More Adobe Open Source and Transparency

I got an email from Dave McAllister I want to post here. It really makes me proud that we are moving in this direction. It was also written up here.

"Today, we formally launched phase 1 of open@adobe, our new portal for open stuff. Open@Adobe (http://sourceforge.net/adobe) is the first instantiation of SourceForge's new developer platform. Open@Adobe is a site aggregating Adobe's openness programs, which includes source code hosting, such as the Adobe® Flex framework, and contributions from Adobe to standards organizations, as well as specifications.

It has been clear for some time that we needed to become more aligned with development principles is seen in open source projects. We've always followed a open process model, with exposure to our bug bases, open discussion forums , roadmaps for products, and early access through Adobe Labs. However, our current repository was not meeting the desire to allow our projects to evolve in multiple directions simultaneously.

In short, Source Forge was beginning to redesign their forge. Because of this we had the chance to add our requests, such as the ability to link back to existing Adobe properties (like forums) and in the future, adding the ability to unify the bugbase to our engineering teams. We worked with a number of existing projects to get their input, and it was fascinating the input we did get.

We wanted to tap the creative and innovative energies of the open source community. SF today hosts over 250K projects and has around 3M downloads a day. We’ve seen some increase in our numbers since its been up, even though it wasn’t announced to today. We wanted the ability for groups and individuals to self create projects; and in the near future to recognize the existence of projects built on our open source core technologies. There are planned updates during the next year, and the various projects will move from opensource.adobe.com to open@adobe as it makes sense.

Feel free to take a look, and if you want to join in (even if you just want us to point to something you’re doing. Let us know.

MAX 2010 - Get your LiveCycle ES Career on Track!

MAX 2010, October 23 -27th at the LA Convention Center, will feature an expanded LiveCycle ES bundle including tons of new materials and topics. All sessions and hands-on training will be done with the latest versions including such awesome improvements as Action Builder and the Service Discovery plug-in.

It's no secret, LiveCycle ES developers are in high demand. Don't believe me, check out the barrage of "LiveCycle Developers Wanted" postings (297 results) on the Google LiveCycle Developers list. Some pay as high as $400/hour! If you want to put your tech career into high gear, you will definitely want to get the “LiveCycle@MAX” bundle, which includes LiveCycle preconference training and full MAX conference pass. THIS SOLD OUT EARLY LAST YEAR so book it soon. The 2009 preconference LiveCycle ES workshops even sold out faster than the Photoshop training.

Sign up for the LiveCycle @ MAX Bundle now: http://max.adobe.com/sessions/livecycle/

I'll be teaching one session, which will be featured in a later post. Every week on Technoracle, we'll try to feature one new MAX 2010 LiveCycle featured promotion.

Here is Technoracle's featured promotion for MAX 2010 for the week of July 12, 2010:

Developing a LiveCycle ES2.5 Application

This program for enterprise developers combines one-and-a-half days of introductory preconference training on Adobe® LiveCycle® Enterprise Suite 2.5 with a full conference pass to MAX 2010.

The "Developing a LiveCycle ES2.5 Application" preconference lab is an essential introduction to developing user-centric applications with Adobe LiveCycle ES2.5. LiveCycle ES2.5 allows both business and IT professionals to visually assemble end-to-end processes, which when combined with rich interfaces, create engaging applications that unify systems and people quickly and flexibly. We'll present an end-to-end use case bringing a rich Internet application (RIA) and a LiveCycle application together. You'll learn about the LiveCycle IDE, the Admin User Interface, and the LiveCycle ES2.5 solution components as we guide you through development of this comprehensive use case.

We strongly recommend this training to those new to LiveCycle ES2.5, or those who would like a refresher, in order to get the most value out of the more advanced LiveCycle topics that will be presented during MAX.

The Developing a LiveCycle ES2.5 Application preconference lab will take place October 23rd and 24th at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Hero - The Flex Framework

Adobe is currently building new mobile development capabilities into the Flex framework. The next version of Flex, codenamed “Hero”, will enable developers to create application experiences that translate well across platforms, and make it easy to build applications that work well on a wide variety of mobile devices. To understand this more, take a look at this video.




“Hero” will augment a number of existing Flex components with mobile- and touch-optimized skins and functionality, and will also add new components that support mobile-specific UI patterns.

