Gig tonight, then off to Zurich, London

Maybe this should be a tweet? Just sitting around getting ready to load in to the BackStage Lounge to play tonight. Basses all packed, tuned, new strings etc. Tonight should be packed and a fun gig - the BackStage Lounge is one of my favorite venues. We also are playing some new material tonight as well as covering some Monster Magnet, Sex Pistols, Ramones and others. 

Microsoft ODF workshop? Cool!

Today I received the following email from the OASIS Open Document Format (ODF - the standard behind OpenOffice.org) Technical Committee list. This is most welcomed and surely shows that Microsoft is receiving the message loud and clear that ODF should be embraced and not destroyed. I applaud their invitation to get developers to test out ODF support.

This email is public record on the ODF Technical Committee email archives:

"As you know, Microsoft has recently announced support for ODF in the next service pack for Office (SP2 for Office 2007, expected to be released in the first half of 2009). In conjunction with that announcement, we would like to invite all members of the OASIS OpenDocument Format TC and subcommittees to a 1-day DII workshop on how Office will support ODF. The workshop will take place on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 in Redmond, Washington.

This event will be an opportunity for you to see an early demonstration of our ODF support, meet members of the Office PM/dev teams responsible for ODF support, and hear how we're looking at document format interoperability in general. We're looking forward to the opportunity to get to know each of you and to learn about your view of these issues, and the day will include plenty of unstructured discussion time for those purposes.

The Forum will be an all-day event on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, followed by a hosted dinner event at a nearby location. We're still working out the details of the day, but it will include three general types of activities:

- Presentations from members of the Office product team, to explain our approach to ODF support and demonstrate some of the specific functionality we're planning.
- Hands-on lab time, to give you an opportunity to try out a pre-release version of our ODF support.
- Discussion time, so that we can hear your feedback on topics of interest to document format implementers.

If you are interested in attending, please let me know by June 30th by sending email to (dmahugh) at microsoft*dot*com. We will have limited space, so I wanted to extend this invitation to the ODF TC members first so that we can accommodate as many of you as would like to attend. We will provide additional information regarding logistics, local hotels, etc to confirmed attendees.

This event will provide a unique opportunity to see firsthand how Microsoft is planning to implement ODF support in Office, and we hope that you will be able to join us. If you have any questions or need additional information, please let me know.

Best regards,
Doug Mahugh

The SOA Reference Architecture work Inspected

This Dilbert cartoon really got me thinking about the last time we presented the SOA RA work at a conference.

Why your luggage might be broken ;-)

I was standing at Vancouver International Airport watching luggage being automatically mangled by their conveyor belt. A few of us filmed it while offering a commentary. Very funny only if YOUR luggage was not on this flight.

RANT: Rogers Home Phone Sucks!!!

I came back from Ottawa today and found that my home business phone had been disconnected by Rogers.ca. I checked and actually re-paid the full balance of the last bill, thinking I had somehow missed it. Upon closer inspection, it turns out I have already paid the bill - TWICE!!! I challenge Rogers to prove otherwise as I have the records! As a result, I really feel everyone needs to know how really sad Rogers customer service is.

I got on the phone with "M", a representative. She is obviously in a call centre because she cannot grasp simple facts like people need their business lines to survive and lines that are errantly disconnected should be immediately re-connected. Her "manager" has to approve it and make the transfer but their internal system crashed.

Rogers is not quite as bad as Telus, but they are getting close. Shaw Cable on the other hand is a shining example of great customer service. At Shaw, a human actually answers the phone. When I phone the number printed on my Rogers bill, I get transferred to between 2-5 people before someone from the "right" department can attempt to understand. This reflects really badly on their ability to survive long term IMO as it both wastes their employees' valuable hours and annoys customers.

I am left in the lurch right now, having paid over $300 when I actually owe less than $200 and I'm still without a phone. Will update later.

Don't do business with Rogers for home phone if you do not have to. Same for Telus.

Duane's World TV - Episode 4 is live!

In this interview, we feature great indy music from Eddy Bugnut (with download links) and talk to Robert Horne, SAP/Business Objects evangelist, about their adoption of Flex and AIR for the front-end to SAP systems on a global scale.

The code and tunes segment works with an associative array (also multidimensional array) and binding it to a Flex chart. The source code will be made available to anyone interested by emailing me at dnickull at adobe dot com.

Enjoy!

Working with Video in Adobe Flex Builder 3

This video for the Adobe Developer Connection just launched showing step by step how to build a video project in under 4 minutes.



The source code can be downloaded here. There are about 30 projects in total with complete source code you can download.

A future episode of Duane's World TV will also feature this segment and interviews from the European Broadcasting Union meeting in Geneva, CH.

AIR 1.1 is out!

Version 1.1 of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is now publicly available. Adobe has released a FAQ sheet to bring developers up to speed on what has changed. Here are the main topics:

1. AIR has been translated and can now be localized into ten additional languages (English only for 1.0). The new list of languages now includes Japanese, French, German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Italian, English, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese. I presume this probably also translates into where the most AIR activity is so if you want your language supported, get active. DISCLAIMER: I am just guessing.

2. Coinciding with the above language support, the AIR APIs and file formats have been updated to enable AIR-based applications to be localized and International keyboard input is now supported. I haven't had time to play around with this yet but will try to get some code samples together in the days to follow.

There is also added support for localizing the name and description attributes in the application descriptor file. This means that the app name etc. will be available in the localized language. Also introduced is support for localizing error messages, such as SQLError.detailID and SQLError.detailArguments, in the SQLite database and the addition of a Capabilities.languages property to obtain an array of preferred UI languages as set by the operating system. Note that the <mx:html> button labels and default menus, such as context menus and the Mac menu bar, have been localized to all supported languages as well. C'est une nouveux dialog en Francais ici!



3. AIR 1.1 is GB18030 certified. GB18030 is the registered Internet name for the official character set of the People's Republic of China (PRC) superseding GB2312. This character set is formally called "Chinese National Standard GB 18030-2005: Information technology -- Chinese coded character set".

4. Security Upgrades. A new certificate migration feature is available that allows developers to migrate their applications between different digital signing certificates. Read the documentation on how this works.

Developers - If you use Flex Builder 3 to build Adobe AIR applications, you will need to manually update the SDK. Instructions on how to perform a manual update are described in the Flex Builder TechNote. You can find out more about Flex 3 and the Adobe AIR 1.1 release on the Adobe Developer Connection site.

While AIR 1.1 is a dot release, it represents a significant step forward in AIR capabilities, and its development required a significant effort from the core AIR team and from teams around the company. The Adobe AIR team deserves a huge round of applause.

Settled - the argument over which technology is best

Another week, another ten billion blog posts from people telling each other (is anyone really listening?) which technology is best. I have been watching this pattern for a long time but today I got really riled up over one that made some distorted claims about Flash.

Regardless, today's experience gave me an epiphany. Which technology is best? Simple - the one that people can use. Wasn't that like an IBM ad from two decades ago?

What made me realize this?

