Entries from May 2008 ↓

Yahoo! has released YUI version 2.5.2. This is a bug-fix release that adds support for the upcoming Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5 browser updates. There are fixes for better Adobe AIR support as well. Be sure to check out the release notes and then grab it from the YUI page.

It looks like Adobe is finally going to start treating us Linux users like first class citizens with the next release of Flash, version 10. Not only will the next version be released simultaneously on the Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms (pre-release available now), it will also contain some kick ass new features such as 3D Effects, new text layout effects, and better support for video playback.

Another big announcement from Adobe was their Open Screen project. While they are not moving to a true open source license, they are publishing the specification for SWF and removing the licensing fees for the Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR.

This is good news for me. I’ve had my eye on Adobe AIR for a bit now and have been itching to try it out. With Linux support and a (more) open platform, they have addressed many of the initial concerns I had with the framework. Now I can make shiny widgets like everyone else

The Spring community has been busy over the last month coming out with a slew of new releases. Spring Web Flow 2 has been released with better support for JavaServer Faces and JavaScript. For those of you whom haven’t heard of Web Flow, it is a continuations framework that allows you to write flows for your web  application. For example, think of the page flow of a user performing a search on your site and then interacting with the results. After running the search, the user may follow a result link or they may click the back button on their browser to refine their search. Web Flow helps you define the valid paths a user can take through the pages and helps manage state between these pages. Ajaxian has a writeup on the new JavaScript support and InfoQ has an interview with Keith Donald and Jeremy Grelle regarding the release.

In other Spring related news, the SpringSource Application Platform has been released. This is an OSGi-based application server that promises to allow you to update your application in real-time on the server. For more information on this, check out the discussion on TheServerSide.com as well as this interview with Spring creator Rod Johnson on dZone.

What was meant to be a few days off to catch up on some personal issues turned into almost a month of no posts. I would like to apologize to the regular readers of this blog and wanted to let you know that the next few posts will be catch-up posts outlining the major news while I was out. Hopefully this won’t happen too often, but I make no promises. Like always, if you feel I haven’t covered an event important to you, email me [michael@foojam.com].

Thanks,
-Michael