RefreshingApps.com

Adobe have released a Fireworks CS4 beta on labs in addition to a CS4 Dreamweaver beta that now has Webkit as the internal browser. I know that many developers and UI designers use Fireworks on a daily basis, so this will be interesting to see where Adobe are going with their latest products.

The demo is 48 hours unless you have a valid CS3 license then it is extended.

Today I came across a very interesting project that aims to bridge applications written in Java with Adobe AIR. The Merapi project was started by a team of people who all use AIR and Java on a daily basis. They found that while AIR does some things really well, it had severe limitations when it comes to accessing hardware devices like the Wii remote or mobile phones.

In order to provide the best user experiences, we often find ourselves in a postion to try and push the limits on available ...

Those guys at EffectiveUI have been busy creating the User Interface Resource Center. Where RIA designers and developers can get information on a range of RIA technologies including Adobe AIR and Adobe Flex.

The content is light to begin with however there is a good interview with the guys on The Making of eBay Desktop.

This site will make a great accompaniment to freshAIRapps for any RIA developer.

Air Simple Updater is an updating mechanism for creators of HTML and AJAX AIR apps with only a few extra lines of code. All the source files are located on Google Code along with a sample application for you to try.

I know that many of you have been waiting for this but after Yahoo and ESRI, Google have finally released an ActionScript 3 API for Google Maps. Well this means no more bridging for us AIR developers and we can now develop pure AS3 apps for AIR with mapping from Google.

Official API page
Official API reference
Google blog post
Example Flash application

UPDATE Apparently the ActionScript Google Maps API does not work with AIR and contravenes the terms and conditions. This sucks big time and ...

Adobe has released the public beta of the new Flash player version 10 code named Astro. I have heard of some very interesting things that are going to arrive with this update and from and AIR development perspective it should provide even more RIA / RDA (Rich Desktop Application) options.

Some points of interest include new built in 3D effects, the creation of custom filters using the newley announced Pixel Bender toolkit and better graphics performance.

Read more detail at the Adobe labs ...

Adobe has officially announced the dates for this years Max conference. I attended the Europe event last year in Barcelona and had an absolute ball. The sessions were very inspiring and informative and I met some great people too. I will definately be attending the event in Milan on December 1 – 4.

Max 2008 North America – San Francisco, California November 16 – 19, 2008
Max 2008 Europe – Milan, Italy December 1 – 4 2008
Max 2009 Japan – Tokyo, Japan January 2009 (exact date to be ...

Oops, as you may have noticed the site has been down for the last few hours. This is due to a massive spike in traffic from Lifehacker, ReadWriteWeb and more resulting in my server stalling. Having now altered my VPS configuration we should be back on track. So please accept my apologies and hopefully we can get back to normal.

Thanks James

FreshAIRapps has got a great review on ReadWriteWeb, the web technology new site. I’m a regular reader of RWW so make sure it is an addition to your feed reader.

Full article on RWW here

Mike Chambers has posted an interview by Ryan Stewart with AlertThingy creator Jeremy Baines over at the Adobe OnAIR site so go and check it out.