Pointillism

Taylor's Software and UX Design Lexicon, Volume I

By Taylor Bastien on July 19, 2011 6:31 PM | No Comments

When communicating complex information, simple metaphors can go a long way.

This past week, my lovely wife pointed out that when I talk about complex subjects, I often resort to metaphors and analogies from unrelated areas of life. She said that it serves me well as a communicator because it can simplify otherwise difficult concepts ...and since she is my wife, I must of course agree.

The way I see it, when dealing with a sometimes obscure or confusing subject like software design and development, appealing to abstract, common sense ideas helps highlight the important bits while avoiding getting bogged down in details. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to explain key software concepts to competent, non-technical people. They might be bored to tears but they should at least be able to understand what I'm talking about. In fact, as a consultant, I consider it a fundamental skill of the trade: if I can't explain to people (i.e. clients) what they're paying for, then why on earth should they be buying it in the first place?

What follows is a very incomplete list of some of the homegrown expressions I use most often when discussing software design. I've long been planning on writing entire articles for some of these (and most likely will at some point) but with my work schedule being as full as it is, here they are for now in a more concise form:

Continue reading Taylor's Software and UX Design Lexicon, Volume I.

Sony Hearts Robots, Boosts Android

By Taylor Bastien on January 31, 2011 9:02 AM | No Comments

If software makes a platform, Sony has just raised the fortunes of Android with the announcement of the PlayStation Suite.

The internet is abuzz over Sony's announcement that they are bringing a whole new PlayStation-branded gaming store to the Android platform. This new functionality will be branded the "Playstation Suite" and will be available to phones running Android 2.3 (aka "Gingerbread"). The Suite will include emulated PlayStation One games to start and will eventually feature new titles built expressly for the platform.

As you may be aware, recently, the hype meter has been cranked up to overload over the anticipated release of the PlayStation phone, this unforeseen announcement is arguably even bigger news than expected. While Sony-Ericsson will indeed be launching an Experia-branded "gaming" Android phone that includes a D-pad, etc., thanks to the PS Suite, every Android 2.3 phone can now in effect be considered a "PlayStation Phone".

Now that's news.

What about us "serious" developers?

Before I answer that question, let's take a little history lesson.

Continue reading Sony Hearts Robots, Boosts Android.

Where's the LCDS Love?

By Taylor Bastien on November 8, 2010 5:00 PM | 6 Comments

Why do you think that many enterprise Flex developers don't use LiveCycle Data Services?

Someone recently asked me why I thought the take-up of LiveCycle Data Services among developers isn't more, um enthusiastic. Unlike almost any other development tool I've used, I don't recall hearing anyone complaining about the level of functionality offered by LCDS. That's certainly to the credit of the product managers and development team at Adobe, but exactly why isn't such a powerful tool more popular in the developer community?

It's certainly a difficult question and I wouldn't dare profess to have a definitive answer. I've therefore decided to share my thoughts while humbly asking for yours. You never know, maybe someone at Adobe will read this and take note.

Keep in mind that all I have to go on are conversations with developers and from reading blogs, so definitely consider these musings "non-scientific" and loaded with lots of hyperbole (the spice that makes blogging fun).

Continue reading Where's the LCDS Love?.

Flex, Flash and Spock... What's Not To Love at MAX 2010?

By Taylor Bastien on October 20, 2010 2:07 PM | No Comments

Whether you're a waiter who dreams of being an actor, a trekker on a lifelong pilgrimage to meet your Vulcan mentor or are an avid Flash or Flex developer, there's only one place to be next week: Adobe MAX 2010 in sunny Los Angeles, California.

I will be attending Adobe MAX for the first time, this year. Needless to say, I'm very excited and grateful to my employer, 4Point, for sending me on their dime (I surely could never afford it). I've registered for the most interesting sessions I can though my sense is that I'll be missing more than I'll be taking in. Hopefully they'll be recording all of the sessions so that I can catch up on what I missed later. One thing I won't miss will be the MAX Awards, since Leonard Nemoy (heard of him?) is presenting. The geeks will be swooning in ecstasy, no doubt.

To maximize the amount of information I can jam into my sleep-deprived brain, I intend to squeeze in as many 360Flex and FITC "Un-Conference" sessions as possible. Hopefully the rooms will be close enough together to skip quickly from one session to another so I can miss as little as possible.

Since I'll most likely be on my own most of the time, feel free to drop me a line so we can meet up. I'm getting there near noon on Sunday and will have most of the afternoon free. I'm flying back out on Thursday morning.

