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RIAlism London Coming Soon |
| by Neil Middleton 5:59 pm Thursday, 14 August 2008. |
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Niklas and Neil at Flex Camp London |
| by Niklas Richardson 3:27 pm Wednesday, 13 August 2008. |
Last week we mentioned that a Flex Camp London has been organised for the 28th of August up in town. What we didn’t say at the time was that both Niklas Richardson and Neil Middleton will be speaking at the conference.
Nik will be speaking on the topic of “Flex and ColdFusion” at 4.20pm, and Neil will be presenting “Who you need on your Flex team”. At 3.45pm we will also be showing off on of our flex apps in one of the three “Show and tell” sessions.
So, if you’d like to find out more about Flex, or come and meet up with us for a chat, come down to the Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL on the 28th and say hello.
For more detailed information, please visit the Flex Camp London website.
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Monochrome partners with Atlassian |
| by Neil Middleton 3:03 pm . |
Well, the title says it all. Monochrome have entered into a partnership agreement with Atlassian, an Australian software company specializing in issue tracking and collaboration software. Their main products are JIRA, an issue tracking and project management system, Confluence, an enterprise wiki, Bamboo, a continuous integration system, and Crowd, a single sign-on identity management system.
So, why have we done this? Well, for a couple of reasons: firstly, we are a huge fan of all things Atlassian, using JIRA and Confluence for our issue management and documentation on a daily basis, and secondly because we are planning to offer JIRA consulting and training in the very near future.
As and when the details on what we will be making available are finalised we will be publishing more information, but in the meantime, if you have any immediate requirements to know more about JIRA or Confluence and are looking for a UK partner, please get in touch.
info [at] monochrome [dot] co [dot] uk
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Are Flash and Silverlight the same thing? |
| by Neil Middleton 11:12 pm Monday, 11 August 2008. |
We’ve been having a discussion in Monochrome towers over the last few days about the whole Silverlight vs Flash vs Flex etc etc etc argument, and some interesting things have turned up that I thought we should repeat here.
Both Microsoft and Adobe now have some very similar looking technologies with Silverlight and Flash, namely the ability to script code, and render applications all within a box in the browser, whilst doing various background tasks such as hitting out to web services and remote APIs. Similar sounding although they may initially seem, they do differ at a slightly lower point in the stack. Behind the box in the browser, lies two frameworks - the .NET framework for Silverlight, and the Flash Player API for Flash/Flex.
OK, so these aren’t dramatically different either - so where does the differences lie? The entire internet seems to think that Microsoft is out to get Flash with Silverlight and take over the world of the rich internet application - but we at Monochrome now think a bit differently.
For starters, lets look at the bloodlines of both formats. First up, Flash has always been flash (or Future Splash as it used to be), it’s been a tool for drawing vector graphics into a stage. Certain other things have also been added over time: video, web services, AMF, XML support etc etc. Finally, the flex framework has come trotted along to enable developers to build their applications using Flash in a more rapid way.
Silverlight on the other hand used to go by a different name, WPF/E. So, WTF is WPF/E? WPF/E is essentially Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere, or another way of saying WPF (the technology now used to build applications on Windows Vista), but not necessarily on the desktop. Therefore, in a nutshell, this means that it has come from a very different background to that of Flash. Silverlight’s heritage, in a round-a-bout way comes from the ancestry of WinForms, i.e application development. It is not coming from the stable of design.
So, what does this mean? At the end of the day, not much, but it does mean something when you look more into the future. For a start, Microsoft have no intention of taking on Flash - after all, it not easy taking on the most installed piece of software on the planet. It’s a well known fact that Microsoft intend to see everything they provide ultimately in the cloud, coming down to your screen via WPF or Silverlight into the browser, which is exactly what they are setting themselves up to do. Therefore hey are developing Silverlight to be the best web based application development platform it can be, not necessarily a “flash killer”.
Therefore I think it’s fair to say that going forward, Flash and Silverlight will co-exist as two very different beasts. Silverlight will specialise in delivery applications to the web, backing up the vast library of applications available out there already from .NET developers. Flash on the other hand will continue as normal, specialising in browser based animation and video as it does now, with a smattering of applications via the Flex framework.
It will certainly be interesting to see where things take us over the next couple of years.
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Flex Camp London registration now open! |
| by Neil Middleton 9:52 pm Friday, 8 August 2008. |
Flex Camp London 08 is a FREE, community-run event for everyone interested in Adobe Flex! Whether you’re just getting started with Flex or you’re an expert, Flex Camp aims to provide something for you.
We’ve lined up some of the most experienced Flex developers in the UK who will share their knowledge on everything from creating your first application, connecting to data, creating components and development best practices through to selecting an application framework for larger projects.
Flex Camp will also include a panel discussion, provide an opportunity for you to show off what you’re building in the Show & Tell open session and let you meet up with other developers to talk about Flex. We’ve also got some great prizes to give-away throughout the day, including a ticket to Adobe MAX in Milan, Adobe software and Flex training courses from Academy Class.
Flex Camp is on August 28th, 2-8pm at Conway Hall, London WC1 - register today at http://ria.meetup.com…
This is a FREE event, but you must be registered to attend and names will be taken at the door.
See you there!
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