It’s Here!  For about a year I worked with a team of smart guys (Andrew Trice, Joseph Balderson, Peter Ent, Jun Heider, Tom Sugden, David Hassoun, Joe Berkovitz) to create what we think is one of the best books out there on Adobe Flex.  It’s around 1400 pages, nearly 5 pounds, of comprehensive knowledge.  It’s available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.Com, and probably your local bookstore or wherever Wrox books are sold.

I’m proud of this book.  It was hard to write and took way more time than I thought it would.  But the end product is outstanding.  It’s one killer book that covers a lot of the internals of Flex, including the extras like Cairngorm, unit testing, AIR, Flash Media services, FXG, Flex Builder, Subclipse, custom components and the component lifecycle, skiing, Flash integration, etc…  It’s all covered.

I was responsible for writing about Adobe AIR and a lot of the server side data stuff, especially in regards to open source, Java, and .NET.  I did a lot of work to show the flexibility (no pun intended) of working with Flex and a variety of back-end technologies.  Specifically I have demos in there working with server-side data using:

• PHP and the Zend framework over a RESTful-based framework
• Java WebServies created using Grails and Groovy.
• .NET with WebServices

I have some follow ups that I want to write about.  Specifically, I want to port the Zend framework samples to use the new AMF support.  And while I’m at it, I’d like to port the Grails example to use AMF, too.  BTW, I believe GRAILS is the Holy Grail (dang, another bad pun) for Java Developers wanting some syntactical-love in their lives, yet at the same time harnessing all those enterprise APIs and existing operational infrastructure that seem to chain them down.

To get you started, Andrew Trice, one of the co-authors, has posted a nice excerpt from the book: Chapter 67: Application Performance Strategies.

While Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4 are on the horizon for being released, they both still rely on the fundamental technology presented in this book.  This book will be a great addition to your team library, especially for getting your new developers up to speed, or your existing developers to learn some advanced techniques.

Go forth, read, and build great applications.

The Heartland security breach isn’t just some website with your credit card being hacked, but is a credit card transaction clearing house used by Bank of America.  No matter how careful you were with you card numbers, they got it.

While the credit card has been canceled and the fraud associated with the credit card has ceased, there’s a new issue cropping up.  I’ve been all of a sudden getting a lot of solicitation phone calls to my cell phone, as if someone took my credit card information (and my address and phone number), and started registering it on a bunch of mailing lists and sites.  A new type of scam for ad revenue?  I don’t know, but it’s very annoying.

I know for a fact that they got my address and phone number because on the day that the credit card fraud started, one Internet retailer called me on my phone trying to confirm an order to my address.  What’s irritating about it, is that after I told them it was fraud, they processed the charge to my credit card anyway.

What really worries me is the lack of press and the lack of communication from Bank of America about this.  They’re hiding something, I’m sure of it.

Anyway, here’s my first idea for an Android application.  Who, knows, maybe this exists on the phone already.  Anyone out there, feel free to implement this idea, as I have no time until after November.

I use Picasa and Flickr for storing my photos online. But what I’m about to propose should be built with plug-in extensibility in mind, so that people can create the ability for it to work with ANY online photo sharing site that supports 3rd party access.

I’d like my phone to connect to the Internet (at set times, or set ranges), and synchronize the latest albums/galleries for offline use (because we know the 3G network is going to be limited).  These images would then be available on the device anytime I wanted, instead of relying on 3G network.

So, this software would:

1) Manage an offline cache:  the physical size allocated for local storage, or based number of offline galleries the user would like to keep available.

2) It would then connect to Internet, while not being used, and fetch appropriately sized images for local viewing

3) Optionally, apply some sort of photo frame for visual for eye-candy, whether this is a simple drop shadow, or something more complex and configurable like a fancy sloppy border photo frame.

4) Support lightweight plug-ins that can work with any online-photo sharing site.
5) Open source, available at code.google.com so developers could quickly build plug-ins for all available photo sharing sites.

Anyway, just thinking out load, and thinking of the possibility of an open platform that smart people want to develop for.

In Boston, it can get quite humid in the summer time, not Washington or Florida humid, but nonetheless….  Coupled with the fact that I live in the top floor of a brick building that heats up to incredible temperatures (its 90 in here right now).

I had to move my office up to the roof deck:

In case you don’t see the specific details and want it priced out:

1)   $19.95 for kiddie swimming pool at local hardware store.

2)   Smuttynose Summer Ale, $8 for 6.

3)  Blackberry, no cost counted since it’s in my pocket regardless of office location.

4)  A green laptop table, $49, courtesy of Target.

