After reading the live blog of the press conference on March 6th and then watching the video of it, I was really excited about playing with the SDK, especially the OpenGL and OpenAL stuff that was demoed.Excitedly I went to developer.apple.com, $99 in hand. Unfortunately, I was met with a “please refresh this page and check back later message.” After waiting, and switching to Firefox (I initially used Safari), I logged in and applied. I started to rejoice, then looked at my screen. Another canned message:

Thank you for submitting your information.While we process your information, please visit the iPhone Dev Center to download the iPhone SDK and access a wealth of technical resources.Please note, the iPhone Developer Program will initially be available in the US and will expand to other countries in the coming months.Next StepsYou will receive notification of your enrollment status. Enrollment ID: XXXXXXXXXX 

Deflated, although still bearing hope, I eagerly awaited their email. Day 1 passed. Then day 2, 3…you get the picture.Finally, today, I see a message arrive from “iPhone Developer Program.” Oooo, excitement again…or so I thought:

Dear Registered iPhone Developer,Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. As this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time.Thank you for applying.Best regards,iPhone Developer Program– snip – 

I’ve been an a loyal customer and somewhat of a fanboy for years. I just don’t get it. Steve and company has this big press conference about the SDK, then they don’t give people access like they said they would?

So Apple, what’s up with the rejection letter?…At least they haven’t taken my $99.

Tags: Apple, Apple Developer Program, iPhone, iPhone SDK
Posted in Apple | 1 Response » | View blog reactions

While working with ExternalInterface on a recent Flex project it became a little cumbersome accessing the embedded SWF several times.  This is especially true if there is more than one SWF in a given page. Typing document.getElementById gets old fast as well. Therefore, this issue illustrates the need for core or global methods that can be reused, especially if you aren’t using a framework such as Prototype or jQuery.

When a SWF is embedded into a page, it naturally becomes a part of window.document/document/window (Internet Explorer).

The document is contained by the window object and may contain any number of elements.

Because of this, it is rather simple to access a SWF to pass a method into a Flex app.  The idea is simply to check whether or not the browser is IE (in this example we will use a UA check), then return the element with the appropriate SWF name:

function getSWFApp(appName) {
	if (navigator.appName.indexOf ("Microsoft") !=-1) return window[appName];
	else return document[appName];
}

Of course, there is more than one way to skin a cat. In this case, a more traditional approach:

function getSWFApp(appName) {
	return document.getElementById(appName);
}

Elsewhere in your code you can then pass a method to the SWF using dot syntax just as you would by using document.getElementById:

getSWFApp("ExampleApp").exampleEventName(exampleEventParams);

As an alternative to document.getElementById, returning the object from the document works like a charm. More importantly, a global method to retrieve a SWF saves many keystrokes. As an added bonus, this method can easily be added to the Flex HTML wrapper, thus allowing quick and easy deployment of applications using ExternalInterface.

Tags: Ajax/DHTML, Flash, Flex
Posted in Flash | 7 Responses » | View blog reactions

Lately, many have been asking about SEO. With the economy in a little slump of sorts, I am assuming people are for one feeling the pinch and realizing the selling value of the internet. The end of the age of bad flash sites and complex tables is in sight! For many years, big companies have been playing the pragmatic SEO game, but now the average joe is finally jumping on the bandwagon and willing to invest in SEO and SEM. In my opinion this is big, because small businesses are willing to give up valuable revenue to the relatively uncertain territory of SEO and SEM.To accompany my recent observation of those with small businesses I have compiled a brief list of essential SEO tips:

1. If you use Flash, please give alternate content. Sure Google can “spider flash” now, but do you really trust the outcome? And how is any search ever going to get high quality content from this?
2. Keep your markup clean.
3. Use heading tags well. So don’t overuse/abuse h1′s and h2′s – I usually use each once on a page.
4. Use markup tags for their intended purpose.
5. Make sure page titles are used and content rich.
6. Use keywords and descriptions when you have something important to say about that page. Just like your momma told you, if don’t have anything good to say don’t say it all.
7. Use URL rewriting. If you are an SEO, in my opinion, URL rewriting should be your best friend. In strong accordance, be familiar with HTTP/1.1 status codes and know how to use them.
8. Use and be familiar with robots.txt, the X-Robots-Tag, the “rel” attribute, and sitemap.xml files.
9. Use webmaster tools from one or all of the major players (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft).
10. Use Google Analytics at the very least. For the most accurate metrics, combine Google Analytics with server analytics like AWStats, and other tools.

For the more advanced readers, please feel free to add to or suggest alternatives. And for the rest, this list is not meant to be a be all and end all, but – just like one’s wedding day – a mere beginning on a long journey.Now for the shameless plug…If you need some assistance implementing an SEO plan, drop Vovéo or myself a line, we will be glad to help

Tags: SEM, SEO, Tips
Posted in SEO | 6 Responses » | View blog reactions

View example and download source.

History

Creating software with mapping should be a figurative walk in the park given the tools available from the major map api players like Google and Yahoo. However, when creating software on the Flash platform that needed mapping, my immediate choice was to go with Yahoo, since they have a history of being Flash friendly.

After investigating and implementing the examples Yahoo providing using the ASTRA Web Api, and in the end the solution as a whole seemed to work, albeit not as robust or simple as I would have liked. All was apparently well until production time. Once I deployed to the web, with a DOCTYPE of xhtml-transitional, the map ceased to dispatch the onMapLoad event.

As an alternate AS3/Flex solution I discovered Modest Maps. The hitch was that using Modest Maps would require building custom own components (such as Zoom, Map Types, Markers, Etc), for modest maps displays the map only.

Solution

I really take a liking Yahoo’s map markers. There was a hitch, Modest Maps was written in AS3 only. Therefore, when I went to integrate a Flex based marker into the map, the two were incompatable.

My solution:

• Reworked the Modest Maps core to use FlexSprite and UIComponent (which inherits FlexSprite).
  • As a site note: I’m not sure that was completely necessary and would have rather not touched the core, but I was in get’er done mode.
• Built a marker that looked an functioned like Yahoo’s, with the ability to add any flex component inside.
• Created some events that bubble up when the user clicks inside the marker.
• Created functionality to open a selected marker, based on its Id.

I see my work as a mere starting point. As Google states, “release early, release often.” So, please view the example, download the source and play. I would love to see where things go with it, if any.

Tags: Flex, Map Markers, Modest Maps, Yahoo Maps
Posted in Flex | 9 Responses » | View blog reactions

For those of you who just want the source code, I’ll cut right to the chase. View the demo.

Now for the explanation.

For a recent project, the design spec dictated a fluid layout. Normally, this would be no problem, however, in this scenario there was a footer that always needed to be pinned to the bottom of the page content did not extend very far.

Rather than pinning the footer to the bottom of the page absolutely, I wanted to footer to scroll with the content when the content was long enough to create browser scrollbars. Rather than create JavaScript to position things onResize or scroll, I opted to create a 100% CSS/XHTML layout that accomplished exactly what I wanted.

Although the outcome is not as lean as I would like, but in the end it gets the job done well. What more can I really ask for?

Tags: CSS, CSS Layout, CSS Walkthrough, Fluid Layout, Full Page
Posted in CSS | 11 Responses » | View blog reactions