Doug McCune posted a blog entry named Google Sucks at Flex in response to the SearchMash Flex application that they recently posted which I wholeheartedly agree width.

Compare this application to the newest release of Buzzword (recently acquired by Adobe) and you will see how awesome a Flex application can be.

Buzzword is one of the coolest Flex applications ever and there is very good reason why Adobe acquired this company. The addition of the Buzzword AIR desktop application will revolutionize document editing and sharing. You can sign up for a free Buzzword account now at http://www.buzzword.com

To obtain an Adobe AIR developer certificate from Thawte:

1.Visit Thawte site and select “Adobe AIR Developer Certificate”

2.You *must * use the Firefox browser to initiate the Adobe AIR developer certificate browser and to obtain the certificate.

3.Complete enrollment process step #1 “configure your enrollment”
Note: As part of this process a private/public key pair will be generated by Thawte
Note: The private key will be automatically stored within the Firefox keystore

4.Complete enrollment process step #2 and step #3“ Confirm you enrollment” and “Complete your enrollment”

5. Thawte will perform an Identity verification process and may request additional information.
Note: Additional information about the type of documentation.

6. After verification/vetting is complete, Thawte will email you instructions on how to retrieve the certificate.
Note: Please make sure that you retrieve the certificate using Firefox
Note: You will need to log-in to the Thawte site using the same password created during the cert enrollment process step #1

7. Click on “Fetch certificate” on the Thawte site.
Note:The certificate will be automatically saved to the Firefox Keystore

8. Please export the private key and certificate from the Firefox keystore
Note: When exporting the private key/cert from Firefox, it will be exported in a .p12 (pfx) format which ADT, Flex, Flash Authoring, Dreamweaver, and Apatana tools can consume

9. How to export the private key/ Cert from Firefox
On Windows: open Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Certificates -> Manage Certificates
On Mac OS: open Firefox -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Certificates -> Manage Certificates

a.Select your Signing Certificate you retrieved from Thawte from the list and click the Backup button. Upon export the Cert and private key will be included in the .p12 file
b.Enter a file name and location to export the certificate and private key to and click Save. The private and cert will be saved as .p12 file extension (PKCS12 format)
c.If you are using the Firefox Master password, you will be prompted for your master password for software security device. (This password is only used by Firefox.)
d.From the Choose a certificate backup password dialog box, enter a password to create/export the certificate.
e.Enter the password twice and click OK. You should receive a successful backup password message.

10.Use this *.p12 (pfx) file within ADT, Flex, Flash Authoring, Dreamweaver, or Apatana tools. Use the password used for the .p12 file export (step 9d)

Adobe has announced a RIA Developer Camp November 5, 2007 4:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Details:

Learn from other developer community leaders on how they use Adobe® Flex™ 2, Flash® CS3, and AIR™ (Adobe Integrated Runtime) to help them improve their business applications.

Join this seminar and hear speakers from Yahoo!®, PayPal™, ActionScript.com, and Adobe discuss how business owners, web developers, and end users are using these technologies to build their cool applications in a snap.

• Adobe AIR lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML, AJAX, Flash, and Flex to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.
• Design rich Internet applications that help businesses communicate more effectively, inside and outside the enterprise, with Flex 2.

Camp will be held at:
Adobe San Francisco Office
601 Townsend St.
San Francisco, CA

Click here to register

Looking for an easy way to add window controls as a context menu to your AIR windows? Try my new ContextWindow class.

OK, so this is not rocket science by any means, it is just a class that extends mx.core.Window and creates a NativeMenu within the constructor and assigns it to the contextMenu property. To use it, simply download the class and create an instance of it just as you would with the regular Window class.

Here is a sample application file:

Here is the ContextWindow.as class file:

I have just posted an update to my UpdateManager class that utilizes the Shell.shell.applicationDescriptor property rather than reading the application.xml file as in the previous version. This not only makes the entire process a lot smoother but also allows it to be run within adl as this property is available during debug.