I recently got a Nexus One phone and I’m very excited about the development potential with AIR, Flash Player and Android! Since this is a whole new world to me, I thought I would write up a post summarizing my first experience with Android mobile development. I had ventured down the iPhone/Objective-C path awhile back but the syntax was so different than my Java and other development experience and with my limited time for side projects it just wasn’t working for me. Being able to leverage my ActionScript/Flex skills for the mobile world is beyond cool! Before going into the details of my first little app however, I think it’s important to go over some terminology to clear up for those who may not know all the mobile jargon.iPhone: a type of phone designed by Apple (multiple manufacturers). Runs the iOS Operating System, same as the iTouch and iPad. Multiple models include iPhone 3G, 3GS and recently announced iPhone 4 which will run the iOS version 4.BlackBerry: one of the first smartphones to become popular among business users, and developed by Research In Motion (aka: RIM). Runs a proprietary BlackBerry OS.Nexus One: a type of phone manufactured by HTC for Google, runs the Android OSDroid: a type of phone made by Motorola, runs the Android OSAndroid: Google’s mobile OS (Operating System) originally launched in September, 2008Eclair : The codename for Android OS version 2.1Froyo: The codename for Android OS version 2.2 – just recently announcedHTC : a cell phone manufacturer, like Motorolaapk : An android package file extension. This is the type of file needed to install to the Android OS.Adobe AIR 2.5 – the version of AIR that has support for Android, with tools to package apk files from the command line. With this version you can turn an AIR app into an Android app. Adobe announced the AIR for Android Public Beta program in May, here are details of the announcement. My first app… Since I’m a big runner, I decided it could be useful to develop a run tracker application for my phone. Serious runners tend to keep track of their mileage, pace etc so they can track their progress for training purposes. So with this in mind I went into Flash Builder and created my ‘RunTracker’ project. It’s made up of some tabs that allow you to input your running data and calculate pace, as well as show your history and pace trend in a simple line graph. The app uses SQLite (local database built into AIR) to save the run data. Here are a few screen shots taken from the Android emulator. The code for the project and the apk are located here for reference.A quick summary of the steps is outlined below. More can be found in the developer documentation at the AIR for Android Public Beta site. The Developing_AIR_apps_for_Android.pdf is a must read document and outlines all of the steps in-depth. There’s also a great article by Christian Cantrell on Adobe Devnet that goes into designing apps for multiple platforms and screen resolutions that is worth a read here too.1) Download the AIR 2.5 SDK and Android tools. Everything you need can be found in the documentation once you sign up for the AIR for Android public beta. 2) Create your AIR app to be used for mobile. NOTE: You need to change the WindowedApplication to an Application tag and then be sure to set visible to true in your app-descriptor.xml file such as: <!-- Whether the window is initially visible. Optional. Default false. --> <visible>true</visible>The following icon sizes should also be specified for low, medium, high density screens respectively. This is the icon that will show on your phone menu. <icon> <image36x36>assets/icon36.png</image36x36> <image48x48>assets/icon48.png</image48x48> <image72x72>assets/icon72.png</image72x72> </icon>3) Package your application using the adt command line tool and package an AIR application for Android. For example:adt -package -target apk -storetype pkcs12 -keystore ../../myCert.p12 RunTracker.apk RunTracker-app.xml RunTracker.swf assets/runner72.png4) Install it to either the Android emulator or smartphone device. NOTE: The emulator is VERY SLOW. I would HIGHLY recommend using a phone if you have one. I almost gave up on AIR for Android development when I had only tried the emulator because of the performance, but it’s a whole different experience when installing to your phone so don’t be dismayed! You can use the -r option to reinstall it after the first time. Make sure to exit out of the application before doing the re-install. You can specify a -d for the phone or -e for the emulator, but if you only have one of them connected or running it will use that one by default. For instance, since I have my phone connected and my emulator running, I would use this option to install to my phone only:adt -d install -r RunTracker.apkAlso, as part of the development I noticed a few things to point out. Certain components don’t work so well out of the box without some tweaking. For instance the Spark NumericStepper. The default arrow buttons were much too small to click on easily on the Nexus One. I decided to take advantage of the Flex 4 skinning features and create a custom skin for my NumericStepper with increment and decrement buttons that used icons and were bigger than the default ones. Since by default the keyboard would pop up on the Android device when the user clicked into the NumericStepper (so numbers can be entered versus using the arrow keys), I also added a restrict property to the TextInput part of my custom NumericStepper that would restrict the entered values to numeric only. There are more features I plan to add to this little app and will continue to play around with things as the AIR for Android features progress, but it was fun to get my feet wet and see what it was about and I encourage you to do the same. And if you’re a runner too, grab the apk and try it out!

Adobe AIR 2.0 was officially released today by Adobe. What does that mean to you as a developer? If you haven’t checked out the latest features in AIR 2.0 or Adobe AIR at all, now is the time! Adobe AIR allows you to build Rich Internet Applications (RIA’s) for the desktop. It offers all the benefits of an RIA outside the confines of a browser and provides access to the File System, local database (SQLite), online/offline capabilities and more. The version 2.0 released today adds native process support, multi-touch and gesture handling, microphone capabilities, socket communication and other important features worth checking out. I recently worked on a bunch of samples for Tour de Flex that show off many of the new features in Adobe AIR 2, they can be found here. The Adobe AIR runtime and SDK are both downloadable for free. AND… one of the most exciting and compelling reasons you should make it a point to start building apps with AIR is that you will soon be able to go mobile! Check out the AIR for Android program to see how you can write AIR apps that run natively on your Android device! I’ve built a couple of apps myself for my Nexus One and I’m personally very excited about how easy it is. You can have the same application running from your desktop that could be communicating with a LiveCycle Data Services server or BlazeDS ported over to your mobile device in minutes. An example of one such application can be found here.You can also check out the Adobe AIR Marketplace to find oodles of AIR apps for download.

Update immediately! A serious directory traversal vulnerability has been discovered that affects all versions of Facelift.  It could allow an attacker to retrieve plaintext versions of any file that PHP can read. This could include your WordPress database settings, for example. It is bad.A patched version has already been made available at the facelift homepage.  If you downloaded facelift in the last couple days and the zip file was either *2.0b3-B or 1.2.2 then you have the patched version. If not you should either update your Facelift installation or remove generate.php immediately.To update your Facelift installation, please download an updated version. Overwrite the generate.php in your install with the patched version from the download. You can leave your config-flir.php and all other files alone. The problem only affects generate.php.Many Facelift plugins are available for Drupal, Joomla, WordPress  etc.  I’ve already contacted as many of these authors as I could and most have already issued fixes.The problem exists in generate.php and is due to a variable not being properly sanitized. Big thanks goes out of Johannes Herbst for discovering the problem.If you are using one of the third-party plugins, please update your plugin immediately.Manually Fix:The problem can be fixed by changing one line in generate.php:Facelift v1.2:$FLIR[output] = isset($FStyle[output]) ? ($FStyle[output]==jpeg?jpg:$FStyle[output]) : auto;Change Toswitch ( $FStyle[output] ) { default: $FLIR[output] = auto; break; case png: $FLIR[output] = png; break; case gif: $FLIR[output] = gif; break;}Facelift v2.0b3$FLIR[output] = isset($FStyle[output]) ? $FStyle[output] : png;Change Toswitch ( $FStyle[output] ) { default: $FLIR[output] = auto; break; case png: $FLIR[output] = png; break; case gif: $FLIR[output] = gif; break;}

De acordo com o Art. 396 da CLT, todas as mulheres que estejam empregadas e que acabaram de gerar seus filhos tem o direito de amamentá-los até que estes completem 06 (seis) meses de idade.Este direito é definido durante a jornada de trabalho e são dois descansos diários especiais, de meia hora cada um.Se a saúde do seu filho ainda exigir, um médico poderá estender esse período por um período superior aos 06 (seis) meses legais.É importante vocês saberem que esse período não pode ser unificado num único intervalo de uma hora e conversem sempre com seu empregador a fim de definirem um melhor horário que atenda às necessidades do seu filho.[Translate]Lomadee, uma nova espécie na web. A maior plataforma de afiliados da América Latina

