Adobe Flex/Flash and Lotus Notes Domino

Flexdomino.net is up again

2012-01-26T20:42:00.004+01:00

It might take an hour or two before the URL forwarding to this blog is cancelled though.

Flexdomino.net is down

2012-01-26T00:20:00.001+01:00

The worst case scenario occurred, our server blew up. The power-supply burned and killed the motherboard with it. We are working hard to get a new server up and running as fast as possible. For the time being all traffic is re-routed to our blog.

I know its slightly late...but our Lotusphere 2012 Session app for iOS made it in the Appstore

2012-01-18T19:39:00.003+01:00

Unfortunately the approval process of Apple took a very long time. So we somewhat missed the boat for iOS this year. However, we would really like you to download the app and provide us with feedback. Lotusphere 2013 is sure to come and next year the app will surely be available right in time.

iPad:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lotusphere-2012-session-journal/id494500021?mt=8

iPhone:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lotusphere-2012-session-journal/id494499693?mt=8

Please note: the iOS app is not the most recent release. We already have been made aware of a few issues (see my previous postings), which have sub-sequently been fixed in the Android and Playbook releases.

Lotusphere Sessions App version 2.0.8 is now available for upgrade

2012-01-17T22:03:00.001+01:00

We received some feedback which made us change a UI aspect that was slightly confusing:

Basically when selecting the '...' tab to enter a filter string, right to the input field we placed the 'refresh' or 'resync' button to download the latest session data. The button was mistakenly used as means to trigger the entered filter condition. The latter not being required as the list is filtered as you type.

We placed the button under the 'All' tab at the bottom of the screen including a label explaining the buttons function.

Lotusphere Session app version 2.0.6 (Android) and 2.0.7 (Playbook) have been released

2012-01-16T16:29:00.000+01:00

Following issues have been fixed:

The 'Like' flag once set could not been removed (or only temporarily during the session; once the app gets closed the 'Like' flag re-appeared)
Removing the 'Like' flag in the Like folder/tab did hang the app

The Android smartphone and tablet release are published and should be available within the hour of this posting

The Blackberry Playbook version will likely take 24 hours for approval.

Latest session data available for our LS 2012 Session app

2012-01-15T17:47:00.001+01:00

We just updated the latest changes to the LS session timetable. Please use the reload button to sync your local datastore.

Note: we found an intermittent issue where the first attempt to sync doubles the records or blanks to local store. Simply close the app and reopen it. It should automatically try to sync again. If not do it manually. The second attempt always works.

Finally...the Lotusphere 2012 Session Journal for Playbook is available

2012-01-13T16:20:00.000+01:00

Now that was a close call...

http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/76896?lang=en

Lotusphere 2012 Session Journal - Latest Session Data

2012-01-10T10:42:00.001+01:00

We just updated our version of the Lotusphere Session database provided by Geniisoft.

So if you are using our Android Lotusphere 2012 Session app, please use the refresh function to update your local session database from the flexdomino.net server..

n-Mobility 1.5 released

2012-01-10T09:52:00.000+01:00

We just released version n-Mobility 1.5 - our lightweight mobile client for Lotus Notes Domino - for Android smartphone and tablet devices, as well as for the Blackberry Playbook. The iPhone and iPad version is still awaiting approval.

What's New?

Support for categorized views.
A rudimentary support for response document hierarchies (this is work in progress)
Dynamic view categorization
Dynamic column resizing

Android Smartphones

Full ($2.99) Demo (free)

Android Tablets

Full ($2.99)                                       Demo (free)

Blackberry Playbook

Full ($2.99)                                Demo (free)

Lotusphere 2012 Session Journal for iOS and Playbook

2012-01-05T16:29:00.004+01:00

We have posted our LS 2012 Session Journal app both on the Apple App Store and the Blackberry App World. I will post more as soon as the apps get approved.

Lotusphere 2012 Session Journal app shows as not compatible with your device...

2012-01-02T23:32:00.000+01:00

When we first posted the 2012 release we made a mistake in the configuration of the Android manifest file, causing most devices not to be compatible with the application.

We immediately fixed the issue and released a new versions 2.0.2; for both the smartphone version as well as the tablet version.

So if you happen to be one of the first down-loader facing the problem, please try again.

Thanks.

Lotusphere 2012 Session Journal for Android

2012-01-02T00:07:00.003+01:00

We just posted the 2012 release of our Lotusphere Session Journal application. Besides a number of UI improvements, we added support for tablet devices.

You will find the following version on the Android Marketplace:

Lotusphere 2012 Session Journal
(smartphone release - optimized for 480x800)

Lotusphere 2012 Session Journal
(tablet release - optimized for 1024x600)

Enjoy :-)

Happy New Year!

HTC Car Panel app lost since OTA upgrade to Android 2.3.5

2011-12-28T23:05:00.001+01:00

Today I received an over the air (OTA) upgrade notification for my HTC Desire HD and naturally I immediately upgraded. First thing I noticed are a number of nice UI improvements and in general performance seems to have been improved. After this first joy I however realized that my top most important app (after mail that is), the Car Panel app is missing.

A quick research showed that I was not the only one facing the issue. Basically every HTC whatever owner had the same problem. I called HTC support or I started a live chat respectively and I got to know that the Car Panel app (or is it just the icon) has been removed from Android 2.3.5 for HTC devices.

Before you flip backwards over, the Car Panel navigation is still there, its just a little hidden. And you might have lost access to your currently downloaded maps as your license expired. The following steps need to be done to fix the problem and to get back your 3D premium navigation:

1)

Connect the phone to the computer via the USB cable. When prompted on the Phone, select Disk drive, then tap OK.

2)

On the PC, open the new removeable drive. Browse to .data\navigator\Data\Res\Extras
and move the .navd file from the SD card. If you like to take backups just save them somewhere on your PC, but you can as well simply delete them; they are no longer useful.

3)

Disconnect the phone from the PC. Open the Locations application on the phone and synchronise the license keys. To do this, select Menu and select Get more. In the My licenses & content screen select again Menu and then Sync license.

4)

Now delete all installed maps and download them again.

After you followed the above steps, your premium navigation should work again. However, the nice quick access through the Car Panel icon is not coming back. To start your navigation, launch the Locations application and click on the Car icon in the header bar named "Nearby". Once in "Car Mode" you can select Menu to get the options menu pop up you are used to from the Car Panel.

Good luck.

P.S. finally a big Thank You to HTC online chat support. It took about 3 minutes to explain the issue and get the solution.

soapgate Q! is now available on OpenNTF.org

2011-11-21T10:48:00.001+01:00

http://soapgateq.openntf.org/

soapgate Q! 2.5 goes open source

2011-11-19T16:28:00.001+01:00

We decided to publish soapgate Q! - our generic web service based data access API for Lotus Notes Domino - as open source under GNU Affero General Public License - Version 3 (APGLV3)

Version 2.5 can be downloaded from here...

Please note: the documentation is not yet up to date with regards to new features and more importantly with regards to licensing model. We will provide the updated manuals as soon as possible.

Blackberry Playbook OS 2.0 Beta

2011-10-27T14:54:00.003+02:00

RIM made the Playbook OS 2.0 Beta available for developers. In case you haven't found the registration page yet...

n-Mobility Client 1.3.1 for Android released

2011-10-18T11:19:00.003+02:00

we just published

n-Mobility Client 1.3.1 - Smartphone &
n-Mobility Client 1.3.1 - Tablet (new)

on the Android Marketplace

The Smartphone version is the previously published version optimised for devices with a screen resolution of 800x480 pixel. The new Tablet version is optimised for 1024x600 pixels.

The new version has a much improved UI.
We have added localisation support (the configuration screen allows to setup personal date time format preferences).
The Android status bar is available in portrait, but hidden in landscape orientation.
Besides the server side full-text search in the data grid (view), we added a local full-text view search.
The form has now distinct fields (still in list form) and will optimise the presentation of prompts and fields according to screen orientation.

Flex SDK 4.5.1 typeerror #1009 drawcolumnbackground() in advanceddatagridbaseex.as:3966

2011-09-29T10:13:00.001+02:00

Today I provide a little bug fix for the Flex community. Under not clear circumstances the drawcolumnbackground() method of the advanceddategridbaseex class (and hence the AdvancedDateGrid class, which extends the AdvancedDateGridBaseEx class) throws an exception).

I have posted the details and the workaround in the Adobe Flex Support Forum.

Netweaver Portals (SAP) talking to Lotus Notes Domino

2011-09-20T00:32:00.001+02:00

Q!kom implemented a successful link between NetWeaver-Portals of SAP and Lotus Notes Domino through the generic Web-Service-API soapgate Q!

n-Mobility - the lightweight mobile client for Lotus Notes available on Android Market

2011-09-20T00:11:00.002+02:00

We finally published n-Mobility for Android...

n-Mobility EVAL
https://market.android.com/details?id=air.net.flexdomino.nmobility

n-Mobility FULL
https://market.android.com/details?id=air.net.flexdomino.nmobilityclient

n-Mobility Client for iOS & Android coming very soon

2011-08-13T22:38:00.001+02:00

Just having published the n-Mobility Client for the Blackberry Playbook, we are "working hard" to support other devices, such as Android and iOS devices. Thanks to Flash Builder 4.5 this means initially a simple launch or export of a release build respectively to any of the supported devices.

Within minutes the n-Mobility Client was working on the iPad, the iPhone and the HTC Desire (Android) - see screen shots...

Of course some of views are not 100% adjusted to the respective resolutions, so some work needs to be done. But you can expect to see the n-Mobility Client being available for Android and iOS pretty soon.

n-Mobility Client 1.0 - the lightweight mobile client for Lotus Notes databases - is now available for Blackberry Playbook

2011-08-10T21:44:00.003+02:00

We are proud to announce that the n-Mobility Client 1.0 for Playbook is now available on Blackberry App World. We have provided a free demo version, as well as the full version @ $2.99.

Both versions are by default connected to the Flexdomino.net server. To use the n-Mobility Client with your own databases/server, you require to download soapgate Q! 2.1. To enable a database for the use with the n-Mobility Client you have to create a Database Access Profile for the database in soapgate Q!.

The free evaluation copy is limited though to a single Database Access Profile for up to 3 selected views. No limitations to the number of documents. If this is all you need, good luck...you got a nice app for free :-)

QR Code - Full Version

QR Code - Free Demo Version

n-Mobility - a lightweight Lotus Notes Client for mobile devices

2011-07-23T00:04:00.004+02:00

In my last posting about the Blackberry Developers Challenge I have announced our participation with a SoapgateQ! enabled application. Here we go...

n-Mobility

is a lightweight client for mobile devices to (initially) view/read any Notes database on your Playbook using our web service based data access API for Domino (SoapgateQ!). n-Mobility allows access to a configurable list of Notes databases, its views and documents. It takes about 30 minutes per database you want to enable for mobile devices (depends a bit on the complexity of the database). No design changes or development is required, the creation of a Database Access Profile in the SoapgateQ! database is all it takes.

Today I will simply post a few screen shots of the current beta and maybe I produce a little video over the weekend.

After the initially launch for the Blackberry Playbook we intend to cross-compile for iOS (iPad) too.

As the deadline for the Blackberry Challenge is approaching fast, it is likely that the first beta will be available within a week or two. Depending how fast Blackberry will approve the app once we posted it.

Use our FREE Mobility Toolkit for Domino to win the Blackberry Developers Challenge

2011-07-10T18:25:00.000+02:00

There is still time to enter the 2011 BlackBerry® Developers Challenge and to develop the "Best Flash/AIR Mobile App for BlackBerry PlayBook". Applications can be submitted until August 12, 2011.

With our FREE Mobility Toolkit for Domino consisting of SoapgateQ! 2.0 - a web service based Data Access API for Domino -, the supporting Flex/AIR libraries and the many sample projects for Flash Builder 4.5 it should be a peace of cake to develop a winning business type application for the Playbook.

As we recognize that the deadline is rather short, we will provide free support for our mobility toolkit for any application developed in the context of this competition.

I have started a series of postings talking about Going mobile with Lotus Notes Domino (part 1). The posting provides the links to get started with SoapgateQ!

Of course we do participate as well in this Challenge. In my next posting about the Blackberry Developers Challenge I will talk about this application.

Going mobile with Lotus Notes Domino

2011-07-09T13:20:00.010+02:00

With this article I will start a series of postings about developing mobile applications for Lotus Notes Domino databases. Today’s posting is about IBM's and our (Flexdomino.net) efforts to provide a Data Access API to Lotus Notes Domino.

Not sure how closely you follow IBM’s efforts to provide developers with the means to develop mobile applications for Domino databases, but considering that you ended up reading this article I will assume you do.

If not, you might want to have a look at what is going on at OpenNTF and read about IBM’s effort to develop a REST API and providing XPages functionality to support apps for mobile devices:

http://www.openntf.org/blogs/openntf.nsf/d6plinks/NHEF-8J2V3G

http://planetlotus.org/8bf81c

If you follow my blog, you might also have read about my previous postings about our efforts at Flexdomino.net to develop a web service based Data Access API for Lotus Notes Domino called SoapgateQ! Version 2.0 has recently being launched, and as part of this launch we provide a free Community Server License (you can find download and info links at the end of this article):

http://www.flexdomino.net/soapgateq

http://www.qkom.net/ibmdomino/soapgateq

Before discussing the differences of the two APIs, let’s first talk about the different ways of developing a mobile app. Basically you have three options:

A browser based application. For a Domino developer this obviously means XPages development, utilizing the tools provided by IBM. One of which is the new REST API.
Native development. A developer would use whatever tools are available to develop for the OS of each targeted device, such as Android, iOS, QNX, WebOS etc. For native development both APIs (IBM REST API or SoapgateQ!) could be utilized to access Domino databases.
Apps developed for middle-ware (such as Flash/Air/Silverlight) or cross-compiled apps. Again, both APIs could be utilized to access Domino databases.

I do not intend to start yet another one of these dreaded controversial debates about Flash vs. HTML5 or Flash vs. Native development, for which reason I will not talk about the pros and cons of the different methods to develop a mobile app.

Instead I will highlight the simple fact that IBM thinks XPages with regards to Lotus Notes Domino and the REST API is part of its broader strategy of Social Business. IBM will not provide any tools other then the REST API for native developers nor will it support middle-ware developers beyond this API. I have not heard or seen any official statement of IBM, but a high ranking IBMer stated in a session at LS 2011 that “IBM doesn’t believe in middle-ware”; hence it doesn’t believe in Flash/Air (or Silverlight for that matter). Having said this, IBM does not want you not to use Flash/AIR; the latter is simply not part of their strategy.

To summarize this: IBM wants you to develop browser based mobile apps with XPages using the REST API.

For those of you who are not XPages developers or simply have a case where a browser based app is not an option, but a native app or an Flex/AIR based app or a Flex to iOS cross-compiled app is the best choice, this is where SoapgateQ! and its supporting Flex/Air libs can help you. Actually you might even want to use SoapgateQ! for XPages, but I will talk about this at a later stage.

In the next article I will talk about the differences of the two APIs and I will then start talking about our experience developing mobile applications with SoapgateQ!

In the meantime I would like to invite you to have a look at SoapgateQ! 2.0. Just get your free Community Server License and dissect the many samples we have provided for the different mobile OS on the market.

SoapgateQ! – Download & other useful links

Our technical user forum:

http://forum.qkom.de

Downloads for the SoapgateQ! 2.0 database and manual:

http://forum.qkom.de/board10-downloads/board16-download-soapgate-q/board20-soapgate-q-core-files

Downloads for the Flex Libs for SoapgateQ! 2.0 and manual:

http://forum.qkom.de/board10-downloads/board16-download-soapgate-q/board19-flex-air-libraries

Download for the Bookstore Demo for the most relevant OS and devices:

http://forum.qkom.de/board10-downloads/board16-download-soapgate-q/board11-bookstore-demos

SoapgateQ! 2.0 launch on Wednesday, 22/06/2011

2011-06-20T16:26:00.003+02:00

Finally we are ready to launch SoapgateQ! 2.0 - the web service based data access API for Lotus Notes Domino.

Besides having plenty of new features, the new release comes with a new license model, which we hope will bring a smile to your face...

The SoapgateQ! community server edition comes absolutely FREE. All you need to do is to register with Qkom.net or Flexdomino.net to receive your full license key (a link will be provided with the launch). We also provide plenty of open source code libraries and code samples from which you can learn how to use SoapgateQ! - for instance with your Flash Builder projects.

If you like SoapgateQ! and you feel that you require professional support you can opt for the SoapgateQ! Enterprise Edition, which is essentially the same edition from a functional point of view, but comes with technical support. Click here for more information.

The count down is on...so stay tuned.

dropbox Q! for Connections (Greenhouse Demo)

2011-06-15T22:39:00.002+02:00

My partners at Qkom.net just posted a free Flex/Air application that provides a file upload (dropbox) functionality for your personal Greenhouse account using Lotus Connections. It is an experimental project to get familiar with Lotus Connections.

Read more here...http://www.qkom.net/ibm-connections/dropbox-q

Flash Builder 4.5 - Deploying an unsigned Playbook application using a Debug Token

2011-05-25T15:35:00.001+02:00

In my previous posting I explained how I created and deployed a debug token on the Blackberry Playbook Simulator. In this posting I explain the next step, deploying an unsigned application bar file using the command line procedure (as the Flash Builder UI process isn't working for non US environments - see previous posting).

I avoid to use the command line procedure to package (and deploy) the application bar file as the packaging is perfectly working from the Flash Builder UI. However, a few settings and hacks have to be done so that your FB 4.5 app will run on your Blackberry Playbook:

The Playbook doesn’t support yet the Air SDK 2.6 (according to RIM an upgrade will be provided around June 2011, which will fix this issue), and as a result of that you have 2 choices: you either use Flash Builder Burrito (with the Air SDK 2.5) or you need to add a little hack to your projects to remove any Air SDK 2.6 dependencies.

The detailed explanation to this can be found on Jason’s Flex Blog.
In addition what is said in the above blog entry, the advanced packaging options should be

-forceAirVersion 2.5 –devMode

The reason for the –devMode option is that the (real) Playbook will otherwise not accept a deployment of an unsigned apps even though a Debug Token has been installed and the device is in Developer mode.
Don’t forget the mentioned compiler option -swf-version=10
Last but not least you need to add the AuthorID as created in the MANIFEST.MF file of the currently used debugtoken.bar file that must be installed on your Playbook device.

