So what makes Aptana Cloud different? From the looks of it they are offering an very specific LAMP based architecture stack that has tight integration with the Aptana IDE. They Offer developers synchronization and deployment management tools as well as an “integrated service management console”. Aptana Cloud offers administrators management tools, dashboards & stats, Google analytics integration, status tools and backup options. They offer development teams the ability to manage access to projects through Roles and Rights.

The interesting difference is that Aptana is partnering with Joyent to implement the Aptana Cloud solution on Joyents virtulatization platform. Aptana expects that in the future developers can select from a list of virtulatization providers including Amazon and Google.

From the sound of it Aptana is really looking to place their IDE at the center of web application development and give developers all they features they need to implement, deploy and manage web applications with one tool. The service is currently in closed beta but you can request early access (I signed up several weeks ago and no word yet).

Resources

Aptana Cloud
http://www.aptana.com/cloud

A great podcast interview by the folks at Ajaxian with some guys from 280 North, the creators of 280Slides.com. They discuss some details and motivations behind their new Cappuccino JavaScript framework and their new “Objective” version of JavaScript they call Objective-J. The guys at 280 North come from an Apple development background, so they took what they know and love, Object C and the Apple “Core” frameworks and ported them off the mac and onto the web. As you can see from their work on 280Slides.com, it has that OS X look and feel about it. Although the intent is to release Cappuccino to everyone I can’t seem to get my hands on it yet. You can check out the entire 18 minute interview with the player below or download the podcast yourself.

Resources

Objective-J website

280Slides Application

Google has created the Ajax Libraries API. Basically Google is calling it a content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular open source JS libraries. These libraries include:

• jQuery
• prototype
• script.aculo.us
• MooTools
• dojo

If you use the Google JS API, you can do stuff like:

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<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
  // Load jQuery
  google.load("jquery", "1");
 
  // on page load complete, fire off a jQuery json-p query
  // against Google web search
  google.setOnLoadCallback(function() {
    $.getJSON("http://ajax.googleapis.com"+
    "/ajax/services/search/web?q=google&;v=1.0&;callback=?",
 
      // on search completion, process the results
      function (data) {
        if (data.responseDate.results &&
            data.responseDate.results.length>0) {
          renderResults(data.responseDate.results);
        }
      });
    });
</script>

Notice the dynamic loading of the jQuery library. Not a fan of the Google JS API? No worries, Google publishes the direct URLs for all the various javascript library files including minimized and full versions.

Resources

AJAX Libraries API
http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlibs/

Documentation
http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlibs/documentation/index.html

Earlier this month (5/14/08 @ 05:40 PST) Google announced the Google Maps API for Flash. One of the changes that you notice right off is the difference and smoothness in animation. Its great to finally have the ability to integrate this mapping application into a flash experience and have access to the geo API natively.

Resources
Announcement
http://googlemapsapi.blogspot.com/2008/05/introducing-google-maps-api-for-flash.html

Documentation & examples
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/flash/

Note
Google Maps API for Flash is not the only kid on the block with a Flash based mapping solution: Universal ActionScript 3.0 Mapping API

I have personally just cut over to Firefox 3 as my default browser. I was finally able to gather the core add-ons I needed to make the switch. Some of the add-ons are still in beta, but are at least compatible with Firefox 3 so most of he functionality is there.

Firebug (use the 1.1 beta) - Install Now
Firecookie (use the beta) - Install Now
Greasemonkey (supports up to FF3.0b5) - Install Now
Web Developer (current version supports FF3) - Install Now
Operator (current version supports FF3) - Install Now
PageDiff (current version supports FF3) - Install Now
Uppity (current version supports FF3) - Install Now
IE Tab (current version supports FF3) - Install Now

Not development related but add-ons I find very handy

Better Gmail 2 (current version supports FF3) - Install Now
Download Statusbar (current version supports FF3) - Install Now
Foxmarks (current version supports FF3) - Install Now
Foxyproxy (current version supports FF3) - Install Now

If anybody else has add-ons that they find useful along with information on how to get them working in the Firefox 3 please share in the comments.