Free online courses on Database and Machine Learning

Stanford School of Engineering is offering two more free online courses in addition to the AI course that I mentioned in the previous post.

Introduction to Databases : http://www.db-class.com/

Machine Learning : http://www.ml-class.org/

Free Artificial Intelligence Course

A free, online version of "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence", taught by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig http://www.ai-class.com/

Play Framework

Play framework is a java based framework for creating web applications.

Download play framework from http://www.playframework.org/download

Documentation and tutorials can be found at http://www.playframework.org/documentation/1.2.2/home

This screencast shows how to create a web app with the play framework : http://vimeo.com/7087610

Solr 3.1 released

Version 3.1 of Apache Solr has been released.

Solr 3.1 is based on Lucene 3.1 .

The index structure is different from that in version 1.4

DataImportHandler jars are no longer included in the Solr WAR file.

Solr 3.1 includes support for Spatial search

You can now send updates to the index in JSON format via JsonUpdateRequestHandler

In addition the default XML formatted results and JSON Response Writer for responses in JSON format, there's the CSVResponseWriter for getting results in CSV format.

The Solr UIMA contrib library enables analysis of unstructured data.

Read more about this release at http://lucene.apache.org/solr/#March+2011+-+Solr+3.1+Released

Wallaby : Convert Adobe Flash files to HTML

An experimental technology from Adobe codenamed 'Wallaby' enables you to convert Adobe Flash(FLA) files to HTML.

Learn more about Wallaby at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/wallaby/

Download Wallaby from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/wallaby.html

Installation instructions for Wallaby are at http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Wallaby#Installer

The release notes shed more light on supported features and cross browser issues.

fxSpy : inspect properties and styles of visual flex 3 components

fxSpy allows you to inspect and dynamically change properties and style of flex 3 display components.

Download fxSpy from http://code.google.com/p/fxspy/downloads/list

Installation instructions can be found at http://code.google.com/p/fxspy/wiki/InstallationInstructions

Kalileo: Flex data visualization component from Kap IT

Kap Lab has released version 2.0 of its data visualization component. Kalileo is compatible with Flex sdk 3.5 onwards and is available as a community edition in addition to the licensed versions. Learn more about Kalileo at http://lab.kapit.fr/display/kalileo/Kalileo

Kap IT has also packaged all its reporting components under the Kolbert reporting package. Of particular interest to me was the Elastic Search inspired by Moritz Stefaner's work on elastic lists .

ReflexUtil : Flex debug Utility

ReflexUtil is an open source utility that allows a developer to debug and alter properties of components in a flex application during runtime.

Flex 4.5 to have size report

Flex SDK 4.5 will have a new option to summarize what contributes to the size of a swf file. use -size-report=<filename> in the compiler options (-size-report <filename> also works in Flash Builder) to generate a summary of the size of each type of data within the swf file.

There's more information at http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Size+Report

Adobe Labs - ActionScript Code Coverage Plug-in for Flash Builder

ActionScript Code Coverage Plug-in for Flash Builder , now in its prerelease version, is a tool that enables Flex developers identify which portions of code are executed (and which parts are not) while an application is executing.

Download ActionScript Code Coverage Plug-in for Flash Builder from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/ascode_coverage.html

Documentation for this tool can be found at http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/ActionScript_Code_Coverage:Using