NextGenApp.com

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

App stores - mobile, flash, and beyond

Here are some of the appstores.

Adobe Marketplace
Flash platform promotion service
Android Market - for Google Android phones
Chrome Web Store - appstore for web app - for Google Chrome Browser
Sun Java App Store
Intel AppUp Center - for netbooks and atom cpu devices
Windows Market Place for Mobile
BlackBerry App World
Nokia Ovi Store
Palm Pre WebOS App Store
iPhone Appstore

AIR 3.2 SDK upgrade error: error while loading initial content

I run into the same error, thanks to dancashman.com for solution.
http://blog.dancashman.com/?p=30

Need to update the AIR descriptor file's xml namespace.

Summary:

Update your descriptor file namespace (yourApplication-app.xml)

New Value:
<application xmlns=”http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/1.5” >

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Tip: Flex with https require the web page to be https too

Just a quick tip.

Flex can make SSL call by simply specify "https" in the url of HTTPService. However, the enclosing page must be in https for this to work. Otherwise, you may get "Security Sandbox Violation" like the one below:

*** Security Sandbox Violation ***

Connection to https://graph.facebook.com/me/friends?access_token=xyz halted - not permitted from http://localhost:8888/xyz/xyz.swf

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Facebook f8 announcements: Graph api, OpenGraph protocol, and plugins

Today's Facebook F8 conference has 3 major announcements

1. Plugins for 3rd-party websites
2. Graph API
3. OpenGraph protocol

1. plugins for 3rd-party websites

This includes:
Activity stream plugin – allows other website to add Facebook “news feed” to their site
Social bar plugin – allows other website to add barlet at bottom of their site. Chat included.javascript:void(0)
Like plugin – allows other website to add Facebook “Like” button
Login plugin – can show which of your friends have login to this site.
Recommendation plugin

2. Graph API

Facebook have overhauled their api. The so-called "Graph" api is now the way for apps to access all api.

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api

3. OpenGraph protocol
This requires some explanation.

OpenGraph protocol specifies a set of structured meta data that can be more easily understood and categorized by machines. Once a 3rd-party website embed these data, it allows facebook to include the site and these data as part of the Facebook OpenGraph.

Eg. IMDB website can use OpenGraph protocol to describe a movie object

<html xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/"
      xmlns:fb="http://developers.facebook.com/schema/">
   <head>
   <title>The Rock (1996)</title>
   <meta property="og:title" content="The Rock" />
     <meta property="og:type" content="movie" />
     <meta property="og:url" content="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/ "/>
     <meta property="og:image" content="http://ia.media-imdb.com/rock.jpg" />
    ...
   </head>
  ...
</html>

When this is included, Facebook can store this site as an object in the OpenGraph. And that object will have these properties: title="The Rock", type="movie", url="...", image="...".

How is OpenGraph significant?

If facebook's vision of opengraph succeed, they could be the connector of the web!

In terms of the flexibility and coverage, what facebook wants to do with OpenGraph may seem like a baby step comparing to what Semantic Web wants to do. Facebook only define a small set of predefined meta data. While semantic web have various powerful ontologies already defined. However, with facebook's reach and appeal, facebook might finally get a lot of website owners to embed structured metadata, which would be a significant milestone for semantic web in any case. This may turn out to be a giant leap for semantic web.

Apple should not limit the language used by developers

Many people were pretty upset about Apple's decision two weeks ago to ban users from using other programming language to develop iPhone app. All I can say is that I did not remember Microsoft banning developers from using other languages to develop on Windows. Apple seems to be worse than Microsoft in this case.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Event: FLEX 4 Launch Tour and Livecycle Code Night

FLEX 4 Launch Tour and Livecycle Code Night

Thursday April 1st

6:30 Pizza, 7pm Meeting

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Data binding in Flex

Data binding (usually done using {} in mxml) is one of the best features in Flex. It simplifies a lot of coding. Underneath the hood, Flex actually generates a lot of code to handle the data binding.

Note:

You can skip the rest of this article and just read Chapter 40 of the Flex Developer Guide.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/devguide_flex3.pdf

The easiest way to do data binding is {} in mxml. It is so easy to use and so easy to understand that it is like magic. However, one often has questions about what can or cannot be put into the {}. Object properties (eg. object1.abc) are definitely allowed. Chains like object1.subobj.subsubobj.subsubsubobj.property are also allowed. Is functions allowed? Is array allowed? The best source is chapter 40 of the Flex Developer Guide.