Sep

30

How do you make a technology that passes binary data over the wire sexy? That has been the challenge for the development team I am on. Flash Remoting is one of those technologies that is not an easy to understand concept for business people and even some IT folks. However, they are the key holders for budgets.

So, our development staff wrote a white paper. We included the top ten reasons from Adobe (although number 10 needs to be corrected, Remoting is not available on devices – BUT SHOULD BE), but that is marketing speak and doesn’t really get down to it. When we are approaching a client like Proctor & Gamble, they want to know how it affects the bottomline. Does it mean that the site/app will be built in a shorter timeframe, etc… In a way the answser is yes.

We identified a few key areas that make Remoting sexy and figured out how to speak to these key areas in a way that the decision makers could understand.

The first was Service Oriented Architecture. Remoting enables collaboration between two teams. One on the front-end, one on the back-end. Business people understand the benefit of two teams working at the same time. It means getting applications to market faster. SOA has many many benefits. Remoting brings all of these benefits to Flash. One gateway with established methods is truly beneficial. Established methods all contained in one gateway also allows platform flexibility and maintainability.

The second is increased security. Nothing is completely secure, but at least wrapping things up in binary is much less accessible than plain text bytes. Hackers are less likely to decipher the method calls and re-write their own spoofs in AMF. For example, hacking a game to cheat on a high score is more difficult without knowing something about the Remoting protocol.

The third is debugging. Remoting provides some mature debugging features. When writing applications that require coordination between clients-side and server-side, debugging can be difficult to do in a convenient matter. Debugging in Remoting provides a consistent method allowing teams to identify bugs and fix them in a more timely fashion.

We identified other areas such as one technology to deploy across the architecture to establish a standard, but they are more specific to the existing architecture etc.

We are big fans of Remoting at Barefoot. I hope to see more done on projects such as AMFPHP and WebOrb. It seems that Remoting had dropped off for a little while out of the communities radar, but has recently seen some activitiy. I hope that trend continues.

In the end, a binary serialization/deserialization protocol may not be sexy to the powers that be, but benefits like SOA and debugging seem to be. That’s our experience. Clients really do benefit from the promotion of well-designed applications that are a result of Flash Remoting.

Sep

30

Reminder: Fort Wayne Geek Dinner on Monday

September 30, 2006 | Comments Off

Just a reminder that the Geek Dinner (social get together) is on Monday night.Original post here: http://www.mikekrisher.com/?p=403

Sep

26

Just got awesome news from another developer, Bobby, at Barefoot about this blog post regarding WOXY finding funding. AWESOME! WOXY is probably the greatest alternative/indie station on the Web. Their studio is located in the same building as the Barefoot office. I took some pictures last time I was down there.

I can’t wait to start receiving their stream again!

Sep

25

I’ve certainly made known my opinion on .mobi and how I don’t see it as necessary. This Financial Times article (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/709fbdec-4bfe-11db-90d2-0000779e2340.html) quotes Verizon as having a dislike of the initiative as well, for reasons other than what I have expressed.

I imagine companies will be checking to see if the .mobi variations of their .com registrations are taken up tomorrow, and if so will start buying to protect brand, but if the cybersquatters and attackers don’t take interest, the whole thing will fade away – I’m hoping.

Sep

20

My agency has just launched a new site for Proctor & Gamble and their Dawn brand. It’s pretty cool. Dawn has teamed up with the International Bird Rescue Research Center to create this site. The IBRRC actually uses Dawn to clean birds that have been covered in oil during spills. Dawn found out about this and actually donates all the Dawn the center needs. Pretty cool.

So, the site gives lots of facts about the IBRRC and how Dawn impacts the environment. In addition, people can join a ‘flock’, which is basically a virtual landscape where everyone has an avatar represented by an animal of their choice. Each animal can share a message with the other animals in the landscape. Of course the virtual landscapes are done in Flash. Our designers did a great job illustrating all the animals.

