Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Chromebook and The Google Chrome OS


Most of the IT professionals I know scoff or snicker when I bring up the topic of Google Chrome
OS. But, just as IT pros used to roundly dismiss the idea of cloud computing — and many of them are now climbing over each other to tout their cloud and virtualization expertise — it might not be long before IT also warms up to Chrome OS, out of necessity.

Over a three-year rental period, a business would pay $1008 for a Chromebook, plus another $150 for Google Apps. That’s roughly about the same cost most businesses would pay Microsoft for a seat of Windows, Microsoft Office, and a CAL for Microsoft servers (as part of an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft). However, with the Google deal, the company also gets desktop hardware and it can eliminate or at least greatly reduce most of the expensive server hardware and backend Microsoft software. For many businesses, that kind of equation would be very lucrative and way too tempting to ignore.



Click here for YouTube video.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Using The jQuery Mobile Framework - Write Once, Publish Anywhere


As described in earlier posts, the emphasis in Dreamweaver CS5.5 is firmly on mobile development and designing for multiple screens. A big part of this capability comes from its inclusion of jQuery Mobile, a sophisticated JavaScript and CSS framework designed to work consistently in all major mobile platforms.

•Apple iPhone/iPod Touch
•Google Android
•RIM BlackBerry/Playbook OS
•Nokia Symbian (retired, but still with over 1 billion users worldwide)
•HP/Palm WebOS
•Microsoft Window Phone 7


Built upon the popular jQuery JavaScript framework, jQuery Mobile lets Web designers and developers build mobile application interfaces quickly and consistently. Dreamweaver CS5.5's jQuery’s mobile strategy can be summarized simply: Delivering top-of-the-line JavaScript in a unified User Interface that works across the most-used smartphone web browsers and tablet form factors.

Click here for an introduction to jQuery from Adobe.

Click here for an introduction to jQuery Mobile from Adobe.

Click here for the jQuery Project site

Click here for the jQuery Mobile Project site

Friday, May 6, 2011

Building Mobile / Phone Apps with Dreamweaver CS5.5 and PhoneGap

As Web browsing becomes available on an ever-growing number of smartphones and tablets, you need solid support for the “write once–publish anywhere” development model. To streamline your projects, the PhoneGap framework is now integrated as an extension in Dreamweaver CS5.5. Using PhoneGap, you can build native Android and iOS apps directly from Dreamweaver CS5.5 projects.



Seamless integration of the PhoneGap and Android SDKs into Dreamweaver CS5.5



PhoneGap emulator with my app (The one with the red check)



My Dreamweaver CS5.5 mobile app running in the PhoneGap emulator

With PhoneGap, you can write a mobile app using standards-based technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). You can add device-specific functionality, such as multitouch, geolocation, and accelerometer features. To finish up, Dreamweaver assists you in compiling and packaging the app for direct delivery to the device or to vendor-specific online app stores.





The PhoneGap emulator phone



{ Click on any of the images for larger view }