Jun 16
Off-Topic: Adobe’s Software Trial Download Madness…
I recently wanted to download Flash and start learning how to it with Java and/or Ruby, with the intention of purchasing once (or before) my trial period expired. I could not believe my eyes when I read that Adobe, a company in the business of making software has ceased offering trial downloads of many of its products for a full month due to what is apparently a ridiculously simple bug in date calculation:
During the month of June 2008, certain product trials that are launched for the first time (regardless of when they were installed) will function for only one day instead of 30 days, due to an error in a line of code that counts down the remaining days in a trial. You will not experience this issue if you have launched your trial before June 1, 2008, or do not launch it until July 1 or thereafter.
We understand that trials are an important tool to experience the new features of a product. However, this issue would have resulted in a frustrating situation for a large number of customers — an experience that just does not meet the high standards we have set for all of our products and solutions. We invite you to explore the other resources available on Adobe.com in order to experience the products in action.
So, rather than fix a bug that is likely resulting in thousands of lost trial users (which one would assume translates into $$ in revenue), Adobe has foolishly decided – sorry, no downloads for a month! After much searching on the ‘net, I absolutely could not find a trial download anywhere (all download sites link back to Adobe’s broken download page).
At least people can still download some of the good Adobe products while they’re waiting 
Come on, Adobe! If I was a stockholder, I would be furious.
(Also covered here)
June 16th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Get Flex instead. It will integrate with Java very easily and produces flash files…and the trial is there.
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/
June 18th, 2008 at 7:53 am
John’s right: if the goal is to create applications with a Java/Ruby back-end and a Flash-powered UI, Flex is what you want.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Thanks, I’ve experimented with Flex a few times over the past couple years, most extensively when Air 1.0 was released. In this particular case, it was Flash I wanted – but thanks for the suggestions!
June 18th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Flex is great if you’re doing a quick form or other data-handling app, but for a richer app with animation, effects, etc. Flash is still the way to go.
Unfortunately, Adobe removed the WebService component from Flash. Previously you could insert a WebService component, set up the WSDL, and perform calls on the soap methods to receive result object that Flash would parse, or fault objects. You can’t do that now, but the new XML object in Flash is much better, since it uses E4X syntax, which is similar to how you’d get data using XPath.