Adobe AIR 3 allows a developer to package an AIR app along with the AIR runtime for distribution. This is known as “captive runtime” and is useful because it provides a method of application distribution that does not require a separate runtime installation. With Windows, an additional step must be taken; we have to package the application files into a custom installer for the best user experience on that platform. Thankfully, to do this is a fairly simple task as demonstrated in the recording below.

Here’s an additional recording on other options within Advanced Installer:

Create work for new devices and move designs across media. Develop with HTML5 in Adobe Dreamweaver® CS5.5 and with expanded platform support in Flash® Professional CS5.5. Boost your video editing efficiency with Adobe Premiere® Pro CS5.5 and deliver new reading experiences using InDesign® CS5.5. Now including Adobe Audition® CS5.5 and Flash Builder™ 4.5 Premium, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection software enables reaching out to audiences in new ways.

I’m actually more psyched about CS5.5 than I was about CS5. Adobe has made a lot of great improvements in a bunch of applications, and have corrected some of the grievous mistakes of the past.

Personally, I’m really glad the cat is out of the bag so that I can talk about those portions of my book which have been under embargo for the past four months. Those chapters that are not available should become available very soon!

So what are the hi-lights for me?

• Flash Builder Premium 4.5 (mobile Flex framework and tooling, enough said!!!)
• Flash Professional CS5.5 (mobile integration, great overall improvements)
• Dreamweaver CS5.5 (jQuery Mobile, PhoneGap, HTML5)
• Audition CS5.5 (Resurrected!)
• Premiere Pro and After Effects CS5.5 (Warp Stabilizer is mind-blowing)
• Adobe Media Encoder CS5.5 (Too many improvements to list)

Yep- they listened to us and are including Flash Builder 4.5 Premium in Master Collection and Web Premium! That was such an oversight for the CS5 release. Shameful!

Soundbooth is DEAD. Long live Audition! I loved having Audition as part of Production Premium CS2. When it was dropped from the CS3 suites and replaced with Soundbooth, I was pretty upset. Well, dancin’ on you grave tonight, Soundbooth!!!

(errr… my condolences to the Soundbooth team)

Great job, Adobe!

Grab Gingerbread from the Android site now!

Read the list of new features!

Hopefully carriers and manufacturers will be more on-the-ball this time and get Gingerbread into the hands of consumers sooner rather than later…

Ever think “I’m putting that guy on my shit-list?” Well, now you can manage your shit-list on the go with “My Shit-List!” for Android devices. Keep an up to date list of the people that cross you… so that you NEVER forget >:|

Requires AIR for Android, of course!

DropFolders is an Adobe AIR 2.0 application to allow HandBrake CLI to monitor watch and destination folders on Windows systems. Includes the ability to define and manage custom presets allowing for endless flexibility with hands-off, batch transcoding!

This application will be available through the Adobe AIR Marketplace since AIR 2.0 is now FINALLY final! If it isn’t up at the marketplace at the time of publication, you can also get it directly from here.

Also be sure to check out my article about DropFolder, AIR 2.0 and NativeProcess API over at InsideRIA.

Want a quick overview? I’ve recorded a walkthrough you can view, below:

It’s been a year since I released the initial version (built over last Thanksgiving holiday) and have been working on some revisions in the past few weeks with the intention of getting this new version out as an anniversary marking. Looks like I made it!

The new version adds the following features:

• You can now present SWF files within a loop
• VidLoop automatically rescans directories at startup and shutdown
• You can choose to have a loop start automatically
• I rewrote the transitions mechanism
• Fixed some directory parsing bugs and other junk

I’m not claiming the thing is perfect or even rock-solid, but after receiving feature requests and thanks from many people regarding the usefulness of this little app… I think it deserves some continued support.

Sometimes it’s looking at the player running in the browser, in which case I just need to perform a debug player install from:
http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

Other times, it’ll be pissed off about the player used by Flash Professional at:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS4\Players

I’ve found a pretty foolproof (for me) way to fix this secondary problem. Just grab FlashPlayer.exe from:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder {such and such release}\player\win

Copy this into the Flash Pro location, restart FB, and you should be good.

Don’t know why this happens from time to time… but it’s happened enough that I feel the need to document it- at least for myself.

This started as a simple mechanism to display a live RTMP stream from Flash Media Server to a client machine and related projection system. So… not for broadcast over the web- just sending a live stream from one physical location to another.

While developing the application, I came across the need to test an RTMP stream and it was so simple using this app that I decided to expand it. In the current version (0.9.0), it will accept RTMP and HTTP streams- just type in the URL and you can easily test it in order to verify that it is correct before trying to publish anything on a website or whatnot. You can also use it as a fullscreen projection or display mechanism as was originally intended.

If you have some FLVs or MP4s or whatnot on your local machine- you can just drag those into the app to watch them. I’m thinking about adding some playback controls and other options a bit later.

Application for display of video streams via RTMP, HTTP, or local filesystem. Just drag in a file or enter a stream address and away we go!

At the University of Denver, we have built a good number of AIR applications at this point. Some are internal data management tools, others are full, complex, private applications such as the VPS Projection system, and then we have small utility apps like this which others may also find some use for. These we make available to others free of charge as part of our community outreach.

I’ve been using the Windows 7 beta on my laptop since it was released months ago, and recently switched to the RC build. I’m very impressed with the changes from Vista- so much so, that I’ve now upgraded my home office machine to the Windows 7 RC. This is no small step as I’m dependent on this system for all my consulting, development, and audio production duties. This is how much I favor Windows 7 over Vista- it is such a refined user experience, overall. The reliability and speed improvements on older machines are a huge plus as well… that laptop I mentioned previously was purchased in 2004.

Here’s a short video demonstrating some niceties in my current environment: