Flow - What Adobe Version Cue should have been?

GridIron Software Announces "Flow" - A revolutionary approach to content management: "Flow is a revolutionary approach to digital content management that dramatically simplifies the design process for creative professionals working on graphic design, web and video projects. Flow automatically tracks your work from idea to end result and manages your assets and applications for your most complex projects- all without changing the way you work."

Flow was included in the Macworld Best of Show winners list. The information about the forthcoming product on their site shows a lot of promise. Now that Leopard has incorporated Coverflow into the finder, and Adobe Version Cue + Bridge has lacked traction, the timing could be good for a desktop-based asset management tool that moves beyond tracking files and adds some intelligence regarding process, versioning, and (ahem) "flow".

Features that seem like standouts include: Workflow Maps; Workflow Calendar; Visual Versions; Project Packages; Project Reports.

There's a difference between ALL of the files that someone generates for a project, versus the smaller subset of files that they may want to actually share with a workgroup or client. While some Web 2.0 DAM solutions like fluxiom or box are great for the latter, flow might be an intelligent bridge between what you have and what you need to share.

They are accepting Beta program requests. I'll be keeping an eye on this software.

Finally! - Email Standards Project

Email Standards Project: "The Email Standards Project works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email."

I'm very happy to see an organized attempt to address the issue of poor and inconsistent industry-wide support for rich email (html email). The Email Standards Project looks like the bandwagon to jump on. The site has a great chart right on the homepage showing popular email clients (desktop and web-based) and their rating in terms of standards support. The project has come up with an "acid test", much like the Web Standards Project, that is used to fairly and consistently test the ability of a given email client.

Check out the site, join the email list or spread the word.

Adobe's AIR: Niche or the future of desktop development?

CNET News.com: "AIR, or Adobe Integrated Runtime, is a download that lets Web applications run on a desktop. With AIR applications, people can work offline and drag and drop items like graphics or text between Web and desktop applications.

AIR is still in beta, but Adobe and many other software developers are already building applications on it. For Adobe's platform business, AIR gives the company a way to extend its investments in Web documents and Web development tools onto desktops across different operating systems."

Some of the new apps are very interesting, such as the eBay desktop. It will be interesting to see where AIR will go. It certainly seems more compelling than Java.

'Tuna Pitch' - Free guitar tuner OS X App and Widget Released

Freeverse: "Freeverse and Felt Tip Software today announced 'Tuna Pitch' a free app and widget to help you tune your guitar or other instrument. With five built-in presets including the standard EADGBE tuning, reference tones, and the option to set all six strings to any note, Tuna Pitch has everything you need to stay in-tune! The Tuna Pitch app features a high-contrast, expandable window so it's easy to read, while the widget version is small and wont clutter your Dashboard. Both the app and widget are 100% free"

Very cool little app and widget combo. It also uses the built in mic or audio input so you can tune your instrument that way too. And hey the application name is even pronounced with a Boston accent.

iPhoney - an iPhone simulator for designers

Marketcircle: iPhoney: "Looking for a way to see how your web creations will look on iPhone? Look no further. iPhoney gives you a pixel-accurate web browsing environment powered by Safari that you can use when developing web sites for iPhone. It's the perfect 320 by 480-pixel canvas for your iPhone development. And it's free."



This is very handy for those that may not be in the market for an iPhone strictly for testing purposes. Also, you can actually use new specialized sites like the Digg iPhone Beta.

Linotype FontExplorer X Now Supports CS3

Linotype FontExplorer X for Mac has been updated to include some nice features: Added information “Import date”; Adobe InDesign/Illustrator CS3 Plug-Ins; New detailed preview in the information window; Option to search fonts by vendor; Sorting by label; and more.

Of course most importantly is CS3 support. This is a great font management app, and it's free.

Bandwagon: Backup iTunes to S3 or FTP

Bandwagon FTP edition (beta) available: "Bandwagon is an app service that automatically and continuously backs up iTunes to your online storage. Furthermore, Bandwagon is event driven, not scheduled backup (i.e. when you add tracks, it will automatically back it up)."

They have two versions of the service: an Amazon S3 edition called Bandwagon DIY (which has been renamed to Bandwagon S3) which, of course, backs up to your S3 storage. Then Bandwagon FTP is geared towards users that have unused web hosting storage or have their own homegrown ftp server.

This is great to see another developer putting a task-based intelligent front end onto S3 / FTP. With the various options for online storage out there getting bigger and cheaper, these kinds of utilities will help to decentralize data storage and keep more people from suffering the horrors of complete data loss.



Please note, while I'm genuinely into the Bandwagon idea, I'm also posting this in the hopes of getting the discount on their service that they are currently offering to bloggers ;)

Adobe Launches Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) BETA

"Adobe® AIR™, formerly code-named Apollo, is a cross-operating system runtime that allows developers to use their existing web development skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop."

Genuine Fractals Print Pro 5 Released

"What's New in Genuine Fractals Print Pro 5: Enlarge your images over 1,000% with no loss in image quality... Genuine Fractals Print Pro 5 is a revolutionary step forward for image enlargements. We've taken the industry standard and given it a complete overhaul. New scaling technology, faster performance, new features, new user interface, greater ease of use and much more. Compare Genuine Fractals Print Pro 5 to any Photoshop scaling method or other third party plug-in, Genuine Fractals Print Pro 5 is the industry standard in image resizing."

Also, it has Adobe CS3 support and the Mac version is Universal Binary. I've been a fan of this Photoshop add-on for a number of years for use in Poster and Trade-show projects. It really does produce better image scaling results.

Panic Releases Coda "One-Window Web Development for Mac OS X"

Panic.com: "So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler.”

When Panic releases an app, it's usually just perfect for the subset of users that they choose to target. So Coda has definitely caught my attention. I've only played with the trial a few moments and can say that it looks pretty interesting, especially if you don't already have Panic Transmit and/or CSSEdit. With CSS editing properties still squished in a small floater within Dreamweaver, this could be an actual threat for those more into hand-coding. As always it's beautifully Mac-like and the visual bookmarks are a sweet touch.

Here's a more in-depth review by MacApper.

Adobe CS3 Official Launch

Here's a round-up of some other interesting coverage and details:

• AppleBlog coverage
• digg.com coverage
• Apple.com special feature
• creativepro.com: What's New in Adobe Creative Suite 3
• CNET coverage

Web Apps 101: Your Three Point Success Plan

TechCrunch - Building a web app is easy. Building a successful and profitable web app is where most people fail. If you want your app to stay out of the Dead Pool, you need to know the answer the following questions:

1. Who is it aimed at?
2. Why will they use it?
3. Will they pay for it?

Also, you can download the MP3 audio and PDF presentation that appear to be the foundation for this article at: http://www.futureofwebapps.com/

read more | digg story

Adobe to announce CS3 products March 27

CNET News.com: "Adobe likely will announce its Creative Suite 3 (CS3) products
on or about March 27,' Merrill Lynch analyst Jay Vleeschhouwer predicted last week, with the products themselves to ship 'several weeks thereafter...'"

Get your dock ready for a bunch of Two letter application icons.

Firefox 3 To Support Offline Apps

"Firefox 3 will deliver support for offline applications. This is significant because you'll be able to use your web apps - like Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, etc - in the browser even when offline... Although Mozilla is an open source organization, some of its top workers are employed by Google."

This is very interesting. There are a number of companies out there building add-on utilities and system extensions for synchronizing traditional desktop apps with online counterparts. For example, Spanning Sync for Google Calendar. If the browser can do this for you, and support a wide variety of online apps, then one of the largest barriers for web app adoption will be knocked down.