Adobe AIR
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.
(continue reading…)
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.
Updates on MezzyShredder.com
by Dave on Sep.29, 2009, under Actual RIA info, Adobe AIR, Coolness, Electric Mayhem, Intense Nonsense, PXL Info
Where have I been again? I don’t remember sometimes…oh wait, working constantly! Inundated with work and slacking off on the blogging again. I was at CF United, and that was very cool. Learned heaps, caught up with old friends, drank beer, learned more, played golf, drank more beer, and so on.
Besides that, I’ve just been insanely busy (what’s new) pitching gigs, winning some, losing some, running away fast from others, and working secretly on Attest in the wee hours on top of everything else. Check out the PXL Blog for more (much much more soon), even if you’re not looking to get Flex certified or not interested in Attest, you’ll be very interested in some of the Adobe MAX goodness next week – mwahahha! Shhh, say no more…say no more, wink wink, nudge nudge, does she go aye?
On top of that, I’ve been updating MezzyShredder.com with new content, many a late night. He joined a new band, formerly called LOCKJAW, currently called War Horse. I defy even Yngwie Malmsteen to play faster or better than this man 
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.
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.
Adobe AIR Beta 3 – descriptor file porting
by Dave on Dec.13, 2007, under Adobe AIR
I ported AirSpace today from AIR Beta 2 to Beta 3 and overall it wasn’t that bad. Heh! First off, I originally used Rich Tretola’s UpdateManager class for AirSpace’s updates before, and it looks like he updated his entry for Beta 3 already. Wish I knew this before I upgraded mine Oh well, it’s done now. If you want a cool way to update your apps, that one works like a charm.
Nothing massive changed, its all pretty easy, but rather than chase all the new stuff down, I figured I’d post in case someone else runs into issues.
The first issue I had, was to remove references to Shell.shell and replace with nativeWindow inside the ActionScript. At least that’s one thing the new compiler was griping about and is now fixed. Referencing the application descriptor file from within the code had a few minor changes. The first thing I did after installing Beta 3 for AIR and Flex 3, was just create a new AIR project for AirSpace. That way, I had a new descriptor file to play with and seemed easier than chasing down any artifacts in the old one.
Some AirSpace Goodies
by Dave on Dec.06, 2007, under Adobe AIR
Now that I have a little more time once again to continue working on AirSpace I want to tighten up a few things with the app. Since this blog is pretty new and I did promise to write some useful tidbits, it probably wouldn’t hurt to reiterate exactly what AirSpace is. I had a few friends, family members and clients asking if I could help them style their MySpace profiles…{shudder}. No…please no!
Wasn’t exactly looking forward to that as I never really bothered with MySpace before, but when I had the idea to write an Adobe AIR application with Flex that’ll let them do the styling themselves I knew I was on to something. So far, there’s been heaps upon piles of suggestions to improve on AirSpace, many of which are current in the latest version 1.0.0.5. Some cool ideas were pre-made styles, which is going to take a while to create, but there’s a layout browser built into the app now. You can edit styles, save them to your machine and reopen them for a later date, swap them out on a whim and so on. Currently, there’s also a “practice template”. When you start up AirSpace, you’ll see a generic MySpace page to the right. You can check out your style edits as you go and apply them to your actual MySpace page when you’re ready. Here’s more info on my other blog.
For example, I think the Tables styles are still a bit buggy, this is probably due to overwritting some bit of CSS in the final output. Maybe I can jump back on that today. In the meantime, a few developers were asking for details on how I got certain things working so I figured I’d share a bit of code (useful once again).
