Adobe Max 2008 - Live Blog - Day 2

10: 45 Ryan Stewart - Formally announcing/demoing Flash Catalyst. Flash Cataylst is going to change the landscape of RIA's. The barriers between Designer and Developer will finally come down. A lot of people have stated that Flash Catalyst will 'finally' allow designers to make applications. Although this may be true, that really isn't the true power of the tool. Flash Catalyst will allow UI designers create truly rich RIA's and not simply try and 'skin' Flex components.

11:00 - Digital Alchemy is demoing their C++ to Actionscript converter. Allows Flash Player 10 to play formats not native to Flash, i.e, Orbis audio format and camera RAW. Quake and Super Mario Bros in Flash Player 10 and AIR 1.5.

11:05 - Flex Builder 4 (Gumbo) and ColdFusion demo - ColdFusion Centaur and Bolt. A lot of automated features to reduce redundant work. With Flex 4 and ColdFusion 9 there is a shift from Bindable data objects to managed data objects. This allows true reliable drag and drop connectivity and functionality between ColdFusion data sources and Flex components. This functionality is huge. Without getting into a ton of techy speak, this will speed up Flex and ColdFusion development about 10 fold.

11:20 Ben Forta quickly demoed a project they are working on that would connect Flex front ends to C# backends. This will allow .NET developers to easily make RIA's.

11:30 - Demoing Flash Google Search API. The Flash Search Player acts like a virtual user and clicks through every page and parses out 'text' so that Google can index Flash and dynamic content.

11:35 Flash Media Server 3.5 - Dynamic streaming feature - streamflashhd.com - monitors network bandwidth and switches the bitrate on the fly to display the best video for the throughput - totally seamless experience.
RTMFP - Flash player to Flash player live streaming with no server in the middle.

Adobe Max 2008 - Live blog

Adobe Max is the yearly gathering for Adobe designers and developers to gather and see the future technologies and solutions that the Adobe platform is offering. this year proves to be the largest and most ground breaking to date. 9:35 - Codename Thermo is announced as Flash Catalyst. Flash Catalyst and Flex 4 preview builds will be available for all Max attendees. 9:50 - Major initiatives: Client + Cloud Computing, Social Networking, Devices + Desktops

Client + Cloud Computing

9:51- Flash Realtime dynamic audio and multitrack processing

9:55 - 64 bit Flash is coming out today

9:56 Bud Albers from Disney Interactive group is up

10:04 - Flash Player 10 is downloaded and installed over 10 million times per day

10:06 AIR 1.5 is announced. Coming out today. Supports encrypted databases

10:07 New York Times will be using Adobe AIR 1.5 as a new aggregator. Works on any screen size. It really leverages the new Flash text engine.

10:25 - Tour de Flex. Cloud APIs included - Amazon, Twitter, Salesforce, etc. Code views and component examples included.

Social Computing
10:38 - Adobe Cocomo - Social applications in Flex - Realtime data collaboration. Webcam, VOIP, data/screen sharing - co-navigation. Free public beta available on adobe.labs.com

10:48 - Adobe Wave - social networking aagregator

Devices + Desktops
10:49 - 1 billion Flash enabled phones by 2009.

10:50 Focus on a consistent experience across all devices and desktops.

10:51 Flash Player 10 for smartphones is in development. Not Flash Lite, but full Flash Player. This is a huge shift. Developing content for mobile phones is currently an uphill battle. Since there are no standards, each cell phone manufacturer has their own way to deploy apps and view web content. With Flash Player 10 across all smartphones, developers can create content once for the web and it will 'port' seamlessly to the web. This is a real a game changer.

10:55 Flash player for iPhone is definitely in development. Flash player 10 for Android OS (Google mobile phone) is also in development.

Looking to the future

11:05 - Multi device, multi screen awareness. Devices are aware of other devices and allow for wireless collaboration. Just point your handheld at an enabled screen and simply "flick" your photos, mp3s, and games from one device to another.

Easy CGI - RIP

We're developers. We make software. Hosting isn't our business and I never want it to be. Hosting is a thankless job where the margins are low, stress is high and computer glitches regularly cause major grief. Yet, reliable hosting and email is a must-have for businesses.

One of our hosting partners, EasyCGI, was recently sold to Endurance International Group, a consortium that has acquired quite a few hosting companies. We've been using EasyCGI for almost 3 years to provide hosting for a number of our clients who have basic hosting needs. We've been thrilled to have EasyCGI in our corner. The performance and reliability has been outstanding with only one outage of minor significance in over 2 years. Their online tools have been powerful, intuitive and convenient. When I have had to contact tech support it has been quick, courteous, competent and based in the US. All of which are rare when dealing with a shared hosting environment.

Unfortunately, the good times are over. The new conglomeration seems marginal at best. Despite the inconvenience of moving hosts, we've transitioned our clients to a new partner: Mosso. Mosso is a division of Rackspace, a hosting company we use for some of our more demanding applications and has been excellent. We'll be keeping a watchful eye on Mosso but if they're anything like their big brother we'll enjoy hosting and email service that may even eclipse what EasyCGI used to be.

Managed Web Applications

As a web 2.0 or web application developer, we've often been tasked with developing tools for organizations and businesses that have no internal IT department or have no experience with web applications. While we've always provided hosing and support of these online tools, we haven't given this aspect of our service a name. "Managed Web Applications" sounds a bit stuffy, but it does describe the process.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

• A client contacts us with a need or a problem that needs a web-based solution.
• We outline the details of the problem, the goals, the information that needs to be dealt with and determine how users will want to interact with the data.
• We design the back-end data source, specify the hosting requirements, design the user interface, and program the application
• We facilitate any necessary changes to the domain, the hosting, security and backup.
• After the application/website is launched, we remain on call to make adjustments, updates, or address any unforeseen issues.

Essentially this is a concept-to-completion-to-day-to-day-operations type of solution. "CTCTDTDO" is a bit awkward, so while "Managed Web Applications" isn't a particularly glamorous name, it will have to do for now. If you think you have a better name for this process, I want to hear about it. :)

Longest Rebranding Roll-Out Ever

Eclectic Studios has updated it's image.... finally. The re-branding of our company has been an initiative for some time. However, we feel that it is important to address the needs of our clients before we indulge in our own.

For several years now, Eclectic Studios has been evolving into a different company. We still provide graphic design services but these services have been an increasingly smaller portion of the work we do for our clients. The vast majority of our clients turn to us for web-based solutions, be they marketing, sales, management, or just technical issues. Symbolically, it was time to represent the company as what it has become.


Our new logo was designed to be super-clean and precise to reflect our technical precision. We kept yellow-orange as our primary corporate color as it has a friendliness that reflects our dedication to user-friendly design. As an homage to our old logo, which we affectionately call the "flying E" we have added dramatic wings to the "e" in "eclectic" that reflect both our company history and our outside the box thinking.

As far as the time to roll-out, this logo concept was initially created in mid-2005 and has been in use here on our blog for some time. If you have any questions about our company or how our offerings have changed over the years, please give us a call.