Techiedog-blog

Fun with HTML, JavaScript and Adobe Air I've been tracking Adobe Air for a while now, since it was called Apollo in fact, and earlier this year we ran a couple of tests for some of our prototypes. Last Thursday I caught one of Adobe's CS3 roadshows in Sheffield and got an overview of the latest release of Air which brought it back to mind. For the last few weeks I've been hacking together some sweet AJAX for the interface for our upcoming alpha trial - after running into the same old IE doing it's own sweet thing nightmare I realized that wrapping the whole app up in Air and deploying to the desktop might solve all manor of headaches. So, easy thought I, simply run my app through the air 'compiler' and ship to all OS's and no longer worry about rogue browser behavior. The current iteration of our app doesn't need any OS interaction, taking as it does only with a Web server, so what could be easier. Well, its not quite as easy as that. The new version o...

... this time on TV!!! With the rest of the team quite literally spread across the world last week, it was up to Dave to represent us when 'NewsChannel 9' swept into the office to do a piece on our little start-up. I'm not sure how long this link will work but take a look at the news feature, you'll have to wait through a short ad first. Also, I believe we made it to the print edition of Business Week last week.

November 6th was the first Tuesday of the month and that means only one thing ... OpenCoffe Leeds. (Actually it means many things, not the least my Mum's Birthday! - but you get my point) So the 6th OpenCoffee Leeds , on the 6th of November saw a happy band of loose affiliates and common interest holders once more descend on the venue and partake of the refreshments and WiFi all kindly provided once again by Justin. Having pulled a couple of all-nighters , the feeble efforts of his ring tone invoked by my incessant stabbing of redial were inadequate to rouse Imran from his well disturbed slumber and so he never made it. Which is a shame, firstly because there were a number of interesting newcomers and secondly because it falls to me to report on the event! Not the biggest turn out but we did notch up 23 concurrent OpenCoffee-ers (?) and see around 27 people in total pass through at some stage. Word on the street has it that many people were at their home/office frantically working...

One of my most time consuming gigs this year has been as VP Engineering for startup WGC . We have spent a lot of time hacking away in our 'Lab', talking to potential collaborators and presenting at academic conferences fueled by a mix of visionary angels and belief. In the new year we are set to unleash our first trial product, which will be installed in a student dorm at Syracuse University , NY. Now that we are on the verge of presenting something real as opposed to our demos and prototypes we are getting a great deal of Interest. Lee and Norman especially are dealing the with daily amourous advances of potential larger investors, industrial partners and customers. Of course we have all had a strong belief in our technology and vision for some time but its nice when that potential starts to be recognized in wider circles and so I have to admit to being somewhat excited that Business Week saw fit to cover us in a story which pretty much gets the key concepts across. Of co...