Open the debugtoken.bar file with for instance 7-Zip
In the META-INF folder you find the MANIFEST.MF file
Open it with a Notepad
Find the tag called Package-Author-Id: and copy the encrypted code into the clipboard
Open the blackberry-tablet.xml file of your project
Add a tag paste your id code here
You also need to add an tag (which is your vendor name as registered with RIM)

< qnx>

…

<author>flexdomino.netauthor>

<authorId>gYAAg…siWgauthorId>

…

qnx>

OK, that’s it, we are half way through. Next step is to run the Export Release Build… function of the Flash Builder to finally use again the command line procedures to deploy the application.bar file on to the Playbook. For this I created a simple batch file:

CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-1.0.1\bin\"

blackberry-deploy -installApp -devMode -launchApp -package "D:\BlackberryApps\mobilenotes\mobilenotes.bar" -password xxx -device your_device_ip

The -password must match the password set for the Playbook device and the –device ip address can be found here…

As shown in the screen shot, do not forget to change your device to Development Mode from the security settings. And as said earlier, you require a valid debug token to be installed on the device.

To remove the app from the device I created yet another batch file:

CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-1.0.1\bin\"

blackberry-deploy -uninstallApp -package "D:\BlackberryApps\mobilenotes\mobilenotes.bar" -password xxx –device your_device_ip

DNUG Session Journal Application for Blackberry Playbook

2011-05-18T22:51:00.000+02:00

Qkom GmbH developed a Session Journal Application for the Blackberry Playbook for the upcoming DNUG (German Notes User Group) event. This application is similar to the Lotusphere Session Journal we published earlier this year for Android devices.

The application accesses a Lotus Notes session journal database using our web service based Domino Data Access API (SoapgateQ!)

Item QR Code

Enjoy :-)

On EDGE with Adobe Flash Builder 4.5

2011-05-18T12:10:00.003+02:00

Check this video and you know why I love to be a Flex developer...

Flash Builder 4.5 - Problems with installing a Playbook Debug Token

2011-05-17T10:27:00.002+02:00

Last week I reported the issues I have with my attempts installing a debug token on the latest Blackberry Playbook Simulator (1.0.1) to Blackberry Dev Support...

"Dear support,

I have been battling with the new debug token feature for the Playbook Simulator and am at a point to give up.

I tried using the Flash Builder 4.5 UI to create the debug token bar file, but get an error message saying "Unable to parse issue date from debug token."

Once I change the system and all Flash Builder / Java configurations to US local settings, the bar file is created. Unfortunately I'm not located in the US and hence keeping my PC on US settings is a no go.

I also tried the command line creation and that works with my UK settings.

However, the deployment is not functioning, UI and command line deployment fail. Well, to be precise, the deployment as such works...

D:\BlackberryApps\DebugToken>deploytoken
D:\BlackberryApps\DebugToken>C:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-
1.0.1\bin>CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry
-tablet-sdk-1.0.1\bin\"
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-
1.0.1\bin>blackberry-deploy -installDebugToken "D:\BlackberryApps\DebugToken\deb
ugtoken.bar" -device 172.16.21.129 -password al....86
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-
1.0.1\bin>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\jre\bin\java" -X
mx512M -jar "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberr
y-tablet-sdk-1.0.1\bin\\..\lib\BarDeploy.jar" -installDebugToken "D:\BlackberryA
pps\DebugToken\debugtoken.bar" -device 172.16.21.129 -password al....86
Sending Install Debug Token request...
Info: Action: Install Debug Token
Info: File size: 2246
result::ok

...but the VM reports an invalid token

This problem has been reported on the developer forum, but no solution has yet been provided.

One observation I made is the following: the device ID reported by the Flash Builder UI is different to the PIN shown in the device:

I tried to create the debug token with both ids, but neither works. Any help would be appreciated.

Best regards
Matthias Wille
FlexDomino.net"

And yesterday I got following response:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting BlackBerry Application Development Support!

In response to your recent email, we would be happy to assist with this issue.

We are aware to this issue in regards to PBDT, and a resolution to this issue is being developed.

Good luck in your future BlackBerry application development and have a great day!

Sincerely,
BlackBerry Application Development Support
devsupport@rim.com
www.BlackBerryDeveloper.com

Playbook Signing Processes - creating and deploying a debug token

2011-05-13T22:12:00.003+02:00

Recently I posted about my experience with signing a Playbook application for the Blackberry AppWorld. This posting is a continuation of the saga looking at the steps to create and deploy a debug token. This process was introduced with the latest Playbook SDK and Simulator version 1.0.1 which came along with the official launch of the Playbook, Flash Builder 4.5 and the Air SDK2.6.

Who thought that things might have gotten a bit easier...well, continue dreaming. It got worse :-(

First I tried using the Flash Builder 4.5 UI to create the debug token bar file, but I got an error message saying "Unable to parse issue date from debug token.". Research showed that there seems to be an issue with any environment with non en_US date time settings for either the OS, Flash Builder and or the JRE. Essentially you either setup your system to US date time settings and make sure to find all JRE and Flash Builder config files and change the respective settings (works I have tested it) or you are back to command line batch processing.

Being non US located, I prefer to keep my local settings, hence I'm back to command line…

1. I copied the client-PBDT-xxx.csj file provided by RIM into the directory where I keep all my signature files and created a batch files to register the .csj file (one time only).

C:
CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-1.0.1\bin\"
blackberry-debugtokenrequest -register -cskpass xxx -csjpin xxx "D:\AppCertification\BBRegister\client-PBDT-xxx.csj"

Please refer to my previous posting where I explained a modification to blackberry-debugtokenrequest.bat and all other signing related batch files.

I then created a D:\BlackberryApps\DebugToken directory in my in which I create and store the debug token bar files and from where deploy them to the Playbook Simulator.

C:
CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-1.0.1\bin\"
blackberry-debugtokenrequest -cskpass xxx -csjpin xxx -keystore "D:\AppCertification\flexdominonet-dvl2.p12" -storepass xxx -deviceId 0xFFFFFF "D:\BlackberryApps\DebugToken\debugtoken.bar"

Note: the device ID (PIN) reported in the Simulator is eventually incorrect. Please go through the process of generating the debug token through the Flash Builder UI. The “Auto Discover…” feature will give you the correct device ID (or PIN). Please refer to the online help of Blackberry for this procedure. Though it did not work out for me, it is explained well.
Finally I created the batch file to deploy the debug token bar file.

C:
CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-1.0.1\bin\"
blackberry-deploy -installDebugToken "D:\BlackberryApps\DebugToken\debugtoken.bar" -device 172.16.21.129 -password xxx

Note: the device IP can received from the Simulator:
Now I started the Simulator and made sure the date and time setting are in sync with my PC. I disabled the Set Date and Time Automatically and then set the date and time. The automatic date time feature sets the Simulator to a past date (at least in my case) and lets the deployment of the debug token fail.
Under Security->Development Mode I enabled Use Development Mode and then clicked Upload Debug Token.
As the last step I ran the 3 batch files (as said above, the first batch file to register the .csj file must only be executed ones).

Note: from my experience the last batch file to deploy the token will succeed, but hang the waiting upload process in the Simulator. However, after resetting the VM, the token is eventually installed and shows the following:

Removing an existing token is also not straight forward. The Remove Debug Token button doesn’t seem to work. So this is what I came up with:

1. Reset the VM

2. Change the Simulator’s date to a future date (year) to render the token invalid

3. Now the Remove Debug Token button works and you can successfully remove the token.

I have not yet managed to deploy an unsigned application. The Flash Builder UI failed on this one too. Reason being that I could not import the debug token bar file because of the same "Unable to parse issue date from debug token." error I already stumbled over. So now I’m trying to deploy the unsigned application bar file again through command line processing. I will post as soon as I have some results…so stay tuned.

Flash or HTML5? Interesting analysis...

2011-05-03T19:49:00.001+02:00

http://now.periscopic.com/2011/05/our-research-into-flash-and-html5-which-one-is-right-for-your-project/

The only thing I feel adding to this report is that sometimes the 1% market could be more lucrative than the 99%.

Domino with PHP (PHP Bookstore)

2011-05-03T11:12:00.002+02:00

We just posted a complete overhaul of our Domino with PHP demo using SoapgateQ! web services. The source code is of course available and now documented as well.

Ode to Steve...

2011-05-03T00:09:00.003+02:00

Tour de Mobile Flex on iOS

2011-04-27T22:13:00.001+02:00

Considering that we ported our first Flex apps on iOS with the current Flash Builder 4 Burrito (Beta), I was excited to see a video by James Ward (published: April 11, 2011)...

Tour de Mobile Flex app running on iOS

Domino data access - SOAP vs AMF3 - a live performance test...

2011-04-27T15:11:00.003+02:00

OK, I believe it is clear that this test is all about receiving data from a Domino server in a non Notes Client using our data access API for Domino called soapgateQ!

But nevertheless I will provide some background:

soapgateQ! - as the name indicates - is a web service based generic data access API to the Lotus Notes Domino server. So soapgateQ! only talks SOAP. We have been interested on whether we will experience a performance gain, if we sort of plug a PHP server running AMFPHP in front of the Domino server.

