F·L·A·S·H·I·S·M

Today I got another update notification for Adobe Flash Player 10.1. The first thing I noticed that the notification looked prettier than the last update. I really hated that ugly Adobe Download Manager or ADM in short. Take a look how it was in previous update:

In installation process, ADM was downloaded first which was almost the same download size of the Flash Player itself, so I don’t get why Adobe used it in the first place. If it supports resume-able downloads, then Adobe should only use it for downloading trial versions of Adobe CS products.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1.82.76 Update

This new version features better hardware acceleration, multi-touch and gestures, private browsing support and as always enhanced performance and memory management. Read more here.

I am happy that Adobe now have switched back to better and tiny (only ~2.8MB total) installer. The update notification included summary about what new features it offers and links for more details.

The only thing which I’ve been asking Adobe to put in these update dialogs is complete version numbers of the currently installed Flash Player, and new version. So the user could know what exact version he is upgrading to.

The overall Flash Player update experience was great this time. Excellent job Adobe!

// chall3ng3r //

Yes, thats true. 2GB of free space from Adobe. Plus an online version of Photoshop to fix / enhance your photos.

Update: New screenshot

So far it feels like a great service. On some blogs I read an impression maybe its too late for such service where there are already number of other services with similar features.

Well, I think coming late in scene have its disadvantages, but the biggest benefit could be, learning all the good things from earlier services. And offer something which users are expecting — Just like Microsoft did by bringing Silverlight, learning everything from Flash.

At this time, beta of service is ready. You can start here.

// chall3ng3r //

Finally its time for some business. AIR, short for Adobe Integrated Runtime is just released as v1.0 final product by Adobe.

Its a runtime to make RIAs for desktop, even one can create just old desktop only applications with it as well. The main hype for this runtime is that it runs on Windows and MAC OS without any change to the code. Linux version will be released later.

While AIR was in beta, we have seen some great applications and examples that will, for sure, inspire developers to create great experiences with AIR in coming days.

Get the final binaries here.

One thing I’m very confused about is, why Adobe call it Adobe AIR, Even in the Logo? making it Adobe Adobe Integrated Runtime :S

I don’t see MS calling .Net as Microsoft MS.Net Framework. Is there a catch that i missed?

Anyway, there’re tons of new and updated resources to check out. I just skimmed through these:

• Adobe Flex Team – Blog
• Adobe – Home
• Adobe – RIA minisite
• AIR – Home
• Adobe Developer Connection

I barely touched AIR while it was in beta, but now I am planning to get my hand dirty with some Flex and AIR.

BTW, the AIR download size is just over 11MB. A bit heavy than I expected. And it might be noticed by many mid– to low-bandwidth users.

Next thing to do, get the AIR SDK, and get your hands dirty!

// chall3ng3r //

Adobe launched on online website for its Open Source projects. The first projects available on the new community website are:

• BlazeDS
• Flex 3 SDK
• Flash Ajax Video Component
• Generic Image Library
• Adobe Media Gallery
• Adobe Source Libraries
• Tamarin
• Webkit
• XMP (eXstensible Metadata Platform)

Adobe Open Source Home: http://opensource.adobe.com

This is very good step forward, as most startup companies are now adays adopting Open Source software. With Adobe’s OS technologies, we will see good change, hopefully

// chall3ng3r //

Microsoft has recently been quite active with big announcements, updates to developer tools and Windows OS.

On Monday, MS announced they will give away VS, Expression and Windows Server absolutely FREE to students worldwide.

Read more here, and here.

Very impressive move to get crowd stick to MS, seems quite workable idea :)

Adobe also recently made available Adobe Flex Builder free to students. MS following the same idea making it head-on competition for RIA development tools.

Microsoft is very good with getting their technology to masses quickly. And they’ve proven record of it. For example, MS .Net Framework. They made it available to public in early beta, released comprehensive SDK with documentation. And did not charged developers to ship .Net runtime with their applications.

Giving away Expression and VS2008 will also boost Silverlight adoption rapidly. More Silverlight applications means, greater number of users downloading Silverlight runtime daily.

Lets see how it goes.

