September 2008 Archive

Google Chrome and it's effect on RIA development

Today, Google dropped a bomb onto the internet in the form of a new browser, Chrome.  Whilst not initially ground breaking, the big news is in the details.

In summary, Google have created a browser that is suited to the modern internet, the one that is seeing a big shift towards online internet applications as well as traditional sites.

The key elements that Google have introduced, amongst others, are:

1. The tiny footprint


2. Built in Google Gears


3. V8 – the new Javascript VM

So, to cover these in more detail:

1. The tiny footprint

Now, to most this might not seem like a biggy, but for me it’s an interesting angle.

Google have the infrastructure in place to get this browser in front of lots of people a lot quicker than anyone else, after all, nearly everyone on the planet uses Google properties in some way.  Bundling the browser, or advertising it everywhere is not a problem for them, so I would expect people to be very aware of it very soon.

At the moment, Google chrome is a 7mb download for Windows (yup, only 7Mb).  Whilst not much smaller than the competitors (Firefox 7.2Mb, IE 8 b2 12.4Mb) it does show that adoption for this browser could certainly be rapid.  RAM usage is also miniscule compared with the likes of Firefox (which lots of people complain about as being very memory heavy).  This suits Chrome to lots of mobile/laptop applications as well as machines that might be getting on a bit.

Therefore, I personally see chrome as getting out there quickly, much more so than Firefox did, mainly due to who is promoting it and their reach.  If anyone is able to get a product out, Google have to be one of the best placed people to do so.

2. Built in Google Gears

Another big item is the inclusion of Google Gears.  Gears was launched a fair while back and is available as a add-on to your existing browser.  In essence, Gears lets you do a lot of the things that Adobe AIR provides, for instance, local data storage, the ability to run offline, as well as a number of other features such as desktop access.  This now means that your bog-standard AJAX app can now transition effectively to a desktop app with no need for an additional download (other than Chrome), or any sort of redevelopment at all.  All the user needs to do is select what they need and then use the Prism style functionality to migrate it to their desktop as a standalone app (admittedly wrapped in Chrome).  Fancy your favourite web app as a desktop app?

3. V8 – the new Javascript VM

But AJAX and Javascript are slow right?  Well yes, largely, except that Chrome contains a brand new javascript virtual machine called V8 which is showing itself up to 100 times faster than competitor browsers in benchmark tests.  This is a massive thing for AJAX.  Historically, Flash’s main selling point for RIA was the performance. With AS3 and Flash Player 9 you can pull data into the player and process it very quickly – javascript just cannot even think about competing, but now, with V8 it will be interesting to see how things change.  Without having testing this particular scenario it is now quite possible that we can see performant AJAX apps running inside the browser – almost to the same performance level as modern flash applications.  AJAX has always been slightly cheaper to develop than Flash applications so it will be interesting to see if people start to choose AJAX over the superior Flash platform more for new RIA deployments.

So, there we go.  But surely all this is reliant on Chrome being the users browser of choice?  Well, No.  Chrome is an open-source effort, which means that should Mozilla or Opera or anyone else want to make use of the improvements made by Google they can, without issue.  Therefore the introduction of chrome can only introduce benefits for all browser manufacturers, after all, competition is a good thing.

At the end of the day, AJAX is firmly here to stay and looks set to do some interesting things in the near future.  With the proposed introduction of video in HTML 5, Flash could be looking to have more of a niche for itself.  Sure, there will always be times where Flash is suited best but Chrome has definitely put a new perspective on AJAX application development and where it could be headed in the future.

Posted by Neil Middleton on 02 Sep 2008

Don't want to wait for Silverlight 3 to get your FLV support?

Yesterday, at the IAB conference in Amsterdam, “The Gu” announced that coming in a new version of the Silverlight runtime would be full support for the H.264 video format. H264 is a standard video specification that delivers high-definition video over a variety of delivery channels. Up until now, Microsoft has focused on VC-1 which powers Windows media and all of it’s descendant flavours.

For Silverlight, this is a big thing, as it brings the runtime more into line with the movie industry which is pretty much focused on H.264 and AAC (something which Apple and Flash Player 9 are fully supporting as well).  At the moment this is looking like it will be in the Silverlight 3 release which is an unknown distance in the future (Silverlight 2 isn’t out for another few weeks).

However, if you’re going to the ReMIX conference in Brighton next week, you’ll be able to come and talk to us on Gold Stand 2 about our new product mono.FLV which we are releasing at the conference.

mono.FLV is a IIS7 Server extension that is able to convert and deliver FLV (H.264) video to Silverlight and other Windows Media Video compatible clients in real time, saving the converted output to disk for re-use another time.  Thanks to unique technology the process is totally invisible. mono.FLV intercepts incoming FLV requests and using internal algorithms decides to stream or playback requested video using WMV1 codec.  mono.FLV therefore reduces the amount of work required to put into place the delivery of a large FLV movie library to Silverlight enabled visitors.

Posted by Neil Middleton on 10 Sep 2008

Neil Middleton speaking at MAX Europe 2008

If you’re in or around Milan, Italy in early December you’re in a good position to come to the annual Adobe Max Conference which is held every year (last year was Barcelona).  This conference is THE Adobe conference to go to for Europeans, and will bring together hundreds of designers, developers and business decision makers.

As Adobe state on their website, Max is the oppourtunity to exchange ideas and build relationships with leading designers and developers, industry experts and Adobe product teams.

More interestingly that this though, is your oppotunity to some and see the session I will be giving at the conference entitled “Structuring your development team and getting the work done”.

In a nutshell the topic is all about learning about how changing the way you organise and manage your work will help you work more effectively as a team and increase your overall efficiency.  This session will describe who you need on your web development team as well as showing you ways to get the most efficiency from them.  Learn how agile processes can benefit both your team, and your bottom line.

If you can make it, we’d love to see you there, so go register on the MAX website now.

Posted by Neil Middleton on 12 Sep 2008

Stealth Announcement of the next three versions of ColdFusion

Most people seemed to have missed this in the community, but it’s now out for all to see.

If you go over to Kristen Schofields blog, you can download the new ColdFusion evangelism kit, which you can use as ammunition against anyone who needs convincing about the product.  More importantly, as a developer, you’ll be interested in page 5, “Adobe ColdFusion  -Invested in the future”.

Here, Adobe are finally detailing the long term future of ColdFusion as a product via the development and release of Centaur (2009), Sully (2010) and Link (2011).

I won’t rehash what’s already detailed in the PDF, so go check it out.  If you thought CF was dead or dying, here’s your confirmation that it’s not.

Posted by Neil Middleton on 16 Sep 2008

A Question to the Masses...

We at Monochrome are very intrigued to understand which technologies out of Silverlight, Flex and AJAX you would wish to use and why? What do you really think of Microsoft and Adobe’s offering and do you feel AJAX has really had the shot in the arm it needed through Google’s Chrome?

Posted by Neil Middleton on 22 Sep 2008

Iphone - now what next?

Finally took delivery of my new iPhone and have to admit I love it. I would urge anyone who has taken delivery of one to upgrade their phone software to take advantage of the improvements to signal and battery life. With all the features it’s so easy to run out of juice which really was a pain before the update.

Of course the salesman that I am now feels 100% in touch but also thinking of all of the endless application that could be built for the phone. Just when you thought apple had hot it wrapped Google (once again) step into the mix with their own phone.

I am truley of the opinion that keyboardless mousless computers are only a stones throw away. Come 2012 you will all be talking to your computers!!!

And to think I did this blog from my iPhone sitting on a train into London great stuff.

Posted by Adrian Munn on 26 Sep 2008

Silverlight 2 Release Candidate Now Available

This morning, Microsoft announced the release of the first public release candidate of Silverlight 2 prior to shipping next month.

So what’s changed?

1) API Updates

There’s loads of little bug fixes in the core API’s designed to fix the differences between Silverlight and the full .NET framework.  There has also been a load of performance improvements made throughout the runtime.  There has also been some style updates made.

2) New Controls

Three new major controls have been added: PasswordBox, ComboBox and ProgressBar. You can see the appearence of these here:

3) New Control Skins

The final release of Silverlight 2 will have a much more polished set of default control template skins than those that were in Beta1 and Beta2.  The goal with the default control templates is to have a look that is professional and attractive, can be used in the majority of applications as-is (without requiring you to author custom style templates), and which is also easily tweakable using Expression Blend.

Today’s RC build has skins that are close to the final look Microsoft plan to ship.  Below is the default look for the DataGrid, RadioButton, CheckBoxes, and the DatePicker controls with today’s RC build:

Previous releases of Silverlight often rendered graphics on sub-pixel locations – which could cause lines and shapes to sometimes appear “fuzzy”.  The RC of Silverlight has a new features called “layout rounding” that causes the layout system to round the final measure of a control to an integer (“pixel snapping”), which results in crisper lines and fewer rendering artifacts.  This feature is now on by default, and helps make applications look nicer.

The final release of Silverlight is not that far off now.  It has been a pretty amazing project that has come a long way in a pretty short amount of time.  For the full low-down on what’s new in this release, please take a look at here.  We can’t wait.

Posted by Neil Middleton on 26 Sep 2008

Wanted! Senior Flex Developer

We’re the UK leader in RIA development and building incredible applications with Flex is our forté. We’re growing like crazy because the world has  woken up and realized that Web applications don’t have to be boring or painful to use.  That means we need to grow. That means we need you.

A bit about us…we’re an interesting mix of competitive and casual providing a fun and exciting environment to work in where good development comes first and office politics are shown the door. We’re the UK market leaders in RIA development because we’re very good at what we do and because we allow our incredibly talented developers to do what they do best in creative and fun environments. What you will find is passionate and energetic developers like yourself having a blast building incredible applications. If that sounds like an environment you’d like to “work” in, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re looking for energetic and talented Flex/AIR developers looking to push the boundaries of RIA. We’d love to hear that you’re comfortable creating customized components, working with MVC frameworks, skinning and working in SOA environments such as REST, AMF, or SOAP. But more than anything we’d love to hear about your passion for Flex and RIA.  You will have end-to-end responsibilities for designing and developing applications and components within a range of rich internet applications. In addition, you will be involved with product planning and mentoring other developers.

Key Skills:
Adobe Flex 3 SDK and the Flex Builder environment, ActionScript 3.0, XML, HTML/XHTML and OOD.

Additional Requirements:
Ideal Flex candidate will demonstrate knowledge of:

• Adobe Flex 3 SDK and the Flex Builder environment


• ActionScript 3.0


• Cairngorm, PureMVC or Maté


• XML


• HTML/XHTML


• OOD


• A server-side technology, preferably ColdFusion, .NET, Rails  or Java.


• A good understanding of the SDLC.


• Experience of agile software development with Scrum


• Excellent communication skills.


• Demonstrated aptitude for learning new technologies.


• Passionate “do whatever it takes” attitude.


• Goal-oriented and deadline-oriented.

If you are interested in working on cutting-edge technologies developing cutting-edge applications, drop us a line!

Posted by Neil Middleton on 30 Sep 2008