1. I sent over a PPT file to some guys from Microsoft. I work for Adobe but I honestly love Powerpoint. Powerpoint is a great tool and easy to use - people use it. Sure I could have sent over PDF but I didn't. I have seen Apple employees give talks using PPT instead of Keynote too.

2. I re-read part of Microsoft's XML Paper Specification and realized it is published in PDF. Right tool for the right job.

3. The guy complaining about Flash works for a company that used Flash on the front page of their company's website. I think Microsoft also still has some of the best Flash experiences on their site too.

4. I was asked internally to answer a set of customer questions about Flex vs. AJAX. I responded stating that I don't see why there even has to be a competition. Adobe loves AJAX, so do I.

Technologies that people use rock! People use technology that is the easiest choice to do the job. People use technologies they are familiar with. My mom still won't use a cell phone but has adopted the internet. People use whatever interoperates with the status quo. Without this, none of the other arguing would even be read since we would be outside doing something else instead of sitting in front of computers all day.

Hmmm - never mind.

Have a good weekend!

ISO puts OOXML on hold?

(Disclaimer: I am not pushing any opinion, just trying to wade through the facts).

There is a confusing issue happening with OOXML, the Microsoft-proposed ISO (apparently) standard for XML Office Documents. In the past, many people feel it has been rushed into the standards process and represents a sham in the standards development industry. I disagree slightly with this view as most SDOs have very transparent and accountable processes in place. ISO's processes are documented. Microsoft has the same ability to use the rules and processes as others do. I have not seen any concrete evidence that they have violated the standards process, only vague accusations. If you have any concrete examples, please leave them here as comments with links.

For those who have not been following along, OOXML is a format for Microsoft Office (like Microsoft word or *.doc format except in XML and zipped). It has been proposed as a standard at ISO and "fast tracked" to become an ISO standard. ISO itself has rules in place which state that only one official standard shall exist for each category or domain/purpose. Apparently the purpose and scope of OOXML is sufficiently different from the Open Document Format (an OASIS standard and open format supported by IBM, Sun and many others such as OpenOffice.org). ISO has approved the standard as noted here:

http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1123

Nevertheless, on Slashdot this story appeared yesterday:

"schliz alerts us that ISO, in response to the four appeals (Venezuela, India, Brazil, South Africa) filed in recent weeks, has put the OOXML standardization process on hold. Here is ISO's press release, which says that ISO/IEC DIS 29500 will not be published for at least "several months" while the appeals process goes forward."

This was followed by a somewhat cryptic update:

"Update: 06/11 10:13 GMT by KD : Reader Alsee points out that the fourth officially recognized appealing country is Venezuela, not Denmark as originally stated. The protests of Denmark and Norway are being disregarded, as they do not come from the administrative heads of their national organizations."

Now I am confused too. The official ISO release clearly states:

"Four national standards body members of ISO and IEC – Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela – have submitted appeals against the recent approval of ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML formats, as an ISO/IEC International Standard."

A letter in Danish (http://osl.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/AFD/ISO_klage_maj08.pdf) seems to be made incorrectly (officially I think you have to use English, Russian, or French to communicate in the United Nations or ISO) yet carried with it the weight of the nation. The official Danish Standards organization (and hence ISO voice) did not make the complaint - it was made and sent to that organization. Having dealt with Danish SDOs before, I know they take this stuff seriously so I have sincere feelings that the heart of the Danish SDO might be on side on this case (Disclaimer: my opinion, not fact). Note that officially, ISO does not recognize the author of the letter, OSL - an open source group. As translated and reported on Groklaw,

"(The letter in question) states that ISO rules were broken, there was no consensus in Denmark, and that the Fast Track process "has been formally annulled for 2 months now - since the 29th of March, where the specification should have been sent to the national standardization organizations. The basis for a fast track procedure is no longer present, and I therefore expect ISO to pick up the case again." Read on for the full letter, and for clarity, it's a letter of protest, not an appeal from the standards body. However, it's a letter from a member of the technical committee who participated in the BRM and who raises serious concerns."

I cannot find an official response from ISO to this letter anywhere. So what about Norway? Norway's protest seems to be more official at least according to Scuttlemonkey's post on slashdot:

"I am writing to you in my capacity as Chairman (of 13 years standing) of the Norwegian mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34. I wish to inform you of serious irregularities in connection with the Norwegian vote on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (Office Open XML) and to lodge a formal protest. You will have been notified that Norway voted to approve OOXML in this ballot. This decision does not reflect the view of the vast majority of the Norwegian committee, 80% of which was against changing Norway's vote from No with comments to Yes."

The alleged letter is documented at http://blog.abrenna.com/formal-protest-against-norways-yes-to-ooxml/. If an acting chairman's letter, written in English, is not official I have no idea why.

So where lies the truth and what will happen? I researched ISO's process of dealing with protests. It is at http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink.exe/fetch/186605/customview.html?func=ll&objId=186605&objAction=browse&sort=name. Ironically, this page does not seem to conform to web standards and I need some plugin to view the content. In short, Roger Frost, ISO's Manager of Communication, has stated publicly in the release the following:

"In accordance with the ISO/IEC rules governing the work of their joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, the appeals are currently being considered by the ISO Secretary-General and the IEC General Secretary who, within a period of 30 days (to the end of June), and following whatever consultations they judge appropriate, are required to submit the appeals, with their comments, to the ISO Technical Management Board and the IEC Standardization Management Board."

I guess we all have to wait and see. Prediction? This stall will have no effect on the overall status of ISO approval of OOXML. Microsoft has claimed it will add support for the Open Document Format (ODF) and that should quell some of the opposition. There has been a lot of resources and energy wasted on this debate. Regardless of the outcome, here are my predictions:

1. The fact ISO approves or does not approve OOXML will have little effect on it being put into future versions of Microsoft Office.

2. No one who is anti-Microsoft will not suddenly be pro-Microsoft just because of approval from ISO.

3. Real standards are, in part, ipso facto adoption and use. ISO's stamp does provide some additional credibility but due to the press about this, I doubt will have any serious impact on people's opinions who have been paying attention. Those who have not paid attention may get suckered by the "yes - it is a standard" spiel however the reality is that Microsoft Office is a standard today, with or without ISO stamps.

4. The real issue is that several governments have made statements governing software purchase which limits purchases to standards. If MS office supports ODF, will it be legal to be purchased by most governments? Probably yes. Will they use the ODF format or OOXML for document persistence? You take a guess.

Comments? I'd love to hear other arguments.

The Sex Pistols need your Money! What about Music 2.0?

Fresh from the horse's mouth - the Sex Pistols (or whoever owns their IPR) have launched the first ever Pistols website. I wonder how the people who have the "other" official Sex Pistols site feel? The site has tons of stuff for sale and some cool content, but it reminds me of Johnny's honest quote about why they re-united for a tour in 1996 - "We want your money."

What about Music 2.0 - isn't it going to save the artists?

The recording industry is still floundering in its inability to grasp the reality of the Internet. I made a blog post about this on Mix2r.fm yesterday and wonder what the new model will be. I guess more bands are going to be touring and releasing more of their merchandise from their closets (good for us). The Sex Pistols official site lists a special DVD coming out June 30 titled "There'll Always Be An England". I'm gonna order mine - if Johnny needs my money I'll lend him a quid any day but the DVD is well worth it (Disclaimer: I have not seen it yet). Johnny - next time you're in Vancouver pints are on me!!

So what do you do if you are someone famous (or formerly famous) like John Lydon, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, et al. to earn money today? Your royalty cheques are getting smaller, labels are dropping your content, you've got songs starting to appear on "Best of " CDs. What I'd like to see is some of these guys start to realize that they can monetize the respect the fans have for them by means other than merchandise or unique performances. I'd like to see some of them start to offer their services on sites like Mix2r.fm. I'd love to be able to offer Glen Matlock $1,000 to play bass on a track on my new CD and since this can be done virtually, he can probably pull it off in minimal time and upload his track to mix2r.fm. I'd like to see more open source music donated by some of these artists but also stub recordings with abilities for users to donate money back if they use it. Why doesn't Johnny sample his voice and allow people to mix it into their music for a suggested price? I'd pay!

Anyways, I want to order my official copy of the DVD before they're gone and I have to rip one via BitTorrent because some nitwit miscalculated how many copies they can sell. ;-)

Peter Way - R.I.P.

One of my best friends from high school died in a motor cycle accident. Peter was full of life and loved all. I cannot express in words what this loss means.



Sleep well sweet prince...

22nd Century at the Railway Club

Here are some photos from our recent gig at the railway club. Special thanks to Sarah Wark for taking these! We also uploaded some new songs to Mix2r.fm.




Tim, Glen & me playing Let Me Be



Banging out a Punk-metal version of "Echo Beach".



Covering 'Surrender' - Cheap Trick.

Duane's World TV - Episode 3 live

Episode 3 is now live. In this episode, I talk about Search Engine Optimization. Some of the tips are talked about on a previous blog post however a lot of the information is new including an interview with the gurus at 6s Marketing.



Note that the tricks of search engine monitoring are linked specifically to the Google personalized search page but do apply to regular page rankings as well. Why else do you think Adobe got #1 rankings for such terms as "SOA White Paper" and "Enterprise Developer Relations"?

Adobe MAX 2008 Information

MAX 2008, or more formally "Adobe MAX 2008", is going to be huge this year given we sold out last year.



MAX 2008/2009 has been announced and will be held in the following cities:

MAX 2008 North America
San Francisco, California
November 16 - 19, 2008

MAX 2008 Europe
Milan, Italy
December 1 - 4, 2008

MAX 2008 Japan
Tokyo, Japan
January 2009

MAX is an experience unlike any other, presenting opportunities for designers, developers and architects to connect with the people who matter. MAX 2008 will be the ultimate MAX and track sessions are being sought now.

SUBSCRIBE:: MAX 2007 Sold Out!


Subscribe now to the list so you don't miss out. Last year we capped it at 4,200 and had to turn people away. Subscribe today.

GET INVOLVED:: Suggest a Session



For MAX 2008 we are accepting ideas and suggestions. Use the link above to suggest something.

Sponsor:: Give to the Community



MAX has a limited number of high level sponsorships available. As always, these tend to go fast. Use the sponsor link above to let MAX 2008 know you want in.

Duane's World TV Show Episode 2 out today!

Show two airs today. It features multiple guests and outtakes from my trip to India and also has step-by-step instructions to build a Flex - Yahoo Map using the new AS3 SWC in Code and Tunes. The show's focus is on "Community in Software Development". Hope you enjoy. Please leave any feedback below.

Developers Tools and Examples for Flash Player 10

Yesterday, Adobe announced Flash Player 10 with tons of really new features (yes - Linux too). But - there didn't seem to be any way for developers to get into the action yesterday.

Luckily, Lee Brimelow (The Flash Blog) sent me this link to an excellent video explaining how you can use MXMLC (Flex Compiler Shell) to write some samples that use the new capabilities of Flash Player 10.

If you really get stuck - consider going to the Flash Player 10 public forum.

Moscone, Norovirus, JavaOne - The Truth Please

I made an earlier blog post here discussing my experience with a norovirus and passing out on stage. Like most people who attended JavaOne, I never really questioned the mainstream press story until people started posting comments on my blog that seem to contradict the official story. Now I want to call out and ask for people who have had similar experiences to add comments to this blog if they want to request a more thorough investigation of what really happened.

I have also contacted a couple of reporters and asked them to look into this further. Here are the things that concern me:

1. The Contra Costa Times and others reported that the SF Department of Health became aware of the norovirus problem on Wednesday, May 7. Why were JavaOne attendees not warned until Friday at 3:00 AM and why was food allowed to be served Wed, Thurs and Friday if it was suspected that it was a food issue?

2. The official statement from Jim Soos was that no one was hospitalized, however Greg H. (he left a comment on the earlier post) was. Besides, how would he know if we went to hospitals anyways? If a spokesperson doesn't know, they had no business making such statements as fact. Understandably, Jim is probably now aware that at least one person was hospitalized and maybe didn't know at the time he spoke.

3. Most of the official press reported that only 3 non-Moscone staff got sick. Obviously more than 3 non-Moscone workers contracted it as there are myself and 4 others just on the earlier blog post. If you had it or the symptoms please leave a comment on this blog. I want to find out how many people really got sick. This official number of "3" is now wrong. The number comes from David Perry, spokesperson for Moscone who stated:

David Perry, spokesman for the Moscone Center, said 67 of people infected were staff working at the weeklong conference and 3 were attendees

See full story here

4. What the hell was Moscone doing serving us food? Here is what a statement to ponder (courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle):

The source of the virus has not yet been identified, but generally the norovirus is passed when an infected person spreads microbes either by preparing food or sharing plates or utensils, said Jim Soos, assistant director of policy and planning at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

So Moscone knew about it as early as Wednesday, but continued to serve us food Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Hmmm - was any testing done to make sure the food was safe? Were we warned that maybe the food might be the cause? No - nothing but silence! This is not right IMO.

I want to point out that I don't blame any one group. I love Sun (a lot of friends there) and I want to be at every JavaOne conference in the future. I will be back at Moscone for other conferences this year and actually know many of the staff there who are very polite and pleasant. I don't know Jim Soos but imagine he must have a tough job.

What I really want to do is to find the truth. If you know something, please add it here.

Which scripting language is most popular?

This is a totally unscientific bit of research to answer a question about the popularity of various scripting languages posed to me by Mike Chambers. After a quick search, it appears that there was no reliable data available. I deferred to a far less than scientific methodology to find out which of the four big languages (ActionScript, JavaScript, Perl, and VBScript) I am following are leading in different categories.

I realize that there are some languages left off this list. This is because I am lazy (something which I have admitted to before).

Here is the survey as of May 2008:

Monster.com jobs keyword search

The scientist must consider that first off, it only shows that JavaScript got over 5000, not the exact number. In all fairness, I never did a search on “Flash,” which includes ActionScript Skills. I figured if I had done this, I probably would have had to also search for “AJAX,” which obviously includes JavaScript. Here are the results in order of ranking.

