Andrew Schwabe's Blog - Flash

iPhone 4 goodness

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:23:00 -0400

Well the day has come. I have an iphone 4. It has been jailbroken, and unlocked for t-mobile and other carriers. I even trimmed my old-school full size t-mobile sim card to fit in as a "micro sim." Overall, the process was not bad at all, although I did manage to play with some settings that messed up my network and had to restore from the firmware once -- such a newbie move, i know... This time around its nice and healthy :) Want to know what else my little pocket workhorse has? Flash player. Thats right. A nifty little port of the flash 10.1 for android has been hacked to run on iphone (ipad too). Its called "frash" and was an app to click and install right from cydia. Can't get any easier than that. Chew on that Apple. So far, I am very pleased with the new phone. It performs great, multitasking works surprisingly well, and even my bits of flash content work right in mobile safari. Whatever credibility Steve Jobs had left about his war on Flash, and Flash not running well on iphone hardware blah blah is all gone. The public answered and brought it anyway. Its not polished (yet), but thats only because theres just a handful of hackers releasing the software that people want while the big software companies sit in their seats of power scowling, pointing fingers and blaming each other for not meeting the consumer's needs. Why was flash such a big deal anyway? It don't NEED it to live, but on occasion I really WANT it. The last thing any techno gadget poweruser wants to be told is "you can't do what you want." Besides, how can anybody ignore technology in use by 90+% of the web? Steve Jobs can apparently, but nobody knows why. I don't understand why you don't just give customers what they want? Well anyway, I'm just happy knowing that when I need or even just want it, I've got it. Way to go flash, you finally made it home to my little iphone :) (that little unintentional rhyme is no crime, just an added bonus for the rest of us)

Android OS on iPhone ?

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:03:00 -0400

Yes its actually true... This may be a little old (released in April 2010), but quite interesting! So many of us are wondering what turn Apple will take next, and when, if ever, they will every start playing nicely with Adobe. Seems that the underground community isn't thrilled with that lack of progress, so people have been actively working on getting linux to run on iphone hardware, and now have managed to get a build of android OS to run on iphone 2G (1st generation). Yes, this potentially means the ability to have flash apps running on your iphone hardware. Not yet, but potentially. Check it out: Source: http://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/2010/04/ive-been-working-on-this-quietly-in.html

3 Things That Annoy Me Today: BP, Apple, and Ignorant Drivers

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:55:00 -0400

Its been a while since I posted a rant, hasn't it ? Keep in mind that you do NOT have to keep reading. If you do, its your choice to keep reading. Good, you are still here. #1 BP. Well, let me expand this to include the President's administration. As a US citizen, I support our President and our government, however it doesn't mean I have to like everything that goes down. I am hideously offended and annoyed that an oil leak this bad is being passed around as a "paper issue." Nobody wants to pony up and get this resolved the right way. In my opinion, significant effort should have been made from day one. BP not cutting it? Fine, bring in US Military Corp of Engineers, and send the bill to BP. For Heaven's sake, do SOMETHING other than post a webcam on the leak and say "oh my, this is pretty bad." #2 Apple. Steve is out of control. Bordering on mad man I think. The "holy war" he has waged on Flash is just school yard bullying. He is playing with the technology industry as if it were his big box of legos, and when he finds a piece that isn't a color he approves of, he discards it. Read this blog entry, about a company who had jumped through Apple's hoops to publish an ipad application. And even got several updates published. Apple called them and said they are pulling the plug on their app -- effectively wasting all that company's time and money invested into Steve's lego mansion. The best part is that Apple offers no reason, and no way to address the problem. Just a "good bye." Read here. They screwed Adobe after they spent a ton of money building iphone development tools, and now they are doing it to the small software companies. And as of May 27 of this year, Apple is now bigger than Microsoft. Remember Microsoft monopolistic bullying? and the anti-trust crap that wasted time and money, just for Microsoft to laugh and sidestep the rulings against them? Get ready for it again, as Steve Jobs decides he is the new "Emperor of Technology" and knows better than anybody else about how the world should be. If only Apple's products were crappy, like Microsoft's, then maybe we could resist... #3 Ignorant Drivers. Nothing makes a BP hating, Apple bashing day worse than irresponsible car drivers who decided that 2 years after they got their license, all turn signals are optional. I know responsible drivers who have not been in accidents that for some reason just don't think turn signals are "worth it" anymore. Maybe they haven't SAID that, but their actions speak volumes. If you drivers CARED at all for anybody else on the road but yourself, you would notice that people LOOK for your turn signals. Maybe you can save somebody stress and time by using a turn signal LIKE THE LAW SAYS YOU SHOULD, so people can actually anticipate what you already intend to do. Yes, lane changes too. NOT using them is breaking the law. As a motorcycle driver, I am often terrified to make turns or lane changes in any kind of traffic because I have no idea what people around me will do. It is more stress than a single person deserves while just driving to or from work. I try my best to use signals, and honestly, I don't know if anybody cares. All I DO know is that if I was in traffic coming toward myself, I would appreciate the proper use of signals. I'm done for today.