So the test looks at 2 scenarios:

A Flash/Air application talking to Domino via web services (SOAP)
A Flash/Air application talking to a PHP server using AMF and the PHP server in turn talks to Domino using SOAP

Because of the reduced overhead using AMF, data is received much faster at the client. For the test we used a simple Notes database with 3.871 documents (rows), listed in a view with 2 columns. To test the performance we used the dbColumnX() web service operation provided by soapgateQ. This operation returns any requested column, plus another 2 columns (noteID/UNID and the view entry number). Hence for this test we receive in total 4 columns of data or in technical terms an array of strings with 15.484 elements (as web services only support single dimensioned arrays). Using SOAP (1) the received data amounts to ~ 531.859 Bytes, whilst using AMF (2) this amount is reduced to ~155.633 Bytes.

I believe the below table speaks for itself:

Server Upload Speeds	SOAP	AMF3
GSM (14,4 Kbit/s)	ca. 309.074ms	ca. 91.830ms
GPRS (53,6 Kbit/s)	ca. 86.871ms	ca. 25.901ms
UMTS (348 Kbit/s)	ca. 21.267ms	ca. 6.759ms
DSL 1000 (1024 Kbit/s)	ca. 13.125ms	ca. 4.952ms
HSPA (7327 Kbit/s)	ca. 10.447ms	ca. 4.766ms
DSL 16000 (16000 Kbit/s)	ca. 10.189ms	ca. 4.385ms

Here is a link to the live application:

http://www.flashdomino.de/flex-showcase/soapgateQ_Benchmark/soapgateQ_Benchmark.html

AMFPHP source:
http://amfphp.sourceforge.net/

Wikipedia article to AMF (Action Message Format):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Message_Format

This information has been provided by Oliver Haucke/Qkom.de

Bookstore Demo for Playbook has been approved...

2011-04-25T22:22:00.002+02:00

yeah, I finally got confirmation that my signing process was successful. The Bookstore Demo application as been approved by Blackberry App World...

http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/search/bookstore?lang=en

Signing your Playbook apps for the Blackberry AppWorld...

2011-04-16T02:04:00.013+02:00

28/4/2011: I added a comment further down...

For the last week I have been struggling to get my first Blackberry Playbook application signed so that it may finally pass the approval process. The problem is: the procedure as outlined on the Blackberry Vendor pages is just not working.

The Signing your application page provides a number of links for the different methods of signing an application depbatending on the EDI and the target platform. The two I thought relevant to me would be the first two:

However, you can simply forget all that is written in there. The configuration process is creating a corrupted certificate and the sign process simply fails without any notification whatsoever.

After quite some correspondence with Blackberry App World Requests I got a link to a video of another developer struggling with the same issues...

http://inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com/2011/04/blackberry-playbook-signing-process-video/

Just in case you're too lazy watching it, the summary is, that the Flash Builder UI driven process is not working or not reliably working and the alternative Command Line Process has also lots of problems. Quintessence is to wait for the final build of Flash Builder 4 Burrito and for Blackberry improving on the signature process itself.

Well, interesting is that I got the link to the video as a means to help me in solving my problems...hmmm!?

OK, I'm not the character giving up easily, so I looked into the Command Line signing process and - to fast forward a bit - got it to work. Not without some tweaking though. but before I go into details, here are the two links to what Blackberry has to say about the command line procedure:

As I already had created my certificate using the Flash Builder UI (not knowing at this point in time that the certificate was invalid), I initially tried to call the blackberry-signer.bat with the appropriate parameters. I actually created my own batch file for it:

C:
CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-0.9.4\bin\"

blackberry-signer -verbose -cskpass -keystore "D:\FlashAppCert\flexdominonet-dvl.p12" -storepass [password] "D:\BlackberryApps\BookstoreDemoTablet.bar" RDK

blackberry-signer -keystore "D:\FlashAppCert\flexdominonet-dvl.p12" -storepass [password] "D:\BlackberryApps\BookstoreDemoTablet.bar" author

Unfortunately the first call of the blackberry-signer batch file created following error message:

Error opening registry key 'Software\JavaSoft\Java Runtime Environment'

Error: could not find java.dll

Error: could not find Java SE Runtime Environment.

I checked the registry and indeed nothing there would have pointed to my Java SE Runtime Environment. So I visited the Java download sites and first run the provided verification test, which said that I had the recommended version installed. So all OK, right!? Well, just in case, I re-installed the Java runtime. But no luck, it still did not work. So I had a look at the blackberry-signer.bat file and all the other .bat files too. Just in case you haven't read the details in the provided links above, the mentioned batch files are located in the BIN sub-directory of the Blackberry tablet sdk directory, which should be somewhere here...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-0.9.4\bin

...and the content is this...

@Java -cp "%~dp0\..\lib\EccpressoJDK15ECC.jar;%~dp0\..\lib\EccpressoAll.jar;%~dp0\..\lib\BarPackager.jar;%~dp0\..\lib\BarSigner.jar" net.rim.device.codesigning.barsigner.BarSigner %*

The failing bit is the @Java part. Replace this by the physical path to the java.exe of your Java Runtime Environment and the batch files will work correctly. I actually copied my current 32bit Java Runtime Environment into the Blackberry SDK directory and hence my blackberry-signer.bat looks now like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-0.9.4\jre\bin\java" -cp "%~dp0\..\lib\EccpressoJDK15ECC.jar;%~dp0\..\lib\EccpressoAll.jar;%~dp0\..\lib\BarPackager.jar;%~dp0\..\lib\BarSigner.jar" net.rim.device.codesigning.barsigner.BarSigner %*

I made that same change to all other batch files in the BIN directory.

When I was running the signing process now, I got yet another error message from the second blackberry-signer call (the -keystore one...see above), and this one was even more confusing:

“barsigner error: Certificate chain not found for: flexdomino.net. flexdomino.net must reference a valid KeyStore key entry containing a private key and corresponding public key certificate chain.”

This was the point where I thought the best is to create the certificate again. I looked at the Configure Application Signing procedure (see above link) and skipped points 1 and 2 and just re-created the .p12 certicate file using following batch file:

C:
CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-0.9.4\bin\"

blackberry-keytool -genkeypair -keystore "D:\FlashAppCert\flexdominonet-dvl.p12" -storepass [password] -dname "cn=flexdomino.net" -alias flexdomino.net

================================== added comment
According to Elliott Bebane's response to this posting,...

the last parameter above -alias flexdomino.net, must
eventually be changed to the fixed term -alias author
instead of the vendor name registered with Blackberry
(which in my case is flexdomino.net)

I can't recall exactly what I did at this point and
I don't dare to change my working environment to
re-test. So try it with author if your vendor name as
alias is not working.
============================================

After that I ran the second blackberry-signer call again (only, as the first call succeeded and cannot be repeated unless a new version number for the .bar file is issued):

CD "\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-0.9.4\bin\"

blackberry-signer -keystore "D:\FlashAppCert\flexdominonet-dvl.p12" -storepass [password] "D:\BlackberryApps\BookstoreDemoTablet.bar" author

And finally I got my .bar file signed. Recognizable on the fact that the BAR files META-INF directory contains the required signature files:

MANIFEST.MF
AUTHOR.SF
AUTHOR.EC
RDK.SF
RDK.EC

Finally there are a few things to take care of with regards to the packaging of the BAR file. The following link explains this in detail:

http://www.hsharma.com/tech/tutorials/10-easy-steps-to-package-and-sign-air-apps-for-playbook/

Bookstore Demo for Playbook soon available on Blackberry Appworld

2011-03-28T02:26:00.000+02:00

Today we have posted the well known Domino Bookstore Sample application (available on Openntf.org) as an Adobe Air application for the Playbook on the Blackberry Appworld. Of course we still await the confirmation of acceptance.

This Bookstore-Demo - originally developed to demonstrate Domino web services functionality - shows the functionality of SoapgateQ! in conjunction with the Adobe Flex Libraries for SoapgateQ!, both enabling Adobe Air applications to talk to a Lotus Domino back-end. The application is based on Adobe AIR 2.5 and is build with Flash Builder 4 Burito.

The source to this application as well as the Flex Libraries for SoapgateQ! are open and licensed under OSI - Apache 2.0. SoapgateQ! is web service based data access API for Domino. The (soon available) free personal edition of SoapgateQ! allows access for up to 3 users.

We will make all source code available in next few days and will also provide a download for SoapgateQ! 2.0 Beta.

Visit www.qkom.net for more information and to see further demos.

Flexdomino.net download pages now open for unregistered access

2011-03-25T18:51:00.000+01:00

Due to technical difficulties with the registration procedure of the currently used CMS of flexdomino.net, we decided to open the download pages for unregistered access.

Simply go to http://www.flexdomino.net/home/downloads to download all sample projects and code.

Fixed LSXSD.LSS - Some more info...

2011-03-24T09:52:00.001+01:00

With all my excitement having fixed LSXSD.LSS, I have posted the code without any further comments as to the changes I have implemented. I actually received an email asking me for the reason of having renamed the PortTypeBase class to PortTypeBase_NOT_A_CONSUMER, and this reminded me that there a few things that require an explanation:

PortTypeBase_NOT_A_CONSUMER

LSXSD.LSS is normally included in the code using the %include directive. Apparently when including ans LSX, the compiler understands a compiler directive like this...

%If WEB_SERVICE_CONSUMER_SCRIPTLIB
Public Class PortTypeBase
...
End Class
%End If

...which means the PortTypeClass is only included if the web service is a consumer. In my case the web service is a provider and hence I do not need that class.

Unfortunately the above compiler directive doesn't work when importing the LSXSD.LSS into a script library and then using the USE statement to include the script library. Hence I renamed the class to render it ineffective.