*Javascript > 5,000
http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?re=130&cy=us&brd=1&JSNONREG=1&q=javascript&rad=20&rad_units=miles

Perl 4,442
http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?re=0&cy=us&brd=1&jsnonreg=1&q=perl&rad_units=miles&pg=1&vw=b

ActionScript 778
http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?re=0&cy=us&brd=1&jsnonreg=1&q=actionscript&rad_units=miles&pg=1&vw=b

VBScript 856
http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?re=0&cy=us&brd=1&jsnonreg=1&q=vbscript&rad_units=miles&pg=1&vw=b

* Did not give exact number

Note that “Flash” gave 3,552 results:
http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?re=130&cy=us&brd=1&JSNONREG=1&q=flash&rad=20&rad_units=miles

which was more than “AJAX” at 2,835
http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?re=0&cy=us&brd=1&jsnonreg=1&q=ajax&rad_units=miles&pg=1&vw=b

Amazon.com Books

Book searches on Amazon also appear to be totally unscientific. Given that Perl has been around the longest and was powering most of the first Internet bubble, it is no surprise it topped the rankings. ActionScript came in a dismal last place.

Perl 20,317
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=perl&x=0&y=0

JavaScript 7,338
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=javascript&x=0&y=0

VBScript 2,913
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=vbscript&x=0&y=0

ActionScript 666
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=actionscript&x=0&y=0

I decided to supplement this search with additional searches on “Flash” and “AJAX” to capture more of the current AS and JS crowd books.

Flash garnered 266,572 results
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_i_0?ie=UTF8&rs=&keywords=flash&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aflash%2Ci%3Astripbooks

while AJAX got around 15,000
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=AJAX&x=0&y=0

Google results “(term) developer”

For this search, the terms were enclosed in quotes making it a string search. Otherwise I suspected all the pages that merely contained the Script type="JavaScript” element and attribute set would have come up falsely strong. In fact, most pages that have Flash use JavaScript to load them and do detection of Flash Player version etc. The results here show that there are still lot of people discussing Perl Developers however ActionScript did come in second.

Perl developer 352,000
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22perl+developer%22&btnG=Search

ActionScript developer 99,400
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=%22Actionscript+developer%22&btnG=Google+Search

JavaScript developer 75,500
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=%22javascript+developer%22&btnG=Google+Search

VBScript developer 1,210
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22vbscript+developer%22&btnG=Search

Flash Developer got just over 1,000,000
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=%22flash+developer%22&btnG=Google+Search

Ajax Developer got 94,300
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&pwst=1&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=%22ajax+developer%22&spell=1

and Flex Developer got 214,000
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22Flex+developer%22&btnG=Search

So what does it all mean? Not much really - it is an unscientific approximation of which scripting language might be more popular.

OASIS SOA Reference Architecture call for review

To OASIS members, Public Announce Lists:

The OASIS Service Oriented Architecture Reference Model (SOA-RM) TC has recently
approved the following specification as a Committee Draft and approved the
package for public review:

Reference Architecture for Service Oriented Architecture Version 1.0

The public review starts today, 9 May 2008, and ends 8 July 2008. This is an
open invitation to comment. We strongly encourage feedback from potential users,
developers and others, whether OASIS members or not, for the sake of improving
the interoperability and quality of OASIS work. Please feel free to distribute
this announcement within your organization and to other appropriate mail lists.

More non-normative information about the specification and the technical
committee may be found at the public home page of the TC at
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=soa-rm. Comments may
be submitted to the TC by any person through the use of the OASIS TC Comment
Facility which can be located via the button marked "Send A Comment" at the top
of that page, or directly at
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/index.php?wg_abbrev=soa-rm.

Submitted comments (for this work as well as other works of that TC) are
publicly archived and can be viewed at
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/soa-rm-comment/. All comments submitted to
OASIS are subject to the OASIS Feedback License, which ensures that the feedback
you provide carries the same obligations at least as the obligations of the TC
members.

The specification document and related files are available here:

Editable Source:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/soa-rm/soa-ra/v1.0/soa-ra-pr-01.doc

PDF (Authoritative):
http://docs.oasis-open.org/soa-rm/soa-ra/v1.0/soa-ra-pr-01.pdf

HTML:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/soa-rm/soa-ra/v1.0/soa-ra-pr-01.html

Abstract:
"This document specifies the OASIS Reference Architecture for Service Oriented
Architecture. It follows from the concepts and relationships defined in the
OASIS Reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture. While it remains
abstract in nature, the current document describes one possible template upon
which a SOA concrete architecture can be built.

"Our focus in this architecture is on an approach to integrating business with
the information technology needed to support it. The issues involved with
integration are always present, but, we find, are thrown into clear focus when
business integration involves crossing ownership boundaries.

...

"The Reference Architecture has three main views: the Business via Service view
which lays the foundation for conducting business in the context of Service
Oriented Architecture; the Realizing Services view which addresses the
requirements for constructing a Service Oriented Architecture; and the Owning
Service Oriented Architecture view which focuses on the governance and
management of SOA-based systems."


OASIS and the Service Oriented Architecture Reference Model (SOA-RM) TC welcome
your comments.

Yes - I did pass out on stage at JavaOne.

Thank you for all the emails. I apparently contract the norovirus that was running rampant through JavaOne this year. While I spent most of the night vomiting (and worse), I did feel okay in the morning. I went to a medical clinic totally unaware the virus was around and they diagnosed it. I later found out via the news that a norovirus was the culprit.

I felt okay so I decided to go ahead with my final presentation on SOA, Standards and Java at 1:30 on Friday; however my co-presenter Steve Jones of Capgemini noticed I wasn't looking too good. To make a long story short, at the end of the code demo part I keeled over and apparently blacked out on stage in front of quite a few hundred people. I guess it is a good way to avoid Q&A. Goods news is we actually got the presentation done first.

The media picked up the story later that day:
CBS - http://cbs5.com/local/norovirus.moscone.outbreak.2.720481.html

SF Chronicle - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/10/BAB910JRM3.DTL&type=health

CNET - http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9940042-36.html?tag=cd.blog

Thank you to everyone who wrote in. I am still sick but okay enough to blog. Will update later.

Duane's World TV Show Launches today!

Duane's World, a new TV show focused on how technology impacts people lives and full of interviews and coding samples and tips, launched today. There are 12 episodes planned for 2008. The first show starts with a small talk on Web Services and SOA, continues with an interview with the guys from Nitobi, and concludes with a lesson on how to use the Flex Builder version 3 WSDL import wizard to build a full web service client. Andre discusses AJAX, Flex, and AIR development including fighting for Red Bull drinks with Mike Chambers and playing jokes on Grant Skinner.

Stupid JavaOne 2008 fun!!!!

I was bored so I decided to climb inside a large plastic ball and ask some guys to chuck me around. Does this thing or these guys look dangerous? See the movie below. LOL!!!

Yes Virginia - Adobe does listen to Slashdot

Today I saw a comment on Slashdot (my all time favorite online community) that made me realize just how far Adobe has come.

“The mere idea of higher ups at a previously assumed Big Evil Company paying attention to discussions on Slashdot (with critiques here often ruthless, multifaceted, and heavily biased towards consumer interests) is pretty shocking, and heartening.

