The Flexiss Toolbox

Adobe Flex – What is it and how will it benefit me?

Posted on March 13, 2009 by scott

According to wikipedia “Adobe Flex is a collection of technologies released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the proprietary Adobe Flash platform.” Wow, that kind of makes my head hurt. Maybe I’ll take a little easier approach. I’ll start by making a comparison to Flash. Adobe Flash and Flex are made by the same company. Most of us are familiar with Flash and how it evolved from a simple animation program to a full-featured web design tool. Currently, 99% of all internet users are able to view Flash content (the other 1% are still using the Commodore 64). We can say that it’s pretty safe to use Flash in your website. Basically Flex and Flash are alot alike. They both save in the Shockwave Flash Player format (SWF). Both can build Flash websites and rich internet applications. Flex is really used to build rich internet applications rather than websites.


What are rich internet applications (RIAs)?
The basic meaning: RIAs are web applications that have some of the characteristics of desktop applications. Typical examples of desktop applications are word processors, spreadsheets, media players and database applications. What does this mean? Basically, Flex applications (running through Adobe AIR) can be connected to a back-end web service like Google Maps or a database but run on your desktop as your favorite desktop application. It also can run through the browser just like any other web application. This is helpful if the internet connection is intermittent. Using Flex and AIR – the application is still running even if there is no internet connection. In the near future you will see more companies take advantage of this technology.

(The definition of Adobe AIR from Adobe’s website: AIR enables you to have your favorite web applications with you all the time. Since applications built for Adobe AIR run on your desktop computer without a web browser, they provide all the convenience of a desktop application. Companies like eBay and AOL are using Adobe AIR to create exciting new applications that allow you to use their services on your desktop. In short, Adobe AIR means applications that are easier, more powerful, and more fun to use.)
A few other examples of companies using this technology are American Cancer Society, Discovery Channel, and ESRI. I’ll discuss American Cancer Society in this blog – they are using Flex with AIR to build prototype applications that enable patients to more easily connect with physicians for appointments, advice and additional support services. The compact Adobe AIR application can run on desktops or laptop computers and is not dependent on a constant internet connection. Previously, many Society services were available only via the web, which was problematic for people with intermittent or unreliable internet access. Adam Pellegrini, the Society’s strategic director of online states, “Adobe AIR has the potential to give us the flexibility to offer rich Internet applications both online and offline. We are working on the capability to ‘cache’ data on the desktop so that users have access to commonly searched information without an Internet connection. This could be extremely useful in clinical environments or rural areas”. An added benefit of the desktop Adobe AIR applications is that they can incorporate APIs from other providers, such as Google Maps, and provide a geographical display of the information the Society provides from its database of 65,000 events, local groups and accredited cancer hospitals. This Search AIR application also allows users to click through located resources on the map and go directly to a specific resource’s web site.
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/subsite/greatamericans/content/Desktop_Helper.asp
I will discuss some of the other examples in a future blog. As we can see, there is tremendous potential with this tool.

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What Makes a Link Farm

Posted on February 25, 2009 by scott

One of the basic tools of improving the “authority” of your website, which usually leads to ranking improvements on the search engines, is the process of link-building.   By “link-building” we mean getting other websites to link to your website.   This is a quality game more than a quantity game.  It doesn’t matter really whether you have a lot of links if the links pointed at your site are from poor-quality websites.

When it comes to poor quality websites, the poster-child is the dreaded “link farm.”  A link farm is a site that will post links to any site you bring to it’s attention.  Link farms typically have thousands and thousands of links with no rhyme or reason.

One of the ways to tell whether you should consider a site to be a link farm, and therefore whether you should try and get them to link to your site, is by the Google PageRank of the site.  If you have the Google toolbar enabled on your browser then you can check this easily enough.  If it’s a PageRank of 0, just pass it by.

Here’s a bit of a caveat: Even if the PageRank is high, you should still look at the site critically.  If you see more than 100 links on any given page, it won’t do you much good.  If you see tons of links for porn sites, or viagra-hawkers, pass it by as well.  Use your common sense.  If the site looks like just a big mass of links, it’s a link farm, regardless of PageRank.

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A Peek in our ToolBox

Posted on February 16, 2009 by scott

The Flexiss ToolBox is full of options that make your online life easier.  We have tools for all sorts of functionality to help your business be at it’s best on the web.  Here is a quick run down of our ToolBox in no certain order.

Blogging Applications

We prefer WordPress for most instances, but have used Blogger and can install and integrate a list of other blog applications.  Oh… what is a blog?  You are reading one now!  A blog is a web-log about a general topic.  The Flexiss Blog is a running description of the products and services that we offer our clients.  The purpose of this blog is to help you get more out of your Flexiss website.

SMS

SMS – Short Message Service is a connection between the internet and cellphones.  This allows you to recieve text messages on your cell phone from a form on your website.  Yeah, we think this is pretty cool, too.  We currently have this tool integrated on our Real Estate Search Application.  Maybe you have a website that would benefit from this tool?

Content Management

One of our specialties at Flexiss is Content Management.  A CMS – Content Management System – enables you to make changes to your website as needed.  We have a powerful in house tool that we have created to make this process easy for our clients, and we have experience with a couple open source systems – including Drupal – the leading CMS for large scale implementations (See Artisans of Colorado for an example of a Drupal site).

Shopping Cart

Do you want to sell products over the internet?  You need a shopping cart.  Flexiss has an in house solution we call FlexisShop that we can install for you.  Additionally, we can work quite well with third party applications as well.

Google Mapping

Google Maps is a nice little gadget.  You can scroll around and look at the the area in greater or lesser detail, see schools and parks, business – it’s a great tool.  Now, integrate that with another great tool, and you have an awesome tool – Take a look at our Real Estate Search Application

Real Estate Search Application

So, we keep talking about this Real Estate Application.  What’s this?  If you are a Real Estate agent, you want your clients to find homes.  This tool helps you to help them.  Flexiss has created a series of website solutions for the Real Estate Market, that lets your clients search the MLS on YOUR website.  Your branding, your contact information, your everything.  Our upper level packages throw in SMS and CMS and a few other nifty tools.  Our budget package will save you money, provide you (and your clients) the MLS search, and will represent your business well.  If you have an office full of agents, we solution for you too!

Association Manager

Flexiss has developed a great tool for managing large professional associations. This application is design to handle a large professional membership, giving the leadership a host of tools to communicate with those on the roster, to publish related documents, to provide necessary training or education and more.

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