Appcelerator Distributes Enhanced Version of Open Source RIA Development Solution

Appcelerator, the first complete open-source solution for RIA (rich Internet application) development on SOAs (service oriented architectures), has distributed its 2.0.2 Maintenance Release that includes several new cross-platform/browser RIA widgets and enhancements to its Ruby and .NET language-specific SDKs.

A New Weapon in Developing Rich Client Applications

JavaFX is a scripting language that provides more powerful client applications in term of features for the user interface experience as well as being incorporated with server platform technology such as RMI, Web Services, and EJB. Its ability to reuse all Java libraries opens an opportunity for JavaFX to create flexibility and ease the integration and reuse of existing Java applications.

Web 2.0 Could Be Bad For Business

By Jason Lee Miller - Tue, 12/18/2007 - 10:52am.

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen warns against believing all the Web 2.0 hype when designing with the end-user in mind. While some 2.0 features can help, the majority of sites should focus on mastering the 1.0 aspects that users know and love.

The problem, as Nielsen sees it, is that companies follow too much what the hot trends are, and as a result create sites that are unnecessarily complicated or offer little benefit to the average user.

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4D Web 2.0 Pack adds drag-and-drop tools

4D has released 4D Web 2.0 Pack v11, an update to its toolset enabling developers to create business intelligence applications for mobile platforms like Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. The latest release includes a drag-and-drop toolset to facilitate quick creation of database-backed dashboard-style Web applications.

Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 Supports AJAX Deployments

Microsoft has delivered up its first service pack for Office 2007, earlier than expected by some weeks, hoping to eradicate any proclivities the thing might have to crash.

It's also supposed to improve indexing to make finding documents easier, support AJAX deployments so developers can create custom Web Parts and make SharePoint Server 2007 and the other Office servers compatible with the expected Windows Server 2008.

It can be downloaded now from http://office/microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/default.aspx

Adobe opens up AMF

Adobe has published documentation describing the Actionscript Message Format and has announced plans to release the source code of BlazeDS, a messaging and remoting framework based on LiveCycle Data Services.

LinkedIn opens site to developers

By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

LinkedIn will let developers build applications for its professional networking site, an approach recently undertaken by social networking competitor Facebook, to make its site more interactive, the company said Monday.

The move is one of several LinkedIn is making, including launching a beta version of a redesigned home page, to keep its less flashy but more business-minded contacts network site vibrant alongside rivals MySpace and Facebook. LinkedIn said it wants to be a hub for business information.

"When we look forward to 2008, we see people and professionals more and more going beyond the connections and actually using LinkedIn to make themselves more productive on a daily basis," said Adam Nash, senior product director, in a video on LinkedIn's blog.

LinkedIn has made a deal with BusinessWeek magazine to provide content to the site. A feed has been added that will show news stories on LinkedIn users' profiles that are related to their companies, as well as highlight other stories their colleagues are reading, Nash said.

LinkedIn said its Intelligent Application Platform will let developers build applications that appear on LinkedIn as well as applications for their own Web sites that use information from consenting LinkedIn users, the company said on its blog.

LinkedIn said that developers can use its APIs to build widgets, or small applications. The widgets can, for example, be integrated with a job-hosting Web site and let users see how many connections they have within that company.

LinkedIn said it will support the APIs for Google's OpenSocial development platform, which is designed to make it easier to create applications that are compatible with multiple social-networking sites.

LinkedIn, which counts 17 million registered users, is purely focused on establishing professional connections, and its site appears more static that other social networking Web sites. It lets users "connect," and then see each others' contacts, as well as information such as job histories.

LinkedIn is also trying to round out its site with other features to give it more pizzazz. The site only just a few months ago allowed people to upload their own photos, and the site is devoid of catchy features, such as the ability to post songs and share photo albums, seen on Facebook and MySpace.

But the redesigned home page now has a "network update" feature that lists what changes other users have made to their profiles. LinkedIn also added e-mail capabilities, as well a feature to import contacts from Web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo, AOL, and Google.

Users can now also add modules to a so-called "professional dashboard" on their profile. The modules enable searches for other users or jobs, or participation in a community question-and-answer forum.

Advanced RIA with Flex and ActionScript

"I don't think there is a problem that's gonna take u more than 2 days. Except the cases where u have to learn a new programming language, when u will solve it in 3:)"--Cristina, my muse, my wife and everything in my life.

Okay, guys, it is time to let you know about some more stuff you can do with your Flex/ActionScript 3 application.

This time i will cover here two things:

• Authentication Services with ASP.NET and Flex, and
• Modularity of your Flex Application.

These weekends I've published article on http://netpass.mywdk.com about creating authentication form in Flex and handling authorization for your users via NetPass (Membership and Role Provider for ASP.NET). If you still using NetPass from WDK5 or WDK6, or just want to expand your current webware application with Flex/ActionScript UI, you definitely need to look into this article.

A bit later i will post sample project for Adobe Flex UI and AsWing UI both. Since NetPass web service can operate via SOAP and REST both, you can use NetPass services for any kind of applications, all you need is HTTP access to your web server where you have NetPass installed.

For developers who uses my wdk4RB (WDK for RealBasic CGI Framework) i will post hints on how to implement NetPass related functionality to access from wdk4RB powered Windows, Linux and MacOS web servers.

Second big thing i will share with you - Modules. There are tons of articles written about using modules in Flex Applications, but none of them covers what i've discovered this week. Something that solves a lot of issues when you architecting complex applications.