// chall3ng3r //

Wow, it looks so sexy! more contents area, better section management, and eye-catchy JS animations. It simply rocks!!!

I have sent many requests to Macromedia (now Adobe) about changing layout of DevNet. But the wait is over. The new DevNet is also renamed to Adobe Developer Connection, ADC in short

The main sections are expandable, showing main categories links. as soon as you click the section heading, it expands itself with eye catchy JS animation.

The featured section also slides left/right. This is also done via JS animation.

ADC’s layout has utilized the over 950px content area quite well, when you go to reading view of any article, you’ll see big fonts, which makes it easy to read and adds elegance to overall look of the content.

I found a broken link, in the Featured > Mobile section there’s a link for Flash Lite 3 update for Device Central, when you click it, you’ll get the 404 error. maybe Adobe will make the link live on the start of MAX2007

Individual product Developer Centers are also updated with this new layout.

In an introductory article for ADC, Jonathan Wall from Adobe describes that ADC is a portal for developers, and it features introNetwork, a social networking engine to get connected to other designers and developers on ADC. Seems like a brilliant idea.

There will be also AIR based ADC Desktop application to track Flex bugs on your desktop. It will be released in MAX2007.

I would add that this was a much needed overhaul to DevNet, and I must admit that Adobe has done it in great style. Its just my guess that Adobe might be updating the Adobe Home and Design Center as well.

Here I’d like to point Adobe to a very old bug on their feedback / whish form. Couple of days back I tried to post a feature suggestion for content on DevNet, and again got same old error on submit. Its nice time to fix this as well, and I’d suggest using a CF based back-end rather than .CGI

Visit my flickr’s photo stream for a all expanded screenshot of the ADC home page.

For me, its a pleasant surprise from Adobe, and I’m expecting many more as well from MAX2007 :)

// chall3ng3r //

(via RIApedia) This video preview of NUI’s Flash Surface seems too cool, it almost mimics all features of MS Surface, except wireless media transfer between devices, and automatic device recognition.

This project is using Flash 9 with AS3, and it will be open source. So far it looks direct competitor to MS Surface.

I think Flash is best option they used. The latest Flash 9 performs better, and have accelerated full-screen support, it features HD video support, and best of all, it runs on most operating systems. So it can use Linux, OSX or Windows as its base OS.

Overall, it could be a better and cheap alternate to MS Surface. Let see how things develop.

I will be keeping eye on it, and I suggest you to do so as well

// chall3ng3r //

I have been keeping my eyes open for latest developments on Silverlight and AIR.

I just read Daniel’s post about AIR is not a competitor to Silverlight, well that’s correct. Also, Flex is not a direct competitor as well. Its just about client runtimes, Flash and Silverlight, which actually renders content in browser and provide APIs to developers to create interactive experiences.

AIR can run Flash and AJAX based applications on desktop, which is great. I think it will be awesome if AIR could also host Silverlight applications.

Silverlight v1.0, released a few days back, renders XAML for content and provides APIs for creating interactions via JavaScript. And it run in WebKit based Safari browser as well.

I have pretty bad experience getting my words to Adobe (formerly Macromedia). So I hope they will get my wish from my blog

// chall3ng3r //

I noticed this nice comparison, where Silverlight is actually compared with its correct counterpart, the Flash Player, rather than Flex.

http://shoutat.blogspot.com/2007/08/microsoft-silverlight-vs.html

I don’t call it that accurate as it misinforms about some features of Flash, but it worth a look.

don’t forget to read my comments over there, and post yours if you like

// chall3ng3r //

Its now public, Apollo is now officially named AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) by Adobe.

There’s a new beta version of the runtime is available along with the SDK on Adobe Labs.

The other good news is, Flex 3 beta is also released on Adobe Labs. Flex 3 beta supports development of AIR applications.

The two other things that I almost missed are, AIR extension for Dreamweaver, which you can use for packaging and previewing AIR applications right from Dreamweaver.

There’s an update of Flash Player 9. This update features some bug fixes and hardware acceleration support for video playback in full screen mode.

Do you know what i want to do now, AAAAAAAAAAAAH (MJ Style )

// chall3ng3r //