The Danosphere.

Using Pulse News Reader for CollegeBlender, Tech News, and Beyond…

Dan — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:47:10 +0000

Great article by Karen Nga on how I use the Pulse News Reader to keep on top of tech and higher-ed news for CollegeBlender and beyond. Had a great time doing the Q&A, Karen was very nice! Big thanks her and the Pulse team!

Click Here for Full Article

New blog feature! MT @pulsepad: Pulse Profiles. Currently featuring @collegeblender's Dan Wasyluk http://t.co/EitaSva2 cc @danosphere

November 3, 2011 2:29 pm via webReply RetweetFavorite

@knga

Karen Nga

Screen Measurement / Hex Color Picker for OSX Lion [PixelStick]

Dan — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:30 +0000

OSX Lion is… interesting. On one hand it offers lots of cool new features and gestures and stuff, and on the other hand many of the new features are half baked, or less (aka: LaunchPad). On top of the half-baked problems, there are issues with app compatibility, function and more. For instance- the Digital Color Meter app in Lion no longer provides HEX color values. HEX being the color system used by just about every web designer on the planet. Do a quick google search and you’ll find that this feature of DCM, a critical designer tool, was simply removed without warning by Apple (a design heavy company, whose products are used by many, many designers). It makes no sense.

Another tool commonly used by designers- screen measurement is also hard to come by in Lion. You may find some stuff on the Mac App store, but reviews are mixed, and all that stuff is BUY before you TRY. Never a paradigm I liked. Any many of the apps are not yet Lion compatible.

Luckily I came across a solution for both problems. This tool called “PixelStick” allows you to not only measure screen areas, but it also gives you a quick and easy HEX (yes!!!) color picker, all in one tool, and all for free (so far, I can’t tell if I’m using a trial or something, but its worth buying either way). Checkout their site for more info: PixelStick: Measure Distance, Angle and Color- anytime, anywhere on Mac. Slogan says it all.

Here is a quick screencap of the tool in action, I turned off the circular guides as I did not need them, but this shows how it can quickly measure and pick colors, all from one easy tool, very useful for designers transitioning to Lion.

New Web App: Coffee Check (Jonathan’s Card)

Dan — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:37:33 +0000

Yesterday I came across an interesting experiment, it appears some kind fellow has publicly released a loaded Starbucks card, and he’s just letting people use it at their convenience. People can get free coffee, people can give free coffee. It’s pretty intruiging, and it’s called “Jonathan’s Card“. The guy (Jonathan Stark) even set up a website, twitter account and API around the idea. For all the details check out the site: http://jonathanstark.com/card/.

As much as I hate to admit it, I drink Starbucks… rather often. So I went to try and use this experiment at my local ‘bux, but everytime I got there, the card was empty! Not only that, but it took so much time to check the balance (via the twitter stream) and then flip over to my photos app, find the photo of the card, and scan it- by the time I had done everything what little balance was on the card, was gone. So I thought, this can be better.

Coffee Check by Dan Wasyluk

Using the APIs provided by Jonathan, I’ve created “Coffee Check“. Coffee Check is a bare bones web app designed to do one thing, check the balance of Jonathan’s card. If there is cash- you get the card image right there, and don’t have to fumble through switching apps, swiping through photos and so on. If it’s empty… it’ll let you know, and may just prompt you to add some cash to it . Very bare bones, but functional, and targeted toward mobile users (should work on any browser though). Make sure to add it to your home screen (it has a pretty iOS home screen icon and everything). Now all you need to do it press the icon from your home screen and voila! Enjoy

*Update*: How to Add to Home Screen

1. Load up http://thedanosphere.com/coffee in Safari on your phone.
2. Follow the instructions located here: iPhone 101: Add Mobile Websites to Home Screen.
3. Now you can access ‘Coffee Check‘ just like a normal iOS App!

The Most Epic Beer Commercial… Ever.

Dan — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:36:16 +0000

Just had to share this!

