I just got word from Neil that Feed Squirrel just went live on ColdFusion 8. If you're not familiar with alternative (to MXNA) aggregators like Feed Squirrel, you should be. Why not give it a whirl? http://feed-squirrel.

Adobe's new Integrated Runtime (AIR) will be released at some point this year (a beta is currently available here). The release of AIR will bring new possibilities in how applications communicate with client machines. Previous to the Adobe Integrated Runtime, Flash applications adhered to a security model that drastically handicapped what your applications could and couldn't do.

I've made some minor updates and fixed some annoying bugs in twitterAIR. The new version, 1.1.2, is available here or by clicking the "twitterAIR" link in the downloads pod to the right. Users with twitterAIR already installed will be prompted to update on the next app restart. Here's what has changed: Fixed a bug where clicking any link in a tweet would cause tweets to randomly lose their text.

Some of the best looking Flex applications are those that steer away from the default styling. Using customized backgrounds, component skins, and even fonts help make your applications stand out from the crowd. I used all of these concepts when building twitterAIR, my Flex/AIR application that integrates with the Twitter service. But how do you get a font embedded into a Flex application and why would you want to do this?

I've updated twitterAIR - my AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) / Twitter application - with some new features. Thanks to those of you who have submitted comments and suggestions. Below is an excerpt of the changelog illustrating the new features. You can get the new version by pressing the appropriate link in the Downloads pod to the right, or by clicking here. Added minimize button. Switched the twitterAIR and trajiklyhip.com logo positions. Added support for typing "@username" in the input box.

A co-worker informed me twitterAIR is now on AIRapps.net. You can check out the other 47 applications by visiting the Web site.

Here are a few screen shots of twitterAIR so folks can see what some of the windows look like before downloading and installing the app. The images are a little bit smaller than the actual size of the app.

In reference to the release of twitterAIR, Simon writes: Hi Aaron, as much as I'd love to see your code for the AIR app, I won't bug you for it. But I did want to ask why you packaged it as an AIR app. It's the second Twitter app done in Flex but shipped as a wrapped AIR file and I'm wondering if both developers (that's you as well) ran into some kind of browser limitation.

Several weeks ago I became hooked on Twitter and the ability to keep up with what my friends are doing. Since then I spent some time building an Apollo application that integrated with the Twitter services. Shortly after that Adobe announced AIR and I scrapped what I was working on and started over. My goal was to not only build something that worked with Twitter but to use some key development aspects of Flex 3 and AIR. Along the way I hoped to learn more about Flex development.

If you're on Mac or Windows and you'd be interested in testing a new Flex 3 / AIR / Twitter application, leave a comment on this entry. Be sure to enter a valid e-mail address or I won't know how to contact you.