Universal Desktop Daily - Thursday, December 7, 2006

Update:  It's Thursday today, not Wednesday. I'm trying to squeeze extra days out of the week.

I've been remiss in my UDD's and while I've been silent people building RIAs seem to have gotten much bigger spurred by the release of WPF/E on Monday. It's great to see people from all over realize how much of a difference a great experience can make. The web is going to get a lot better due in no small part to Rich Internet Application technologies. I can't wait to see what else people come up with.

• With all of the talk about WPF/E this week, Mike Harsh has a must read post about what WPF/E really is. When you think of WPF/E as an extension of the HTML DOM then a lot of very cool things can happen. I've often talked about how limiting the browser is when it comes to rich experiences and WPF/E goes a long way towards expanding that functionality in a way that traditional web developers can understand and jump into.
• Lee Brimlow, who is an absolute ninja when it comes to both WPF and Flash has created Microbe - the city where WPF/E and Flash live in harmony. It's really cool to see. Lee is using Javascript to communicate with both WPF/E and Flash and build a seamless experience. It's a cool example of how the web has enabled technologies to work together. Jouanneau also created Mozobe which uses SVG and Flash for the same effect.
• There is a good video (only about 10 minutes long) over on On10 which shows off some of the process that goes into designing an application. There are some good quotes about how important design is to the development process and why good design is a valuable commodity. People like nice looking things and if you can give them a rich, well designed experience over the web, they are going to be very attached to that application. That's always a good thing.
• Adobe Reader 8 has been released (and they have a blog!). I've been watching this closely because there are a bunch of interesting things in the pipe for Acrobat and Flash interoperability. LiveCycle plays an important part of this, and the Adobe Acrobat Connect application is a fantastic example of how RIAs can be used to create unparalleled experiences on the web. (And speaking of LiveCycle I noticed a fledgling blog that looks like it might be a good read for people looking at the business case of RIAs and document workflow.)
• There's an interesting piece over on Redmonk about Adobe and SAP. I've got a couple of comments. One is that Adobe is working with developers a lot to make sure Flex grows as a product. They've got a solid strategy in place. Two, I've talked to folks from SAP and I think they are taking the lead on enterprise adoption of RIAs. They see how important a good user experience is and they're adopting tools that can help them get there. SAP is going to be a fun company to watch and I'm sure I'll be writing about them a lot.
• Man, Anne Zelenka is all over the place nowadays, but most recently she has a post on Redmonk about Ajax that I wanted to highlight. You know that I'm loathe to say nice things about Ajax, but she brings up some good points and I'm willing to give that Ajax gets a bad rap sometimes. Also Anne, you should do 6 myths about Flash.
• Last item might be the best. Jesse Warden, a Flash developer whom I really admire has a good article on WPF/E, Prototyping and Workflow. It's long, but very worth it. Best quote? This one - "Suddenly, Scoble and others say in passing, almost like it "just works that way", that Blend renders all of the above not an issue. Say WHAT!?!?!". The developer/designer workflow is getting a huge overhaul.