jun :: realeyes

So…the slacker that I am…I finally got around to getting the AIR 1.0 build of REDbug out. Thanks to David for doing enhancements 2 and 3!

Here’s where you can find the app: http://www.redbugtool.com

Some of the things you’ll see with this release are:

1. A real code-sign cert

2. An improved UI design to maximize real estate

3. Many Logger module bug fixes

4. Updated client-side libraries

5. No more annoying drawer, now the preferences are in their own window (Btw, got a good little blog post coming on some of the quirks I worked around in mx:Window)

6. An improved autoupdate mechanism so you’ll always know you’re running the most up to date version…all you have to do is open the app to find out.

7. The fancy new AIR badge for the website…thanks a bunch to Grant Skinner for doing an outstanding job on the latest badge, it ROCKS! Using his bad-ass badge from the site we can:

• Have the AIR runtime updated
• Have the Redbug app upgraded
• Launch the app from the badge! (My favorite part)

Hit the site and install the latest! Also, for those of you who’ve posted bug reports asking for the AIR 1.0 build of REDbug, I hope you’re still interested and sorry it took so long.

So we’re one man shy of being the Wu-Tang, but at least I think we qualify as gang writers.  Btw, the information that Amazon is sporting on the upcoming Professional Flex 3 book is completely incorrect.  Here’s the current scoop on the book: http://www.joeflash.ca/blog/2008/03/the-professional-flex-3-book.html

Be prepared for the ProFx3 swordstyle!

I’m a little late posting this…been super slammed as I’m sure just about everyone else in the RIA space has been. 

Anyway, I have a series on a really cool site launched by O’reilly and Adobe called InsideRIA. There’s some really good people writing really useful things for that site and I’m proud to get a shot to add some content too!

My series is called “Flex RIA Performance Considerations” and the plan is to come out with a new post each month for 12 months.  I released the first part on 3/17.  The purpose of part one was to give everyone an overview on what I want to accomplish with the series and also offer some background nuggets for the n00b.  In addition, there is a list of the other parts I’m going to talk about each month.

As far as “Part 2: Application Startup” is concerned, it should be out around 4/15 or so.

Here’s a direct link to where my series will live: http://www.insideria.com/jun_heider/ 

Also, I highly recommend you check out some of the other series on there too.  Lots of good information from many good people:

http://www.insideria.com/experts.html

http://www.insideria.com/contributors.html

On a closing note, although I do have a gameplan, the intention for this is to be a community resource that will hopefully give back to the community for a good long time.  So, if after reading the first part of my series you have ideas you’d like to see covered feel free to ping me at either blog to offer some feedback. 

Peace out…

I’m going to be giving a talk on debugging AIR and Flex apps at RIADevShed. The conference price is very reasonable, and they’re going to have an awesome line-up of great speakers, even a jedi master from what I can tell…definitely looking forward to the event!

If you’re in Salt Lake City on Friday, April 4th, come check it out. Here’s the link: http://riadevshed.com/

If you use my discount code JH320 when you register for Flexmaniacs 2008 you’ll receive $50 off!  That’s enough money off to pay for your beer for at least a night!  So hit up the registration page and enter in my discount code JH320

https://www.webmaniacsconference.com/registration/index.cfm

So now that everyone and their mom decided to turn down their alpha channels I figured I would too. Here are my session survey results:

http://www.360conferences.com/surveyresponses/?attendeeID=1585980

Thanks again to all who attended the session, you were a very good crowd and I thoroughly enjoyed the feedback and interaction.

Also, thanks again to John and Tom for putting on another outstanding conference, they rock! Btw, if you’ll be there I highly recommend you register for 360 Flex Milan…if not you’re missing out!

The early bird discount, a chance to save $100-$150 is ending!

If you’re a conference-goer and money consicious like me, you’re going to want to register for Flexmaniacs either today or tomorrow. This is a happening conference with many great speakers talking about many great topics. It’s well worth the price.

Here’s the link to the registration page:

http://www.webmaniacsconference.com/registration/

Also, I’ll be speaking there for the second time, this time it will be about Flex Debugging Techniques both in lecture form and hand-ons lab form.

I hope to see you there!

I should have blogged this last week and spaced it…anyway, if you live near Denver, CO and can make it to downtown by 6:30pm tonight, come check out the Rocky Mountain Adobe User Group. (RMAUG) We’ll be celebrating Flex 3 and AIR and will have some really cool presentations by Adobe, EffectiveUI, Xylem CCI, Beatport, Juan Sanchez, and others. Make sure to RSVP on the RMAUG site though ’cause otherwise you won’t be eligible for the copy of Flex 3 PRO being given away!

Here’s the link:

http://www.rmaug.com/

I worked on acquiring an AIR code-sign cert from Thawte this week. For those of you not coming from .Net, or Java or some other background where you might have used one of these certs I figured I’d offer some pointers.

1. Don’t depend too much on Thawte email support. I sent them an email support question several days ago and have received nothing back.
2. The good news is their knowledge base is pretty good. Just make sure to search for the “AIR” keyword since it’s not listed in the code-sign category yet.
3. For the verification process, make sure all your listed phone numbers are up to date. I had given Thawte three contacts (Main, Tech, Billing) all with their correct phone numbers. For some reason they ended up calling our project manager that was not one of the above contacts that I had given to them. I’m assuming they got the PM’s number off our website or something? Either way, keep this in mind.
4. Whoever is the one that orders the cert will be the one that will have to retrieve it. Basically, during the order process a private key will be created in your browser’s keystore. This will be needed when you fetch your certificate.
5. Talking about browsers, you must use Firefox when you order the cert and when you fetch it.
6. There’s two passwords involved during the process:
   • You create the first one during the order process. It is used to log into their site, check on order status, and fetch the cert when its ready.
   • The second one is created after you’ve fetched the certificate. Basically, when you back it up out of the Firefox certificate store into a .p12 backup file it will ask you to create a password.
7. When you decide to export a release version of your AIR app in Flex Builder 3, the password you’ll specific is the second one from above. (The one created during the .p12 backup file creation)

Other than that, the rest of the process seemed pretty straightforward. Here’s a couple of KB entries that helped me through the process:

• Enroll for Adobe®AIR Developer Certificate
• How to export the private key and certificate from Firefox to sign Adobe®AIR applications