ActionScript HTML 5 Compiler

What Adobe need to do if they aren't already is allow ActionScript code from either a flash or flex application to be complied into various output formats. Currently the allow you to compile.

• Shockwave Flash SWF
• iPhone
• Android
• Blackberry
• Windows
• Macintosh
• Linux

But with all the uncertainty about their recent departure from flash in the browser on mobile devices and the big HTML 5 push, why not announce you will eventually also allow compilation to HTML 5. Now perhaps not everything that flash does is supported initially, but most probably can be.

What this will do is stop people jumping of the flash path and heading down the HTML 5 path, as I can then have one code base that will compile and run pretty much anywhere. It also allows developers to use a nice strongly typed language and have the compiler have the necessary html 5 / Java script libraries behind the scenes.

HTML 5 is going forward with or without this, Adobe is one of few tools that allow wide range of cross compilation and tying all this together, just makes sense.

I have a feeling they are already working on this, and if so great however they need to announce it so that people can talk about this direction and answer questions over the future of their ActionScript projects.

Good, Cheap, Quick!

One of my favourite old sayings, goes like this. Good Cheap Quick, pick any two you like.

I've used it often in software development, but it applies to everything in life, from having your house painted to organising a wedding.

You see its a simple concept, that people understand mostly, yet people still want all 3, well the all 3 doesn't really exist, if you think you have found the golden egg of technology that will deliver all 3, I'd love to know. Technologies are a strange and wonderful beast, they are combined to create a certain magic that enables the users to achieve things, automate things, create things. Whatever the application may be there generally is a technology that will facility the application.

I used to think that there would come a technology that would make everything good, cheap and quick. Yet the technology community loves to complicate things. Normally there is method to the madness of complicating things, but not always. Technology will not only set you free, but often lock you up. Its easy to get swept up in a technology trend, I once managed a software team, that was constantly we need, X, now we need Y, we should use this framework, now we should rewrite it using this framework and so it went on. Problem is nothing ever got done, so it was neither Good, Cheap or Quick. It was Bad, Expensive & Slow.

Lets take .NET as a technology example.

Good? Yes
Cheap? No
Quick? Yes

Well, you could debate that Good is No and Cheap is Yes (because its free right) and Quick could be a No also, especially if you don't know what your doing. But for the sake of the example, lets say.

Good: Clean typed language, great syntax and powerful framework
Cheap: Hell no, I need Visual Studio, MS SQL Server & MS Servers, its crazy expensive
Quick: Well it can be if you know what your doing.

But wait, that's the technology, that's really got nothing to do with the old Good Cheap Quick does it? Its the applications that you write using this technology that we want to evaluate? Well if your trying to sell a solution to a company, you can evaluate the tool, the development, the deployment, the maintenance in the good cheap quick.

Most just evaluate the application, but its not really fair to say .NET is free. Tool is free, if you use notepad. Database is free, if you use SQL Express. Deployment is free if you find a free .NET host, Maintenance is free if your .NET host is patching the servers for you and you don't change the app.

However in reality everything costs money. If you want a decent IDE you pay for it, if you want decent developers you pay for them, if you want good hosting / infrastructure you pay for it. And if you want your servers maintained you pay for that too.

So nothing is cheap then? Well in my opinion there is little real cost difference between most technologies. That means everything must be Good and Quick?

• Don't be sucked into the ColdFusion is bad, Java is good, pick the right technology for the job.
• Don't be sucked into the PHP is free, Oracle is expensive argument, pick the right technology for the job.
• Don't be sucked into the Rails is fast and C++ is slow argument, pick the right technology for the job. 

If your already lost and don't really understand the point I'm making, then your probably going to think that the Good Cheap Quick phase doesn't work in software development. I'd argue that it does, but technology is a small factor. Because these technologies don't do anything without one of these.

I have a Good Cheap programmer.
I have a Cheap Quick programmer.
I have a Good Quick programmer.

