Ben Forta | Blog

Blog posts made in April 2011

Rui Lai is a talented young designer attending the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, China. I first met Rui last year when CAFA hosted Adobe visitors and showcased some of their innovative work built using our tools, and she enthusiastically described an e-book project that she was planning. I offered my encouragement and some suggestions, asked Rui to keep me updated as her project progressed, and saw a demonstration of her work when I was last in Beijing a few months ago. And today Rui posted her apps to the Apple App Store. Cinderella Animated Ebook is a richly illustrated telling of the classic Cinderella fairytale, and Cinderella Interactive Ebook turns the story over to the reader, allowing for decisions to be made that alter the storyline and conclusion. Both apps started out as Photoshop illustrations, and were animated using Flash Professional, and then turned into iOS apps using the new iOS packager. Congratulations Rui, these are outstanding first projects, and I look forward to seeing your future creations.

Adobe MAX 2011 registration is now open, and once again we are offering special discount pricing for loyal previous attendees and students (save US$600 off the regular full conference price of US$1,495 when you register by May 31, 2011). Click on the links below and use the relevant discount code.

MAX 2011 Loyalist Pass ($895) - Discount code LYT100
MAX 2011 Loyalist Pass – Education ($895) - Discount code LED100
MAX 2011 Loyalist Pass – Government ($895) Discount code LGV100
MAX 2011 Student Pass ($299) Discount code STU100

When we release ColdFusion Builder 2, we'll also be releasing a free lightweight version of the tool called ColdFusion Express. Here is the description as per the the engineering manager:

When you start ColdFusion Builder, you are prompted to enter the product serial number. When you enter a valid product serial number, activation happens in the background the first time the software detects an Internet connection.

If you do not enter the product serial number when you start ColdFusion Builder, you can use the trial version of the full-featured ColdFusion Builder 2.0 for 60 days. After the trial expires, you need to purchase a license to continue using all the features. If not, ColdFusion Builder switches to a feature-limited Express Edition. With the Express Edition, you can continue to use ColdFusion Builder with basic features such as editor, code assist, and syntax highlighting. But the key features such as code assist for extensions, code insight, extension callbacks, connection to remote server, quick fix, debugging remote projects, refactoring, ColdFusion search, code formatting, FTP support, log viewer, local file browser, code hyperlinks, and hover help are not available in the Express Edition of ColdFusion Builder. You can convert the Express Edition to a full-featured version by purchasing the license and specifying the product serial number.

Barracuda Networks was recently the victim of a SQL injection attack, as noted on their blog. Today they posted a follow up with some details as to how the attack occurred. And while this was a PHP site, the risk and lessons are just as important for anyone using languages that allow for dynamic SQL creation, including ColdFusion.

Fellow Adobe evangelist Christophe Coenraets has posted two great examples of using Flex to build dashboard apps for iPad, one focused on charts and the other on multi-touch. And of course, as these are built in Flex, they'd also run on Android and RIM PlayBook (as well as desktops).

Magnum Pleasure Hunt Across The Internet (all Flash of course).

In honor of Charlie Chaplin's birthday, Google has created a Google Doodle movie in classic Charlie Chaplin style. And, like most movies online, the Google Doodle is Flash. (Actually, it's a JPEG image until you click on it, and then the Flash SWF runs). The movie is also posted on YouTube:

Airgile is a simple online project management system with a very clean and professional Flex based front-end. Airgile is inexpensive, actually it's free for a single project with up to 4 users, and paid plans start at just €6. And a connector for Eclipse / Flash Builder / ColdFusion Builder (using Mylyn) is in the works, too.

I've long admired the work that SapphireSteel has done with their Amethyst Visual Studio plug-in for Flash and AIR development. In this YouTube video they demonstrate how to use Visual Studio and Amethyst to develop Flash based Android applications:

As part of yesterday's CS5.5 news, we also announced that we will releasing three iPad Photoshop extension applications that were built using the Photoshop Touch SDK. This SDK, built by Daniel Koestler and fellow evangelist Renaun Erickson, is also available to developers to build their own applications that can drive Photoshop.