Adobe/Intel App Lab: Join us online

Adobe and Intel are hosting an event later today in San Francisco around AIR development and distribution. Obviously not all of you live close to the bay area, but the event will be broadcasted live via Connect. You can follow it on http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/applab.

I heard through the grapevine that we may even launch a few new things on Adobe Labs after the event… So join the Connect session and keep an eye on Labs ;-)

I know this event is in the middle of the night for us here in Europe but it will be worth it.

Agenda: ( Time in PST. Check this link for the time in your location. )
5:30 PM – Flash Platform Services Overview (Adobe)
6:00 PM – Intel AppUp Center Business Model and Opportunity (Intel)
7:00 PM – Technical Deep Dive (Adobe)
8:30 PM – Staffed Open Lab (Adobe and Intel)

Easy data synchronization for AIR with LiveCycle Data Services

I’m sure most of you know by now that AIR has offline capabilities. You can easily create a local SQLite database or even cache external files locally. While it’s not that hard to do, you have to write that functionality yourself… unless you use LiveCycle Data Services. The recently released LiveCycle Data Services 2.6 automatically creates an offline cache for AIR and the Flash Player. For AIR it automatically creates a SQLite database, for Flash it stores data in Local Shared Objects.

One of the things I always hear about LCDS is that it is expensive but not many people know you can also use it for free (yes… even for commercial applications)! You can download a free one-cpu version which is ideal for smaller-scale production applications and proof-of-concept projects. Get the free version right here.

O’Reilly’s InsideRIA just posted a tutorial by John C. Bland II that not only shows you how to install LCDS but also how to get the data synchronization working in your AIR application. I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see how easy this is with LCDS.

One of the posts in my “draft” folder also talks about LCDS… This is just a reminder to myself that I should really finish that article soon :D