also supporting in Flash video publishing via progressive download too.  The vast bulk of video delivered in Flash today is delivered via progressive download (including YouTube).  But FMS is still critical for many use cases, most notably for content protection, efficient bandwidth utilization, improved playback experience and live webcasting.  The subsequent improvements in encoding qualities supported via On2 VP6 (introduced with Flash Player 8), and now H.264 (introduced for progressive downloads with Flash Player 9.0.60) continue to strengthen the Flash Platform as being the workflow and technology of choice for delivering video on the web.

So back to Dan’s post, yes, as end users and implementers of solutions dependent on FMS ourselves, we certainly hope that Adobe will bring FMS prices down.  Even though lower prices implies smaller margins, Adobe’s gaining market share at this critical juncture will, over the long run, most benefit Adobe themselves.  And by critical juncture I mean both the ongoing and still early stage shift of video distribution to the web, and Microsoft’s now having a much more viable offering in the web video space with Silverlight.  So for those of us who don’t want to see Microsoft achieve with web video what they achieved with GUI operating systems, let’s hope that Dan is right.

btw, Could it be that even Steve Jobs is now playing for market share over margins with the iPhone?  The recent abrupt drop in iPhone pricing certainly bolsters the case that maybe he is.  Perhaps iPhone will be able to achieve dominant market share that we will all be grateful for in the years to come.  (Assuming, of course, that Apple steps up and gets Flash Player on the iPhones.  Please?!  ;-)

Posted in Flash Media Server | 2 Comments »

Authorware from Adobe – End of Life – Development Discontinued

August 3, 2007 by g.

UPDATE:   In comments below, see post by Mark of AuthorwarExtras.co.uk clarifying Authorware’s status as being just “End Of Development (EOD) which is a lot different to End Of Life (EOL).”  Thanks Mark!

I have never worked with Authorware but in my years working with the formerly Macromedia technologies, I have come to know several people who have.  I am posting this blog entry as a courtesy to help get the word out on Authorware’s official EOL (End Of Life).

The following FAQ came to my attention today:

Adobe plans to discontinue development of Authorware® software
http://www.adobe.com/products/authorware/productinfo/faq/eod/

Before posting this entry I searched on Authorware at the Adobe XML News Aggregator.  The most recent post was August 2006, and that was only the third of the 3 posts in the aggregator for all of 2006.  That post, by Adobe’s John Dowdell, was entitled “Adobe guidance” and included a link to an Adobe.com page regarding Adobe solutions for eLearning.  At that time there was promised “a release in the second half of 2007.”  That wasn’t to be and now the product is at end of life.  Yes, Adobe will continue to sell Authorware, but no, there will be no updates (not even for IE7 or Vista).

For anyone who has never heard of Authorware and may be interested in learning more, I offer you the following very nice PDF of an issue of The eLearning Developers’ Journal from September 2003 featuring “An Overview of Authorware 7 — and Its Evolution”:
http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/2/092203dev-h.pdf

Posted in esoterica | 4 Comments »

Flex For Newcomers

July 25, 2007 by g.

A topic came up yesterday on the Cairngorm list from a developer who described themself as a Flex newcomer.  The individual initially expressed frustration stating “I personally find the resources @ Adobe.com atrocious for new comers”.  Now I personally feel the quality of the resources that Adobe has produced for Flex to be pretty darned good.  So I listed them out and asked the original poster to comment on what they might suggest in terms of improvements.  (fyi, the Flex product team privately solicited input on this a couple of months ago.  If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments here. I will be sure that the product team gets them.)

The newcomer replied “Perhaps I was just frustrated, let me change ‘atrocious’ to ‘overwhelming’ and leave it at that.”  Now overwhelming I can relate too.  And so I wrote the following.  (Note: my original post that includes a FLEX RESOURCES LIST follows below at the end.)

Hi x_eqtd, 

Oh, overwhelming!  Yeah, I am totally with you on that.  ;-) 

Be forewarned, it never stops being overwhelming.  lol.

Just when you think you are beginning to get your mind around the whole Flex thing, Adobe goes and starts adding things like modules, deep linking support, AIR extensions, framework caching and memory profiling (All Flex 3 features outlined here: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_3:Feature_Introductions ).

Welcome to the revolution!  Adobe is innovating around these technologies and new features and improvements are going to continue to come fast and furious.  For instance, by this time next year Flex 3 will have been shipping for 6 months and we will be talking about the new features coming up in Flex 4 and how some of those new features will be leveraging the new functionality in Flash Player 10.  lol.

Back to your original observation about how big an undertaking Flex/AS/Cairngorm are for newcomers.  I see “Intro to Flex” as being more akin to “Intro to Calculus” than being an “Intro to Arithmetic”.  First, you have GUI development with all of intricacies of event driven programming.  Then Flex apps commonly are data driven, including all of the vagaries of network communications.  And then maybe you are actually involved in the back end coding too, creating webervices and doing SQL programming and database design.  Yikes!   With all that we are way, way, way beyond 1+1=2.  ;-)

In closing, one thing I accidentally left off of yesterday’s list of resources is Adobe’s support of Flex developer conferences.  If you might be attending 360Flex.org next month, or AdobeMAX2007.com in October please email me offlist.

Again, happy Flexing!  :-)

Best regards,

g

 

FLEX RESOURCES LIST

Hi x_eqtd,

I am glad to hear that you are rockin’ with Cairngorm and Flex!  :-)

Just curious about your experience that led you to state “I personally find the resources @ Adobe.com atrocious for new comers”.  Can you point out anything in particular that you find/found lacking?  With the Flex 3 release the product teams really want to be sure that they can get the support resources right, from new comers up to advanced.

Following are a few resources that I know can be helpful.

First regarding Cairngorm, are you familiar with http://cairngormdocs.org/ ?  This domain is a reasonably good entry point for the community’s collected information about Cairngorm.  I agree that Adobe has near next to no support for Cairngorm.  Though I may like to see more, I am skeptical that we ever will.  Basically Cairngorm is an open source project with very limited active development.

Now for resources regarding Flex and ActionScript in general, following are resources that I know Adobe is involved in making available.  Were you aware of them and found them deficient?  If so, please share your thoughts on what how how they can be improved or supplemented.  Really, the product team solicits this type of information.

Best regards,

g

Posted in Flex | 3 Comments »

Flash Media Server Survey Regarding Component Usage

July 11, 2007 by g.

Do you work with the Flash Media Server?  If so, the FMS product team would like feedback on how you use the FMS components.  Or, if you do not use them, why not.  The product team has opened up a survey at the following link.  Please take a moment to share your experience with them:

Survey of FMS2 Component Usage
http://www.pollcat.com/K10B9FDA2A66F193CCB5

Posted in Flash Media Server | No Comments »

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