Installing Adobe Air 2.5 SDK
The problem
When you download the Adobe Air 2.5 SDK (link) and install it, you will see that the new API's aren't supported when you used Finder to copy the Adobe Air 2.5 SDK.
The solution
- Download the Adobe Air 2.5 SDK here
- Unzip the files -for example- to your Downloads folder
- Now create a copy of your current SDK
- Go to /Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4/sdks
- Take a copy of your latest SDK folder (for example 4.0.0) and rename it to '4.0.0_air2.5'
- Now open up terminal and use the ditto command to copy the files from the downloaded SDK folder to the actual SDK folder
- This is the command "ditto -v /PATH_TO_DOWNLOADED_SDK /PATH_TO_SDK_FOLDER"
- In my case this was "ditto -v /Users/Frederik/Downloads/AdobeAirSDK /Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4/sdks/4.0.0_air2.5"
- Now you'll see some matrix style copying inside your terminal window (if you use the Homebrew theme from the Preferences menu)
- Launch Flash Builder 4 and go to Preferences
- Go to Flash Builder - Installed Flex SDKs
- Click 'Add'
- Browse to your new SDK folder (in my case this was /Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4/sdks/4.0.0_air2.5)
- Choose a name (in my case Flex4_Air2.5)
- Click 'ok'
- Now create a new Flex Project
- Fill in all the details and make sure you select 'Flex4_Air2.5' at the Flex SDK version sections
- Happy coding
Mobistar Iphone 4 detection application
So since the announcement of the iPhone 4 back in July I pre-ordered my precious gadget at a store in Roeselare and paid 50 euros in advance. After 6 weeks of waiting I went this week to the store to find out how long I still had to wait (my second visit). But on both visits I got the same answer "Sorry Sir, we have a waiting list and it's quite long, so it will probably take a few weeks".
Alright, no problem ... I can understand they don't get a weekly bulk of new iPhones, because Mobistar is the official dealer in Belgium (which I think is ridiculous ... an authorized Apple store has to go via Mobistar to get iPhones???? ... but that's just my opinion). A few weeks back I already tried my luck by contacting all the Mobistar centers in West-Flanders and Henegouwen. I thought that if I would call the small cities, I might just be lucky ... but again everything sold out.
But than, yesterday afternoon I got a golden tip via a friend of mine. His buddy went to a Mobistar center in Kuurne to get his phone, but they hadn't got the 32GB version. But they told him they had 10 16GB versions, he wasn't interested and walked away.
I was completely stoked by the news, jumped into my car and drove down to Kuurne. I went in and claimed my baby ... 'one moment sir, let me check'.
-'Ok, are you a Mobistar customer' ... euh no, I'm not , but does it even matter? At the moment I ask for a phone, you have 10 phones laying around and nobody else in the store cares?
-'Sorry, I have no phones left, but maybe on Friday some phones will get in' ... I'm like WTF? Nobody in the store wants one ... I have 639euro's ready to spent and you don't want it? Well f*ck off!
I came home and a Twitter buddy of a better hosting company in Belgium told me he had written a little script which polled the Mobistar servers. He gave it to me, but I could not get it to work because I haven't got a large knowledge of Linux and shell scripts 
So, I thought why don't write a little AIR application which scrapes the Mobistar page and informs me when there are phones available. I really don't care about the 50euro's anymore, over the past 6 weeks if dissolved into 8euro's a week ... so i can cut my losses and just buy one online if that would be faster!
I quickly created a prototype version and a half an hour later, I got informed by my app when Mobistar changed their page. Because I had some extra time I created a little GUI around it.
It requests the Mobistar site every minute and when it detects a change you will get a notification on top of all your other windows and the app will automatically launch the Mobistar shopping page for you, so you don't loose precious time, because you really have to be fast! Just run it and minimize it.
I hope you like it, and will be able to order your precious phone as fast as possible!
Please, do note you are responsible for polling the server and I don't give any warranties with the application! It is just a little "spielerei" for myself, but I see it as a pleasure to help other people!
Download the app, right here!
Billings 3 custom date formatting
The issue
I'm using Billings 3 for over more then a month now and I have to say I truly love it! It has an intuitive workflow, a non-accountant vocabulary and is really easy to use.
Because I have my own invoice design to print on, I loved the 'WYSIWYG invoice editor'! It could use some little improvements here and there regarding usability, but it gives you the power to create complete custom templates for your invoices/estimates and statements.
The only problem is that within the WYSIWYG editor there are a lot (and therefore I mean A LOT) of options you can choose from. One of these options is custom date formatting, but there is very little to find about the specifiers you could use. For reference I post them below.
Find coordinates via Google maps
The problem
While working on a project, I needed to find the coordinates of a specific location on Google Maps. I thought the guys at Google would provide a context menu or something like that, which would give me the coordinates of my current mouse position ... well they don't!
Using Fabrication with PureMVC to build a modular Flex application
Intro
A while ago I've started implementing PureMVC in my Flex projects, because some of the projects were growing and growing and I didn't feel comfortable anymore with my code.
There has to be a better way ... and yes, there is! PureMVC is a lightweight framework for creating applications based upon the classic model, view, controller concept. In fact PureMVC uses a meta-design pattern, as it adds some sweet sugar on top of the normal design pattern.
If you are unfamiliar with PureMVC, I advise you to check out there website and read through the pdf's!
Flex interface methode allowdomain in namespace not implemented by class
The problem
After creating a new workspace in Adobe Flex 3, suddenly you get the following error messages:
Error when switching workspaces
At first you just don't know, where the hell that error comes from, but thanks to Matthias Vanneste I know now the solution.
Flex: Error loading project
The problem
Earlier today I was being bugged by a very unpleasant error message within Adobe Flex Builder:
Error Loading Project
When I tried to open my Actionscript Components I could see the code, but when I went to Design View you get this annoying message:
Very annoying error
Needless to say ... there is nothing wrong with you MXML, but you could loose precious hours searching what went wrong (especially when you know that you didn't change a thing)!