Previously, Adobe had investigated splitting off mobile development into a new branch of the Flex framework code-named “Slider”. However, the rapid increases in performance on smartphone-class devices over the past year, combined with the highly optimized performance of Adobe runtimes on these devices, now make it feasible to support mobile use cases directly with the core Flex framework.

Read the rest of what we're doing here:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/mobile/faq.html

Professional Web Designing

A Technoracle guest post written by James Mowery.

With technology and the Internet still growing after 15 years, web
design has become an industry in itself. The world is filled with
eager, talented graphic designers who are learning as the technology
itself progresses, each with the goal of putting their own spin on the
world of design. Many web designers who do their work professionally
rely heavily on Adobe products such as Illustrator and InDesign,
which have become the standard for designing web pages. However, while
Photoshop is not used as often as these programs, it can be an
extremely versatile and valuable tool for the modern web designer and
should never be ignored.

Illustrator and InDesign are used frequently because they were both
created as ways to graphically design images and pages for the web.
The web is an environment that must be respected when it comes to
design, as some things will work and many others will not. That being
said, these programs are well-suited to designing for the web
environment, as they often will default to what will work online.
Photoshop is not used as often for design, as it doesn't have the
power that these other programs have for designing for web. However,
it can be a powerful add-on tool to be used in conjunction with other
Adobe products. After all, they are all part of the same creative
suite and are meant specifically to play off of one another.

Photoshop's power comes from its ability to enhance and alter images
to great effect. Since web design is often made up of large amounts of
images, Photoshop becomes a very powerful ally. From the ability to
create collages for a web environment to the program's ability to
greatly enhance the quality of low-res images, what Photoshop lends to
the web environment is absolutely critical. In fact, Photoshop can
actually be used to enhance an alter entire web pages, which is a
technique that many of the best web designers in the world use on a
regular basis.

Put simply, the web designer who doesn't take advantage of Photoshop
is not using all the tools available and is thus only seeing half the
picture.

About the author: James Mowery is a computer geek that writes about
technology and related topics. To read more blog posts by him, go to
his blog.

Technoracle Road Test: Google Nexus One Car Dock

Having recently switched from iPhone to Nexus One, I have been really impressed by the functionality and ease of use. On a recent trip to Victoria, I decided to test out the new Navigation features of the Nexus One using the Car Dock. The Car Dock is available from Google or a number of other resellers. It keeps your device constantly charging and also turns the Nexus One into a speaker phone (legal in most states, provinces).

Here is the video of the recent test. There are also a few drawbacks. One wish is that the Bluetooth stayed connected while in the Car Dock. For some reason, as soon as the Car Dock mode is engaged, Bluetooth headsets no longer work. This can be annoying if you want to make a private call with other passengers in the car. Other than this minor nit, I give it a solid 10/10.

Send us (22nd Century) to India!

www.supernova.com

Dear Friends:

If you haven't heard yet, you have helped 22nd Century (my band) win the provincial portion of a national battle of the bands called Band on the Run (see http://www.supernova.com/shows/9553) . We're now in the finals of national level competition and first prize is an all expenses paid plus paying gig at the Independence Festival in India in August which means performing in front of an audience of over 200,000. In order to beat the 5 bands from the other provinces participating we needs votes. The online voting starts tomorrow at 1:00 PM eastern and only lasts one week. We stand a one in 6 chance of winning.

In the last 3 years, we played a lot of charity gigs to raise money for causes of others and want to ask for a favor now in return. We would like to ask you to vote for us every day for the next 7 days at this link: http://www.supernova.com/shows/10044. We also know we've asked a lot and want to be really honest and say that we know many of you have given us more than we can ever repay. Having said that, it is a dream of ours to play at one of the world's largest rock festivals and represent Canada!! By the time you read this, there should be a "VOTE" button on the page.

We want to propose that each day (only for the next 7 days) you click here to vote http://www.supernova.com/shows/10044

All you have to do is take 1 minute to open it, click on the link and vote.

In return, all we can do is keep thanking you. Any money we receive above and beyond our expenses in India will be donated towards a charitable cause (perhaps to clean up the gulf, build more school houses in Tanzania, fight the HST, buy Donald Trump a new hair cut?).

Again, we're humbled by this opportunity and realize it wouldn't have happened without you. Votes from any country count!

duane, tim and zippy

The Software as a Service (SaaS) Pattern Explained

(Reprinted courtesy of O'Reilly from the Book "Web 2.0 Architectures". Purchase book here)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) acronym has confused many people as vendors have abused the term to hawk anything with a network capability. In order to understand it, it is useful to tease out the core aspects of it agnostic to any specific implementation or product. James Governor, Dion Hinchcliffe and I wrote about it in the book "Web 2.0 Architectures" along with other patterns. In this context, a pattern is the idea of capturing architectural design ideas as archetypal and reusable description. SaaS is in effect, a pattern specifically for the delivery of software functionality to the end consumer.

To describe it within the book, we used the MacKenzie-Nickull Architectural Patterns meta-model.

Pattern

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Also Known As

Terms often associated with the Software as a Service pattern include:

Utility Computing and Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing is not the same as SaaS; rather, it is a specialized pattern of virtualization. Utility and Cloud Computing refer to treating computing resources as virtualized, metered services, similar from a consumer’s perspective to how we consume other utilities (such as water, gas, electricity, and pay-per-view cable).

On-demand applications
On-demand applications provide access to computing resources on an ad hoc basis when the functionality is required. Using the http://createpdf.adobe.com service to create a single PDF document online rather than having to download and install a version of Acrobat is a good example.

Software Above the Level of a Single Device
This pattern relates to software that spans Internet-connected devices and builds on the growing pervasiveness of the online experience. It touches on various aspects of the SaaS pattern; in particular, the concepts of distributed computing of tasks via network connections.

Model-View-Controller (MVC)
Some people consider SaaS a specialization of the MVC pattern that distributes the Model, View, and Controller (or parts thereof) over multiple resources located on the Internet. It is strongly related to SaaS, and most SaaS providers follow the MVC pattern when implementing SaaS.

Business Problem (Story)

Consider a software vendor that wishes to develop spam removal software to keep spam from reaching its clients’ inboxes. This can be achieved by writing algorithms that analyze incoming local email messages, detect possible spam messages, and flag them in such a way that the mailbox owners can filter them out automatically without having to manually sort through all the messages.

The business problem arises from the fact that spam is constantly changing, which makes it difficult to detect and flag. Spam is typically sent from a variety of spoofed email addresses, and the specific text patterns are changed frequently. For example, if you wanted to detect any spam that had the word “Viagra” in it, you could simply use Perl’s regular expression matching syntax:

if ($emailString =~ m/viagra/;)
{
$SpamScore =+ 1;
}
However, all the spammer would have to do is alter the case of some of the letters to thwart this detection, as in the following:

"ViAGRA"
You could counter this in Perl by adding an i flag to ignore case, as follows:

if ($emailString =~ m/viagra/i;)
{
$SpamScore =+ 1;
}
However, the spammer could then substitute an exclamation point, the number 1, or the letter l for the letter I, capitalizing on the face that the human mind will perceive “Viagra” if it sees “V!AGRA,” “V1AGRA,” or “VlAGRA.” To a human these terms might semantically be the same, but changing the one byte from an I to another character will render useless the efforts of a computer trying to filter spam based on a string of characters. Each possible mutation would require the software vendor to write and distribute new patches to detect the latest variations to each client, possibly on a daily or even hourly basis. In this case, the Perl syntax could be changed to:

if ($emailString =~ m/v.*gra/i;) {
{
$SpamScore =+ 1;
}
The ballet between those who create and send spam and those who try to detect and delete it is a constantly morphing work in progress, with new steps being introduced every day. Each individual the company serves could attempt to create these rules by himself for his own mailbox, but this would be both ineffective and inefficient. Users would each sample only a small subset of all spam, would not be able to easily create heuristic filters to detect spam, and would likely spend an inordinately large amount of time on this activity.

Context

The SaaS pattern is useful any time a customer base has needs that could be addressed more efficiently or reliably by creating a service all of them can share across organizational boundaries.

This pattern occurs whenever a person or organization is building an application whose model, control, or view aspects must be refreshed based on dynamic circumstances or instances in which specialized functionality of the application must be delivered. The pattern could apply anywhere a static application does not easily lend itself to frequent specialization of the model, view, or control aspects required to make it function properly.

The pattern is useful in situations in which users need more computer resources than they can easily support on their local systems and in those situations where users need particular computing resources only occasionally.

