Awesome stuff from Aviary

It has been a lot of time since we started working on Aviary.

During the last months, a lot of guys have helped us with beta testing some of the tools we are working on, and they have been able to produce really awesome stuff!

I collected a bunch of images from the Aviary website to show you the power of the tools. Those images does not rappresent the best, but they are just a collection of good compositions made with Peacock, Phoenix and Raven (respectively a Computer algorithm-based pattern generator, an Image editor and a Vector editor ).

Here is the list of images I collected, grouped by tool. You can click on each image to go the to Aviary page and (if you have an account) start playing with it.

Phoenix

Phoenix is the Image Editor. It is quite similar to Photoshop, and has some advanced features for image editing.

Peacock

Peacock is a Computer algorithm-based pattern generator. Basically you generate an image assembling nodes that accept an input and produce an output. Combining this nodes may produce awesome stuff, and Peacock can be used for many purposes like advanced retouching effects or the creation of complex reusable filters (like the one used to transform a fish into bricks).

Raven

Raven is the Vector Editor. Actually it is in alpha stage but we are going to release a major update that adds really powerful tools.

From each image you can gather many useful information: the list of revision, the list of derivates, the list of sources, and other useful stuff. Each composition made with Aviary can be edited by any user to create a new revision, or can be used as a source for a brand new image. That makes some tools really useful an powerful: for instance you can build reusable filters in Peacock and use them on your Phoenix images.

There is much more on the Aviary website, and more images are added day by day.

I really suggest you to give Aviary a try; we are working hard to be able to go public soon, and outstanding new features will come in the near future. Post here if u want an invitation!

Have a good day 😉

Flex Builder on Ubuntu Hardy 8

UbuntuI don’t know exactly why, but the first time I found the link of an article about the first Ubuntu 8 hardy alpha release I couldn’t wait anymore and so I immediately upgraded my distribution..
I can’t resist to alphas and betas! damn!

Anyway, a part the obvious problems related to an alpha version, such as video card, mouse etc.. the most frustrating thing was the fact my eclipse installation was corrupted.. I reinstalled eclipse again and downloaded again flex builder for linux.
But when trying to install Flex builder  I received a really nonsense java exception error, which more or less was:

xcb_xlib_unlock: Assertion `c->xlib.lock’ failed

After some google searches I found out the solution for my problems ( I’m posting here in case someone else is so crazy to upgrade his ubuntu version with a flex builder installed into ):

In a terminal window:
sudo sed -i 's/XINERAMA/FAKEEXTN/g' /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/xawt/libmawt.so
Then restarting flex builder bin installation everything worked again and now I’m happy with my flex builder linux version again 🙂

Firefox 3 beta 1!


After the early alpha development version of Firefox, Gran Paradiso (it was December 2006 if I’m not wrong), today Mozilla announced the first Firefox beta version.
Here you can find the full post which introduced the new Beta.

What’s new?

Well, looking at the “What’s new” page, it seems that there are tons of changes, fixes, improvements. I’m reporting here just a couple of things from that list:

  • Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 27 months and includes nearly 2 million lines of code changes  (!!)
  • One click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. In later versions, Extended Validation SSL certificate information will be displayed
  • Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware
  • New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown
  • New SSL error pages
  • Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions
  • Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled (I hope this wont break half of the current extenions!).
  • Anti-virus integration
  • New Download Manager
  • Resumable downloading
  • Full page zoom
  • Improved Platform for Developers (mmhhh.. this it’s interesting!)

Download Firefox 3 beta 1 now!

Apple Safari for Windows. Terrible!

Probably you know that Apple just released a public beta version of its web browser Safari for Windows.

Why don’t try it out? So, after Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera I downloaded and installed it immediately just for curiosity, even if looking at the demo I saw they forced the application UI to be like OSX rather than following the Windows standards (like for iTunes).
And this is the first reason I dont like Apple applications for Windows (I’m on pc, not on a mac and I dont want to have a mac UI!).

Ok, I’ve installed it and uninstalled just after 5 minutes. I can understand it’s just a beta, but quite all the pages I tested are weird with lot of things missing, the HTML isn’t rendered as I expected.
I did just a search on google as first attempt but the result page was unreadable at all!

Some minor issues:
why the font smoothing can be changed in the application preferences? On Windows the font smoothing it’s set in the OS preferences, so just use that value.

During these 5 minutes I found many other issues, but I really think this is due to the fact it’s still the first public beta..

Oh my, Flex3 already on the way?

Today I started reading in various blog about the prerelease program of Flex3!
Ted Patrick blogged about the most important Flex3 feature “Flex 3.0 targets the release version of Flash Player 9 and will be widely deployable to over 90% of computers” (so, linux isn’t included here?)

Also Ben Forta speaks about the new Flex3 and  put the link for the online prerelease program application form.
So, what we can expects from this new Flex3 and when its release is scheduled?

Flex 2.0.1 for linux
I want also to put a link to a this site, a chinese guy who put together flex 2.0.1 for linux.. well, not sure about the legal aspect of this thing, but this demonstrate it is possible (sure, it’s eclipse, we already know that!) and so how long we have to wait for an official one?

PHP6?

Have you already play with PHP6?
Today I discovered the PHP6 CVS snapshots and I decided to take a look at it (still not tested).

I read some unhappy comment to the fact php want to put the Unicode settings into the php.ini, but if this change will make PHP faster  I would prefer in this way, expecially if unicode will be always set to on.
Is there a reason to put unicode support off in this world? (for example I haven’t still understood why wxPython continues to releases both ansi and unicode builds…)
Finally register globals‘ PHP3 BC to go!
Namespaces. Maybe they will add namespace.. I really hope so! This is indeed one of the most awaited features for me! (read about a discussion on namespaces)
Support for delegates.

My big hope is also to see a “real” strict type language, but this is only my though.
Backward Compatibility. Well this could cause a flame for many developers but if they really want to make a solid new product from scratch probably they dont have to take care about BC.

Read more about the PHP6 Novermber meeting and all the proposals.
Download the PHP6 snapshot

Flash, Internet Explorer and Firefox new releases

We had so many milestone releases today!
Flash player 9 for linux is probably the most exciting news.
Second, Microsoft announced Internet Explorer 7. (even if I dont like at all the new look).
Last but not least Firefox 2 is on the way!
Today the Firefox 2 Release Candidate 3 have been released (with Javascript 1.7 support and with Google suggest integrated).

From A to Web memories

Yesterday I attended the Italian Adobe conference, From A to Web, in Milan.
I like expecially the Mike Downey presentation, in which he showm us a sneak peak of the new Adobe project, codename “Apollo”.
A PDF+Flash+HTML plugin viewer for creating desktop applications (so, goodbye Zinc and similar?). Someone asked him which html engine was used in apollo, but without a precis answer, I think he was referring to Geko…
Also interesting the Mike’s explanation about the reason of the name “Apollo”.
That’s because the first Central codename was “Mercury” (early American program for launching humans into space) the second beta codename was “Gemini” (the second US manned spaceflight program), and Apollo was the first ship to land the Moon

Then he introduced also a preview of the new Flash9 IDE (currently in beta process, codename “Blaze”) and he shown some of the new IDE features. First of all the IDE has changed (like in almost new releases) and there are very cool workspace management cool features indeed.
A completely integrated Photoshop PSD import process. You can select which element of the psd file to be imported and how to do it, select one of the layers and import as movieclip, etc.. very nice for designers (There was a long applause).
Another features he presented was the Robert Penner export as ActionScript3 of timeline tweens. This should be for developers who need to transform the timeline motion tweens created by designer into code (Another long applause). For what I understand it creates an xml code which can be put into the timeline and which reproduce the original tween. But I also understand that the produced code can only be used into the same timeline (a timeline with the same number of frames)..,