The Apollo Alpha and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) both package up your Flex or HTML applications as an .air file that you distribute to your end users. The user simply double-clicks the .air file to install the application and begin using it like any other installed app. But what's in a .air file? Why not take a look for yourself? Simply change the extension from .air to .zip and take a peek.

Adobe has announced Flex 3. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and download the new Adobe AIR and Flex 3 for the best of both worlds. http://labs.adobe.

Just announced on the Adobe Labs site... Apollo - the code-name for Adobe's runtime that brings Web applications to the desktop - has been dubbed the Adobe Integrated Runtime or AIR for short. Sound familiar? *.air files are the installation files for Adobe applications. Previously, any publicly available applications were created the the Apollo Alpha. Developers can now get their hands on the Adobe AIR beta. http://labs.adobe.

Maybe they should call it "twoogle?" I first read about the mashup between Twitter and Google Earth on the FlashGen blog. TwitterVision is a Flex app that shows all the latest tweets and where they originated globally. A 3D Earth rotates as new tweets hit the public timeline. It's pretty cool to watch the real-time activity of all those using Twitter around the world. You can even alter your altitude and view the latest tweets at varying degrees of height above Earth's surface. Geeky!

The folks over at labs.thesedays.com created a Google Analytics Apollo widget for Multi-Mania. The widget has now been made available to the general public and can be downloaded from the labs.thesedays.com blog. I downloaded the widget and gave it a spin. It currently only shows page visits for the GA account you select but the display does look nice. I wish it had more reporting features as using the widget in place of Google's Web interface just wouldn't be productive.

The general CF and Flex community are invited to attend a Flex presentation tomorrow broadcasting from the Nashville ColdFusion User Group. Theo Rushin Jr. will be presenting FlexTimer: A Case Study of a Flex RIA. More information can be viewed at the Nashville UG Web site. Barring any technical difficulties the preso will be available via Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional at the following URL: http://mmusergroup.adobe.acrobat.com/r69585719/.

Now that Apollo Camp has ended, the presentations are slowly making there way to Adobe Labs. The Flex developers pocket guide for Apollo is also available. Click the appropriate links below to access these resources.

I just became aware of some really cool Flex UI components. Maybe they've been out awhile, so I apologize if folks have seen these already. Anyhow, Doug McCune has some really cool UI components including vertical and horizontal sliders, various menu widgets, vertical and horizontal accordions, and a super tab navigator. The sliders can be real handy if you need them. Especially if you are considering building your own in Flash, cause it's not easy.

I've mentioned before that I'm a big fan of podcasts. Delving into Flex 2 here and there and just being generally interested in all things Flex, I've been checking out The Flex Show with Jeff Houser and Ryan Stewart. In case folks didn't already know, the podcast is available in the iTunes Store.

I was reading through Mike Chambers Apollo Overview / Getting Starting slides and noticed he mentioned Apollo would be making its way to labs in early 2007. No further information is given but one can hypothesize "early 2007" could mean really soon. If you want to be notified when Apollo is available in beta form check out this link (http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo).