From the Editor this Month in Java Developers Journal: Thinlets. Download the sourcecode and compile/run the amazon app. Really fast, very useful, sweet. Flash might be faster (I’d be interested to see this sample app built in Flash), but just like Laszlo, Thinlets are created using an XML syntax.

What a great Flash site! Thanks Tai!

Sign up for the cooper newsletter. Check out the nice form and the exceptional error handling. Be disappointed by the lame ‘Thank you for signing up!’ page. Seriously, how long does it take to add a cooper.com branded thank you template? 2 seconds?

Meg coming through w/ a great look at how using personas when developing applications can help to better meet the needs of your sites’ intended users.

Great site with an inside look at how Microsoft manages (better yet: tries to contain) the 3.1 million pages strewn haphazardly throughout their ‘intranet’, if one can call 8000+ separate intranets one ‘intranet’.

Couple guys from Macromedia came by today to give us (and some Acushnet guys) a presentation on Flash and Flash Communications Server, saw some really really interesting apps… one of the more interesting was an ‘environment’ in which you can post notes, chat, and leave video. Check out Dream Domain sometime. I’m not even sure that I understand what’s going on, but the interface is amazing.

MINDSEYE was approached by a VC to evaluate this product a couple months ago, looks like they’re doing pretty well. The product itself (I’m sure I’m supposed to be under NDA w/ this, but whatever) is interesting in that you write your Laszlo code using a Laszlo flavor of XML, save it and then the Laszlo engine compiles it into a .swf. So instead of firing up your Flash MX editor to create a SWF, you can use a text editor. If you’re interested in rich internet applications, check out the demo.