Marco Casario | RIAvolutionize the web

I'll be Out of Office on a 'long-overdue' vacation

I will be out of the office from 8/28 to 9/6 on a 'long-overdue' vacation.
Finally my fiancee and I decided where to spent our vacation. We had to spent 10 days and we oscillated between Red Sea and Santo Domingo. We love sea.
So, now we know : Hurghada, Red Sea -  Egypt.

And we chose a fantastic hotel :)) : the Oberoi. Immediately I googled it to see their site and I noticed that they published a video (a 15 secs showreel) in Flash Video format !

Oberoi Hotel, Sahl Hasheesh is a luxurious all-suite resort set on the coast of the Red Sea at Hurghada. With 48 acres of palm-filled grounds and 850 metres of private sandy beach, Sahl Hasheesh is a spectacular and dramatic resort. Shady marble colonnades, domed pavilions, atriums open to the sky – the elegance of the traditionally inspired contemporary Arabic architecture are a perfect complement to the setting. Unlike so many resorts, the buildings enhance the environment here.

We decided to book one of 21 Superior Deluxe Suites,a  spacious and elegantly with  luxurious bathrooms with separate shower stalls. Their sunken marble baths overlook a private open-air walled garden. In addition, there are 12 larger Grand Suites have their own private swimming pool, heated in the cooler months.

The site is very clean and easy to navigate. They had a sweet flash slideshow image gallery and a showreel video in FLV format :) Just click on Oberoi Hotel Video option.
https://www.oberoihotels.com

FlashLite or J2ME, the Hamlet's dilemma

During last FlashLite Live events held by Jonathan, many of partecipants were J2ME developers who asked why use Macromedia FlashLite if you know J2ME programming.
The first thing you can think to support the use of J2ME is that it's supported by the largest number of handset. But don't forget that the development cycle is longer than using Macromedia FlashLite.
Consider this tutorial from Sun Developer page that explains you how to create some simple vectorial graphics using M2G :

Getting Started with Mobile 2D Graphics for J2ME
http://developers.sun.com/techtopics/mobility/midp/articles/s2dvg/index.html

Now imagine to do the same simple thing using Actionscript :)
Then J2ME applications have big problem with compatibility through different mobile phone models, so you have to spend more time to test and debug them. 
John Dowdell @ Macromedia said some months ago about J2ME-to-FlashLIte comparison, that the big difference is the level at which they work. J2ME is lower-level than the Flash Lite libraries, so it's easier to move it to newer devices, but all evidence seen so far confirms that development costs will be higher with Java than with Flash. If the J2ME component in a phone needs to rely on additional local external components (an SVG-Tiny renderer, an audio codec, etc) then the development problems become more complex (cf DHTML, VRML). I could go on to some of the other points, but it risks going further off-topic to the core here.
I totally agree with him.

We also discussed about this topic on FlashLite Yahoo group so I decided to report some interested opinions :

Tim Walling on FlashLite development cycle  : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlashLite/message/101

Mike Krisher and his top 5 Flash Lite advantages :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlashLite/message/103

Naz (Object404.com) on Macromedia FlashLite development cycle :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlashLite/message/99

Read also what Cesar Tardaguila @ Design Nation answered when his boss asked him regarding downloadable games, which platform do you think will be dominant, FlashLite or J2ME(see the comments).
Brian Rieger and  SlaveOfTheMind.com and their thoughts about using FlashLite or J2ME.

Read the translation of FlashLite and J2ME entire position analysis comparison blog post

Articles on Macromedia Studio 8 in August issue of Macromedia The Edge

Today I received Macromedia newsletter that announce me the new issue for The Edge.
I found a lot af articles on Studio 8 and Flash 8 but nothing for Macromedia FlashLite :(
Anyway, here the table of contents :

PUTTING THE CUSTOMER UP FRONT WITH STUDIO 8 
by Jim Guerard

A FIRST LOOK AT FLASH PROFESSIONAL 8
by Robert Hoekman, Jr.

