TRINIX

A couple of months ago, I saw some promissing screencast of Adobe MAX convention about the new tool Adobe was working on.

The RIA tool was called “Thermo” and allows non technical people to put together a complete prototype of an application by simply drag and drop elements. This will close the gap between the design and development of applications. Thermo will provide the functionality to simulate application behavior and making it easier to build complete mock-ups for demo’s or for providing to the IT development teams. I think that this tool will be a great improvement for all the project managers. Giving them a lot of freedom to put together applications and playing around without actually having to develop everything. This tool could replace the wireframe design and speed up application development. I’m anxious awaiting the release.

Official Adobe description: “Thermo is an upcoming Adobe product that makes it easy for designers to create rich Internet application UIs. Thermo allows designers to build on familiar workflows to visually create working applications that easily flow into production and development.”

More info can be found on the official Adobe Labs website: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Thermo

A couple of screenshots:

A couple of Youtube previews:

I’m a big Dreamweaver user because of the nice and user-friendly interface, the good intellisense and … (too much reasons to enumerate them all). I was missing only one main functionality that was better Javascript support and javascript intellisense. Since we are in the Web 2.0 age, the usage of Javascript has risen exponentially. Now Dreamweaver supports Javascript (and their own Javascript framework “Spry”) but I was missing intellisense for the famous Javascript frameworks (Prototype, Script.aculo.us, jQuery, mootools, …).

But somebody started to build Dreamweaver extensions that will fix this.
At the website http://xtnd.us/ you can find the current available DW extensions that they already build and / or will build.

For now they have the following available in béta:

• jQuery API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3 :: download the beta
• Prototype API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3:: download the really early beta
• Ext API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3 :: Download from Spket

Possible planned releases:

• Mochikit API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3
• MooTools API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3
• YUI API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3

Perhaps it’s time that the guys at Adobe start to support this by providing the Javascript framework extesions.

Ajaxian posted also an article on this topic: http://ajaxian.com/archives/dreamweaver-users-rejoice-support-for-js-libs-now-available

I recently discovered “Lovely Charts” (http://www.lovelycharts.com). It’s an online Rich Internet Application build in Flex (flash GUI) and a PHP / MySQL back-end. It’s developed in Belgium (my country by Jérôme Cordiez (active at http://www.thisislovely.com ) and it’s really a piece of art.

Lovely charts allows you to create online charts – Diagrams – wireframes – …

This is like MS Visio but then really nice and easy and most important of all it’s ONLINE!!!
The interface is really intuitive and the functionality is almost complete (it’s still in Beta fase).

You can draw with lovely charts:

• Flowcharts
• Sitemaps
• Wireframes
• Organigram charts
• Network diagrams

The diagram symbols are vectorized and have a nice modern touch. The result are impressive charts and diagrams with a professional look. I tested already for personal use and now i’m even using it at my work as a Product Manager at StepStone Belgium. For my projects I have to create a lot of sitemaps, wireframes, diagrams, … and this tool just won over MS Visio. Creating complex sitemaps is no issue anymore. You can play around with all different arrows, colors, elements and symbols. Lovely charts allow you to create even the simplest or really complex diagrams without any problems, linking the different elements with one simple click. You can even specify the different types of arrow lines. When you are finished you can export your diagram / chart to a JPEG or PNG.

Everything is really straigtforward:

• drag-drop
• resize
• link elements
• adding text
• export

You can even select and manipulate multipe elements or use the keyboard to do actions.

I can’t say in words how much I like lovely Charts but just take a look at the impressive gallery and believe me afterwards you will signup. And the diagrams presented in the gallery are really created with lovely charts.

It’s a free service with the possibility to signup for a premium account.
With this premium account you can save your diagrams online.

Have a look at their gallery and watch the screencast at their nicely designed website
and Signup now for a free account

Today I found this nice article to become a better web designer.

They are summed up in 50 key items.

If you are a web designer you should read this:

http://www.gosquared.com/liquidicity/archives/114

Some more icon news

You can download a whole range of Apple icons right from the apple website completely free!!!



http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/icons_screensavers/

What is the first thing that users see when they use a web application.

That the Grafical User Interface (GUI).

What defines a good looking GUI pure graphically speaking.

• Element positioning
• Color Usage
• useability
• graphics and icons

I always liked the KDE icons, they are clean and clear.

And they look PRO.

Now there’s a new icon pack released that you should check out.

http://www.everaldo.com/crystal/ (see download section for download)

Thanks to

Thanks to:The entire Crystal users community. You are responsible for the success of this project.

To the artists who collaborated with me on the creation of the icons:

– Ingolfur Haraldsson

– Luiz Claudio dos Santos

– Edson Farias

– Paulo André

– Rhandros Dembiki

– André Souza

Today Google Docs & Spreadsheets has reales some new functionality and GUI.

The first that caught my attention was the new GUI. This has become more Web 2.0.

on the lef site you can find a Tree structure with nice clean information containing all the files, with the ability to filter. This new look makes it nicer to work with google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Another upgrade is the ability to show charts in the Spreadsheets.

