Andre’s Blog

• adaptive path » blog » Peter Merholz » What Adaptive Path Thinks When It Thinks About Eyetracking
  Recently, we had a discussion on an internal mailing list about eyetracking, specifically around why we didn’t use it as a research tool.
  (tags: blogging eyetracking process usability ux tools testing research methods)

• Official Google Docs Blog: Bringing the cloud with you
  We know that many of you have been waiting for offline access to Google Docs, and I’m happy to tell you we’ll be rolling it out over the next few weeks, starting today with a small percentage of users.
  (tags: docs google offline productivity software web2.0 webapp toblog ria)

CompleteUI Q2 Beta Released!

The big things about this Beta release are:

Safari 3 Support - all the components support Safari 3 now.

TreeGrid - a hierarchical grid component.

Themes - a bunch of new themes (XP, Vista, Tiger, Flex)

Dreamweaver Extensions - new multi-component extensions making common use-cases like master-detail grids even more easy.

Go download it now.

• Multi-touch applications with Flash « Digital Music Volvelles
  The touchlib project from the NUI Group is a collection of software tools for the realisation of a multi-touch table. It provides tools like digital image processing for the tracking of fingers on a multi-touch screen, a TUIO server and so on. It addition
  (tags: multitouch flash as3 ui ux gesture guesturalinterfaces)

• Simon Fraser University | Office of Research Services
  This seminar describes an integrated, step-by-step approach to planning, financing & building strong technology start-ups & successful small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
  (tags: sfu startup business technology vancouver bc university seminar)

Just a reminder I’m giving a talk on Ajax for Dreamweaver Developers next Tuesday at 2:50pm for AjaxWorld in NewYork. I’ll also be talking about Dreamweaver and Ajax with the New York Web Design Meetup on Monday at 6pm.

• Verb Exchange and Nitobi Partner on Tabrio; Application Built in Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR
  Vancouver, BC, Canada – March 13, 2008–Verb Exchange Inc. (TSX�V:VEI), a leader in digital media, today announced a deal with interface design specialist, Nitobi Inc., to develop the desktop and web interfaces for Tabrio, a new way to stay in touch
  (tags: tabrio flex air ria voip sms xmpp nitobi ux usability client customers)

As Dave mentioned TreeGrid and Safari Support are almost complete for CompleteUI Q2 2008 release. But I also want to highlight the fact that we’re going have some pretty kick ass new themes include in this release, since did a whole bunch of work to make theming easier.

Check out the hot Tiger Style Grid:

And the Vista Style Fisheye:

And the Flex Style Combo:

You can check all the sneak peak styles here.

We’re pretty excited to be starting a new project that allows users to make low cost calls and sms with their existing phones over VOIP. The client is Verb Exchange another Vancouver startup that specializes in VOIP. They originally went down the .Net path but have now selected Flex/AIR for the user experience and platform portability.

Verb Exchange and Nitobi Partner on Tabrio; Application Built in Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR

With Tabrio, users choose from web, desktop or mobile access to place high-quality long distance calls or send and receive SMS text messages to anywhere in the world. It utilizes existing networks to provide best-of-breed call quality, while still offering VoIP’s significant cost savings. Additional features allow users to synchronize their contacts, send instant messages, and perform web searches from directly within the application.

“Tabrio targets the millions of people around the world who need a better way to stay in touch. Our goal is for those people to download Tabrio and understand it immediately,” says Christian Jensen, VP, Products and Services, Verb Exchange. “That’s where Nitobi excels. Their work will translate directly to more users, higher customer satisfaction, and increased profits.”

The interactive UI is being developed with Adobe Flex, a Flash-based rich Internet application (RIA) development framework, and the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), a platform that enables RIAs to run on the desktop. Flex and AIR were chosen for the ability to deliver highly interactive applications that deploy consistently in all major browsers on Mac and PC.

I’m in a rush to get out the door to NY and Europe…but stay for more updates on this exciting app.