If this signals a major shift in Adobe's operating culture, I think it's cause for celebration.”

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=539834&cid=23263596

Yes - it is true. In fact, we regularly peruse Slashdot to find out the latest, brutally honest opinions from the hardest to please tech-heads. I doubt we'll ever satisfy everyone but to recap, Adobe is definitely on the right track. PDF to ISO, The ActionScript Virtual Machine (VM behind Flash PLayer) open sourced via SourceForge, the Open Screen Project, The Flex Compiler open source project and BlazeDS are just a few examples of Adobe putting community and developers ahead of corporate greed. So what does this mean?

• Anyone who complains that Acrobat Reader is bloated is free to (try to) write a new PDF reader that works faster.
• Anyone who thinks the Flash Player is too slow is welcome to help.
• Anyone who wants a bug fixed in the Flex SDK can fix it for themselves and others.
• We all get to work together to build a cool technology stack that works for us.

Maybe I sound too much like an optimist or a hype. I do have faith in our company and really love working here. I love the change that is occurring and having a CEO and CTO that understand Slashdot and actually take time to read and take in what is being said.

What's next? Flash on the iPhone? Please already!!!

;-)

The Open Screen Project rocks the RIA world!!!!

Today Adobe announced the Open Screen Project, a major step forward to drive rich Internet experiences across televisions, personal computers, mobile devices and consumer electronics. The Open Screen Project is supported by technology leaders ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics, Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Verizon Wireless, and leading content providers including BBC, MTV Networks and NBC Universal. The ASP removes barriers to adoption for all companies including:

- Removing restrictions on use of the Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV/F4V) specifications

- Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player, enabling third parties to more easily embed it in devices

- Publishing the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and the Action Message Format (AMF) protocol for robust data services

- Removing licensing fees – making the next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

- Working with partners to enable the client technology to be updated over the network to maintain consistency as we continue to innovate

- Working with partners to enable open access to web content and rich Internet applications by users across devices and networks

Web 2.0 Expo San Fransisco Materials

I will be shortly uploading the materials from the following two talks at Web 2.0 Expo:

1. Flex and AIR Boot Camp
- 25 code projects with source code [Download]
- instruction guide to present these [Download]
- PPT Slides (Feel free to use and re-label) [Download]
- Flex/Air Cookbook - Feb 2008 [Download]
- Bootcamp projects in MS Word with additional instruction [Download]

2. Ontologies for the Enterprise
- PDF version of slides. Note that you must check with John Sowa and Adam Pease before re-presenting these slides. [Download]

3. Specific Flex or AIR source code
- AIR Apple Shaped Application - no chrome, runtime morphing [Download]
- AIR Backwards Countdown Timer - counts backwards until specific date [Download]
- AIR FullScreen - app to mimic PPT presentation w/integrated demos [Download]

4. Misc Stuff I promised a few people
- 6 songs from my Band 22nd Century (zipped) [Download]

Please feel free to take the materials and use them to present. I'll post the URL's here once done.

Albelli Launches Photo Book Software on Adobe AIR

I am at Web 2.0 Expo today and got a really cool surprise. Joris sent me an email and announced that Albelli launched using PhotoBucket's API. This is one of the coolest AIR applications I have ever seen. The full site is here:

http://www.albelli.com/photobucket

Their application is written in Adobe AIR and can be downloaded. You can use it to build a custom photo album using your own photos and then order it to be printed and delivered to your house. This is a great mashup and has some very interesting technology behind it.

I first ran into Joris at Web 20 Expo in Berlin last year. Watch these guys and visit the site for sure.

LiveCycle Contest

The Acrobat User Community is hosting a PDF Forms contest. Forms creation, distribution and response tracking are one of the most popular uses for Acrobat. But users need more samples of great forms and useful templates.

The purpose of the PDF forms contest is to create a public library of sample PDF Forms and LiveCycle Designer templates that other PDF creators can use. The contest is open to qualified participants in any industry. You can even use a free 30-day trial copy of Acrobat 8 Professional to create your entries.

There are two entry categories:

Category: Fillable Forms
Show sophisticated and visually interesting fillable PDF Forms created using the forms toolbar in Acrobat 8 Professional, that may include interactive form elements, auto-formatting, calculations and Javascripting.

Category: LiveCycle Designer Templates
Develop form templates that can be used in LiveCycle Designer 8, and may include graphics, interactive form elements, library elements, auto-formatting, calculations and Javascripting. (LiveCycle Designer is included with every copy of Acrobat 8 Professional for Windows)

Notable entries will appear in the PDF Forms gallery. Entries may also qualify to win Adobe software, video cams and t-shirts.

The contest runs from Mar 10, 2008 until Apr 30, 2008.

Full details at http://www.acrobatusers.com/contests/forms/

The end of the web as we know it

Sounds like an REM song doesn't it. The title is actually a white paper I co-wrote with Brady Forrest and Jack Wilber for Webinale 08 in Karlsruhe, DE. I'll be speaking at the event in May this year. Ich liebe Deutschland!!

Das Deutschen Papier ist hier:
http://createordie.de/cod/artikel/Revolution-im
-Internet-Wie-das-Web-zur-Plattform-wurde-1650.html

The English version is available online at: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/articles/web_end.html

Moss on the brain?

I caught a weird Twit from a friend who forwarded it to me. Scott Barnes, an evangelist for Microsoft, made fun of LiveCycle by pointing to a 1988 demo of a Wang document with rudimentary voice, CRUD and digsig features. In his twit, he labeled it "the best Adobe LiveCycle sales pitch i've ever seen.. well done Adobe". The twit (note: using the word "twit" to refer to the twitter entry in this case; not the person who wrote it) can be found here.

I got curious to know why he is picking on LiveCycle and followed it to the MossyBlog. Being Canadian, I know that moss usually grows on things that do not get enough direct sunlight and has a way of sucking the life out of the host. It is curious to see a blog use this metaphor as its primary moniker.

Nevertheless, after reading a bit and becoming completely bored, I have to surmise that he is getting paid to knock LiveCycle, has not seen a demo (most demos involve Microsoft technology too such as office, Win 2003 server, .NET framework 1.1 and more), and has no idea what LiveCycle ES is.

I only hope that someone at Microsoft realizes that Adobe and Microsoft have worked together very hard to bring LiveCycle to the market on the Microsoft platform. We have worked hard on the development of standards and protocols for the WS-* stack, including WS-Security, the Kerberos protocol, integration with Active Directory and much more. Most intelligent document workflows start out authoring documents in Microsoft Office so we need to work together for the benefit of the customer.

Yes - we do compete in some areas but increasingly, both companies are working towards a common good - satisfying their customers!

Makes me curious why he would willingly mock all the work Microsoft and Adobe have done together over the years. I guess when you only blog and don't spend time in real customer engagements, this cause might get lost. Nuff said!

Apple OR pear shaped AIR application?

I was challenged by a reader to build an Apple shaped application in Adobe AIR several months ago. I got an interesting email today asking if such an application could be shape shifted during runtime to change between being Apple and Pear shaped. The application is very simple yet demonstrates how to build apps that escape conventional boundaries such as rectangles. You may download the complete source code for the project here.

