Kevin Hoyt's Developer Blog

HTML 5 Photo Booth (Kind Of)

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:59:50 GMT

You may have heard that at Google IO, Kevin Lynch announced a Dreamweaver extension for HTML 5 support. Being no stranger to HTML, I was like, cool, I'll check it out. At the time AIR 2 was just a hop-skip-and-jump away too, which meant the latest and greatest WebKit. And finally, the Phidget SBC I'd been playing with was begging for some remote photo viewing. So with that, I came up with the idea to roughly duplicate the Photo Booth application that ships with Mac OS X, in HTML 5, using Dreamweaver, running on AIR. [...]

Collaborative Music Playing

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:47:12 GMT

It all started innocently enough. "Hey Nigel, just in case you missed it on Twitter, here's a screenshot of my LCCS-powered remote presentation control." Then Nigel (LCCS Engineering Manager) responded that he was thinking about a demo using mobile devices as remote musical instruments. Well, I have a five year-old, so the ideas came rushing into my head. One weekend of spare coding time later, and I had a remote control xylophone complete with grade-school graphics. [...]

Mobile Fun at MAX 2010

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:45:08 GMT

Earlier this year I was asked if I'd manage a camp at MAX this year - specifically the mobile camp. At the time, I thought "camp" meant a bar-camp side event, not the mainstream sessions and labs. Whoops! Turns out that Camp Managers are responsible for paid MAX content, and I had eight sessions and four labs to fill. To help in this task I reached out to the community. After some back and forth, here are the mobile sessions I have so far. [...]

Flex 4 States, Transitions and Skins

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 04:02:34 GMT

I should be clear right up front here that with Flex 3 and earlier, that I used a tween engine like TweenLite or Tweener to move things around in my applications. The provided states and transitions were just far too clunky. With Flex 4 however, that has changed markedly, and I've been able to show some fun demonstrations without heading to another library. That generally leads to the question of how'd you do that? Well, here's a start on the basics of Flex 4 states and transitions. [...]

Litl Unboxing

Mon, 7 Jun 2010 10:05:56 GMT

If a netbook is a miniature laptop, and a tablet is a laptop without the physical keyboard, then what's a web book? The Litl is a web book - a laptop (and then some) where all your applications and settings are stored on the web (i.e. cloud). That means it weighs next to nothing, is super-easy to use, and recovering after a disaster is a snap. There's obviously a lot more to it than that, but I'll let the folks over a Litl give you more details. I got one of these cool little (cough, cough) devices today, and here's what it took to get it out of the box. [...]

Some Flash Android Components

Fri, 28 May 2010 03:44:19 GMT

You have those times when you get an idea, so you sit down and start building it? You know, maybe you are a designer, and that means cracking up Flash Pro CS5. Or perhaps you are a developer and you start messing with item renderers. As I travel around from conference to conference, I get a lot of ideas like that. And for most of them, I either run out of steam, get distracted, or simply get bored. Over the next several weeks I'll be dropping projects like that on the old blog - starting with these Flash components that look like Android. [...]

10,000 Developers Have Registered

Tue, 4 May 2010 01:31:02 GMT

Using Adobe AIR, companies like The New York Times and Pandora, provide high-quality, commercial (as in monetization) desktop applications. Want to learn how to build your own? The Open Screen Project (OSP), along with it's 50+ partners, is ready to release Flash Player 10.1 into the wild. Want to build multi-screen applications with these cutting edge features? The open source Flex framework powers the White House situation room. Ready to deploy a data visualization dashboard of your own? Want to do all this backed by the powerful Flash Builder IDE to speed your time to market? [...]

You Pick It, I Present It

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:05:49 GMT

I'm headed to Web 2.0 next week, where Adobe is a Gold Sponsor, and has a lot going on. The exhibit hall, for example is open on Tuesday and Wednesday, and there's a theater presentation at the Adobe booth every hour. Topics at the range from workflow with Doug Winnie, to monetization (making money) with John Shapiro. I've got three theater presentations - two on Flash Builder 4, and one on ... well ... whatever you pick! That's right, you pick it, and I present it at Web 2.0. Put in your vote now! [...]

Verizon MiFi Status on Your Desktop

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:06:37 GMT

I recently moved from a Verizon data card, to a Verizon MiFi. The MiFi has been a real treat because it provides a wireless network for up to five devices (e.g. phone, laptop, other people). It's very compact and the battery lasts for about four hours (depending on usage). It is configurable via a web-based administration tool. That tool also tells you the battery level of the device, and the signal strength. The problem with that is that I have to be at the web page to view that information, and I want to see it on the desktop, so I broke out Adobe AIR and built a desktop monitor - I call it MiStatus. [...]

MJPEG Component for Flex 4

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:58:40 GMT

Generally, when we think about Phidgets, we think of plug-and-play hardware via USB. Recently however, a new product was released called the Phidget SBC (Single Board Computer). The Phidget SBC offers direct network access via ethernet (cable included) and USB wireless card. It also supports streaming video from a USB web camera in MJPEG format. Although Flash Player doesn't natively support MJPEG, that doesn't mean it can't support it; and here's how. [...]