Freeloader Friday Download of the Week

Catching some AIR (apps)

1117 reads Printer Friendly Page
Times were simpler then. Macromedia was just Macromedia (not Adobe) and they had a new application called Macromedia Central. The idea: provide a framework to run rich web applications. Central was a pretty cool idea, that never really got the apps it needed to survive.

But now, reincarnated as AIR, the idea is ready for the masses. AIR apps are cross-platform and support unique interaction with your filesystem making them much more powerful than a widget, and more useful off-line. There aren't many AIR applications out there yet, but some of the first are pretty useful. AIR apps are proving themselves as the way to go for quick posts and storage of data chunks.

Twhirl

Pownce, now open to the public, released its desktop application as an AIR app. And AIR turnes out to be a great place for micro-blogging. The prime example: Twhirl. This AIR app allows you to post to Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku simultaneously.

Put that's not all. The AIR interface supports cool window styling (and Twirl has multiple themes to chose from) and provides you with live updates on your Twitter friends. You can also run multiple accounts, search tweets and users. Twhirl takes your posting out of the browser, and adds a polished widget-looking application to your desktop.

ShifD

Twitter is great for sharing quips and updates, but what do you do with the tiny bits of information you don't want to share? ShifD has an answer for that. The online services allows you to stash notes, URLs and addresses to your own online account where they can be tagged, edited and archived.

You can send items to ShifD with a bookmerklet, and of course, an AIR app. The ShifD AIR app is nicely styles - if a little large. It allows you to add and manage your data and works off-line.

Those are a couple of the interesting AIR apps out there. Here is a short list of others to check out:

  • Klok - A project time tracker with Excel export and a very cool interface
  • Apprise - A Demo RSS reader from Adobe
  • RichFLV - An FLV file editor with export
  • WebKut - A webpage screen-shotting tool
  • - An AIR desktop client for xDrive

It really is nice to enjoy cross-platform apps that are attractive and responsive (Java, I'm looking at you). AIR apps aren't for everything, but they can fill in some nice vacancies on your desktop. Enjoy!

Brian

  


All personal comments should be sent to the author. All other discussion should be done in the Forums

[ Back to Freeloader Friday Download of the Week | Sections Index ]