Prototype has now reached RC2 for version 1.5.1, this release continues the speed and efficiency improvements. I suspect that RC2 has a couple of stability improvements from RC1 as the main details have not changed.
here’s a link so you can get a better idea of what’s changed since 1.5.0
Awesome news this morning! Adobe have released Apollo to the wild with the first Alpha release, Alpha’s are usually a very long way from the finished product but you’ll get a decent look at the direction and will also be amongst the first people involved in the early development of the product.
Download links and details available from the Ajaxian post or for convenience:
Apollo at Adobe Labs
Download Apollo Runtime
Download Apollo SDK
Sample Apps
Watch the DEMO 2007 talk
Following on from my post announcing Blend RC1 I thought it might be useful to post up some handy resources on WPF that you might find useful.
This post on the MSDN Public sector Developer Weblog has links to some fine sources that will give a solid grounding into WPF.
There is also a link to slides and demo code from a Webcast held on 13th March 2007.
Microsoft made a Release candidate of Expression Blend available for download this week.
In theory, a release candidate is as close as you get to the final release, with an opportunity to fix bugs. The major features and functionality should all be in place.
I have had a play with Blend and I do like it. The purpose of Blend is to give you an environment to develop interfaces for .Net Framework 3.0 applications. A Kind of visual designer for WPF. The whole vibe around WPF is picking up speed and it really is something for you to look at if you are a serious developer.
I don’t normally join in with Bandwagon jumping but something about WPF and WPF/e has caught my interest.
There are plenty of sample app’s available to kick start your development and get you hooked. Full info and the download can be found here.
I’ve started a craze here at work and inadvertently I’ve also created a method of psychologically profiling my work mates. The whole thing began on my birthday when I was gifted a tin of Scarab Blue Thinking putty.
Thinking putty is a fabulous substance perfectly suited to techies and geek’s of all ages, sizes and intellects. You may remember silly putty from many a year ago… this is the same sort of stuff but in cool colours and with heat reactive and glow in the dark varieties available too.
This stuff is great, you can flatten it out then fold it in on itself then scrunch it into a ball to make popping noises like popping bubble wrap. you can stretch and mould it, shape it and even bounce it. The damn thing is so addictive, treat it gently and it will literally melt in your hands, treat it rough and it becomes almost solid, hit it with a hammer ant it will shatter like ceramic.
The psychology comes by watching the ways that people play with their putty whilst concentrating on something else. I’m a folder and popper :0)
Too Frickin’ Cool!
If you are in the USA you can stock up on Thinking putty from Crazy Aron (the site was down this morning but should be back soon) an alternative source is X-treme Geek. In the UK your source would be Firebox
I found myself almost crying with laughter this morning. These three posts are great.
Laws of Physics
The Best Defects
The World’s Most Annoying Man
The company I work for recently held a big event in Orlando and Scott was the guest speaker… typical! this event was only for the upper management and customers… Ah well…
Hi Scott… I Totally love your frickin’ cool stuff Dude. ;0)
We’ve seen them many times before but the ‘are you a geek’ or ‘are you a secret jedi’ type of questionnaires have done the rounds a good few times, this one I havent seen before so I’m putting it up for your enjoyment.
My results:
Well balanced individual: So what if you answered hell yes to some of the questions!? You are in touch with your inner geek and you aren’t ashamed to admit it - but there are limits…
I’ve never been described as well balanced before…
I have been an avid user of RSS Bandit for the past few years and have enjoyed using it. Recently however I had a real issue installing the latest update. I’m pretty sure it’s a flakey issue with the installer and I can easily download the source code and build my own local copy but I thought I’d take the opportunity to look around at the other options curently available.
There are certainly a lot of different readers out there and I punted for a copy of GreatNews this is an interesting reader with some different options and a great layout style that makes browsing through the feeds in a category very much like reading a newspaper. It’s easy to skim through the feeds and pick out what’s interesting to you.
There are different presentation styles available for the reader 
pane and you can filter the reader pane so you don’t get a lot of old read feeds if you just want to read the latest stuff.
One thing I am a little frustrated with is the ability to create a proper heirarchy in the list pane on the left ala Windows Explorer where you could get something like:
Item 1
Child 1
Child 1 Child
etc…
Great News is very flat in this respect.
It does have some nice features though and I’ve decided, despite loyal service from RSS Bandit for a good few years now to give Great news a go and see how I get on.
There are of course many other options available out there including the build in readers for OPutlook, IE 7 and Firefox. I just have a strange phobia for using a jack of all trades type of app to do a job when I can use an expert to do it better :0)
J.D. Meier has put up another excelent thought provoking post, this time linking the the Video below.
The jist of it is that Web 2.0 (the name we have given to the latest ‘revolutionary’ changes to the Web.) means a lot of different things to many different people.
I can see that it is making the world a lod smaller, we are finding lost friends and relatives faster, information is being shared faster, in many cases as it happens and in many different formats too. This blog itself is testament to the changing landscape of the web. I like to think I am making a lot of new friends through the medium of my blog. I know that I am learning more by sharing more and I’m reading more too.
Watch the video then spend a few moments thinking about what Web 2.0 means to you, how has your life changed in, say the past 12 months?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE]
I’m a regular reader of J.D. Meier’s blog and always find some excellent posts that I find interesting. There’s a couple of posts of late that have really piqued my interest and I’m defenitely going to apply the process to my life and get to improving my development.
J.D. simply blogged about a process he calls improvement sprints. He spends 30 days focusing on one thing and tries to improve that as much as possible through the sprint.
Sprints are not new to me and some of you who have also been using SCRUM as a methodology in your workplace will be familiar with the concept too. A sprint in it’s simplest form is the period set to accomplish a goal. In this case the goal is to improve one aspect of your development.
There are two posts that I want to share with you on this. His First, introduces the concept and his second expands on it a bit more giving us some great tips.
I’ll be reporting on my first sprint as soon as I decide what I’m going to focus on.
Thanks J.D.
