Simeon Says

The company I work for here in Portland (Business Transitions) is looking to bring on another full time developer. We are a small company with big opportunities for fun development projects. Daily activities would include maintenance of existing ColdFusion sites, as well as development of new projects with Flex 2.0 and ColdFusion. Some in-office tech support as well as server maintenance.

I really enjoy working for Business Transitions. Several companies have tried (and failed) to pull me away. I think you will like it as well. We offer full medical and dental benefits as well as several other perks.

If you are interested in finding out more about the position email your resume to it.bustrans@gmail.com

Announced this morning on Mark Drew’s blog is the final release of CFEclipse 1.3. Along with the new updated codebase, we also have a fresh look with new icons and a new CFEclipse.org website.

You can get this new updated by using the Eclipse built in updater (instructions here), and as always if you run into any problems you can report them here at the CFEclipse Trac site.

I spent some time yesterday fighting with this control because of a stupid assumption I made. I have used the Credit Card validation in the ColdFusion Flash forms on several occasions. As such you just specify that a field should be validated as “creditcard” and you move on. It checks to make sure its of appropriate length and looks like a credit card number.

So as I began my day validating credit card numbers in flex, I assumed that the function was very similar. So I created my mx:CreditCardValidator component in mxml. I set the cardNumberSource and cardNumber properties to my text field. And then I ran my application. I tested validation with nothing in the box, and it told me the field was required. I then tested that putting letters in the box also caused the appropriate error. Then I next tested that putting in an invalid card number also caused an error. But it did not. Of course I assumed I had missed some default value that suggests that valid numbers are not required, but that was not the case. I fought with it for quite a while before making realizing the problem.

From the Flex Developers Guide:

The CreditCardValidator class validates that a credit card number is the correct length, has the correct prefix, and passes the Luhn mod10 algorithm for the specified card type. This validator does not check whether the credit card is an actual active credit card account.

I read over that block several times in a couple different places, but I never read it quite right. It does not just validate the number, it validates the credit card number is correct based on the type of card selected. So the CreditCardValidator also has properties for cardTypeSource and cardTypeProperty. And without setting those, and without the values of those being from the CreditCardValidatorCardType.[card type] static variables, the CreditCardValidator class can not actually validate the number.

I fought with this for quite a bit because I read the docs as it “can” validate card type, not it “must” validate card type. So keep an eye out and dont fall into the same trap I did.

Yep, thats right! Its ME. Check out Episode number 2 for the first half of my interview with Ryan and Jeff.

I really enjoyed having the opportunity to visit with these guys. Thanks So much for having me on The Flex Show

Better hurry just this morning they had 10 spots open for the 360Flex Conference. I just checked with John Wilker and there are only 2 left!

Yeah, you heard me right. Act fast or you will miss out on the best flex conference this year!

I am testing out Flock and wanted to post some pictures around my office. We have several tag charts and fun visuals.

Below you can see the CF 7 tag chart that is laminated and used as a desktop. Also on the wall in the background you can see the flex 2 beta 2 tag chart from Rocket Boots.

Your computer is part of your identity I have Apollo and CF Scropio Desktops on my monitors.

What does your office look like?

The guys at TUAW are reporting on how the guys at gizmodo got a chance to hang out with some VP’s at apple and do the hands on thing with the iPhone.

The long and short of it is:

• NOT OSX proper
• It will not be open to to 3rd party developers
• it will not include sycn via wifi or Edge
• No planned music downloads

So although the phone is pretty and its a widescreen ipod, it holds none of the prospects that I had hoped for in the device. So in truth what you see is what you get. Its a neat gadget, but it wont be on my desk anytime soon.

Although engadget reported on tuesday that they 2 companies were in “extensive discussions” and had planned to have “We expect to receive a signed agreement today(Tuesday).” It appears the two companies were unable to reach an amicable end to those discussions.

Today yahoo reports Cisco has suid Apple in federal court today over the user of the iPhone name. Cisco acquired the rights to the “iPhone” name when they purchased InfoGear Technology Corp. in 2000. Last month Cisco’s Linksys division put that name to use in branding their new VoIP phone. From the article:

“Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco’s iPhone name,” said Mark Chandler, Cisco senior vice president and general counsel, in a statement. “There is no doubt that Apple’s new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.”

It appears to me that Cisco may have underestimated the value of the iPhone name. And after agreeing to sell the name to Apple and allowing them to use the name in their presentation, they may have wanted fair market value. Apple’s stock did go up over $5 a share yesterday in response to the announcement. However it is entirely possible, that in true Job’s style, apple just assumed that anything “i” is theirs and they can do with it what they like. I am sure that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of those 2 things. Having not received the contracts back and having witnessed the market value of the name I think cisco may have reconsidered. Apple thinking that everything was done and just dealing with details went ahead and made some thunder.

At any rate, as a devoted member of the I love apple fan club I just ran over my linksys router with my truck in preperation for spending another $200 to replace it with a new Airport Extreme Take that Cisco.

Tomorrow evening I will have the pleasure of presenting to the Seattle Flex User Group via Connect. Ali contacted me and asked if I would be willing to put together a presentation and since I am working on this presentation for the Portland Adobe User Group this month I agreed.

I will be giving an overview of the flex product line and how Flex Builder fits into it. I will talk about getting to know flex builder and explain its relationship to Eclipse. I will also be talking about several of the new features and quirks of the Flex 2.0.1 update including using modules and loading css changes at runtime.

Since I will be presenting to the group via Connect please feel free to come on out and join us for the presentation. I believe we will be getting started at 7pm.

Join Seattle Flex Group for Using Flex Builder 2.0.1

I upgraded Flex Builder on my windows box (actually in parallels but who is counting) last night and had a bit of trouble. I downloaded the trial from the Adobe site last weekend and ran the installer. I just assumed that I had everything together and kept on working. I thought everything went great.

Then last night I was working on the demo app for my presentation to the Seattle Flex UG this week. I wanted to look up the syntax for loading a CSS stylesheet at runtime but i couldn’t find it in the docs. Well I remembered that I only had to right click on the css file in Flex Builder and then it would give me an option to compile. But the css option was not there either. I checked my version of Flex Builder and it said 2.0.1xxxx something. So I thought I must have things right. But that just turned out to not be the case.

I re-downloaded the trial installer last night and ran it again. Still no change in my files. I thought that was really weird, so I did a full un-install and then I ran the installer again. This time everything was just as I hoped. All my projects were fine, and I had the new updates that I had been missing.

Not sure what I did wrong, or if somehow I just go the wrong file to begin with, but if you run into issues where you dont have the information you think you should. Make sure you uninstall before you reinstall. Or if you already have Flex Builder installed then make sure you get the updater and skip all the trouble.