Andrew Schwabe's Blog - google

Apple vs the world (or "how i'm gonna get flash on my iphone anyway")

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 12:33:00 -0400

The pressure is building up on Apple. They have stated their case about how they will only support html5 on their IOS platform (ipad and iphone). Their mis-information about how all other technologies hurt the internet has had surprising impact given its pure foolishness. The best technologies the industry has seen (and the strongest companies) have always had a plan for ushering in new technology while being backwards compatible with the old. This serves many purposes -- it eases people into new technology, while supporting the old, and it generally gives longevity to infrastructure which is pretty important given the pace at which technology changes. Apple's viewpoint is very narrow minded. They have said in not so many words: "eventually in the future, we think we will all be doing it this way, so lets just pretend it is already the future, and only use that technology, anything else won't work anymore." Whether you like browser plugins or not, and whether you think they are a part of the future or not, they are a HUGE part of the internet today, and not supporting them isn't visionary -- its stupid. Apple needs to wake up from their rebellious ways, and become a team player. Their self imposed "better than thou" position in the industry will only take them so far, and will eventually cause people to start hating them. It is already starting, with iphone users defecting to use Android phones. Why? because Android is *actually* an open platform. Apple says IOS is "open", but that is just a complete lie. They are pretty far from open. The only way an ipad or iphone is "open" is if it is jailbroken. The very fact that "jail breaking" tools exist for ipad and iphone show that Apple's devices are not open, and that the technology community isn't satisfied with Apple's tight restrictions. The mentality in this community is: if we spend a couple hundred dollars of our hard earned money on a device like iphone, then let us use it however we want. Don't make it a premium price, and then handcuff us. Here is where consumer need and industry compatibility intersect and a spark is created. I've whined about not having flash on iphone for a long time. Apple says "we want 100% control over how and what you see" and the underground community has reacted by jailbreaking. What makes this even more exciting is that the iphone 4 is more powerful than previous models (although not quite up to snuff when compared to the new Android phones). It is slick and easy to use, and will make people happy if it does what we want. The underground community has once again responded, and made a commitment to hack flash to work on the iphone. You heard it right -- in fact the same people who made this commitment, have apparently already gotten it to work on ipad! I am sure this will infuriate Steve Jobs, but I honestly don't care. It is obvious that all his rules and closed mindedness are focused on bringing in more money to Apple, and NOT giving end users the core features that they want. Maybe breaking this major rule of his will make him wake up, and support it legitimately once the world proves to him that his views (and accusations) on Flash are just purely fantasy. So for me, I'll stick with iphone instead of switching to Android. The real reason is not b/c I am "sold" on Apple's device, but because I know Flash is coming :)

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

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]

CF United 09 Presentation Files - Google App Engine and Flex

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:42:00 -0400

Ok folks, here are my preso files for my CF United 2009 talk on Google App Engine and Flex. Is this the final version? Sure. Until I change it. I shall resist doing that... Here is the powerpoint presentation download: 294_Andrew_Schwabe_Google_App_Engine_Flex.ppt Here is the full download (warning, this is big!) Contains all 4 google app engine java projects, all 4 flex projects and the powerpoint file. The download is big because of all the jar files. I will try to have a USB key with me so if you want a super fun time instant copy instead of downloading it, I should be able to do that. Full download (94MB, zipped): CFun09_GAE_Files.zip For those of you web surfers interested -- demo 4 project includes a fix for allowing Flex app using AMF to retrieve Google Account information (using ajax and a custom auto servlet) so your Flex apps can determine if you are logged in, and get your user identifier if you are logged in.

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.

CF United Speaker Interview

Tue, 12 May 2009 16:26:00 -0400

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? What would you tell someone who hasn't been to CFUnited before? Yup. I've been speaking at CF United events for the last 4-5 years or so. Lost count. CFUN is cool because you get to hang out with all the movers and shakers in the industry. 2. Why should people attend your session(s)? Why not? I'll be showing an example of using Flex to talk to Google App Engine (GAE), so its just pretty darn cool. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? I'm hoping to have a brand new product ready to demo called FusionDox Access, which is a way cool easy way to share large files with people, and easily integrates into your web projects. All build in Flex of course :) 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? Flexy goodness, especially looking forward to Flex 4 graphics enhancements. 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? How to beat down the industry's impression that ColdFusion is dying. 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? (At the bar, networking, working, in your room, etc.) Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes. Also email me. aschwabe(at)gmail(dot)com. 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? New version of FusionDox is coming out. See http://www.fusiondox.com/blog/ 8. What is unique about CFUnited? Everything is approachable at CFUN. Talk to whoever, everybody is sincere about wanting to transfer knowledge so that everybody grows. 9. When you are not working what do you like to do in your free time? Playing guitar, riding my motorcycle (bmw k100), going to the shooting range with the family, travel, eat, drink, being merry. 10. Feel free to make up your own question and then answer it. Q: Why? A: Because.

