NxtGen Media - The Freeman View

Adobe MAX Widget

Flash and Flex Developer’s Magazine Goes Digital

When I first heard about this magazine, I was very interested. Problem was, I could not find it in my area, and I really did not have the desire or inclination to get a subscription. Now I hear that FFD Magazine is now a digital publication, and the magazine will be FREE! Such a great resource, and it’s free as in beer!

The Flash community is pretty vast and eclectic, so I imagine by going digital FFD obviously cuts the printing and distribution cost and most likely can make it on advertising because of their reach. Regardless, it is a great magazine with tips from industry experts, and is a great way to keep up with all that is going on with Flash and Flex. The old issues are already up.

Check it out at: www.ffdmag.com

-DCF

OpenSim

Lately, I have been working with OpenSimulator (OpenSim for short). OpenSim is an open source project dedicated to providing an open platform for the realization of virtual worlds. OpenSim is compatible with SecondLife and is in alpha phase of development, but looks pretty good. It is developed using Mono and runs on Linux, and Windows. My interest in it is because my company wants to get into virtual worlds. We had a few projects running in Second Life, and now my company want its own world. OpenSim looks like the ticket.

Another interest is that there is another virtual world project called RealXtend that is attempting to get Flash working within OpenSim. Second Life has scripting, but it is rather limited. Having the ability to use C# and Flash inside of a virtual world is very compelling.

So far I have gotten a test server up with OpenSim running and was able to get connected using the SecondLife Viewer and run around in the virtual world and it is pretty impressive. We were able to create some character animations, and load them right on the character just as you would in Second Life. So in essence, it’s like having your own version of Second Life for your personal use. Lots of work to do on it, but it looks promising at this early stage.

-DCF

MS patents XML document format

While on vacation this week, I saw this on Slashdot: Microsoft patents XML for word processing. Most people could care less. I’d probably be in the “could care less” crew if I was not into open source. I remember back in the day when Microsoft released a new version of Word, you had to upgrade or you could not read documents created by the newer version.

Years ago, I was introduced to Open Office, and its OpenDocument format, which is XML based. The specs for this format were originally created by Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft clearly was not using anything like it at the time. To this day, you can read documents created in a newer version of OpenOffice, with an older version of OpenOffice. Basically, it meant that you might not have all the latest features, but you could at least read the document without having to upgrade.

Now Microsoft is supporting an XML format in its latest versions of Office. Somehow, it just does not seem right that Microsoft would hold the patent for such a basic concept that at one time was open and freely distributed. Microsoft has said they would not sue anyone who is using their patented markup language concept for documents, but who’s to say that this position won’t change. I guess it is simply business. If no one else claimed a patent for the file format, then why not? Still, it just does not seem right, and makes one wonder if this will happen to other open source software and techniques.