Simeon Says

Ok, I know I am going a little bit overboard tonight. Its a blogging trifecta for me

But as i was writing my previous two posts i ran the spellchecker I realized that I should share this. I am running the vanilla BlogCFC with some cfc additions but I have a spellchecker. In fact I have a spellchecker in any form of any webpage. How you might ask? Well that is a fun story.

Being the good technologist that I am, I took a moment to inspect some of the news regarding COWS AJAX that went around a couple weeks ago. SpellingCow is the first application of the COWS AJAX technology to allow you to have interactive JavaScript calls to a server different from the site specified in the url. And as i read through the SpellingCow site I started playing with their favelet. The favelet allows you to add a link to your bookmarks. When you select this favelet it adds an ajax spellchecker to any text areas on the page.

Super cool for guys like me that cant spell to save their lives. Maybe it can help you too

I have posted several times in the past, and given several examples of using Ant to compile Flex 2 applications use the Flex 2 SDK command line compiler.

Since I wrote my first version of that, I have also used Flex Builder more (when i am on my pc) and I found that I like one of the features it provides. When you create a new flex project in FB2, there are some default files and folders that get added. One is the base application file, another is the html-template folder, and then a bin folder. During the compilation process you base application is compiled and the result is a swf located in the bin directory. Then the first time you compile an application, it copies the files from the html-template directory into the bin directory as well. These files are the html and js that act as the loader for your swf.

I thought this was a neat feature so I added it to my Ant script. If you want to get a copy of the html-template files you there is a copy of them in the cairngorm2 zip file ( I was gonna post them, but I will let Adobe cover the bandwidth ).

I am not going to claim to be an Ant expert, so their may be better ways of doing things. But the way I have this setup, I can copy the first target change the path and filename and I can compile multiple applications with same script. Also the compileMXML was contributed by my friend Rob Rohan and I saw an example of using the compileForm method in the adobe forums. I continue to use Robs version though because it seems to be faster. Even with incremental compliation on the compileFork always takes about 30 seconds to compile in my powerbook, while robs method usually takes 12-16.

Anyway, with any luck this can help others out there. Good Luck.

I am a huge advocate of utilizing free and open source software when ever its possible. With that I was very excited that Adobe gave us the Flex 2 SDK for free. And to be honest, when the pricing for Flex Builder was announced I thought it was pretty high for an “Eclipse Plugin”.

As a Eclipse user, and an evangelist for the CFEclipse plugin, I am very familiar with how plugins work. I have used many (probably close to a 100) different eclipse plugins for an array of development challenges. Some of those were free. Some were oss. Some of them (MyEclipse in particular) I have purchased and recommend openly.

I can honestly say that Flex Builder 2 is the most impressive eclipse product i have ever seen. I have purchased a copy for use on my PC at work, and between the debugger and class introspection features I think it was worth every penny.

As I sit here tonight working on my powerbook, writing mxml with a generic xml plugin and compiling my flex apps with ant, I was considering what I would do or even pay to have those features right now.

To that end, while IM’ing with a buddy tonight, I proposed that I might be willing to amputate one of my special man pieces in order to earn this bit of software. To which my very dear friend replied: “dude, i’d join adobe, for free, to work on that, just to laugh when you had to cut your own left nut off.”

And so I thank Adobe for their continued work on the Flex Builder for Mac. And hope it doesn’t turn to me removing peices of my body to get a copy.

The short version of this story goes something like this. Someone asked me how this could be done, and I didnt know. The results of which can be seen by clicking more.

Well maybe not “travel” as it were, but I am beginning to think time is not as constant as my physics teacher once told me.

Today is my 4 year anniversary with my wife Carrie. I really think these last 4 years have been the best of my life. We are running away for the weekend, gonna go hang out at the coast at a resort and spa called Salishan. As many of you know we have a baby on the way in December so this is our last get-a-way before many years of family vacations We are really excited, this will be the best vacation we have had since our honeymoon cruise. And I can hardly believe that was 4 years ago.

On the baby topic, I had a quite overwhelming weekend. I spent several hours at babies-r-us creating our baby registry. For a first time father that experience is a real eye opener. I think baby and I think about it in terms that prioritize needs like an adult. I think I need someplace for it to sleep, some clothes, some food, and diapers. But surprisingly those are not even things you put on a registry (so I am told). So we looked at all sorts of others stuff ( who knew Babbie’s needed their own dishwasher rack ) and I got to play with the scanner gun. I think at the end of the day my wife was very tired of me scanning her and running around like james bond, sneaking around corners and rolling down the aisle

But all and all it was a great day with my wife. I love spending time with her, more than anyone else in my life. I take that as a good sign that I picked the right girl. Although we have only been married for 4 years (only?) January will mark 9 years of us being a couple. I figure we are over the big hurdles ( baby excluded ) and I look forward to a long happy life with my wonderful wife.

Thanks for these wonderful years wifey. I love you! I look forward to the rest of our lives together.

My wife sent me this link to day (shared to her by our friend chelle) and I have to say I am amazed. After watching this video I have to say that i find it very hard to believe we dont have androids running marathons and swimming accross lakes.

Keeping in mind this little unit is a “toy” and should retail for like $30. Take a look at the video of Elmo TMX and tell me I am wrong.

Tonight the Portland AUG will have a presentation by Ryan Miller from Mentor Graphics. He will be showing us how to improve out application development by testing using Selenium.

Meeting starts at 7pm. Check the AUG Website for more information and directions.

No I certainly dont have a copy of flex builder for mac, but Duane just posted on his blog his review of this highly anticipated addition to the Adobe software line up.

I am so very jealous and cant wait until this software makes it in to the wild. As a Mac user who spends most of his day working with Flex 2 and ColdFusion this would be a welcome addition to my workflow.

Come on Adobe through me a bone I am an Adobe Community Expert, an Adobe Certified Flex Instructor and a Mac user with experience building Eclipse plugins… Who better to help work out the kinks in your new application!

Seriously though, I am very happy to see that work is coming along well on FB for Mac. I anticipate I am not the only one who is excited by this news.

ISITE Design is currently seeking a Coldfusion rock star for full time employment. Please submit resumes to 2131@isitedesign.hrmdirect.com.

Mike Potter just announced that Adobe has released a new SDK for Ruby on Rails developers looking to work with Flex. The sdk comes with a variety of examples the most complex of which uses the new RoR WebOrb platform from Midnight Coders.

If you are a RoR developer looking to build dynamic applications with flex, dont miss this new RoR SDK from Adobe