Flex + Google Analytics - Fix Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:00:00 -0400

Google has released a library for Flash and Flex to embed google analytics calls into your Flash/Flex app. You can find info and Google's sample code here: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/flashTrackingSetupFlex.html. Since I use Flex, thats all I will cover here. When I implemented Google's code, I got the "Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object" error that seems to show up from time to time. I knew it had to do with google analytics, since it was a fully working app before I added GA. [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!

TaskCFC : Open Source Group Task Management is coming!

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:23:00 -0400

I have been working hard on a new project, to be released as open source called "TaskCFC." This is a group task management system that uses ColdFusion on the back end and Flex on the front end. I am writing this since it seems there are no real easy to use/easy to customize group task mgt systems out there. Ultimately this *WILL* be integrated with FusionDox, and may be integrated with Google apps and Google App Engine. [More]

Flex > CF > Craigslist > Google Maps Mashup

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:28:00 -0400

Here is one of several apps I have written recently that i've been meaning to put on the blog. This app shows how Flex can bridge data from multiple sources. Perform a keyword search, maybe search for an iphone, and this app will search craigslist, and show you the results displayed on a map of the city. [More]

iPhone pwnage bandwagon

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:00:00 -0400

I am generally NOT ok with hacking operating systems to remove software or hardware restrictions. That being said, the Iphone Dev Team released their new pwnage 2.0 tool on sunday, after an incredible amount of hype. I went ahead and used the tool and now my iphone is unlocked with the 2.0 firmware for use with any sim card.

Note: Links to pages that explain how to unlock your iphone are at the bottom of this post.

So, if I am against hacking hardware and software, why did I unlock my iphone?

[More]

Dealing with Russian Spam in Google Mail aka Gmail

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:34:00 -0400

In a day where spam is an increasingly huge issue, I have been using Google's email which does great at spam filtering. There is of course once major exception, and that is Russian or Cyrillic spam emails. Google's filters don't seem to be able to block those emails, and if you have had an account as long as I have, the volume of spam is bad. I was getting 50-100 Russian spam emails every day.

I have experimented and come up with a solution using Google's filter feature. It has taken several tries to get the right settings to actually be effective. Here is how to rid yourself of the bad Russian spam!

Log into your account in Gmail
In the upper right part of your screen, click on "Settings"
On the settings page, click on the "Filters" heading
Click the "Create a new filter" link
In the "Has the words" box, copy and past in the contents from this Microsoft Word document (I tried to paste the actual characters here, but they got all screwy)
Click the "Next Step" button
Choose how you want to handle them (I have it skip the inbox, and apply a custom label, this way I can go back and actually flag those messages as spam later)
Click on the "Create Filter" button to save the changes!

This has really worked well for us, eliminating about 90-95% of the Russian spam. If you find any "tweaks" to this are effective, let me know.

GoogleMaps + Craigslist

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:00:00 -0400

Most impressive combination of technologies here. This is a great example of pooling information together.

http://www.housingmaps.com/

Google Chart API

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:00:00 -0400

From the incredible minds at Google :)

http://code.google.com/apis/chart/

This impressive little library lets you generate PNG chart files from a single URL request string. Since people typically need to pass lots and lots of data for charting, they came up with a really creative way to compress the values, and provide a javascript snippet for automating the process.

So the nifty chart you see to the right is a "hello world" app using their API. It ultimately comes down to a simple URL request of:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=s:hW&chs=250x100&chl=Hello|World

Quite impressive and easy to use!

While this doesn't provide the stellar interactivity and depth of integration that Flex charts do, it certainly provides a way to do nice looking charts with a quick turn-around.

According to their docs, you can freely use this so long as you don't regularly exceed the 50,000 hits per day limit at which point they may block you. I think most of us will not be hitting it quite this much.

Some samples: