The line between desktop apps and web apps are blurring. Adobe is one of the companies leading in the development of these desktop-like web apps. This is an open source platform based off of Adobe Flash. (Err, what else, it is from Adobe!) You can download the Flex SDK to develop web apps on any IDE (Integrated Development Environment) such as Eclipse. Adobe is also offering a program called Adobe® Flex® Builder™ 3 which you how to pay for. But if you are a student or educator, you can get it for free. (See here)

Adobe Flex Logo. Image from the English Wikipedia.

There are many apps already out there made with Flex. This includes a cool program called Pikeo, a photo sharing website. Complete with animations and transitions. Another one is similar to FotoFlexer, called Picnik. This one has many tols to edit photos and it even has an auto-fix feature.

Picnik, an online photo editor! Image from http://www.bollyball.com/

One of my favorite Flex apps now is Scrapblog, and guess what it does. Hmm….. Oh online scrapbooking! It includes a wide variety of photo editing tools and also the functionality to make quick and easy online scrapbooks with transitions and background music. And you don’t even need to sign up to start making online scrapbooks!

Scrapblog, and online Scrapbooker. Image from http://www.longworthblog.com/

Well, that’s it for now. You can also check out some other Flex apps at the Flex Showcase. There is no doubt that I’ll be reviewing more Flex apps as they come. So stay tuned!