Adobe Flex
Flex 4 released today – tons of new material for learning
by Dave on Mar.22, 2010, under Actual RIA info, Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex, Coolness
If you haven’t seen already, Adobe released Flash Builder 4 and Flex 4 SDK today. If you’re a student or you’re unemployed, or possibly an unemployed student event, you can get yourself a free copy of Flash Builder. Along with the release are endless heaps of new material to get you up-to-speed with the latest and greatest of Flex. Below is a list of some of the best new resources to get you up and running with Flex 4 in no time.
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Flex 4 animate properties
by Dave on Jan.25, 2010, under Actual RIA info, Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex
I came across a situation while doing a Flex 4 upgrade for an Adobe Developer Center sample app where I wanted to use some the Spark animate properties classes.
This is SO cool because it gives you truly granular control over every aspect of a component you want to animate. In the sample I’m upgrading, there is an extended TileGroup component that has three columns and two rows of charts for an enterprise dashboard application. When a user clicks a button to zoom in on any given chart, I wanted to make use of some of the new Spark effects to really create a 3D look and feel quickly (without delving too much into custom layouts). Actually, the layout I made is a custom TileGroup, but I wanted to point out some ways you can use the Animate class to make sweet transitions on any property of a component in your own apps for simple animation, without having to create custom layouts.
(Shibuya-beta) Adobe’s Try/Buy service for AIR applications
by Dave on Oct.10, 2009, under Actual RIA info, Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex, Coolness, PXL Info
Ok so it takes me a while to catch up on the blogging. MAX is over and the secrets are out. One thing I was particularly happy about was the new Shibuya Beta program, where Flex developers could incorporate Adobe’s licensing framework and start selling AIR apps.
My colleague Holly Schinsky and I were invited to be part of the super early beta program before MAX, which was extremely cool. This is huge for AIR developers because we now have a fully supported means of monetizing our applications. In the early days of Apollo (AIR’s beta name) I had come up with the idea for Attest (mock exam software for Adobe’s Flex certification) while studying myself. There was nothing on the market and I had compiled heaps of data while studying, so I thought it would make for a nice side project.
What economic crisis? Surely not for RIA developers!
by Dave on May.02, 2009, under Actual RIA info, Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex, Apple, Coolness, Intense Nonsense
To say I’ve been busy is an understatement. Where to start? They tell me there’s an economic meltdown going on. My question is, where? If you’re an RIA developer, especially a Flex developer, I can’t imagine you’re having a tough time finding gigs. Unless there’s just so many of us now that there’s actually competition?
My thorough lack of writing on my FUN blog parallels my thorough lack of sleep. It’s tough running a company on your own, especially when it’s a teeny tiny RIA firm and you’re completely lost when keeping records in QuickBooks. So what have I been up to? For starters, I updated a bunch of stuff on MezzyShredder.com. Added tons of videos of him playing with his band Wicked Society ( signed on a B & G Music label ) and YouTube. So if you’re into Black Label Society-style music, go check out Mezzy shredding like none other!
Buy American…but don’t pay for Attest 1.5 though
by Dave on Mar.05, 2009, under Actual RIA info, Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex, Coolness, Intense Nonsense, Nonsense, PXL Info
Ok that’s an excuse, but a good one! I finally bought myself a Fender FSR Highway One Stratocaster HSS 
made in the USA of course 
Needless to say, I got NO work done the rest of the day…well no RIA work anyway. Man this is one sexy guitar!
Sorry, I had to share my euphoria though. With this thing in the office, I’ll have a hard time getting any work done. Anyway, I’ve been working my rump off on a bunch of different things but mostly I’ve been cranking on Attest 1.5. It’s built in Adobe AIR (see PXL blog for the full scoop). This is current being tweaked and tested, and will be available shortly. The coolest news is that it’s free for non-commerical use. If you want to get certified in Flex 3/AIR, you’ll want to download this AIR app when it’s finally released. I’ve taken a way longer time getting it out than I had originally planned on, but with my work load, and being a one man show so far, it’s been tough.
