I Was A Registered Alien!

AIR prototype: Gmail Notifier

I spoke at the Sydney Adobe AIR Camp on Tuesday and for my session built an AIR app that I now think I'll turn into a complete application.  It's currently for Mac only and runs on the Dock, it's icon only and when it launches you see a question mark overlayed on the envelope icon that I'm using. The app connects to your Gmail account and pulls back the quantity of unread mail, setting a new icon with an overlay of the quantity of unread messages. 

Control or right clicking on the icon will show a menu listing the 10 most recent unread messages, all menu items will click through to their respective messages.  I'd like to develop this further and add support for the system tray on Windows, but hey the original was only built over a weekend.

I've added an animated GIF below for you to see it in action, the red circle is only there to draw your attention to the icon, let me know what you think.  I'll be releasing the source code for this some time next week.

Using Google Mail for Your Domain

I've just discovered that you can use Google Apps to do the mail hosting for your domain for free, for up to 100 users.  Others have already written about it - I've found an excellent guide for migrating to it from various email clients and accounts that appears to be very thorough in detail.

I'm currently paying for the hosting of email for my domain and I've got to say that this is very tempting.

After a bit of googling about the subject I found a blog post by Scott Hansleman about how he migrated a number of relatives from various email clients across to Google Apps, well worth the read: Migrating a Family to Google Apps from Gmail, Thunderbird, Outlook and others: The Definitive Guide

I'm Still Here

I've not posted here for something like 5 weeks, I've been busy writing elsewhere. With articles for Adobe's Developer Center and for Builder AU I've been using my muse elsewhere - Twitter and more recently Pownce have also received some of my attention as well.

After the Apollo, now Adobe AIR, beginners article for Adobe Labs that I wrote for the public alpha release I was asked to contribute an article for the Adobe Developers Center on ActionScript 3 for Flash CS3. I've been impressed with how E4X can easily manipulate XML data so I've written an article on that topic, avoiding the usual RSS parser example by illustrating my ideas with an example application that utilizes a custom XML packet to deliver multi-lingual translations for a video display.

Builder AU asked me to review Adobe's Spry Ajax Framework for them which I did in the form of a "how to".  While Spry is a part of Dreamweaver CS3 I approached my writing through utilizing the Spry download with a text editor to add Ajax to traditional HTML - after having existed in Flex and Flash world for so long it was interesting to have to think about basic HTML again.

I've been enjoying the interaction with peers that Twitter has to offer - while not necessarily as intrusive as IM can tend to be Twitter has offered new opportunities for me that I've enjoyed immensely.

I've also been involved with two user groups this week.  The first was launched on Wednesday, ACUGA - The Adobe Connect User Group Asia Pacific.  While some of you may not necessarily get excited about online meetings and eLearning the ACUGA was well attended for the 10:00am time slot, the guest speaker was Adobe's Connect Evangelist, or Connectionist, Peter Ryce who presented from San Jose.  Peter's presentation was very interesting.  Preaching to the converted Peter gave an insight to the future of Connect with the next version requiring a minimum of Flash Player 8 to deliver dramatic performance increases - particularly in desktop sharing.  The second user group was QMUG who I spoke to on the same day, demonstrating Connect to them via Connect.

For further investigation:

Filtering XML data in Flash applications using ECMAScript for XML

Starting with Spry

ACUGA Archive

Is Silverlight Not As Sparkly As Promised?

Filed under "slight of hand" it would appear that Microsoft's promise that Silverlight will work on OS X may not be entirely true.

John Lam, the creator of RubyCLR who now is a Microsoft employee, has listed on his blog recently a number of Silverlight facts including:

"Silverlight V1.1 will only target Intel Mac OS X machines."

Microsoft's message has all along been that Silverlight will be "cross-platform" (more accurately dual platform unless they're going to surprise us all with a Linux version) with one of the big marketing messages being:

"Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows."

It's interesting to see that the efforts of Microsoft's engineers has been rationalised so that version 1.1 will only support the current CPU version of the Mac hardware while Adobe is supporting all versions with the Flash Player.

You can see John's full list here: http://www.iunknown.com/2007/05/clearing_the_ai.html

On The Prowl for Interactive Designer

webqem, my employer, is on the prowl for an Interactive Designer for our office in Neutral Bay, Sydney.

We do a lot of interesting stuff for a wide range of interesting clients. If you're keen to find out more our Creative Director Steve has just blogged about it on the company blog: Are you a seriously good Interactive Designer? We want you.

Joost Invites

Like many others I have an abundance of Joost invites right now.

Thursday 8 August: I had previously offered to give those invites away but since most folk are happy to take without thanks I've decided to remove the offer.

Manners people...

Silverlight Error 3010

In trying to be objective this afternoon I came across this amusing installation problem with Microsoft's new browser plug in Silverlight.

First things first.  I thought that I'd attempt to do this as kosher as possible.  On my work XP machine using IE7 I attempted to view some Silverlight content only to be prompted to download the plug in.

One thing that I did do that was irregular was to allow the plug in to install from the prompt rather than save local first. With my third click I allowed the installer to execute only to have it's progress stick at 54% for ages.  At the end of the process that it ran I got an installation error message with a link to find out more, normally I would have assumed that all went wrong and possibly would have shrugged the shoulders and given up - but click on the link I did.

The browser opened, a url was called and the page displayed offered an explanation for the installation error.  It was a classic, so good that I've taken a screen shot to save it for prosperity.

I was informed that I had an error 3010, and it's a good one:

Installation was completed successfully.  However, a restart is required to complete the install.  Please save your work and restart your computer to finish installation.

I wonder if a noob would have bothered to check what had gone wrong...

Click on the thumb below to see the screenshot on Flickr:

The Sound of Silverlight

I dunno, I have a mental stumble everything I utter the name "Silverlight".  This remark doesn't arise from any Adobe v. Microsoft issue for me - I just find it a difficult word.

It was probably workshopped to death, more than likely focus-grouped forever - it certainly rolls off the tongue better than WPF/e but it doesn't work for me - I reckon that it sounds like a beta!

God Bless You, Mr Rosewater

Sad news - Kurt Vonnegut, whose books gave me great pleasure and were a big distraction in my teenage years, died today of brain injuries suffered as a result of a fall.

His work was funny and unusual.  In Galapagos, one of my favourites, he chose to display an asterix beside a character's name 5 pages before they were to die.

My MacBook Pro's network name is vonnegut, my phone's bluetooth name is kilgore.

To Be Determined (Andrew Muller)

WebDU is five weeks away and after originally having thought to take a break from presenting this year I've decided to stand behind the podium and wave my hands around again.  Geoff has asked me to fill in a gap and this year I'm talking about some interesting projects that I've been working on.