Public Service Announcement: Don’t Text and Drive
It’s very tempting… While driving, that ‘new message’ chime rings and you know you’ve got a text message waiting for you on your phone. Even reaching over for the phone, if it’s in your cup holder on the passenger seat, will result in that split second that your eyes are not on the road. There are enough obstacles these days… too many cars, too many bad drivers, and worse, other drivers not looking at the road but looking down at their phones as they dial or text others. You simply can’t afford to be focused on the road at all times.
Two years ago, I insisted on getting a car (Acura TSX) featuring Bluetooth integration so my eyes would never have to leave the road. When someone calls, I see their number on my dashboard. And when I want to call someone, I simply press a button on the steering wheel and say the person’s name. I understand a lot of cars still don’t have these features, but I know more and more are getting them. I can’t wait until such a feature not only lets you call but also ‘reads’ to you incoming text messages and lets you dictate replies.
But before I get on too much of a tangent, you can never, ever text and drive. Resist the temptation. No message you could ever receive is more important than you reaching your destination safely. And if you need further motivation, read this news story about an accident involving a boy being killed by a driver, not drinking and driving, but texting and driving…
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2007/12/man_texting_whi.html
Unfortunately, I think we are going to see more stories like this one… just make sure the story will never include you. Have a safe and Happy New Year!
Writing again on fresh AIR, Excited about tray icons, docking and menus
Our editors at Wrox were understanding enough when we told them that until the AIR APIs were a bit more frozen, we really weren’t going to make too much forward progress on the book. Now that beta 3 is out, and since we’ve all been told that the APIs are now as frozen as they can be, it’s time to get back to writing.
Having already personally written 3 chapters, it’s going to be no small task to go back and review those chapters. So, I’ve chosen to move forward with new chapters first. The chapter I’m writing now has me catching up quite a bit about what I consider to be the ultimate desktop/OS integration of AIR.
System tray icons, docking and menus are by the far the most exciting aspects of AIR to me yet. I’ve done thorough coding with SQL lite, online/offline detection and windowing. It’s the ability to really get into the desktop integration by placing a system tray or dock icon in the OS that, to me, feels like I’m really coding a desktop app with a real desktop presence.
You won’t find much code out there on how to do this. And adding system icons, docking/undocking an app and other related features still have many quirks that I don’t think will be ironed out at this stage. I feel, though, I have a pretty good handle on it and after a few weeks of coding I’m ready to start capturing the code in this new chapter. As soon as I’m done, I’ll start sharing some good code on the topic.
If you’ve done some icon/dock related AIR code, please comment and post a link to it. I have a feeling this is going to be a really hot and exciting feature for AIR once more folks start playing with it!
Ribbit announces $2500 Flex app contest; Nominated for 2 Crunchies
In a recent press release, Ribbit announced that our Flex developer community has reached nearly 2,000 developers, tripling in size within a week of the company’s launch on Monday. We have also announced our next contest, the biggest yet, where you can win a Grand Prize of $2500. The best Personal Ribbit Phone app will be judged by both members of the Ribbit team AND your peers in the Ribbit Developer Platform Community.
If the excitement of these two announcements wasn’t enough, we learned yesterday (by way of Ryan Stewart’s post) that Ribbit has been nominated for not one, but two Techcrunch Crunchie awards. Recognized as one of a handful of “Flash Platform” companies, I invite you to GO and VOTE for Ribbit here:
VOTE for Ribbit “Best Enterprise Start-up 2007″
VOTE for Ribbit “Best Overall New Start-up 2007“
Thank you for voting, and especially if you are a member of our developer community, thank you for your amazing support! If you haven’t joined yet and downloaded the free telephony component, you are missing out on some incredible technology, not to mention a chance at a cool $2500 prize, which we will begin accepting submissions for in just 3 weeks. Here’s a quote from me you’ll find in the press release mentioned above:
“Coding with our breakthrough communications technology provides more than enough incentive for building solutions on our platform,” said Freedman. “This new challenge lets us stoke the community to come up with really amazing concepts, adding a bit of a race to build the next killer web or desktop phone application. By offering developers a simple goal with exciting prizes, we can let the community raise the bar on innovation. Ultimately, it is our commitment to great technology and community support that truly enables developers to build great things.”
These are exciting times for Flex and web/desktop application developers and it’s great we can all be a part of it.
Make Flex Components look good
Every so often I find the need to venture further beyond the bland world of default Flex skins that usually fail to enhance my rapid web application prototypes. When I do this, I usually turn to one of my trusty Flex 2 books (Mr. Tretola or Mr. Kazoun’s masterpieces) to reference this art I, for some reason, never retain to memory.
Digging a little deeper, I found a very casual yet detailed article written by my old friend Jeffery Bennett of Yahoo!’s Media Innovation Group. His article in Yahoo Developer Network’s Flash Developer Center is called “Skinning in Flex: Beauty is Only Skin Deep“. If you ever wanted to give your Flex apps a makeover, you’ve got to read this post.
But it doesn’t end there… After Jeffery’s detailed, screenshot by screenshot walk-through (very easy on the eyes), some very informative links are provided. Scalenine has a wealth of user-submitted skins. Also, if you’ve ever wanted to add some purple to your app, try the Yahoo! Flex Skin. Joe Magnani picks up where Jeffery leaves off, and shows you how to further add some Y! polish to your Flex app.
