GenuineJD - AIR

Adobe Alchemy: Initial Setup Impressions

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:02:00 -0500

My first thoughts on the Alchemy project were of doubt. What would be the benefit of running C/C++ code on the AVM2? It seemed more like a novelty, like running old school NES games on the Wii. The more I started to think about it (and get past my bad memories of Computer Science C/C++ classes in college), the more I started to realize just how powerful this could be. There are so many open source C/C++ libraries for a wide variety of applications that, when paired with Flash, could have an amazing impact on Flash and AIR.

I thought I would tinker with it a bit. Of course, coming to the realization that Alchemy is still limited by the Flash player sandbox was a little disheartening, but I suppose understandable. I found the initial download and setup quite cumbersome. One of my biggest roadblocks was working with Cygwin. I admit, that using Cygwin has its advantages, but configuration thus far has been a beast. Additionally, the getting started section for Windows section left something to be desired in terms of details. I'm the first to admit I'm no UNIX or Linux expert, but I'd like to think I know my way around a bit.

After a few hours of trying to just get my environment set up, something more important required my attention, so I have yet to get the provided examples working. I hope to get back to this more in the next couple of weeks. I've got a few open source C++ libraries I'd love to test out. I'm extremely intrigued, but until I get my environment set up, I'm still skeptical.

Branden Hall has written a good overview of Alchemy.

Adobe Media Orchestrator: Video Asset Management?

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:02:00 -0500

One of my colleagues at Adobe MAX in San Francisco sent me a text message last night. He was at the sneaks session and indicated that there was a preview of an Adobe product called Media Orchestrator. This AIR application, in conjunction with existing products like Premiere and LiveCycle, will facilitate video production workflow, from production to review, feedback and rights application.

Considering that we have been spending most of our time lately at work trying to write a custom video asset management solution using Adobe products, this announcement is really bittersweet. It's fantastic that Adobe is (or considering) releasing this as a product, however, it most likely won't be available any time soon and we need it right now.

More information and pictures on Serge Jespers and Andrew Shorten's blogs where they were live blogging the sneaks event.

can it be?

Adobe SwitchBoard

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:50:00 -0500

Although I was excited each time a new version of Flex and AIR were available on the Adobe Labs site, I am really excited about Adobe's new AIR/Create Suite project, SwitchBoard.

At work, I'm involved a lot with our Digital Asset Management projects. Our company deals a lot with high-volume photo shoots. In almost every aspect of the creative workflow in regards to digital photography, our employees use Adobe products to manage, manipulate and edit our assets.

While we do have a large and expensive Digital Asset Management system in place, we constantly find ourselves writing custom applications to better facilitate the workflow amongst our photographers, image techs, photo editors and our legal staff.

I think there is a lot of great potential with the announcement of SwitchBoard to really take our DAM applications to the next level! I'm hoping to do some testing with it in the next couple of weeks to see how we can leverage SwitchBoard's features in our workflows.