LiveCycle ES courses at MAX 2008

This year the Adobe MAX event will have the most comprehensive LiveCycle ES program of any event. In case you missed the previous announcements, MAX 2008 is going to take place November 16-19 in San Francisco. You can find out more at the MAX 2008 site here. It is the single focal point for LC ES training this year on our planet! Some of the top picks for LC ES training include these courses:

Adobe Roadmap: Enterprise

Hear about Adobe’s product and solutions roadmap and discuss Adobe’s vision so that together we can create the enterprise of the future.

Speakers:	Joel Heinke
Audience:	Web Developer, Partner Decision Maker, IS/IT, Business Decision Maker, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	General Audience
Products:	Acrobat, ActionScript, Ajax, Blaze DS, ColdFusion, Contribute, Flex, LiveCycle DS, LiveCycle ES, Open Source
When:	Monday, November 17, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Agile Testing of Enterprise RIAs with Flex and LiveCycle ES

Hear how Adobe Consulting delivers complex rich Internet applications built on Flex and LiveCycle ES, while still employing agile engineering methods to assure quality. Learn about testing with FlexUnit; using Code Coverage tools, designing for testing, and improving test coverage; and how to extend these capabilities to unit-test LiveCycle ES applications "behind the glass."

Speakers:	Alex Uhlmann, Herve Dupriez
Audience:	Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Intermediate
Products:	LiveCycle ES, Flex, AIR
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Architectural Best Practices for Flex and LiveCycle ES Applications

Hear Adobe Consulting discuss their "Blueprint Architecture" for creating applications with Flex, Adobe AIR, LiveCycle Data Services ES, and LiveCycle ES. Learn how to integrate these technologies to create complex rich Internet applications with Adobe technology.

Speakers:	Tunde Turner, Steven Webster
Audience:	Architect
Skill:	Advanced
Products:	LiveCycle ES, LiveCycle DS, Flex, AIR
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Building Enterprise Applications Using Flex, Adobe AIR, and LiveCycle ES

See how Adobe's client and server technologies can be leveraged together to build engaging applications. See how Flex and AIR can be used as a front end to a complex back-end process deployed on LiveCycle ES.

Speakers:	Marcel Boucher
Audience:	Web Developer, IS/IT, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Intermediate
Products:	LiveCycle ES, LiveCycle DS, Flex Builder, Flex, AIR
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Building RIAs Using Form Guides

Learn how to build and deploy rich Internet applications using form guides, part of Adobe LiveCycle Designer. Form guides are an alternative view of a form based on Adobe Flash technology that guides users through the form-filling process step by step. Form authors build on an existing form design to provide a more visually appealing and streamlined method of capturing form data. The enhanced interface can help reduce data entry errors by simplifying the amount of information presented to a form filler at a given time.

Speakers:	Paul Guerette
Audience:	Web Developer, Web Designer, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Intermediate
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Monday, November 17, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Monday, November 17, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm Wednesday, November 19, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm

Building Service Clients with Flex and Adobe AIR

Learn how to build SOA clients with Flex and Adobe AIR. In this hands-on session, you will explore how to build various service clients using the WSDL Import Wizard, hand-coded ActionScript 3.0, and simple REST-based services. Flash Remoting and performance metrics will also be covered. This session is intended for those who build front-end service clients for business applications. Attendees should come prepared to write code or partner with someone else writing code. (This session complements "Deploying Services with BlazeDS and LiveCycle Data Services ES.")

Speakers:	Duane Nickull, James Ward
Audience:	Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Advanced
Products:	LiveCycle ES, LiveCycle DS, Flex Builder, Flex, AIR
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm Tuesday, November 18, 8:30 am - 10:00 am Wednesday, November 19, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Building Your First Application Using LiveCycle ES

Build an end-to-end application from scratch using Adobe LiveCycle ES. The application will utilize forms, orchestration, and many of the Adobe LiveCycle platform features. Learn how to easily integrate with external systems and how to include people in business processes for approvals, reviews, and more.

