-
|
-
|
-
|
Where you can find us at MAX Europe |
| by Neil Middleton 1:20 pm Wednesday, 26 November 2008. |
Both myself and Niklas will be attending (and speaking at) this years MAX conference in Milan next week and are mightily looking forward to it. In case you’re wanting to come and hook up with us, here’s our agenda for the three days.
If you’re in any of the sessions we’re in, please pop over and say “hello”!
| December 1, 2008 | |
| Object-Relational Mapping in ColdFusion 9 | 11:30 - 12:30 |
| Adobe Roadmap: Rich Internet Applications | 14:00 - 15:00 |
| Adobe XD: Designing Design | 15:15 - 16:15 |
| Adobe Roadmap: Web Experiences | 16:30 - 17:30 |
December 2, 2008 |
|
| Adobe@Adobe: IT Innovation — It’s Not an Oxymoron | 09:00 - 10:00 |
| Architecting ColdFusion for Scalability and High Availability | 13:30 - 14:30 |
| Flex Development with Cairngorm | 14:45 - 15:45 |
| Wireframing Experiences and Applications | 16:00 - 17:00 |
December 3, 2008 |
|
| Breathe AIR into Your Brand | 09:00 - 10:00 |
| Building Enterprise Applications Using Flex, Adobe AIR, and LiveCycle ES | 10:15 - 11:15 |
| Looking Ahead to the Next Version of Flex | 11:30 - 12:30 |
| Building High-Performance Applications for Adobe AIR | 13:30 - 14:30 |
| Structuring Your Development Team to Get the Work Done | 14:45 - 15:45 |
| Flex and PHP: Working with Flex Builder and Zend Studio for Eclipse | 16:00 - 17:00 |
|
VAT rate changes on Dec 1st – Only 5 days! |
| by John Beynon 11:04 am Tuesday, 25 November 2008. |
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll be aware that the HMRC has temporarily reduced the rate from 17.5% with effect from December 1st to 15%. With the current rate having been in place since 1991 companies may find that their legacy applications have had the rate hard coded where developers have taken shortcuts whilst developing applications. It’s important to note that correct application of VAT rates is entirely the down to the business owner to ensure is correct.
The change means that websites need to have their VAT rate calculations updated to reflect the new value on sales from Dec 1st – but remember that it is a temporary change so will need to be changed back or a mechanism put in place to do it for you.
Unfortunately this change comes into place in under 5 working days which doesn’t leave you much time to update/test existing applications. If you find yourself in a position that you’re unable to update your application’s in Flex or ColdFusion VAT rate then Monochrome can help so get in touch.
In this current climate of change and uncertainty your website can be your most important asset in increasing your exposure and revenue stream. Monochrome can assist in the design, development and deployment of rich user experiences that have a significant impact to your online presence. Let Monochrome bring your site to life!
Comments (2)|
|
Videos from Adobe MAX 2008 |
| by Neil Middleton 11:28 am Friday, 21 November 2008. |
Adobe have just posted up a load of videos taken at this years MAX conference in San Francisco via their Adobe Developer Connection blog.
The videos are:
MAX 2008: Adobe kicks off Day 1 in San Francisco keynote highlights
MAX 2008: From Adobe Flash Catalyst to Adobe CS4, Day 2
What was your geek-out moment of the day?
Interviews/demo with MAX Award Winners
We’re pretty psyched about the stuff coming out of Adobe at the moment, so we’re finding it really hard to wait for MAX in Milan in a couple of weeks! See you there!
Comments (0)
|
Microsoft interview Monochrome |
| by Matt Glavin 7:16 pm Thursday, 20 November 2008. |
Hi, I’m Matt Glavin, Business Manager for Monochrome – I joined Monochrome in September of this year to be part of the Rich Internet Application space. Part of my role for one of the UK’s leading RIA Agencies is to explore new avenues working with Alliance partners to maximise new business opportunities. Monochrome joined the Microsoft Partnership over 12 months ago with the aim of working with some of the newest and most innovative technologies available today…
We’ve all heard about Silverlight & WPF technology and the pros and cons related, this new dynamic drive from Microsoft to utilise the UX delivery for their major product stack is proving to be an exciting ride for Monochrome. Since joining the MS eco-system we’ve worked on a number of enterprise level opportunities to deliver applications in WPF & Silverlight – How? Well we’ve identified the benefits of working with other MS partners who’s services compliment our own, it’s called the Design, Develop, Deliver methodology. The basic principal behind this approach is to expand our ‘new business’ horizon by offering ‘more value’ to prospective customers. Of course, one of the great benefits of building partner relations is you can share opportunities increasing your pipeline by 30-40% overnight….fantastic!
Anyway, Microsoft visited Monochrome last week to spend the day filming our business in full operation to demonstrate to other partners out there how exciting the fast developing market that is Rich Internet. Myself & Niklas Richardson (Monochrome’s Technical Director) were asked to do an interview piece to discuss specifically UX (User Experience) and the benefits of using the Design, Develop, Deliver approach….all very interesting. The video is yet to be released but there’s photo’s on our blog.
Monochrome are always open to discussing partner opportunities with other organisations, if you want to chat drop me an email or give me a call – my details can be found here.
I’m a PC!
Comments (2)|
|
Why player penetration isn’t as important as you might think |
| by Neil Middleton 12:05 pm Wednesday, 12 November 2008. |
Something we come across a lot when we’re talking about Rich Internet Applications is the questions regarding player penetration, i.e how many people have player X installed (Adobe’s Flash vs. Microsoft’s Silverlight), as it’s generally seen as the primary measure for how easy to “see” an application will be.
However, something we’re also seeing is that the players are currently suited to different areas, Flash being very good for the public sites (video being No 1) and Silverlight being very good for Intranet based applications where Microsoft technology is used as the back end.
So, with player penetration it’s worth considering the following: Is the player penetration at all important when you are looking at an intranet application with a closed user audience? Do you need to worry about the percentage of the internet that has your runtime installed if you can go round and install it on all your users machines for them anyway?
Not really.
This raises another interesting thing, which is that of internal approval. We are now finding that for those environments where neither Flash (in a new enough version) or Silverlight are present, companies are generally more willing to take on Silverlight due to the vendor - it’s a product that comes from a company they already have a relationship with, and also one that can be pushed out via Windows Update and the like. It’s a sys-admins dream come true.
So, at the end of the day it seems that Flash vs Silverlight is definitely a case of best tool for the job. If you are building a public facing site of some kind, use the Flash platform. However, if you’re in a closed environment and MS are already in place - go with Silverlight / WPF. These choices will just make your life easier.
PS: Incidentally, we still come across lots of businesses who haven’t broken free of IE6, a seven year old browser yet (!) due to some internal policy - this goes to show how hard it can sometimes be bringing in a third party plugin to help with RIA’s.
Comments (0)