SPAM war deepens - am I winning?

Today I woke up to check my email and found that my email address had once again been used to spoof the "send" for buckets of SPAM.  This is due to my open advocacy of finding and physically bestowing great pain upon those parasitic individuals who plague the rest of humanity with SPAM.  The picture below shows my inbox:

This has not resulted in one single person complaining to me which is great. It means that the average recipient has enough intelligence to understand that the true spammer is using the email addresses of those who fight spam as the "sent from" address.

So what can we do now?  I am working with a few agencies worldwide to find this particular culprit.  The Chinese government is very hard on those who break laws and will likely severely punish any Chinese citizen for this.  The Russians are less accommodating however I have heard that you can easily hire "third parties" to take care of business in that country.

Distributing the AIR Runtime

Today I read a great post from Mike Chambers on how third party development shops can distribute the Adobe AIR runtime. Mike's full article can be read here. Here is an excerpt:

In order to re-distribute the Adobe AIR installer, you must first apply for, and receive permission from Adobe to redistribute it (this requires accepting a license, and submitting a form). Once you do this, you can get all of the documentation for how to distribute the runtime and integrate it with your custom installer.

We have a ton of information on this on the website (including a FAQ).

In general, the license allows you to:

* distribute the runtime installer on a closed intranet
* distribute the runtime installer on fixed media, such as CD or DVD Roms.
* distribute and launch the runtime installer as part of another native installer

In general, the license does not allow you to:

* modify the installer, or files to allow AIR application to run without having the runtime installed on the user’s system.
* distribute DLL’s or other files from the runtime directly within an application

So why is this such an important issue? Simple - it is about the entire community ensuring the end users have a good experience. While there are strong technical reasons (read the FAQ) for getting Adobe permission, consider what would happen if we had rogue companies randomly distributing modified versions of the AIR runtime without some form of central methodology and management. It could be somewhat chaotic but more importantly, for the good of the overall community, we need to all work together to cater to the end users to deliver a positive experience. This latter point cannot be emphasized enough.

While most development shops will likely just use the "get AIR" badge and rely on Adobe to incur the bandwidth costs for distribution (similar to how Sun distributes the Java Runtime Environment), you may apply for the Adobe AIR Runtime Distribution License Agreement if you have a good reason to want to distribute it yourself. Both are valid options and each company must chose the option that works best for them. Anyone can apply for that license here.

Note: Installing the Adobe AIR Runtime silently, deploying via SMS or Group Policy Objects is currently not a supported option. If you require installing the runtime silently please send an email to license-air-silent@adobe.com so that we can notify you when that feature becomes available.

Some useful online security advice

Last week I spoke at the Massive Tech show on a security panel. During the talk, I quickly realized how far in the dark many consumers are as to the dangers of online behavior. Many people, via sheer ignorance, expose themselves to unnecessary risks. The following are some quick tips I want to share to help raise awareness.

1. Always log out. When you log into an online application (such as your online banking or brokerage account), a session is created. If you simply close the browser without logging out, the session may remain open for a short time leaving it vulnerable to replay style attacks. In these types of attacks, someone could send a request or hit the back button on your own browser and be able to access your account as if they were you. Closing the session properly by logging out removes a huge amount of risk.

2. Use at least 3 different passwords for all your online activities. I use 3 - one for low value logins (such as a user group), one for medium risk and one password for high risk, high value applications such as online banking, paypal and our corporate network. NEVER use your highest value password for low risk accounts. It is very conceivable that someone could socially engineer an attack against you by finding out your interest and sending you an offer you cannot refuse (free iPod Touch with each new account on "someAttractiveWebsite.com"). A clever webmaster and hacker could spoof a password text field and trick you into providing your high value password for some offer when you set up a new account. USE MORE THAN ONE PASSWORD!!!

3. Be very suspicious of emails at work asking you to log in to a remote site to do something work related using your intranet credentials. I recently got an email purporting to be from our legal department telling me that I had to take some training to comply with US laws and to use my normal credentials. The URL was a remote site. While this one was real, this could have very easily been a trick (spoofed email, fake site) to compromise my corporate credentials.

4. ALWAYS check the certificate of a site and that HTTPS is working properly. Most newer browsers have technology to help alert unsuspecting consumers of fraud however it is still possible that a CRL has not yet picked up an expired certificate or the webmasters themselves have made mistakes with secure and non-secure items on the same page.

5. Set your email to not automatically download pictures from HTML email. This is an attack that a person can use to get your IP address. If you load up the HTML email and any referenced image, a trickster could easily send you an email with a unique file name and use the incoming HTTP Request envelope to get your actual IP Address. Being behind a firewall helps.

6. When logging in to high value sites, type the URL manually. Some clever tricksters have used the International Domain Name (IDN) support in Konqueror 3.2.1 on KDE 3.2.1, which allows remote attackers to spoof domain names using punycode encoded domain names that are decoded in URLs and SSL certificates in a way that uses homograph characters from other character sets, which facilitates phishing attacks. These are very hard to detect unless you know exactly what to look for.

7. DO NOT BUY PIRATED SOFTWARE ONLINE! The email ads you get advertising "special web deals" on top software brands are 100% pure fiction. If you try to buy the software, you will accomplish nothing other than giving a criminal your credit card information. Think about it - the criminals are already breaking the law by selling pirated software. Why would they comply and give you software? All they do is capture your Credit Card information leaving you wondering when your download key is coming. By the time you wise up, they have compromised your credit card. These types of attacks are often not reported as the victims themselves are often reluctant to make statements they broke the law. This can lead to further confidence tricks such as.....

8. Do not answer questions on the phone. Here is a scam that is difficult to detect. You get a call from your "credit card company". They ask you if you are the owner of credit card # and ask you to confirm. Since they already have given you your own card number, you might be satisfied that they are the bank (after all - who else would call you and be able to give you your own CC number). They ask you if it has the same expiry date as your real expiry date. Then they tell you that your card has some suspicious activity on it and they are monitoring it and want to capture the thief in the act. At this point, you are 100% convinced they are the bank but what they are really after you will give to them willingly. The next thing they do is state that they need to verify you are in fact in possession of your card. They tell you that they need the three digit special ID number on the back of the card. If you do not suspect anything, you read it back to them.

What to do? When someone calls you telling you they are your bank or some other organization of trust, tell them you'd like to call them back to validate this. If it really is your bank calling, they will probably appreciated your vigilance. If they balk, it is probably not your bank.

9. If a deal is too good to be true it is. This rule is so old and should be the guiding principle for every person. New cons are being thought up every day. Confidence games, ID gambits and other tricks are invented to take something from you. Even if a company is borderline legitimate, ask yourself "why?". Why will someone give me a free iPod for simply looking at online ads?

10. Share your experiences. If you do get conned, tell others to save them from the same fate.

I hope this helps at least one person. If anyone reading this has any others to add, please drop a comment below to help spread the word.

JavaScript vs. ActionScript

Today on the Google LiveCycle Developers list, a message came across which requires some additional clarification. The message claimed the following:

Hello all,
I don't know if this has been discussed before but thought I'd bring
it up. The JavaScript in LiveCycle isn't ECMA script it's actually
Action script like with Flash.

