ManMeng's Lifepad

[Tips] Easily develop AIR apps for Blackberry Playbook

Looking back during the early days of my involvement in this, I kept telling myself, “how hard can it be?” As you may know, RIM is almost the new kids on the block in the Tablet race game for 2011, which suffers a lot of criticism for not having a lot of app compared to its competitor, which is also true for Android, prior to launch previously. Give this platform a try, and you will know how much RIM has poured their trust and appreciation for Flash developer in this manner. And it is definitely not the developing for Android where you will still need to install the AIR player separately (which is EXTREMELY lame). The PlayBook has AIR integrated into its CORE OS, which means, you can get every single PlayBook on the planet to run your app without any extra installation.

Why is this post relevant to you? I’m pretty sure you might stumble across this infamous blog post: You Win! RIM by Jamie Murai. Certainly, RIM did listened to the rants and frustration of developer and evolved overtime to remedy their over-complicated process. Few months have passed since then, and I can’t tell how much I’m thankful to RIM for its appreciation for developer, and especially the Flash platform. I’m here, happy with my PlayBook (from the Free PlayBook offer) going to share with you the entire workflow and process, which afterall, is not as scary as it seems, but in fact, has toned down a lot more compared to the earlier days. Sure, you might argue Apple has the best submission mechanism and workflow in the world, but that does not happen overnight, neither do Android Market.

This will be the definitive guide for Mac users with Adobe Flash Professional to creating their PlayBook app. To give you an idea on how much time and effort you need to spend from developing to submitting an app to AppWorld, in point forms below, the 5 steps to your first app in AppWorld.

1. Downloads (1 day)
2. Apply as vendor (may take up to 3 working days for vendor application & code signing keys approval)
3. Simulator and development (minimum 1 day, varies depending on complexity of your app)
4. Signing your app (for submission to AppWorld) (1 day)
5. Waiting for review and putting app on sale (7 – 14 days)

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[Tips] AS3 User location/country detector based on IP

I have wrote a script that automates the process of your project in detecting the user location based on their current IP address via maxmind’s Javascript API. What you will need to do is to

• See the demo below
• Get the source code
• Read the comment inside the FLA and start using it 

What is this?

A simplified script that detects the visitor’s country and other details such as latitude/longtitude based on their current IP address.

Why is this necessary?

I felt that there is a need sometimes for us to automate the language selection or region selection process in some major big site that helps in cutting down user frustration through multiple clicks before going into the site. I figured this could be useful.

How to use it?

What you will need to do is to wait until the loading listener is completed before using it.  Sample usage :

var userCountry:String = getCountryName();

Where to get the files?

Download the source file

View the demo (SWF)

[Tips] How to dynamically create tilt shift effect with Flash (AS3)

If you have no idea what is Tilt-Shift. Probably you can have a short read on it at wikipedia. But perhaps to some, when done right, can produce really unexpected and sweet result (look at UNIQLO CALENDER). While to other, it’s being done to death. Of course, this is merely a quick tidbits on how you can “almost” achieve the effect without even touching Photoshop or other image editing tool, but with just few line of Actionscript. And yes, designers can do it too!

Demo : See it in action!
Download : The Source file. (Flash CS3, AS3)

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[Inspiration] Tutorial on how to create convincing butterfly in After Effects

Part 1 of the tutorial | Part 2 of the tutorial

I’d think it’s really cool to always revisit old techniques in new softwares, versions. I wouldn’t deny that there might be millions of people already know this, but seeing how much of the old tutorials sites using the older version of After Effects, it wouldn’t really hurt to see how it works in newer version softwares such as AE CS4. Layers magazine been sending me really cool stuff, not only techniques on one softwares, but even Illustrator, InDesign or Photoshop, works just like how Nettuts gives us, but in a different manner.

[Tips] Adding Google Analytics to your Flash Actionscript 3 Project

It has been almost ages that we finally able to harness the power of analytics inside Flash. However it would be a turndown for those who wants this in Actionscript 2. At the moment it seems there won’t be any plan for porting this to ActionScript 2. Your best bet would probably to jump the Actionscript 3 bandwagon to get benefits of this tool. This will be a through guide on how to setup your Flash file to enable Google Analytics tracking.

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