alekkus

Adobe Flex training course finally arrives in Singapore (or maybe Southeast Asia)

February 27, 2009

During the RIAction held at Microsoft’s Singapore office yesterday, LABSchool, an Adobe Authorized Training Center, unveils its Flex training course. I will be teaching the course, together with some of the dudes in FUG. If you are interested in taking up, feel free to contact me or LABSchool.

Flex tutorial: Convert unicode (UTF16) to text, and vice verse

February 27, 2009

In contrary to most mashup api services that uses UTF8, Twitter returns non-Latin characters encoded in UTF16. After googling, seems like many people have issues with converting UTF16 encoded characters to proper text and vice verse. There might be other better ways, but here’s what I have done. Feel free to comment.

A UTF converter that I always used is this.

Demo:
Unicode Converter (view source enabled)

Source Codes
Right-click on application to view source.

Microsoft’s next attempt to move into the web space: Social Desktop

February 25, 2009

After several “not-so-successful” attempt, here is the next candidate that (Microsoft hopes) can make people shift their paradigm of Microsoft being just a offline software giant.

Essence of Web 2.0 success: avoiding pain or seeking pleasure

February 21, 2009

In McKinsey’s recent report, Six ways to make Web 2.0 work. I strongly stand by point 4:
Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs—not just their wallets; this is analogous to The Pain and Pleasure Principle. People are largely motivated by avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. Hence, if your site offers services that help your users achieve either of those, you should have substantial success.

However, there’s always a gap between your assumption and the reality. Many startups don’t understand why their “engaging” site did not pick up. Well, they just have to accept the fact that their definition of “engagement” is just not relevant to their users.

The power of the web

February 19, 2009

There’s no doubt the internet is the best invention so far.

Hooking up to Friendfeed API

February 18, 2009

See what I’ve created while experimenting with Friendfeed API. Check it out here.

Next on the to-do list: allow commenting or “like this” directly from the application.

[update Feb 18, 2009] Adding comments and “like this” functions are easier than thought. They are now included. Check it out.

[update Mar 03, 2009] See also Twitter Demo.

Flex tutorial: Popup warning before browser closes

February 16, 2009

As the title implies, this post will show you how to ask for user confirmation before the browser window closes or navigated away from the current url.

We will make use of the onbeforeunload event in javascript. So first of all, you will need to insert the following into index.template.html.

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
window.onbeforeunload = function()
{
	var swfApp = ${application};

	return swfApp.onCloseApplication();
}
</script>

The all you need is to add a callback function onCloseApplication in your main application (see codes below).

Demo:
Application Exit Warning (view source enabled)

Source Codes: main application

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application
	xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
	layout="absolute"
	backgroundColor="#F8F8F8"
	creationComplete="onCreationComplete()">

<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
	private function onCreationComplete() : void
	{
		if ( ExternalInterface.available )
		{
			ExternalInterface.addCallback( "onCloseApplication",
				function():String
				{
					if ( chkDisplayMessage.selected )
					{
						return txtMsg.text;
					}
					return null;
				} );
		}
	}
]]>
</mx:Script>

	<mx:CheckBox
		id="chkDisplayMessage"
		x="37" y="29"
		label="Display message upon application exit"/>

	<mx:Label x="37" y="59" text="Message:"/>

	<mx:TextInput
		id="txtMsg"
		x="104" y="57"
		text="Please don't close me."/>

	<mx:Label x="37" y="107" color="#666666" text="*Check on the above checkbox, then close/navigate away from the current url."/>
</mx:Application>

A Photo Viewer with Zooming and Hand Tool features

February 15, 2009

While working on a Photo Viewer module, I have decided to add in zooming and hand tool (grab and move) features. Check out the demo here.

Create your mind maps online!

February 12, 2009

Back in my college days, I was a fan of Mindjet’s mind mapping software. Being a person who is always in deep thoughts, this neat application let me organize my thoughts easily. I was delighted to learn that they have made tremendous updates in their current version and also launched a web version.

An online diagramming application, LovelyCharts

February 10, 2009

Today, I came across this lovely application. In short, it’s a tool that let you easily draw diagrams or charts and export them as a jpg or png file. What interest me most is the fact that the product is bootstrapped and created by only one person. I can fully understand the ups and downs that Jerome Cordiez has gone through to launch this product as I have been developing an application single handedly for the past 6 months. Cheers for bootstrappers!