While the claim is errant, it does deserve some attention to discuss the differences. LiveCycle ES itself is a server product and is Java. If referring to
the LiveCycle clients, there are two main types of clients that can be used
with LiveCycle, although there are no limits as LiveCycle ES is a service bus which facilitates the consumption of services and does not constrain clients use of the services in true SOA manner (note: any service policies still must be observed). The two most common types of clients are Flex/AIR clients and Acrobat/Reader.

Acrobat and Reader implement a virtual machine based on JavaScript version
1.5 of ISO-16262 (formerly known as ECMAScript), JavaScript in Adobe®
Acrobat® software implements objects, methods, and properties that enable
you to manipulate PDF files, produce database-driven PDF files, modify the
appearance of PDF files, and much more. You can tie Acrobat JavaScript code
to a specific PDF document, a page, field, or button within that document,
or a field or button within the PDF file, and even to a user action as you
an with HTML pages. This is fully documented in the supporting
documentation. See:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/AcroJSGuide.pdf

Flex and AIR applications are in fact compiled into SWF's (commonly known as
Flash). These do implement the Actionscript Virtual Machine based on
ECMAScript. The current version was added in Flash Player 9 as ActionScript
3.0 with the advent of a new virtual machine, called AVM2 (ActionScript
Virtual Machine 2), which coexists with the previous AVM1 needed to support
legacy content. Although a bit different, it is very close to being ECMA
262 compliant.

ActionScript is run inside the Tamarin Virtual Machine. It is a just in time compiler intended to implement the fourth edition of the ECMAScript standard, commonly referred to as JavaScript 2. Tamarin was initially developed by Adobe Systems for its ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) used in Flash. The code was donated to the Mozilla project on November 7, 2006. The contributed code is tri-licensed under the GPL, LGPL, and MPL and will continue to be developed in Mozilla CVS, as the rest of Mozilla source code.

The contributed code is approximately 135,000 lines of code making it the largest single donation of code to Mozilla project besides Netscape itself. Tamarin will be included in future builds of Mozilla and by default, FireFox. There is a separate project to integrate Tamarin and SpiderMonkey is called ActionMonkey. Tamarin will also continue to be used in the future versions of Flash.

Adobe wrote LiveCycle before acquiring/merging with Macromedia, there was
no ActionScript support in any product to my knowledge.

LiveCycle 8.2 Pre-release program

For cutting edge LiveCycle developers, Adobe is inviting a select group to test the latest build (8.2) prior to the official release. You can register here:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/

Here are the new features:

• Improved development and authoring tools, including process record and playback, and validation of process definitions
• Improved end-user experience including 508-Compliance, single sign-on support, and many LiveCycle Designer enhancements
• Improved process management tools such as business calendars, out-of-office support, and customized e-mail notifications
• Improved installation with two turnkey options (JBOSS and WebLogic) as well as command-line installation
• Improved administration and platform maturity with improved backup and recovery support (hot backup), expanded platform, database, and JVM support
• Improved Web Service support within XFA-based forms
• PDF/A Support

Greg Wilson has posted a great introductory video here.

Adobe MAX 2008 Call for speakers

Adobe has launched a call for speakers and topics for MAX 2008. You can submit here:

https://adobemax.dabbledb.com/page/callforsessions/NLXYueHm

Adobe is seeking to have top quality, cutting edge presentations submitted for MAX 2008 in North America, Europe, and Japan. Adobe MAX 2008 dates are as follows:

MAX 2008 North America
San Francisco, California
November 16-19, 2008

MAX 2008 Europe
Milan, Italy
Dec 1-4, 2008

MAX 2008 Asia
Tokyo, Japan
TBA - 2009

Remember - MAX 2007 sold out. Remember to check back here for early bird registration. Also - if you are interested in sponsoring MAX in 2008, please go here. There are limited opportunities available. Likewise, the MAX 2008 mailing list can be subscribed to here.

Arc90 Lab : The RESTService Flex Library

This just in. The folks at Arc90 Lab have created a Flex REST service AS3 (ActionScript 3) library. I haven't downloaded it yet but be assured I will. You can get it here.

Basement.org states:

"We're also big fans of Adobe's Flash and Flex platforms. Unfortunately, AS3 isn't exactly REST-friendly out of the box. There's some HTTP support, but we needed more robust support for REST. To remedy this, we've built our own AS3 library: RESTService. It's a "class that makes fully aware HTTP service calls. Fault and Result events contain all response headers and status messages, as well as the response body." It even supports HTTPS by leveraging the AS3 Crypto Framework"

Adobe Flash Lite Shipments Pass Half Billion Mark

According to SDA Times, Adobe's Flash Lite mobile shipments have surpassed the half billion mark. This means over 500,000,000 devices worldwide from manufacturer's including LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have now been shipped carrying the mobile version on Flash. Adobe’s Flash Lite Player runtime specifically designed for mobile devices. According to Adobe, Flash Lite has seen over 150 % growth over the last year.

Flex Builder Free for Education!

Adobe recently expanded the free Flex Builder offering for Education. The information below describes the details.  If you're a student or staff at an education facility, get this offer!!

The offer:

Effective March 3, 2008 all education customers, including staff, faculty and students can now download Flex Builder 3 Professional for free. This offer is for download-only product and requires a valid serial number to activate the trial version of Flex Builder. Education customers will need to register to receive their free Flex Builder serial number at www.flexregistration.com . All applications will be processed within one week. This registration site and serial number distribution is managed by a third party vendor for Adobe.

Eligibility

All education customers are eligible for free pricing. WOOT!!

Customer Service

If you don't receive a serial within one week of  submission, contact customer service by emailing info@flexregistration.com

What you need to know about SPAM

I am not sure if this is a badge of honor to be worn or not, but it appears that one or more of the spammers I have been threatening have been busy spoofing my name as the "sent from" field in their latest spam campaigns. Needless to say, if you have received a message purporting to be from me which is spam, I can assure you I did not send it. Expand the headers and read and you will see this is true. Yours truly has been targeted by spammers, likely as retribution for my actions against the spammers.

I hate spammers. I will hunt them down and punish them whenever possible. They are responsible for more lost time (including writing this blog article) and more waste of network traffic than any other form of life on the planet.

Spammers are the lowest form of life on our planet to boot. Most of them are only the second generation in their bloodline to walk upright and have relatives who still live in trees.

Spammers - too bad you are too chicken to stand in front of me and tell me you are a spammer. You'd find out very fast that some of the advantages of NOT spamming include never having to use the phrase "I have no teeth left".  OK - I am not advocating vigilante justice, but I like to fantasize.

Until then my fellow brethren, keep fighting against spammers. Together we can eliminate this menace from our society. Some points of interest:

1. Know what the anti spam laws are in your country. Keep a record and find out if you can pursue these idiots financially.

