Well, few people knows about the logic operator "||=". I'll try to explain a little more about it.

In the adobe documentation, this operator is described like: "Assigns expression1 the value of expression1 || expression2". Just to remember, the sintaxe to logic operator is "expression1 operator expression2".

I'll show some examples of how it works.

Exemple1:

Exemple2:

Soon, looking the difference of this 2 exemples, we conclued that the logic operator "||=" makes the same thing of the code below, but in a better way.

I hope you all liked it.

Do you know what happens in the follow code?

Compile error? Runtime Error? Nothing. The trace result is "Name: Bruno Sales". The variable was created even if the code inside the IF was never executed.
Thats happens because ActionScript has just 2 types of scope: Global and Local; remembering that Local is everything inside a function.

However, I suggest never using something like this in your development process. Your code logic will be very confusing and will cause problem to maintenance and debug.

Everyone that uses Firefox to make test while developing Adobe Flex applications, for sure already had problems with cache. This become more frustrating when the application is so big that, to make the test, you need to go through some steps before and finally when it get at the test point, you find out that loaded a cached version of your app.

Obviously that have some ways to solve this problem but, I'll show the solution I use.

Open the firefox and in the address bar type: about:config. An alert message will shows up, but we need to keep going on to make the configuration.
Look in the search bar for these items: browser.cache.memory.enable, browser.cache.disk.enable. If you haven't change it before, they will be with the value true, what you must do is, set this values to false.

Then, to confirm that the changes were made, just type in the address bar: about:cache, the result must be a info message saying that the cache was disabled.

Done. Now the firefox's cache was disabled, in a fast and simple way.

EULA - End User License Agreement, that is the 60-page text that you probably never read, which appears on unavoidable dialog when you installing applications, which contains "I Agree" button. You know it, you clicked it so many times.

Question is, did you actually read it?

Of course, that you know that you agreed to:

1. "Do not criticize this product publicly."

2. "Using this product means you will be monitored."

3. "Do not reverse-engineer this product."

4. "Do not use this product with other vendor's products."

5. "By signing this contract, you also agree to every change in future versions of it. Oh yes, and EULAs are subject to change without notice."

6. "We are not responsible if this product messes up your computer."

...among other things.

You may wish to see some explications on the mentioned things. If so, visit:

http://www.eff.org/wp/dangerous-terms-users-guide-eulas

Some time ago, I wrote a small introduction about 3D effects from Flash Player 10. Moving on with my studies and understanding better how FP10 works, I did this component that, even being commun to 3D framework users, works good as native and consequently low weight.

The component can receive any DisplayObject, letting the interactivity works fine.

The follow demo shows the component and some of its properties:

You can see here the source code.
(Don't forget it is a FP10 project. To make it works go to Project Properties > Flex compiler > Require Flash Player and fill with 10.0.0).

The Spring Framework makes JDBC development easier by using IoC to eliminate low-level code. If you don't use an ORM framework, this API is highly recommended. Now let's see a comparison sample between pure JDBC and JDBC with Spring JdbcTemplate class:

Example 1: Creating a list of objects with pure JDBC

Besides, you have to control connections opening and closing.

Example 2: Creating a list of objects with Spring and JDBC:

We have to use the JdbcTemplate class that can be instantied by injecting your datasource (new JdbcTemplate(dataSource)). Then you should create a new class that implements the RowMapper interface for the objects creation. After that, you can get the list of objects with just one line of code:

RowMapper sample:

Complete reference: http://static.springframework.org/spring/docs/2.0.x/reference/jdbc.html

On the second PDC 2008 day, Microsoft has announced that the new Microsoft Office 14 will come with a built-in Silverlight Web version. It’s probably a “compact" Office version, but nobody knows it for sure yet.

Microsoft announced the web version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and we can also expect that all those applications will run on any operational system with Silverlight support. What do you think about it? Check out some screenshots here.

I don’t think it’s a big deal that other web application developers have to worry about, because people hardly change from Microsoft Office to a very limited office web application, like Google Docs.

