- A Flex and ColdFusion Blog by Kevin Schmidt

Flash Camp Chicago 2010 - Slides and Code

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:36:00 -0700

Here are the slides and complete code from my Flash Camp Chicago 2010 presentation - Accessing Remote Data.

Slides:
Accessing_Remote_Data_FCC_22262010.pdf

Code:
flash-camp-source.zip Feel free to ask questions!

Steve and the Beanstalk...

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:39:00 -0700

My initial thought when I saw the iPad was that little Stevie Jobs went to the market one day, met a mysterious man who looked a lot like John Scully and traded his black turtleneck for some magic beans and a can of Pepsi. He planted the magic beans, poured out a few drops of the can of Pepsi while saying "para los Newton" and then went to bed. The next morning little Stevie woke up and saw a giant bean stalk stretching toward the Heavens. He decided to climb the stalk and find out what was at the top. Ok, to make a long story short little Stevie stole the iPhone that belonged to the giant, brought it home and then decided to call it the iPad. To me, the iPad sort of seems like Wonkavision in reverse. After Jobs descended Mount Horeb and the dust settled people began to wonder why the Flash Player wasn't on the iPad? This is a very simple issue for me. I'm very libertarian I don't like excessive regulation or being told what I can and can't do. Whether it's by the Government or by a company that I buy a product from. My point is very straight forward. Let me choose whether or not I want to install the Flash Player on the iPhone, iPad, or iWhatTheFuckEver. If it crashes, or it's buggy, or it sucks my battery like a $25 hooker then I won't use it. But let me make that decision. To be honest I think the real reason the Flash Player is not on the iPhone is that AT&T's 3G network that is held together with duct tape and bailing wire couldn't handle the load. Whatever the reason, I don't need Uncle Sam or Uncle Jobs deciding what's best for me or in this case what technology I will use. Being told what to do breeds resentment and ultimately rebellion. Which is probably why I have a MacBook Pro but use an Android based phone. I did have an iPhone but AT&T's phone service stank like three-day-old Thai food vomit. I develop using the Adobe Flash Platform and as I transition into developing apps for mobile devices, I'm working on a top secret one right now, I won't be developing for the iPhone or iPad. I will be developing for devices that are involved in Adobe's Open Screen Project. That's just about every device but the iPhone. I'd rather lose the iPhone users than have Dr. Jobs examine my prostate before allowing my app onto his precious app store. That and I don't want to have to do double the development. Trust me it's not double the pleasure or double the fun. Just double the headache. It's just not feasible for a one man operation. The last thing about the iPad that I don't understand is all the vitriol that has been directed at the Adobe Flash Platform and Adobe in general. I know what it is, it's the same thing with Adobe ColdFusion. Ignorance. One of my favorite sayings is "If ignorance is bliss, this must be Eden." That rings very true today. I have always been of the opinion that people should use the tool that works best for them. For me, it's Adobe ColdFusion and the Adobe Flash Platform. For other developers it may be HTML5 and PHP. That's your choice. I will tell you why I like Adobe ColdFusion and the Adobe Flash Platform, but I won't tell you that PHP or HTML5 is steaming heap of maggot infested donkey shit. However it does seem that there are those who feel that way about Adobe's development platforms. I can't figure this out. Did the Adobe Flash Platform slaughter and disembowel their puppy when they were young? Based on what I've seen on Twitter and blogs, it isn't that the Adobe Flash Platform mutilates innocent young canine's but rather those against it don't fully understand it. With most thinking that Flash is only for obnoxious ads or YouTube videos. If you feel that way, I would suggest you do a little research and try to fully understand what the Adobe Flash Platform is. And while you're at it, do the same with ColdFusion as I'm getting tired of explaining it to you. I will freely admit when I don't know about the capabilities or draw backs of a technology. And I certainly won't say negative things about something I don't fully understand. That makes me look like an idiot, just like those who think that Flash is only about annoying web site intros. Of course there are those, like religious zealots, who will feel they are right now matter what and will do anything, right or wrong, to proselytize the product they love. You know the kind, they think they are going to get 72 virgins when they get to Heaven. But, in the end, to those of us who are normal about things, they just end up looking like they can't wait to get their lips around Steve Jobs' old wrinkly scrotum. In the end this all boils down to a simple concept for me, choice. Let developers and users choose what works best for them. Period.

FlexPMDPDF - A ColdFusion PDF report generator for Flex PMD!

