50 Words a min on Touch Screen, it’s amazing! That’s Swype for you!
Swype, is quite simple to use, although beneath the user interface there’s a lot going on.

“Swype works with an on-screen QWERTY keyboard like you have on the tablet version of Windows and on the iPhone. But instead of tapping letters out, you press your finger or stylus on the first letter, then, without lifting it, move it to the remaining letters in the word. When the word is done, then you lift.”

Even on tiny smartphone keyboards, it is intuitive and fast.A built-in 65,000-word dictionary corrects obvious and even creative spelling errors.

I do agree with Kushler (Inventor of T9, Swype) that his technology would improve the iPhone experience. Enjoy this demonstration from Kushler. I want this badly, it’s awesome!


Video 1: Swype Demonstation Video

A Netbeans‘ plugin is released to support Flex SDK. Look at Sourceforge (FlexBean) . It was noted at NetBeans day that NetBeans 6.1 IDE will be more oriented to AJAX and Web 2.0 application development. To see the list of features, NetBeans 6.1 IDE

Problem: Building ASDoc with Maven

Solution: Paste the following <plugin> information under the <plugins> </plugins> section of your pom.xml

<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>generate-asdoc</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<configuration>
<tasks>
<echo>Generating asDoc documentation</echo>
<mkdir dir=”${basedir}/target/apiDocs” />
<property file=”${basedir}/src/main/asDoc/asdoc.properties” />
<exec executable=”${flex.home}/bin/asdoc.exe” failonerror=”false” >
<arg line=”-doc-sources ‘${srcdoc}’” />
<arg line=”-library-path+=’${flex.home}/frameworks/libs’”/>
<arg line=”-main-title ‘${main.title}’” />
<arg line=”-window-title ‘${window.title}’” />
<arg line=”-output ‘${output.dir}’” />
<arg line=”-footer ${footer}” />
<arg line=”-left-frameset-width ${leftFramesetWidth}” />
<arg line=”-source-path ‘${srcdoc}’” />
<!– If you are using any external libraries such as Cairngorm.swc or flexlibs.swc then you need to specify them in this manner –>
<!– <arg line=”-external-library-path ‘${flexlib}’” />
<arg line=”-external-library-path+=’${cairngorm}’” /> –>
</exec>
</tasks>
</configuration>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

It took me 20 mins to get this done, for you it should take 2 mins. If this helps you let me know.

AsDoc.properties file contains the following

srcdoc =’${basedir}/src’
main.title = Priyank Examples
window.title = Priyank Examples
output.dir =’${basedir}/target/apiDocs’
footer =”© 2008 Priyank Examples”
leftFramesetWidth=”200″
flexlib=”${basedir}/src/main/swc/flexlib.swc”
cairngorm=”${basedir}/src/main/swc/cairngorm.swc”

This one was pending for long now. Many of my friends has this issue prop up everytime they had resource bundle in their project.

Problem Statement: Get ‘Error: resource bundle not found <resoucebundlename>.<properties>’ when doing a build with the pom.xml. Building a swc using a net.israfil.mojo plugin.

Solution: Just copy paste the following xml into your pom. Ensure that you have useNetwork=false set as at times it does not refer to local file system if you don’t have this attribute set to false.


<project xmlns=”http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0″ xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”
xsi:schemaLocation=”http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd”>
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.priyank.samples.mx.ascomponent</groupId>
<artifactId>ascomponent</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<name>ascomponent</name>
<packaging>swc</packaging>
<properties>
<flex.home>${env.FLEX_HOME}</flex.home>
<flex.compiler.source>src</flex.compiler.source>
<flex.priyank.locale>en_US</flex.priyank.locale>
</properties>
<build>
<finalName>ascomponent</finalName>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>net.israfil.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-flex2-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<extensions>true</extensions>
<configuration>
<flexHome>${flex.home}</flexHome>
<useNetwork>false</useNetwork>
<extraParameters>
<parameter>
<name>source-path+=${basedir}/src/main/locale/$
{flex.priyank.locale}</name>
</parameter>
</extraParameters>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
<outputDirectory>build</outputDirectory>
</build>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.adobe</groupId>
<artifactId>cairngorm</artifactId>
<version>2.2.1</version>
<type>swc</type>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>

This should generate an SWC artifact under the target directory. The typical developer shrug, “It works on my machine” is not applicable here.

I wanted to do a comparison of the features in Flex 3 vs. those in Silverlight, came across a wonderful article by Serge Jesper.

For those who just need the summary

Silverlight has support for playing with the HTML DOM and JavaScript, one Good part of it.

Bad and ugly you might have to read his article.

Microsoft Surface (Codename: Milan), is a Multi-touch product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of natural motions, hand gestures, or physical objects.

YouTube video shows its potential. Is this where Microsoft is thinking of making a shift? Probably they want to be ahead in the Race of UI. Microsoft calls this biggest shift in computing.

Play in the water without getting wet! Hmmm.

A small demo of the application and where it is actually being used. If you are shocked, please share your comments here.

The next version of Flex, code name Gumbo, is now in active development.

• Design in Mind: provide a framework meant for continuous collaboration between designer and developer.
• Developer Productivity: improve compiler performance and add productivity enhancements to language features like data binding
• Framework Evolution: take advantage of new Flash Player capabilities and add features required by common use-cases

Click here for the Language Reference

IBM DeveloperWorks has published the first article in a five part series on Cloud Computing with Amazon Web Services. It’s a great document to have in your kitty.

It’s here. Get lost in the Cloud.

Just installed two cool plugins that makes my life easier.

1. ScribeFire, is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser
that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted
text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.
2. Yoono, that keeps me in touch with my Friends on Gtalk, Yahoo Messenger, AOL.

Go ahead and install these plugins. They are an asset.