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The Nokia N810 is powered by maemo Linux based OS2008, updatable also on the Nokia N800, the previous internet tablet generation hardware. The Nokia N810 features a highly customizable user interface and contains various novelties such as a Mozilla based browser with Ajax and Adobe flash 9, Bluetooth headset support as well as enhanced video and audio features.

It is expected to start shipping mid November with an estimated retail price of 479 USD (excluding local taxes).

You can see some pictures of the new N810 over at the Nokia Press Site.
Nokia N810 Photos

Marco has put a monumental amount of work into this book. Believe me the 900 hundred or more pages that you read are a slim account of the gargantuan task Marco undertook in documenting the extent of the Flex Application Framework.

I can honestly say I it was fantastic to read the original work. The thing that I found even more incredible as I inflicted my nit picking is that this huge technical resource was produced by Marco in English, not his native Italian. I know i would not be up to the task. Congratulations Marco.

Now on to the rant
{/UPDATE 1}

{UPDATE 2}
After re-reading Ted's post there is one section that i quite important to point out, that I missed.

The day you download Flex 3.0, you will be able to deploy 100% of the new features to the entire Flash Player 9 installed user base.

Of course we all want to know what those new features will actually be. Also though if the Flash 9 Player is going to be around a little longer than the previous player versions, will it mean we have to put up with its short comings a little longer too? Accessibility, Bi-Directional Support immediately spring to mind.
{/UPDATE 2}

Most of the flash blogosphere will have read the post here . I have to say I was left feeling a little fished in. There appeared to be little information actually about Flex 3.0 although there are an awful lot of mentions of both Flex 3.0 and also Flash player 9. In fact some of the information sounds down right wrong.

This is the first time Adobe or Macromedia has released a development toolset targeting a widely deployed Flash Player

Will this not be the Flash 9/Blaze IDE, which will surely be released well before Flex 3.0. I imagine Flash 9 will be targeting a widely deployed Flash 9 Player and the new ActionScript 3 standard. The clue would be Adobe releasing the AS3 update for flash 8 on Labs. What it would be accurate to say is;

This is the first time Adobe or Macromedia has released a development toolset, that hasn't been released yet.

Scatter in some simple logical version statements, such.

When Flash Player 10 hits 90%, Flex should target Flash Player 10 in all future releases

Its a wonderful recipe for Google Keyword Candy. But has very little content.

Sorry Ted. Not impressed.

What I saw that evening was pretty incredible. Stuart had been raving about "6 Minute Apps" for some time, I couldn't believe it when, as his presentation Stuart built an app there and then. From scratch. Database, server logic, flex front end. End to end database driven flex RIA. All that was needed was a bit of beatification and you would have been good to go.

What made it incredible? Well firstly Stuart wrote very little code, most of it was defined in the Ruby Scaffolds that get auto generated as part of a basic application framework. Secondly this was a real world useful app. the type you could imagine a client asking for. Thirdly, Stuart is neither a flash or flex developer. He has only really been looking at flex recently and yet quite plainly he is a man knows how to integrate seemingly disparate technologies in order to produce a useful product.

A great example of choosing the right technology (tool) for the job.

If you are looking at making use of the Ruby SDK I would highly recommend heading over to LiveRail.net to check out Stu's tutorials on Ruby and Flex. They have been up for a while, but now I believe they are even more relevant. While your at it I can highly recommend picking up the some books on Ruby development too. Ive been plugging through Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide that and it certainly does a great job of setting you on the right track. Although I have also heard good things of Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition as well.

The issue I have with the patent is its broad and sweeping coverage of very common interface and application GUI design systems. As an example reading one portion of the "Summary of The Invention".

When editing a component, the user may modify a number of features associated with a component including, but not limited to, the volume of an acoustic component, the link between a menu entry and an associated component, the font, font size, color, or effect of a text field, or the layout, size, transparency, rotation, color, position, or level of any graphical rich-media component. The user may modify these components by means of a slider bar or a textual input field. In addition, the user may modify the volume of a sound component by means of up and down volume buttons. The user may undo modifications made to a component's parameters. The user may also modify the position of a graphical rich-media component by a graphical input field, by clicking and dragging said component, or by text fields. When the user modifies the position of a graphical rich-media component by means of clicking and dragging said component, said component may align itself to a grid point or a guide line. The user may also modify the style and the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of a component linked to a menu entry.

Unless I am mistaken the recently posted link to Netvibes would actually infringe on this part of the patent. In that the user can select 'panes' or 'graphical rich-media components' of the netvibes application and alter there position within the application by clicking and dragging them to a new position.

In this example, because there is no specific technology linked to the patent claim, any RIA in any technology, Flash, Ajax, Appolo, XUL Runner, HaXe, Sparkle, add any other future technology here..... These systems would all be in break of the patent claim.

And this is just ONE of the EIGHTY THREE different claims in this patent.

Very worrying I think any developer would agree. Everyone involved in Internet application development, in my opinion, should take a serious look at this patent. Think about ANY work they have done or seen in past. The work they are doing today. Then consider the possible implications of future networked development. If you know of anything that has been posted, exhibited or shown publicly that can bring this patent down, it is in every ones interest to make it known to strengthen the Magix reexamination.

And remember we are not just talking about flash applications or work here. If you remember or are aware of ANY online application, in any technology, be it DHTML, Director, Java or anything else. If it used any, all or even one of these systems to allow user interation then it may well be enough to show that Mr Neil Balthaser did not invent these systems, and certainly has not right to lay claim to doing so as he has in his patent application.

