Eighteen months ago Flex 2 was released, which literally changed the way people think of rich Internet applications. Since then lots of things have happened in the Flex community. In 2007 Adobe announced that Flex will go open source, and now it has happened. All ActionScript 3 and Java code including Flex compilers and debugger (FDB) are going open source. And let?s not forget about the number of other open source products released by Adobe during the same period of time.

In my opinion this is THE biggest announcement that I?ve heard from Adobe since the release Flex 2 in the Summer of 2006. This is bigger than open sourcing Flex. This is bigger than AIR. Here's the news: Adobe is open sourcing AMF protocol and messaging under LGPL V3. Christophe Coenraets, a Senior Flex Evangelist from Adobe, told me about this new free product called BlazeDS. While many people are using Flex for creating cool widgets that can make your Web page prettier, enterprise Flex developers have to deal with such boring things as bringing data to the client. And they want to do this as fast as possible. AMF3 protocol allows your Web application to send the data over the wire at lease 10 times faster than a regular HTTP.

The AMF file format is a binary file format representing a serialized ActionScript object. This file type is used in many places within the Flash Player and AIR for data storage and data exchange. In Flash Player 9 and AIR, the flash.utils.ByteArray class is the primary way AMF is handled.

'The Java backlash,' writes Bruce Eckel, 'has been building up steam, and we're starting to see some fundamental shifts because of it.' Java has been around for 10 years yet applets are not the primary way that we interact with the web. Applets are not ubiquitous, and everyone got excited about AJAX instead.

Adobe has announced that a large portion of the next version of Flex goes open source under Mozilla Public License (MPL). Here's the partial list of what becomes open: mxml, compc, and ActionScript compiler, command line debugger FDB, Flex framework and RPC libraries and testing infrastructure.

Neil Balthaser has been awarded a Patent relating to the online production of RIAs using RIAs over a remote connection. I find this incredible given the number of Flash applications that were around at that time that must have existed to be listed as prior art that would have shown quite obviously that there was not a single original idea, process or product related to the Balthather FX/ProFX site.

Immediately available in English, French and German language versions - with a Japanese version due out next month - 'Acrobat 3D' has just been launched by Adobe. The company's goal is to help extend 3D visualization, communication and collaboration across geographically dispersed organizations. It looks like they may have a new worldwide mega-hit on their hands.

'Adobe Systems Incorporated and Macromedia, Inc. ... announced they have either received or been notified they will receive all regulatory clearances necessary to complete Adobe's pending acquisition of Macromedia. The companies expect to close the transaction on December 3, 2005.' With those two sentences ends one of the smoothest software mergers in recent i-Technology history.

Normally this section of MXDJ has articles on specific features, best practices, or development topics du jour. Diving into the great new tools and features is necessary and helpful, but aside from the sheer excitement of digging into new technology, why bother designing and developing with rich media in mind? From a business standpoint, does it really pay off? According to key organizations, the response is an absolute 'yes,' and the data is rolling in to prove it.

Adobe Systems and Macromedia have announced that the stockholders of each company have now voted in favor of Adobe's proposed acquisition of Macromedia at their respective special stockholder meetings, held August 24.

Business guru Tom Peters once wrote 'we need to embrace change; to welcome it; to transplant ourselves periodically.' Through change, we grow and avoid complacency or staleness. With change, we start on the proverbial Spring cleaning and make way for the new and exciting.

With increasing frequency, employees (called 'crewmembers') at JetBlue Airways are being asked to fulfill some of their training requirements online. The aviation industry is policy-intensive, and airline employees - everyone from flight attendants, to pilots, to customer service and ground crew personnel - are required to update their training each year on certain regulatory topics. To meet these requirements, JetBlue employs a blend of classroom instruction, on-the-job training, and eLearning.

Macromedia this morning announced an update to its Web Publishing System (WPS), with a host of new enhancements and robust capabilities, including RSS activity feeds and deployment management.

Is Flash video 'The Big One' for Macromedia or is it just another rich-application goodie among its host of offerings? Chris Hock talks exclusively to MX Developer's Journal about Flash video and begins by situating Flash video in the overall spectrum of Macromedia's steadily widening roster of offerings for developers and consumers alike.

'We've had a tremendous response,' said ColdFusion product manager Dave Gruber, speaking exclusively to SYS-CON.TV (http://www.sys-con.tv) just 9 days after the release of ColdFusion MX 7. 'I couldn't ask for a better nine days.'

Staff within Macromedia 'tried to anticipate various reactions' to its recent decision to package Yahoo! Toolbar with its Flash player, John Dowdell - author of the popular online 'JD's Forum' -blogged yesterday. He is open to the possibility, he wrote, that there may be 'a potential scenario which could affect the common good' in the decision, which has provoked an uproar in various online communities and blogs.

This year it looks certain that a new participation record will be set, as more than 4,000 votes have already been recorded in just the first seven days of voting, as more than 50,000 SYS-CON Media readers are estimated to cast their votes in this year's Readers' Choice Awards. Highlights after just one week's voting are as follows.

Nokia and Macromedia today announced a licensing agreement that will integrate Macromedia Flash technology into Series 60 Platform. Nokia has also agreed to support Flash in its other software platforms. The agreement will provide opportunities for the 1.8 million registered developers in Forum Nokia and the more than one million Macromedia Flash developers to create new compelling Flash content and applications for mobile phones to be deployed through operators worldwide.

'The new version of ColdFusion extends the Internet to mobile devices and delivers groundbreaking rich forms support, reporting, and printing solutions,' says Gruber, ColdFusion product manager at Macromedia on his SYS-CON.TV interview today with MX Developer's Journal chief-editor Charles Brown.

'I get excited every time we release a new version of ColdFusion,' writes Tim Buntel. 'I usually hit the road and talk about the release to customers at their companies, user group events, and conferences. I start the conversation by saying, 'This is the best ColdFusion ever! Wait till you see what you can do with this!' Well, ColdFusion MX 7 is here and this time, I won?t need to say a word. All you need to do is take a look at this release to see that I am not exaggerating whatsoever.'

By now you've probably heard about Captivate (formerly RoboDemo), Macromedia's tool for creating engaging software simulations, demonstrations, and tutorials. You've decided to take the plunge and create your first 'captivating' demonstration, but how do you get started? This article will walk you through the basics of producing your very first Captivate project.

Did the geek-fest just finished in Las Vegas, Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2005, herald the return of technology and the beginning of the 'post-PC' world?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - whose watchword is 'We believe that the world's toughest problems can be solved - if we work together' - is giving $3M to help those struck by the natural disaster that's wreaked such havoc in South Asia. Amazon.com has helped channel even more, $3.5M - as the wider Internet community joins the fund-raising effort.

No sooner had we begun our reader-driven quest for the top twenty software people in the world than - by popular acclaim, as they say - we're going to extend the field to choose from...from forty to over a hundred. Here we bring you a sneak peek at the sixty contenders that we'll be adding now to the poll, with thanks to everyone who has proferred suggestions. Even 100 won't do this subject justice, but it will be interesting to see how the i-Technology community decides to rank them, when voting on this new, expanded group begins in February.

One thing was abundantly clear at the 2004 MAX conference in New Orleans: the third-party Flash market is growing rapidly. This is due to Macromedia's decision to provide APIs and open standards. The result of this decision is that the Flash developer will now have a virtual cornucopia of exciting new tools that will increase productivity and flexibility.

SYS-CON Media today announced further details of the upcoming cross-platform technology event, Web Services Edge 2005 East - International Web Services Conference & Expo (www.sys-con.com/edge), to be held in Boston at the Hynes Convention Center, February 15-17, 2005. More than 3,000 i-technology professionals are expected to participate this year including the show expo floor, making it the largest Web Services event of the year. The following is the official announcement of the keynotes, sponsors, conference tracks and sessions, tutorials, and the Web Services case studies to be presented during this year's three-day event.

