So how cool would it be if flex could do this to a database. Well Mark from WebOrb showed me it can. With that little code!!! Mark has basically mapped alot of the cool functionality of ActiveRecord from ROR into their Flex Data Services package. Very cool! Ok so where is it? Well its still in the works but very close and you will be able to add code like:

<mx:DataGrid dataProvider="{ActiveRecords.Order.findAll()}"> 
   <mx:columns>
     <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="OrderID"  />  
     <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="CustomerName" />
     <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="BillDate" /> 
     <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="ShipDate" />
   </mx:columns>
</mx:DataGrid>

What this basically is, is a data grid that will ask ActiveRecord to go and find all the Orders in the database, and populate the datagrid with them. Hang on i hear you say….what about Async callbacks, when the data has loaded. Well seeing databinding is available in flex that method can return an empty Array collection and when the data is recieved the datagrid will update. No more addEventListener(……… But dont worry you still have them there for use if you want to update the UI. But its AMF packets here so the packets are binary data and pretty quick.

Ok cool so what about all those Order objects we have in the datagrid, what can they do now? Well through the majick of data binding and ActiveRecord you can just have another datagrid below that updates automatically as items are selected in the first:

<mx:DataGrid dataProvider="{otherDataGrid.selectedItem.addresses}">
  <mx:columns>
    <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="OrderID" />
    <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="OrderDate" />
    <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="RequiredDate" />
    <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="ShippedDate" />
    </mx:columns>
</mx:DataGrid>

And that would populate the second datagrid with all the addresses for an order for each click on the first datagrid. And thats all info in the database.

So how does it work?  Well you set up your database model as you would any other application, hit the WebOrb Control panel and allow it to inspect the database tables. It will then generate a code base for you to place in your Flex application. Dont worry there are empty stubs for extending with your own functionality which never get over-written when you update the generated code.

Much much much more cool things are in the pipline but this blog post is getting a tad long. So heres what you need to start to find out more information

WebOrbs blog

Also if your lucky enough to be going (or even have tickets too) Flex 360:

"Also, if you are attending the 360Flex conference, I will be demonstrating WDMF during my session next Monday between 4:00 and 5:20 in the Integration track." – Mark Piller

Stay tuned I will be updating with more soon. 

What the F*$k you say. .NET and ROR, what an unlikely couple. Well yeah. ROR rocks at making sites quick and clean. .NET is the most rocking serverside lanuage with system intergration. It should be its writen by the same company that makes the OS. So I was after a way to get the best of both worlds.

I really wont bore you with the details here, but if you want any info just leave a comment with your email and I will explain it to you. I would like to write a generic wrapper/plugin for ROR to make this really easy but I have to sort out translation of dataTypes so complex Objects can be passed between the two.

I wrote a little site that called a .NET dll to get system information like CPU % etc to display on a page. To basically show load on the server. 

Ultra g33k stuff I know but still a very cool little tid bit to know can be done. 

Check it out !!!

We had planned to launch the first display for Vodafone NZ at the surf champs this weekend (at the beach) but a local service provider HyperFactory threw thier toys out of the cot so well have to re-schedule.  ( gutted cause I have spent alot of nights on this thing. We had been hooked up with a GPRS modem for the display and everything.

If your unsure as to where videmo came from there is a project link on the side bar to your right (i will update it soon with this information). Basically I took that website 1 step further. Messages are convertered server side and added to a database. A Prudy Flex web interface allows people to moderate the messages remotely, via AMF and once given the ok they beam thier way off to a remote location at a live event. At the event the are displayed in all thier mobile goodness on a large Flex screen. (but no-one ever knows that unless Adobe sponsors me for the Video SDK wink wink nudge nudge)

I have to now save to buy the On2 Server side sdk. The photo above shows the display running on my tv at home (has been for 24 hours remember) and youll notice the video is a little small. Basically pumping it up much more with FFMpeg kills the quality, so I really have to get the video On2 SDK to take it to the next level. Considering that the SDK is about $7000 NZ I might be saving for a while, OUCH!

So if anyone out there thinks that live video and images along with text would suit their event, feel free to let me know, and we can work something out. Im cheap as I need to eat and have to start raising funds for that SDk and paying bills again.

Its a version 1 with many possible features, but well just see how it sits with users for now and see what people actually want this thing to do.

Rock on Flex though!!!! It was the easiest to implement and mate up with the other technologies. It (really the flash player) is so suited to GUI over many other platforms it really was the only choice. Next up I will be plumbing the ROR site back into the new schema so photos and video will be availble for viewing afterwards with lightbox like video popups.

Finally, I would really appreciate it if anyone out there, no matter what country your from would send me a pxt or mobile video. I need to start getting a feel for other formats of service providers. Ill even post the funniest in a few days.

Send the message to testevent@videmo.co.nz, and it will display on my tv at home in all its glory. 

Then I came across a link which instilled in me a sense of, "now that just makes sense". It was about getting the idea out. Getting that version 1 live.

How many of you out there have had a cool idea and developed it so far but all the 3am nights later you start to loose interest because it just doesnt seem to be happening. Well if your in the US time to check out http://www.ycombinator.com.

[ VIA: Orielly.com ]

Check this from thier site:

Do we need to write a business plan?

Not for us. We make funding decisions based on our application form and personal interviews. We love demos, but we never read business plans.

How much do you usually invest?

Rarely more than $20,000. The goal is usually to give you enough money to build an impressive prototype or version 1, which you can then use to get further funding.

What does Y Combinator get out of this?

Stock, usually about 5-7% of it.

Heck, give me 6k to hold me over for the time, and ill give you 20% and the nut of my uncles brother.

Man how I wish someone in New Zealand had a clue and started something like this. Really to get that version 1 out…to get it to a really basic product…full time…. should take 3mnths. How many peolpe in that three months is just a measure of how hard it is.

When I dream that my idea could make a really usefull and cool site/idea, and I dream that I could make a really sweet product out of it, I am not looking for 10 mill of funding. heck Im looking to not go hungry and still have a home at the end of developing it.

Where are the VC's that give you 10g to push out a web 2.0 site in Ruby on rails in 2mnths that functions and can handel some users on your so so hosting plan. Thats the point that I want to reach. Where it can be evaluated as a self standing product. 

Wise up guys (all you VC's out there) and youll find you get alot more for your money. 

"Free open-source implementation of Flash Remoting in Ruby."
"Can be deployed into any Rails-enabled application to expose it to Flash Remoting and Flex clients."
"Provides full implementation of Flash Remoting and Flex Data Services (AMF0 and AMF3, Data Management)"

If you head over to http://www.themidnightcoders.com/index.htm  and check it out, they say that the PHP and the ROR version is coming Q3 06 (never really liked that whole quarter thing but I spose it means there isnt a solid date). I cant wait though, seeing how easy and fast ROR is along with AMF and some flex (my goodness I sound like a marketing person lol) I will be making some cool stuff…..quickly.

Best of all the same packages that provide the AMF are specifically designed to intergrate with AJAX calls. So you get the best of all the Web 2.0 terms to sell your client on buying the full version. The have plenty of demoslive on their server. Showing that pretty much the same methods can be accessed via both AMF and ajax calls.

So put this one in your "to keep an eye on" box and hold your breath. 

Awsome scenery

You cant really see it but there are hundreds of small fish behind me

A very dangerous NZ fish not normally found in Fiji but my Dad was lucky to snap this shot of the rare white tee-shirted puffed checked xsiveious fish

After such a nice relaxation period it pretty hard to get ramped up back into work, but there are many little projects on the go. There has been some advances with Videmo.co.nz. My mobile phone multimedia message to website gallery project I made for a bit of a play. But instead of static websites it heading more towards the live area, More to come I promise.

Also on the radar at the moment is keeping an eye on tickle.co.nz (the ruby on rails and flash website we released before I ran away on holiday). We asked for feedback from the users and we got it, although alot of people seem to check common curtasies (spelling?) at the door when sending an email in the heat of the moment. It can be frustraiting sometimes and opens my eyes for when I make comments on others websites. I also posted on a couple of the local ruby on rails news groups and got some great feedback (thanks guys). The PDF engine is processing data from flash and creating purdy little print ready pdfs well. And I love the check out system each time I use it. Its one place I really like Ajax. When you have a page showing 300 images in your cart ready to be printed the last thing you want is to be refreshing the page with every change.

So with that I guess I had better get back to. Glad to be back with internet now though lol ) 

Go get the update now if you want to save your hair. 

I have been playing with flash and ruby on rails together alot and today stumbled across a problem. The situation was in rails I was requesting a remote URL through Net::Http class and getting the response, but kept on getting an error which read:

NoMethodError: You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it!
The error occured while evaluating nil.verify_mode

It seems when your updating ruby not all comes out well and I found the answer at : http://brantinteractive.com/index.php?p=53

After removing rails and re-installing all was well. Once again just a heads u, and I hope to reveal the project to the world soon ) It seems once you get past the initail Wow of ruby scaffolding there are plenty of little suprises to catch you out. So its a love hate relationship. I still really miss the great IDE that Visual studio has but am really enjoying ROR again after the initial bang head against wall stage. And if you feeling game check out:

RubyOnRails (1.1) and Flex (2.0): Pt 1 & RubyOnRails (1.1) and Flex (2.0): Pt 2 for a bit of a look in to see how cool it can be. I hope to post a bit of a tut on setting up ROR on a windows box and running it in a clustered server setup with speeds matching lighttpd thats 70-150 req/sec for dynamic full blown rails pages.