Rui Lai is a talented young designer attending the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, China. I first met Rui last year when CAFA hosted Adobe visitors and showcased some of their innovative work built using our tools, and she enthusiastically described an e-book project that she was planning. I offered my encouragement and some suggestions, asked Rui to keep me updated as her project progressed, and saw a demonstration of her work when I was last in Beijing a few months ago. And today Rui posted her apps to the Apple App Store. Cinderella Animated Ebook is a richly illustrated telling of the classic Cinderella fairytale, and Cinderella Interactive Ebook turns the story over to the reader, allowing for decisions to be made that alter the storyline and conclusion. Both apps started out as Photoshop illustrations, and were animated using Flash Professional, and then turned into iOS apps using the new iOS packager. Congratulations Rui, these are outstanding first projects, and I look forward to seeing your future creations.

Adobe MAX 2011 registration is now open, and once again we are offering special discount pricing for loyal previous attendees and students (save US$600 off the regular full conference price of US$1,495 when you register by May 31, 2011). Click on the links below and use the relevant discount code.

• MAX 2011 Loyalist Pass ($895) - Discount code LYT100
• MAX 2011 Loyalist Pass – Education ($895) - Discount code LED100
• MAX 2011 Loyalist Pass – Government ($895) Discount code LGV100
• MAX 2011 Student Pass ($299) Discount code STU100

When we release ColdFusion Builder 2, we'll also be releasing a free lightweight version of the tool called ColdFusion Express. Here is the description as per the the engineering manager:

When you start ColdFusion Builder, you are prompted to enter the product serial number. When you enter a valid product serial number, activation happens in the background the first time the software detects an Internet connection.

If you do not enter the product serial number when you start ColdFusion Builder, you can use the trial version of the full-featured ColdFusion Builder 2.0 for 60 days. After the trial expires, you need to purchase a license to continue using all the features. If not, ColdFusion Builder switches to a feature-limited Express Edition. With the Express Edition, you can continue to use ColdFusion Builder with basic features such as editor, code assist, and syntax highlighting. But the key features such as code assist for extensions, code insight, extension callbacks, connection to remote server, quick fix, debugging remote projects, refactoring, ColdFusion search, code formatting, FTP support, log viewer, local file browser, code hyperlinks, and hover help are not available in the Express Edition of ColdFusion Builder. You can convert the Express Edition to a full-featured version by purchasing the license and specifying the product serial number.

Barracuda Networks was recently the victim of a SQL injection attack, as noted on their blog. Today they posted a follow up with some details as to how the attack occurred. And while this was a PHP site, the risk and lessons are just as important for anyone using languages that allow for dynamic SQL creation, including ColdFusion.

Fellow Adobe evangelist Christophe Coenraets has posted two great examples of using Flex to build dashboard apps for iPad, one focused on charts and the other on multi-touch. And of course, as these are built in Flex, they'd also run on Android and RIM PlayBook (as well as desktops).

Magnum Pleasure Hunt Across The Internet (all Flash of course).

In honor of Charlie Chaplin's birthday, Google has created a Google Doodle movie in classic Charlie Chaplin style. And, like most movies online, the Google Doodle is Flash. (Actually, it's a JPEG image until you click on it, and then the Flash SWF runs). The movie is also posted on YouTube:

Airgile is a simple online project management system with a very clean and professional Flex based front-end. Airgile is inexpensive, actually it's free for a single project with up to 4 users, and paid plans start at just €6. And a connector for Eclipse / Flash Builder / ColdFusion Builder (using Mylyn) is in the works, too.

I've long admired the work that SapphireSteel has done with their Amethyst Visual Studio plug-in for Flash and AIR development. In this YouTube video they demonstrate how to use Visual Studio and Amethyst to develop Flash based Android applications:

As part of yesterday's CS5.5 news, we also announced that we will releasing three iPad Photoshop extension applications that were built using the Photoshop Touch SDK. This SDK, built by Daniel Koestler and fellow evangelist Renaun Erickson, is also available to developers to build their own applications that can drive Photoshop.

In support of the new Flash Builder 4.5 and CS5.5 announcements, lots of new content has been published to ADC and Adobe TV:

• Flex and Flash Builder
  • What's new in Flash Builder 4.5
  • What's new in Flash Builder 4.5 (Adobe TV)
  • Introducing Flash Builder 4.5 for PHP
  • Introducing Adobe Flex 4.5 SDK
  • Coding productivity enhancements in Flash Builder 4.5
  • Mobile development using Adobe Flex 4.5 SDK and Flash Builder 4.5
  • Sneak peek of mobile application development with Flex and Flash Builder (Adobe TV)
• Flash Catalyst
  • Introducing Flash Catalyst CS5.5
  • Introduction to Flash Catalyst CS5.5 (Adobe TV)
  • Understanding the new workflows in Flash Builder 4.5 and Flash Catalyst CS5.5
  • Importing artwork in Flash Catalyst CS5.5 (Adobe TV)
  • Wireframing and prototyping in Flash Catalyst CS5.5 (Adobe TV)
• Dreamweaver (and web development)
  • What's new in Dreamweaver CS5.5
  • What's new in Dreamweaver CS5.5 (Adobe TV)
  • Mobile web app development with jQuery Mobile (Adobe TV)

Big news of the day: Flash Builder 4.5 has been officially announced (along with Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 for PHP, via an Adobe Zend partnership). This is a significant update, here is the feature list.

As mentioned previously, Molehill is the code name for a new set of low-level, GPU-accelerated 3D APIs that will enable advanced 3D experiences across screens using the Flash runtimes. These new low-level APIs will provide advanced 3D and 3D engine developers the flexibility to leverage GPU hardware acceleration for significant performance gains. And if you want to get a taste for what's possible, check out this video compiled by our very own Lee Brimelow.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned Comb Over Charlie, a multi-device Flash based platform gamer. The app is impressive, and the performance even more so. If you'd like to learn more about the game's background and how it was created, RIA Radio has posted an interview with its creator, Charles Woven.

[via Jens Loeffler]

I've been doing quite a bit of work with MariaDB, a drop-in replacement for MySQL (forked from the MySQL codebase by Monty Widenius, the creator of MySQL). One issue I ran into is that the current Windows installer does not create the Windows service that you generally would want to use. And because I had to (yet again) dig around today for the solution, I am posting it here for the next time I need it.

At a command prompt, go to the bin folder under the MariaDB installation folder, and then run:

You should see a message telling you that the service (named MySQL by default) was created.

BrowserLab is our online service for performing cross browser testing, and BrowserLab for Firebug is a Firefox add-on that lets you preview temporary changes you've made using. Today the BrowserLab team announced that BrowserLab for Firebug has been updated to support Firefox 4 and Firebug 1.7.

Community member Joseph Labrecque has announced that his upcoming book Flash Development for Android Cookbook is available for pre-order, and that content will be available pre-release via the RAW program. With the huge growth and interest in using Flash (and AIR) to develop for Android, I'm really pleased to see this book about to become available. Congratulations, Joseph!