Hope to see you there! (Cross-posted at riagrande.com)

See You In The Re-Runs: Adobe Dev. Week Sessions Now Online

By Taylor Bastien on August 5, 2010 1:32 PM | No Comments

Once Burned, Twice Shy. If you missed Adobe Developer Week (I did), not all is lost.

If you wanted to get a second chance at attending one of the many free sessions given by Flash Platform experts during Adobe Developer week, you're in luck. Adobe has posted all 19 sessions online, for free. Since they all run at roughly one hour each, you'd better get cracking, my friend.

The available sessions are:

Welcome and introduction to the Adobe Flash Platform
Building multi-screen applications with the Adobe Flash Platform and Adobe Creative Suite 5
New features in Adobe Flex 4 framework
New features in Adobe Flash Builder 4
Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 for developers
Building mobile applications: Create a game
What's new in Adobe Flash Builder for Java developers
New features in Adobe Flash Player 10.1
Creating sexy applications with the Adobe Flash Platform: Designer-developer workflow
A basic CRUD application with Zend AMF and Adobe Flex 4
Adobe Flash Builder 4 and Adobe ColdFusion 9
Advanced features in Adobe Flex
ActionScript 3 for Java developers
Adobe Flash Platform and Salesforce.com
What's new in Adobe Flash Builder for PHP developers
Using advanced features with Adobe Flex and PHP
Adobe ColdFusion 9 and Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5
Adobe Flex and BlazeDS integration with SpringSource
Building desktop applications with Adobe AIR 2

What the heck are you waiting for? Click here and go straight to the videos. Sheesh!

Tilde Console Gets Free Plug on The Flex Show

By Taylor Bastien on August 5, 2010 11:19 AM | No Comments

When you get mentioned on the premiere Flex-related podcast, you know you've finally arrived.

Episode 115 of The Flex Show podcast is primarily an interview with Nate Beck and Ben Garney, key members of the pure Actionscript (but wholly Flex friendly) PushButton games engine project. When asked how PushButton can be used in non-gaming Flex applications, among other things, Nate mentioned how I forked off the Console part of the engine for use in any Flex application. It was a very kind thing to do, even though he almost forgot my name ;)

Much thanks to Nate for giving Tilde a mention and to Ben for coding up a clever, elegant and blazingly fast text rendering solution for the console as only an experienced über low-level C++/Actionscript games developer could.

So now that the word about Tilde is finally getting out, I'd love to hear from someone out there who's tried it, is using it, loves it or hates it. I use the console extensively in my own development and it has proven itself invaluable... hopefully someone else out there will agree.

Try It Out: Tilde Developer Console Demo

By Taylor Bastien on June 21, 2010 9:17 AM | No Comments

Seeing is believing so try out the Tilde Console with this simple demo application.

The Tilde Developer Console was launched very late (my time) on Friday. After a weekend spent catching up on my sleep, it's Monday and I'm happy to release the Console testing tool I promised in my original launch post.

Built using the latest version of the library (I checked in a few tweaks to the Console this weekend and tagged v1.1), the tool provides the following functionality:

Buttons for submitting log entries at the different severity levels
The ability to generate random log message text (in case you don't much like typing)
A button for manually starting up the Logger. If you submit log entries before clicking on this button, you will be able to see how deferred log entries are handled.
I wired in a custom callback command ("dog") almost identical to the example I provided in the original Tilde launch post.
For good measure, I've thrown in the Tilde logo in order to demonstrate the semi-transparent nature of the console.

Click on the image below to launch the demo in a new window. Once you've tried it out, please let me know what you think and check out the source code at the Google code project.

Flex Open Source Project Launch: The Tilde Developer Console

By Taylor Bastien on June 18, 2010 4:03 PM | No Comments

Flex developers rejoice! Once only reserved for advanced games engines, the tilde-activated developer console has finally arrived to empower Flex coders everywhere.

I am proud to announce the long-delayed release of the Tilde Developer Console open source project into the wild. This Flex library makes powerful development tools from the PushButton Games Engine available to all Flex developers.

[June 21, 2010 - Update: Check out the Tilde Console demo application here.]

I do enterprise Flex RIA development for a living and extracted this powerful tool set for my own use a few months ago after attending Nate Beck's presentation on the aforementioned games engine at 360|Flex 2010 in San Jose, California. The console quickly became one of my most important tools, in particular when saving my bacon multiple times during user acceptance testing for a large, complex project. Because I wrote so little of it myself, I intended to release the source code to the public from the outset but have been altogether too busy to even think about it.

This week, things have started quieting down again (I know, I know... it won't last) so I fetched and merged in the latest code from the PushButton Engine (which contains some very cool new optimizations to the console display) and polished it all up for public consumption. Given how much I've personally benefited from using the console, I'm excited to finally be able to share this with my fellow Flex developers. If I wasn't confident that many of you will appreciate these tools every bit as much as I have, I wouldn't have bothered to create a logo. (Using Inkscape, I might add... a fine, free, open source SVG tool.)