SWF file format becomes SEO friendly
by Dave on Jul.01, 2008, under Actual RIA info, Adobe Flex
Just read on the Washington Post that Adobe is working with Google and Yahoo to make SWFs readable/visible to search engines. Completely awesome news! That’s been a major draw back for other Flash/Flex developers for years, that the search engines can’t read content inside a swf . The article states that this is a first step, it’s not a complete answer, but it’s progress.
I’ll have to look into this more as time permits. Is this a technology/API that we as developers work into our apps? Or, it seems from the article that it’s going to be part of the Flash Player itself in conjunction with Yahoo/Google’s technology so there may be no new steps needed to get your Flash/Flex app or website indexed on the biggies.
Not only were there plans for the Photobucket AS3 lib…
by Dave on Jun.02, 2008, under Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex, Mashups
They’re basically done! http://code.google.com/p/photobucketas3lib/ I just got finished working it into MyStylez today for easy drag/drop functionality while building MySpace layouts. The AS3 library itself is extremely well done and easy to use, took me no time at all. Great job Photobucket gang!
Going forward, I know which api I’ll be using for online image sharing 
I know some other AS developers, like Quentin, who commented on the last post were searching too and we didn’t see anything up on Google code yet, so we planned on maybe starting up a project. The guys at Photobucket beat us to it. So that was an easy job for us, can’t beat that!
Any plans out there for an AS3 Photobucket library?
by Dave on May.01, 2008, under Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex
I’ve been working with the AS3 Flickr library trying to make MyStylez cooler with some Flickr + AIR drag and drop goodies and was thinking I’d eventually try to work in the Photobucket API too.
I haven’t seen any ActionScript library projects yet, but then again I’ve been sitting in the dark for two weeks writing code and staying away from the sun…very healthy indeed. You may have noticed I didn’t exactly go to town on the blogging either, pardon my absense as I’ve been wholly absorbed with so much code flying through my neurons I feel like my head could split.
Does anyone know of any plans to crank out an AS3 lib for the Photobucket API? If so, I might want to jump on that one.
Thanks Bill and Microsoft for screwing up my weekend
by Dave on Feb.24, 2008, under Adobe Flex, Nonsense, PXL Info
And costing me time and money I might add. It’s a good thing I came across this article online the other day. It seems that ole Bill and his pals at Microsoftunfurled their latest monkey patch for Vista in the form of Service Pack 1. Nothing new here, no big deal, but for me it was a big deal
My software, Attest, the Adobe Flex 2 Certified Developer practice exam happens to use it’s copy protection from a company that just so happens to be one of the very few on a list of other companies who’s software is affected by this update. Most of the other companies directly affected by SP1 are primarily made up of anti-virus, internet security, and anti-spyware manufacturers…….you know, no big deal. Who cares for that kind of software anyway, not Bill!
So as you can see, Bill releases monkey patch for Vista, that makes certain software programs explode that otherwise worked great, so those companies release updates for their products and “stuff” rolls downhill…….good thing I noticed that my software would be mangled and created an update, or I may have been hit with a ton of support issues without knowing that Bill decided to revamp his OS yet again.
What is oDesk all about exactly?
by Dave on Feb.19, 2008, under Actual RIA info, Adobe Flex, Intense Nonsense
In a recent post, I made a comment or two about some quality projects I’ve found on oDesk.com. Apparently, some have questioned my understanding of oDesk, so I decided to take a deeper look into the site and their services.
Hmmm, yup, says here:
Welcome to oDesk, the online staffing marketplace connecting businesses (Buyers) to remote workers (Providers).
Seems to me they provide a marketplace for connecting businesses to remote workers. This isn’t exactly a new concept, there are other sites out there not unlike oDesk (guru.com, gofreelance.com, ifreelance.com) and the list goes on and on.
All these sites are more or less the same deal, companies post projects and look for workers to make a match. Outsourcing I like to call it, though I hardly coined the term, you may have heard of it before. Nothing wrong with the sites themselves, including oDesk. Some sites provide better deals than others of course, and some have more quality project postings than others. Let’s do a comparison for giggles.
