With the official release of AIR last week, the Spry team released an updated version of the Spry Framework for Ajax on Adobe Labs. This update adds, in addition to a few bug fixes, compatibility for AIR 1.0.

This is where things really start to get interesting – the ability to deliver an enhanced experience within a web browser, but then also leverage the same code to build a desktop-based, cross-OS application. For an example of this, the team updated the current Spry photo gallery sample to show how this can be done. And even better, you don’t have to wade through the code trying figure it all out – they put together a case study on what changes needed to be made in order to have the app run on AIR 1.0. The code is completely laid out, and the article explains the changes and implications to the app. This is definitely worth a read. You can view the AIR-compatible gallery example here.

I’ll be experimenting with a project of my own over the next week or so and look forward to reporting back on my experiences. Cheers!

As I was perusing my Twitter stream to see what I missed today (while actually conducting a 20 hour workday, if we count the fact that I had to get up at 4am to fly from Hamburg to Vienna, do press interviews immediately upon arriving at the venue and then, after six straight hours of presentations, head for the airport to fly to Dublin in order to speak at the first ever Irish Web Technologies Conference tomorrow… er, today, since it’s now past midnight), I noticed a Twitter from Guy Kawasaki referring back to a blog post – see the post from Köln and Hamburg for more info on Guy. Just had to blog this, since it is one of the funniest posts I’ve read in a long time.

What I forgot to mention in that post is the fact that I had the pleasure of presenting GoLive Cyberstudio (I’m mentioned in the article – and yes, back to the original conversation, as the GoLive evangelist) in one of Guy’s infamous “post-MacWorld-keynote” keynotes. For those that don’t remember these stalwarts at MacWorld, or were perhaps not even born… these events were legendary. Guy would invite what he saw as the coolest technologies for the Mac from the previous year. Then, you got 5 minutes – and ONLY 5 minutes – to impress not only Guy, but the audience in general, with your absolute best demo ever. I’m proud to say, as I walked off stage after my 5 minutes of fame, Guy said to the audience “That was amazing! That guy should sell juicers on late-night television!” Or, as my boys would say, “w00t!”

And on a complete sidenote, that year was the first year that Steve Jobs (who I also have gotten to meet several times) graced the MacWorld stage after leaving Apple. Little did Gil Amelio (remember him?) know what was about to happen…

Anyway, it is great fun to get to meet famous people – and even more fun when they actually know what you do, or at least the technology that you are a part of helping to create. Like the immigration officer in Australia that asked “who do you work for?” And when I responded (at the time) “Macromedia”, he said “I love Flash – it’s so cool!” Now, that immigration officer isn’t famous, but the fact that technology can reach across borders, boundaries, income levels, etc is defintely amazing. The difference is how the “famous” treat you, or if you’re so lucky to be “the famous one”, how you treat others. Because I’ve been around this industry soooo long, and have had the pleasure to be associated with some of the most famous and successful pieces of software to be released within the web space, I often get the “famous” treatment – not to the level of Steve Jobs or Guy, but it’s still fun nonetheless. However, my friends, I still love hearing from you, talking with you after my presentations and, most importantly, even learning from you! You’re the real heroes out there – the ones creating amazing content with Adobe tools. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve “borrowed” from your ideas and questions to help shape my demonstrations and presentations.

Now, ask me nicely and I might tell you the story of how not only did I get to meet Paul McCartney – but I got to spend five, uninterrupted hours talking with him… Cheers!

Everyone has been asking on this tour if there is a recording that they can see… Well, there’s good news and bad news… The exact 6 hour seminar that we’ve just done in Germany/Austria was not recorded. However, there is a recording of a very similar session that Jason, Stephanie Sullivan and I did in Stockholm recently. For those that are interested, the recording is here. Enjoy!

Update: I was just informed that one of the attendees has been filming our session today in Vienna and will be passing the URL to us. As soon as I have it, I will post it here to the blog.