Apple Backstabs the “Open” HTML5/JS Web App Ecosystem via iOS 4.3

Dan — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:24:42 +0000

Apple Intentionally Slowing HTML5/JS Apps on iOS Homescreen to Favor Native Apps? http://reg.cx/1Ncf #sleazy #apple #throttlingless than a minute ago via webDan Wasyluk
danosphere

Build iPhone iOS Apps Using Flex Hero and Flash Builder Burrito

Dan — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:39:27 +0000

**Editor’s Note: I have a jailbroken iPhone, which makes installing custom IPA files incredibly easy in comparison to those of you still imprisoned by Apple. If you have a legitimate Apple Dev Cert. you should be able to just drag and drop your IPA into iTunes and sync- but I am free of Apple’s chains, so I haven’t tested this and can’t promise you anything.

If you are jailbroken, you have nothing to fear and are ready to rock and roll. For information on jailbreaking iOS 4.2 to make your life easier and your iOS awesomer click here**

Everyone is excited about Adobe’s new Flex Hero SDK, the first Flex SDK to truly enable mobile application development using the Flex framework. And then you read that it only allows you to build native applications for android, and you grimace, and move on. At least that’s what Adobe tells you. I’m here to tell you that with a little know-how, and some command-line fu, you can indeed built Flex mobile applications for the iPhone- right now.

First you’ll need to equip yourself. To complete this you need to download the Flex Hero 4.5 SDK, Flash Builder Burrito, and the Adobe Packager for iPhone.

Download: Flash Builder Burrito Preview Release [includes Flex Hero SDK bundled]

Download: Adobe Package for iPhone Preview 2

This walkthrough is going to be extremely basic. I’ll show you how to get a simple Flex Mobile app onto your iphone, and then it’s up to you to build on these concepts.

Open up Flash Builder Burrito and create a new mobile project, add a simple button to the main application just so you can know that everything is working. Save and exit. Now fire up a command line/terminal. What you need to do now is use the Flex mxmlc command line compiler to create a swf file from you MXML application which is compatible with the Packager for iPhone- Flash Builder Burrito will not do this by default because it uses the AIR2.5 namespace, that’s why you need to use the command line. After you generate a SWF file, you will use the Package for iPhone to create a .IPA file that you can drop onto your phone. Presto changeo- Flex Mobile application on iPhone!

There are a few catches to all of this, so keep reading. To generate IPA iphone application files using Packager for iPhone you need 2 things- an XML application descriptor file, and an Apple Developer Security Certificate.

The first part is easy, create a file – I called mine dl3_mobile-app.xml. This file tells the packager for iPhone a few things, namely stuff about icons, splash screens, and the like. Here is my application descriptor file for reference:

The second problem is the whole Apple Developer certificate issue. The problem is, those cost money- and most likely you just want to see your Flex App running on an iPhone, so why would you spend $100 to see that? Amirite? Right. So check out this nifty walkthrough on how to get a Fake Apple Developer cert so you can keep moving forward with this whole shibang – you may need to create an account to download the necessary files, but it’s free and they won’t spam ya:

How to use Adobe’s iPhone Packager without an Apple Developer Subscription

Ok now we’re set. So now we just need to compile the swf from the command line, and then package it up for iPhone. Here are the 2 commands respectively to accomplish all that:

After the first command is run you should have a SWF file, and after the second one is run [it will take a few minutes to complete, be patient!] you should have an IPA file – this is a native iPhone application! Boomshakalaka!

All done! Now you just need to copy the IPA file to your iPhone and install it! I’ll leave that part to you to figure out, but it’s really easy- just Google it.

That’s it! Shout out to the EverythingFlex Blog for helping me figure this all out.

Remember you technically shouldn’t be able to do this [Flex on iPhone] so don’t be shocked when performance is… subpar. For more helpful links on getting the jump on developing for mobile using Flex Hero, and compiling for iPhone using the Packager for iPhone, checkout these links:

Also checkout more of my SniptBox on Snipt.org.