Tech Blog

[#1]

Think all Adobe is about is Photoshop, Flash, and PDF? Ah but you're wrong! A couple years ago Adobe came out with a platform for building applications called AIR. Now, like PDF and Flash, what makes AIR interesting is that the part of AIR the applications run on (the runtime) works on Mac, PC, and even Linux. It's like the promise of Java, but in a much easier package, so I've been told, to program in. Unlike Java, AIR apps are relatively small, interact well (virtually the same) on all platforms, run efficiently, and look good as well.

Fine, you say, another geek thing to play with...

Nope. Because AIR is so easy to develop on, a lot of great, cool, and useful apps have been created on it. Some of the biggest beneficiaries of AIR apps have been Twitter and FriendFeed. For both services the leading apps that people use for them, when not on the website, are AIR apps. At any given time I'm usually running at least one, often two or three AIR apps on a day to day basis.

 

The primary apps I'm running are Mixero (in green, at left) 

or TweetDeck (in black above) for Twitter, but it doesn't end there...here are a few of my favourite apps.. 

When I'm looking for the right colour scheme for a client, I turn to Adobe's Kuler to give me options of different schemes. It syncs with Adobe's Kuler website and let's me transfer colour palettes to Photoshop and the web (with copying HEX codes).

Speaking of client sites, or even writing blog posts, I need to resize images almost daily. Often I need to re-size batches of images to the same width or even convert them to a new file format. I've used Shrink-o-matic a lot for this, but tonight checking out the AIR app site RefreshingApps.com I found a new app called ImageSizer which looks very promising (I've already downloaded, installed, and updated it)...

Shrink-o-matic and ImageSizer are both drag and drop apps. You drag images over, drop, and they are resized. With Shrink-o-matic you have to know what you want before you start. Looks like with ImageSizer you might be able to drop, decide settings, then process.

Personally I like the later method better. Less chance of accidentally overwriting an image or having it saved to some odd location on your drive.

If you want to keep up on headlines or other news items via RSS, how about a nice little news ticker? Just like I use Netvibes, I also use a great app called Snackr which gives me a ticker-tape of headlines from a small sub-set of the RSS feeds I follow:

It just stays at the bottom of my (second) monitor and when an interesting headline goes by I click to read it or jump to the site. Since it is a ticker, the article come back frequently so missing a great article is pretty hard to do. 

The last app that I use a lot is Snippley. It is, like you can imagine, an app that holds snippets of text. I often use it for code bits that I like to keep around, or boiler plate text that I use often. Even if I don't use it every day, when I use it, I use it a lot. How many times have you had to copy and paste and copy and paste the same bits of text over and over? We've all been there, Snippley can help:

 

Those are just the apps I like to use often. There are apps to take screenshots, mindmap, track to dos ... most anything you might need to do. I find a lot of apps at RefreshingApps, but you can also keep an eye peeled for posts like these from C|Net, Mashable, SmashingApps, and SheGeeks where you get geeks like my giving you their fav apps to try (now I have a few more on my list to try!).

If you haven't tried AIR apps before, go get the AIR runtime from Adobe and try a few of the apps here. I'm sure you'll find an AIR app that you'll like to use. When you do find a great one, let me know here ...

Message Edited by JS on 07-24-2009 11:51 PM

Message Edited by Julez on 07-29-2009 04:54 PM

Message Edited by Laura on 08-21-2009 04:59 PM

[#2]

Whoo Hoo! New apps to try out.

I am really enjoying the way developers are embracing .air as a development platform. Lots of useful work being released, and it's cross platform!

Thanks for this Tris...my Tuesday was looking kinda dull

[#3]

Well you know Brad, I'm always aiming to please and keep you guys armed with cool apps!

[#4]

Thanks for the link to RefreshingApps.com. I've been using basically two Adobe Air aps my self, TweetDeck for Twitter and ExactPrice for tracking in real time the prices for gold, silver, and platinum.

[#5]

Uh Tris? I'm going to blame you for my productivity drop. Snackr is addictive

[#6]

@Hal yw! There are some awesome apps out there. Getting a nice, light alternative is very cool indeed!

@brad sorry man, you know how info junkies are!