Speakers:	Valerie Snider-Lynch
Audience:	Web Developer, IS/IT, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Beginner
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Tuesday, November 18, 8:30 am - 10:00 am Wednesday, November 19, 9:00 am - 10:30 am Wednesday, November 19, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Information Assurance: Rights Management and Digital Security

Explore the information assurance capabilities in Adobe LiveCycle. Learn how organizations use rights management and digital security features to protect sensitive information by enabling confidentiality, privacy, authentication, integrity, nonrepudiation, and availability.

Speakers:	Steve Forrest
Audience:	Partner Decision Maker, IS/IT, Business Decision Maker, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	General Audience
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Inside the Adobe AIR Cook-off: The Best Show Off Their Winning Chops

See some of the best work being done in AIR application development today. Get insight from the authors of the Adobe AIR Cookbook, plus a group of the top contributors to the Adobe AIR Cookbook website. For the past six months, there's been an open call to the RIA developer community to show off their top tricks and best practices; in this session, you'll see their work in action and get a chance to exchange information with the panelists. There may be a bonus interactive feature or two in this session (hint: involving prizes and all comers).

Speakers:	Michael Koch, Rich Tretola , Marco Casario, Koen De Weggheleire
Audience:	Web Developer, Web Designer, Partner Decision Maker, IS/IT, Business Decision Maker, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	General Audience
Products:	Spry, Open Source, LiveCycle ES, LiveCycle DS, Flex Builder, Flex, FlashCast, Flash Player, Flash Media Server, Flash Lite, Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, ColdFusion, Blaze DS, Ajax, AIR, Adobe Media Player, Adobe Device Central, ActionScript, Acrobat, "Thermo"
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

InsideRIA Outlook, 2009: What Every Developer Needs to Be Thinking About

Join top experts to hear how standards, the economy, emerging players, workflow, client expectations, and more are affecting the industry. InsideRIA regulars representing some of the top houses in the business discuss the top strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the industry. Panelists have five minutes to outline their top SWOT points; then the panel and audience have an open Q&A on what we can expect in the next 12 to 18 months.

Speakers:	Rich Tretola , Adam Flater, RJ Owen
Audience:	Web Developer, Web Designer, Partner Decision Maker, IS/IT, Business Decision Maker, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	General Audience
Products:	Spry, Open Source, LiveCycle ES, LiveCycle DS, Flex Builder, Flex, FlashCast, Flash Player, Flash Media Server, Flash Lite, Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Connect, ColdFusion, Blaze DS, Ajax, AIR, Adobe XD, Adobe Media Player, Adobe Device Central, ActionScript, Acrobat 3D, Acrobat, "Thermo"
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Introduction to LiveCycle ES

Peel back the marketing-speak and take a real look at what LiveCycle ES is all about from the platform to the tooling. Topics will include how LiveCycle ES fits into the enterprise and which types of applications are well suited for LiveCycle. This session will also include a product demo.

Speakers:	Greg Wilson, Christoph Rooms
Audience:	Web Developer, Partner Decision Maker, IS/IT, Business Decision Maker, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Beginner
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Monday, November 17, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

LiveCycle ES and Adobe Solution Accelerators

Learn how Adobe Solution Accelerators can help LiveCycle ES customers reduce development time and increase the quality of their applications by leveraging prebuilt deployable code and best practice methodologies.

Speakers:	Valerie Snider-Lynch
Audience:	Partner Decision Maker, Business Decision Maker, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	General Audience
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Monday, November 17, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

LiveCycle ES Architecture Deep Dive

Deep dive into the LiveCycle ES platform architecture. Topics will include the service container, invocation layer, service orchestration, and events and techniques for extending and customizing the platform.

Speakers:	Shone Sadler
Audience:	Web Developer, IS/IT, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Advanced
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

LiveCycle ES: Building Applications

Learn how to develop and deploy applications with Adobe LiveCycle ES (Enterprise Suite). By enabling service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM), LiveCycle ES allows both business and IT professionals to visually assemble end-to-end processes that unify systems, people, business rules, and web services quickly and flexibly. We'll develop a LiveCycle based application using LiveCycle solution components and determine how to implement business rules in a process. We'll also cover process deployment and the LiveCycle workspace and use the record and playback feature to debug an application.