The key tools in this package are:

Developer Console

A versatile "tilde-activated" console similar to that found in many 3D games engines (e.g. Unreal, Source, etc.)
Tab-based command auto-completion, command history and built-in help
Powerful ability to register custom call-back commands at run-time. These are treated identically to the built-in commands.
Utility functions for serializing object information to the console
Integrated "Hi-ReS! Stats" graph from Mr.doob

Client-Side Trace Logging

Statements are logged to both the console and the Flash Player debugging trace.
Multiple logging-levels are supported and entries are color-coded by severity in the console. (e.g. DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR)
Logging verbosity can be set using a simple console command.
Deferred logging: even if log statements are sent before a Logger instance is created, they will be stored until one does exist, allowing log entries to be submitted from the moment the application starts.
Explicitly turning off logging causes all logging calls to be disregarded so they don't impede application performance. (All pending deferred log calls are also discarded.)

Continue reading Flex Open Source Project Launch: The Tilde Developer Console.

Have Android? Got Froyo? Grab Flash 10.1 Pronto!

By Taylor Bastien on May 20, 2010 4:03 PM | No Comments

Beta Mobile Flash Player 10.1 for Android is finally available in the Android Market. What are you waiting for?

In news that's certain to please my Nexus One-owning younger brother, you can finally download the first public beta of Flash Player 10.1 from the Android Market. The caveats are that you must be running Android OS 2.2 (a.k.a. "Froyo") and have an ARM-8 or better CPU, which currently limits you to one of the Nexus One, Motorola Droid, HTC Incredible and Sprint EVO (this, according to PCMag).

Wait, There's More

If you haven't heard of "Froyo", well it's the next generation of the Android OS. Thanks to the improved Dalvik virtual machine (VM) core and its brand-new support for "just in time" (JIT) compilation, Froyo has been clocked by the good folks at Android Police at 450% faster than its predecessor, Android 2.1 (a.k.a. "Éclair").

(Interestingly enough, "Éclair" isn't just a delicious pastry, it's also the French word for lightning... which now seems like a misnomer. But I digress.)

There are a whole lot of other improvements baked into Froyo, including support for WiFi tethering and the ability to save apps to a miniSD card. Not bad for an OS named after a sweet, delicious frozen dessert.

Grab It Now, If You Can

According to techie-buzz.com, Froyo is available "over-the-air" to Nexus One owners right now and will be coming to Motorola Droid owners in the very near future. Over at the Android developers' blog, Xavier Durochet has just posted the details of what's included in Froyo, some links to new developer tools and the official Android 2.2 "trailer" video. Very cool stuff.

Now you may or may not know this, but 4Point (my employer) is a Google Enterprise partner. In our case, that means that we're authorized to resell and service Google search appliances. I just have to figure out some angle whereby it also entitles me to get my hands on some of this slightly more mobile Google kit.

I'm open to suggestions ;)

Continue reading Have Android? Got Froyo? Grab Flash 10.1 Pronto!.

Live A Little: Try A Flash Dynamic Desktop Background

By Taylor Bastien on May 18, 2010 6:45 PM | No Comments

Flash, Javascript, an iFrame and a little imagination make for cheap and easy desktop fun.

You know those good ideas you have but put off trying, saying "I'll get to that later"? Well, Windows has long allowed an HTML file to be used as a desktop background and I've been hoping to experiment with this for a few years now. I finally got around to trying it out yesterday and can say that thanks to that thing of beauty we call the "iFrame", I was able to embed any site I cared to, including Flash apps, as my Windows background. It worked so well that I pushed the idea a little further and made a Javascript-driven HTML page that anyone can download and easily use to experiment with this little-known trick.

How It Works

The trick to it all is pretty low-tech and leverages Javascript, a cookie (to save user preferences) and an iFrame. When the HTML page is done loading, I call a Javascript function that injects an iFrame into an empty DIV that fills the screen.

The resulting (run-time) HTML looks a little like this:

[code]
<div id="myFrame">
  <iframe name="dynDesktopFrame" src="http://www.fwaphoto.com"
   width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0"></iframe>
  </div>
[/code]

The iFrame and CSS style code embedded in the document do the rest: your screen is filled with the page found at whatever URL is set into the iFrame's "src" attribute. This URL isn't hard-coded, but it set using a configurable cookie, so you can dynamically change your Windows wallpaper at will.

Continue reading Live A Little: Try A Flash Dynamic Desktop Background.