5)  Sunglasses that someone left here at the last BBQ: Free.  (Sorry Frank, had to borrow them.)

Total cost, $78 + roof deck.

Ok, back to some real work.

This post isn’t only about about screen mockup software (though a brief review with follow), it’s about the power of Adobe AIR and the Flex platform.  Its been awhile since I’ve seen some exciting AIR work (I know it probably exists), so I thought I’d write some of my thoughts out…

Since AIR hasn’t been around very long, there’s not a very long list of applications that really shine and show it off (Twhirl, FCG, DestroyFlickr are really good ones, though).  Most, though, that I’ve looked at are semi-finished, with minimal polish.  But thats OK, it takes time to build a properly polished desktop application, and I’m sure a lot of the applications were built to play around with the new toolkit.  But none have really held merits on their own as just being must-have applications.  99% of every AIR application I’ve tried has been uninstalled because either they weren’t very polished, only performed a subset of what they’ll do (early betas), or there’s nothing extra that they do that the versions running as Flex applications inside a browser can do, or that even a regular web application can perform.  And I always say, if it can run in the browser, don’t make me install an application to my machine.

I think this is where Balsamiq Mockups really shines.  Its a tool that no matter what it was written in (it happens to be Adobe AIR) that I feel I could finally keep on my desktop, and not just to tinker with because I work with AIR and Flex.  It shows off a rich UI that is well thought-out and very user intuitive.  Flex is being shown off here, too.  The Flex graphics apis are one of my favorite parts of the toolset, and Balsamiq really shows off how nice of a layout engine can be designed (theres other Flex apps, too, that do mind mapping, etc. that I’ve seen, I just don’t have the links handy).  When dragging components onto the canvas, the hinting for aligning with other objects is superb and so simple.   One of my favorite things about Flex and AIR is ability to build modern UIs as Balsamiq Mockups demonstrates. 

Nevermind that they already have an upgrade path to Linux for when the AIR runtime is released.   AIR has the potential to huge for Linux desktop application development.

Things that make Balsamiq Mockups a great little application:

1)  The layout engine and ability to aline things simply

2)  The little iconwidget that lets you explore their library for little icons

3)  Super simple to use

Here’s a little mockup I made of Eclipse with Flex Builder in debug mode:

Its nothing fancy, but it did only take me about 15 minutes to put together, and that’s including the time needed to explore all the available mockup compoents, different properties they support, etc….Notice how easy things more the most part align.  It was really quite easy.

Some features I’d like to see implemented:

1)  A library of other screen elements that you can browse online and import into the application.  Maybe even have an API so third-party devs could build these UI components and publish them to this browsable repository.  After all, Adobe AIR is about connected applications.

2)  Ability to adjust the font size of screen elements.  Some of the elements, like the Link Bar allow changing the font sizes), but I’d like to see this extended to some of the other elements, like the Tabs Bar.

3)  A tree mockup component.  UPDATE: Found it in the component finder called “Tree Pane”

4)  A vertical Button Bar.  In fact, just make a Button bar that’s either horizontal or vertical, and make it really easy to add either icon buttons, text, or both!

5)  A mockup Grid component.   UPDATE: Found the DataGrid, had to type it in the component finder in the top (I didn’t see it in the component bar)

6) an online Flex version with saving PNG files locally via proxying through the server.  (Hey, what can I say, I’m a bit adverse to installing software, when a simple software link could do the trick.)  I understand though, the perceptions of paying money for software and having a nice desktop download, and not having to wait for all the graphical assets to load, though…just thinking outloud.

That’s about it as far as what I have to say about this usefully simply screen mockup tool.  Though the tool costs money, it’s actually useful and pretty polished, so its probably worth the $80 or so.

About cross-platform development in general:

In the past I’ve looked at a lot of cross-platform toolkits, like QT, wxWindows (and wxPython bindings for wxWindows), and java toolkits such as Swing and QT’s Jambi.  I think AIR has the potential to really help in cross-platform application development, because I have some issues with all the prior one’s mentioned (I’ll write about that later).  My only hope is that Adobe releases other security settings so that you can run AIR applications as full local applications with full access to the operating system and other applications (this is AIR’s biggest downfall at the moment).  This is needed to get the hardcore desktop developers interested in building software that integrates with other services (Yeah, I know about the Merapi project, but if I’m going to have to maintain and ship the java JRE with my AIR application, I’d seriously have to consider not using AIR and instead settle for QT’s Jambi…actually I’d probably still prefer the AIR and Flex toolkit and deal with shipping the java runtimes…).