Derived Requirements

Computing resources should be architected to be reachable (as discussed in the section on SOA) over whatever network or fabric the architect designs the application to work with. For example, most web-enabled SaaS applications use a common transport protocol, and most ham radio operators use a common frequency to broadcast information or pass it along in a chain.

Functional components of the core computing resources must be usable via a well-defined interface. Such an interface should not be bound to a single client or single model for delivery (such as installation of an application) and should support multiple options for building the user interface (e.g., web-based or client application interface).

Generalized Solution

SaaS is a model of software delivery in which the manufacturer is responsible for the daily technical operation of the software provided to the clients (including maintenance and support), while the clients enjoy the full benefits of the software from remote locations. SaaS is a model of “functionality delivery” rather than “software distribution.” Most of the functionality can be delivered over the Internet or made available in such a way that the end user can interact with the application to get that functionality without having to install the software on her machine. This approach can deliver functionality to any market segment, from home consumers to corporations, and hybrid solutions can deliver small pieces of client-side software that make certain tasks easier.

Static Structure

The basic deployment pattern for SaaS involves deploying different aspects of the model, view, and control components of an application to multiple physical locations. The deployment approach may vary greatly depending on the software and its complexity and dependence on other aspects. Figure 7.9, “Deployment patterns contrasted (SaaS versus conventional approach)” shows how the basic deployment pattern for SaaS differs from traditional software distribution.

Figure 7.9. Deployment patterns contrasted (SaaS versus conventional approach)

The service should also be able to learn from its users when appropriate. This concept of “software that gets better as more people use it,” a hallmark of Web 2.0, has many advantages. For example, in the business story shown in Figure 7.10, “Spam filter software as a service”, if enough email flows through a pattern detector, spam recognition becomes much more accurate based on the collective interactions of thousands of users. As more and more users flag the same messages as spam, the server will begin to recognize those messages as spam, and the global filter will then prevent them from being delivered to other end users. Many readers probably use this type of functionality already without really knowing it.

Google’s Gmail is a prime example of this pattern in action. Google Search is another dynamic example of Software as a Service that gets better the more that people use it. Google actually tracks the links users click on to determine how many people seek the same resource for the same search term. This system is much more sophisticated than a simple adaptive algorithm, yet the principle benefit of large-scale use is that the system learns and adapts based on users’ behaviors.

This functionality is a side benefit of SaaS rather than a core aspect of the pattern.

Figure 7.10. Spam filter software as a service

Dynamic Behavior

The dynamic behavior of the SaaS pattern can vary greatly depending on which protocols, standards, and architectural approaches are chosen. Figure 7.11, “A dynamic view of one way to visualize SaaS” shows a common depiction of the pattern.

Figure 7.11. A dynamic view of one way to visualize SaaS

First, a user identifies his requirements for consuming computing resources. This pattern can be implemented at many levels of complexity, from a secure web service to a simple user interface such as an HTML web page in a browser. The user will interact with the service (the service in this case is a proxy), which will then invoke the core functionality. The responses are appropriately directed back to the user, as required.

Note that this pattern becomes very interesting when multiple users employ the resources and implementers have capabilities that do not exist for their non-SaaS counterparts. First, the functionality provider can detect and act on patterns in runtime interactions. An example of this might be the detection of some error state that is occurring for multiple users of the system (e.g., the email clients are crashing because of a nefarious script contained within some emails). Rather than waiting for enough users to contact the software provider with enough information to enable it to fix the error, the provider can detect the condition itself at an early stage and has access to sufficient information to enable it to trace the source of the error. Ultimately, all users of the software will have a much better user experience if problems are mitigated sooner rather than later and before they feel compelled to complain about them.

Second, a provider may want to consider scaling the system in the backend to handle large numbers of requests. Sudden traffic spikes can adversely impact the user experience, making the system seem unresponsive. Service providers may want to investigate other services, notably those of Cloud Computing providers, if they need to support widely varying usage levels. Most Cloud Computing providers offer automatic scaling to support the amount of processing power and storage needed by an application.

Implementation

As shown in Figure 7.12, “Distinctions of the SaaS pattern”,[75] designers of software provided as a service rather than as a static, installed entity must consider several new nuances of the industry, as these changes in how users interact with software vendors are affecting the way we should design and architect SaaS.

