Apollo Apps Preview

Mike Chambers takes into Christian Cantrell for a preview of a couple of applications built in Apollo as to show what the current Alpha builts can allow developers to go thru.

The two applications that are shown are the famous eBay Desktop and a GoogleMaps mashup that plays as a GPS Contact Finder, the later built by Chris as a demo app.

Christian Cantrell is an Adobe App Developer that works with the Apollo team creating applications that tests the different features being built in the framework; and can be seeing in one of the earliest videos from video.onflex here.

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Technorati tags: Apollo, Adobe, Beta, Products, Video.OnFlex, Video, eBay, Google Maps

Getting Started on Apollo

Mike Chambers, senior product manager for developer relations for Apollo, came out with an excellent post introducing Apollo to the main stream as the bits where publicly pushed yesterday to web for the first time.

As part of the post Mike goes on and explains what Apollo is and its purpose. A few links are also attached that from my point of view serves the purpose of helping people getting started on their jurney on and on with

Go ahead and check the article out here as part of the newly revamped Adobe Developer Center for Apollo.

Happy reading boyz!

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Technorati tags: Apollo, Adobe Apollo, Adobe, Beta, Products, Training, Learning

Apollo is out for public download

Earlier today Ryan Steward posted about the public alpha of Apollo to be published tonight, I am now happy to let you all know that just a few minutes ago Adobe made it public.

From the page:

Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.

Apollo enables developers to create applications that combine the benefits of web applications – network and user connectivity, rich media content, ease of development, and broad reach – with the strengths of desktop applications – application interactions, local resource access, personal settings, powerful functionality, and rich interactive experiences.

Go ahead and give it a try, the following are some quite interesting resources that will help you out thru the learning curbe, enjoy!

• Apollo @ Adobe Labs
• Apollo @ Adoble Labs Wiki
• Apollo for Adobe Flex Developers Pocket Guidefrom Amazon - or you can download the PDF version for free here.
• Download the Apollo Runtime
• Download the Apollo SDK and Dev Tools

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Technorati tags: Apollo, Adobe Apollo, Adobe, Beta

Some releasing news

So I took some days off this past week and head to the beach as I am transitioning jobs.

I just got back yesterday and it's not 'til today that I got to surf thru my feeds and I noticed there's been some quite interesting announcements made thru my time off.

I will just link to a couple of them that got my attention quicker.

• Expression Blend made it out of Beta this week and did its shiny entrance into Release Candidate mode. From the post written by Ryan Stewart @ Universal Desktop it seems that we'd be expecting the full release around MIX time this year, with some updates into WPF/E to come around the same timing, although it will not be 'til summer that we should be pointing to a more concrete release of this project.
  
  I do have to say that before WPF/E comes live, they need to put some major work still in the arena of getting more C# support and XAML as from what it is today. Right now it is a reasonable preview into what kind of things you will be expected to do with this technology, although in order to play 1:1 with Adobe Flash and/or Flex we will have to see some more work put down by the Redmond guys - though you're in a good path boyz!
  
• From the other side of the court, Adobe released what is called Flex Module for Apache and IIS, which brings Flex a little bit closer to what PHP and ASP.NET 2.0 applications enable developers to do: simply copy the Flex files into a directory visible to your server and your app will be compiled automatically when you request the main application file using your web browser.
  
  It really looks like a good step forward into making Flex a greater Dev Platform and getting tide with already settle technologies like ASP.NET, JSP and PHP, to name some.
  
  Note: There is a catch tough, Mark Anders from Adobe, points out that these bits DO NOT work with Flex Data Services' applications so be aware of it as you try it.
  
• On my last release-note for now - not even related to development - Google released a Flash-based gadget-like client for its GTalk application. Google's talkabout blog has more info in it and the ways you get to use it. Lets says this gadget can be inserted into your home page (it seems they even support pages other than the Google Personalized Homepage as well)... Ryan Stewart has some more info in it as well, so go check it out here.

Ok so as it is Sunday morning and I still have to do my homeshores, I will stop right here, I still need to go thru more than half of my feeds and finish up some work I have to put down for a couple of projects I am working on (will talk about this a bit later)... so u go relax and will touch base later...

Cheers mates! and happy St. Patrick's Day!

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Technorati tags: Microsoft, Adobe, WPF, Expression Blend, Beta, Flex2, Microsoft Expression, Products, Google, Gtalk, .NET 3.0

Apollo + Flex = Video Lib

Ted Patrick and Mike Chambers, both guys from Adobe, are putting together a learning experience together called video.onflex. As well as Channel9 does for Microsoft technologies, video.onflex will be put on use to spread the word on Flex2 and the new comer Apollo with videos and interviews around these two RIA-oriented technologies.

Right now there are a couple of videos posted from the 360Flex conference that went on a couple of weeks ago at the eBay building complex.

Although all post are interesting, there is this one post that worth watching first and it is the one from Ely Greenfield on his flexbook component - I  will write next about this project. It really is cool!

Ok, so the best wishes to u two guys on this project and hope I will get my hands on Apollo really soon to start playing around with this jewel.

Cheers!

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Technorati tags: Apollo, Flex2, Adobe, Channel9, Video.OnFlex, Learning, Training, Video, Tutorials, Beta, Products

Gadgets that will change our life in the near future

I came across this post on Digg that lists 5 technologies that in the future will change the way we go thru our normal shores. All from the way you interact with games and applications to the white board you use to teach classes on.

From the 5 selected technologies, there was one that actually caught my attention, although I encourage you guys to go check the other four. This technology, called Assist Sketch Understanding System, uses an electronic white board along with a piece of software that simulates physics acting over artifacts you draw on the board.

The following is a video of a professor from MIT that shows this technology live.

Kind of cool, isn't it? Ok, so you now wonder what kind of application u can use as to simulate something similar, well I found as well that Microsoft has this application called Physics Illustrator (PI) that pretty much does the same thing, just without the white board.

PI is a motion simulator for the Tablet PC and ships as a Tablet PC Power Toy (although u can download the source code from Microsoft Research and compile it so that it can run on any .Net supported OS).

PI allows you to draw two-dimensional bodies, connect them in various ways, and apply forces, then watch as animation makes the bodies move, collide, and interact.

Update: Googling around I found the following resources that I thought might interest you guys:

• Hypercubed has a post on how to build and integrate the application, compiled from source code, with help files and samples.
• MIT has a repository of a series of papers and articles on Sketch Interpretation and Design Rationale.
• PI source code from Microsoft Research
• PI installer for Tablet PC