Widget Integration

It has become very popular to build web sites that use and embed widgets from various providers. For example, MySpace and Facebook let their users easily embed various JavaScript widgets and Flash-based applications and videos onto their personal pages. In most cases, the widgets act in a standalone fashion, unaware of the other widgets contained on the same page. Standalone widgets are fine for simple portal pages but for more targeted applications some level of interaction among the components on the page is needed. When such interactions are needed, they are usually achieved through tightly-coupled point-to-point integrations between the widgets which can make it difficult to add new widgets or remove widgets from the page. This links show how a publish/subscribe architecture can be used to integrate Flex and Javascript widgets embedded on a page in a loosely-coupled manner:
PageBus
OpenAjax Hub

AIR is the future of Flex !!!

Flex is one way to avoid the browser compatibility issues. As Java Applets, it's a reliable, predictable runtime that works the same way on all browsers.

AIR runtime lets developers use proven web technologies to build Rich Internet Applications that deploy to the desktop and run across operating systems.

So what's wrong with Flex ?
The answer is :
- Search engines and other content-aware tools, cannot easily access the content delivered by Flex applications.
- Permalinks, do not work as naturally with Flex as they do with HTML.
- We can't bookmark a piece of content in a Flex application on Delicious.
- And I dont forget, surprises that will we run into when we hit the browser's Back button !

I think, that AIR is the future of Flex. Indeed, as Flex developer we have a Descktop based application programming logic instead of a Browser based application programming logic.

Links:
Adobe AIR

Adobe Flex

Android: No more XMPP support now only Gtalk :(

In the first SDK, Google gave the support to XMPP as a protocol to make connections between two or more users at the same time, it means, a platform for VOIP, TXT, and many other things. However Google never intended to use support XMPP.
Now with this new SDK released earlier on, the platform was changed for Gtalk, which for some developers is a pain, because they’ve already had some part of the project done and now it’s needed to be reviewed. On the other hand it’s good because we know that Google will provide all the support needed for this protocol.
For more informations see:
http://www.deepdarc.com/2008/02/14/mobile-xmpp/
http://www.simplicidade.org/notes/archives/2008/02/android_xmpp_an.html

LiPS 1.0 Specifications - Releases

The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum announced completion of the LiPS Release 1.0 specifications, fulfilling the commitment announced in June of this year. With this release, LiPS enables mobile industry players to achieve basic interoperability for applications and services deployed on Linux-based phones, benefiting Linux-based software stack suppliers, mobile device OEMs and regional and global telecom operators. These specifications include the LiPS Reference Model, Telephony, Messaging, Calendaring and Scheduling, Presence, User Interface Services, Address Book and Voice Call Enablers APIs.

For more informations see:

http://www.lipsforum.org/

France bans BlackBerry use by officials

PARIS - Blackberry handhelds have been called addictive, invasive, wonderful — and now a threat to French state secrets.

There are several tracks on the net, the Canadian brand of touch-tone telephones, to any fact, have been banned at the "Élysée".

In fact, all communications go through servers in Canada. Needless to say, therefore, that the highest authority of any state in normal course should reject such a system.

But the question is how about Skype, MSN, Yahoo Messenger,...

iPhone vs Windows Mobile

This video presents a comparison between iPhone and WinMobile:

Rich Internet Application Web 3.0

A Smart Client is an Internet connected desktop client, which communicates with a server through the use of Web services. They are typically also work off-line, and automatically detect when a user is connected to the Internet. The data is then synchronized between the client and the server. This characteristic alone is probably the main distinguishing characteristic between smart client and a browser's thin client, which does not work if there is no Internet connection.

Smart clients have additional advantages over the old client-server models, such as the ability to be deployed and updated over the Internet from the central server. Also, smart clients are less cross-platform dependent because of their reliance on web services.

The "Rich Internet Applications" (RIA) are based on the concept of "Smart Client", and are used to refer to several other technological approaches including Flash, Java applets and Webstart applications. They basically need a software platform integrating a core, a standard bundling framework, a portable widget toolkit, file buffers, text handling, text editors, a workbench (views, editors, perspectives, wizards) and an Update Manager.

Programmers can build their own applications on top of this softawre platform, instead of having to write a complete application from scratch, they can benefit from proven and tested features of the framework provided by the platform. Building on top of a platform facilitates faster application development and integration.

For more informations see Rich Clients organisation:

http://www.richclients.org/