Foi divulgada através de publicação no Diário Oficial do Estado do Paraná em 30/03/2010, a Lei nº 16.470 de 30/03/2010, que determinou os novos valores dos pisos salariais para as categorias  que não tem piso salarial definido em lei federal, convenção ou acordo coletivo, incluindo as empregadas domésticas no Paraná.A partir da competência 05/2010, todos os empregadores que pagam salário mínimo às suas empregadas deverão corrigir o valor paraR$ 688,50 (seiscentos e oitenta e oito reais, cinquenta centavos)Importante que vocês também não se esqueçam de atualizar o recolhimento previdenciário, pago todo mês através do carnê de INSS, a vencer em 15/06/2010, considerando para tanto os seguintes percentuais incidentes sobre o novo valor do salário mínimo:Empregador    -   Contribuição de 12%Empregado      -   Contribuição de 8%Sendo a contribuição total a pagar deR$ 137,70 (cento e trinta e sete reais, setenta centavos).[Translate]Lomadee, uma nova espécie na web. A maior plataforma de afiliados da América Latina

Im Online-Shop Posterlounge.de erwarten den Besucher die schönsten Bilder der besten zeitgenössischen Illustratoren als Kunstdruck im Großformat, auf Leinwand oder sogar in Form von individuell bedruckter Tapete. Künstler können hier ihre Werke einer Vielzahl von potentiellen Kunden anbieten.Erfahren Sie mehr über diesen Shop im Interview mit Falk Teßmer. Vollständigen Beitrag lesen »

Als ich heute Nachmittag versucht hatte wer-kennt-wen.de aufzurufen, erschien mir dieses Bild: Chuck Norris hat zwar nichts an der Seite gemacht, aber dennoch besitzt er mehr Kreditkarten als Max Mustermann. Ich könnte mich über so ziemlich jeden Chuck Norris Spruch kugeln, am besten gefällt mir dieser hier:Chuck Norris isst keinen Honig. Er kaut auf Bienen rum!Solche lustigen Meldungen häufen sich in letzter Zeit sehr oft. Mit Humor muss man dem Benutzer entgegentreten, dann kann man es einem ja nicht krummnehmen.

Kennt ihr das auch? Oft umgezogen, viele Schulen besucht, viele Menschen kennengelernt, aus den Augen verloren!Das ist eben der Lauf der Zeit, aber was ist aus den Menschen geworden? Wo sind sie geblieben? Was machen sie jetzt? Die Wahrscheinlichkeit ist sehr gering, dass jemand von den Menschen, die ich im Laufe meiner Schullaufbahn kennengelernt habe, mal hier vorbei schaut, aber sollte dies der Fall sein, dann hinterlasse doch einfach ein Kommentar Ich würde mich sehr freuen.

O’Reilly’s Velocity conference is THE place you want to be if you are in the Web ops and performance field. This is the third year of the conference started by Steve Souders and Jesse Robbins and it is the place where all the important people in the field gather once a year. This is my first year I’ll be able to attend Velocityconf live here in Santa Clara and I’m very excited about it.Anyone not able to attend Velocity live can still learn a lot of what’s going on by watching the keynotes that will be streamed live and made available later on demand. Being here, I’ll try to come up with some short blog post on what I found interesting and think might be valuable for the readers of my blog. If you are interested in something in particular ping me on twitter or send me an email, and if possible I’ll try to attend and write about it.Today is a full workshop day and I’ll be attending some very interesting ones: “Scalable Internet Architectures”, “Cassandra Workshop”, “Infrastructure Automation with Chef” and “Cloud Security: It Ain’t All Fluffy and Blue Sky Out There!”. It should be a great day with many interesting talks, and later in the evening some cool BoFs and Ignite Sessions.