So stay tuned ;)

Microsoft Labs Volta - somethign you have to try for sure

The Volta technology preview is a developer toolset that enables you to build multi-tier web applications by applying familiar techniques and patterns. First, design and build your application as a .NET client application, then assign the portions of the application to run on the server and the client tiers late in the development process. The compiler creates cross-browser JavaScript for the client tier, web services for the server tier, and communication, serialization, synchronization, security, and other boilerplate code to tie the tiers together.

FlashDevelop just keeps getting better...

Changes:

• General fixes (code completion, search, find & replace)
• Now with caching: much faster startup and projects opening
• Code completion & code generation for method override's
• Updated project templates with completion for CS3 fl classes, Flex mx classes and AIR classes
• FD now fully works as a standalone application (ie. on your USB key)
• Updated Start Page now notifies of program updates
• New extensible "intrinsic" completion support
• New AIR projects

Important notice:

• Java 1.6 + is required for the Flex compiler (ActionScript 3).
• The Flex SDK (2 or 3) is required for ActionScript 3 development (if you don't use Flash CS3).
• User related data is installed to the user's applications files: \Local Settings\Application Data\FlashDevelop
  

(You can navigate to this location from the main menu: Tools > Application Files).

Download:

Built from rev. 1992
Download FlashDevelop 3.0.0 Beta5

Should You Choose AJAX or Adobe?

When it comes to rich Internet application (RIA) technologies, application development professionals must choose between two paths: AJAX or Adobe. AJAX is the best bet for experienced Web development shops looking to incrementally evolve existing Web applications. Of course, selecting AJAX also raises the question of whether to go with a homegrown, open source, or commercial AJAX framework.

In contrast, Adobe is best for shops looking to completely transform their Web experiences. But to do so, firms must acquire the skills necessary to use Flex, which is the development framework for the Flash runtime environment. Early adopters with time-to-market concerns and comfort with either smaller vendors or open source can select AJAX with confidence. But firms that require support from a larger vendor and full-featured development tools will do better with Adobe.

Working with Large Applications

Working with Large Applications — In this excerpt from our book, Rich Internet Applications, we'll cover how to set up large applications intended for Web or, more broadly speaking, distributed deployment. As an example let's consider an enterprise application that consists of hundreds of screens, reports, forms, and dashboards. Accordingly, about a dozen engineers specializing in GUIs, frameworks, data layers, and business domains are working on this application in parallel.

It happend, Nintendo's ES Operating System

ES is a fairly interesting looking open source research OS created by Nintendo. Runs natively on x86 (and qemu of course), kernel is written in C++, uses an ECMAScript interpreter for all of the userland, uses Cairo for graphics, and even has a port of Squeak.

Yahoo! Architect Douglas Crockford Proposes "A Kinder, Gentler HTML 5"

"HTML has long been at war with itself," writes Yahoo! Architect Douglas Crockford, one of the most popular speakers at AJAXWorld ever since it began life early in 2006. "Is it a document format or is it an application delivery format? You can see that confusion in the cacophonous HTML 5 effort." But Crockford has very clear ideas on how to fix HTML: his approach is to make it better by exploiting unrecognized properties that it has had all along.

64 Kbyte Flash Media Server - Milenia Grafter Server

Milan Toth, who has written a range of great tutorials on ActionScript.org, has recently released Milenia Grafter Server, a free Flash Media Server which weighs only 64kb. Think the link was worth sharing with you all!

Features:

• Live Audio/Video streaming
• Live Stream Recording
• Powerful stream access control
• Lightweight client - server communication
• Client mode - you can connect to any kind of flash media server
• Server to server Data/Audio/Video communication - clustering
• Low memory requirement - not yet :D
• Admin console

DHTML eXtensions - professional AJAX components for advanced Web UI.

DHTMLX Ltd., a provider of AJAX-enabled DHTML UI components, has launched an updated Website www.dhtmlx.com with a new look-and-feel. More convenient content organization, new docs/samples explorer and other improvements facilitate user experience and make the site easier to use.

Samy worm creator hopes to be online again

If Samy Kamkar plays his cards right, he may be allowed to visit MySpace again in just a few months. For the time being, however, he's not even allowed to touch a computer, following a January 2007 guilty plea for creating what many consider to be the first Web 2.0 worm: the Samy worm.

Scott Guthrie Shares .NET Web Product Roadmap

The .NET Framework 3.5 release last week was a big one for .NET, and delivered what Scott Guthrie summarized as 'a ton of new capabilities and improvements for web, client, office and mobile development.' Guthrie additionally shared with developers a road-map of some of the upcoming initiatives and releases for .NET web development that his team is currently working on for the months ahead.

See also:

• ASP.NET MVC Tutorial
  

AJAX World 2008 Faculty to Represent World's Leading 50 RIA Companies

AJAX World 2008 Faculty Represent More Than 50 Companies including: 3Tera, Addison-Wesley, Adobe, Apress, Backbase, Bindows, Conference Guru, Cynergy Systems, Dynamic Toolbar, Extension Media, Farata Systems, Flash Goddess, FrogLogic, GoingToMeet.com, Google, Helmi Technologies, IBM, ICEsoft, ILOG, IT Mill, Ittoolbox, JackBe, JetBrains, Kaazing, Krugle, Laszlo Systems, Lightstreamer, Manning ...

Google Microsoft Search

More like accidentally i've found this: http://www.google.com/microsoft.html - Google Microsoft search, not sure what it was made for, but it actually works. Very simple search like http://www.google.com/microsoft?q=suxx&hq=microsoft&btnG=Google+Search actually will bring some results... Weird...