Some additional notes about the Adobe Developer Connection

Since we launched the new Adobe Developer Connection on Friday, I've been thrilled to see a number of posts, as well have had a number of conversations with folks at MAX about how much everyone likes the new user interface.

Over the weekend, a few key membership benefits went live.

1. The ADC introNetwork - This is a professional network for developers and designers who want to share their backgrounds and skills to connect with others, share their knowledge, and perhaps even find a job. There are more than 800 professionals in the network today, including more than 100 adobe staffers. And if you are looking to hire someone for a short project or a full time job, there are 80 people that have said they are interested in being contacted about a job. I have a feeling the number of people in the network is going to increase over the next few days.
2. The ADC Developer Desktop is now live as well - This is a Adobe AIR application and is a handy way to receive desktop notifications about changes in status of bugs in the Flex bugbase What I think is cool, is that you can drag an item from the bugbase website, and drop in into the desktop app to track it. From that point on, when there are status changes to the bugs you are watching, you get toast notifications when the app is running.

You can get access to these applications by joining the Adobe Developer Connection. Once you've signed it, you can click over the introNetwork, or download the Developer Desktop. And if you are attending the MAX conference in Chicago, please join me and some of the folks behind the ADC, as well as the team of folks that helps manage many of our relationships with community leaders tonight, at our Birds of Feather Session. Its at 8:30 pm in room 184B. Hope to see you there!

The new Adobe Developer Connection: Content and community for developers

I've been extremely silent on my blog for the past few weeks and months. I've been very focused on a big project to help the Adobe developer community.

And I'm very excited to say that that new project is out the door. Its called the Adobe Developer Connection or ADC. You can visit the new site at http://developer.adobe.com/

or you can read more details below.

Over the past few months, the team here at Adobe has launched several projects that we believe will improve the web and help developers build better projects faster. First, in November 2006 we announced the Tamarin project with Mozilla, open-sourcing the virtual machine behind Flash Player. Then, in April 2007, Adobe announced that the Flex SDK would be open-sourced. And throughout the year, we've delivered beta versions of Adobe® AIR™ so that web developers can take their application ideas to the desktop.

Now Adobe is taking the next step to support the web and application development community. We're delivering a new developer site and program, the Adobe Developer Connection or ADC. I've been working on this project with a bunch of other folks for the past few months and wanted to share some of the details of this new resource with you.

What is the ADC and why should I visit?

The Adobe Developer Connection (ADC) at http://developer.adobe.com is the next generation of what you may know as the Adobe Developer Center. It's a portal to connect developers to technical articles, tutorials, code, documentation, as well as to other developers. By visiting the ADC, developers can learn how to get started with Adobe technologies and find the right resources to advance their projects. And best of all, joining the ADC is completely free.

So, why should you visit the ADC? If you are reading this on Adobe.com, then you probably already know the answer to this question, but for those of you reading on my blog or somewhere else, here's the answer: The ADC serves as the definitive developer resource for how-to information from Adobe.

By visiting the ADC, developers can:

• Find articles, tutorials, downloads and code to help start or advance a project. The ADC enhances delivery of technical content focused on core use cases, including RIAs, website and mobile development, interactive media, and video on the web.
• Take advantage of the newly enhanced, streamlined search capabilities, improved design, page layout and information architecture as well as a new resource panel to easily find helpful resources, including forums, documentation and bug bases.
• Connect with other developers and community resources.

A plethora of benefits—and we're just getting started

Most of all, I'm excited by the wide range of free benefits the ADC offers for developers who join. By joining the ADC for free—all you have to do is provide an e-mail address and password—you can:

• Connect with other professional designers and developers through the ADC introNetwork.
• Download the first release of the ADC Developer Desktop, an Adobe AIR application you can use to track Flex bugs.
• Receive a special "Buy 2 books, and get 1 free" offer from O'Reilly Media, with free shipping in the United States and Puerto Rico.
• Share code and solutions to technical issues through the Flex cookbookCSS Advisor. and
• Choose to subscribe to developer newsletters, including the biweekly Developer Connection Update.

The ADC introNetwork: Connecting with other developers

Social networking has emerged over the past few years as a way to find friends and maintain contacts. Everyone I know is in at least one social network, if not two, three, or more. And you may be asking yourself, "Why is Adobe introducing another one?"

Quite simply, the ADC introNetwork is different. It's a way to connect you with other developers and designers based on their professional background, skills and personality traits.

Unlike other social networks, the ADC introNetwork is focused on professional attributes and individual capabilities, not just personal interests or relationships. The ADC introNetwork features an innovative Pin View (see Figure 1), which allows users to visualize how close or far away their profiles are from other participants. Users can provide details of their technology certifications, as well as spell out interest in learning about job opportunities or sharing technical knowledge with others.

Figure 1. IntroNetworks Pin View

ADC members can create a personal introNetwork profile as a free benefit for joining the ADC. You can access the ADC introNetwork by joining the Adobe Developer Connection.