So to make it clear. If you replace the existing LSXSD.LSS on your Domino server or you copy this version of code with a new name to still use the %include directive, you need to rename the above class to its original name (removing the _NOT_A_CONSUMER part) and enclose the class with the %If WEB_SERVICE_CONSUMER_SCRIPTLIB...%end if directive.

If you want to use the code in a script library, but you write a web service consumer rather then a provider, you also need to rename the class to its original name (of course without using the %if..%end if directive, as it would cause a compiler error).

There have been a few other changes as well...

CLASS XSD_DATATYPE_CONVERTER

notesStreamToBase64()

The method notesStreamToBase64() previously defined as of type String is now returning a NotesStream. The reason being is that the original method used string concatenation to build the encoded return string, which causes the method to slow down exponentially to the length of the encoded stream; to a point where one needs to kill the server task.

The method now converts the input stream into a encoded output stream. One can then use the NotesStream.Readtext() method to receive the previously return encoded string.

notesStreamToBase64Ext()

Consequently the notesStreamToBase64Ext() method originally returning a string now returns a NotesStream.

I also removed the call of the IBM internal NotesStream.ReadEncoded() call as this method has a bug, which lets the method skip chunks of encoded data in the returned string. This happens randomly according to IBM, but my experience is, it happens to larger file sizes.

Another issue a found looking at the original method is that it uses On Error statements without the corresponding Resume statements.

The notesStreamToBase64Ext() method now simply calls notesStreamToBase64().

base64ToNotesStream()

Though the code of this method is completely re-written, from a parameter and return value point of view nothing has changed.

base64ToNotesStreamExt()

Though the by IBM reported issue seems to be related to NotesStream.ReadEncoded() only, and NotesStream.WriteDecoded() seems to be uneffected, I have again removed the call of the IBM internal method and call only base64ToNotesStream().

NOTE: NotesStream.WriteDecoded() is obviously much much faster than even my improved decoding algorithm written in LotusScript. So you might want to switch back to it and only use the base64ToNotesStream() call if you experience problems with IBM's internal decoding method.

notesStreamToHexBinary()

Similar to notesStreamToBase64() this method now returns a NotesStream. I implemented the same improvements.

hexBinaryToNotesStream()

No improvements here yet.

NOTE: If you have utilised the upload/download code provided in the Bookstore database available on Openntf.org, you need to amend the code to reflect the new return values where applicable.

Fixed LSXSD.LSS

2011-03-23T13:57:00.003+01:00

For those of you who require to use the Base64 upload/download features of the LSXSD.LSS and having trouble because of the by IBM reported issue...

http://flexdomino.blogspot.com/2011/03/aaargh-yet-another-set-back-in-our.html
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?dc=DB550&rs=463&uid=swg1LO57765&context=SSKTWP&cs=utf-8&lang=en&loc=en_US

...and cannot wait for the fix...

I have re-written the Base64 encoding and decoding methods and use it by importing the code into a script library. Instead of using the %Include statement, I use the Use statement. Hence instead of rolling out a custom LSX, I place the custom code in my databases.

Whilst the original Base64 coding algorithms in LSXSD.LSS are performing dead slow (anything beyond a few KB file size can actually keep the server busy for very prolonged periods (hours!) - see ...

http://flexdomino.blogspot.com/2011/03/ouch-that-hurtshello-ibm-quality.html

... - the code provided in the link below manages MB sized files in seconds:

3.2MB encoding in approx. 20 seconds
3.2MB decoding in approx. 10 seconds

Whilst this performance is still considerably slower then the in Domino 8.5 introduced internal encoding/decoding methods of the NotesStream class (for the same file size about 1 second), the modified code works reliable!

The code can be found here...

http://www.flexdomino.net/lsxsslss

Ouch that hurts...hello IBM quality control are you out there?

2011-03-20T08:34:00.002+01:00

Further analysing the code in lsxsd.lss I'm utterly disgusted about the code I find. I'm sorry to use such strong words, but it reflects how bad it is. I have looked at the NotesStream to Base64 encoding (XSD_DATATYPE_CONVERTER.notesStreamToBase64) in particular. For my file download tests a used a 3.2MB image file and the method got the server to its knees. Here are the reasons for it:

The method returns a string and hence uses string concatenation to build the return value. The problem with that is that as longer a string gets, the longer a string concatenation takes. Now this is not a linear increase, but an exponential one. To a point that any string concatenation with a 2MB string takes pretty much forever in server code execution terms.
The method reads in the Notes stream byte by byte...OUCH!!! This is probably the best way to render the NotesStream class useless.
Though only handling Strings, the concatenation is done not using the + (String) operator, but using the much slower & (Variant) operation.

Here is the original code (I have highlighted the most significant 2 lines of code):

Function notesStreamToBase64 (ns As NotesStream) As String

Const b64Chars$ = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/"

Dim nsLength As Long

nsLength = ns.Bytes

ns.Position = 0

Dim numPads As Integer

numPads = (3 - (nsLength Mod 3)) Mod 3

While nsLength > 0

' Output lines are limited to 76 chars, and because every

' three input bytes produce 4 output chars we process

' up to 57 input bytes at a time. (57 = 76 / 4 * 3)

Dim inLength As Long

inLength = nsLength

If inLength > 57 Then inLength = 57

nsLength = nsLength - inLength

Dim outString As String

outString = ""

Dim idx As Integer

idx = 0

While idx < inLength

' Collect up to 24 bits (3 bytes) of input data

Dim outBits As Integer

outBits = 0

Dim bits24 As Long

bits24 = 0

Dim i As Integer

For i = 0 To 2

bits24 = bits24 * 256

If idx + i < inLength Then

Dim buf As Variant

buf = ns.Read(1&)

bits24 = bits24 + buf(0)

outBits = outBits + 8

End If

idx = idx + 3

Dim numChars As Integer

numChars = 4

If outBits <> 24 Then

numChars = 4 - numPads

End If

For i = 1 To numChars

Dim bits6 As Integer

bits6 = (bits24 And &HFC0000&) / 262144

outString = outString & Mid$(b64Chars, bits6 + 1, 1)

bits24 = (bits24 And &H3FFFF&) * 64

If numChars <> 4 Then

For i = 1 To numPads

outString = outString & "="

End If

Wend

' Add another line of base64 output to the return string

notesStreamToBase64 = notesStreamToBase64 & outString & Chr$(13) & Chr$(10)

Wend

End Function

And this is how it could (should) look like:

Function notesStreamToBase64 (ns As NotesStream) As NotesStream

On Error GoTo errhandle

Print Now

Const b64Chars$ = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/"

Dim batchsize As Long

Dim inLength As Long

Dim outString As String

Dim idx As Long

Dim outBits As Long

Dim bits24 As Long

Dim i As Long

Dim nsLength As Long

Dim numPads As Long

Dim buf As Variant

Dim numChars As Long

Dim bits6 As Long

Dim bufcnt As Long

Set notesStreamToBase64 = session.Createstream()

batchsize = 57

bufcnt = 32766

nsLength = ns.Bytes

inLength = batchsize

ns.Position = 0

numPads = (3 - (nsLength Mod 3)) Mod 3

While nsLength > 0

' Output lines are limited to 76 chars, and because every

' three input bytes produce 4 output chars we process

' up to 57 input bytes at a time. (57 = 76 / 4 * 3)

If nsLength < batchsize Then

inLength = nsLength

End if

nsLength = nsLength - inLength

outString = ""

idx = 0

While idx < inLength

' Collect up to 24 bits (3 bytes) of input data

outBits = 0

bits24 = 0

For i = 0 To 2

bits24 = bits24 * 256

If idx + i < inLength Then

If bufcnt = 32766 Then

bufcnt = -1

buf = ns.Read(32767)

End If

bufcnt = bufcnt + 1

bits24 = bits24 + buf(bufcnt)

outBits = outBits + 8

End If

idx = idx + 3

numChars = 4

If outBits <> 24 Then

numChars = 4 - numPads

End If

For i = 1 To numChars

bits6 = (bits24 And &HFC0000&) / 262144

outString = outString + Mid$(b64Chars, bits6 + 1, 1)

bits24 = (bits24 And &H3FFFF&) * 64

If numChars <> 4 Then

For i = 1 To numPads

outString = outString + "="

End If

Wend

' Add another line of base64 output to the return string

retbyt = notesStreamToBase64.Writetext(outString, EOL_CRLF)

Wend

errexit:

Print Now

Exit Function

errhandle:

Print Erl & ", " & Error

Sleep 1

Resume next

End Function

This is maybe not the best way of implementing a Base64 encoding algorithm. I'm not an expert in Base64 encoding in the first place. I simply made the original code work (more efficiently). There is still room for improvement, but at current stage I managed to get the processing time from "forever" (I restarted the server after 10 minutes of processing the 3MB file) down to 24 seconds. Still a bit slow, but reasonable.

Coming back to the title of this posting, I'm not amused that such code leaves IBM quality control unchecked. If this is an example of code that can be found in the Lotus Notes Domino code stream, then it is no wonder why the Notes Clients became the slow and heavy tankers they are today.

I hope someone at IBM looks at this postings.

Aaargh, yet another set-back in our attempt to make Domino a bit more accessible...

2011-03-16T23:24:00.010+01:00

It was planned to provide a (web service based) file download and upload in the next release of soapgate Q! Unfortunately we found that for certain files, data is lost when they are stored in an XSD_BASE64BINARY object defined in lsxsd.lss. The latter being the very library one would use to implement advanced Domino web services.

The issue has been published by IBM recently and is effecting Domino 8.5.1 and 8.5.2...AND soapgate Q! (unfortunately)...

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?dc=DB550&rs=463&uid=swg1LO57765&context=SSKTWP&cs=utf-8&lang=en&loc=en_US

The comment "The problem will be fixed in a future release if there is one." unfortunately doesn't sound too good. So it looks like we are forced to go back to the "drawing boards" to come up with a different solution.

Free BlackBerry PlayBook offer overview

2011-02-27T12:48:00.004+01:00

Just in case you haven't heard about it yet...

■ Developers who create a qualifying application for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet prior to its initial North American release are eligible for a free BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. The main criterion to qualify for the free BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet offer is to have a qualifying application accepted into BlackBerry App World™, subject to certain Terms and Conditions.

■ You can submit multiple BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet apps into BlackBerry App World, but each BlackBerry App World vendor will only qualify for one free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Apps will need to meet the BlackBerry App World Vendor Guidelines.

You will find more here...

Submit your own Domino mobile app using soapgate Q!

In case you are interested in submitting a business type app that connects to a Domino back-end, you might want to use our soapgate Q! web service API for Domino. We just decided to open up our licensing model to provide a free personal edition of soapgate Q! which will allow you to create mobile apps for up to 3 users and / or (and that might be even more interesting in the context of the Blackberry Playbook offer) submit any free and add-free Playbook app to the Blackberry App World. Simply submit your app and point users to our free download link for soapgate Q! (no registration required for the personal edition). And don't forget that our Flex/Flash libraries are free and open source too.

Note: the new licensing model, the free download link as well as the personal edition will be available from 1st March 2011.

First Domino Database on Blackberry Playbook

2011-02-21T14:01:00.004+01:00

Flexdomino.net and Qkom.de just ported their Lotusphere Session Journal application originally developed for Android smartphones on to the Blackberry Playbook. Whilst of course the development has been done using the by RIM provided Playbook Simulator (as the Playbook is not yet available), RIM has tested the application on the real Playbook and confirmed its functioning.

Read more here...

flexdomino.net's Domino server answers now on domino.flexdomino.net

2011-02-19T22:21:00.002+01:00

Until last week flexdomino.net had only one public IP and as a result the Domino http task had to answer on a different public port then port 80 (which is used by the Apache server running the website). The public port used for Domino was set to port 81.

This fact caused problems for some visitors of flexdomino.net who wanted to run the demos provided in the show case, but couldn't because of port restrictions in their corporate networks.

We finally changed our configuration having now two public IPs, the second used to be able to address the Domino server via part 80 on http://domino.flexdomino.net.

We will subsequently change all show case demos and the SoapgateQ! product demos to use the above URL rather then flexdomino.net:81.

Side note:

To be able to deal with two public IPs, we had to change our rather basic firewall router to a marvelous little peace of hardware...the Mikrotik RouterBoard 750G, a 60 Euro router that can be programmed to basically do things that only routers in a far higher price category can do (talking Cisco).

And the beauty of it is that the RouterOS is the same (feature wise) for all RouterBoards; the smaller RouterBoards or the bigger highend ones. The difference is simply performance and the traffic it can handle. So once set up, and your network grows beyond what your box can handle, you simply backup the router’s configuration, plug the next larger box in, restore the backup and off you go.

LS2011 Session Journal for Android ... version 1.4.0 released

2011-01-31T17:26:00.000+01:00

The Session Journal app now has a "Like" feature, which allows to mark sessions of interest.

LS2011 Session Journal for Android ... version 1.3.0 released

2011-01-27T17:50:00.000+01:00

We made a number of UI improvements in changing fonts, font sizes and colors. We added a few icons and re-organised the Session Details screen.

The next release will include a "Remember" feature allowing the user to tick mark sessions of interest.

LS2011 Session Journal for Android ... version 1.1.0 released

2011-01-26T23:14:00.001+01:00

We just released version 1.1.0 of the LS2011 Session Journal for Android.

For improved performance we added a local data storage. On first launch the session data will be loaded from flexdomino.net using the soapgateQ! web service API for Domino. The data is then stored in a local SQL light database. Sub-sequent launches will then load the local data. Using @ button in the session list view will reload the data from flexdomino.net. The SQL database can be located on the phones SDCARD in the data\ls2011 directory.

We also did some with minor UI improvements.

Get the latest version from here...

http://flexdomino.blogspot.com/2011/01/lotusphere-2011-session-journal-for.html

LS2011 Session Journal for Android ... some more info

2011-01-26T22:20:00.001+01:00

We thought it is worth mentioning that the LS2011 Session Journal Android application we just published is developed with the preview version (pre beta!) of Adobe Flash Builder Burrito and the Flex Hero SDK. With this new builder and SDK Adobe is introducing mobile device specific features to Flash/Air, such as touch and gesture control.

Adobe says..."The preview release is intended to provide you with an early opportunity to evaluate in-development features and to allow us to obtain your feedback. Preview releases do not undergo the same level of testing as the final release, are not feature complete and may contain a higher number of bugs. Because this is an early release, you should only use Flash Builder 'Burrito' for testing and exploratory purposes."

Adobe has not yet announced a formal release date for Flash Builder Burrito.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashbuilder_burrito/#FAQ
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/whatsnew_flashbuilder_burrito.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/introducing_flexsdk_hero.html

Considering the above, this little Android app shows already what we can expect in the near future.

Lotusphere 2011 Session Journal for Android

2011-01-25T11:37:00.009+01:00

We are proud to announce our first mobile application.

This application is based on the Adobe Air 2.5 Framework for mobile devices. It uses the soapgate Q! web service API for Domino to interact with the annual distributed Lotusphere Journal database. The LS Journal database - created by the folks at www.geniisoft.com - is hosted on FlexDomino.net. Soon we will offer a special edition for tablet size devices like the Blackberry Playbook.

We integrated in this first release a full text search to filter the data. When you select a session you will get all details together with a floor plan and the parallel sessions. To enlarge the information click on image, description, or parallel session. Use the back function ("<" top right corner of the screen) to get back into your search list. To clear the search enter a blank. To return from the session list to the applications splash screen use the back key of your phone.

This application is a simple resource to make your Lotusphere visit more successful. On the other side it shows the usage of our generic web services approach and the new Flex Hero version of Adobe Air toolkit with live data.

Enjoy :-) Feedback is welcome.

Download from FlexDomino.net (link to Android Marketplace is coming soon).
The mobile application is optimised for Android devices with a screen resolution of 800 x 480, such as HTC Desire and HTC Desire HD.

This application runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) with latest Air/Flash installed only.

The most hilarious comedy I have seen for a while...

2011-01-18T09:57:00.002+01:00

Back to Flash...

2011-01-16T22:45:00.000+01:00

Google just made my day...

I stumbled up across this rather short announcement of Google to stop support for H.264 video codec in HTML5 video tags in its browser Chrome in favor of WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs. This short notice seemed to have caused a major uproar, so Google posted a slightly more lengthy explanation...

Flex & Domino blog by Mark Barton

2010-08-17T12:53:00.001+02:00

I recently found the blog of Mark Barton who has a complimentary agenda to Flexdomino.net.

Two postings are of particular interest:

Adobe Flex & Lotus Notes Presentation

Authenticated Multi File Uploads – A possible solution

Domino Access Services will not be included in Lotus Notes Domino 8.5.2

2010-08-04T00:24:00.002+02:00

According to IBM the Domino Access Services (formerly named ISV APIs) will not be included in the 8.5.2 release because it is not complete against all of the market goals. Next steps for Domino Access Services for the post 8.5.2 time frame are currently under consideration.

So what does this mean? Well, it means that FlexDomino.net and Qkom.de with its product SoapGateQ is again alone in its efforts to provide some kind of access API to Domino. Of course our strategy is somewhat different in that SoapGateQ provides a web service based API rather then the RESTful services API IBM has been working on. As IBM dropped its API from the 8.5.2 release it is pretty futile to discuss the pro's and con's vs. SoapGateQ at this time.

Our goal is to have SoapGateQ (currently Beta 3) available by the time 8.5.2 goes gold and it will support all Domino 8 releases.

SoapGateQ and SoapUI

2010-08-03T15:44:00.008+02:00

We completed SoapGateQ Beta 3 today and I thought a good way of showing what SoapGateQ does, is to demonstrate its use with SoapUI. To make it very short, SoapUI is a free utility to test web services. To avoid you needing to read the SoapGateQ wsdl file and create all the meaningful request messages, we simply share our SoapUI test project with you.

Here is what you need to do to test SoapGateQ with SoapUI:

Right click on Projects in the project pane and select Import Project or simply press CTRL + I

In the file select dialog select the project xml file you just downloaded and presumably saved on your Windows desktop and click Open

The SoapGateQ test project will appear in the project pane. Open for instance the DBCOLUMNX web service function and double click on the request message called Request dbColumnX Row

In the Request dialog click the green triangle top left corner to send the SOAP message to our Domino server and you will receive the result almost instantly

Feel free to send any of the available requests and change parameters to see what it has for an effect on the results.

Note: the web service function dbSendDocument will not send any email for obvious reasons.

How to session authenticate a Flash application with a Domino server...

