January 5th, 2007

Universal Desktop Daily - Friday, January 05, 2007

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 1:52 am

Categories: Flex, Microsoft, Mix07, Rich Internet Applications, Rich Media, Universal Desktop Daily, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere

Tags:

Hey, look at this, the first UDD of the new year. I'm sorry I've been slacking this week with these but I've been swamped with work. I still have a lot of fun doing them so hopefully you enjoy a few of the links from time to time.

• Flex 2.0.1 has arrived and Ted Patrick, the Flex Evangelist, has some great information about what this means for RIA developers.
• This post about online video advertising caught my eye. He has some good information about online video and I like his thoughts (and concerns) about where this is headed. Video is here to stay, but I hope we move towards a much nice platform for distributing it and stay away from annoying popups.
• Terrence Ryan of the Wharton School has some predictions for Web Applications in their environment this year. I used to be a Wharton developer which is why this caught my eye but I also think Terry brings some "consumer cred" to the predictions. I especially liked "We will roll out at least one RIA that didn't actually need to be rich."
• Thanks to Rob and K. Scott I found a couple new WPF and "WPF/E" blogs. The first is Eric Lee's blog that will cover Visual Studio Team System and WPF and the second is WPF Wonderland which looks like it's going to be a great resource for WPF and WPF/E. Subscribe and subscribed.
• Mary Jo Foley points out a weird occurrence on the Mix 07 site, a mention of Technology X. I'm not sure what this is, but my curiosity has been piqued. Any ideas?

December 22nd, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Friday, December 22, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 9:47 am

Categories: .NET 3.0, Flash, Rich Internet Applications, Universal Desktop Daily, Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere

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• Richard Leggett has an excellent breakdown of Flash and WPF/E. Well worth checking out
• Tony MacDonell adds two more good predictions to my earlier post about 10 predictions for RIAs in 2007.
• Marco asks whether Microsoft is betting on .NET or JavaScript and brings up the Sidebar and WPF/E. WPF/E is going to include .NET support as well as the JavaScript support that exists in the CTP now, but I'm not sure if they have that written down anywhere. That was mentioned at our blogger meeting last week.

December 21st, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Thursday, December 21, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 1:30 am

Categories: Flex, Microsoft, Rich Internet Applications, Universal Desktop Daily, Windows Presentation Foundation

Tags:

• Ted Patrick has put together a Flickr account that shows off a bunch of applications written in Flex. I think this is a great way to showcase applications, especially those that are behind the firewall. If you're curious what you can do with Flex this is a pretty impressive gallery.
• I want to make sure that I get this out there. There is a technical chat with the Windows Presentation Foundation team on Friday at 9:30 AM. It's totally free and all you have to do is show up. I'll be there.
• Mike Potter's RIApedia highlights Rich Internet E-Commerce Applications. As we get more sophisticated (and I become a better blogger) this is something I want to dig into more. I do believe there is a return on investment for these kinds of applications, otherwise companies wouldn't use them. But it needs to be quantified that better experiences == better sales.
• If you're looking to do WPF development then look no further than Tim Sneath's blog to get started. He has put together a post about Building a Perfect WPF Developer Workstation and it has pretty much everything you need to get setup. (Although I have to admit, that is a LOT of setup)
• Update: I just saw that Zee has a couple of cool posts. One is a demo of Flex Builder written in Flex. The second is a presentation by Matthias Zeller that shows how SAP is using Flex and Flex Data Services to build a help desk application.

December 12th, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 9:22 am

Categories: .NET 3.0, Gotuit, Rich Internet Applications, Rich Media, Universal Desktop Daily, Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere

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• Steve Borsch has an interesting post about Assembling a Rich Internet Application. Steve's got an excellent blog and I always enjoy it when he talks about RIAs. Thanks to John Dowdell for the link.
• TechCrunch has some info on Gotuit's new service which allows users to "cut and tag any online video from any source". I like Gotuit, I think it's a good example of how an RIA can enhance the video experience.
• John Rayner wrote something up about using "Cider", the Visual Studio extensions for .NET 3.0 to build WPF/E apps. This is another example of Microsoft trying to make WPF very accessible to people who use Visual Studio and this post is a good place to get started. Link via Andrew Stopford.
• Mark Pillar announced on the WebORB Blog that they will be releasing WebORB 3.0 Professional Edition next week. If you aren't familiar with WebORB, they provide Flex Data Services functionality for people that aren't using Java. They've been focusing very heavily on the .NET platform and I hope this translates into some .NET people looking at Flex as an option.

December 7th, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Thursday, December 7, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 12:52 am

Categories: Adobe, Ajax, Flash, Flex, Rich Internet Applications, SAP, Universal Desktop Daily, Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere

Tags:

Update:  It's Thursday today, not Wednesday. I'm trying to squeeze extra days out of the week.

