I’ve been messing with the Google Custom Search functionality lately and so far I’m impressed.

It is a very useful for your site to add on if you don’t have strong search capabilities (and I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt your sites indexing as well.)

One of the uses that I think it might have would be to add to your Google Homepage. This could be used to enter in several sites that you search regurally for information. So say for example you enjoy searching for tech…. So you might have it search specifically (cnet, macworld, blogna, yada yada) Would be cool if you were searching for the same sites consistently and it was super easy to setup and add to my google homepage.

So when you get some time you should check it out. You’ll need to have a google account but come on who doesn’t?

Adobe has replaced the “Apollo” codename with Adobe Integrated Runtime, or AIR. AIR M4 build is now available on the Adobe Labs site. Adobe has added improved support for HTML as an application base. As I mentioned in an earlier post, AIR also includes integrated SQLLite database for storing data while the application is disconnected from the internet.

Adobe has also posted a new Developer Derby for the runtime formerly known as Apollo. 5 category winners will EACH receive “The ultimate development environment.”

• A Mac Pro 8Core with 4 gigs ram, 1.5 TB (2×75) of storage.
• (2) Dell 2707WFP 27″ widescreen monitors.
• (1) one Sony Playstation 3.
• (1) $200 gift certificate to Amazon.com.
• (1) Herman Miller Aeron chair.
• (1) Bose Quiet Comfort 3 noise canceling headphones.
• (1) copy of Adobe Flex™ Builder™ version 3, Macintosh edition.
• (1) copy of Adobe Creative Suite® 3 Master Collection for Macintosh.
• And one squishy stress ball.
• A trip and conference pass to the Adobe MAX 2007 annual user conference.
• Your application showcased on Adobe.com for the world to see.

Also available on Labs this morning is the first public beta release of Flex 3. You can find Adobe’s new Open Bugbase for Flex 3 here. With the release of Flex 3 will come a “minor” update to Flash Player 9. Some of the new features that Ted Patrick has blogged about include: improved quality and rendering in downscaled bitmaps, multi-threaded vector renderer (up to 4 cpu’s), multi-threaded bitmap filters, multi-threaded video decoding for the VP6 codec, full-screen mode with hardware scaling, transition effect into full-screen mode, performance tweaks and bug fixes…

Today, I can officially declare that I am not disappointed by Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia. Adobe is delivering.

UPDATE: I’m not sure how I overlooked this, but there is a Grand Prize in this developer derby. Details below:

Grand Prize / Best of Show
The Best of Show winner will receive the trip of a lifetime, a travel certificate valued at up to US$100,000, to be used for the travel of your choice!

Nope, not a teen abstinence conference, apparently it’s an outdoor music festival with some major headliners. I thought this site was worthy enough to point out not based on technical execution, but on design alone. It has some great text treatments as well as a strong color palette.

http://www.virginfestival.com

Ted Patrick of Adobe has blogged that he will be releasing details on some of the new features that Adobe is building into Flex 3 next week. He is making some bold statements on Flex 3: “Game changing platform capabilites”, “Trust me, you will not be disappointed.”

Ted also pointed out that the teams are preparing for the Flex 3 beta next week…whatever that means. Hopefully it will be a public beta again. It looks like they are setting up the Adobe Labs site for the it as well…

Time is running out! Act today!

For those of you out there looking for details on how to get to Adobe Max 2007 (or take your production team), who have a hard time with the big mess of tubes that those youngsters like to call the inner-net, and haven’t yet mastered the art of the Google, or who forgot to go last year :), I have provided a few links for your convenience…

Official Website - Adobe Max 2007
Max Awards Nominations [Deadline for entry is August 3rd]
Max Blog Site
Registration and Pricing [Deadline for early bird registration is July 23, 2007]