Speakers:	Bob Bailey
Audience:	Application Developer
Skill:	General Audience
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Sunday, November 16, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Rapid Enterprise RIA Development with Solution Accelerators

Find out how Adobe Solution Accelerators enable the rapid development of recurring industry solutions with Flex, Adobe AIR, and LiveCycle ES. In this presentation, Adobe Consulting will look at two problem spaces — customer enrollment and correspondence management — and show how to create innovative experiences with Flex, AIR, and LiveCycle ES by leveraging freely available Solution Accelerators.

Speakers:	Danny Saikaly, Steven Webster
Audience:	Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Intermediate
Products:	LiveCycle ES, Flex, AIR
When:	Wednesday, November 19, 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Service Component Architecture (SCA)

This session explores the SCA work at OASIS, including bindings to Java and similarities with LiveCycle ES in methodology. Those involved with enterprise architecture will find this session of particular interest.

Speakers:	Mike Edwards, Martin Chapman
Audience:	Application Developer
Skill:	Intermediate
Products:	LiveCycle ES, LiveCycle DS
When:	Tuesday, November 18, 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Service-Oriented Architecture for the Enterprise

Attend this session to hear an examination of the OASIS Reference Model for SOA and a discussion of concrete service architecture work. We will relate the concepts of the model to concrete implementations. LiveCycle ES will be used as a case study for implementing a full-blown services platform for facilitating automated business processes and working with human-centric business processes.

Speakers:	Matt Butler
Audience:	Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Intermediate
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Monday, November 17, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Using LiveCycle Content Services ES

Explore LiveCycle Content Services ES, a fully integrated set of content services ranging from an enterprise content repository to social collaboration tools such as enterprise forums. LiveCycle Content Services ES is now part of the base LiveCycle ES platform, providing features such as check-in/checkout, version control, auditing, archiving/retention, and access rights management.

Speakers:	Paul Guerette
Audience:	IS/IT, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	Beginner
Products:	LiveCycle ES
When:	Monday, November 17, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm Tuesday, November 18, 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm Wednesday, November 19, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

What's New in LiveCycle ES Update 1

See the new features of LiveCycle ES Update 1. New features include content services, PDF Generator 3D, an improved development environment, improved deployment, expanded platform support, and much more.

Speakers:	Marcel Boucher
Audience:	Partner Decision Maker, IS/IT, Business Decision Maker, Architect, Application Developer
Skill:	General Audience
Products:	LiveCycle ES, Acrobat 3D
When:	Tuesday, November 18, 9:00 am - 10:00 am

Doug and Ben rock it with SpatialKey

I came across what might be the most efficient Flex mapping application on the web, launched by the Universal Mind geniuses and others like Ben Stucki, Andy Powell and Doug McCune. It's called SpatialKey and the technology preview release just came out. This is a product doing fully client-side heatmap renderings of thousands of data points and can do up to about 100k completely client-side. The architecture uses a hybrid approach and when client side loads exceed the 100K, processing moves to a server to do aggregation.



SpatialKey loads a ton of data into a Flex app and produces sweet visuals that tell a much better story about the data than looking at points on a map. They're only launching the client-side stuff as a "technology preview" while working on an enterprise offering that includes a database product. Potential use cases include deploying to police departments to handle their entire crime databases.

Doug wrote a much more detailed blog article about it here.

VMWare joins Linux Foundation alongside Adobe, others!

As reported in the Washington Post,

"Virtualization giant VMware has joined the Linux Foundation, lining up alongside existing members like Adobe, Google and IBM, the organization announced Wednesday.

Virtualization, the ability to run software in virtualized containers so multiple OSes or versions can run on one physical machine, is becoming more prevalent in IT environments. At its core, virtualization is enabled by software called a hypervisor, and can help drive down data-center costs, among other benefits."

To me, this is an awesome development. I am about to add Debian to my VMWare list and am glad to see they are seeing the light. For those of you who have not tried Linux lately, it has come a long way. Awesome day today!!

