New music for a great cause

For those that don't know, prior to getting involved with Flash and everything, I was a professional drummer. My wife Tanya is also a singer (that's how we met) and we've kept the rock'n'roll dream alive over the years by continuing to do shows and recording. This week we're releasing her latest 6-track EP called "Braver Than You Think You Are", and have launched her new site at www.tanyagordon.com. Our good mate Caleb James has done a fantastic job in producing this collection of songs - we're really happy with how they came out.

All the money we make through CD sales are being donated to a children's refuge in Tapachula (Mexico), called Mission Mexico. We've started a campaign site at www.tapachula07.com where you can read more about the project, so if you want to buy a CD then you'll know it's going to a great cause. You can also make direct online donations to the project if you want to.

Happy Australia Day

Happy Australia Day everyone. Proably for a lot of us it represents a day off work (Aussies love their public holidays) but it is actually a great time to stop and reflect on what a great country this is and how lucky we are to live here. Now for me, Australia day is also a time for watching the Australian cricket team continue their punishment of the touring English team in the one-day match this afternoon :) Australian cricket is to me what Italian football is to Alessandro!

Total Training for Adobe Flash Lite 2.1 - Available Now

I'm happy to announce that Total Training for Adobe Flash Lite 2.1, presented by yours truley, is now available for purchase. Thanks very much to everyone at Total Training and Adobe for giving me the opportunity to work on this product. I hope that Flash developers looking to move into mobile get something out of it (we're assuming that you already know Flash when watching this, so a lot of the Flash basics get a general overview) and are encouraged to get into Flash for mobile. Order your copy now!

Flash Lite 2.1 Software Training Videos from Total Training

Not everyone's happy with the iPhone

Well, at least not happy with the NAME. Seems Cisco are a little unhappy with Mr Jobs going ahead and announcing a product called "iPhone" while they were still in negotiatons over the use of the trademarked name - owned by Cisco.

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21042507%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html

A Glalaxy Far Far Away

Some amazing new photos from the Hubble. Someone has overly developed sense for the spectacular!

Sir, it's a Mr Jobs on the iPhone ...

Well the wait is finally over hey? How many people started to believe that the iPhone was all just a big bad rumour that would never actually materialise into anything? Probably quite a few - the Apple PR machine did such a great job of managing the hype around this one that when the device was announced at Macworld (see video of the keynote here), the squeals of delight (yes, I actually heard squeals from the audience) from the Mac faithful could be heard from the ISS.

So what can we expect? From what I can tell, a pretty cool device that does just about everything. The Multi-Touch system will need to be played with before we can pass judgement obviously, but the idea of multiple touches working together to perform actions sounds pretty sweet. Jobsy's comment about the mobile UI these days being too restrictive because the handset buttons and controls are always in the same place ... well ... I can hear UI designers groaning a litle already. This will be a major shift for mobile developers and one that will take quite a while to fully establish itself. I mean, there are definitiely pros for having a defined set of UI rules that the user is comfortable using. Muscle memory is a powerful thing!

The connection with iTunes for the delivery content will now have to evolve to include software and content as well as music and video. It's Apple's own aggregation system with millions of already dedicated users. I remember talking about a year ago to some Adobe folks about iriver u10 had a difficult (or non-existant) business model for selling FL content because the companion iTunes-like software didn't allow for the transfer of SWF's, only music and videos. Once iTunes moves into that space for the iPhone, it'll be a killer.

I'll be very interested to see what the relationships are like with the carriers ... do they unlock the device for use with multiple networks? Do they operate their own Apple MVNO using Cingular? Time will tell. As it will also for possible Flash support. Discussion is already hotting up over Flash player verisons, Flash Lite, Flex, etc ... I have no idea and I don't think anyone else will for some time to come. I will say this though - the functionality that is being demonstrated for the "phone" part of the device is pretty cool.

If one thing is certain though, it's that Apple knows how to build hype and then cash in on it. So watch out smartphone market ... iPhone is coming.

More information on the iPhone site

New Creative Director for Moket

Today Moket welcomed Thomas Hamlyn-Harris to the team as Creative Director. Thomas brings years of experience in illustration and design, as well as mobile marketing and product development. Avid Moket fans will know Thomas as the illustrator for Dojo Monkey (still in development - don't worry, we haven't forgotten him!)

We're looking forward to bring you some more news shortly on some of Moket's 2007 initiatives and new products. In the meantime, welcome aboard Thomas!

Flash Lite Friday Digest

Flash Lite Friday Digest is out again this week from Luciano. Some great links amongst them so check them out for a quick overview of the week that was in Flash Lite.

Happy New Year and happy book launch

Happy New Year everyone, welcome to 2007. We start the year off with the release for sale of the new Flash Lite book - Foundation Flash Applications for Mobile Devices written by Flash Lite dudes Richard Legget, Scott Janousek and Weyert de Boer.

Great examples of mobile applications and development techniques - well worth a read for anyone in Flash Lite development. Congratulations to the authors!