DREAMWEAVER 8: BETTER THAN EVER
by Michael Koch and Claudia Snell

OUT FOR A TEST-DRIVE WITH STUDIO 8
by Alan Musselman

TOP 10 REASONS TO ATTEND MAX 2005   
by Peter Goldie 

DOUBLECLICK RETHINKS RICH MEDIA ADVERTISING WITH FLASH

CASE STUDY: UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM

SITES THAT INSPIRE

Track your FlashLite applications with TaskSpy

I often use TaskSpy to get more control and to trace FlashLite application in runtime.

This way i can see memory usage and track cpu load.

It's totally free  and it's a must-have for all mobile developers !

Latest news : TaskSpy will be soon released for Series 80 and Series 90 devices.

Download TaskSpy for free :)

Macromedia Shockwave.com site goes mobile !

Wow ... I don't know how, I arrived to this url :

http://jp.shockwave.com/mobile/ if you prefer use the tranasleted version :)

It's the japanese version of Macromedia Shockwave site dedicated to mobile stuff. You can find the most popular Flash mobile games developed with FlashLite (I suppose).
Wneh can we see the original shockwave.com site with a mobile section ?

Inside Flash 8’s New Video Features

Today I partecipated to the "Inside Flash 8’s New Video Features" event.
It was an introduction to the ON2 codec and Flash 8 video features with Jim Phelan.
He talked about what's new with Flash 8 video :

• Bundled video encoding software
• Spark and VP6 encoder
• Integrated Cue Points
• ON2 VP6 Codec
• Alpha chanenel support
• Low deconding complexity

Then he explained why VP6 codec was good for Flash 8 developers :

• Large quality improvement over Sorenson Spark
• Portable to multiple processor
• Low complexity decoding and efficiency
• Small size suitable to Falsh Player
• Allows Flash to compete with Windows Media and Quicktime for web video delivery

An interesting part of the presentation covers Flash Communication Server and he said about that :

• VP6 can currently stream through Flash Communication Server
• Keyframe generation for enhanced seek likely with next FCS version
• Live encoding with Flash Player will still use the Spark codec
• On2 developing "live encoder" and projects release 3 months
• FCS integration seems unlikely right away

I captured some of the slides of the event and convert the image to FlashPaper, download it.

New mobile blog dedicated to FlashLite

I'm one of the editor of the large and famous italian blog site dedicated to mobile MobileBlog.
We created a new category for Macromedia FlashLite posts where I'll often publish news and information related to Macromedia client technology for mobile devices.
So if you can read italian language don't loose this great resource :)

Go to MobileBlog FlashLite blog or syndacate it !

I

Updated Nokia 6680 applications

It's just a reminder for me :) Via Richard Legget FlashLite blog I discover that Nokia released updated applications for nokia 6680 (Aug. 2,2005)

1. Photo Editor v.1410
2. Movie Director
3. Quickoffice v.225
4. VPN Client v.302
5. Snowboard 3D (NEW)

Info and download link below:
http://www.nokia-asia.com/nokia/0,8764,72759,00.html

Macromedia licensing model for FlashLite

Some days ago on Flash Lite Yahoo group we discussed a lot about Macromedia licensing model for Flash Lite.
You can read people opinions on FlashLite Yahoo group.
So I decided to start a new poll :

What do you think about Macromedia licensing model for Flash Lite ?

  o I totally agree with Macromedia
  o Macromedia should give away Flash Lite player for free
  o Handset manufacturers should bundle FlashLite player for free
  o I don't know


To vote, please visit the following web page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlashLite/surveys?id=1950366

Enter your vote today! 

Which is the future of Flashlite ?

A new poll is now closd at Yahoo FlashLite group. The poll question was :

Which is the future of Macromedia Flashlite ?

With my big surprise, people prefer to use FlashLite to develop application rather than games !
These are the choices and results :

- fun(games, screensaver etc.) -->   30.00%
- application -->   70.00%