Figure 7.12. Distinctions of the SaaS pattern

When implementing SaaS, you may need to ensure that no one can take advantage of your license model. For example, if you license only one user, what keeps that user from simply sharing her username and password and reselling your service? There are various types of license models for SaaS. Some are single-enterprise licenses, with the cost based on the size of the enterprise. Spam software and Microsoft Exchange Server are reported to use this model. By contrast, Adobe Systems uses a “per use” model for http://createpdf.acrobat.com, where users can either create PDFs one at a time or protect them with a persistent policy. Other software business models (e.g., for Google Search and other widgets) are built around advertising revenue models.

A software vendor implementing SaaS also can react swiftly to bugs in the system. The vendor can monitor all users concurrently to detect software glitches that may require immediate attention and may be able to fix them before most users even notice.

Business Problem (Story) Resolved

The spam detection software is housed in a federated server environment, and users’ incoming email can be automatically pre-passed through the filters to detect spam. Any spam that sneaks through can be recognized and trapped by secondary mechanisms (including human users) and reported back to the spam detection infrastructure, enabling the system to adapt to the latest spammer tactics. There is no discernable delay or lag in incoming email, and most spam email gets eliminated.

Sampling a very large cross section of all mail makes it easier to detect patterns indicating spam emails. This results in the entire system performing better, to the benefit of all users.

Specializations

SaaS may be specialized by using advanced computer algorithms to perform reasoning tasks such as inference. These ultra-advanced systems may one day be able to use cognitive skills to recognize and act on certain patterns of events. For example, these hybrid systems could use a combination of the Bayesian Theorem (conditional probability) and lexical heuristic filtering (finding evidence to support a hypothesis) to dynamically change their functionality. Such specializations will also benefit from adoption of the Collaborative Tagging (a.k.a. folksonomy) pattern, discussed later in this chapter, as it will help foster computational intelligence applications that can reason and infer hypotheses.

Known Uses

Postini, Inc. (which Google acquired in 2007[76]) figured out quite a while ago that centralization and offering its security, compliance, and productivity solutions as a service would result in better spam detection for end users. Recently, many other email companies have begun to use similar SaaS models. Apple’s iTunes music application is perhaps one of the most prominent examples of a hybrid approach to the Software as a Service pattern. The iTunes application has some predetermined functionality and user interfaces (the “V” and “C” components of “Model-View-Controller”); however, much of the information presented to the user is based on information (the “M” in “MVC”) the application receives from the iTunes servers during runtime. This hybrid approach can link user profiles to service calls to offer users better experiences.

Adobe Systems recently launched a service that allows people to manually create small numbers of PDF documents online and optionally link to them other functionality for things such as enabling rights management. Google continues to expand its SaaS offerings. Initially, its search service used algorithms to vary search result rankings based on user interaction patterns. Recently, Google has added multiple other SaaS offerings, including creation and manipulation of online documents, spreadsheets, and more. Note that most of Gmail has always been provided as a service rather than as an application.

Consequences

The negative consequences of using the SaaS pattern are minimal, but they need to be addressed from the outset. Offering software as a service may create additional complexity in supporting computing resources for large numbers of users. The ability to dynamically scale an offering based on surges in the number of users requesting the functionality is also an issue.

In addition, authentication—especially when used to force compliance with software licensing—can be difficult to implement and to police.

The most noteworthy consequence of implementing this pattern is that the software may have a dependency on an Internet connection. In many cases, if the connection does not work, neither will the software. When such a mechanism is possible and makes sense, the best way to avoid such issues is to employ client-side caching. The appropriateness of this strategy varies by application. Caching Google Search is difficult, and would be mostly useless in an environment where readers couldn’t go to the linked articles anyway. On the other hand, technologies like the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Google Gears are steps in the right direction.

Denial-of-service attacks can also be a threat. A malicious user may be able to overpower the bandwidth or computational capabilities of software implemented as a service and effectively deny or greatly slow down other users’ experiences.

End users often prefer to keep their software in a controlled and secure environment. Because SaaS applications are not hosted or controlled by the user, the user might be subjected to occasional outages when service upgrades or other events take place on the provider side.

Also, personal security risks are inherent in passing information back and forth on the open Internet. Users should carefully assess what risks are acceptable for their purposes.

(c) Copyright - O'Reilly Media. See this and other patterns via the book at http://oreilly.com/web2/excerpts/9780596514433/specific-patterns-web20.html

Mingleverse 3D Telepresence running on Google Nexus One/Flash Player!

