IBC-preview

Some news from the IBC in Amsterdam. I’m there as a demo presenter for the Production Premium CS4 products, that include OnLocation, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore & Soundbooth. In addition to that, we’re demoing a new product called Adobe Story. As the name suggests, it’s a programe for script writers, with which you can collaboratively work on a script. So if you ever wanted to write the script for that crazy movie with that crazy friend of yours who lives in Australia… now you can!

But seriously, Story is a great product, running the Adobe Buzzword engine, that suits all needs of any scriptwriter and integrates very well with the PP workflow. Find out more about it, including a beta, on labs.adobe.com .

More to come, with pictures, soon.

Pressure sensitive keyboard from Microsoft

Everybody who knows me should know I really dislike Microsoft, the main reason being that they lost their power to innovate (granting they have ever had it). But everybody who knows me also knows I am, at least trying, to be very objective, whenever I can. And today I’ve seen a study of a pressure sensitive keyboard from M$FT, which I really liked. Could be a go be something between the normal keyboards and full MT devices.

Why every Flex developer should learn Cold Fusion (new betas)

I must admit that, even though I’m working for Adobe and have worked with Flex for a long time, Cold Fusion was still a bit off my limit. Now, with the new beta releases of CF9 server and CF9 Builder, I have taken the opportunity to get into it and here is my conclusion plain and straight: Cold Fusion is amazing and every Flash developer should learn and use it.

Why? First off, it makes your life sooooooo much easier. Things that would take you ages in PHP or Java take you minutes, few minutes, to get them done in CF. This is how a query looks like in CF:

<cfquery datasource="cfartgallery" name="myquery">
SELECT * FROM APP.ARTISTS WHERE LASTNAME = 'Kim'
</cfquery>

For anyone who has been querying with PHP, this is heaven. And come to think of it, you don’t even have to do this out of Cold Fusion. With CF9, every Flex/Flash developer (as any PHP, Java or .net) can invoke CF as a web service. Take a look at this:

<mx:Application xmlns:cf="coldfusion.service.mxml.*">
<cf:Mail id="cfMail"
to="bill.gates@microsoft.com"
from="steve@mac.com"
subject="Have you heard about CF9"
content="It rocks!"
type="html"    />
cfMail.execute();

via Forta.com

And remember: CF9 Builder comes as a standalone installation or as part of your Eclipse, which means it also integrates into Flash Builder. Come to speak of Microsoft: CF9 has a really nice integration with Sharepoint and the major office products, like Word, Excel and Powerpoint. You can dynamically generate PPTs and XLSs, and convert DOCs and PPTs to PDFs. You can read more about the new features on Serge’s blog here. By you should be all hot to try out a bit of CF. I promise it will make your life so much easier, allow you to be more productive and be a better Flash developer. Here are two docs that will be your new bible. See them as the old and new testament

• Developing Applications with Adobe Cold Fusion 9
• Adobe Cold Fusion 9 Reference Guide
  

For a quick start, don’t miss out on the videos over at Adobe TV (tv.adobe.com). I’ve made a quick selection of the three videos that will best get you started.

• Build a Cold Fusion powered Flex app (Ben Forta)
• Flex for Cold Fusion developers (Tim Buntel)
• Proxy Tags in CF9 (Ryan Stewart)

On the Difference between Twitter and Facebook

Recently I’ve been approached by some colleagues asking about the difference between Twitter and Facebook. In the end, you can post on both what you are doing. But that is almost about it.

Twitter is geared towards a public audience, whereas Facebook is meant to represent you circle of friends/ acquaintances.

The main difference lies in the audience. Twitter uses its microblogging function to make information available publicly available. The message is meant to reach as many people as possible. Basically everyone can follow you Twitter (if you allow it). On the other hand, in Facebook, the status updates are meant to reach your personal circle of friends / acquaintances.

Another difference lies in the type of status updates. On Twitter, it’s about the content, the information. On Facebook, it’s mainly about data – your personal data, in connection with information.

Twitter is an excellent tool for open communication. If you meet somebody at a trade fair and talk about interesting things, you might want to follow him or her on Twitter to see what professional news he or she brings out. You wouldn’t necessarily want this person in your Facebook circle, where it would be possible to see, what your mother posted on your wall. Just have a look at how Facebook can ruin your career: head of MI6 outed by his wife through pictures on Facebook.

Last but not least, it’s about integration. Since Twitter practices open communication, your Twitter feed  (all your Twitter posts/updates) can be perfectly integrated in other web site/applications. Since Facebook is fairly restricted and gears towards another audience, you wouldn’t want to do that, even if possible.

Here a quick Q&A:

Q: “I post everything I have to say on Facebook, so my friends know about me. Why do I need Twitter?”
A: “You don’t.”

