Abdul Qabiz on Web Technologies, Flash Platform, RIA, India

There are many who complain about missing features and existing bugs in Adobe Flash Runtimes – Flash Player and AIR. But some choose to use their energy in improving the platform by using it and providing feedback.

If you believe in bringing the change:

• Download Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 and AIR 2.0 Beta 2,
• Install them
• Help Adobe fix issues and add features by logging issues at https://bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Our feedback matters, as it has always.

As soon as I read, Ted Patrick’s post, I started writing this post.  Please spread the word by writing on your blog and retweating the following text:-

Improve Flash 10.1 & AIR 2.0 via Beta 2 http://bit.ly/cty7Nm READ & RT #Flash #AIR #QUALITY

Peter Elst posted his thoughts about ActionScript and where it’s going. I agree with him and prefer to have simplicity we had once with ActionScript and Flash Platform.

I wrote my two-cents as comment to Peter’s post, that’s how it goes:

Nice post.

We have witnessed how Flash Platform evolved over the years, it has got more attention by people but at the same time, it has lost a lot of attention of those attached initially (as Keith said above).

Jeff Raskin, in Humane Interface, said something like that – complex tasks would require complex user-interactions but that’s no excuse to make simple tasks complex.

I believe, that’s what has happened. It’s not any more simpler to do simple things.

Adobe must think why they are doing it and for whom they are doing. If ActionScript is going to be clone of Java or C#, then why a new language – why not just use one of those?

There must be a philosophy behind a language and platform, what is that behind Flash Platform and ActionScript?

I had more fun in old days than now, just enjoyed the company of everyone (designers, developers, trainers, etc). It was because of simplicity that brought all of us together. I agree a lot of bad implementations were result of ease of doing things in Flash, but hey – there were far more good stuff then than now. A lot of innovation, cool stuff and apps to showcase. How much do we have now?

Mrinal Wadhwa started a discussion, in Adobe India Community Champions mailing-list, to raise concerns about Adobe India’s role in Flex India community, he raised some good points.

It’s unfortunate to see how one of the Adobe evangelists took it personal and reacted publicly and made some personal attack on Mrinal.

You can check out Mrinal’s post to read what happened.

This is what I posted during discussion in the mailing-list.

My two cents after reading entire thread.

1) Adobe India works differently, the hierarchy and culture is different. More focused one engineering and marketing (to whom – God knows) than anything else. So any such event is aligned with sales and marketing needs. A lot of people who work enjoy their work but beyond that they don’t do much. A lot of them even maintain low-profile for various reasons.

2) Adobe India Evangelist team works differently compared to their counter parts in USA. In India, they report to engineering director of Flex or platforms team, which is not the case in USA, if I am right.

3) Expecting Flex team engineers to participate would be too much, it’s individual’s curiosity/passion to do that. If their managers make it as on objective/gaol, most of them would show up for sake (performance review, appraisal, etc) – we don’t want that. I have been through it and opposed the idea when my manager wanted entire team to do what we (Manish and I) were doing our own, due to our own curiosity.

I have always asked these questions (what Mrinal is asking) to myself and during discussions, but could never really understand. I have learnt that it’s better not to expect much from the Adobe India, it’s not really Adobe USA. Culture comes from top to bottom, and top management is not really anywhere close to what it’s in USA.

I like Evangelists in Adobe India, most of them are passionate and are there because they love technology and what they do. Unfortunately, when you work for a boss who got a different agenda or things, you can’t do much. As said earlier, Evangelist team reports somewhere to engineering director or someone like that, now you can imagine things.

These are some of my random, but based on my observation and experience, thoughts. No offenses meant to anyone.

I am keeping kind of low profile myself in Flex community, I realize community is doing good – there are far more developers than we had couple of years back. I also see there are far more passionate developers than before, you can judge that by seeing some regular names in lists/forums.

I am also sure, there would be far more people who are religious about Flash Platform and one can see tears coming out of their eyes while they talk about technology. As it used to happen with me

Expect the unexpected – the formula for peace of mind. Let’s talk, inpsire and act to spread the words about things we believe in and love. I have been working hard to find a smart Flash Developer for my team, yet to find. I want to contribute in my way, I would love to have people in my team contribute to SDK and other opensource projects, now that’s what I can afford to do now

Thanks

-abdul

I expressed above based on my observation and experience, might not have been put properly as I wrote it quickly. But you might get my point there.

We are looking for some smart Flash Platform Developers who can be part of our team in Allies Interactive Services Pvt. Ltd., Kanpur, U.P.

We are a design and development company in Kanpur, though we are small but we are ambitious and have a great vision.

I posted the details on Flex-India sometimes back, pasting the same (edited the typos and formatted) over here:-

I have been meaning to post this for sometime but thought would it be appropriate to do that here?

I am part of a small design and development shop in Kanpur, U.P. Where, we mostly do web development using FOSS, mainly LAMP.

I moved to kanpur around 10 months back with a desire to build a great Flash Platform Team that would work on non-trivial type service projects and some great product ideas.

I could now start doing it, after we have managed to fix a lot of issues mostly a nice office, a good culture and some projects and a product in pipeline.

I need an experienced Flash Platform developer in my team, who can help us to make our vision, desire and dreams a reality.

Since Kanpur is not a metro or fancy place to live, it takes more than just technical aptitude to be here. That is some more strong reason f.ex. A desire to be part of a growing team, desire to be close to family, desire to contribute in the development of IT ecosystem in North and/or a desire to prove, hell yeah we can do great stuff from anywhere, even cities like Kanpur

If you think, you want to help me by being part of my team and understand what I meant above, please don’t hesitate to contact me on [abdul dot qabiz at gmail dot com] off-list i.e. Direct email to me, please don’t reply here on this list.

As far as job description goes, I have already given an idea. However, we are looking for someone who understands web very well that is HTTP and other standards. Fundamentally good at problem solving, the real world ones, ActionScript, Flex Framework, Adobe Flash Player and AIR fundamentals and APIs.

Of course, good experience that says about in your behalf. We would also talk to you so things would get clear, i.e. If we are match for each other.

If you want to know more about company, please check out http://www.alliesinteractive.com

I just caught this news “Adobe Flash Builder instead of Adobe Flex Builder as a name for Gumbo” over AXNA.
I felt like writing my views on this i.e. renaming Adobe Flex Builder to Adobe Flash Builder for future releases. I kind of like it for reasons explained later.

I loved the move when, recently, Flash Platform was redefined. It brought a lot of clarity and removed the confusion built since Adobe (Macromedia) Flex was introduced.

A lot of people were confused and didn’t really think that even though there were different development paradigm but all targeted to Flash Runtime(s). I have been using the term for sometime, even before Adobe redefined it to bring all these different technologies/tools, which targeted Flash Runtimes (Player, AIR, FlashLite), under it.

I think, sooner or later Flex SDK should be renamed so no such confusion develops further. Having consistency increases simplicity and clarity in understanding things, developing, learning, talking and building brand.

It would be nice to have one framework with many sub-frameworks targeting various different Flash Runtimes and development tools (Adobe Flash Authoring tool, Adobe Flash Builder, etc). We need consistency that leads to shorter learning curve and better development platform, eventually.

Technorati Tags: Adobe+Flash+Builder, Adobe+Flex+Builder, brand, Adobe, Flash

I need a Adobe Flash CS4 Professional upgrade license because some projects need to be updated. I can not order online from India. I really don’t have time to seek a resellers help on this, I know it would take weeks to get the license.

I requested a friend in USA to buy it for me, he has been trying to do that but it seems Adobe store application, which is done in Flex, throws a lot of errors. A few things, which I have reported in past, like asking for exact address (line by line). In this case, I guess, store application requires the address even when you choose Paypal as payment option?

I don’t have exact details in hand now, but I can see my friend has been having trouble buying Flash CS4 on Adobe store. I know this friend of mine, he is a developer himself and very good at things, so I know,he is doing right, I would rather say, store-application is not done well. He has recently helped me getting a FlexBuilder 3 upgrade license and he had problems even then. It took two days and various attempts, perhaps a phone call also, to get that license.

No wonder, why people blame Flash Platform for lack of usability and accessibility, most of the times it’s the developers who don’t implement things correctly and platform gets a bad name.

I have also started feeling, why can’t stores have multiple options – I might want to choose simple html interface, if I am on mobile or slow connection?

Yet another frustration and my project is delayed by now. I could have bought license earlier, if I knew the requirements earlier.
I hope someday, Adobe and Apple would realize that they can help thousand of people like me, by just enabling online purchase, even if it takes order and makes me send cheque/bank-draft to them, if not credit-card/paypal integration.

I hope someday, these companies would realize that most of people in countries like India don’t have access to real stores/resellers in their cities or states. Yes, I happen to live in a city where it’s hard to get things, I have to travel, at least twelve hours (round-trip) for even simple purchase and with no certainty, I would get the stuff at the stores, whichever is there.

I hope, these companies help to reduce the piracy in India. I hope, these companies realize they can make people do the right by being more accessible to them.

I wonder, what is holding these companies? Is it sales guys who don’t want to have an online store? Is someone getting some favors from resellers?

I don’t get, why to have a middle man in this age, when an online store can enable a lot of users, not only buy but also have faster access to things.

I can not believe it’s tax issue or things like that, it’s lack of will to do. I am sure, there are other stores running well here in India.

Technorati Tags: adobe, store, error, flash, cs4, india

Last week, when I heard about JavaFX Mobile, I thought, why didn’t Adobe make a move yet to push Flash Platform on devices?
Not too long ago, I was wondering about Adobe’s plan for Mobile AIR.
We have recently heard some good news, I must say, some fantastic announcements:-

• Adobe releases Distributable Flash Lite player
• Adobe and Nokia set up Open Screen Fund ($10 millions)
• Palm joins Open Screen project
• Adobe announces timeline for Adobe Flash Player 10 on devices

Adobe and Nokia made a right decision by setting up a fund, it’s really important to have a good ecosystem of developers, designers and content-creators. The success of Adobe Flash Platform over the the years is because of this outstanding community of developers, designers and everyone who has been interested into the platform.
Though, I feel Adobe is little late on doing these. They should have been more aggressive. Some of my wishes, Adobe would:

• Release some great tools for all platforms (not just Windows and OSX).
• Provide a good documentation on best-practices, performance, etc
• Some good reusable libraries, components, etc

Technorati Tags: adobe, flashlite, mobile, flash, openscreenproject, player, flash+platform

Pablo “aSH” PARRADO of ActionScriptHero has been doing fantastic job of interviewing Flash Platform developers. It’s great to see and read those interviews.

I was fortunate to get a chance to express my views and I thank Pablo for that.

I must say, it’s really inspiring experience to read what all developers say.

Check out interviews at actionscripthero.org.

Technorati tags: actionscripthero, flash, platform, developer, interview, Pablo+PARRADO

Adobe has made available a 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 (pre-release) on labs.adobe.com. I believe, it would work on GNU/Linux and Solaris.

Would it work on FreeBSD also? If yes, then a lot of my FreeBSD friends (in Yahoo and elsewhere) would be happy

Just curious:
Which are your favourite features in Flash Player 10?

I find new Text engine very useful in most of the application-development. Text layout engine is powerful enough to solve various use-cases, true bidirectional text support is being one of those.

I like other features too. Hopefully, I would post my views on those as well as text-layout-engine later.

Technorati tags: flash, player, 10, favourite, feature

I am available for consultancy, training and development services. Following is the rough list of things, I can provide consultancy, training or development services for:-

• ActionScript 1.0, 2.0, 3.0
• Adobe Flash/Flex
• Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)
• Training on Adobe RIA technologies
• Architecture for RIA
• Web Application Development

• Design and Architecture
• Development for LAMP
• Integration Services for Flex/AIR with existing Web Apps

• Subversion Version Control
• Bug Tracking System (Trac, Wiki)
• Training on Development Life Cycle
• Backup Strategies
• Development Sandbox Setup for RIA development

JFYI! You can check out my linkedin profile to know more about me. I am based in India and have around ten (10) years of experience, during this period I have worked for Macromedia/Adobe, Yahoo!, Mixercast and TIS and worked as independent-consultant, freelancer, trainer and co-founder. I have been working on various technologies/platforms (some listed above).

I am a programmer who enjoys solving users’ problems whatever it takes (technology is no constrain). Having said that, I am passionate about ActionScript/Flash/Flex/AIR and Web (in general) which happen to be my core competencies.

PS: Do you think, this is a shameless sales pitch

Technorati tags: consultancy, development, services, lamp, actionscript, flash, flex, adobe, AIR, architecture,training, ria

What is iDesktop.tv?
iDesktop.tv is an incredibly cool dynamic web 2.0 application, with a terrific modern design, that brings you a better way to search and watch YouTube videos. Not only but you can download YouTube videos!
This is basically adding functionality and experience to what “should be” there. The possibilities of the site reach far beyond that. It gives you the chance to create your own environment for watching video clips, saving them and sharing them with friends.
I liked the neat and clean interface, which is mostly done in AJAX (=DHTML), Flash Player is used to play videos from YouTube. Entire experience blends well and user-interface is pretty intuitive.
Features like video downloads in various formats (wmv, mov, mp4, zip, exe, etc) and smart/intelligent playlist creation are cool.
iDesktop.tv increases the quality of user-experience, makes it easier to navigate, personalize, share and store the videos.
I thought to spread some words about iDesktop.tv, which is no doubt one of the coolest web-app, done on top of YouTube’s platform and blurs the line between AJAX and Flash, as an user I didn’t notice any difference when AJAX or Flash was in action.
BTW! This web application is created by the guys behind flashjester, if you are Flash vetran (like me ), you know what flashjester meant to us in those days, still means a lot to many today.
Technorati tags: iDesktop.tv, idesktop, youtube, video, flashjester

YouTube has announced a lot of new features:-

• Updated API to allow CRUD – Create, read, update and delete – operations
• Upload API
• Chromeless Player
• Player’s JavaScript API
• H.264 videos – Notice the high-quality playback link below videos on youtube

This is really amazing, we can build kick-ass applications that would use YouTube’s platform for media upload, conversion (trans coding) and delivery, seamlessly.

I am yet to confirm, how easy it is to load and control YouTube’s player in our Flash/Flex apps? Controlling loaded SWFs is hard, unless it allows cross-site scripting through Security.allowDomain (”loaderdomain.com”). I hope, some day Flash Player would have more Security APIs, which would let us expose a set of interfaces to loaders (SWF loads another swf from different domain).

In any case, we can overlay iframe/div to show the video. That’s what I am doing for Yahoo! Live Mashup.

Update (March 12, 2008): YouTube’s chromeless player can be loaded in Flash/Flex applications and can be controlled. That’s what I heard Geoff Stearns, Flash Engineer in YouTube and SWFObject developer, saying in this video.

Technorati Tags: youtube, api, crud, upload, video, chromless, player, h.264

I was at Flex User Group meeting in Bangalore. The room was full of developers, designers and managers interested in Adobe Flash Platform (Flex/Flash/AIR). I was, quietly, noticing things while various thoughts were going on in my mind.

I have been part of Flash (Platform) ecosystem for around nine years now. I remember old days of were-here, flashkit, flashcoders, flashcomm, flashlounge, indiammug, etc. I got to know some of great guys, who have inspired me in many ways.

I have seen Flash Platform evolving and probably know reasons why certain things (Royale – Flex, Central, etc) happened. It’s great to see, how businesses and developers/designers are embracing Flash Platform today. It’s great feeling that I belong to the batch who is among the oldest in my country and probably, this planet.

Those old days were fun, good to be among creative guys with amazing programming skills. We saw some great stuff (3d, chat, games, funky effects, nice apps, forms, etc) with limited capabilities of Flash 4.

It was amazing feeling, when I saw Flash 5 beta in Macromedia seminar in year 2000. I could see the expressions (wow) on everyone’s face and the excitement after seeing something – Flash 5 (amazing tool, ActionScript 1.0, XMLSocket, XML, Objects, etc).

Today is a big day, I am again witnessing something (AIR 1.0 release). I am equally excited, as I was during Flash 5 release. Honestly, I was more excited then because things were not that open, you would get to know about a product’s next version during some event or leaked information from few beta-testers, unlike today where prerelease cycles allows us to play with product/tool even before it’s released. But you get this feeling, you are part of product development, which was not there (for everyone).

I am sure, when I would look back after some years, I would feel more proud and happy for being part of an ecosystem and this community. I believe, success of Flash, Flex and AIR is result of the beliefs of thousands of developers and designers, who were always passionately involved, even in various up-down times. Times when your identity as a developer was questioned, because you were working with Flash, but hey who cares about what someone says, if you are in love with something.

It was hard to get a project or job with this skill-set, at-least in India. Even today, many companies are blind enough not to see how cool Flash Platfom is, but it’s lot easier now to convince them compared to what it used to be then.

Many religious and emotional developers, like me, who would fight or do anything to prove that Flash (meant: SWF, Player, ActionScript or technology in general) is the best. I have grown up now, probably different phase of life, I focus on products, ideas, users more now, but I am still in love with ActionScript and Flash Player.

Thanks to Macromedia/Adobe for listening and interacting us (developers/designers) in all possible ways (blogs, forums, mailing-lists, etc).
An old link (http://macromedia.com/into) still works. People talking about how Flash changed their lives, I am also somewhere in there

YouTube has put up a very liberal crossdomain.xml policy file, which would allow flash/flex apps consume it’s GData based API without any server-side proxy.
You can read more on YouTube api-blog.
Technorati tags: youtube, crossdomain, gdata, api