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0700

I have been using Flex PMD on a project recently to validate Flex code and am really digging it. I have used Adobe's PMD viewer to view the violations. I needed to print out a report and there was no apparent way to do this from the Adobe tool, so I went ahead and made my own using ColdFusion! FlexPMDPDF is the result! It's available for download on RIA Forge! FlexPMDPDF takes a pmd xml file output by Flex PMD and creates a PDF report with several formatting and filtering options. You can choose to group the report by rules, files or priority. You further filter the rule and file groupings by priority. FlexPMDPDF ColdFusion 8 or later. Here is a sample call grouped by rule and only showing errors and warnings.

I've got complete documentation for the arguments in the CFC. Give it a shot and let me know what you think. If you have a feature request, let me know. And should you find a bug, please let me know and I'll get it fixed!

Flex Camp Chicago - January 22nd and 23rd...

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:23:00 -0700

Want to get a jump start on Flex? Come to Flex Camp Chicago! It's January 22nd and 23rd. It's just $25 for one day or $45 for both and lunch is included! The speaker lineup is great with the likes of Ben Forta, James Ward, the entire gang from Digital Primates, and many more! I'm speaking on uploading files with Flex on Thursday. It's a steal of a deal, so I hope to see you in Chicago! Find more information at flexcampchicago.com!

My Max Session...

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:35:00 -0700

So, I'm fortunate enough to be speaking a MAX again this year. Both in San Francisco and Milan, Italy. My session, ColdFusion Powered AIR, is running three times in San Francisco. The only slot that is not full is the one that runs on the 19th at 9 am. There are 11 slots left. So, if you want to see how ColdFusion and AIR can work together, sign up today! As for Milan, my session is running December 1st at 1:00 pm and December 3rd at 9:00 am. There is plenty of room in both of these sessions! Hope to see you in San Fran or Milan!

bFlex Slides and Code...

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:14:00 -0700

Here are the slides from my Cairngorm Jumpstart presentation at bFlex in Bloominton. Special thanks to Brian Rinaldi for help on the presentation slides. Slides
bflex_Cairngorm_Jumpstart.ppt

Code
CairngormShell.zip If you have any questions, comments, insults feel free to comment or email me directly.

360 Flex Slides and Code...

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:20:00 -0700

Here is both the slides and code from my presentation on Using Value Objects in ColdFusion and Flex from 360Flex in San Jose. If you have any questions, feel free to email me. Slides: 360Flex_KAS.ppt Code: 360Flex_SanJose.zip

Drop your iPhone...void your warranty!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:35:00 -0700

I've had an iPhone for about a year. I have close to a month left on the manufacturers warranty. About a month ago, I noticed that the screen was starting to have a white colored burn in the upper left hand corner. I made an appointment and I took it to the local zoo...er I mean Apple store here in Indianapolis. They said that because of the accidental damage caused to the phone from being dropped, they couldn't warranty the phone. I dropped the phone about two months after I purchased it. After mentioning this to the "Genius" behind the counter, he spoke to his manager. Still, no deal. However, while telling me they couldn't replace the phone, they were quick to let me know I could purchase a new one for $199 or if I wanted I could get the new 3G iPhone for $199 as well. At this point, I told said "Genius" to create me a case and I would deal with Apple corporate. He reluctantly did so. Anyone out there had this problem before? Any suggestions?

Baby Showers and Flex....

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:58:00 -0700

So, what do baby showers and Flex have in common? Not a whole lot. But the Target Gift Registry and Flex have a lot in common! My fiancee and I were shopping for a shower gift for a couple who are registered at Target. I fired up the the registry kiosk and there it is, the ubiquitous Flex loader! The application itself was put together quite well and the usability was excellent. The only part of the process that I didn't like was selecting a state. You would pick a letter and it would immediately switch to another view of buttons to select from, listing all the states that begin with the letter you selected. Hit the wrong letter, you have to go back. With the capabilities that Flex offers, I would have much preferred to see a list of state names that narrowed down based on the letters you entered. For example, I live in Indiana. If I had entere "In" I could have had it narrowed down to just Indiana. Instead, I had to hit the letter "I", jump to another screen, and pick from the list. Not to mention, I hit "H" first. Oh well, enough gripes! It was great to see Flex out in the wild, in an application being used by the masses!

VO's with ColdFusion and Flex...gotcha!

