Jeff Haynie

Jeff Haynie's "Introspection" Blog I read on Ryan Stewart’s blog: “Yahoo! Releases ASTRA: Set of Flash and Flex Components”. Huh? According to Yahoo!’s developer site, ASTRA stands for “ActionScript Toolkit for Rich Applications”. OK, I think I get it - or maybe not? So, I took a look at the components and examples on their website. What’s up with these widgets? Tree, Menu, TabBar, Autocomplete, Charts, AlertManager, AudioPlayback, Menubar OK, for example - take a look at the AlertManager. Drag around the alert box inside the flash “window”. Yeah, it clips. OK, that’s probably just because the frame size is too small. But, c’mon. I admit, I don’t get it. Why is Yahoo!, of all companies, doing this type of stuff? I get YUI. I also really dig their OpenID initiatives, very good stuff and about time. But, I don’t get their Flash/Flex widgets. I suppose these are good i... (more)

Right Side Up Development

Traditional Web development frameworks tightly couple the user interface (UI) and the server. This characteristic has two significant implications: Prototyping is difficult Development is server-focused Prototyping Traditional Web frameworks make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to create prototypes. The tight coupling between the UI and the server dictates that you must write and run server code to do anything. This leaves you with two options: build prototypes using a different set of technologies or don't prototype at all. In the first case, your prototype will be throw... (more)

Service Oriented UI Architecture in the world of web, desktop and mobile applications

I gave a talk last night (December 2, 2008) at the SD Forum’s Java SIG in Palo Alto, CA. The subtitle of the presentation was: “How the web has gone beyond the browser and we’re headed back to Client/Server”. I’m including the presentation slides below: SD Forum Java SIG - Service Oriented UI Architecture View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web ajax) ... (more)

How to fund your startup from customers

Russell Jurney’s blog post has spurred me out of my blog-laziness to talk about something I’m passionate about - starting companies and helping entrepreneurs. If you haven’t read his most excellent post, titled “The California State of Mind” - stop now and read it. As a follow-up from his post, I wanted to share something not widely known in Atlanta circles about how Nolan and I funded Appcelerator. Sure, everyone by now around town has heard that Appcelerator was funded by Storm Ventures, a well-known Silicon Valley VC. They’ve probably also heard that we moved Appcelerator fro... (more)

Micro communications for your business with Yammer

This past week was a pretty significant event in the web2.0 world - at least to people who follow startups and Techcrunch. This week was the equivalent of the web emmy’s for startups, called the Techcrunch 50. Most startups presenting had absolutely no business model. Except one that really stood out. And, it not only stood out, but the guys at Yammer took top prize. I’ve been a pretty active twitterer for quite awhile now. It’s quite addictive and impossible to explain. Here’s one way we discussed today at the office in an attempt to explain it: Phone calls are for urgency Emai... (more)