Home >
This week the RIA landscape gets its day in the spotlight with the Presidential Inauguration, we learn that Silverlight 3 will share some secrets at Mix'09, Curl gains AMF support, jQuery 1.3 is released, Amethyst reaches Beta 2, and we look at styling JavaFX applications. All this and more on the Weekly RIA RoundUp from InsideRIA.
Right-click or Control-click to download this week's podcast. You can also subscribe to the InsideRIA Weekly Roundup in iTunes.
FEATURED: RIA Platforms Delivering the Inauguration Online
Technologies: Silverlight, Flash Platform
While there have been many large streaming events in the history of online media, Tuesday's inauguration in Washington DC will certainly be one of the largest on record. Unlike events such as the 2008 Olympics, most every news outlet in the United States will be offering some type of online experience for viewers. Most all of the video for this event will be delivered through the Flash Player or through Silverlight. This is yet another way that the platforms that make up the RIA landscape are changing the way we experience our world.
While CNN will be delivering its online video coverage as Flash Video, it is working with Microsoft to present a new experience where user uploaded photos will be integrated with PhotoSynth through Silverlight. In addition, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News will all be using Flash Video for their live streams, but CBS has worked to create a Silverlight streaming experience for the users. The 'official' online inauguration experience (from the Inauguration Committee) will also be powered by Silverlight.
In addition to delivery through the browser, information on the inauguration is also being delivered through the iPhone and Twitter. It will be interesting to see who does the best job of aggregating all of the community coverage from this historic day for the RIA landscape.
Lifehacker: Lifehacker's Guide to Catching the Inauguration from Anywhere
Scott Barnes (Microsoft): Silverlight is all over The Moment..
Ryan Stewart (Adobe): Flash Video Powering The Presidential Inauguration
Mix'09 Will Reveal Some Silverlight 3 Secrets
Technologies: SilverlightIt was recently announced that there will be several sessions at Mix'09 on Silverlight 3. This means that we will only need to wait until March to learn what is in store for the next iteration of Silverlight. The current Silverlight 3 sessions at Mix include: What’s New in Silverlight 3, What’s New in Silverlight 3 Media, and Deep Dive into Silverlight Graphics.
Adam Kinney (Microsoft): Surprise! Silverlight 3 sessions announced for MIX09
'Amethyst' Enables Flex Development in Visual Studio
Technologies: FlexIn addition to the previously mentioned Tofino, Sapphire Steel has developed a plug-in for Visual Studio that adds support for developing Flex applications. This plug-in, Amethyst, reached Beta 2. The current version of Amethyst is available for free to download today, but eventually Amethyst will be available in a free personal edition and a paid professional edition.
Sapphire Steel Blog: Adobe Flex IDE, Amethyst Beta 2
Updated JavaScript Samples for AIR 1.5
Technologies: Ajax, AIRKevin Hoyt, Evangelist at Adobe, recently updated his AIR JavaScript samples. These code samples include most all aspects of the AIR API, and they are a great starting place for a JavaScript developer who is interesting in working in Adobe AIR.
Kevin Hoyt (Adobe): JavaScript AIR Samples Updated (and More)
Styling a JavaFX Calculator
Technology: JavaFXDean Iverson continued James Weaver's series on creating a calculator in JavaFX. In this installment Dean covers the method he used to style the calculator. This post is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn the basics of styling in the still new JavaFX 1.0 SDK.
Dean Iverson: Part Three of Building a JavaFX Calculator: Dean is Styling!
Curl Releases Curl Data Kit Data Services
Technologies: CurlCurl recently released Curl Data Kit Data Services (CDK-DS) for the Curl platform. This brings AMF support to the Curl platform including support for BlazeDS integration. The press release states:
This initial release of the CDK-DS implements all of the remoting and web messaging services that are supported by the open source BlazeDS server, including publish/subscribe, server push, remote procedure calls (RPC), and security and authorization features.
It will be interesting to see if this release will help move any developers away from Flex to the Curl platform.
PyAMF 0.4 Released
Technologies: Python, Flash PlatformThe PyAMF team has released version 0.4 of the AMF implementation for Python. This release has addressed over 100 issues, and it should be of particular interest to developers who are working with the Flash Platform on the Google App Engine.
PyAMF.org: PyAMF 0.4 released
jQuery 1.3 Released
Technologies: AjaxOn the third anniversary of the jQuery project, the jQuery team released version 1.3 of the popular JavaScript library. According to the release page, the major improvements in this release are:
Sizzle: A sizzlin’ hot CSS selector engine, Live Events: Event delegation with a jQuery twist. jQuery Event Overhaul: Completely rewired to simplify event handling, HTML Injection Rewrite: Lightning-fast HTML appending, Offset Rewrite: Super-quick position calculation, and No More Browser Sniffing: Using feature detection to help jQuery last for many more years to come.
If you are interested in this release, you should check out the jQuery 1.3 API Browser to get more information on the features.
Ajaxian: jQuery 1.3 and the jQuery Foundation
Expression Encoder 2 and Amazon S3
Technologies: SilverlightTim Heuer recently completed the first iteration of a plug-in for Expression Encoder that allows publishing of media content to Amazon S3. In addition, he also covers several other plug-ins for Expression Encoder in his post.
Tim Heuer (Microsoft): Amazon S3 Publishing Plugin for Expression Encoder
Free Online JavaFX Training
Technologies: JavaFXSang Shin will be offering a free 15 week course on JavaFX. This course will be done in an academic class style (with homework, assignments, etc...). Information on how to signup for the classes can be found the post.
SDN Program News Blog: New Free Online Course: JavaFX Programming (With Passion!) Begins Jan. 30
Adobe's LiveCycle on Amazon EC2 Explained
Technologies: Adobe LiveCycleDuane Nickull, Evangelist at Adobe, gave a detailed explanation and tour of the recently announced deployment of Adobe LiveCycle onto Amazon EC2. While we covered the initial announcement here on the RoundUp, Duane gives a great introduction and covers most all of the information needed for a developer to get started working with LiveCycle on EC2.
Duane Nickull (Adobe): Adobe Cloud Computing - LiveCycle ES Cloud instances!
Tag Cloud
Podcasts & Screencasts
@InsideRIA on Twitter
Follow InsideRIA on Twitter
Facebook Application Development
re: Curl and AMF - Perhaps Richard Monson-Haefel can answer this question. How is Flex less secure than Curl? He's stated it several times, but I am yet to see a sensible answer. I have always assumed that it lay within the support for AMF, but now Curl are adding AMF support, so that can't have been it.
This is one instance in which I wouldn't mind reading a Curl specific blog on this website, preferably titled - Why Curl is more secure than Flex.
Thanks in advance.
@Chris - Great observation. I will be sure that Richard receives your question so that it can be addressed. I haven't heard any clear explanation of this either.
@Chris The issue of security for Curl vs. AIR is not related to AMF but has to do with how the two RIA platforms deal with the execution of applications and what privileges are required. Curl does not require the application to run with privilege when running on the desktop outside browser whereas AIR does require privilege. You can read more in this blog post - http://tinyurl.com/4rjwak. We also have a white paper on RIA Security that you can see here - http://tinyurl.com/clp33o
@Richard the posts I had read had specifically said "Curl is more secure than Flex" and the context of that statement had nothing to do with AIR. Anyway, John Dowell more than covers that base in his response.
With regards to your white paper - I'm afraid that not being a complete expert in Flex and the intricacies of the Flash platform I am unable to do a side by side comparison of Flex and Curl with a specific focus on security. From scan-reading I don't see anything that jumps out that Curl does that Flex does not, but I am readily open to correction about that.
So, I'm still waiting a satisfactory explanation.
Rather than focussing on the good things about Curl I can't help note that any post or statement about Curl often includes a dig at Flex. This is like the Apple vs PC thing and to be honest it annoys me. I would much rather see clear, plain english, statements about the great things that Curl does rather than tit-for-tat style attacks on other technologies which as far as I'm concerned isn't winning you any friends and just serves to heckle the people who enjoy using Flex. That said, if you are categorically stating that Curl 'does this' where Flex 'doesn't do this, or does it very badly' and can prove that empirically, I'm happy to hear it.
Note to InsideRIA: This website desperately needs some form of comment tracking, I would have missed this if I had not explicitly come looking for it.