joshbuhler.com

I just found out this morning that I’ll be speaking at 360|Flex Indy in May! I’ll be speaking on using Events, and how to do more with them beyond the basic addEventListener() call that we all know and love.

Luckily, I just checked out the schedule, and I get to present on the first day, right after the keynote, so I can get my session out of the way, and enjoy the rest of the conference, stress free.

You can check out the schedule for the conference and see who else will be there, and what there presenting here: http://360conferences.com/360flex/downloads/schedule.pdf

If you’re thinking about going, you’ll want to register ASAP, as the tickets are cheaper on a first come, first serve basis. So register at http://360flex.eventbrite.com now to get the best possible price.

Now, in case you’re curious, here’s the session description I submitted:

Working with Events in Flex and ActionScript 3.0 is something that we all do on a regular basis - but do we really know how to take advantage of everything that the Event flow in AS3 has to offer? What are the different phases of an event’s life? What exactly is an Event’s priority? This session will cover the life of an Event - how to create one, listen to it though various stages of it’s life, and if needs be, kill it without mercy. We’ll also cover creating your own custom events, and how to clean up after yourself when you’re done using an Event.

See you in May!

Pop quiz: In AS3, are static methods & variables inherited by subclasses?

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I’ve been having a blast with this thing, and if you haven’t downloaded it yet for some reason, do it now.

Unfortunately, I got a bit ahead of myself, and posted this application with a few (stupid) bugs. I’ve fixed those, and posted a new version online:

ElectionDashboard 1.1.1

Versions 1.1.0 and up have auto-updating built into them, in case I find another bug. Anything prior to that, and you’ll need to first uninstall the app before installing the latest.

UPDATE: I’ve made a few tweaks to the app, like adding an icon, as well as a progress window to let you know when the application is updating it’s data. You can download the newest version using the same link below. I’ve also included some auto-update goodness, in case I need to fix another bug.

Before installing the new version you must FIRST UNINSTALL the previous one, or installation will fail. However, once you have version 1.1.0 installed, there will be a “Check for Updates” link in the app to simplify the update process if you need to update.

Last night I came across a pretty cool idea for displaying the election results using DMX lighting. Basically, the election results are scraped from CNN, and then the shade of the room’s mood lighting is adjusted from red to blue based on the current results.

The guy behind this project posted his code for grabbing the info, and so I’ve adapted it into AS3, and made a really basic AIR app you can leave running on your desktop for at-a-glance results. You won’t get any detailed results like you would from CNN, just a simple needle leaning in the direction of the results, that updates every five minutes.

Until results actually start coming in, this won’t display anything, so I wouldn’t expect it to really start working until later today.

You can install the app using the badge found on my other site: http://ghostradio.net/apps/

Working on a recent project, I needed to collect mailing addresses, and to get the state info I decided use a ComboBox. I know I’ve done this before in the past, so I went looking for the code defining the list of states so I wouldn’t have to type it all up again, but after about five minutes I gave up and started looking online. After all, I’m sure someone has made one of these things before in the past, right?
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It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted, and here’s one of the reasons I’ve been so busy lately…

iamdeepa on flex » Josh Buhler, Brian Telintelo - See you at MAX!

Once I get one more project taken care of, I’ll be able to get back into a more regular posting schedule again. Until then, see you in November!

Lately I’ve been working on preparing myself to take the Adobe Flex 2 Certification exam. I’ve always thought of myself as a Flash, not Flex developer, so this one was a bit of a challenge for me. For as much as I use it, there’s still a lot of things that I still don’t quite get.

So for the last few weeks leading up to my exam appointment, I’ve been cramming like crazy, and writing a lot of Flex code trying to learn and get as much studying in as I can.

Apparently, it paid off. I didn’t get as high of a score on the test as I had wanted to, but the important thing is that I passed. Plus, I now know a lot more about Flex 2 than I think I had ever initially planned on knowing. Of course, doing this reminded me that I never renewed my Flash MX2004 certifications for Flash 8 or CS3, so I think I’m going start working on those now…

Update: Since I’ve been slacking lately on the blogging, I’ve neglected posting some of the study materials I used to get ready for the exam. I still haven’t done that. But a friend of mine who recently passed the exam just wrote an excellent summary of the stuff he used to prep for the exam, and it’s pretty much the same stuff I used. Rather than duplicate his list, I’ll just send you directly to it.

Adobe Flex Certification Study Materials

If you’re working on a project that’s prone to timing out on you, and throwing those “A script has executed for longer than the default timeout period of 15 seconds” errors, here’s a quick tip for you until fix the bugs causing the timeout.

Just set the scriptTimeLimit attribute of your <mx:Application> tag to a smaller value, like 3 seconds. That way you won’t need to wait around for a while waiting for your app to crash so you can get back to debugging the problem. It’ll crash in about 3 seconds instead of 15, or even a full minute later.

Obviously, the ideal solution is to fix the bug causing the timeout, but while you’re debugging, this should help to ease the pain a little bit.

LiveDocs: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/mx/core/Application.html#scriptTimeLimit

Footnote is currently looking for a Sr. Flash Developer. This person will be responsible for the architecture, maintenance, and implementation of new features for Flash-related content on Footnote.com, including our Document Viewer.

Qualifications

• Must have experience using Flex 2 and ActionScript 3.0
• Work closely with the design team, and implement Flex skins based on design comps
• Strong understanding of OOP techniques
• Experience using XML in ActionScript
• JavaScript and PHP skills strongly recommended
• Understanding of and experience in Agile programming methods recommended
• Technical writing skills and the ability to document code appreciated

Salary Range:
Unspecified

Application Instructions:
Please email a copy of your resume and a cover letter to Scott Jackman - sjackman[AT]footnote.com