12Robots.com - Jason Dean - JavaScript

My Presentation slides from cf.Objective, NCDevCon, and CFUnited

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:14:00 -0500

I keep forgetting to do this. Sorry :( I have given three presentations so far this year, and I will have 2 or three more et before the end of the year. Here are the slides for the first three in both Keynote and PDF formats. [More]

My review of NCDevCon 2010

Tue, 25 May 2010 12:37:00 -0500

This last weekend I attended, and spoke at, NCDevCon 2010 in Raleigh, NC. As expected, NCDevCon was a great conference put on by an amazing crew of dedicated volunteers.

Content

The content of this conference was very different than last year's CFinNC. Personally, I think the content this year appealed to a much wider audience. Last year's conference was clearly more focused on ColdFusion, CFML and Flex. This year, the focus seems to be more on Web Development, RIA's, and more general topics, yet with hands-on sessions that promoted the education of non-CF and Flex people on those technologies. I thought it was a great plan. [More]

I will be speaking at cf.Objective() 2010 on Security Topics (duh)

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:13:00 -0500

I received word last week that two of the topic proposals I submitted to the cf.Objective() planning committee were accepted. I am very excited and honored by this. It's nice to know that people think what I have to say is worth while. You may have guessed that I will be talking about security, since that seems to be what I enjoy talking about most. But this year will be a little different. [More]

Using SQLite Databases with AIR - Part 7 - Looping over Query results (also with jQuery)

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:06:00 -0500

I think that I have neglected to cover one of the most important parts of working with SQLite databases in Adobe AIR, and that is how to get the results out of the query. We talked about making queries, parameterizing queries, using transactions with queries. But I don't think we have covered getting the data out of the queries. So let's do that. [More]

Using SQLite Databases with AIR - Part 6 - Transactions

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:48:00 -0500

Transactions is SQL statements are something that I have come to love. I'm sure you have too. But for those that don't know what transactional control in a database management system is, we'll start with a definition. Usually, when doing multiple SQL statements in a row in an application, each SQL statement is handled as a atomic unit and is committed permanently to the database before the next one is run. This can be very problematic when those queries depend on each other to work properly to maintain data integrity. [More]

Hands on Adobe AIR at the next Twin Cities CFUG

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:33:00 -0500

On Wednesday, September 2nd, I will be presenting at the Twin Cities ColdFusion User Group meeting. At this meeting we are going to be trying something new (at least for me since I have been going to the CFUG). We are going to do some hands-on work with the technologies we love instead of just doing a lecture-style presentation. The work we will be doing is with Adobe AIR, JavaScript, jQuery, and SQLite. Here is the description for the session: [More]

Using SQLite Databases with AIR - Part 5 - Parameterizing Queries

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:49:00 -0500

In a previous post we looked at doing simple CRUD with Adobe AIR and SQLite and doing CREATE TABLE statements. But the examples we've looked at are VERY simple. In fact, we have not looked at any dynamically constructed queries. Today I want to look at properly building dynamic queries in AIR using bind parameters. [More]

Using SQLite Databases with AIR - Part 4 - Simple CRUD

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:47:00 -0500

So in case you you've been living under a rock for the last several years, you know that CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update and Delete. Which is what we are going to look at today, doing simple SQL statements with SQLite databases in Adobe AIR using JavaScript. We saw in my last couple posts how do do simple CREATE statements using both synchronous and asynchronous connections. I will paste them here again so that we have the reference all on one page. [More]

Using SQLite Databases with AIR - Part 3 - Asynchronous Database Connection

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:55:00 -0500

So in my last AIR and SQLite post we talked about Synchronous Database Connections in AIR. In many cases, synchronous connections may be all you need. If your queries are fast and a slight applicaiton pause is not a concern, or if you have a need for rigid program flow control, then synchronous connections are great. But there may come a time when you do not want the program to pause during a query, or series of queries. You may want the user to be able to continue working while the queries take place in the background. This is where asynchronous queries come in. [More]

Building an AIR Application with HTML and jQuery - Connect Recording

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:12:00 -0500

Last night I got together, online, with Todd Raffery, Ben Nadel and Andy Matthews to talk about Adobe AIR and jQuery. Last week, while twittering, we came up with the idea of having a "virtual classroom" setting, using Adobe Connect to get together and work through building an AIR application from scratch. So we did just that. This was a private session, so don't feel like you missed an announcement. I wanted to keep it small and informal so that we could feel OK about speaking freely, having fun and learning through questions and discussion. [More]

Unselecting Radio Buttons with jQuery

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:28:00 -0500

I got a weird request from one of my internal customers today. In one of our applications he wanted to be able to "uncheck" radio buttons. We all know that if you have a group of radio buttons, like this, that once you select one option, you cannot unselect an option, you can only change from one option to another. [More]

jQuery and AIR: Desktop Development for the Front End Designer with Andy Matthews

Thu, 28 May 2009 14:19:00 -0500

UPDATE: For anyone that may have missed this, here is the recording URL:
https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a17673838/p99669686/ Unfortunately, we cannot all be in the beautiful city of Nashville tonight to see Andy Matthew present his jQuery and AIR: Desktop Development for the Front End Designer. And we weren't all at cf.Objective to catch it there (I was, it was great). But, you can still see it in person or online TONIGHT! I think this presentation is a "must see". Not just for the Front End Designer, but for any of us who want to see the power of Adobe AIR when combined with something as fantastic and jQuery. [More]

Cross-Domain Requests in Adobe AIR - Security Series #13

Mon, 18 May 2009 13:33:00 -0500

At cf.Objective() this last week, one of the topics of discussion after Samer Sadek's excellent Adobe AIR presentation was about cross-domain restrictions in Adobe AIR applications written with JavaScript. I do not know if this discussion is relevant with AIR applications written with Flex. As many may know, and if you don't you should read up on this, most browsers implement a "same-origin" policy on JavaScript run within the browser. This means that JavaScript is free to use any resource available from within the domain that it is running, but it cannot use remote resources. [More]

More Handy JavaScript - Array push() and pop()

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:31:00 -0500

The other day I was work on my AIR application, and I came across a need for an Array function in JavaScript that was similar to the ColdFusion function ArrayAppend(), that would add a new value to the end of an Array. Then I remembered something my brother told me about push() and pop() in Java. So I looked into it, and sure enough, JavaScript arrays have the push() and pop() methods. I did not know this. I'm sure some JavaScript gurus are shaking their heads at my lack of such simple knowledge, but regardless, I did not know. And since I did not know, perhaps some others might not either, so I thought I would share. [More]

Using the Adobe AIR Encrypted Local Store

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:21:00 -0500

The Encrypted Local Store in the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) can be used to store data on the user's local machine in a safe and persistent way. The data persists between application launch instances. Once something is placed into the Encrypted Local Store it is there to stay until it is removed or the files are deleted. A separate Encrypted Local Store is set up for each AIR application on a machine and for each user of that machine. So essentially, each user gets their own Encrypted Local Store for each AIR application they use.

Using the Encrypted Local Store

Using the Encrypted Local Store is quite easy. It is available in the flash.data package and can be called from an HTML/Ajax AIR application without needing to include any other JS files. [More]