Floating with Abobe Air on Linux in the Cloud

As I'm sure you already know, cloud computing and new client software that will take advantage of our applications moving to the cloud are coming at us thick and fast. We have Google Gears offering us Google apps when we are not connected to the web, AJAX that is being used by just about every to offer richer applications. We have Mozilla Prism, which is based on their Webrunner technology and now Adobe Air. I also believe Microsoft have an offering with Silverlight, but as it is not cross platform I won't be able to use it. There is a Linux port called Moonlight, but I hate products that are not designed from the ground up to be cross platform, that is very anti web.

As a recent convert to using twitter (@codfather), I started to look around for clients that offered more functionality than just the bog standard web interface. I found a great new web application call tweetdeck. Now this requires Adobe Air to use, as it is cross platform development environment, very much like Java, but designed for the next generation of web applications.

Installing this onto Linux is very straight forward, the instructions on their web site are great, all you need to do is do the following:


1) Download the binary installation program to your home directory by clicking on the link
2) Open a terminal and make the binary file executable - good old Linux security
3) Run the Binary

nick@nick-laptop:~$ chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
nick@nick-laptop:~$ ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin


Once you have done this very simple operation, the installation process is done through a point and click installer.Once it has been installed, you will have two new application links in your Gnome Applications --> Accessories menu bar.

Installing applications couldn't be easier, you just identify an Adobe Air application you want to install in Firefox, and just click on it. They all have a .air extension, and firefox will tell you it's an Air application and will offer to open it with the Adobe Air installer. Give this a go by installing tweetdeck.

I have installed this on all my laptops and desktops to give it a good test and to try and shake down any issues. I'm currently using it on my Eeepc with Eeebuntu installed as I type this. Now a twitter friend of mine , @glynmoody, has found some potential memory hogging, but I haven't seen this as of yet.

I would definitely recommend giving it a go and trying out the many applications that are available for it on the Adobe Air web site , but also out on the web.

I suspect we have not seen all the potential that this new web development has to offer yet, but the initial products are good enough for us start enjoying them.

The twitter spell has got me

Well, I caught a post on Glyn Moodys blog a while back about how he had got the twitter bug , so I thought I would give it a go.

I'm really glad that I did as I have met lots of very interesting people from all over the globe, and they have all got interesting things to chat about. You name the topic , from the latest goings on in the NFL , to how Everton got on last night in the UK premiership. Technology knowledge is flowing from all sorts of angels, on every thing from what Intel are going to be up too next , to why microsofts figures look so bad.

There are my friends in the Open Source community from both Smoothwall and Eeebuntu, which makes for a really great information flow away from the forums.

I can't recommend it enough, give it a go and I'm sure you will enjoy it as well.

Nick