The challenge of enterprise-level collaboration is to make data sharing effective and keep costs down. Applications built with C++ or Java must be delivered to the end-users' desktops along with some piece of the collaboration software. That can be a headache for IT departments because it is another set of files to deploy, upgrade, and test.

At its annual developer conference, Macromedia provided a glimpse of new features that are under consideration in new releases of ColdFusion and Macromedia's Flash Player. The conference itinerary could be viewed using mobile phones.

As a Web developer, trainer, and conference speaker, the question I am asked most frequently is, 'Where is this industry going?' My answer is one simple word: Flash!!!

I am a Web application developer. That can mean a number of things these days, but in my case, it means I write code on both the client and the server to make a complete 'application.' For many of us, the client-side code is JSP - JavaServer Pages. Perhaps, like me, you find JSP to be awkward with its mixture of languages and styles.

'Flex' - Macromedia's code-based way of building applications that target the Flash run-time - is being extended from today in an attempt to woo Java developers into bringing the power of Java to the Flash Player. 'You can still edit and code as a Java developer, but as you're doing it, you see the visual representation of that design come to life,' said Macromedia's chief software architect, Kevin Lynch, as he introduced Flex Builder technology this morning.

SYS-CON Media is inviting BEA, Borland, IBM, JBoss, JOnAS, Macromedia, Microsoft, Oracle, Orion, Sun, and Sybase to an 'Application Server Shoot-Out' at the upcoming Web Services Edge Conference & Expo, in Boston next February. The shootout will be a live competition aimed at finding out which app servers support the latest WS-I standards and how they compare in terms of how many transactions they can handle, how many lines of code they require, how they react to simulated network and hardware failures and a whole range of other metrics.

'Macromedia is. . .looking forward to lighting up the new digital world,' said chairman and CEO Rob Burgess, while announcing last week Macromedia, Inc.'s financial results for its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, 2004.

The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, considered by many to have one of the best MBA programs anywhere, has been raising the interest of IT professionals for ten years.

Macromedia has announced that a free update is available from today for its Flash Web applications program, Flash MX 2004. The update, version 7.2, applies to both Flash MX 2004 and MX Professional 2004.

So far, all the information about Blackstone, the next major version of ColdFusion, has been third-hand, based on what bloggers have been saying after seeing Ben Forta preview the product. Now you can read information straight from the horse's mouth, courtesy of 'The Blackstone Tour Report,' which talks about all the features that Forta has been previewing (with the exception of the event gateway) and also gives some more information about what might be happening around CFCs, including serialized CFCs (so that you can replicate CFCs in session) and access to CFC code from Java.

CSS has been around for years, but many Web designers still do not think it is ready to be used extensively because of the host of browser rendering inconsistencies that exist. However, by knowing a few CSS hacks and tricks, you can learn how to write code that is cross-browser compatible and allows you to fully separate your content from its presentation.

A couple of interesting and ingenious CF apps have caught Eric Jones's eye recently. Follow the links and see for yourself.

'Turbolinux's focus is simple,' says Koichi Yano, president & COO, Turbolinux, Inc., on the release today of Flash Player 7 for Linux. 'It is to respond to the requests of our customers. When those requests pointed to the ability of viewing rich media content right out of the box, we were thrilled that Macromedia was more than willing to partner with us to offer Flash support for our customers.'

Support for cascading style sheets, or CSS, has been present in Dreamweaver for many years; you may have taken advantage of it as just another software feature without really knowing how to utilize it fully, efficiently, and correctly. This article will introduce you to some general guidelines to follow while setting up and working with CSS-based Web pages so you can achieve more consistent rendering cross-browser.