O'Reilly Open Source 2008 Slides available

James Ward and I jointly presented a session at this year's OSCON conference in Portland. The session was titled Flex: the Open Source SDK for RIAs and it includes step by step instructions on how to download the source trunk via svn and use Apache Ant to build.

Presentation: Flex_ the Open Source SDK for RIAs Presentation [PPT]
Paper: Flex_ the Open Source SDK for RIAs Paper [PDF]

Abstract: Adobe has released the Flex SDK open source under Mozilla Public License (MPL). This includes the source to the ActionScript components from the Flex SDK, the Java source code for the compilers, the debugger, and the core libraries. Flex can run in any browser—on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and AIR. This session will introduce people to Flex, provide code samples, use cases and a roadmap.

Duane's World Episode 7

In this episode we explore LiveCycle ES including demonstrating an AIR Client written by Jorg Knippschild on Adobe in Munich. Dave Liao and Vlad Ghelesel from Ensemble Systems are interviewed and discuss trends in LiveCycle ES development including coupling Flex and AIR. The Code and Tunes segment features great high-quality Imperial metal from my good friend Kurt Phillips' band Warhag.



The code samples will be uploaded to duanesworldtv.org later.

WTO Talks Collapse - this affects EVERYONE!

I was deeply saddened to read the following from the BBC website this evening:

"Marathon talks in Geneva aimed at liberalising global trade have collapsed, the head of the World Trade Organisation has said.

Pascal Lamy confirmed the failure, which officials have blamed on China, India and the US failing to agree on import rules. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the result was "heartbreaking". The talks were launched in 2001 in Doha and were seen as providing a cornerstone for future global trade.

The main stumbling block was farm import rules, which allow countries to protect poor farmers by imposing a tariff on certain goods in the event of a drop in prices or a surge in imports."

This is very serious. You might not think it affects you but this does. I worked with the United Nations (UN/CEFACT) as a vice chair to remove barriers to global trade for close to 6 years. I saw many things that were beyond change and a lot of things that could be changed. There was doubt of course, after all, who am I (a mountain biker/musician / tech guy) to help the world and defend those who cannot help themselves. Luckily I killed that small voice in the back of my head and dove in deep and felt I have caused change.

The failure of this round of talks on farm subsidies and farm tariffs means we are all going to pay more for food and people in some countries are going to die because they have no food. I have pinged Avaaz.org to get a petition started to bring to Pascal Lamy to urge the member nations to get back to the table and remind them that every day they stall, people die. Statistically, people have died because of failures in world trade in the time it takes you to read this blog.

If you see a petition from avaaz.org, please sign it. Stop this madness.

Tutorial on PHP-AMF

Fellow evangelist Lee Brimlow just built and posted a wicked tutorial on using Action Message Format with PHP. I think it is one of the best ever online tutorials on this subject. Lee takes you through the high level overview, then the server side AMFPHP and finally the client side code. You can access it here and see Lee's blog here. It is easy to code along with.

Adobe TV - Working with Flex Builders' Web Services WSDL Wizard

The following video is a simplified version of the Duane's World episode 1 Web Services AS3 code generation wizard. The source code for this is available here alongside other code samples. If you want the more thorough explanation of what is going on, the Duane's World 1 show is the best place.

The lowest form of life just left the planet

I saw a story on Slashdot today that made me ill. The Spam King apparently escaped from a prison then killed himself, his wife and child. At the same time, I got a report of bombs going off in Bangalore, India where I have been.

Harmony and Peace please! Both of these stories evoked strong feelings.

The Spam King was the lowest form of life on the planet. He collectively hurt our global economy more than most other criminals and deserved to go to jail. He took some of my life away and probably some of yours. SPAM is a crime. Make no mistake about it. The selfishness of this individual has now cost others their lives. This confirms my belief that spammers are in fact the lowest form of life and he probably would have been lower on the prison hierarchy than any other inmate.

The second story really worries me as I have good friends in Bangalore. When I last visited it, I found Bangalore to be alive and thriving. I wonder who would do this and why?