Chase, our 9 month old son, says his first word!
WOW!
Ribbit announces 650 Flex developers, funding and future plans
What a media day for Ribbit today. We are top news in just about every major technology publication and blog. Almost every story mentions Flex and AIR as key technologies for Ribbit’s developer platform, reported as having over 650 Flex developers from over 65 countries. Here is a sampling of stories and below that, a video on Youtube of an interview with me, where I promote Ribbit’s developer platform by professing my further love for Flex and AIR!
Techcrunch, Mashable, GagaOM, InfoWorld, SF Chronicle, PCWorld, TechWorld, CNET, onFlex, Business Journal, Digital Backcountry, Wired
As Director of the Developer Platform, I couldn’t be happier at how well the Flex community is embracing our technology! And as of this posting, our developer community is now over 900 Flex developers strong. It’s gonna be a day!
Ribbit Platform Release Party – Final preparations
One of the easiest ways for an API Flex coder to quantify their work over a length of time is compare asdocs every month or so. I’m preparing for Ribibt’s Platform Release Party, assembling my presentations and one particular slide called “what’s new in beta 2″. Comparing the Beta 1.1 docs for the Ribbit Flex component vs. the latest for Beta 2, there are a ton of new methods and events that we have added. I can’t wait to share some of the more significant ones this coming Thursday.
Along with our CEO, VP of Business Development and Platform Evangelist, I’ll be speaking on the following exciting topics:
- A new Ribbit Developer site and community
- The new Beta 2 component, featuring some key features for building Personal Communication Applications
- Contest winners from our Ribbit Shout contest held last month
- Exciting details on a new contest with some serious prizes
I am also thrilled to hear Ryan Stewart speak a bit about the latest with AIR and Flex during our event.
The audience is going to be big… and we’ve already had to move to a bigger venue (thanks to Rob and our friends at Metaliq). Those of you in the SF Bay area, I hope to see you on Thursday night. Combined with the preceding SILVAFUG meeting, it’s going to be one great party with lots of innovation to take away.
My first two years in Silicon Valley, Part 1: Ymaps and Flex 1.x
And now, part 1 of a 4 part blog series on my first 2 years out west…
Yahoo Maps and being stuck at Flex 1.x
Yahoo gets almost all the credit for my relocation. They won me over and got me to move 3,000 miles form home. Not many developers get a chance to work on and enhance an application that has (at the time) users upwards of 20 million a month. To know your code is reaching that kind of audience is incredible. To be able to add satellite imagery to that caliber of an app will always remain a highlight of my technical career.
I won’t mix words… working with the existing maps Flex 1.x codebase was rough. It was poorly planned, mostly void of architecture and didn’t seem to know if its primary use was as an application or API. I felt like a ‘code archaeologist’ at times, uncovering layers where it was clear… and I mean clear by old traces of comments… that one method was converted from a developer abstraction to serve as a key function of the app’s core.
Many of you know the story, but when Flex 2 and the powerful Actionscript 3.0 became an available option, we were really discouraged to pursue that as an improved solution to the faulty and growingly archaic codebase the app was built on. Granted, we were still technically in beta with the AS2 codebase, with a huge agenda of new features. Our small group of developers seemed to get smaller compared to the heap of improvements and maintenance we needed to perform, so doing some AS3 R&D wasn’t easy. But looking back, there was no excuse not to have switched to the newly available AS3, especially given a lot of outside support we were offered. Those who wanted to help; you know who you are and thank you!
I had a chance to work with some of the best coders and people I have met so far out here on maps, most of which I have worked with again and some very recently. An ex-Macromedia employee once told me that Flex 1.x was never meant to support an application of such magnitude. I suppose it’s true and knowing that added some bittersweet aspect to having actually accomplished what we all did, putting an app out that was really enjoyed and benefited so many users.
My time at maps lasted just shy of a year, but not before I finished a book for Wrox entitled Yahoo! Maps Mashups, which really let me enjoy the fun side of the maps application, its developer APIs. Through subsequent efforts, working in the Yahoo Flash Platform team, the seed was planted on what has become an impressive array of ‘modern’ Flex 2, Flex 3 and AS3 powered applications that I can only hope will one day include an AS3 maps API. If and when that ever releases, I will be one of the first to code with it.
When the Flex 1.x codebase of YMaps is finally retired, it will be, for me, like when they take those old & grand Navy aircraft carriers out to sea and sink them. There will go the greatest Flex 1.x app ever built, and I got to work on it with some great people at a pretty fine company — who thankfully, saw enough in me to recruit me 3,000 miles away from home and bring me out to Silicon Valley.
Space Ranger
Me (gangsta style), Chase and Jamie killing Zorg on the Buzz Lightyear ride during our recent trip to Disneyland. Jamie usually scores higher than me, but Chase decided to help me out on this adventure.
On the way out of the ride, you can view your photo and email it to yourself, which I think pays dividends in marketing for the ride. Purchasing a printed copy in the ride’s gift shop is no longer the option. This photo only represents a fraction of the fun we had.
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