The boys at WebOrb have been very busy working away on getting Remoting for flex in .NET very solid. Today they release the Release candidate 1, Which means its almost 100%. So now its probably time to download the RC1 and have a play. I love open API's like webservices and rpc calls for open API's on commercail services but you really cant beat the small packet size of binary remoting. One of the new features in WebOrb 3.0 is intergrated security, which isnt enabled on the RC but will be soon.

Not to mention all the hard work in the back end but check out the front end. They have build a management console in flex of course, which is a central place for documentation and code generation. THATS RIGHT CODE GENERATION!!!

And not just one lanuage. Remember that WebOrb can cover many network protocols including Ajax.

 As well as this there is a central place to view examples:

So even if you just want to know what its al about try downloading and install it (its very easy) and take a look. There are many many more feature included with this new release but too many to talk about in one post. I believe Mark Pillar will be doing some demo videos and tutorials soon.

YEAAAAAH. I got a great surprise today. I got an email from Tim at bla.st, letting me know I had won thier competition for an Ipod.

Bla.st is basically a cool angle on those pixel adspace websites. "bla.st is a free promotional directory. bla.st can be used to advertise or promote any kind of promotion, event, sale, products, services, business or organisation or almost anything else. Cards on the site are organised by categories and countries." 

Check it out HERE and thank you Tim for the early Xmas pressie  

Wow it has been a while since my last post. A bit of house keeping first… I will get the FTunes interface finished and release the source for people to play with. Next alot of interesting things have happened scince my last post. Janus has been released!

Think of Janus as a .Net wrapper for the flash player with more features than an over bloated Microsoft product (but janus isnt bloated and slow). I first encounted Janus in the early beta days and have since talked to the guys about what they are up to. They are a focused lot with a real eye on what us, we need.

Janus can be a comile and run wrapper where you use any of the built in libraries for doing anything from database interaction to burning data to cds. Thier library of features IS HUGE!!! And then if you know a little c# you can easily and I mean easily include your own dlls to do your own cool stuff.

"Janus loads embedded and encrypted (even embedded-encrypted) movies directly from a memory stream without saving them to a temporary file, so no more need of obfuscating your code…..With more than 1,200+ functions available, Janus crushes even it’s closest competition by 50%. That’s because Janus was built to tap into the the raw power, wealth of functions, and the rock solid stability provided for in the .NET Framework 2.
Create pdf files directly from actionscript, integrate your application with GPS technology, embed instances of Internet Explorer, Acrobat reader, or Mozilla firefox, record sound, compose, play and save MIDI files… Let’s just say we keep our documentation editors busy.
Almost all items on the Janus wish list become implemented. Everything, and we mean everything, is made easy in Janus."

If your a .Net head who wants to make some Uber cool Interfaces and cant wait for a graphics card that sucks the power from the surrounding homes to run WPF, take a walk into flex/flash and make a nice UI for your .NET project. Its easy.

Check out Janus's home:  HERE I hope to be posting some really simple examples in the near future….after the FTunes interface, and ….and….lol

I have been playing around with flex skining and component building for a couple of nights and just wanted to show where I got to making ftunes,or iTunes in flex. Not that I wouldn't mind a cease and desist from Apple (its in my top 100 things to do in life), but I doubt I will ever bother hooking this up to any mp3 playing capabilities. There are so many on the web already. I have merely been playing with some concepts of component building in flex and skining them, and seeingwho the fit with my workflow. Aparently all the ool kids are doing it. The nicest thing I have played with is the Flex drawing API ( used for the gradient header and footer ). It is really powerful but takes a bit of playing to get right. The sort of thin I guess you would build up a library of classes to help with.

All the diferent parts are broken out into extended classes that implent diferent Interfaces etc and then skinned in a central css file. I have sort of found the best way to build components in flex is to create a Class that extends the nessary base classes (or not) and implements certain interfaces,  then create mxml components for easy layout of the controls. Pretty much following the mx packages layout and structure. When/if I ever finish this little play I will update and release the source so people can play and persue thier own cease and desist letters from apple lol. Imagine that. An fTunes interface,made in flex that hooks/hacks into the iTunes store. Ekkk. Then all you have to do is deliver it centrally from the web and provide updatable access for Apollo to use as a desktop application. Oh the cool tricks to come!

The app can resize an acts exactly like iTunes when it does. The header display is a component that can take input to show on progress etc. The lists to the side are resizable and I am just working on nice purdy styling for them for the update.The central display will most likly take compiled components that implement a common interface. Now if only the flash players external interface were a little nicer I could hook this up in .NET really quick and have a nice desktop fTunes. *sigh* oh well might just have to wait for Apollo, or the full release of Janus.

If anyone has some Flex skinning work out there, feel free to contact me! (check the contacts on the upper left). 

"Phill Ryu’s My Dream App might have just ended but a new online sensation is about to begin. MacHeist is the name and shareware (Mac app) love is the game. Okay that sounded a bit cheesy but I assure you MacHeist is going to be amazing. As with everything Phill Ryu, you are bound to find many Mac developers involved with MacHeist." [VIA Paul ]

Now I dont have a mac but I love challenges, and for those that do have macs and would love some great free software I have 2 invites to share with the Adobe comunity . Leave a comment and the first two gets them.

Seeing MydreamApp turned out to be a great comunity effort Im sure this will be just as cool.