This video showcases an absolutely astounding capability of the new Google Nexus One smartphone running the Android operating system (Froyo 2.2) with Adobe Flash Player 10.1. Mingleverse.com is a 3D immersion technology that allows individuals to teleport their avatars into virtual universes.

Duane's World Episode 28 - Flexico!

OK - This episode of Duane's World took a lot of time to make but it had to be done right. I wanted to capture the real essence of the Mexican Flex developers and show the simplistic beauty of their devotion to Flex. I even tried to convince many of them that they should change the name of Mexico to Flexico. This episode features far too many people to name but it is a must watch. On top of the great interviews and humor, there is a tutorial on Spark graphic primitives in MXML and a great sound track courtesy of my favorite new metal band Entropia! Enjoy!

The Action Builder in LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 2

This video introduces my favorite feature in LiveCycle ES Designer. Before Action Builder, we had to code behavior into forms using formcalc or JavaScript. Now Action builder let's you add complex functionality to PDF forms with ease. This is yet another of the new series of LiveCycle tutorials.



The podcast version is available from:

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/adobe-developer-connection/id299639895

Video - Acrobat Connect on Google Nexus One

This is just a short video I made this AM while watching the Adobe Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) launch on Acrobat Connect via my Google Nexus One. I haven't tested all the features but as for watching, it seemed to perform perfectly. Note there is no plug in to present from the N1 device. For the record, I am on Android 2.2 (FroYo) build with Adobe Flash Player 10.1 (10.1.61.68).

Some awesome webinars on building multi-screen content

For developers, we want to invite you to a series of webinars on authoring content and code for mobile screens. Yeah - there has been a lot of talk about how you can just "write once, run everywhere" but the devil is in the details. Developers who have been at the cutting edge are preparing to reveal some best practices and tips, tricks you should at least be aware of when authoring for multiple screens to take advantage of new features of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2. These webinars will run from June 22-24, 2010.

Best practices in optimizing web content for Flash Player 10.1
Tuesday, June 22, 9AM – 10AM Pacific Time - REGISTER

The quickest way to build cross-platform apps with AIR 2
Tuesday, June 22, 1PM – 2PM Pacific Time - REGISTER

Rich Internet App development with Flash Builder 4 for Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2
Wednesday, June 23, 9AM – 10AM Pacific Time - REGISTER

Multi-screen web content development with Flash Pro CS5
Thursday, June 24 9AM – 10AM Pacific Time - REGISTER

Open Source Media Framework Webinar Wed June 10

An event not to be missed. In tomorrow's webinar, Lisa Larson-Kelley will dive into the fundamentals of Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), Adobe’s standard video player libraries for building playback experiences and monetizing video on the web. She’ll give you a high-level overview of why you’d want to use OSMF and what it can do, and then dive into its underlying structure and some simple sample code to get you started. This session is for beginner to intermediate programmers and web developers who want to gain a better understanding of OSMF, and how it can simplify media player development.

Lisa is a speaker not to be missed! On top of this, there is a chance to win a copy of CS5!

Register now (I have)
http://www.eventsadobe.com/osmflaunch/invite.html

Website and Blog Hosting - some questions.

Technoracle has been on Blogger now for over 4 years and feel I may be missing out on some of the new features of blog platforms. While investigating these, I also started thinking about just using another company's Website hosting and build my own blog and condense all my other websites on to one provider. The reasons are pretty obvious. No waiting on third party sites for widgets or auxiliary items to load, full control over look and feel, etc. On the downside, WordPress, Blogger and others give you a lot out of the box and the server hosting from various third party suppliers is actually pretty cheap.

I already have my web collateral pretty spread out too. Web2open.org (where I place a lot of tutorials) is hosted on a dedicated server hosting. www.duanesworldtv.org is on yet another provider and nickull.net and 22ndcenturyofficial.com are on two different providers. This is before we ever get into MySpace, Facebook etc. Here are some things running through my mind though:

1. Will condensing all of them into one IP address affect search engine results? While they are not interlinked much, there are some links. My gut tells me yes but I am looking for anyone with actual experience.

2. Staying on blogger seems to result in blog posts being indexed much quicker than using non-Google owned blog platforms. Anyone have some experience here?

3. I haven't migrated to the new templates. Has anyone experience with this old Technoracle Blogger template moving to a newer one? I heard it is lossy.