Wed, 28 May 2008 08:26:00 -0700

Ok, so I was pulling my hair out last night trying to figure out why the value object that ColdFusion was returning was not casting to the value object on the Flex/Actionscript side. I bet I ran the Flex debugger 100 times. Everything looked just fine. The object that was being returned from ColdFusion was typed correctly and had the correct data, but when I went to assign the object to the proper type in Flex, it would end up being null. After a few hours of this, I decided to open a bottle of wine and call it a night. Nothing like a well rested pair of eyes to solve the problem. After having no luck this morning, I had my friend, Kevin Kazmierczack take a look at my VO on the Flex side of things.

Before:


[RemoteClass(alias="openmetric.com.openmetric.cfc.vo.OpenMetricEventVO")]

import com.openmetric.as3.model.vo.OpenMetricEventTypeVO;

[Bindable]
public class OpenMetricEventVO
...

Kevin suggested moving the import statement above the meta data for the RemoteClass. Shazaam! It worked. Now, I don't know if I'm just dumb and I missed this in Flex 101 and need to go back, or if this is just something you have to find out the hard way. I'm guessing it's the former, but who knows. However, swapping those two little lines of code to this made all my headaches go away: After:


import com.openmetric.as3.model.vo.OpenMetricEventTypeVO;

[RemoteClass(alias="openmetric.com.openmetric.cfc.vo.OpenMetricEventVO")]

[Bindable]
public class OpenMetricEventVO
...

Anyone else ever run into this?

360 Flex: Back to the Future....

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:00:00 -0700

360Flex is headed back to where it all started, San Jose and the eBay Town Hall Center on August 18-20th. I've had the opportunity to speak at both the inaugural 360Flex as well as 360Flex Atlanta and will be speaking once again this time around in San Jose. This time I'm teaching a half-day Flex 101 class on ColdFusion and Flex the Sunday before the conference, focusing on using Flex applications to manage the data in your database. I will also be giving the 90 minute scaled down version during the actual conference. In my opinion the 360Flex conference is an amazing value when it comes to conferences! Come on out, as you won't be dissapointed! And maybe, if you are lucky, Tom will show you the eBay NOC, one of them anyway!

360Flex Slides and Code...

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:02:00 -0700

Here are the slides and code from my presentation at 360Flex Atlanta. Slides and Code

Special thanks to Ed Sullivan!

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:02:00 -0700

Jesus, it's been since September 27th since I wrote anything!?! Well, I've got a few things to say so I'll just get started. From the yesterday's news department, MAX Barcelona was amazing, aside from spending 9 hours crammed into a Northwest Airbus. It was better than MAX Chicago. It wasn't as spread out and certainly had a better feel to it. Next, 360 Flex Atlanta, I'll be speaking on using the ColdFusion 8 Flex Gateways! A great line up of speakers and an all around great conference!

Register today!

And finally, for those of you who remember my bet with Ed Sullivan, well he finally paid up. At the Union Oyster house in downtown Boston over Thanksgiving weekend! Here's my reward and Ed in all his glory! A yummy 2lb. Lobster

Thanks Ed!

Yes, I'm wearing my Peyton Manning jersey in Boston

Ready to rock Chi-town!

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:20:00 -0700

We'll I'm headed for MAX tomorrow afternoon! I'm driving the new G35 up to the Hyatt at McCormick Place with the new girlfriend. Universal Mind has an outing on Saturday for all of us and then the show gets on the road. You'll be able to find me in numerous places. I'll be in the Community Pit as well at the Ask an Expert table, the Universal Mind booth and of course at the bar! I hear Rex Grossman might even be bar tending. That's if he can hold onto the drinks and get them to the right person cause lord knows he can't do it with a football. I'm really excited as this is the first year I'm speaking, here's the details. ColdFusion 8 Crash Course Skill: Beginner ColdFusion ColdFusion 8 is the most ambitious and capable version of ColdFusion to date. Join us for a crash course on everything that is new and exciting in this latest release of ColdFusion. * Tuesday, October 2 9:15 am - 10:15 am
* Wednesday, October 3 1:45 pm - 2:45 pm I hope you got registered before it sold out. If not I'll be making counterfeit badges and selling them for $100. If anyone from Adobe is reading, I'm just kidding. Hope to see you there!

My three seconds!

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:53:00 -0700

Well I was in the Adobe video for ColdFusion for a total of about 3 seconds. I can't believe they left out the part about me wanting to have ColdFusion's love child! Here's the video And for those of you who miss it, here's a screen cap of the video.