2010-07-13T23:32:00.001+02:00

For the last 12 month during the FlexGateQ! and SoapGateQ! development it became clear that the so far used session authentication is not satisfactory from a security point of view. This because we used a simple URL login passing on the username and password in clear text.

The URL had basically following format:

http://www.flexdomino.net/names.nsf?login&username=myusername&password=mypassword&redirecto=...

The problem with this method is that the request will be logged in clear text in the Domino logs and an administrator could easily collect any user's credentials who authenticated a Flash session with Domino.

We finally found a much more secure method using an HTTP POST request, sending the posted content in an encoded form (similar to the standard Notes login form when clicking the submit button, just in an automated fashion).

Here is the Action Script code that does the trick:

function DominoLogin(
   rURL:String, // root URL e.g. http://www.flexdomino.net
   username:String,
   password:String,
):void {

var loginURLRequester:URLRequest;

var loginURLLoader:URLLoader;
var loginVars:URLVariables;

// creating URL variables is similar to dynamically creating
// fields in a to be submitted form
loginVars = new URLVariables();
loginVars.redirectto = rURL + "/names.nsf/$about";
loginVars.username = username;
loginVars.password = password;

// the login attempt is on the public names and addressbook
// or names.nsf (simply as this database always exists)
loginURLRequester = new URLRequest(rURL + "/names.nsf?login");

// the URL request must be of type POST and the content type a urlencoded form

loginURLRequester.contentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";

loginURLRequester.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;

// we need to assign the variables (or sort of "create the fields on the form)
loginURLRequester.data = loginVars;

// we need to create the URL loader

// and add a fault and complete listener

loginURLLoader = new URLLoader();

loginURLLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,login_ok,false,0,true);
loginURLLoader.addEventListener(FaultEvent.FAULT,login_fault,false,0,true);

// and finally we actually send the request
loginURLLoader.load(loginURLRequester);
}

// at this point communication is complete
// however, the credentials might not have been
// correct. in which case Domino sends a login
// form. we still need to cater for this by
// checking that the returned data is actually
// the URL set for the redirection
// (the $about doc of the names.nsf)

function login_ok(event:Event):void
{
var tstr:String = event.target.data;

if (tstr.indexOf(".nsf/$about") == -1)
{
// redirect was not successful. could be a not handled login error
// run your error handling

return;

}

// login OK, do whatever should follow a successful login
}

// if this listener function is called a communication
// error occurred
function login_fault(event:FaultEvent):void
{

// run your error handling

}

Keep in mind that your Domino server has very likely a session time out configured and hence once your session is authenticated you need eventually to implement a session keep alive routine that is periodically accessing the server.

Finally I have time again to post some update on SoapGateQ! and FlexGateQ!

2010-05-31T22:55:00.003+02:00

The last 4 weeks have been pretty tough. My main development machine's (HP Elitebook 2730p) hard disk simply died from one second to another. Gee am I lucky that my development environment runs in a VM which I back up frequently. So no real loss at this point. However, I couldn't find a replacement in Malta (at least not in store).

As I had to order anyway, I spoiled myself with an Intel 1.8" 160GB SSD. Pretty expensive piece of hardware, but I don't regret it a second. The speed is phenomenal, about 3 times as fast as a 5400ref HD and power consumption went down by 50%, increasing my battery life by 1.5 hours.

After it arrived from the States (2 weeks), it took me just another 2 weeks to get back to where I was. Unbelievable how much software tools one is using.

OK, that just for an explanation why it got a bit quiet on FlexDomino.net.

Meanwhile I finished of works on the last major module of SoapGateQ! and FlexGateQ! Today the dominoViewUtilities Classes have been completed. If you had a good look at the online demos on FlexDomino.net then for sure you tried out the Flex Viewer for Domino demo, which allows to view basically any Notes view in the Flash Player exactly (or almost exactly) as the view looks in the Notes Client.

So I took the code from this demo, streamlined it, improved it performance wise (by eliminating or optimising the item renderer used for the Advanced Data Grid and added the same sort of process workflow implemented for the dominoFormUtilities Class.

I will post new beta version with sample code on how to use the classes in the next few days.

Whilst I'm working hard on completing these libraries, our work-placement students putting the classes to the test. They have completed a project for European School of English, which is an Online Placement Test that students have to run online prior to their arrival in Malta. The test questions are actually maintained in a Notes database by the academics staff. The test results are also stored in the same Notes database and synch'ed back to ESE's operational databases (also Notes). Finally ESE is introducing coming week a Guided e-Learning System for adult students, and the personalised study plan is based too on the the results of the online placement test.

So this little Flex/Flash application which is utilising FlexGateQ! and SoapGateQ! has actually some pretty serious background and is a major factor for the success of the implementation of the Guided e-Learning System.

It needs a little work to modify the project in such a way that it can run outside the ESE context. As soon as I have a chance I will make the required changes and post it as a sample in the FlexDomino.net show case.

Appholes...you are going to love this video...

2010-05-22T01:36:00.000+02:00

Jon Stewart to Steve Jobs: 'Chill, baby'

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Appholes

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Steve Jobs on Flash: Correcting the Lies...

2010-05-03T23:55:00.002+02:00

Jesse Warden (Flex and Flash Developer - Jesse Warden dot Kizz-ohm) posted a very good rebuttal of a lot of Steve Jobs points in his recent "Thoughts on Flash"...

http://jessewarden.com/2010/04/steve-jobs-on-flash-correcting-the-lies.html#more-2178

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen fires back at Apple CEO Steve Jobs

2010-05-03T23:36:00.000+02:00

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen fires back at Apple CEO Steve Jobs who wrote letter, stating Adobe's Flash player was unfit for its mobile devices. WSJ's Alan Murray joins the News Hub from Adobe's headquarters with his exclusive interview with its chief executive.

Understand the usage of Soapgate Q!

2010-04-27T17:59:00.020+02:00

A non developer test for Soapgate Q!
Not being a developer, the following test was helping me to understand what we have actually developed so far. This test was done with the Beta 1 version.

Soapgate Q! is the encapsulation of domino data via a webservice. It was developed for serving Flexgate Q!, the libraries that make it easy to develop in Flex for Domino. So understanding the basics of Soapgate Q! is a perfect start to fully understand the wrapper classes we created for Adobe Flex.
Soapgate Q! can be used with any system that can drive SOAP. If you need help for your system - just contact us.

To test it, create an open to anonymous access copy of the books demo db on my server (flexdemo.nsf). The same I applies to the Soapgate db is curently open to anonymous access (flex/soapgate.nsf).

I used a web tool for testing the Soapgate Q! web service...
http://www.soapclient.com/soaptest.html
Please use the IE7 or IE8 to see the results nicely formatted, Firefox and the others browsers display the returned XML unformatted (raw)

Enter the wsdl URL

We currently provide two versions of the web service:
http://www.flexdomino.net:81/soapgateq.nsf/DominoUtilityWebServices?wsdl
(doc literal, used by FlexGate Q!)

here is the wrapped version.
http://www.flexdomino.net:81/soapgateq.nsf/DominoUtilityWebServicesWrapped?wsdl
(wrapped, for .Net and other development)

Enter the values for the parameters (if you are a Notes/Doomino developer you probably know the meaning of the parameters, otherwise please refer to the documentation available for downlaod) and invoke...

SOAP Method : DBCOLUMN

CACHE: 1
SRVNAME: flexdomino/flex2domino
DBNAME: flex/flexdemo.nsf
VIEWNAME: booksflat
COLNUMBER: 1
MVALSEP: ,

This is the result:
< version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8">
- soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
- soapenv:Body>
- ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn xmlns:ns0="urn:DefaultNamespace">
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Biographies & Memoirs/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Biographies & Memoirs/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Children/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Computer & Internet/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Computer & Internet/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Computer & Internet/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Computer & Internet/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Cooking, Food & Wine/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Cooking, Food & Wine/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Cooking, Food & Wine/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Entertainment/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Entertainment/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Entertainment/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Entertainment/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Entertainment/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>History/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Medicine/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Medicine/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Medicine/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Mystery & Thriller/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Mystery & Thriller/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Mystery & Thriller/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Outdoooooors & Nature/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Outdoors & Nature/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Outdoors & Nature/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Outdoors & Nature/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Outdoors & Nature/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Philosophy/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>Psychology/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
/ns0:DBCOLUMNReturn>
/soapenv:Body>
/soapenv:Envelope>

You can do this test also with your data in your environment - go to http://www.flexdomino.net and register for the download of SoapGateQ! Beta.

If you require assistance contact andreas.rosen@qkom.de

The Future of Flash - Update

2010-04-21T16:26:00.003+02:00

By now probably everyone read about Apple's move to basically ban all applications from the apps store that have not been natively developed for the iPhone/iPad with the tools sanctioned by Apple. If not you can read more here on Mike Chambers blog.

One aspect that generally comes too short when discussing Apple's apps store and the closure of the iPhone / iPad against installing native applications through other means is that companies who would like to integrate these devices into their corporate network and more important operations cannot (easily) do so.

For example, my current employer the European School of English in Malta is currently providing Blackberry devices to most of the management staff. We are planning to utilise the devices to access operational data through custom applications on our mobile devices. These custom applications will be (are currently) build with Flex/Flash Builder in anticipation of Flash running soon on Blackberry and other devices. The reasons for using Flash are:
• In-house experience in Flex/Flash development
• Open/Cross Platform of Flash.
• Custom applications can easily be distributed.
• Very best user experience is not so important.
• Performance is NOT an issue or only with regards to the bandwidth required to get the data from the operational systems to the devices. The applications themselves are simple data grid/data form type applications. No CPU power is required as it is usually for games.