Killing of innocents can never be justified. I have to go speak at OSCON now.

OSCON 2008 and New Flex/AIR Course for GeoWeb

James Ward and I are heading down to OSCON today to speak and hang out. OSCON is a great conference but I haven't been in a few years. Looking really forward to it.

Yesterday we delivered a new 3+ hour course on Flex and AIR map based RIA development at GeoWeb 2008 (one of the best conferences in the world!). After completing the writing of the course and giving it once, we really want to offer it up to the community. It takes attendees through 9 projects with lots of coding to demonstrate concepts related to Geo-spatial mashups/RIAs in Flex and AIR.

Directories:

~/AttendeeProjects - the starter projects with the code completed and comments where students have to add code
~/CompleteProjects – the solutions source code
~/TeachersDocument (PDF and DOCX) – the manual for anyone wanting to teach this course. It has a lot of cut and paste code in it to speed up solutions.
~/Presentation (PPT and PDF) - the presentation slides

It is fairly well documented to allow anyone to present but if you find anything missing, please feel free to contribute. If you want the course, contact me at dnickull at adobe dot com. We'll send it out for anyone to use.

UPDATE:  I have uploaded the ZIP file here.  This is not a Flex archive but contains Flex Archives.  Unzip the course first then you can import the project and use the assets.

Car Reviews Indicate that New Cars are Cool But They Aren't Hot Cars

As some of you know, I am trading in my 2002 Porsche Twin Turbo. No - this is nothing to do with the price of gas, I just really don't drive it enough. The car has been a feature on Duane's World but is now up for sale. In the meantime, I am in need of another car. One of the things that I've noticed lately whenever I've been reading car reviews is that the new cars everyone is interested in are cool but they're not hot. What I mean by that is that these cars have some really interesting features but they aren't the kind of cars that you want to go cruising in with your buddies. Emerging car designers should think about ways to incorporate the cool features of these cars with a style that hot people are going to want to be seen driving. I guess people are maturing and realizing that things like hybrids are actually far cooler than a Porsche Turbo. Go figure?

For example, the Toyota Prius is great in terms of the technology used in hybrid cars and the fact that it gets great gas mileage but you aren't exactly going to want to drive up to your friend's house specifically to show off this car. Likewise, the Smart car is a cool car with a unique design that's different from a lot of the new cars out there but it's not as though you're going to be able to really feel like you're a hot guy while driving around in one of these cars. You don't drive up to someone else in one of these cars and rev your car engine to get attention on the road.

There's nothing wrong with the new cars that are coming out today. All of the car reviews about vehicles like the Toyota Prius and the Smart car seem to indicate that there are some features about these cars that are worth keeping as we design new cars in the future. I just think that we need to take some of the benefits of hybrid cars and small cars and make them a little bit more stylish. I'm all for driving a cool car with modern features but I don't want to look like a tool while doing it.

Why doesn't FIA or some other organization have a racing class for these cars? A lot of car technology (Radial Tires, Seatbelts, crumple zones, improved fuel mileage to name a few) are the direct result of innovation stemmed by racing. I can see two cars guys 10 years from now having this conversation:

Car Guy 1: "Hey - nice rod. What is that? A 20 Gigawatt DC inverter under the hood?"
Car Guy 2: "I wish. It's the stock 15 GW but I added a boost capacitor to give me 150 kw of torque when I hit the pedal hard"
Car Guy 1: "Wicked - nice styling too. Those 28" rims with regenerative braking kick ass".
....

You get the idea.

A personal interview with Andre Michelle, Webinale 2008 and Spoiler

Duane's World episode 6 is now out. I was really grateful to have been able to spend time interviewing Flash guru Andre Michelle. He discusses his new venture (www.hobnox.com) and shows off some cool screenshots of the new audio tools. These are really amazing!! Andre's work takes Flash to the ultimate edge.