Q: “I’m bombarded by news from every direction. Why do I need yet another channel?”
A: “You don’t need it. Twitter is a good way to have selected source information reach you. If you follow somebody on Twitter, you’re genuinely interested in what this person has to say. If you’re not longer interested, quit following.”

Q: “Is it smart to have Twitter and Facebook messages linked, so that everthing you post on Twitter appears in your Facebook and vice versa?”
A: “Not really. Keep in mind that Facebook is a system that you can control more or less and keep private. It would be smarter to have your Twitter feed imported into Facebook, for business/professional might also me interesting for your private friends, whereas your private information might not be that appropriate in a business environment.”

Q: “How am I supposed to follow all these people on Twitter?”
A: “If you can’t keep up following everybody on Twitter, it’s a sign you need to be more selective with who you follow. Or you can just ignore the updates. Nobody will be angry with you, if you don’t read everything.”

Q: “Who is reading all the updates on Twitter?”
A: “If you don’t have the time to follow everybody on Twitter, it doesn’t mean other people feel alike. The degree of importance of Twitter varies from person to person. Even here we can find the Pareto (80/20) principle. Only about 20% actually do post on a regular basis and the other 80% follow. Personally, I also lack the time to follow everybody on Twitter, yet I do post and benefit from it.”

The new static

In the beginning, there was HTML – and we had static website. People used editors, made up a design, gathered their info and uploaded it on the webserver. Any updates meant a modification (edit) of the HTML site and again an upload on the FTP.

Then things became dynamic. Blogs, online picture galleries, etc. People used web interfaces to keep uptodate. Social networks rose on every corner and now most people use facebook, flickr, youtube, vimeo, picasa and millions of other networks and services.

The new static is what might be the next thing, made possible through semantics. Imagine your website, just as you had it years ago. Several pages, with blog, picture gallery, tweet feed and so on. Everything written in static HTML or rather Flash, hooked up to feeds from all your favorite sites. This new site type already exists: a WordPress site is nothing else: it incorporates a blog and you can hook up picture and Twitter feeds. 

Far more interesting would be an AIR app, with which you could administrate the massive amount accounts and have them all at your fingertips. That’s the app I’m currently working on

Differences between Fireworks, Catalyst and Flash Pro

Many people asked me about how Catalyst differs from Fireworks and Flash Professional. So here are some of the key differentiators:

Fireworks <–> Catalyst
The principle is basically the same and there was a brief thought during the development of Catalyst (then Thermo) to integrate all the new features in Fireworks. Both applications transform graphics into code. But Fireworks is a graphics creations tool that outputs open web standards, like HTML and CSS.
Catalyst has only basic graphics capability and relies on graphics that come from programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks. It creates applications for Flash Player or Adobe AIR, so it outputs code toward the Adobe Flash Platform, respectively Flash Builder.

 

Flash Professional <–> Catalyst

Flash Catalyst is a new integration tool that is focused on the layout design and interaction of elements on the screen. Flash Professional is the industry-leading creation tool that allows free-form design of rich media. In Flash Catalyst the user creates “states” that are similar to pages in Dreamweaver or InDesign. In Flash Professional the primary control is the timeline.

MAX Registration open

Guys, it’s that time of the year again: MAX regsitration doors flew open yesterday at max.adobe.com. As this year there won’t be a MAX in Europe, due to the hard economic crisis that has banged us all in the head, this is your only chance for the biggest Adobe developer meeting worldwide. Plus, you can save tons of money if you book your ticket now. And make sure to get a cheap flight there. If you can’t afford a flight, I suggest you start rowing your boat tomorrow. Here the short version:

RTMP Specifications online!

Lots of news in the past days, I know, but it’s worth it. Here come the RTMP specs Adobe promised to release in the first half of June. All you want to know is here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/rtmp/

Even more information available on the blog of Kevin Towes, Product Manager for FMS: http://blogs.adobe.com/ktowes/2009/06/rtmp_specification_now_availab.html

iPhone OS on normal, Intel based Mac with display

This is an awesome hack: some (apparently Swedish) guys, got the iPhone OS to work on a normal monitor with a normal Mac behind it. Interesting aspect is that it probably uses the Intel CPU, which to my knowledge doesn’t exist in the iPhone… Way to go guys, well done. Shows the options Apple has to get a Tablet Mac running. Which, as we’ve been waiting for n-years to show up, but never did and probably never will

Catalyst Crash Course Online

As I wrote before, I’ve had the pleasure to record the first video training in German for Flash Catalyst with video2brain. The final version is now online and can be found here. If you have already started using Catalyst, I’d be happy to see some of the projects you’ve done and perhaps post some of them here. If not, go download it now and start using it