I Was A Registered Alien!

Demo files from today's ActionScript to JavaScript eSeminar

I was online again today delivering another Adobe APAC eSeminar, this time speaking about getting ActionScript and JavaScript to talk to each other.

As promised I'm posting here the sample files that I used during the presentation, you can download them from this link: Download As2JSsamplesAndrewMuller.

A big thanks to everyone that was able to attend this afternoon.

A couple of links from that seminar:

Adobe Australia and New Zealand eSeminars on Demand: http://adobeeseminars.com.au/ondemand (for recordings)

SWFAddress for deep linking in Flash movies: http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/

Flash-Ajax video component: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash-Ajax_Video_Component

My Presentation From Webdu 2009

I've uploaded the slides from my presentation on building successful AIR applications that I delivered at webdu this year to SlideShare for viewing for those of you who were unable to make it or wanted to view it again.

A copy of the presentation is embedded below:

98 Cups of Tea - How to build a successful AIR application

View more PDF documents from andrew.muller.

Building AIR apps with Flash CS4 eSeminar Files and links

I had the opportunity to present another eSeminar for Adobe Australia today, speaking about "Building your first Adobe AIR app with Flash CS4".  Thanks to those of you who participated in it today!!

As promised the files that I used for my demos are available for download here: download here: andrewmuller_flashairdemos.zip

The recording for this presentation will appear here: http://adobeeseminars.com.au/ondemand

Other Adobe Australia eSeminar details can be found here: http://www.adobeeseminars.com.au/

As mentioned there's some great information on building AIR apps with Flash CS4 in the online documentation at Adobe: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AIR/1.5/devappsflash/

Links And Files From Today's eSeminar

A big thanks to the folk that came along to the eSeminar that did for Adobe Australia today on "Creative Controls for ActionScript Developers" which was all about making use of APIs in Flash CS4 with a bit of ActionScript 3 intro thrown in for good measure.

I promised to post links to the sites that I showed today, please find them below.  I've also uploaded my demo files for personal education - you can download them from this link: Download Examples

Links:

List of 22 ActionScript 3.0 APIs: http://seantheflexguy.com/blog/2007/08/13/list-of-22-actionscript-30-apis/
ActionScript 3 Cloud/Service APIs: http://onflash.org/ted/2008/10/actionscript-3-cloudservice-apis-update.php

Google Maps API: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/

Tweener 3rd party Tweening API: http://code.google.com/p/tweener/

The Google Maps API session at this years webdu: http://www.webdu.com.au/session/the-google-maps-api

Adobe Australia and New Zealand eSeminars On Demand (recordings and such): http://adobeeseminars.com.au/ondemand

Speaking About AIR, Flex and other stuff in Canberra Tonight

I'm speaking at the ACT Adobe Products User Group in Canberra tonight about AIR and have been busy building some interesting new demo applications, see screenshots below, that I hope will inspired developers to go off and build more AIR apps.

I've recently been doing some AIR development for a client and one of the things that made the job interesting was AIR's ability to integrate HTML code - that's one of the things that I want to discuss tonight (don't worry Tony, I'm keeping a couple of secrets to myself).

For tonight's presentation I've especially built two applications that I want to show off, both make use of HTML code, it took less than an hour to build the basic code for both applications. Below are screenshots of these applications (and they're not all I've got for those who come along tonight).

For more details on tonight's meeting check out ACTAPUG's site: http://actapug.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there!

Qantas Frequent Flyer Store: Think Twice

My personal experience of Qantas' new Frequent Flyer store has left me regretting using it, I should have kept the points for flights instead.

You would think that an international services company that's been around for some time would know how to do it's job but that does not seem to be the case for Calson Marketing whose business it is to run the Frequent Flyer store for Qantas.  Four weeks ago I decided to order a Nintendo DS through as a spur of the moment reward for my two kids for doing well in their half yearly school results.

After dutifully waiting the advertised ten working days I enquired about my order only to be told they didn't have the colour in stock that I had ordered. "Was I contacted" the operator asked, a surprising question because I was on the phone trying to see where the order was. The colour was changed that day to what I was assured could be delivered.

Today, after another ten working days, I decided to check the status of the order again, "stock was ordered on the 1st" - hang on, that's Friday just past and I confirmed a change of order on the 21st, eleven days before.  Why bother promising delivery at all?

It looks like there's another ten working days wait until I call them to find out what the next delay's excuse is - what do you think?

Meanwhile I've got to tell a 10 year old and an 8 year old to be patient just a little bit longer - wonder if the purchasing manager knows what it's like to have kids?  Thankfully mine are reasonably patient...

Going Solo: Zealot for hire

Friday week, August 1st, I'll be leaving my present job to join the ranks of the self employed as a developer/Adobe zealot for hire.

Well, actually "for hire" may not be 100 percent correct as since I handed in my resignation a couple of weeks ago I've been approached by someone within the local Adobe community with an offer of part time work, watch this space for more information as it comes to hand.

I'll still be doing some work with webqem, delivering their developer training - i.e. ColdFusion, Flex, AIR & ActionScript courses.

WebDU Trading Cards

One of the great things that happened at WebDU this year where the trading cards.  Collect the right ones and bend, fold and write on them and they could be handed in for fun prizes, the winner receiving a copy of one of the CS3 suites. Like some I didn't hand in my WebDU trading cards, instead I've gotten mine signed by the folk on the cards and have photographed the series and uploaded it up on Flickr.

They're here with the other shots that I took this year:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amuller/sets/72157605562769696/

AIR prototype: Gmail Notifier

I spoke at the Sydney Adobe AIR Camp on Tuesday and for my session built an AIR app that I now think I'll turn into a complete application.  It's currently for Mac only and runs on the Dock, it's icon only and when it launches you see a question mark overlayed on the envelope icon that I'm using. The app connects to your Gmail account and pulls back the quantity of unread mail, setting a new icon with an overlay of the quantity of unread messages. 

Control or right clicking on the icon will show a menu listing the 10 most recent unread messages, all menu items will click through to their respective messages.  I'd like to develop this further and add support for the system tray on Windows, but hey the original was only built over a weekend.

I've added an animated GIF below for you to see it in action, the red circle is only there to draw your attention to the icon, let me know what you think.  I'll be releasing the source code for this some time next week.

Using Google Mail for Your Domain

I've just discovered that you can use Google Apps to do the mail hosting for your domain for free, for up to 100 users.  Others have already written about it - I've found an excellent guide for migrating to it from various email clients and accounts that appears to be very thorough in detail.

I'm currently paying for the hosting of email for my domain and I've got to say that this is very tempting.

After a bit of googling about the subject I found a blog post by Scott Hansleman about how he migrated a number of relatives from various email clients across to Google Apps, well worth the read: Migrating a Family to Google Apps from Gmail, Thunderbird, Outlook and others: The Definitive Guide