It is important to change your background so it is not the default Twitter page. If you leave it as one of the standard twitter choices you are missing opportunity to set yourself apart from others. Remember that many users still manually look at each person to determine if they will follow back or not. Distinguish yourself from the crowd, attract more followers, and appear professional.Your background can be packed with a lot of additional information to tell more about you. You can add information that promotes much more than you can add to your bio.If you are a graphics guru, then you can do your own background. Create a professional background with all of your information and upload it to your profile. If you are graphically challenged or simply want to save time, there are some helpful resources to help you with your twitter background. Simply Google “twitter backgrounds” and you will find quite a few sites offering this service for free. Here are a couple that I have tried with success Twitbacs has some great backgrounds and has some of the source files if you want to tweak our background.Search Flickr for twitter backgrounds to find some resources. Be sure you check the license before using someone’s work.Twitrbackgrounds has many to choose from and can create a custom background for you

There are really only two basic types of Tweets. Replies (also called @mentions) or retweets.@Mention or RepliesYou can reply to someone’s Tweet simply by putting the @symbol in front of their name. For example, “@HolyWebMaker, your blog is awesome!” This makes the tweet appears in their reply page instead of in the general Tweetstream. This is a great way to start conversations with people and establish relationships. Simply comment on one of their tweets or mention something you read on their blog. Many of the Twitter client applications make this simple.RetweetingPeople appreciate retweets and it is a good way to get noticed by others. All you do is put RT in front of the @username. Separate their tweet from your comment if you have one. A common practice is to put two pipes “||” in between their comment and yours (if you can make it fit)If other people retweet your tweets, make it a habit to thank them. It’s common courtesy. Simply tweet @username Thanks for RT :-) and send.

Wireless communications, social networking and medicine may converge soon. From the report Consumers and Health Information Technology: A National Survey:“Most respondents say we should not let privacy concerns stop us from learning how health IT can improve health care. More than half of adults are interested in using online applications to track health-related factors, and almost half are interested in medical devices that can be connected to the Internet.”“Two-thirds of American physicians have smart-phones. Over one-third of American doctors use Epocrates, a program for mobiles and laptops which offers instant information on drug-to-drug interactions, treatment recommendations and so on. The software will soon be able to access electronic health records (EHRs) via mobiles which could be the killer application of wireless health.” Source: The Economist.Posted by Jaap Bloem: @MeTheMedia.

Hi everyone,Spotted an interesting situation on usd/chf, facing major trendline support at 50% retracement. We could get a rebound here but guessing were the stops are placed why shouldn’t we profit from their actions?? A stop hunt is more than probable and it could possibly extend to 1.0600 (61.8% FIB) after resuming the bullish trend.  Its all about swissy’s strength today…César B.Leiceaga Tags: chf, swiss franc, swissy, usd, usdchf, usdchf 28 June 2010, usdchf forex, usdchf trading

Ah, spring!  The time of year when I dig through my closets and boxes looking for a lightweight jacket and never find one right for the not-quite-warm-enough weather.  The time of year when I throw open all the windows and pretend airing out the house is somehow the same as cleaning it.  The time of year when I throw out my back doing the season’s first yard work.  What a marvelous time! I’ve fallen a few strips behind after tweaking my back earlier in the week.  Sitting and drawing was uncomfortable, and I was a little worried about my poor posture aggravating the injury.  Well, my poor drawing posture was probably partly to blame for my hurting myself in the first place, too.  I usually hunch over a drawing pad on the couch or armchair for the initial sketching and inking.  The sad thing is that I have an actual drawing table.  It’s just buried in so much STUFF that there’s no room for drawing.  Terrible! In summary, I blame my lack of new comics on my back injury, which I blame on drawing comics.  No, wait, I was blaming spring.  Sunshine, drawing, and lack of drawing.  Thse are my nemeses.  I shall ponder how best to thwart them while continuing to lounge around er… rest my back.  (More comics soon, promise.)Happy fluffy bunny new blossom leafy time!

We frequently get requests for inclusions in RePEc, and often these are complaints that some papers on a university department web page or a personal home page are not being picked up. RePEc is not Google. RePEc does not have a web spider that wanders the web and looks for research in Economics. I do not even think it would be possible to do so, as identifying research and Economics on an automatic basis is very difficult.Material listed on RePEc is submitted, either by about 1200 participating archives, that each have followed our instructions, or by authors themselves at the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA). No need to send us links or papers. Just make sure your publisher participates, and if not upload your papers at MPRA (what you can in general also do for published material, see this previous blog entry).And if you are really interested in a web spider for Economics, there is the Economic Search Engine (ESE), which uses in part RePEc data to search and index the subset of the web most likely related to Economics.