Duane's World 17 - Tagga.com, ScatterHeart and AIR tutorial

This episode of Duane's World features an interview with Tagga.com founder Amielle Lake. Tagga.com is a very compelling gateway to using mobile for web-based campaigns. Amielle's company has built out a great feature set on tagga.com.

The code and tunes section has a tutorial from James Ward on writing out files to a hard drive in Adobe AIR. The source code is below. Canadian band Scatterheart supplies two great tracks for this episode.

This episode starts in New York and ends with a run down Solar Coaster on Whistler Blackcomb.

The new Adobe LiveCycle ES secret Decoder ring

For anyone who has found difficulty in keeping up with our marketing department:

http://blogs.adobe.com/livecycledocs/2009/02/the_livecycle_terminology_secr.html

Absolutely brilliant!

Adobe AIR 1.5.1 released, new API

Adobe has now released Adobe AIR 1.5.1, a relatively minor update that includes a number of bug fixes. The new builds are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux on the Adobe AIR download center.

There is also a new API called InvokeEvent.reason. This event is dispatched by the NativeApplication when the application is started from the command line, via the GUI, or by opening an associated file. Applications can register and listen to the InvokeEvent and may also register themselves to launch automatically during user login.

From Robert Christensen:

"You do not need to recompile your application to take advantage of the 1.5.1 improvements. However, if you want to take advantage of the new APIs introduced in this release you will need to update your application descriptor to 1.5.1 (see New APIs section of the release notes) and recompile your application."

$100,000 for Flash Lite and Mobile Developers!

One of the greatest industry consortiums ever launched has to be the Open Screen Project. The Open Screen Project is a group of leaders in the mobile, computer and technology industries who are standardizing around Flash for a consistent run time experience. Members include (alphabetically) Adobe, ARM, BBC, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Comcast, Intel

, LG Electronics, Marvell, Motorola, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, OpenTV, Palm, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, Verizon Wireless. These are pretty much the heavyweights and others can easily join. This group has also decided to put their money up to help developers.

First, there is a $10,000,000 USD fund for developers. See http://www.openscreenproject.org/developers/get_started.html?promoid=EJZYZ.
From the site:

The Open Screen Project Fund is a US$10 million market development fund that will provide grants to developers in order to accelerate the creation of applications, content, and services that leverage the Adobe® Flash® Platform and run across mobile, desktop, and consumer electronics devices.

The global initiative was created to fuel innovation by directly commissioning select developers to create innovative applications and by providing education, support, and distribution guidance. Adobe and Nokia are the first contributors to the Open Screen Project Fund."

Concurrently, Adobe has launched the Flash Lite Developer Challenge project for Flash Lite Developers with $100,000 in prizes. This is specifically aimed at mobile development using Flash Lite as the development tool.

On the other side of the technology pond, well known venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins has announced a $100 million fund for iPhone developers. The iPhone still does not have Flash capabilities but most of us are hopeful that this will be ironed out so we don't have to boycott the iPhone. Nevertheless, Google and Palm, amongst others, are developing smartphones that will blow away the iPhone so it might not be as relevant in 2 years. Note that Google Android and Flash seem to be a marriage made in heaven. Likewise, the Windows Mobile O/S with Flash is a great combination.

It seems the major heavyweights in the marketplace are vying for the attention of developers. What does all this mean? If you have recently lost your job and are looking for a new career, becoming a mobile developer is probably a very viable strategy in a growth industry. Adobe can help you if you are new to Flash. I have a few free Flex Builder licenses I can give away to people who have recently lost their jobs (sorry - you have to be unemployed to qualify) plus I have a full day of free Flex and Flash training I can provide as a self-paced tutorial so you can get up to speed.

Come join us! This industry is fun. No shortage of money for developers!

The Credit Crunch Explained!

Found this on YouTube. Thought it was a clear distinct explanation. Enjoy.