A few cool things

I came across Parallels for Mac Desktop a while back. They have just included a new feature called "coherence mode" which allows you to run PC apps in the "dock" without the windows desktop showing (of course the full windows os is running under the virtual machine). This is really cool, I guess these guys will do ok for a while during the transition to web based apps that run on any platform.

Now on to future winners....Adobe is about to launch Apollo which is basically Flash 9 apps with offline functionality. We know that Firefox is going to include offline functionality in the future but my guess is that Apollo will be quite distruptive for a while - it should be launching pretty soon.

Virtual Ubiquity have been lucky enough to get their hands on Apollo and are building a "Word" killer. The word on the street is this is awesome, definately well above the writely/google docs bar.

Done well, flash apps can improve the user experience alot. With the underlying flex presentation layer and simple access to data services a talented developer that gets UI design could easily have fun picking off all the traditional desktop apps one at a time and move them into the future.

Wellington summer sizzles on

We've had some pretty decent weather lately and the last two Sundays we've had the annual Round the Bays run and Bike the bays events.

There was about 11,000 people out last Sunday for the run and Wellington really turned on the good weather. What a cool event, loads of Wellingtonians having a good time and brisk stroll around the bays. I had a bit of energy left at the end so sprinted the last section and managed to peel off heaps of knackered runners down the straight on Kilbirnie Park to finish in the top 550.
Everyone had tags on their shoes so got their time in the newspaper the next day - that was pretty cool.

Yesterday, was the Bike the Bays event that I was roped into doing. A much smaller crowd at this event, despite the free entry fee. I'd say their would have been 1500 people or so. I decided to do just the 13km race around the bays and back rather than the 32km event. I should have gone for the later as I pulled into first place at the turning point by the Evans Bay Marina and the rest was history. Another great Wellington day.. you can't beat Wellington on a good day.

2007 - a different year for me

Well its been a while since my last post so here goes...

2007 is going to be a different one for me and many probably haven't seen my face around at local UP events for a while.

I'm going to start tutoring part-time at Victoria University from March. I'll be amongst the action , tutoring 2nd and 3rd year students in ELCM and INFO.

With the rest of my time I'll be working on improving my fitness (so that includes lots of bike riding, running and plenty of windsurfing).

I'll post again soon. Feel free to touch base with me, tony.rule@gmail.com if you want to pick my brains on anything.