Which one would you hire :)

iPhone 5 Hardware Changes

Along with all the features announced in the 4S, there are some specific things the iPhone 5 needs in my opinion. Things that would take it to the next level, in my order of preference.

1. Larger Screen
   The phone is too small, for games, reading books, mail etc, it could benefit from a larger screen like other new smart phones, how large? Not sure, but picking up an iPhone 4 after playing with a new Samsung, the iPhone seems really small.
2. Vibrate Switch
   Get rid of it, its not needed, and is a pain. Its constantly changing from vibrate to ring in my pocket, even with a cover. This really isn't necessary, swapping to silent should be a software switch like a lot of other phones
3. 4G Support
   This phone has to support the new 4G networks, like Telstra's
4. HDMI Output
   The ability to output from the iPhone to a projector / monitor / TV would be awesome. This kinda already exists, but a mini HDMI port would be better.
5. LED Light
   How I miss my BlackBerry LED light, it flashed and told me when I had something to check, I didn't need to turn the phone on to see. One multi color LED on the iPhone 5 could do so many things, with different color / flashing combinations, and allow the user to configure if and when it displays and what color to use for what.
6. 1080p Screen
   At 326ppi that might make the device too big, but who says we can't improve on 326ppi. The 4S records in 1080p, but what's the point if you cant see it. There are already some other 342ppi screens, so getting to the right density isn't as far off as it seems. And the new dual core chip upgrades should be able to render them.

Now if the iPhone 5 had all that, it would be truly amazing, probably unlikely. Personally I'd be happy if I get 1-3, which might just happen. Hope I didn't miss anything obvious, if I did, let me know.

Disable Windows 8 Metro Interface

While there is no inbuilt way to disable the Metro aka Tablet interface of Windows 8 that is given to you by default, this is really necessary, especially if your trying Windows 8 on a laptop without multi touch support.

It however can be done, there are programs that allow you to switch it or if your like me and would rather just do it manually follow these steps

1. Hover your cursor bottom left, you will see a start menu, select Search
2. In the search box, type regedit, there will be one match click and run it
3. From regedit navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
4. Change the RPEnabled key to a 0 which is Metro off or 1 for Metro on

Windows 8 Desktop Interface

That's it your up and running, no reboot or anything required. Now to go and really test Windows 8

Windows 8 Not for the Desktop

We have been trying Windows 8 our, and it went pretty smoothly to start with, it installed on a laptop, booted and ran quickly and ran our software in some quick tests.

However, the UI has completely changed, it designed to be run on a Tablet, not a Windows type pen based tablet either, an iPad / Android type tablet. Firstly you cant close a program, you just hit the tablet button (wait I don't have one on the desktop) to return to the menu of applications. I eventually worked out that the Windows key will get you there, but the entire UI of running applications, multi tasking, switching between applications has changed.

Conceptually the ability to run the same operating system on a Desktop / Tablet is great, I can get my normal programs, files etc., from any device. But in reality at the moment the operating system has moved too far to the tablet arena at the expense of Desktop usability. I'm assuming or hoping that between now and the release the two models will improve and the ability to switch between the two will be more natural.

On another note, this operating system really needs a multi touch screen or device, I'm not at all keen to touch my laptop screen even if it was multi touch (which it isn't) so really new laptops & desktops are going to need a largish multi touch trackpad, like the ones in the Mac Books and the Magic Trackpad for apple desktops.

Its safe to assume that Microsoft's hardware partners are thinking through this and this type of hardware will present its self well ahead of the release of Windows 8. The down side, is your current laptop really doesn't support Windows 8. And your current desktop will need a bit of extra hardware to take advantage. What this translates to is more expense and a hardware investment.

If Microsoft do manage to meld the desktop / laptop version of Windows 8 to a more desktop centric operating system before release, perhaps the multi touch devices wont be needed, time will tell.

If you currently wish to hack the UI to revert back to desktop mode you can do this by changing a registry setting see here for the full details
http://dale.fraser.id.au/2011/09/disable-windows-8-metro-interface.html

Developer Shortage

Over the years in Melbourne Australia its been getting harder to get good developers. I spent over 10 years doing pure development, worked hard earned my promotions.

I always tried to do more or better than the guy at the next desk, while I was never worried about job security as I've never been unemployed, I wanted to prove my self to both management and peers. The situation is much different these days, there are more positions than developers, so developers are getting cold called for positions, can land a different job with more money often quite easily.

Advertising positions often finds a poor range of people / skills, a lot of people who have little or no work experience in Australia and looking for an opportunity, people from different states, long term out of work, and other various combinations of unsuitable people. There are good people out there, but how do you attract them?

Traditionally I've been a fan of getting young smart people and training them, I've had great success with this method for a long time, and will do it again, but it comes with a penalty of time and investment, this method isn't suitable if you want to replace a senior experienced person quickly.

I was wondering if less people look to move during difficult financial times as any move is risky and also subject to a probation, any new job you take may or may not be suitable, so perhaps less people are looking. I was also wondering has Seek had its day, are people sick of the volume of positions / emails that come through daily, they stop looking at them.

So perhaps its time to revisit recruitment agencies, which I am generally loathed to use due to an experience I had as an employee. An agency asked me how much I wanted, and when I told them, they said they could get me more, and they did. I of course was very happy with this at the time, but later reflected they are working for and paid by the employer, yet they are working against them, costing the employer more in salaries and in turn fees.

So what's the solution? More networking, more tweeting, more advertising, more time? There is no clear obvious solution, I think its going to be a combination of many things. I currently have 4 positions advertised received 40+ applications, and while there are some worthy of consideration, there are no stand out people. So I've spent $1,000 on seek, and while its not a lot of money in comparison to an agency, its not value for money.

I'm interested in what others are doing to find people, more so the good solid proven developers, how do you find them, how do you lure them away from the comfort of their existing positions.

How I got started in ColdFusion

In around 2000 I worked for a company who was basically a DOT.COM and there wasn't anything to do. I was in technical pre sales, which meant running around with the sales team answering all the technical questions. Problem was they weren't selling anything, which meant I spent many hours in the office with nothing to do.

So I did some self learning, did a Red Hat certification, played around with various other technologies also. A company in Australia called Firmware from memory was sending me info and CD's on ColdFusion every month. The first few months just went in the bin, I got a lot of junk. But one day, I popped in a CD and had a play, before I knew it I was writing a simple app that pulled data from an Access database. I immediately thought, wow that was easy, compared to some Perl work I had done in the couple years prior especially.

Needless to say, that 9 months of boredom in, I left and took up a CTO position within a division of one of Australia's largest public companies. I was in charge of delivering a $2mil web development which was very big back then. Unfortunately it had already been outsourced and signed and I just needed to get it delivered. It was a large complex ASP application (Pre .NET). And while it worked and did what the spec said it should do, it was a piece of rubbish. It was supposed to have an admin module which it did, but it was a VB app.

I convinced the CEO that we should hire some staff and rewrite the admin module internally. This was far more cost effective than the external company maintaining the existing system. So having recently discovered how easy and powerful ColdFusion was, I thought, we could do this in ColdFusion very fast. We hired two developers and 3 months later had rewritten and deployed the admin functionality, web based and 10x the functionality.

ColdFusion did what it does best, delivers a solution quickly. The business loved it and me for recommending it and the rest is history. Unfortunately it was another DOT.COM and didn't last too long.

I have been a CTO now for 12 years across 3 companies and always found a use for ColdFusion, it might be a small development, it might be something large, but ColdFusion still has a place.

I do use and recommend other technologies also, I don't think that ColdFusion is the only solution and its not for every application, but I don't think I'll stop using it any time soon.

Why Nintendo Will Fail

Nintendo are a great company with a great set of technology and games franchises. I have two kids, one 7 year old boy who loved Nintendo stuff, had a Nintendo DS since he was 3, had a Wii, loves Mario, Donkey Kong Country and lots of other games.

