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Guys I must say that this is an awesome gift for all of us.

Apollo for Adobe Flex Developers Pocket Guide Mike Chambers, Rob Dixon, Jeff Swartz explains how to build and deploy Flash-based Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to the desktop using Adobe’s Flex framework. This book describes concisely how Apollo works, and offers numerous examples for those who want to start building RIAs for the desktop right away.

Why put RIAs on the desktop? They’re already supposed to offer the responsiveness of desktop programs. Unfortunately, web browsers were designed to deliver and display HTML-based documents, not applications. The conflict between document- and application-focused functionality creates several problems when deploying applications via the browser.

Adobe Apollo gives you the best of both worlds — the web development model and true desktop functionality. This pocket guide explains how to:

• Set up your development environment
• Create your first application
• Use the File I/O API
• Use HTML within Flex-based Apollo applications
• Use the included Apollo mini-cookbook for common tasks

The book also includes a guide to Apollo packages, classes, and command-line tools. Once you understand the basics of building a Flex-based Apollo application, this pocket guide makes an ideal reference for tackling specific problems.

Download PDF version of  Apollo for Adobe Flex Developers Pocket Guide

Adobe has released Adobe® Integrated Runtime (AIR) update for Flash® CS3 beta 1 software which will allow developers to package and preview .air application files directly within Adobe Flash CS3; leveraging existing Flash development skills to build desktop-enabled distributed applications and experiences with the Adobe AIR™ framework.

Download the Adobe AIR Installer

Macintosh
Download the Adobe AIR update for Flash CS3 Professional for Macintosh (27 MB)
Windows
Download the Adobe AIR update for Flash CS3 Professional for Windows (13 MB)

The Adobe™ Flash™ Ajax Video (FAVideo) component is a small, open source Flash component that you can use to provide video playback within an Ajax application. It exposes all of the formatting and video playback controls necessary to build a video player customized entirely using HTML and Javascript.

* One line instantiation makes it trivial to integrate video playback within an HTML and Javascript interface.
* Simple APIs provide the ability to manipulate video size, position, and scaling prior to or during video playback.
* Video playback parameters such as playback, video seek, cue points, and audio control allow sophisticated programmatic integration with Ajax applications.

Download Flash-Ajax Video Component

A great gift from Mike Chambers

Mike Chambers and the Adobe AIR crew have generously released the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide (Amazon) under a creative commons license.

They have given us an electronic copy available for download for free, here.

The pocket guide covers:

• Introduction to AIR
• Getting Started with AIR development
• Working with JavaScript and HTML within AIR
• AIR Mini Cookbook
• Command line tools
• Aliases

Thanks a ton buddy for the fabulous gift.

A great gift from Mike Chambers

Mike Chambers and the Adobe AIR crew have generously released the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide (Amazon) under a creative commons license.

They have given us an electronic copy available for download for free, here.

The pocket guide covers:

• Introduction to AIR
• Getting Started with AIR development
• Working with JavaScript and HTML within AIR
• AIR Mini Cookbook
• Command line tools
• Aliases

Thanks a ton buddy for the fabulous gift.

Hi Guys,

It finally happend and was much more exciting than expected. We had great Guru’s of Flex there passionate about talking Flex, promoting Flex and keeping their efforts to see a real Web 2.0 world.

We Had Prayank Swaroop (Adobe Evangelist), Abdul Quabiz, Suketu Vyas, Rafique Gilani and yes!! I was there too looking at the shining stars on board discussing some great happenings in Adobe world.

(more…)

Great announcements from Adobe today: Apollo gets a permanent name (Adobe AIR) and hardware acceleration of video. Filling the Good news basket with the biggest news Adobe Flex 3 Beta is also available. What a great way to start the week!

Apollo is now named AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) and the Beta is out on Adobe Labs as well.

We are hearing some mind blowing stuffs from Ted Patrick about the new features on his blog for Adobe Flex 3. It’s been a learning week for Flex 3 features great enhancements in almost every area: components, file size, compilation time, refactoring, a real profiler, improved workflow, CSS design view, deep linking and back-button support, local caching of the Flex framework, Flex components for Flash CS3 - the list goes on.

Ted also tossed some of the upcoming Flex and Apollo integration. Last, but not the least - the Flash player has gotten a serious update - it now offers mipmap scaling, multithreaded vector renderer and bitmap filters (with support for up to 4 cores), Multi-threaded video encoding as well as DirectX (Windows) and OpenGL (OSX) hardware accelerated video playback. All we can say is OUTSTANDING…

For More: Flex 3 Beta Released