Students: Start Making a Difference

...in RIAs. No, seriously. We launched our Education Developer Center today. This is where all you budding underage Flex and AIR developers can get your free copy of Flex Builder 2 (and the latest beta of Flex Builder 3).

Maybe some of the text in on the site isn't written in the best terms for our visitor demographics, but if that's a real issue, we'll fix it as necessary. And maybe it shouldn't link to the regular Developer Center's collaborative advanced cookbook, getting started guides and wiki...

Well, it's a step in the right direction, anyway.

It's also got a really nice motivational letter to educators by Yakov Fain on why Flex should be taught in the classrooms, alongside Java or C++, or on its own.

Check it out, and if you're a student, go ahead and download Flex! For free. Yes, it's legal.

Mozilla's Prism

I'm not sure if you've heard or read about Mozilla's 'Prism,' which a lot of people are comparing to AIR.

I'm here to tell you two things about it: it's not anything interesting--from what I can gather, it's merely a browser without an address bar that goes to a specific place (like Gmail or Adobe.com). Is this so revolutionary? I really don't think so.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this.

And also, they released Prism for Mac and Linux a bit earlier today. Again, there was much fanfare, but it's not really exciting nor does it do anything revolutionary for those operating systems. Firefox has been available for OS X and Linux for years now...

So, in conclusion, Prism is...

Firefox minus the address bar that now works on Windows, Mac and Linux. Don't worry, eager Linux users -- AIR for Linux is in the works and we're trying to get it out ASAP.

Oh, and while I can't confirm this, we're hoping we can have Flash running on Google's Android mobile operating system. I'll tell you if I have any more news concerning this great operating system (in case you can't tell, I love the idea of Android).

Redmond Developer News: AIR Gaining Ground

The title sounds a bit nicer than the article actually is. Though I must admit, you know you've got something good when the journal 'powering the Windows software revolution' actually mentions you.

Of course, Adobe is 'trying to catch up to Silverlight.' How many times do I have to remind these people that Silverlight is trying to catch up with Flash!

And Mr. Desmond, AIR is not just an extension of Flash Player for desktop applications. It's a full runtime that also allows you to use JavaScript/HTML (and of course AJAX), as well as Flash and PDF content. Plus, you can mix these together. Want to put a Flash filter on some text via JavaScript? Easily done!

However, my favorite part is the idea that people have to "buy into Flash" to use AIR. Again, not so. But what can be expected from an analyst from Directions on Microsoft?

I mean, come on! Try doing some research before you go and blast Adobe. I don't care how much you like Silverlight. I just can't see it passing Flash in terms of market penetration, which is over 99.1%. Yeah, 99.1% of Internet connected computers on Windows, Mac, Linux and others have Flash. And the only holdouts are people like you and Microsoft fanboys. Oh, and people who still have DOS or Windows 3.11 (but they shouldn't count).

And don't even think about preinstalling Silverlight with Vista SP1, Steve. I'll have the EU and US Government at your door instantaneously. Oh, wait... they're already there.

Here's the deal with Leopard

Since, you know, 2 million people have already bought the operating system in like 5 days, we thought it to be a great idea to give you an update on Adobe software's Leopard compatibility.

All Adobe software should work perfectly fine out of the box with the exception of Premiere Pro CS3, Encore CS3, After Effects CS3 Professional, and Soundbooth CS3. We're working on updates that we'll be sending as fast as we can.

Also, it's worth noting that older versions of Adobe and Macromedia software in CS3 won't be updated for Leopard. They may work, but we unfortunately can't actively support them.

Oh, and CNNMoney published a nice article on how our AIR platform "changes the game in applications." We know :-)

Adobe: Empowering the Future Generation

You know, I get a lot of email and regular mail complaining about Adobe's "high" prices for software. And I understand. Basically. So, every once in a while I'll have someone complain about how we're not helping the next generation learn this stuff due to our prices.

You know, over the past few days, I've taken a look at that area. And you know what? You people who have told me this are 100% correct. So Adobe took a major step about a week ago (sorry for the late entry) in announcing that it is preparing to give Flex Builder (the SDK of which, Flex, is open source) away to students and faculty. All they have to do is prove who they are with the general yada yada.

If you're wondering why we didn't pick Photoshop or Dreamweaver, here's why. Adobe is betting its future on rich Internet applications and AIR, which we encourage are built in Flex rather than in Flash (though Flex is just merely a branch of the Flash overall platform). If we're going after the future generation, why not give them the future tools?

Oh, and also, this gives us an edge over Microsoft. Like they'd ever give anything away. You know kids -- "Oooh! Adobe gave us expensive software for free! We love you Adobe! We don't want Adobe to go away, so we don't like Microsoft." Maybe a bit too deep, but the idea is there at least.

According to this InfoWorld story, it'll be on our website next month (which is, like, two days away).