ADC Developer Desktop: It's not just a website, it's a desktop application

With this launch of the ADC, we are also delivering the first release of the ADC Developer Desktop, a free desktop application that makes developers more productive. This first release brings the public Flex bug base to the desktop using Adobe AIR. Flex developers can use the Developer Desktop to track bugs and receive desktop notifications to changes in Flex bug properties.

Search: Finding answers—faster

The improved ADC search presents clearer search results that contain with more information, such as a display of the URL where the information can be found. It also lets you narrow down search results by where the information is located on Adobe.com. For example, after conducting a search for an Adobe product, you can narrow down the results to only include product documentation.

In addition, search results are displayed using wider screen resolution to allow more results to appear without scrolling, and users can also determine how many results appear per page.

Cookbooks: The perfect recipe

As part of this launch, we've updated the Flex cookbook—a way for developers to share techniques and code samples with others in the Flex community. The newly redesigned Flex cookbook home page makes it easy for developers to navigate to answers they need through new features, including:

• An increased number of highest-rated and recent posts surfaced on the home page
• A convenient tool-tip that developers can use to read problem/solution summaries without leaving the page
• Navigation by top searches
• RSS feeds for recent posts, comments, and edits
• An extension for Flex Builder and Eclipse that developers can use to read cookbook posts from within their development environment

What's next? We want your opinion

First, if you haven't done so already, be sure to visit the new improved home page at http://developer.adobe.com. From there, it's easy to join and get the full benefits of the program by clicking the Join link in the upper right corner of the page.

For future releases of the ADC, we are currently looking at ways to increase visitor participation through community features such as rating, tagging, and commenting of content. We want to continue to enhance the visual presentation of content and make it easier to find technical resources quickly. The ADC team is also planning to deliver additional features for the ADC Developer Desktop.

The ADC is for the developer community, so the most important factor in determining future features is user feedback. Tell us the good and the bad, or ask questions in our feedback forum. We want to know what you think about our content, as well as what you'd like to see in the future.

more Pownces up for grabs

No. I'm not selling them on eBay. But I've got six more Pownce invites. First come, first served by commenting on my blog.

And while you are at, feel free to take "which social network poll?" on my blog. Its a completely unscientific experiment, allowing me to test out blogger's new polling feature (not that polling is new by any means), and I'm just curious how may people will check it out.

Update: Sorry for not posting sooner. But I'm now out of Pownce invites

Developer Social Networks

So I know I'm new to the blogosphere and given that, I've been thrilled and surprised by how many people read and commented on my first few posts. But then the well dried up.

My last post was read by bunch of people, but I didn't get any comments. Maybe the post just didn't connect with readers. Or maybe no one really cares. But I have to believe that people must have some opinions about this and want to share them under them premise that this info could help Adobe deliver better resources for developers.

So I'll ask my questions again, and if you have an some thoughts please share them. If not, I promise I won't beg for feedback on this stuff again. Ok, at least for a little while. But I'll definitely be asking for opinions on other stuff very soon.

Here are my questions about developers and social networking:

• Are you a fan of social networking? Why or Why not?
  
• What social networking sites do you use? Why?
  
• Do developers need better social networking capabilities? What do you want to see?
  

Tweet, space, or link?

Are you a member of a social network? Do you use Twitter, My Space, or LinkedIn? (Ok, I'm not an expert here, but I'm not sure if everyone even agrees that Twitter really is a social network. But I think it is)

Anyway, there are social networks cropping up all the time it seems, especially with the Web 2.0 Expo this week. I was excited about Visible Path after they were TechCrunched. But after a quick exploration of it yesterday, I'm less excited. Time will tell though... And one of the more interesting developments I've noticed is the Expo Cal/iCalico app being used for the Web 2.0 Expo. Now I'm not actually using it because I'm not at Web 2.0, but it still seems interesting.

And of course, everyone is Twittering. Well, not everyone. I'm not. I do have a Twitter account and a few friends on Twitter, but have never actually posted anything. I just can't seem with to come up with a compelling reason to tweet. I don't think anyone I know really cares about the specific details of what I'm up to, or what I'm thinking at an exact moment in time. But then again, I'm slow to adopt this stuff. Plus most of the people I know aren't on Twitter - yet. By the way, there are number of slick Twitter applications out there using Apollo. I personally like this one, and if I was actively using Twitter, I'd use this app.

There also have been a wide range of posts I've seen about LinkedIn recently. For example, this one. Now I actually find LinkedIn useful for tracking people I know, and most of the people I know are on LinkedIn. Just this morning I got a connection from a longtime colleague to connect with someone in my network. Not only do I hope that turns into a fruitful conversation, but it also led me to reconnect with him. And I'm using LinkedIn right now to try to connect with folks that have worked on similar projects to what I'm working on in the past.

So that leads to my questions associated with this post. Feel free to answer any or all of them, or just provide your comments.

• Are you a fan of social networking? Why?
  
• What social networking sites do you use?
  
• Why should I Twitter?
  
• And here's the biggie that I really hope a few folks will shed some light on. Do developers need better social networking capabilities?

Oh yeah, if you are curious, you can find me on LinkedIn here. And if I ever start using Twitter, you can find me here.