I've been remiss in my UDD's and while I've been silent people building RIAs seem to have gotten much bigger spurred by the release of WPF/E on Monday. It's great to see people from all over realize how much of a difference a great experience can make. The web is going to get a lot better due in no small part to Rich Internet Application technologies. I can't wait to see what else people come up with.

• With all of the talk about WPF/E this week, Mike Harsh has a must read post about what WPF/E really is. When you think of WPF/E as an extension of the HTML DOM then a lot of very cool things can happen. I've often talked about how limiting the browser is when it comes to rich experiences and WPF/E goes a long way towards expanding that functionality in a way that traditional web developers can understand and jump into.
• Lee Brimlow, who is an absolute ninja when it comes to both WPF and Flash has created Microbe - the city where WPF/E and Flash live in harmony. It's really cool to see. Lee is using Javascript to communicate with both WPF/E and Flash and build a seamless experience. It's a cool example of how the web has enabled technologies to work together. Jouanneau also created Mozobe which uses SVG and Flash for the same effect.
• There is a good video (only about 10 minutes long) over on On10 which shows off some of the process that goes into designing an application. There are some good quotes about how important design is to the development process and why good design is a valuable commodity. People like nice looking things and if you can give them a rich, well designed experience over the web, they are going to be very attached to that application. That's always a good thing.
• Adobe Reader 8 has been released (and they have a blog!). I've been watching this closely because there are a bunch of interesting things in the pipe for Acrobat and Flash interoperability. LiveCycle plays an important part of this, and the Adobe Acrobat Connect application is a fantastic example of how RIAs can be used to create unparalleled experiences on the web. (And speaking of LiveCycle I noticed a fledgling blog that looks like it might be a good read for people looking at the business case of RIAs and document workflow.)
• There's an interesting piece over on Redmonk about Adobe and SAP. I've got a couple of comments. One is that Adobe is working with developers a lot to make sure Flex grows as a product. They've got a solid strategy in place. Two, I've talked to folks from SAP and I think they are taking the lead on enterprise adoption of RIAs. They see how important a good user experience is and they're adopting tools that can help them get there. SAP is going to be a fun company to watch and I'm sure I'll be writing about them a lot.
• Man, Anne Zelenka is all over the place nowadays, but most recently she has a post on Redmonk about Ajax that I wanted to highlight. You know that I'm loathe to say nice things about Ajax, but she brings up some good points and I'm willing to give that Ajax gets a bad rap sometimes. Also Anne, you should do 6 myths about Flash.
• Last item might be the best. Jesse Warden, a Flash developer whom I really admire has a good article on WPF/E, Prototyping and Workflow. It's long, but very worth it. Best quote? This one - "Suddenly, Scoble and others say in passing, almost like it "just works that way", that Blend renders all of the above not an issue. Say WHAT!?!?!". The developer/designer workflow is getting a huge overhaul.

November 21st, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 9:03 am

Categories: Adobe, Apollo, Linux, OpenLaszlo, Rich Internet Applications, Universal Desktop Daily

Tags:

• There is a beta 2 version up for the Linux version of the Flash Player which fixes some audio issues. Emmy Huang, Mike Melanson and Tinic Uro all have information.
• There is an Apollo session online by Luis Polanco, Sr. Apollo Product Manager that gives some interesting information on the new runtime. If you're interested in Apollo, it's worth checkin gout. Thanks to TJ for the info.
• Marco Casario points out that Adobe now has a Fireworks Developer Center. At MAX there was a lot of talk about how Fireworks and Flex are going to work together and I think there are some cool things in store for the designer-developer workflow here.
• Scott Evans has created Applejuice, a photo gallery application in OpenLazlo. Information is over at the ">OpenLaszlo project blog, but it works with Scott's Picasa plugin.

November 16th, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Thursday, November 16, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 1:10 am

Categories: .NET 3.0, Adobe, Flash, Flex, Microsoft, Rich Internet Applications, Universal Desktop Daily, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere

Tags:

