Laszlo IDE updated

The ultra-rad IDE from IBM for laszlo development has been updated. You can tell the folks at IBM are jazzed about Laszlo - and rightly so - especially it seems they are tracking along with updates to laszlo software. This is part of the Emerging Technologies Tool Kit.

Laszlo Standalone Demo 2

Here's a new Laszlo standalone demo for you. This one is significant in that I'm loading an image in "realtime" off of my server - it's not compiled into the swf file.
So you can see you can create SOLO laszlo that fetches content of the web, and doesnt
have to be compiled into the app ahead of time.

SVG Included in nightly builds of Firefox!!

This is huge-o-rama news! It's hard to get excited about yet another feature, blah, blah, but the possibilites for new kinds of interfaces, applications, etc. using this are pretty big.

Laszlo serverless demo source

Some folks asked me yesterday for the source of the laszlo widget you see below. And I'm happy to oblige. I've tried many ways to show the source here in the post, but alas, it's so easy to mangle the indenting with blogger, so here's a link.

First Laszlo 3.0 serverless demo

I took a few minutes to try creating a simple serverless demo in Openlaszlo 3.0. It's a simple thing, only 5 lines long, but significant nevertheless:

Firefly movie: Serenity

Whoop! I am extremely happy to see this out now. Go watch the trailer for the movie based on Firefly - one of the best Sci-Fi shows created in the past few years. And if you havent seen the TV series, go grab the DVD's. If you like sci-fi with brains, humor, and a bit of salt, you'll love Firefly.

OpenLaszlo 3.0 Released!

This is a great day for Rich Internet Applications. This is the first release of Laszlo having been fully Open Source'd and freed from the need to run your applications using the LPS (server) on your website. It's also the release that's benefitted from having been the platform they are working on for the Earthlink Email application - meaning all the bugfixing and other things they have had to do I'm sure to get that WebMail app working, has been folded into this release (I think ?)

Yes, I toot Laszlo's horn as often as I can. And so would you if you checked it out and saw just how plain fun it is to write applications using LZX. Blah blah blah. The only person who'll convince you of anything is yourself, and the only way to do that is to go download it and try out the demos and stuff.

Web App as a Web Service

Paul James talks about an article from Hugh Winkler regarding the idea that when you create a web based application, you should have web services built in at its core. This is something I'm taking seriously with my Online RPG...

Greasemonkey Compiler

There is a great extension for Firefox called Greasemonkey. Now, you can create scripts for greasemonkey and "compile" them yourself into redistributable XPI packages. Awesome!

Casshern revisited

Ok, if you haven't seen this trailer, you should. Imagine The Matrix meets Ultraman.

Charamel theme for Firefox

Browser themes get short shrift lately, especially when everyone's excited about extensions and other add-ons. However, I've always had a special place in my heart for themeing, and this particular one is very nice. It seems to fit the trends in the web today with soft brown colors and pastel backgrounds. Give it a try yourself and see.

IM BOT: smarterchild -- now even smarter

Smarterchild is and aol im bot that has some seriously cool features. You can search for websites, read news, check out an encyclopedia, play games etc. etc. The web search feature alone makes it a really useful addition to your buddy list.

IE to Mozilla guide for web application engineers

This is a nice article that helps folks who've been developing for IE only to be able to add support for Mozilla/Firefox.

OpenLaszlo - 3.0 Release Candidate is here

I believe OpenLaszlo has a very bright future, esp if this release is any indication of the great things the Laszlo folks are doing. If you are considering creating a Rich Internet application, you will be doing yourself a favor to check it out.

Great Flash site: extrajetzt

This is a great example of a site that uses flash in the way it was intentioned, and does so in a tasteful way. Load up this site and watch the elements flow in and out as you navigate.

Greasemonkey FUD - Simon Willison

Simon talks about how various organizations are pooh poohing Firefox simply because there's an extension out there to let you create some handy javascripts that run in your browser for any page you load. Which is funny given that IE is so susceptible to things like BHO's and other junk that you can get without even asking for it. (You have to actively choose to download and install a GreaseMonkey script).

WHATWG

Here's another one of those "I'm sure it's cool if I can figure out why" kinda sites. The WHATWG is a (splinter) group working on web-based application standards.

Interesting article about Online Storytelling

I'm very interested in how to find a way to marry interactive storytelling with more traditional Dialbo or Zelda style gaming online. Here's an article I found that might offer some helpful info.

Geeky: Tag URI approved by IANA

I'm still working on figuring out why this is cool, but I know it must be:)
Imagine creating unique identifiers to any kind of information on the web.

Untold Legends - best game on PSP right now

Sure, the title is highly subjective. To me, as someone who really enjoy's hack and slashing, this is the best game on PSP right now. It's perfect for me - I have about 30 minutes on the train every morning and evening, and the bite-sized missions, etc. are just the thing for some diverting play. It's quite amazing to be holding something that looks pretty much like a handheld PS2 - the graphics, sound, and gameplay seem very close to PS2 quality.

If you love roguelike games, and you've managed to fork over the loot you need to get a PSP, you'll be doing yourself a favor by picking this game up. And imagine this - this is just one of the very first games out for psp. Imagine what things will be like a year or two out!

DAZ 3D - 3d for free!

Every so often I stumble across something that's extremely cool, and I just chomp at the bit to share it with everyone. In this case, I checked it out a bit to make sure it was legit, since it seems so amazingly cool. Basically this is a full-featured 3d scene making tool which get's money by selling you cool prepackaged 3d models and stuff. I'm pretty impressed with it, even though I can barely use it yet :)

Give it a try yourself and download some of the free objects you can try out. This seems to be a competitor to Poser?

Charting Components API in Laszlo

Looks like the Laszlo folks are working on a charting api on top of their 2d api - coolness! Check out the information on the wiki page and follow along.

Generative Fiction?

Here's a question for my audience (all 5 of you :) )- has anyone run across any software that creates "generative fiction"? I mean you do things like input characters, traits, scenery, etc. and out pops a book with plots, dialogs, etc. Sorta like those generative music apps, only for fiction.

PSP Multiplayer with one game

I'm not sure if this is an intended feature or not, but it seems that Sony surely knew about this before the PSP came out. The article talks about how you can have a multiplayer game with someone else even with one game UMD. Very handy!

Land of Legends - online game

I've been poking around with this game on and off, and it seems very promising. Imagine if you took Advance Wars and mixed in a little Shining Soul and touched it with some online gaming and you'd get an idea of this game. It has alot of solid concepts, and my only gripe would be that they clean up the artwork (get rid of the jagged edges on the image outlines).

Blah Blah lists

I ran across another laszlo implementation today called Blah Blah Lists - its a todo list site where you can create simple lists to use anywhere. Uses laszlo as the UI for the lists, signup, management, etc.

Adventure Developers

I think the attraction for many people to games in general is the idea of "adventure". It's something beyond the rote leveling - up and acquiring the next sword of Vorpal Bashing. What I am referring to is "adventure". The idea of taking yourself beyond your current life experiences and doing something bigger, usually as the son of a simple farmer saving the princess :)

Anyway, here's a link to a site for folks who want to create their own adventures, and see what other folks are doing.