The music for the Code and Tunes sessions is provided by Spoiler, my newest favorite metal band from Germany. Bass player Marc Thiele hand picked the songs for the video. If you get a chance to see Spoiler live - check them out! The code and tunes shows some Flex code to work with audio and explains how to add a pause, play and stop button to an audio player in a few minutes. Thanks to all the guys from Webinale 2008 (Felix, Stefan et al) for appearing in the video and helping me with interviews and location logistics as well as putting on a great conference! Here is the show. Feel free to use the embed code to redistribute wherever!



Oh yeah - there is also film of driving at 210 KPH on the autobahn!

Doc Or Die: XML Fever

Bob Glushko made a really funny post about XML fever to celebrate XML's tenth birthday.

Doc Or Die: XML Fever

Do you feel a wicked urge to build a meta schema language, fix the semantic web or start data modeling (only advanced cases of XML fever)? This doc explains why. LOL - thanks Bob!

O'Reilly Foo Camp 2008

I just got back from O'Reilly's Foo Camp 2008. It was really a life changing experience. The ability to mesh/mind meld with the world's greatest minds was incredible. Topics ranged from serious discussions on UN policy to create global fair trade and equality to guitar hacks and inventing new games.

I'd go as far to say that the 300 colleagues and peers at this year's Foo Camp should be consulted to set world policy. My head is full and it will take weeks to digest. I feel grateful for the interactions and the invitation to attend this weekend. There will be a future episode of Duane's World TV highlighting the event with interviews from Bob Glushko (UC Berkeley), Tim O'Reilly (founder - O'Reilly Media), John Markoff (New York Times) and Dries Buytaert (Drupal Founder).

I also want to express sincere gratitude for all the staff at O'Reilly for putting on this event. Everyone pitched in to make this a perfect weekend. Too many people to thank, but thanks to Tim, Sarah, the cooks, facilities staff and all others that made this possible.

Duane
(Feeling really grateful and optimistic about the future of our planet)

Frankenstein Fender?

22nd Century is remaining a three piece band. In order to cover the extra leads when we play live, I have acquired a rare doubleneck body and am building a Cremer/Fender hybrid doubleneck. The guitar will have a standard American Precision Bass on the bottom and strat on the top. Playing live will be a bit tricky as I'll have to switch back and forth between lead and bass while Tim learns to play guitar and bass pedals at the same time.

Here are the photos:

World Record Download? Where was the contest?

NOTE: This is not a rant against FireFox. For the record, it is my browser of choice and gets equal time with Safari.

I recently became aware and annoyed of a claim by Mozilla stating they own the world record (stamped by Guiness World Records nonetheless) for the most software downloads in one single day. This claim is obviously somewhat hollow as the details are slim to none, nor was anyone else in the industry that I am aware of even invited to the party.

You can read the claim here:

"Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. From 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web."

How many downloads does Apple or Microsoft get when they update their OS? I looked at the figures of both Microsoft and Apple and figure both of them have probably beat this on several days based on install numbers alone (SP2 anyone?). Furthermore, as noted by fellow Evangelist Ben Forta, there have been over a billion downloads of the Adobe Flash Player in the first 5 months of 2008 alone. This averages around 6.7 million (1,000,000,000 / 150) every day sustained over 5 months and Adobe has actually publicly stated that we've had days where software downloads exceeded 10 million in a day. Some even place this number to 12 million per day.

I seriously doubt Mozilla beat yesterday's massive coordinated DNS upgrade patch. According to CERT and others, "This is the largest synchronized security update in the history of the Internet, and is the result of hard work and dedication across dozens of organizations."

Speaking for myself, I dispute Firefox's claim. Not that is really matters. I just prefer the truth please.


Sorry FireFox. I love your software, I use your software but if you want to have a real contest, you have to at least invite the competition.

Duanes World Episode 5 - E.B.U., Switzerland, Flex and Helcion!

Duane's World Episode five is now live. Special music guests and one of my favorite bands Helcion (Check them out!!!) supply ripping music for the Code and Tunes segment while I show how to work with video in Flex Builder 3. Other guests include Marcus Metzner (S4M - Germany) and Roger Roberts (RTBF - Belguim). Discussions include metadata for archiving media packages as well as the SOA infrastructure for enabling Media Assets to be repurposed for the web to meet new distribution and business models.