Any other advice on my contemplated consolidation would be appreciated.

Have a great weekend everyone!

New Video Tutorial - LiveCycle Services via SOAP.

This is the latest in a series of videos aimed at Adobe LiveCycle ES2 for Java (tm) developers. This tutorial covers using SOAP based web services to invoke remote ES2 services. The project is built in the Eclipse IDE and if you want it, email us here at technoracle.

Comparison - Full Screen H.264 video on Google Nexus 1 vs. MacBook pro

We were contacted by the lads over at lucid.it about video on mobile to gather some more information. I decided rather than give them the technical marketing belch, it might be better just to show them via video how well Flash Player 10.1, running on the Google Nexus One smartphone, can render full screen H.264. Unfortunately, the camera I used to film this does not do the video justice, nor does the YouTube conversion. If I get a better result on Vimeo, I will replace the video embedded. Nevertheless, this video shows a true comparison on how a full screen video experience runs roughly the same whether using the Gala Flash Player (Mac OS X hardware accelerated) on a MacBook Pro 15 inch laptop and the Google Nexus One Android smartphone using the latest Flash Player 10.1 (not Flash Lite - full Flash Player).

The video can be seen at http://www.lucid.it/mobile.

Open Source Media Framework now!

The first release of Adobe's Open Source Media Framework (OSMF 1.0) can be downloaded for free today from www.osmf.org. If this isn't enough, social media start-up KickApps now offers an online service (www.osmfappstudio.com) available starting today. That certainly makes my Friday!

OSMF was started over a year ago to simplify the development of media players by allowing developers to assemble components to create high-quality, full featured video playback experiences. Key service providers such as Omniture, Akamai, Conviva, Eyewonder and many others have completed plug-ins or submitted code to be included as part of OSMF. OSMF 1.0 also supports the latest Flash Platform initiatives such as Flash Player 10.1, Flash Access 2.0 and HTTP Dynamic Streaming.

In addition to this fully tested, production ready version of OSMF, the team also posted the first prerelease of Strobe Media Playback. Strobe Media Playback is a compiled swf that allows a web developer to get up and running quickly and easily with an OSMF based media player. It basically will look and render the same in every browser (One of the issues with HTML5 video I have worried about is the problems for web developers to ensure a consistent look and feel across all browser/platform combinations and maintain it over time). The out of the box player looks like this:



The team has created a interface that gives the customer a terrific “out of the box” experience. Every group at Adobe who is interested in an easy to use web video experience should talk to the Strobe Media Playback team. The team is working to make SMP even easier to use through a hosted version that can be integrated on a customer’s web page as easily as an HTML 5 video tag, but with much more power and flexibility.

Have a great weekend!

Adobe LiveCycle ES2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) now available

Adobe has released LiveCycle ES2 Service Pack 1. Service Pack 1 updates LiveCycle ES2 server components, LiveCycle Workbench ES2, LiveCycle Designer ES2, and LiveCycle ES2 SDK (updating both LiveCycle ES2 server and LiveCycle Workbench ES2 is required). This Service Pack can only be deployed on LiveCycle ES2.

Please visit https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=lces2_sp to download Service Pack 1. Additional details on the contents of the service pack, including the issues it addresses and installation instructions are included in the Read Me file available at the same URL. A file extraction utility such as WinZip/gnu tar/unzip will be required in order to extract the files prior to running the installation.

The direct link to the Service Pack download is http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=lces2_sp.

You can also access the download from a few locations on LiveCycle DevNet pages:
1. Downloads tab: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/index.html?view=downloads

2. Get It section on the Get Started page: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/get_started.html


Be sure to review the Release Notes and Read Me PDF before installing.

Release notes: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/livecycle/9.0/releasenotes.html
Read Me: http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/livecycle/lces2_sp1/designer/sp_download_readme.pdf

Bloodied but Unbowed: As real as it gets

During my time working with Adobe, I seem to keep getting drawn into the movie business crowds. Our creative tools seem to be a favorite amongst many film producers who in turn are always super enthusiastic about showing us the awesome new ways they have used them for special effects, turning movies into truly interactive experiences and more. Celebrities such as James Cameron (Avatar), Peter Beyak (Extreme), Colleen Nystedt (Exhuming Mr. Rice) and others seem to be genuinely stoked about our technology and what they can do with it. Once in a while, I am blessed with the opportunity to meet someone from the lucky group of people who are living their dreams. Translation: working on something you are truly passionate about = living your dreams. Yesterday was one of those days.