2. If your country does not have laws, start some or get involved in the process.

3. Contact companies that are the source of spam and threaten them. Tell them you will NEVER do business with them. Report them to the authorities in their country and tell them what their actions have done to tarnish that nations image. Set up an "advertising" contract such as the one on the comments page for this blog and send them invoices threatening to sue if you don't get paid. Take legal action and garnish the money owed to the spammer.

4.Do whatever you can to make their lives miserable. I have sent several messages to the central Chinese Ministry telling them about Sunjun (see bottom of comments here), one spammer Falun Gong activities. This is highly illegal in China and some have even been put to death for this. This sounds drastic however these people hurt the entire world. We all make less money as a result of their actions which in turn hurts people in developing and transitioning economies. If words like "Nigeria" get stripped as spam, how the heck can people in that country who are trying to use the internet to develop their economies able to survive? It hurts us all. Note that according to State Department reports, people who have responded to “pay in advance ” solicitations have been beaten, subjected to threats and extortion, and in some cases, murdered.

5. If you know a spammer, make them stop. Let them know exactly what you think of them and how others will react. There is a small percentage of spam that appears to be generated by otherwise well meaning people who are just unfamiliar with internet etiquette.

6. If the spam is illegal, report it to the authorities. For example, child pornography, Nigerian Scams, illegal ripped software can all be reported. Most software companies have an anti piracy team (Adobe's is piracy@adobe.com). If it is a phishing scheme or other illegal scheme, report it to the government. The USA has several places set up to handle this including the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and others.

7. Specific to Nigerian or 409 scams:

If you receive a letter from Nigeria asking you to send personal or banking information, do not reply in any manner. Send the letter to the U.S. Secret Service, your local FBI office, or the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. You can also register a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel.

If you know someone who is corresponding in one of these schemes, encourage that person to contact the FBI or the U.S. Secret Service as soon as possible.

Be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as Nigerian or foreign government officials asking for your help in placing large sums of money in overseas bank accounts.

Do not believe the promise of large sums of money for your cooperation.

Guard your account information carefully.

There is so much more I can write but I am going to spend my time trying to track down the filth who used my email address to spoof spams this weekend. I will find him and punish him.

8. If the deal is too good to be true, it isn't true! You may think you are buying a discount copy of Windows Vista or Adobe Photoshop, but you are not. What happens is the criminals who advertise this simply take your personal information and GIVE YOU NOTHING IN RETURN. Think about it. They are already breaking the law. Why would they even bother to send you a link to download the software. Why not just take your personal information and use it to punish you. After all, you cannot report it to authorities if you are involved in perpetuating a crime too (buying bootlegged software is illegal in most countries and punishable by jail time and fines). These spammers simply take your credit card and personal information and sell it or use it to hurt you more.

This post may seem like a bit of a rant, but spammers would not spam if it didn't work. Hunt them down and punish them.

LiveCycle ES wins Dr. Dobbs award.

LiveCycle Enterprise Suite has been announced as a "Productivity Winner" for the "Enterprise Tools" category
of the Dr. Dobb's 18th Annual Jolt Awards. Winners will be featured in the June issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal.

The full list of winners is published here:
http://www.drdobbs.com/blog/portal/archives/2008/03/jolt_award_winn.html


SOA the real winner?

What is interesting is that this really represents the business value of SOA to the enterprise. While not specifically discussed in terms of SOA and BPM, the Jolt awards really emphasize products that have "jolted" the industry in the past year. LiveCycle Enterprise Suite is a clear choice as it represents the third major evolution of Adobe's enterprise platform. While most people were only "talking" of "registry-repository" back in 2003, Adobe had one in LiveCycle 6.0. While people talked about Service orchestration and aggregation (composition), Adobe LiveCycle 7.0 delivered. While people talked about SOA Governance, LiveCycle BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) delivered the goods again.

Winners of the Jolt awards are selected by judges consisting of industry insiders, columnists, and technology leaders. It does not surprise me that our enterprise suite captured another award and recognition. Adobe has been heavily involved in SOA standards, web services work, and business process management standards for a while.

With that said, if anyone out there wants to give it a go, I have a few LiveCycle ES developer DVDs left. Ping me (dnickull at adobe dot com) with your mailing address and I'll send one out.

Adobe Reader beta program open to you!

Interested in participating in the Adobe Reader Beta Program? It's the best way to get an early peak at future versions of the product and provide valuable feedback into the development process.

We're accepting participants now. Just CLICK HERE to sign up. Thanks!

6 Adobe AIR Apps Worth a Look

Adobe's AIR platform allows developers to create web applications that run on your desktop without the need of a web browser. Now that AIR has dropped the beta tag (see our previous coverage), it's time to look at some of the AIR apps you can use today.

read more | digg story

Adobe joins SQLite! More Open Source/Standards moves!

As reported at http://opensource.adobe.com, Adobe has joined with Mozilla and Symbian to support the work of the SQLite Consortium to help ensure free, open access and development of SQLite. Adobe uses SQLite within many of its products and recognizes the importance of providing support for technology and tools that are open source because of its value to the entire developer and software communities.

This follows on the heels of a rash of Open Source and Open Standards initiatives by the software company in the last few years. Adobe donated the PDF standard to ISO which is now ISO standard 32000. Adobe has open-sourced the core Flex SDK and Blaze Data Services under various GNU based licenses. It was less than 24 months ago when we also donated core Actionscript Virtual Machine code to the Mozilla Tamarin project. We have also pledged to contribute back to the Webkit HTMl engine project when we work on that code base.

All of this makes me proud to work for a company that understand the importance of the software community.

Important notes about Adobe AIR

Yesterday, Adobe officially launched version 1.0 of the Adobe Integrated Runtime or AIR. As anticipated, the press have given it justice however there are a few facts that need to be illustrated to help developers who want to give it a try.

What I encourage developers to do.

Download both the latest version of Adobe AIR and the latest version of Flex Builder from Adobe labs to ensure you are up to date.


Why AIR code samples might not work.

All AIR applications use a descriptor XML file to describe the application and link resources. During the last few beta drops of AIR, the schema for this file changed a bit. If you try to build someone's code samples with a newer version, the project might not actually build. In fact, the observed behavior is that nothing happens.

What can you do?

To mitigate this, in Flex Builder (available for free trial 60 day download on Adobe labs), simply set up a new project by clicking "File -> New -> Flex Project". To make an AIR project, make sure you select the correct type of project by selecting the AIR option in the second screen. Make sure you are on the latest builds.

Open up the source code of the project you want to try in an ordinary text editor and cut and paste the code into your MXML base document for the project. Be sure not to write over the top level XML element until you are sure that the project is using the same namespace value and root element consistent with your version of Flex Builder. Pay close attention to the root element. In most up to date (1.0) AIR applications, it should look like this:


<mx:windowedapplication mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" applicationcomplete="init()" backgroundcolor="0x003030" focusrect="false">
<mx:script>
</mx:script>
</mx:windowedapplication>

Once this is done, try saving your project and eliminate any duplicate root elements etc until all errors go away.

Note: for pure AS3, HTML and other projects the process is a bit more complicated. Consult the documentation.

Alternatively:

If the project you want to install is a zip archive, try importing it by using the "File -> Import -> Flex Project". This should allow you to import the project and FB3 should correct.