I placed this in a folder in the root of my project called docs. The final docs are produced to sub folders of the docs folder called output/AppDocs. A screen shot of output can be seen here.

The XMl source is below the fold along with a link to the raw build.xml file

[XML]
< ?xml version="1.0"?>

Incase the XML above does not work the file is available here

ASDoc:Using ASDoc
ASDoc:Creating ASDoc Comments

If you can help us, or you know some one who might be able too PLEASE leave a comment. Let me know if you want it made public or not and I will abide your wishes. What is important is that myself or Mike (flashgen.com) can contact you some how to follow it up.

If you lead to the project going like I will personally buy you a BIG beers or six, and give you a great big hug (kisses optional).

The companies and or departments required are.

BBC Education Department -- need to be able to sign release for Medicine Through Time Website. (circa 1998, Flash 3).
British Telecoms Education Department -- need to be able to sign release for BT Time Trek Game. (circa 1998, Flash 3).

Remember this may be the only opportunity to see these historical examples of what us oldskoolers 'bled our eyes on'.

Please spread the word if you are able.

As you will have seen Mike Jones (FlashGen.com) and I are meeting to take notes, share war stories and generally reminisce the 'Good OldSkool Days'. To find out what files we still have, and even which URLs are still live (Flash 3 (alpha) circa 1997/8 btw JD produced by Spooky & the Bandit - you may remember them :p)

Keep your eyes peal for more news as events unfold....

In addition Stephen Downs (tink) will be giving an early look at the new ActionScript 3 preview that some of you 'may' have spotted is available on labs.

So if either of those sounds like they might float your boat, then why not pop along. I would just ask you check heavy throwing objects at the door :p.

Dave 'I'm not shitting it much I always walk like this' At BitTube Dot Com

The Actual Location of the ActionScript 3 Language reference is in fact now here.
**UPDATE**

As I got a few moments to play with ActionScript 3, I thought now would update the Syntax involved in some earlier posts....... And also it would seem some of the examples in the ActionScript 3 Language reference. So here are some replacements you may need to use to get the examples to work from the ActionScript 3 Language Reference.

1. A number of the Text classes are imported from incorect package structures. For example the StyleSheet example.
   
   package {
   import flash.util.trace;
   import flash.display.Sprite;
   import flash.display.TextField;
   import flash.display.TextFieldAutoSize;
   import flash.text.StyleSheet;

   -- snip --

   TextFieldAutoSize is in the flash.text package now. Not the flash.display package.

2. Previously I had posted a snippet guiding how to Embed fonts in a movie. This syntax seems to be incorrect now.
   
   package
   {
   import flash.util.describeType;
   import flash.display.MovieClip;
   import flash.display.TextField;
   import flash.text.TextFormat;
   import flash.text.AntiAliasType;

   public class Test extends MovieClip
   {
   // be sure this is pointing to a ttf font in your hardrive
   [Embed(source="C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\somefont.ttf", fontFamily="foo")]
   public var bar:String;
   public function Test()

   -- snip --

   It should be use like this.
   
package
{
import flash.util.describeType;
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.display.TextField;
import flash.text.TextFormat;
import flash.text.AntiAliasType;
// be sure this is pointing to a ttf font in your hardrive
[Embed(source="C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\somefont.ttf", fontFamily="somefont")]
public class Test extends MovieClip
{
public var bar:String;
public function Test()

   -- snip --

   i.e the Embed meta data has now to be moved outside the class, the same way as stage meta data exists outside the class (example posted by Mike Jones At FlashGen.com);

So thats as far as I got last night, I really lost interests. Maybe I chose the wrong package to start on (flash.text.TextRenderer), but there were so many problems in that example alone that I gave up trying to work out how to get the example to compile. The idea of working on my own stuff after that just completely lost its appeal.

If any one can get the example in flash.text.TextRenderer working i would love to see it :p.

• A single SWF file cannot combine ActionScript 1.0 or 2.0 code with ActionScript 3.0 code.
• ActionScript 3.0 code can load a SWF file written in ActionScript 1.0 or 2.0, but it cannot access the SWF file's variables and functions.
• SWF files written in ActionScript 1.0 or 2.0 cannot load SWF files written in ActionScript 3.0. This means that SWF files authored in Flash 8 or Flex Builder 1.5 or earlier versions cannot load ActionScript 3.0 SWF files.

  The only exception to this rule is that an ActionScript 2.0 SWF file can replace itself with an ActionScript 3.0 SWF file, as long as the ActionScript 2.0 SWF file hasn't previously loaded anything into any of its levels. An ActionScript 2.0 SWF file can do this through a call to loadMovieNum(), passing a value of 0 to the level parameter.

• In general, SWF files written in ActionScript 1.0 or 2.0 must be migrated if they are to work together with SWF files written in ActionScript 3.0. For example, say you created a media player using ActionScript 2.0. The media player loads various content that was also created using ActionScript 2.0. You cannot create new content in ActionScript 3.0 and load it in the media player. You must migrate the video player to ActionScript 3.0.

  If, however, you create a media player in ActionScript 3.0, that media player can perform simple loads of your ActionScript 2.0 content.

The full information can be found here:

Programming ActionScript 3.0 > Overview of ActionScript Programming > Introduction to ActionScript 3.0 > Compatibility with previous versions

As mentioned in a previous post here. This is the first time the flash player/VM has not been linked to the production and development of a formal Flash IDE.

While Flex 2 could certainly fall under the remit of an IDE, I would be surprised if it will be installed across the design and development teams of many of the agencies I have worked for recently.