I had the immense pleasure of having lunch with Susanne Tabata. Susanne is an accomplished film producer (just Google her name for a plethora of credits). What I am most impressed by though is that she is so real for a person who has just released what is destined to be a one of a kind documentary film chronicling the pivotal years of early punk rock in North America. While the film "Bloodied but Unbowed"starts in Vancouver, BC, it weaves tentacles outwards, and the effect of the Vancouver punk movement from 1978-1981 is still influencing artists globally as told by people like Randy Rampage (DOA, Annihilator, Stress Factor 9) and Duff McKagan (Guns & Roses, Velvet Revolver, Jane's Addiction). According to Alternative Tentacles, the Vancouver sound pulled out a "Yeah, that's the shit!" from the likes of Jello Biafra, Henry Rollins, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sonic Youth, John Doe, Randy Bachman, Dave Grohl, Pete Seeger, and many many more! As someone who played bass for Stress Factor 9 with Randy in 2007, I can tell you the sound is still relevant. My own band still embraces this stylistic sound, which is ingrained into the song "Howie the skid" (not yet released).

Susanne Tabata (on the left, yeah that is as obvious as it gets)

Here is the bad part now. I haven't seen the film. Like me, there are thousands of people who would die to see this (all screenings were select and sold out in advance). Susanne did confide in me during lunch that there may be a flash screening (short notice, one time shot to see it). If you want to get the invite, you best be logging on to Bloodied but Unbowed's Facebook and Twitter pages and keep watching for the invite.

Tom Harrison, the Provinces rock critic and a tough cookie to impress ( he still won't review my last CD ), writes:

"The film is more like a memoir based on key figures and what they said then and now. I applaud that. Initially, I feared it would take a journalistic angle - the "us versus them" slant. That's a familiar battle and not only tiresome but narrow. This was a widespread cultural phenomenon, not merely a musical one. The story is told from a punk point of view with a brief explanation of what started it and hints of what ended it.

Ultimately, the punks won that battle, or reached a pact in an ongoing war. They didn't win with their music as so little of it was heard beyond the punk scene, but with their attitude, which changed the thinking of so many and which was taken up by the bands who danced down the trail the punks had blazed"

The Georgia Straight also heaped praise on Tabata by writing "Bloodied but Unbowed takes a loving—and long overdue—look at one of the most fertile scenes in North American music history, with Tabata mixing rare archival footage with modern-day interviews with those who were on the frontlines".

What also excites me is that this film seems to be taking on a life of its own. So many people like me never got a chance to see it as the screenings were sold out (I was performing in New York on the date anyways). The grassroots swell of interest only can be attracted by something that is truth. Punk rock, to me, has always been about the search for the truth and a fight against complacency, mixed with cynical humor of the mainstream life of being a herded sheep; an organic pain collector hurtling towards certain oblivion. Punk rock just embraces this fact first, then asks "so what are you gonna do now?"

I know what I am going to do. Go and see Bloodied by Unbowed the first chance I get.

I suspect Bloodied but Unbowed is destined for a long life as a cult classic. I cannot wait to get a chance to see it in a theater or even on DVD. Until then, I can only hope that cutting edge film producers keep using Adobe software so I can get in on the V.I.P. lists.

UPDATE AND DISCLOSURE: Technoracle's founders have entered into a financial relationship with the company that will distribute this movie in order to support it's migration to digital streaming and DVD. In the interest of transparency, this is hereby disclosed to readers.

LiveCycle ES for Java Developers (Video)

This is a simple video tutorial on how to programmatically invoke LiveCycle ES services via an EJB API. To complete this tutorial yourself, you will need to do the following:

1. Download and install the LiveCycle ES2 turnkey JBoss solution from http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/trial/. Note that this is 3GB and if you would rather, please contact me dnickull at adobe dot com with your name and mailing address and I will send you out a DVD of everything you need.

2. You also need to download the Eclipse IDE. This can be downloaded from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/downloads/release/galileo/SR2/eclipse-jee-galileo-SR2-macosx-cocoa.tar.gz

3. The code project can be downloaded from here - http://www.web2open.org/adc/LiveCycleESProjects.zip

That is about all. Here is the video: