Timetoast makes PC Magazine’s “Best Free Software of 2009″ list

I’m honoured to have my Flex/Flash app, Timetoast, rub shoulders with such greats as Google Earth and eBay Desktop in PC Magazine’s “Best Free Software of 2009″ list.

Timetoast is an online tool that allows people to easily create timelines they can then share on their blog or website. It’s a fun app which will certainly be getting some neat revisions in the near future! Here’s a link to the Timetoast timelines listing. If you see any other Flash, Flex, AIR or Rails apps listed, feel free to leave a comment, I’d love to know.

For a nice example of a Timetoast timeline out in the wild, check out the RTÉ 2008 Year in Review feature.

Greenprint also made it onto the list. Greenprint is a great desktop application that saves ink and trees at the same time by allowing you to remove blank pages and unnecessary advertising from your print jobs. They recently added a Mac version which is great news for all you eco-conscious Mac users.

Presenting Rails for Flash at LFPUG

As usual, the London Flash Platform User Group event will be held on the last Thursday of the month; that’s this Thursday, October the 30th.

First up this month are the guys at Unit9, they’ll be taking you through their processes and how they keep everyone in the company communicating effectively for maximum result.

I will be following up with a presentation on Ruby on Rails and Flash; taking you through the steps needed to create a REST-ful Rails application that is read and writeable through a Flash Front end. This will give you an introduction to Ruby on Rails and how this powerful web application framework can make it ridiculously easy for you to kick-start your next, or first, database powered Flash application.

The LFPUG will be held at it’s usual location, Cosmobar on Clerkenwell Road (54-56) and the presentations start at 19:00. For more information on the sessions, and indeed on how to get there, see the official LFPUG site.

See you there!

Timetoast featured on 37Signals product blog

Hurrah! My one-man web app, Timetoast, just got featured over on the 37Signals product blog. Their book ‘Getting Real‘ was a great guide while building my web app and I highly suggest you check it out before you start building your own!

Timetoast is a Flash / Flex based app that easily allows people to create and share interactive timelines on the web.

Insoshi: kickstart your social app

Insoshi is an open source social site with everything you would expect; messaging, blogging, connections and much more. If you download the source (writen in Rails), you’ll already have a fully operational social software platform to kick start your idea. To top it off, things can only get better; Insoshi is under active development.

If you’ve used Ruby on Rails before, you should feel very comfortable browsing the source, it is written in a concise and professional manner. For the novice Rails developer, Insoshi provides a great opportunity to understand the architecture of a fully functional Rails site. You’ll learn a lot from browsing the source of a complete application, something I found difficult to find when first embarking on my own Rails adventures.

Head on over to the Insoshi site to get started on your own adventure.

Post RailsConf Europe roundup

I had initally written a rather extensive write-up of the conference and proceeded to lose the whole thing while saving it. Great.

Here’s the slightly-late-and-rather-short-version instead:

RailsConf Europe was a completely different type of conference for me as I usually just go to Flash and Flex related conferences and events. One thing I can say up-front is these guys don’t know how to party; on the other hand the Flash community hits the spot pretty much every time.
You Flash peeps can give yourself a pat on the back for that, if you so please. It’s fine, nobody is looking.

This being a Ruby on Rails centered conference I was prepared to get a bit of stick for being a passionate Flash/Flex developer, but this wasn’t the case (well, except one guy who I’m pretty sure was still stuck in 2002, his hair certainly was.) Most people there were pretty interested in what Flex had to offer. I also blew a couple of minds with my 1 minute AIR demo’s. Flex 3 really does make it incredibly easy to create a simple AIR app in no time whatsoever.

The back of the conference T-shirt.

There were a couple of Flex sessions at RailsConf. One of them was during the tutorial days and was a half day session about using Flex and Ruby on Rails together. I must admit I was slightly dissapointed in this session as it only dealt with xml-rpc REST calls, something I’ve already been using for quite a while. I was hoping that the session would also show some examples of the other data-exchange possibilities such as RubyAMF and WebOrb which both use the Flash Player native ActionScript Message Format (AMF).

I almost didn’t go to Simeon Bateman’s Flex session which, in contrast, was a lot shorter weighing in at just an hour. I was pretty pleased I did eventually go as he gave an excellent overview of the different data exchange methods and even managed to sneak in a couple of examples for our viewing pleasure. Simeon did a good job of walking through the different options available to Flex and Rails developers covering RubyAMF, WebOrb and XML-rpc calls. The Flash Platform introduction could have been a little shorter, but I think he wanted to make sure everyone knew about the new AVM2 and the advancements the Flash Platform has made over the last year or two.

I’m not going to go into any of the other sessions. I think I’ll let Stuart Eccles take over from here as he has been a rather busy bunny indeed!

In some other related news, it looks like there is an early alpha version of RubySWX for you to play around with. It’s not ready for production and has some security issues, so you may want to wait a little while before you hop onto that boat. Aral’s SWX demos have been quite impressive, so I’m sure this will become a method you may want to evaluate in the future.

Flex sessions at RailsConf Europe

 @ Although the RailsConf in Portland, USA seemed to concentrate on AIR sessions (then named Apollo), it looks like RailsConf Europe in Berlin, Germany (17-19 September 2007) is concentrating on Flex with not a mention of AIR in the program.There will be a general session on Flex entitled “Building Rich Internet Applications with Flex and Ruby on Rails” by Simeon Bateman, as well as an additional tutorial session “Using Adobe Flex with Rails” by Aslak Hellesøy which will most likely be a bit more in depth.If you’re interested in seeing what else is on offer at RailsConf Europe, I suggest you check out the conference sessions.

No Flash for the Apple iPhone?

MacRumors is currently running an article claiming there will be no Adobe Flash support for the Apple iPhone. You can find the full article here.

It was revealed yesterday at the WWDC, the Apple Developer conference, that the iPhone would include “support for Web 2.0 applications.” I guess we will just have to wait and see if Apple’s definition of “Web 2.0 applications” includes HTML and JavaScript, but not Flash.

Apollo sessions at RailsConf 2007

Adobe will be presenting a couple of Apollo sessions at RailsConf 2007, the Ruby on Rails conference. Adobe is also a gold sponsor of the event.
The two session are entitled “Engaging with Web 2.0 outside the browser” and “How We Used Apollo and Rails to Build an Agile Project Management Application.”

Both the sessions will be presented by Christopher Haupt and Chris Bailey and are to be held on Friday May 18th.

I can’t make it out to Portland myself, so I’m hoping (glad) we’ll see a repeat of the RailsConf Europe event held in September of last year, although I haven’t heard any news on that quite yet; the site is still displaying the 2006 event. Edit: Thanks to Don for pointing the new site out.
You can find the RailsConf 2007 schedule here or just browse the RailsConf 2007 main site.

Digg Flash/Apollo Contest

Digg, the social news network, has released a new Flash API and launched a contest to go with it.

Digg are looking for “the most creative and dynamic Flash visualizations and applications that utilize the Digg API.” Your creation can be either an Apollo or a Flash application. The contest deadline is on the 16th of May.

Find more info over on the contest page, or check out the Digg API.

NOTE: Unfortunately the contest is only open to US residents.

CS3 Video Workshop

I just saw that Adobe have put up a great new learning resource for the CS3 suite; the Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop. You can find it in the design center section on the Adobe website, and there are already quite a few videos available.

Go check out the CS3 Video Workshop now.