iPad Killer? Not yet... FAIL report on lenovo s10-3t

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:45:00 -0400

After a few weeks of working in my spare time, here is what I managed to accomplish: 1. I could get a copy of 10.5.4 (slipstreamed for MSI wind) to install, and bluetooth worked, which I could hack to give me internet access. No Wifi, no QE/CI video, no ethernet, no touchscreen support, never bothered with sound, but supposedly it is similar to the lenovo s10-2 and should work. 2. With a custom chameleon 2 rc3 cd, i could boot and install snow leopard 10.6.0. Bluetooth worked out of the box, no wifi, native resolution 1024x600, but no QE/CI acceleration, no ethernet, no touchscreen, again, never bothered with sound. 3. Since Wifi is a deal breaker, I bought a dell 1395 WLAN 1/2 height card to drop in. No go :( The lenovo bios detected a WLAN card that it will not support, and won't boot. I've read on how you can hack the bios, or hack the rom on the WLAN card to fudge it, but yeeeshhhh.... thats not the simple $15 fix i was looking for. So after evaluating all of the above, I've decided that although the hardware is very cool (and with win7 ultimate, this is a VERY cool little machine), it just isn't ready to be made into a hackintosh. Real shame tho, i would have liked a proper mac tablet. If you like windows 7, I highly recommend this netbook. If you are holding out for mac osx, I hope it comes some day. Not looking good right now. So what is next? because I never just give up without changing my strategy... ? The HP slate looks pretty fantastic... I can't wait to see the specs on it, and see if it can be made to run mac osx. Other than that, I think I will use my iphone more :)

Flash Builder 4 (aka Flex 4 aka "Gumbo") is released!

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:27:00 -0400

Lots of aka's (i know). Flex 4 SDK (open source) has been out for a while, or at least as a public beta. Now that Flash Builder 4 (the new IDE that replaces Flex Builder 3 -- note the product naming difference), there is a lot to be excited about. A new skinning system that brings in the best of declarative graphics and fixes quirks with scale 9 and manual skinning of components. Supposedly everything is a lot more efficient and light weight. Flex 3 was pretty to look at, but a bit memory intensive. I don't have specifics on that yet, but all improvements are welcome to make it scalable for larger apps. It is also designed for backward compatibility, so hopefully all our Flex3 apps compile nicely. Looks like a great upgrade! If you are into ColdFusion/Railo as well, be sure to check out their bundle of Flash Builder 4 and ColdFusion Builder at a good price. Here are some details: http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/overview/

iPad killer project is underway!

