http://blog.bluefire.tv Tasty bytes on rich media Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:09:31 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Someone suggested that I post a demo of what I'm talking about in my last post.  So, we've quickly put together a  very, very crude demo of an actual ePub file with rich media.  This demo comes in the form of a fictitious book called "Cross Domain" with an "Ebook ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=60 The EPUB file format is definitely taking off like a rocket for ebooks and text-based "packaged" web content (such as RSS feeds).  But what about rich media?  Well, the format certainly can contain content that includes video, sound, animation, games, apps, etc.   And, Adobe Digital Editions will render that ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=59 NY times has an interesting essay on promotional websites for books.  I've been so focused recently on rich media INSIDE ebooks, this reminds me to keep an eye on the bigger picture. http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=58 Scenario: I go to 7-11 and grab the latest NY Times bestseller as a wallet-sized plastic card.  It has a lotto style scratch-off strip... That has a code number underneath.  I go to the website, enter that code and download my ebook.  I keep the card, and if I should ever ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=57 I'll be heading to NY soon (Feb 8-12) to attend the Tools of Change conference.  While I'm there, I'd love to meet folks that are interested in innovating in the digital publishing space with RIA (rich internet application) technologies such as Flash and Silverlight.   Whether that be video, audio, ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=56 Thibault Imbert has posted source code of "SmileyRenderer" a class for inserting emoticons into Flash Player 10 Text Layout Framework text flows over at ByteArray.org.  Oh happy Day!  ;-) http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=55 The folks over at Ebook Rumors wrote up a complimentary review of the Digital Editions "feel".  How nice to hear good stuff this winter.  Reminds me to do that for others more often. http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=54 Creating a Thumbnail Grid Introduction In Part 1 of this tutorial we stepped through the process of fetching and parsing an RSS feed from Feedbooks.com the results of which were bound to a DataGrid UI Control. In this post we will detail how we can use the new WrapPanel and ViewBox controls, which ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=51 The new Text Layout Framework for Flash Player 10 is very powerful and feature rich, but there's a bit of a learning curve because of that (as we discovered while building the World Class Text Tour for the TLF site on Labs).  Here's a list of some resources for ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=52 Tutorial - Creating a Simple Silverlight RSS Reader Introduction This is the first post of a multipart blog tutorial explaining how to create a simple Silverlight 2.0 Web Application that displays a grid of thumbnails from a Feedbooks RSS source.  Under each thumbnail is a button that allows users to download an ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=49 The Text Layout Framework (TLF) is new tech that dramatically improves typography and foreign language support in Flash player 10. Adobe recently tapped Bluefire to build a TLF demo for Labs that showcased what it could do, and while working on it we became rather impressed with the capabilities. ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=50 The EPUB file format has taken another significant step forward with the announcement that the Cleveland Public Library has begun offering eBook downloads in the format (via).  This is only the beginning of what will clearly be a massive shift toward the proliferation of EPUB  in public libraries.  Why? 1. EPUB ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=48 Believe it or not, 2008 was a great year for us.  We continued to work in the Digital Publishing arena, which we are really into. We did a few projects in the mobile space, which was a goal going into the year.  And in the fall we got a new ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=47 Congratulations to our good friends at Adobe for releasing Digital Editions 1.5. (Bluefire provided UX design and Flex development support for both the 1.0 and 1.5 efforts). Digital Editions is a lightweight, rich internet application for reading, acquiring and organizing digital books and other publications. This update adds ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=46 All AMG galleries have an about screen, and they are often under-used. Perhaps in part because most people don't know that you can put all kinds of content in there by simply editing the group.xml file. It supports basic html formatting too. For a basic example of ... http://blog.bluefire.tv/?p=44