News
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
FlexBuilder for the Macintosh Ships
by Brian Duck, Product Review Coordinator
Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the delivery of Adobe® Flex™ Builder™ 2 for Macintosh, an extension of its powerful toolset for designing and deploying a new class of rich Internet applications. The release of Flex Builder 2 for the Macintosh helps developers and designers build engaging Web applications that combine the benefits of desktop software with the reach of the Web.
I’ve been working with AJAX application framework call BackBase for the past few months, and this looks much more productive. It seemed like a worthwhile effort to let some of our FordMug members who are developers know about this development environment. Adobe is currently working on a product, codename Apollo, which will turn Flex in to a full-fledged desktop application development environment. It’s worth taking a look: labs.adobe.com
“The response to Flex Builder from the Mac developer community has been overwhelming and positive,” said Jeff Whatcott, vice president marketing and business development for Adobe’s Enterprise and Developer Business Unit.... With Flex Builder for the Mac more exciting and more engaging experiences will be in reach for greater numbers of people, regardless of their development platform.”
The Adobe Flex 2 product line provides developers with a comprehensive, integrated set of tools and technology for fast, end-to-end development of rich and innovative Web applications. With the free license version of the Flex 2 SDK, developers have everything they need to build and deploy complete rich Internet applications with no software licensing costs. Flex Builder 2, a powerful Eclipse® based integrated development environment (IDE), combines powerful ActionScript and MXML editors, a visual UI designer, and integrated debugging, to help developers build applications faster.
“Many developers build engaging web applications leveraging the combination of Flex and our flagship product WebLogic,” said Bill Roth, vice president of the Workshop business unit at BEA. “The release of Flex Builder for the Macintosh helps ensure that our customers have a complete cross-platform, rich Internet application experience on top of the WebLogic Server.”
Flex Builder enables Macintosh community to quickly develop rich internet applications
“The response to Flex Builder from the Mac developer community has been overwhelming and positive,” said Jeff Whatcott, vice president marketing and business development for Adobe’s Enterprise and Developer Business Unit. “More and more, the Web is about experiences. With Flex Builder for the Mac more exciting and more engaging experiences will be in reach for greater numbers of people, regardless of their development platform.”
Pricing and Availability
Flex Builder 2 for the Macintosh and the Flex Builder 2 Eclipse® Plug-in for the Macintosh are now publicly available for trial and purchase at http://www.adobe.com/flex . The Mac OS X version of Flex is a Universal Binary that will install on Intel®- and PowerPC®-based Macintosh systems. In addition to the new Flex Builder for the Macintosh offering, Adobe is also making available updates to the Windows version of Flex Builder 2, and the Windows and Linux® version of the Flex 2 SDK and Flex Data Services 2. Customers can download these free updates from the Adobe Flex support center (http://www.adobe.com/support/flex ).
The Adobe Flex 2 SDK, which includes the Flex framework and command line compiler, is available free of charge. Adobe Flex Builder 2 is available for an estimated street price of US$499. Adobe Flex Builder 2 with Charting is available for an estimated street price of US$749. Volume discounts and custom pricing structures for ISV/OEM customers also are available.*
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional
Adobe Acrobat 7.0 software is part of a family of desktop applications that enables workgroups to manage a range of essential business activities. Acrobat 7.0, the latest update to the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform, provides users the ability to assemble documents from multiple sources, create intelligent forms, and collaborate on projects inside and outside the firewall, among other capabilities.
The Acrobat 7.0 family offers different functionality to address specific customer workflows. Acrobat 7.0 Professional provides more advanced control over engineering and design documents for technical and creative workgroups that rely on specialized software, including computer-aided design applications and publishing solutions such as Adobe Creative Suite. Acrobat 7.0 Standard is ideal for business professionals in organizations of all sizes, where the ability to effectively find, use and manage vital information from emails and Web pages to everyday application files is key to getting work done on time and budget.
Acrobat Elements is a license-only product that allows enterprises to put Adobe PDF creation capability on every desktop for more secure document distribution.
Adobe also announced the immediate availability of Adobe Reader 7.0, including a public beta version for the Linux operating system. The company’s free client software can be downloaded at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. In addition to the ability to reliably view and print Adobe PDF files, Adobe Reader 7.0 now offers more powerful capabilities. Users can participate in document reviews, have Yahoo! Search capabilities at their fingertips and can interact with 3D objects placed in PDF. Adobe has distributed over half-a-billion copies of Adobe Reader since its 1993 introduction.
Pricing and Availability
Acrobat 7.0 Professional and Acrobat 7.0 Standard for Microsoft Windows 2000 (with service pack 2), Windows XP Professional, Home and Tablet PC Editions, and Mac OS X v10.2.8 and v10.3, are immediately available in English. French, German and Japanese language versions are expected to be available in early 2005. Acrobat 7.0 Professional has an estimated street price of US$449. Registered users of Acrobat 4.0, Acrobat 5.0, Acrobat 6.0 Standard, or Acrobat 6.0 Professional can upgrade to Acrobat 7.0 Professional for an estimated street price of US$159. Acrobat 7.0 Standard has an estimated street price of US$299. Registered users of Acrobat 4.0, Acrobat 5.0 or Acrobat 6.0 Standard can upgrade to Acrobat 7.0 Standard for an estimated street price of US$99.
Friday, November 11, 2005
PoGo! Radio Your Way LX - not just another iPod clone
We’ve got our first, second and third iPods already, so rather than buy a fourth…
I bought a PoGo! Radio Your Way LX from CCrane communications.
Why?
+ It records: Voice, AM/FM, Line in
+ The recordings can be triggered by timer
+ It has variable speed playback: .5x, .7x, 1.3x, 1.5x. This makes transcriptions much more tolerable.
+ It accepts removable media, SD cards
(I’d looked for recorders using Compact Flash, but they were quite a bit more expensive.)