As the title says, Brazil made the biggest linux implementation worldwide at one time. All the election electronic voting boxes are with Linux installed.
Even before, Brazillian election system is the most advanced in the world. Now it beaten the record again: the most technologicaly advanced.

Following article explains more about voting boxes:
Linux voting boxes - Brazillian elections

Newest revolutionary Google's browser Chrome is finally ported to Linux and Mac.
Company, CodeWeavers, that is known by porting various applications and games from one platform to another, has ported Chrome to Linux and Mac, naming it Chromium.

For Linux: DEB, RPM or Other distros
For Mac: Chromium Mac OSX

To who is web developer, no matter is it Flex, Flash, Java, HTML, and use Firefox as browser, there is an extension which is a MUST-HAVE.
Plugin enables you to control all aspects of broswser and page contents details, like enabling/disabling cache, forms, styles and much more.

Web developer extension

When installed, it will be placed in TOOLS menu.

Seems that FF3 has a slight problem with cache handling due to anti-phishing algorythms. I found this somewhere on the net, and it really works.

Go to FF preferences -> Security and un-check 2nd and 3rd checkbox,
"Tell me if ..."

Close preferences and close Firefox.
Go to your users settings where firefox keeps it's files for the account. I Windows should be somewhere in "Application Data", I am not sure, but for Linux, open terminal and write
#> cd .mozilla/firefox
and enter in tou your account directory (should be something like "of6wel65.default") , name is pretty random.

- Delete files urlclassif*.sqlite
- Start firefox.

that is it.

Mozilla labs addressed a call to all people to participate in ideas and collaboration for the next generation web browser. Call can be viewed here:
http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-the-concept-series-call-for-participation/

Some video presentation reveals really futuristic design. It is worth to see it.
http://adaptivepath.com/aurora/themes.php

There is a case when one needs to make a structural representation of data which resides in a single table, with records referenced to one another. This is not difficult to make, but sometimes people just doesn't have time.

I had small table with linked records, that I had to represent structurally. Table was something like:

where record Id 2, links to record Id 1,  by third field.

I have found a component on the internet from Singapore Flex Usergroup, but it didn't worked for my case as I needed to.
So I took the liberty to alter the component and share it.

D-Click developers already have this component set in flex_library.

You may download small Flex3 demo application along with the component from following link:

TreeCollection demo

Last night, I lost a few hours and two kilogramms of nerves to solve the problems I didn't even supposed to have. Something was wrong with the debugger and I couldn't get the job done as debugger was highly uncooperative. Some of the issues were:

• Clicking on one line to toggle breakpoint, it appears in another
• Debugger skips the lines
• Changes in code sometimes doesnt't effect the results in the firefox
• Feeling of a Gremlim infestation of your putter.

Some of you may laugh, but for the certain things, I didn't have any knowledge of, and I didn't find it anywhere, until my collegue Henrique Marino came to explain me how to end the suffering.

So, hereby I share it with you.

1. If you have a CVS controlled code, with a branches, be sure that compiler is set to the particular branch that you work on at the moment. Go to (eclipse) Project -> Properties, select Flex Compiler and see what is written in "Additional compiler arguments". Problem is probably there. This is the reason of debugger skipping the lines, if it is set wrongly.
2. Close all projects except the one you use at the moment. Right click on a project and select "Close unrelated projects"
3. If you use Jetty, since it's not doing boring and time consuming deployment as JBoss, it creates another flaw: cache might not be cleaned. Go to Firefox, Tools -> Web developer -> Disable -> Disable cache.

This will kill the Gremlin(s).

I hope this post will shorten one's suffering.

I just talked to Sub-Zeb. Nowadays, he works for Roundarch and guess what he uses to develop Rich Internet Applications: Adobe Flex.

Pek Pongpaet, who I talked some minutes ago, is Lead Interactive Developer at Roundach. But what is really interesting about Pek is that he did motion capture in five Mortal Kombat games. On his blog you can see some videos.

Well, I couldn't resist the idea to post saying that Sub-Zero works with Flex. Now, I am going to talk to my nephews that I just talked to Sub-Zero. It's a small world.