2009 Now Available, New York Times Reader Powered By Adobe AIR
It reads like a newspaper. Updates like a Web site. And delivers like The New York Times. The new Times Reader 2.0 delivers the entire day's Times (including an interactive version of the crossword) in seconds, so you can carry it wherever you go. And it's all powered by Adobe AIR. We first sneaked this app at MAX 2008 in San Francisco, and now it's available for you to download. Oh, it's worth noting that Microsoft built the initial WPF based version of the Times Reader application for the Times three years ago, but that version is no longer available for download.
2009 Why Major League Baseball Benched Silverlight For Flash
At MAX 2008 in San Francisco, Kevin Lynch announced that Major League Baseball was going to be using Flash for broadcast video. What he did not say at the time is that MLB had been using Silverlight, which they were abandoning for Flash. Greg Sandoval has posted a story on CNET explaining what he's learned about why Silverlight is out, and Flash is in.
2009 MAX MegaLab Assets
I presented a MegaLab hands-on session in San Francisco and Milan, and introduced lots of developers to data-services powered Flex and AIR apps. The session walked Windows and Mac developers through a dozen hands-on apps that started with basic data integration and worked all the way up to data synchronization and offline support and more. Unfortunately, due to a corrupt ZIP file, Mac users were unable to follow along in San Francisco.
If you'd like to try the session yourself, here is what you need:
- RealTimeDS.zip [400MB] is the complete server containing TomCat, LCDS, ColdFusion, a database, and more.
- RealTimeDS.pdf [200KB] is the student hand-out.
All of the instructions are in the ZIP file. Enjoy!
2009 100,000,000 AIR Installs Announced
During the MAX Japan keynote we announced that Adobe AIR has been installed 100 million times since it's release less than a year ago! We also announced that Flash Player 10 had been installed on 55% of computers in its first two months! TechCrunch also just reported the story.
2009 Behind The Scenes With Fiat's AIR Based EcoDrive
EcoDrive is an AIR based application that uses data collected by your Fiat car to help drivers adjust their driving style so as to improve fuel efficiency. The app was shown during the keynote in MAX Milan. Andrew Shorten and Serge Jespers recently spent some time with Fiat and with AKQA who built the app, and have posted this video report. The video runs about 20 minutes, and is well worth watching.
2009 CF9 Enhancement Slip
While demoing the ORM features in Centaur (CF9) and Bolt (the CF IDE) during the MAX keynote, I showed and executed some code, and this snippet appeared on the screen for a short time:
2 <cfargument name="page">
3 <cfargument name="pageSize">
4 <cfargument name="gridsortcolumn">
5 <cfargument name="gridsortdirection">
6 <cfif arguments.gridsortcolumn eq "">
7 <cfset arguments.gridsortcolumn = "DESTINATION_ID">
8 </cfif>
9 <cfset var Destination = EntityLoad("Destination", {}, "#arguments.gridsortcolumn# #arguments.gridsortdirection#")/>
10 <cfset var startRow = ((page-1)*pageSize)+1>
11 <cfset var endRow = page*pageSize>
12 <cfset var qry = querynew("destination_id,location,description")/>
13 <cfset QueryAddRow(qry,arraylen(Destination))/>
14 <cfif arraylen(Destination) lt endrow>
15 <cfset endrow = arraylen(Destination)/>
16 </cfif>
17 <cfloop from="#startrow#" to="#endrow#" index="i">
18 <cfset querysetcell(qry,'destination_id',Destination[i].getDestination_id(),i)/>
19 <cfset querysetcell(qry,'location',Destination[i].getLocation(),i)/>
20 <cfset querysetcell(qry,'description',Destination[i].getDescription(),i)/>
21 </cfloop>
22 <cfreturn QueryConvertForGrid(qry, page, pageSize)>
23</cffunction>
I have now received three e-mails asking if that code was real or not. And the answer is yes, that is real code generated by Bolt, and it really was running in Centaur. Really! And yes, I know the code is not great (heck, it's not even that good, good thing we're not shipping yet).
But, you have to wonder, what made them ask? And did we inadvertently let a CF9 enhancement slip out of the bag? ;-)
2008 Check Out Adobe Hair
No, that's no a typo, Adobe Hair it is.
2008 Adrian Bridgwater On MAX Sneaks
Adrian Bridgwater attended MAX Europe in Milan, and comments on our sneaks session.
2008 MAX Europe Pics
I've posted some pics of MAX Europe in Milan, Italy, last week.
2008 Simon Bisson On The Future Of ColdFusion
I got the chance to chat with Simon Bisson at MAX Milan, and he shares his thoughts over at IT Pro on the future of ColdFusion in a piece entitled The ColdFusion Renaissance.