Brent Lamborn

Adobe Flex 3 Nested Radio Buttons

Brent — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:55:52 -0500

I’ve been working on a Flex radio button component that will allow users to select nested options. The control accepts an XMLList as the data source for the button options, and expands to show nested buttons beneath selected options according the data passed in to it. The nest level of radio buttons is essentially infinite.

The best way to understand it is to take a look.

Live Example View Source

For the moment, this is only a proof-of-concept version of the control. The control has 2 values to indicate selected values. One is bottomValue which holds only the value of the bottom-most selected radio button. The other is fullValue which holds a comma separated list of values beginning with the top-most value and ending with the bottom-most value.

With this version of the component, you can also pass in an initial bottomValue and the control will select all of the parent radio buttons recursively and accurately fill in the fullValue field.

Flex developers: Check out the control and let me know what you think! If there is significant interest, I’ll work on revising the component to feel more like a native Flex Framework control and add some additional features to it. It’s usable as is, but needs work to polish it up before it can used efficiently and reliably in a live Flex application.

Mint.com Hates Feed The Children

Brent — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:14:00 -0500

Mint.com just informed me that my monthly donation to Feed The Children was deducted from my checking account and that they "..hate those!" Check out the screen capture of the email:

U Comment I Follow

Brent — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:30:50 -0500

I finally got around to upgrading to the latest release of BlogEngine.NET a few weeks ago . The upgrade forced me to use a new theme that was compatible with the drag n' drop widget aspect of version 1.4.5. When I changed my theme, I inadvertently forgot to check and see if the new theme we set up for do-follow comments. I checked tonight and It wasn't!

So tonight I took a few minutes to change my code so all URLs submitted in the comments are now do-follow links (which was the case before I upgraded). This also includes links in the "Most Comments" section. If you are among the top 5 commenter's (in terms of quantity) over the last 60 days, your do-follow link will now show on nearly every page of this site.

So comment away and get a little link juice! It's just my way of saying thanks for checking out my blog!

Google's New Free Search-Based Keyword Tool

Brent — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:32:00 -0500

Have you seen Google's new keyword tool? I'm surprised I haven't read more about it throughout the affiliate blogosphere. Anyway, If you haven't seen it yet, check it out: http://www.google.com/sktool

Easy To Read Windows Update Log

Brent — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:14:00 -0500

Have you ever had a Windows Update run on your computer, and soon after your favorite application starts acting funny, or just plain freezes entirely? If you run Windows I can just about guarantee this has happened to you.

A quick solution to this is to remove the patches/updates Windows just dropped on you. To find which updates were just installed on your windows machine you can look in the Windows update log located at %windir%\Windowsupdate.log and try to decipher WTF it means, or you can use this script and generate an easy-to-read one:

--------------------------------------------------------------------

dir c:\windows\*.log /o:d | findstr /i /r /c:q......\.log /c:kb......\.log /c:q......uninst\.log /c:kb......uninst\.log > c:\TimeLine.log
pause

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Just copy the text between the dashed lines above into a new notepad file and save it as "UpdateLog.bat" somewhere on your machine. Then double-click the file to run it, and viola! - you'll have an easy to read log located at c:\timeline.log containing all the information you'll need to find and kill the windows update that is messing with your application.

The file will have the date & time the update was installed, and the name of the update. Just find the newest ones that were installed (it will be ordered oldest to newest and top to bottom), open up Add/Remove Programs, and uninstall the offending "patch" with the matching kb number.

Popping up HTML with Flex

Brent — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:22:00 -0500

I made a new example showing 3 ways to pop-up HTML content with Flex 3.2. You can view the example here:

Demo: http://www.brentlamborn.com/examples/popup/

Source: http://www.brentlamborn.com/examples/popup/srcview/index.html

I also posted an article over at the Flex Cookbook.

Looking Ahead To 09

Brent — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:00:54 -0500

I kicked off my 2009 with a quick 48 hr jaunt to Las Vegas for New Years Eve. It was a really fun and much needed trip for me. The best part is that I spent under $100 on the entire trip - including my flight home! The friend I went with travels A LOT so it was his travel tips that enabled such a cheap trip for me. The spirit the adventure got me thinking about the year ahead and what my priorities should be. Here is what I came up with:

Have more fun. Spending more time than usual with friends and family over the holidays has made me realize that I need to set aside more time for fun. I usually work about 12 hours a day during the week. I think if I took 1 day out of those 5 and only worked 8 hours that day, the rest of my work will be more productive.
Be more frugal. I'm not too bad at making money, but I am horrible when it comes to managing it. I waste a lot of money on small things here and there and I don't balance my checkbook ever. In November I started using Mint.com - a site that helps you manage your personal finances. The charts and reports they have are amazing (not to mention they are built using Adobe Flex! :) ). Using their interface, I saw I spent about $88 on fast food in both November and December. Disgusting! By being more frugal I'll be able to pay off some debts and I'll probably wind up healthier as well.
Exercise. I used to run 5 miles every morning. I'm not sure if I've ran 5 steps in months! I love to run so am going to start again.
Launch "The Site" I haven't mentioned this before on my blog, but I've been working on coding a new social site! My friend Jon has an absolutely brilliant idea for a social/content site affectionately known as "The Site" by he, I and those who know of it. It does have a name and even a domain but I'm not mentioning it here on this blog. What I will tell you is that this site is like nothing ever conceived. You will likely hear about it on some A-lister's blog, or by word-of-mouth sometime on or around April 1. The idea is purely Jon's, I am simply coding this baby. Everyone who hears the idea has wants to be involved in some way. This sucker is going to go big time!

That's it! That is a look forward into what my 2009 will be like. I'll continue to work on becoming a better programmer and internet marketer , but the above 4 things will be priority 1.

Your 2008 Charitable Giving

Brent — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 10:59:00 -0500

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! For me, one of the most rewarding parts of Christmas is giving to those who are less fortunate than I. Having traveled to the Horn of Africa with the Marines over a decade ago, I experienced the plight of the people there (especially the children) first hand. Because of that experience ( see photos) I choose to give to the Abandoned Babies and Children Center which is an organization that is in the process of helping babies and children in Kenya right now. Now I'd like to encourage you to help as well!

I know it's not why you or your friends give, but time is running out to take advantage of the tax benefits of your 2008 charitable giving. The deadline for tax benefits on 2008 returns is days away and abandoned babies need help now. What better time than the start of a New Year to invest in a child's future? Babies unlucky enough to be born in one of the poorest places on earth need help just to survive. You can help provide everything an abandoned baby needs to grow and thrive. Plus, you'll get a tax break in April.

You can give as little as $5 so why not give now and help children and babies!

Embed YouTube Videos Inside A Flex Application

Brent — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:55:00 -0500

I recently ran across a question in a Flex forum from a visitor asking how to embed YouTube videos inside Flex . The solution is very simple. Since the YouTube player is a Flash object itself, we can simply use the SWFLoader object to load the Youtube video into our Flex app. You just need to copy the embed code on the YouTube page for the video you want to embed in your application. It will look like this:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie"

value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zlfKdbWwruY&hl=en&fs=1">

</param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">

</param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">

</param><embed src=http://www.youtube.com/v/zlfKdbWwruY&hl=en&fs=1

 type="application/x-shockwave-flash"

allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"

width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Then just grab the URL to the video from the embed code and use it as the source property for your SWFLoader. I created a working sample here with view source enabled.

The Flex Component Lifecycle

Brent — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:48:00 -0500

This is an excellent video detailing the lifecycle of Adobe Flex components. Unless you are an expert Flex dev, you are almost certain to hear a tip that will improve your applications efficiency by watching it. I really wish I would have known even just some of the information in this video before beginning work on my recent projects. I'm including it here on my blog for my own reference, as well as any Flex devs that happen upon my other Flex posts. It's about an hour long - but well worth the time!

How Microsoft Sells Operating Systems

Brent — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:34:35 -0500

I have a unique vantage point on the Microsoft world. I am a programmer who happens to use Microsoft products to built the applications I create. I've been programming using Microsoft tools and frameworks since Visual Studio 2002 and the .NET Framework 1.0 came out in early 2002; so they pretty much have me trained on thinking like a .NET developer. In that time I've noticed the following pattern from Microsoft:

Start developing a new OS
While developing a new OS, also develop new frameworks and tools for .NET developers
About the time the new OS is to be delivered, release Beta versions of the new frameworks and development tools.
Require the installation of the new OS by developers in order to use the new Beta versions of the new frameworks and development tools
Repeat

What this does is cause the developers who are hooked (eg. brainwashed (eg. programming is a way of thinking) ) on the .NET framework to want to try the new tools. So the pattern for developers is like this:

"Oh look at this! Kick ass new tools?! They're like a little bowl of oatmeal with a hole in it! I must get them!"
"Oh crap, I need to upgrade my OS to use these kick ass new tools!?" "Hmmm...."
"Hmmm..." some more.
"Shiny new tools are cool! - must upgrade!"
Uprade to new MS Operating System
"Hmmm...the OS sucks but the tools are SWEET!!"
Develop shiny new applications that require end user to also upgrade their OS!

Essentially what happens then is one influential .NET developer (especially managers) who happens to be wooed by the latest shiny new development tools can have a huge cascading affect on the number of people who buy the newest Microsoft OS. That is what Steve Ballmer meant when he said this a couple years ago:

This isn't earth shattering news by any means. All .NET devs knows this. But for anyone not-so-close to the world of software, you now know how Microsoft does business!

Kick Ass Flex Debugger

Brent — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:16:00 -0500

I just found a new debugger for Adobe Flex applications. It pretty much works along the same lines as Firebug does for debugging web pages. The debugger is called Kap Inspect. To use it in your Flex apps, all you have to do is include the SWC file in your project, add the namespace, and a single MXML tag and you are up and running.

With your Flex app running in the browser just hit Ctrl + Alt + F12 and a debugger window will pop-up that allows you to inspect events process, check the design and the styles, manipulate objects properties and more.

Here is a demo you can try out. One thing I really like is that I can use it even without running my app in Debug mode! If you do any Flex development I suggest you check it out!

Another Web Dev in the Family?

Brent — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:02:00 -0500

Elementary school can be quite the secret society sometimes. If you've ever asked your 4th grader what they did at school on any given day you know it can be like pulling teeth! Today my son Tayler (Limited Edition #2 of 5 ... lol) who is a 4th grader told us he's been developing a website at school! Awesome! Here is the site he's been working on, along with other 4th grader's in Mrs. Carter's class. Way to go kids!

I watched their latest post and learned the students at Tayler's school held a mock vote to coincide with the recent presidential election. The kids at Dodge School elected Barack Obama president! I think I might have to substitute teach one day and give a lesson on capitalism..ha ha.

Anyway, it's great to see the public schools embracing technology; albeit Mac flavored!

Note to self: Teach Tayler PPC!

Windows Live Explained

Brent — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:58:00 -0500

So what is Windows Live anyway? Some of you might think of Live.com and see it as only a search engine, but it's much more! Luckily Common Craft has created a video that explains the whole thing in simple English! Check it out:

Tour de Flex

Brent — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:30:00 -0500

If you are a Flex developer or are interested in Flex, I suggest you check out Tour de Flex! Tour de Flex is a desktop application for exploring Flex capabilities and resources, including the core Flex components, Adobe AIR and data integration, as well as a variety of third-party components, effects, skins, and more.

Tour de Flex has three primary purposes:

Provide non-Flex developers with a good overview of what is possible in Flex in a “look and see” environment
Provide Flex developers with an illustrated reference tool
Provide commercial and non-commercial Flex developers a place to showcase their work

It's about a 50 mb download so be patient!

Tour de Flex includes over 200 runnable samples, each with source code, links to documentation, and other details. Topics include the Flex Core Components, Flex Data Access, AIR Desktop Capabilities, Cloud APIs, Data Visualization, Mapping, and a growing collection of custom components, effects, skins, etc.

Note: If you don't want to download the entire AIR app, but still want to look at some of the examples go here.