Anyway, keep up the good work building these tools and these applications.  Get enough kickin’ applications written in AIR, then it wont matter what operating system the user wants to use they’ll be able to use your application.

If you care about how the photo was made: I use a Canon 20D, a Sigma 24-70 2.8 lens, tripod, a neutral density filter (3 grad, soft), and some fun with color saturation in Photoshop CS3.

I’ve been in the camp of small, lightweight dev machines for a couple years now.  My current development machine is a three year old Dell 700m.  Mine is a single core 1.6 ghz with 1.5 megs of RAM.  It’s lightweight and small.  It’s has a 12 inch screen, but I often have it hooked up to a 20" monitor.  Even three years later I still get nearly 3 hours of battery life.   I do hate the fact that it has a small keyboard, but I’ve gotten used to it.  The best part, I paid $785 for it, including shipping and tax (though not including the 1.5 gigs of RAM).

I love the small form factor of this laptop.  I work in places I never could with a desktop, nor would I enjoy as much with a 15" laptop.  I watch movies in cramped airplane seats (try that with a 15.4 inch monitor) and while riding trains down the North East Corridor.  I start off my morning working in my office tethered to the large monitor, then I move to the couch where I slouch with the laptop on my stomach; out to the kitchen for coffee and NPR; up to the roof deck to bronze the skin; downstairs to the couch where I plug it in while the battery charges and CNN is rambles in the background; down the street for an afternoon pickup-me-up coffee.  The small form laptop is liberating in ways I never thought of back in the days when I was always coding and working at a desk.

I often carry the small form laptop with one hand, lid open, while other hand carries coffee, papers, magazine, books, etc…

I have a powerful desktop, but I don’t use it for work.  Initially, I did.  But when I started developing with Adobe tools, my laptop was turned into my dev machine, so I could go to the library and work in the air-conditioning.   With the latest release of Flex Builder 3, I still don’t need a faster computer.

I haven’t tried running Visual Studio 2008 on it.  I haven’t run a full-fledged Microsoft development stack (IIS, SqlServer, Visual Studio, etc.) on my old dell, nor done any development within a Virtual PC/VMWware VM (which is how I develop on the desktop, using VMWare images running different environments).  Nor, am I happy with Photoshop performance (I only edit photos, no web graphics work).  Which is why Ill be getting a new laptop, probably something of the 13.3 inch size, and one of the new Penryn 2.5 processors.  Ideally with 256 graphics (can’t really find any 13.3" computer right now with that, though, I don’t game and probably don’t need it).  In my previous post I mentioned my wants in a laptop, I’ve only recently narrowed it down to having to be powerful AND a small form factor.

While I don’t agree with all the Apple fans touting the AIR as being so massively innovative — even Dell had offerings back in 2003 (300m, x300) and before (can’t remember the model) that had sub three-pound laptops with detachable DVD drives for the jet-setting executive — I will agree about how liberating a small computer is.  And for most people, even many developers, the lightweight machine offers plenty of horsepower for building innovative software.

Read it if you’re interested in understanding a bit about the code signing process, including certificate acquisition, and signing from all the tools Adobe supports AIR application creation from: Flash CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Flex 3 SDK, and Flex Builder 3.

Cheers.

Since the site is Flash, I assume they’re using the new Flash HD streaming capabilities that Adobe released in early December for streaming the HD content.  There’s a couple of HD demos of the new Flash Player showing off the new HD capabilities on the web, but ABC.Com is the first mainstream content provider I’ve seen to use the technology.  And I gotta say, it works and looks spectacular.

They have a few 30 second commercial breaks (sponsored by LG), interspersed throughout the episode I watched.

The stream came down to me at 1388 kbp/s and it looked fantastic.  I only have a 180 KB/s Internet connection and it didn’t stutter once upon playing, compared to when I last tried the NetFlix WatchNow streaming service in which I could only get the medium quality option because of my crippled Internet connection.  Back with the ABC Video Player, there was some initial interlacing when the stream started playing and my initial reaction was “this isn’t HD”, but after about 20 seconds, probably when buffering caught up, it looked really, really good.  Did I say how good this look?  We’ve come a long ways since the days of Real Media over a 56.6K modem!

This is a huge step forward in content sharing.  Companies are interested in fulfilling the niche market of letting people watch television on their own schedule.  I can’t wait until some form of devices that sit on our television can play all this content like this.  Blu-Ray, HD-DVD players….bah…just let me stream the content directly from a source.  We know it’ll eventually get here.

To me, the DVR is a temporary hack.  The future is going to be all about watching the shows/movies you want to watch, when you want to watch them.  I’m not interested in maintaining my own media, media servers, remembering to get a season pass to a show, etc…  I want everything to be onDemand.  And with Flash player streaming HD content smoothly and a mainstream content provider offering up premium content, we’re well on our way.  ABC’s putting LOST up on the web (obviously to promote the new season coming out) in HD is one little step closer to my media dreams.

Now the question is, when will the FLASH player be getting embedded into little media devices?  Also, if anyone in the technical know knows the details going on behind the scenes with ABC and their HD streaming, feel free to comment on it.  I haven’t really had any time to dig at any depth into how/what ABC is using for delivery of this HD content, I’m only assuming the new Flash “Moviestar” player.

I’m going to replace my current Dell 700m laptop (which is small, and been my workhorse for a lot of my Flex and AIR development). I think it’s great that I can still run the latest Adobe tools this unremarkable machine. I also have a Dell desktop with 3 gigs of memory (I use a lot of Virtual Machines during development) that I’d ideally retire. New laptop to replace both machines.

I’m having a hard time finding the ultimate laptop because of my requirements:
1) I’d prefer a smaller 13.3 inch screen (like the Sony SZ series, beautiful machines, lacking on graphics power) since it’s nearly impossible to use a 15.4 inch screen on an airplane. However, just because the screen is smaller, I don’t want to sacrifice computing performance, especially on the video side because I most often will work tethered to a big-ass monitor. This means I really want a 2.4 ghz Duo Core, and 256 8600GT or better.
2) ESATA. Why, oh why, don’t more laptops, other than the ASUS support eSata? I don’t want one of those ugly cards protruding from my laptop, either. The speed gains over FireWire 800 are tremendous, especially when connected to external RAID. And since I usually have my development environments housed by a VM Ware image, I need all the drive performance I can get.
3) I’d prefer something with a DOCKing station to avoid connecting all my devices like: monitor, mouse, printer, eSata external drive, external DVD burnder, iPod, etc…every time I hook it up. Now, I realize some of this can be avoided by using a USB hub, but my previous experience is that not all my USB devices work reliably through an USB HUB. And never mind the high-end monitor hookup. Nonetheless, a dock isn’t a deal breaker for me, especially if a computer came with builtin eSATA port!
4) And for the run of the mill that should be supported by most laptops: gigabit ethernet, wireless N, bluetooth.

Some of the interesting laptops I’m looking at are:

• The Sony FZ series. These are beautiful, with great screens. Reminds me a lot of a MacBook Pro, except that I can get one with a BluRay DVD burner in it for about $1500. It seems to sacrifice some graphics power, though. I really like the form factor of the smaller Sony SZ, though, and the SZ has a docking station. No eSATA.

• The new Dell M1530, (and the less powerful, yet smaller M1330). This is a beautiful machine, and Dell’s finally starting to come out with some compelling design. However, the resolution sucks (1280×800, which is the same as my present 12" monitor) for now and I’d rather wait until an LED based screen with a higher resolution. No docking station available.

• ASUS V2S. This seems like the ultimate for me (after realizing I may have to get a larger monitor). It has eSATA, a dock available. However, the V2S has terrible review regarding it’s graphics processor, it seems ASUS has crippled the 8600 in it, probably in the name of battery conservation. I haven’t been able to find a local retailer to check this machine out in person, either.
• Lenovo. The business power-horse for so many years, but really, I’m so tired of that drab-black plastic finish. They’re having a sale and I could get a powerhouse laptop for $1400 or so.
• and, of course, The Mac Book Pro. No dock, no eSata, no 13.3 version. And I’m aware of that ugly 3rd party dock. But there’s something I like about Macs. The fact that I can run Windows software (like Visual Studio 2008) on this via a VMWare image is huge. I get a real Unixy OS. I wish the Apple store would have some Macs on hand running Windows software so I can see how well they work (I don’t trust the blogs that Parallels and VMWare Fusion work totally as advertised). I think if Apple really wanted to boost sales, I should be able to walk in and see Microsoft Outlook running on a Mac Book Pro as I have no doubt in my mind this would cause more Macs to fly off the shelf.

Rumor has it that Apple is adding a machine in January, so maybe I’ll wait to see that. I can’t believe that Apple, who caters to higher end video editors and photographers will continue to ignore the need for eSATA. If I’m dropping $2500 for a laptop, I’m going to expect it to have everything top-of-line. And I’m fully aware of adding eSata through ExpressCard, but it’s just one more thing to hookup.

Anyone else out there with some ideas on some machines? I’m in no rush. At this time I just "want" a new computer as opposed to "needing" one. (It would be nice to consolidate everything, though.) Knowing me, I’ll probably end up waiting this one out.