We have a lot of friends with kids of a similar age, all had Nintendo DS, and many also had Wii. But something changed in the last two years. My son didn't want the new Nintendo DSi or 3DS. He wanted an iPhone. I had an iPhone, my wife had an iPhone. Well he wasn't getting an iPhone, but I did say he could get an iPod touch.

He was only 5 at the time, and he was torn, he really wanted the new DS, but he also wanted the iPod touch. Ultimately he choose the iPod touch. He wanted more than just games, he wanted movies, YouTube, the camera and other things his DS didn't have at the time.

Now while Nintendo make some great games, there is so much rubbish released, you quickly get annoyed. I have purchased many $50 DS games that he played for 5 mins and never touched again. I looked at these games and they were rubbish, simple boring platform games but with a brand character like Sponge Bob that made him want it.

But the iPod was different, I gave him my password, disabled In-App purchases and said you can buy one game a week as long as its only $1. He loves this, he has an unlimited amount of free games / apps available that he can download and play instantly and then he can buy one a week. That one a week $52 yearly is about the cost of a single DS game, and I was buying around one a month.

What came next was unexpected. He completely ditched the Wii and the DS, never touched them again, never had any interest, I bring home an iPad from work, he plays it all weekend. But the DS and the Wii have been discarded. We have an Xbox also, and it wasn't ditched though it was played less, the advent of the Kinect and the nice online store helped there.

Now Nintendo are set to release a new console. It has a fancy touch screen controller and can play the entire game on the controller if someone wants to watch TV. Sounds good for families, until I saw the big cable out of the back of the controller. Now i'm not sure about everyone else, but wireless controllers are now required. Going back to a wired controller doesn't seem like a viable option to me. Also these controllers look big and expensive, when you have kids they want 4 to play with their friends, I'm not paying $100+ 4 times just for controllers.

What could Nintendo do? Well they could release their games on iPod / iPhone / iPad / Android, the SNES Zelda would sell millions of copies overnight alone. But this is unlikely, they are like apple and like to control everything.

What must Nintendo do? Well they must have a good online store with inexpensive and free games. And not just crappy ports from SNES, good quality independent games for free and $1. This is the only way I would consider going back. I will never pay $50 for another Nintendo game and I am seeing the same pattern from our group of friends with kids.

What might Nintendo do? They might come up with another must have device that everyone buys and is a major success. But the 3DS is NOT it and the Wii U is NOT it.

What will Nintendo do? I think they will scramble, try desperately to fix it, wait way too long before the realise the extent of the trouble they are in and then ultimately sell or collapse and suffer the fate of Atari, Sega and many others.

As a closing note, my 3 year old daughter plays our iPhones every single day, she has never played a Nintendo device and never shown any interest.

Flex 4.5 TextArea Enable Tab Key

I was working on a file editor in Flex and I needed to be able to tab within the edit pane without actually tabbing out of the TextArea.

Well there are many ways to achieve this, firstly you could subclass the TextArea or listen for the tab key, but here is the solution I came up with, I find it simple and clearly visible to developers as to what it's doing.



As you can see i'm preventing the default action of the tab key then inserting 4 spaces in its place. Using the insertText method inserts the text at the current cursor position, this is ideal for editing where you wish to insert a tab mid paragraph etc.

Of course if you wanted to actually insert a tab you can just replace the 4 spaces with "\t"

Flash Builder 4.5 Produce Native Installer

I discovered a new option in Flash Builder 4.5

Export as:

Signed native installer

This actually produces a native installer instead of the AIR installer. The application still requires AIR however as its still an AIR application. I haven't tested yet what happens if you attempt to install this without AIR installed, but I assume it will want you to install AIR first.

What I would really love to see is it produce a native application, and not just an installer, and bundle all required into a single standalone exe. There are other products out there that do this already, my favourite being MDM Zinc.