The latter is actually the point I want to make. Not all applications require top performance and hence even interpreted code will do fine, let alone cross compiled code.

In an organisation like ours, I have constantly to battle down the wishes of the top management to purchase (the more prestigious) iPhone because we cannot integrate them into our corporate requirements. Again the reasons are:
• We do not have in-house Objective-C developers
• We do not have in-house HTML5, CSS3 developers for web based applications
• We do not want to sell or otherwise publish our development in Apple's apps store

And here is where I have poblems with Apple's closed platform policy versus Adobe's open platform policy.

It has nothing to do with open source. I couldn't care less whether the iPhone/iPad OS or the Flash platform is open source or not as long as it is open/cross platform. It also has nothing (or little) to do with the quality of software development as in our case we do not want to publish anything, we would if at all simply treat ourselves badly (hardly anything Apple would need to be worried about).

So what is consequence of Apple's last move? We won't have Apple devices at ESE. We might however add Android devices next to the existing Blackberries.

Who wins, who looses. Well, the way I see it, we do not loose anything by not including iPhones or iPads in our portfolio, except maybe for the loss in ego of some of the managers who would prefer to show off with an iPhone. No offence intended of course - just in case some of my Dear colleagues happen to read my comment ;-)

The Notes Client as we now it today is dead...no joke...

2010-04-19T15:22:00.005+02:00

Having been at Lotusphere 2010 hearing first time about project Vulcan I immediately posted a rather ironic comment, not saying anything further to the subject as I was not sure if IBM is really serious about this. I thought (like others I talked to at LS) that this was just a kind of media buzzword covering the fact that nothing really new is to come and in one years time no one will hear about it any longer.

I particular felt that because project Vulcan would have a dramatic implication for the Notes Client. Well, looks like I was all wrong, in matter of fact IBM is very serious about it...

Read this blog discussion on BleedYellow.com:

Saving Notes: Why The Notes Client Must Die

And John D. Head comment to it:

If IBM Project Vulcan succeeds, the IBM Lotus Notes Client we know today is dead

SoapGateQ! and FlexGateQ! Beta 2

2010-04-10T13:08:00.002+02:00

In the next few days we will release SoapGateQ! and FlexGateQ! Release 1 Beta 2. We have added following sort of missing web service operations:

dbACL() - implements the NotesACL class
dbEffectiveRights() - implements the NotesDatabase.QueryAccess() method
dbUserRoles() - implements the Notes Formula function @UserRoles

In FlexGateQ! we also split the dominoDBUtilities class in two classes:

dominoWebService

Core web service consumer class providing the "raw" web service operations, takes care of loading the SoapGateQ! wsdl file and authenticates the user against the Domino address book.

The new class also provides a configurable session keep alive timer function.
dominoDBUtilities

Provides now only the wrapper classes using the web service operations outsourced into the dominoWebService class.

This separation effectively improves the coding (code structure) and performance of multiple web service calls.

The future of Flash

2010-04-06T19:42:00.001+02:00

Lately there have been discussion in many tech forums about the future of Flash because of the emerging HTML5 and Apple's denial to implement the Flash browser plugin on its mobile devices iPhone and iPad.

Many see Flash being killed in the long run by these developments. The FlexDomino.net team certainly does not. From time to time we will post links to interesting articles that will support our judgment. Today 2 articles about the development of Google Chrome and the impact it will have to the Flash Player's future.

Chrome share gain outpaces browser rivals & Google to build Flash into Chrome browser

Flash Builder 4 Released

2010-03-25T21:16:00.001+01:00

Finally Adobe Flash Builder 4 is released.

After some trouble ordering the Flash Builder 4 upgrade I finally received the download links and license keys.

The installation looks much improved and is straight forward. Though I got a repeated installation notice saying something like "the PC is in a state of an outstanding planned reboot" with the option to quit the installation and do the reboot or alternatively ignore the message and continue with the installation. I should have wrote the exact message down, but I guess I was too excited to think about it in that moment ;-)

After rebooting and again receiving that same message I chose to ignore it (which seemed to be fine).
I immediately started to import some of the Flex Builder 3 projects published on FlexDomino.net and with a few warning and confirmation screens the projects where imported without a problem.

On cleaning and rebuilding the projects a few warnings came up for each of the projects. All of them could be resolved quickly. I will explain migration steps on FlexDomino.net.

One thing we noticed is that the name spaces for the final release of Flash Builder 4 have changed from the beta releases. As a result projects developed in Flash Builder 4 Beta (might) require some changes before they can be rebuild in the final release.

If there is one thing that will kill Adobe then it is...

2010-03-24T13:04:00.003+01:00

...no, no, not the iPhone, iPad or Apple in general nor HTML 5 for that matter,

but simply Adobe Sales !

I just wasted 3 hours (!!!) in trying to purchase an upgrade to Flash Builder 4. Here is what happened:

I'm going on the Adobe website and go through the purchase procedure until the point comes to login with my Adobe account and I get a nice little error message on screen telling me that the account is registered in Malta and I would need to login with an account registered in the US.

I might have been able to just register a new account with an US address, but then again, my purchase history wouldn't move to the new account. Turns out that no Adobe Online Store works with a Malta account.

So I called Adobe Sales UK to make a purchase over the phone. Well I tried about half an hour before the damn phone system put me through to a person ... clearly located in India. After explaining my problem I'm passed to a sales person, this time located in the UK.

I explain the problem again and we start the procedure of a over the phone purchase with plenty of interruptions (waiting times to check out whatever). After providing my credit card details I explained I need the same company details on the invoice address which I had used with my previous purchase almost 2 years ago and which the sales person found in my account.

To my surprise the invoice I received via email 2 minutes later showed my personal address (the one linked to the credit card), however, with the companies VAT number. So by all means the invoice was completely wrong.

Calling the UK sales number again I get by chance and after further 15 minutes the sames sales person on the line. I explained the problem and he replied that there is nothing much to do about this, as the Adobe sales system does not allow entering a different invoice address then the card owners address.

You probably guessed that I got slightly impatient at this point and told them to just cancel the order if they can't provide a correct invoice. After all I need to get reimbursed. So the sales person forwarded the call to a customer support and I had to explain the situation all over again.

Arguments passed back and forward and after being put on hold for 5 minutes the customer support person pushed the call back to the sales person, who now explained that they could at least add the companies name below my name, but still with the wrong address.

Well, being somewhat a Flex/Flash evangelist I agreed to redo the order this way, otherwise I probably just would have sent them flying.

The moral of this story is, if you are not already living in an Adobe Country, you better migrate there as otherwise you are not welcome. Luckily for Adobe...Apple Stores are just as bad.

Almost back to normal...

2010-03-24T02:29:00.000+01:00

We recovered the content and registered user accounts as of 2 days ago when the server hardware failed. Just two of the live demos don't function yet. By tomorrow we should have fixed these too.

We also managed to optimize the performance on the virtual machine running the web content management system to a point that there is no longer a performance loss. So really,...we are back to normal.

FlexDomino.net up again...

2010-03-23T15:17:00.000+01:00

We managed to recover to an older backup of the FlexDomino.net website. We will work on the recovery of all missing information over the next days. If you can't login your account might have been lost. Either re-create it or wait until we are done with the full recovery.

The FlexDomino.net Team

FlexDomino.net down

2010-03-22T16:00:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately the FlexDomino.net web and mail server broke down and we have been so far unable to replace the server hardware and recover from the last backups.

Because of this situation and the fact that the FlexDomino.net website was based on a no longer supported WebGui for Windows version, we decided to build up FlexDomino.net from scratch. This will obviously take a few days.

So for the time being traffic to FlexDomino.net will be re-routed to our blog.

We apologize for the inconvenience. If you need any help, our would like to download any of the sample projects please send an email to mwille64@gmail.com or contact me on skype: matthiaswille.

Invisible Flash...interesting usage of Flash in Notes/Domino web pages...

2010-02-26T17:10:00.000+01:00

Just received this link to a posting on IBM's website for Lotus Notes Domino.

SoapGateQ! and FlexGateQ! Beta 1 (Build 2)

2010-02-17T17:36:00.001+01:00

I just posted a new build of SoapGateQ! and FlexGateQ! including the first draft of the developer & installation manuals. Both can be found in the Downloads tab (you require an account to be able to login).

We have made some decision towards our licensing model:

We will provide a developer or community version for free. All we require will be the servers domain name to issue a free license key.

The license model for the production environment is not yet concluded, but it will be on a per server/domain basis.

The current download provides a 6 month key that can be used on any server / domain.

We will soon provide a developer registration platform of course based on a Flex front-end talking to our Domino server.

New REST API for Lotus Notes Domino

2010-01-22T17:02:00.001+01:00

IBM announced a new REST API for Domino, which would be the first pretty complete interface to other platforms. We participated the session of Steve Nikopoulos (Future in IBM Lotus Domino APIs) and had some intense discussions in the labs with him to fully understand where IBM is heading to, and what impact this development has for our own web service based API (SoapGateQ).

First analysis let us believe that both solutions can be applied to different situations. Having said this, we investigate on how to include the REST API in our efforts to wrap these services in our FlexGateQ classes.

More to this subject will be posted soon.