• I saw that we have a new Microsoft blog, Web.Next which will cover the next generation of Microsoft technologies starting with WPF/E. From the post: "I know that there are a lot of questions on this technology, and there isn't a lot that I can talk about right now — but — very soon there will be a tonne of content coming your way!" That's what I like to hear.
• Bad News for WPF on Mono, Novell's cross-platform implementation of the .Net Framework. When Microsoft and Novell announced their agreement, I started hearing about Mono and had high hopes for Windows Presentation Foundation on Linux. But in an article in Computing, Miguel de Icaza, vice president of product technology at Novell put a damper on that. The article reads " Most of what Microsoft calls .Net Framework 3.0 is due to be implemented in Mono, with the exception of the Windows Presentation Foundation, which de Icaza says is “over-engineered, over-architected, and too large” . Even that may come if market forces require it." I'm holding out for the market forces that I hold so dearly to win out.
• Some information on SAPs new User Interface for NetWeaver was published on SAP Info today. SAP is heavily using Adobe technologies as part of their platform, and from what I here there are some very good examples coming that showcase how powerful RIAs can be in the enterprise.
• I have no clue what Adobe Kuler is, but it's strangely engaging. Obviously it's for designers, but it's a very well done way to present color in a Rich Internet Application. I'm a big fan of the Ravenclaw palette by jsaul.
• Microsoft and Sprint announced a partnership that will allow Microsoft to distribute parts of their application platform on Sprint's infrastructure. One of the things that I think Microsoft has that no one else does is breadth of platform, and this is an example of that. From the Xbox to the PC, Microsoft has a lot of ground covered. That's extremely compelling for content providers.
• David Hornik over on Venture Blog has an anecdotal story about Software as a Service that makes a good point. This is why RIAs get me so pumped up. We can bring that flexibility and wrap a fantastic user experience around it. The bridge between the web and the desktop can be very, very powerful.

November 15th, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 9:33 am

Categories: Adobe, Flash, Flex, Rich Internet Applications, Universal Desktop Daily, Windows Presentation Foundation

Tags:

Sorry I'm late this morning, but hopefully better late than never. I just have a few quick items

• A new version of Flash Player 9 has been released. This supports full screen mode, includes Windows Vista support, and has some bug fixes.
• A good post by John Dowdell on DRM and documents. I think there's a link between RIAs and "paper" and DRMed documents play a role in that. I want to explore this more. Mike Potter has more info about what brought this up, Adobe Document Center.
• Rob Relyea addresses an issue with Windows Presentation Foundation and SVG. It's worth checking out and gives some good insight into WPF.
• Lastly, Marco Casario has a good article up about Web and Mobile Convergence with Flex 2 and Flash Lite. That's one of the big plusses with Rich Internet Applications; you abstract the data and put a very rich experience around it that is tailored to the device.

November 14th, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 12:03 am

Categories: Adobe, Java, OpenLaszlo, Rich Internet Applications, Universal Desktop Daily, Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere

Tags:

A few random items from the past few days. I'm skipping the graphic for tonight because I'm in a hurry, but it will be back tomorrow.

• Thomas Nicholls pointed me to this walkthrough to get set up using OpenLaszlo over on XML.com. It's a pretty thorough step-by-step and a good way to get started.
• Finally some info on Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere over on betanews. My fellow blogger, Mary Jo Foley, also has some information and it appears all of this started with a blog post by Joe Stegman (whose feed I was embarrassingly not subscribed to until now).
• Jeff Schiller has some good thoughts on what the Java announcement might mean for the mobile web. He ties it back to what the mobile web needs to succeed.
• Scoble blogged about his demo of Adobe Connect with Peter Ryce. Adobe Connect is a really cool application and as I've said before, it shows off what the player is capable of. If you haven't tried it, this demo is worth a look. But Robert, PodTech is KILLING me with these .mov files. Why is there no Flash!?

November 7th, 2006

Universal Desktop Daily - Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 2:28 am

Categories: Adobe, Ajax, Apollo, Atlas, Flex, Kevin Lynch, Microsoft, Rich Internet Applications, Universal Desktop Daily

Tags:

• Flash Player 9 penetration statistics are out. It is at 35.9% in the "mature markets" which, according to Emmy Huang, is on pace with Flash Player 8 (which is at 89.1%). I expected this number to be higher, because MySpace began requiring FlashPlayer 9 for all of their visitors. Not everyone does the MySpace thing, but I still thought we'd see a bump.
• Microsoft's "Atlas", err… ASP.NET AJAX… went into Beta 2 yesterday. Usually I don't pay a lot of attention to Ajax technologies, but I after talking to folks at Microsoft, I think this is worth tracking because of possible synergies between it and Windows Presentation Foundation. I covered Atlas back in August.
• James Ward, one of Adobe's Flex Evangelists, gave a presentation on Flex Widgets at the WidgetsLive! Conference yesterday. I have a couple of widget-related posts coming up soon, and while I'm skeptical of anyone starting a business based on widgets, I think they are an interesting way to abstract information and there Rich Internet Technologies are a good fit in that space.
• Kevin Lynch, Adobe's Chief Software Architect, has an article over at Sys-Con which talks about Adobe's plans for the future and how Apollo and Flex fit into that. It is good insight into the course that Adobe is charting.