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:56:00 -0400

I went ahead and placed my order today for a lenovo s10-3t today from amazon. They say it is in stock, and i'm looking forward to playing with it. My intention (for scientific purposes only! haha) is to set it up as a dual boot with the windows 7 starter that comes installed on it, and mac osx. [More]

Adobe Announces AIR/Flash support for Android Mobiles

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:55:00 -0400

Well, it is finally happening -- the rest of the world is moving on, right around the big iPhone road block. With Android being a fast growing platform, and Adobe giving official support to build native Flash/Flex apps optimized for mobile processors, this puts the pressure on Apple again, to either bend to what consumers want, or face loss of market share. [More]

JavaScript Hack Enables Flash on iPhone

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:41:00 -0400

Ok, well it isn't exactly what we want, but it shows that the development community is thinking beyond Apple's stranglehold on iphone OS. According to Wired, Tobias Schneider has written a javascript runtime engine for processing .swf files that is compatible with iphone. [More]

Lenovo S10-3t netbook hackintosh - iPad Killer?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:03:00 -0400

Lenovo's netbooks have had pretty good press, but they haven't really stood out of the competition... yet. When it comes to building hackintosh netbooks, Dell's mini line has had all the press. Do a few searches, and you will see that there are numerous guides for installing mac osx 10.5 and even 10.6 on dell hardware. This may all change... [More]

iPad from Apple... thumbs up or thumbs down ? -or- Another Adobe Flash Crusade

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:35:00 -0400

Hmm, can anybody guess what my first question was about the new Apple tablet computer-like-device-thing ? [More]

CF United Update: Google App Engine + Flex

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:02:00 -0400

My talk at CFUnited has changed a bit... Since the topic was chosen a while back, Google has released a Java developer environment and eclipse plugin for Google App Engine (GAE). Since Java is a whole lot closer to CFML than python is, I've updated all my code and presentation to focus on the Java application architecture, and how to connect it to Flex. I've even got some tidbits on how to get CFML running on Google App Engine ! Be sure to come on out and learn about the exciting new "super scalable" web application system running on Google's free hosting infrastructure.

I have been invited to speak at CF United Express in NYC on 4/20/09

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:50:00 -0400

Thanks to Liz Frederick and the CF United team for their invitation! I will be presenting on "Charting with ColdFusion and Flex" and will go through step by step on how to build charts using Flex's charting package. In addition, we will go over how to build a reusable chart project where you can use the Flex/Ajax bridge to push chart data into your Flex app using Javascript/JSON/etc. Should be a good time, come on out! The details are online here: http://express.cfunited.com/go/newyork/2009/ Don't forget that I will also be speaking at CFUnited August 12-15 2009 in Leesburg, VA about integrating Flex with Google App Engine (GAE). Details are at www.cfunited.com.

Adobe Air: #2032 (and similar) error when trying to install an .AIR file

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:53:00 -0400

If you are building Adobe AIR applications and run into this vague error when using an install badge or air.swf from within flex, it may be your web server that is the issue. [More]

I will be speaking at CF United 2009

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:19:00 -0400

I have been invited to speak at CFUnited 2009 in Leesburg, VA, August 12-15 2009. If you haven't attended CF United before, be sure to sign up, as it is a fantastic program, and a great place to network with some of the most skilled developers in the world. This will be the 5th CFUnited event that I have spoken at, and the second time I will be presenting on a Flex topic. This year I will be going through the architecture of building a Google App Engine (GAE) app, powered by Flex. This allows you to create an application hosted by Google's application architecture, and using a Flex application as the user interface. It's a mashup of multiple technologies, and should be a lot of fun. Be sure to stop by!

Manually adding bindings between objects in Flex/AS3

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:53:00 -0400

I recently needed to manually create bindings in AS3 code between objects, and since MXML ultimately all is just AS3, I figured there had to be a way to do it. Binding in MXML Lets look at the following code...

Here you bind the text property of the TextInput to the label's text property so wh you type in the textInput, it reflects in the label. Binding in AS The key to this is a class called BindingUtils in the mx.binding.utils package. You can use this class as below: [More]