Serge Jespers

Give yourself a MAX Unaward

by Serge Jespers on 02. Sep, 2010 in MAX2010

If you follow me on Twitter you probably saw my tweets about a new secret project. Today I can finally reveal it to you.

I actually started this project somewhere mid-June. It all started with working on a widget for the Cannes Lions festival. I realized that it was probably a good idea to start thinking about a new widget for MAX. With close to 1 million views, last year’s MAX widget was a huge success (I was just checking the number before posting this and it actually passed the 1 million mark and is still generating views every day) and I thought it would be cool to try and match that number this year (although I realize that that’s a pretty big target). I knew I wanted to do something with video and more specifically do something with personalized video… and it had to be related to MAX. Once the storyboard was approved we recorded the video in a studio in Hilversum in The Netherlands. That was right before my trip to Japan. When I came back I started building the app and have been working on it for the last 3 or 4 weeks.

So… Without further ado… I present you… The Adobe MAX Unawards!

There are a couple of people I really need to thank for their help.

First and foremost: Wim Vanhenden. I think Wim is one of the most talented Flash developers in Belgium… but I decided not to use his Flash skills for this project. Wim is actually the host of the MAX Unawards show. Don’t ask me why but when I started working on the storyboard for the application, I almost immediately thought of Wim for the role of the host. I think it worked out great and we had a lot of fun recording this!

I also want to thank Klaasjan Tukker and Ton Frederiks for helping out with recording the video in the green key studio.

Big thanks also go to Paul Burnett. Paul worked on the personalized text pieces in Flash CS5.

This project would also not be possible without the help of Influxis. Thank you, Jerry, Grant, and Noe! If you ever need any Flash Media Server hosting you have to try these guys. Their custom admin panel alone makes it worth every penny.

UPDATE: Obviously also a big thank you to all the beta testers who gave me a ton of valuable feedback.

I just realized that this blog post is now starting to sound like an acceptance speech for an award… ;-) I should have just created a video for it! ;-)

I hope you guys enjoy the application. I’m looking forward to seeing what awards you give yourself and the creative acceptance speeches you create for it. Oh… and… Hope to see you at MAX!

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Hot job in Silicon Valley: Flash developer

by Serge Jespers on 26. Aug, 2010 in Industry

The best way to measure the impact and relevance of a technology is probably to look at job openings. According to the Wall Street Journal the demand for Flash developers in Silicon Valley has suddenly surged:

With the advent of online social gaming start-ups such as Zynga Game Network Inc. and others—many of which make online games that involve Flash technology—demand for Flash engineers has suddenly surged.

Mochi Media (one of the largest online gaming networks) says it is hard to find good Flash engineers.

To get around the lack of Flash engineers, Mr. Hsu says Mochi Media tries to hire engineers who know programming languages such as Java and then train them to use Flash. “It’s a six-month time investment, but most can pick up Flash very quickly,” he says.

Be sure to read the rest of the article on the WSJ site. Oh… and ehr… Flash on!

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Auto update API for AIR Native Installer Apps

by Serge Jespers on 25. Aug, 2010 in AIR

If you’ve played around with native installers for AIR 2, you probably already found out that you cannot use the update framework. My fellow evangelist Piotr just released a solution for that.

Piotr’s NativeApplicationUpdater library works in exactly the same way as the update framework you use for AIR applications. When your app starts it loads an XML file that has all the update information. If an update is available you will be prompted to download and install it. Piotr actually uses another AIR 2 feature to launch the downloaded native installer. By opening the package with openWithDefaultApplication() the installer launches and installs the update.

I’ll definitely add this to the next release of my Package Assistant application (an update is coming soon!).

Check out the video where Piotr explains how it works and download the library from Google Code.

If you haven’t played with native installers for AIR 2 and want to learn more, then check out my video tutorial.

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Tablet mania: Samsung Galaxy Tab

by Serge Jespers on 24. Aug, 2010 in devices

Even though it has its flaws there’s no denying that Apple has done a great job with the iPad. A while back I got to play with one for a few days to prepare for a demo. Next to its obvious and well documented/talked about flaws I also think it is too heavy and too big and so I was on the lookout for a smaller and lighter alternative. Obviously everyone in the tech industry took notice of what Apple had created and we’re finally starting to see the details of some of the iPad’s future competitors.

I’ve been following the news about the Galaxy Tab from Samsung for a while now. Today they started an official teaser campaign. See the video below.

Now… I’m just wondering… Am I the only one that watched this video frame by frame? Am I the only that tried to decipher the blurry text in the background? (The blurriest one says “Flash support” by the way. After all Samsung is one of our Open Screen Project partners.)

This looks like it’s a great form factor. A 7-inch screen sounds just right to me and the widescreen aspect ratio makes a lot more sense especially if you want to watch video on it. I can’t wait to get my hands on one! The second half of this year is going to be very interesting… and expensive ;-)

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New on Labs: Adobe AIR Launchpad

by Serge Jespers on 24. Aug, 2010 in AIR, labs

The Adobe AIR Launchpad has to be the easiest way to learn some of AIR’s more advanced features. If you want to learn how to use the auto-update framework, drag-and-drop, sockets, native processes, and more then go and grab this application from Adobe Labs right now.

I think the app is also very useful for experienced developers. With just a couple of clicks you can set up your AIR project without having to rewrite some of the things you probably have in every app. Things like centering the main window for instance or detecting network capabilities and much more.

The Adobe AIR Launchpad spits out clearly written and well commented code that makes it easy to learn the APIs if you’re new to AIR and makes it easy to take a quick shortcut if you’re an experienced developer.

Go get it now on Adobe Labs.

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How to stand out as a freelance web developer

by Serge Jespers on 05. Aug, 2010 in Cool stuff

As an ex-freelancer I know how hard it can be to stand out from the crowd. Dave Berzack, a freelance web developer, created this music video about web development.

There’s not much else I can add to this… Just watch the video.

Great work, Dave! ;-)

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Confirmed: Apple’s “Magic” Trackpad works with AIR 2.0

by Serge Jespers on 29. Jul, 2010 in AIR

Yesterday I saw a Tweet from Ralph Hauwert who was wondering if Apple’s Magic Trackpad would work with AIR 2.0. You probably already know that AIR 2.0 supports multitouch and gestures. The trackpad on a recent MacBook Pro supports gestures and these work nicely in AIR 2.0. So… My hunch was that the “Magic” Trackpad… I’m sorry… I just have to put that in quotes. With all these magic products I’m starting to wonder why Steve doesn’t have a show in Vegas yet ;-))) But back to my hunch… My hunch was that the “Magic” Trackpad would also just work.

Earlier today I happened to be walking past the Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo and I went in and bought one. When I got back to the hotel I updated the trackpad drivers through Apple’s Software Update and paired the trackpad with my MBP. I already had DestroyTwitter running and tried the three-finger swipe on it. Oh… In case you didn’t know… the latest version of DestroyTwitter has support for the swipe-gesture to switch between different canvases. The “Magic” Trackpad worked perfectly with DestroyTwitter. I also tried some of my demo applications and they all worked as expected.

Now that I’ve used it for a while I think I like the “Magic” Trackpad. Especially in “lean-back-mode”. I can definitely see this replacing my mouse on my Mac Mini back home. I have it connected to my TV and use it to watch video content from the web.

So… To summarize: The “Magic” Trackpad does work with AIR 2.0. (Note: Like the trackpad on a MacBook, the “Magic” Trackpad only supports gestures. So no raw multi-touch points).

Now go build some cool touch-enabled apps (and send ‘em to me when you’re done)! Flash on!

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Submit your app/site for the MAX Awards

by Serge Jespers on 26. Jul, 2010 in MAX2010

“Aaah… I won’t bother with submitting my app/site… I never win anything…”. I bet some of last year’s winners thought exactly that but they went for it anyway… and won! The Adobe MAX Awards is a global awards program that recognizes the best uses of Adobe software for creating expressive applications that enable people to engage with ideas and information anytime, anywhere and on any device.

You can submit your application/site until August 13th, 2010. The top three finalists in each of six categories will be invited to showcase their work at MAX 2010 in Los Angeles.

There’s really nothing you can lose here. So… Submit your app/site today!

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Monetize your AIR applications with Melrose

by Serge Jespers on 22. Jul, 2010 in Flash Platform

Melrose – the monetization service previously known as Shibuya – is now live on Adobe Labs.

If you were at MAX last year you probably remember the demo I did in the keynote on day 2. With literally just a couple lines of code you can add a complete license manager and payment solution to your AIR application. You can even create time and feature based trials.

Melrose works exactly like all the other application stores out there. We don’t charge any monthly or yearly fees but we do take a percentage of your earnings (obviously there is no charge for free apps). In return we’ll provide a safe and secure way to monetize your AIR applications. That means you don’t have to worry about things like credit card processing and hosting your license manager logic. Your private dashboard will tell you how your application is doing. You can view charts on number of downloads of your apps, number of trials, number of purchases, revenue, number of activations, and trial to purchase histogram (i.e. conversions from trials to purchases).

Developers and publishers in 47 countries can use Melrose to distribute and monetize AIR applications.

Melrose is still in private beta but you can already sign up today. You can find all the necessary info on the Melrose Labs page.

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Adobe/Intel App Lab: Join us online

by Serge Jespers on 21. Jul, 2010 in Events

Adobe and Intel are hosting an event later today in San Francisco around AIR development and distribution. Obviously not all of you live close to the bay area, but the event will be broadcasted live via Connect. You can follow it on http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/applab.

I heard through the grapevine that we may even launch a few new things on Adobe Labs after the event… So join the Connect session and keep an eye on Labs ;-)

I know this event is in the middle of the night for us here in Europe but it will be worth it.

Agenda: ( Time in PST. Check this link for the time in your location. )
5:30 PM – Flash Platform Services Overview (Adobe)
6:00 PM – Intel AppUp Center Business Model and Opportunity (Intel)
7:00 PM – Technical Deep Dive (Adobe)
8:30 PM – Staffed Open Lab (Adobe and Intel)