Air Canada Executive First Class Rocks!

On my recent trip home from Europe, I finally got the chance to try Air Canada's new executive First Class suites. The picture below does not do it justice. See the three D Flash at http://www.marketel.com/aircanada/Executive_First/index.html



Special thanks to Melonie, Natalie and Dean for being the best hosts on flight 897 yesterday!

Code your way to get into MAX 2008 for free!

Adobe is making a special offer for those of you who are holding off on contributing to the Open Source Flex SDK.

* For every 3 bugs where we accept and commit your submitted patch, we will purchase an Adobe-related book from your Amazon wish list (once you've had your 3rd patch accepted we'll reach out to you to find your wish list).

* For the first two contributors to have 10 patches committed, we'll pay for your MAX 2008 registration (any region).

The full details are posted at http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+3+Contributions

Searchable Flash - some early tips

Adobe announced this morning (I am in Zurich) that it is has worked with Google and Yahoo! to improve search engine capability to reach inside of the Flash (SWF) file format. You can read the FAQs here.

So how does it work?

This is being done via a headless Flash reader that can extract strings from Flash and use them to build an initial page ranking and string array for each page. The string arrays themselves are then fed into Google and Yahoo! ranking algorithms where they will give the page an initial ranking for each tree. Exactly what is indexed and what rank the search engines will give it is yet to be seen. Don't automatically assume everything in SWF is now at par with HTML text.

For example, a large vector-based drawing of the word "Washington" will not likely make you rank high as it is still not text. Cognitive capabilities are not easy to bestow upon machines (which is why Captcha works so well).



Why you might be excited

Without doing anything, the engines will use some of your text values in SWFs and possibly adjust your rankings for certain terms. This is a good thing for people who have not yet learned how to get Google and Yahoo! to use static content for their indexes. In cases where your unique text content has previously been inaccessible, there should be improvements.

Why you might not be so excited

Initial page ranking is not the silver bullet it once used to be. As soon as searches are performed and your content comes up, both Google and Yahoo! will still dynamically adjust your score based on a multitude of conditions. I have outlined several of these tips in this blog post already. Duane's World Episode 3 also has some tips and tricks on how to use Google's dynamic page ranking algorithm to move up the ladder.


Some tips and tricks:

Flash developers who took care have had their content indexed all along. Using XML or XHTML data providers with strings in them and a link from the index.html shell was a great way to get stuff indexed and still generate good page rankings. From your main SWF, you simply just used the XHTML file as a data provider and parsed it with E4X (ActionScript 3's XML parser). That way the same raw data was both indexed by search engines and also used by the application. Those developers who took this care might now be trumped by those who will get lucky and have high rankings.

Flash developers, like HTML developers, still need to understand that the pages that point at your content have a lot to do with your dynamic rank. Content is still king too. Make sure you have your keyword well researched before betting the farm on it. For example - how many people performed unique searches on that term? Is it an unambiguous term?

This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player. Moving forward, RIA developers and rich Web content producers won’t need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable — they can now be confident it can be found by users around the globe.

One of the best ways to achieve a higher ranking is to examine other Flash sites and see what they have done. Sombrio is a good example. If you search for this in Google, the Sombrio Clothing Company comes up #1 out of about 2 million.

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=sombrio&btnG=Google+Search

Note that if you read this, then click on Sombrio Cartel, you are actually helping maintain it at the #1 place. Google will see the above string as a search in true REST style, then track what you click on, bounce rates etc.

Peter Elst also noted some additional concerns here. He wrote:

The concern I have here is that URL requests to the backend will get indexed, those URLs getting exposed in search queries or spider bots hitting those URLs could cause issues. Its not like in HTML content where the search engines can ignore form submit URLs, there is no such context in a HTTPService or URLRequest.

True. Once again, developers owe it to their clients to learn more about how the systems work. Note that Google currently does index some content and you can try this search by clicking here:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=sombrio+filetype%3Aswf&btnG=Search

More on this later. I am going to try some experiments to see what is possible.

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!!!