A list of all the features: http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/whatsnew.html

If you are into Web 2.0 and AJAX then this article is pretty much like a bible.

It contains practically everything you need to know about AJAX and all it’s current techniques.

The header says it all:

80+ AJAX-Solutions For Professional Coding

A MUST READ!!!!

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/06/20/ajax-javascript-solutions-for-professional-coding/

Microsoft programs suite is vastly used world wide, but they are (mostly – all) desktop applications.

We live in an internet age where everything has to mobile and online.

So here’s on overview off all the online Microsoft alternatives.



Microsoft Word

• Google docs: http://docs.google.com/
• zoho writer: http://writer.zoho.com/
• Buzzwords: http://www.virtub.com/
• Writeboard: http://www.writeboard.com/
• ThinkFree: http://www.thinkfree.com/
• Writer: http://writer.bighugelabs.com/
• ajaxWrite: http://www.ajaxlaunch.com/ajaxwrite/

Microsoft Excel

• Google spreadsheet: http://docs.google.com/
• Zoho sheet: http://sheet.zoho.com/
• EditGrid: http://www.editgrid.com/
• ThinkFree Calc: http://product.thinkfree.com/desktop/calc/

Microsoft Powerpoint

• SlideRoll: http://www.slideroll.com/
• Empressr: http://www.empressr.com/
• Zoho Show: http://show.zoho.com/
• Google Presentation: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/were-expecting.html (still Béta)
• Spresent: http://www.spresent.com/
• vMix: http://www.vmix.com/

Microsoft Outlook

• Gmail: http://www.gmail.com
• Windows Live Hotmail: http://www.hotmail.com
• Yahoo Mail: http://mail.yahoo.com/
• @Nifty: http://www.nifty.com/
• Zoho Mail: http://mail.zoho.com/
• Zimbra: http://www.zimbra.com/

Microsoft Outlook Calendar:

• Google Calendar: http://calendar.google.com/
• Yahoo Calendar: http://calendar.yahoo.com/
• Kiko: http://kiko.com/
• 30Boxes: http://30boxes.com/
• MyPunchBowl: http://www.mypunchbowl.com/

Windows Live Messenger:

• Meebo: www.meebo.com
• Microsoft Web messenger: webmessenger.msn.com/
• eBuddy: www.ebuddy.com/
• Google Talk: www.google.com/talk/
• Campfire: www.campfirenow.com/
  

This listing is just a small part of the wide range of solutions that can be found online and / or in communities.

I hope I will find the time to expand this list.

This is a rather personal item that’s been bugging me for quiet some time.

That’s the fact of over-usage or miss-use of buzzwords.

I’m� active in� Web development and I try to stay up2date with all the new technologies and all the development methodologies. But I have to realize that this is practically impossible seeing the current fact that the last 5 years the Web development world has exploded with all kinds of new approaches and techniques and technology.

I remember the days that a website consisted out of plain and simple HTML, than there was CSS and then came the server-side like PHP and ASP. Next came browser interactions with Javascript. Things started to enhance and more and more was possible with a website. Then things got out of hand.

They started to use buzz words like AJAX, RIA, SOAP , REST, Webservices, Extreme Programming, Agile Programming, ….

Ok, I like the evolution of Web 2.0, in fact I have always predicted that the internet will be the future of ICT. But with this evolution it’s very hard to stay up2date with the technologies if in fact the most companies (in Belgium) are just realizing the importance and possibilities of the internet.

So you have the rapidly evolving technology, methodology and buzz words on one side and on the other side you have the companies that are just starting to see all the possibilities of the internet.

It’s like comparing the year 3000 with the middle ages

I’m still pro this evolution but we have to keep in mind that perhaps it’s time to slow things down a bit because at this rate we can’t keep up. If you focus on 1 thing you loose 10 other things. And this 1 thing can be out-dated in just 1 sec. And what’s the best technology to develop Web applications is it AJAX, Flex, Silverlight, AIR (Apollo), … ???

The developers are doing their best they can to keep up. But then comes the manager who has no insight in the learning curve of all these technologies and he expects his team to just switch from 1 day on the other to a new technology all because he has just heard some buzz words.

Now it has even become a trend to use all the buzz words in one sentence without even any reference between the words. This makes it easy to blow people away with all these buzz words.

Example: “Building RIA is easy using XP in combi with AJAX and REST”

This example has in fact has a reference but for a ICT out-sider this still will be like chinese, but will blow them away.

Just call thing by name and stop making up all unnecesarry redicoulous buzz words.

And only use the buzz words if you totally understand the meaning of the words and keep in mind that not everybody has the time to keep up with all the new buzz words, so explain them.

In other words what has the most impact that you use the term AJAX or Silverlight or the fact that you can build an web application with the technology.

Again, I’m pro the Web 2.0 evolution but don’t make things any more complicated then necessary or to say it with a buzz word ::: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

I don’t know if this post makes any sense but I’m always ready for a discussion.