I’ve setup a ‘flock’ for my fellow developers and blog readers to join. Jump and walk/swim around: http://www.homemadesimple.com/en_US/dawnsaveswildlife/viewCard.do?cid=622993099

Sep

20

I just finished reading Joel Spolsky’s rant about a free phone from Sprint and how much it sucked. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/19b.html. This was too funny. First Sprint sends him a free phone to use/test out and (possibly – cough) blog about. Well he did, and it wasn’t pretty. I was cracking up reading it, especially number 18 in his list of how to play an MP3 on the phone:

“Ahh, that brings up the happy “booting Java” screen which is so heartwarming. Thank you Sun Microsystems for bringing programming language advertisements into consumer electronics.”

Too funny. Joel, I would suggest the Nokia E61. I think you’ll find the experience much better and playing MP3s is very easy.

Read more

Sep

18

on FiOS fiber now!

September 18, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Verizon came out to the house on Friday and hooked us up to the FiOS fiber network. Install took a couple hours, encountered one problem where lines were crossed at the hub (about 1/2 mile away), but nothing too troubling. We were able to run the connection from the fiber box down into the basement into the Cat 5 junction box. Our house was built using Cat 5 for all the rooms phone jacks. This works out nice because now I am able to add ethernet to any phone jack in the house. The new router is installed down in the Cat 5 junction box as well. The installer Tim really worked some magic. It’s a great install.

I worked on the internal network yesterday and have everything rearranged/rewired and working. We’re getting almost 4MB down and 2MB up. This really does make a difference over our old DSL line, especially the upload. We now have two routers in the house, and could have two wireless networks. Although they are not needed right now.

This morning I purchased an album off iTunes and it was significantly faster, only took about twenty seconds for 10 songs. Haven’t completely tested the upload yet, but imagine it will be astounding the difference. We may upgrade to the 15mb down plan today, it is what we originally wanted, but I think the person on the other end signed us up for the 5MB option. Oh well. Vonage is working perfectly as well. Rock!

Sep

7

Certainly, Amazon is a household name. However, Yahoo was the only search engine on the Web for a while. Not the case anymore. I believe there is room for other ‘etailers’ to come in and steal marketshare from Amazon. Kind of a Web2.0 overhaul to the e-commerce sector. Overstock has done this, as has eBay. Both slightly different business models, but maybe that is what it takes. SHOP.COM has a different business model and one that makes sense for merchants wanting to advertise their wares.

Full disclosure, my wife has worked at SHOP.COM for years. A lot of people know that both my wife and I are in the internet industry. They know I wrote code, but they don’t completely understand what my wife does. If she said she worked for Amazon or eBay, I wonder if more would know (or at least think they did).

SHOP.COM is simply an online mall. Amazon claims the same thing. But, SHOP.COM is more like a traditional mall. SHOP.COM doesn’t have inventory and doesn’t own the user. The way it works, SHOP.COM offers the user one shopping cart. You can add products from any merchant on their site and checkout once. Amazon does the same thing, nothing new right? Wrong. When you purchase from Amazon, your goods are pulled off of Amazon’s shelves and your user data is kept by Amazon. SHOP.COM is different. You purchase something from SHOP.COM (say a watch from Fossil and ski goggles from Altrec) and the two orders get sent to the original merchants, whom take care of shipping and you are now one of their customers. This has huge benefits to the merchants.

I’m not saying Amazon is doomed. I continue to use Amazon for some things – like books. But I think there is room for others to take some of their market share in other areas. And while doing so, I think we’ll start to see some innovation in the space, like the use of RSS and mobile. Usability and social aspects are greatly needed in this space as well. eBay may be trying to innovate with Skype and it’s Google partnership. Perhaps some of the up and comers like SHOP.COM will be the innovators – they probably have to be. Give it a try and see what your experience is. Shop online at SHOP.COM

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