creacog

Product Owner/Manager; Digital Project Manager, ex-Developer Available for Product Owner roles
Product Owner/Manager; Digital Project Manager, ex-Developer Available for Product Owner roles
15
Feb
2009

apple security update 2009-001 breaking PowerPC apps ?

Since installing this update I observe on my intel based mac that two PowerPC based apps now crash immediately on launch. Logging “Exited abnormally: Illegal instruction” to the console. The two applications affected so far on my system are CanoScan Toolkit X and more importantly Retrospect. Unfortunately the installers for both applications also fail with the same error. I worked around the canon issue by installing the LiDE 35 driver (for my LiDE 50) – then using “Import image…” in Preview. However not found a workaround for Retrospect yet. Looks to me like Rosetta is not working properly, although I have one PowerPC process running “RetroRun”.

Annoying and scary for my backups to be crippled in this way. Investigating. Not sure it was the security update as yet, only ‘evidence’ being the timing of the failures.

Update: Solved…

The following typed into terminal, followed by a re-start fixed the problem…

sudo update_prebinding -root / -force

As per instructions by Charles Minow in this thread on the Apple support discussions.

Posted by creacog in Apple, Mac OS, 0 comments
01
Feb
2009

ACE

Blowing my own trumpet for a moment… last week I sat and passed as Adobe® Certified Expert in Flex with AIR. Which I hope will help make my case with prospective clients.

Adobe Certified Expert : Flex with AIR

More information on Adobe certification programs.

Posted by creacog in Adobe, AIR, Flex, 0 comments
24
Jan
2009

Opposing software patents in Europe…

creative-cognition ltd is signed up on the following petition to oppose software patents in Europe. Surely copyright and licensing is enough protection…
stopsoftwarepatents.eu petition banner

Posted by creacog in Personal, 0 comments
09
Dec
2008

Adobe DW subversion guides – please don’t forget deletion!

Wishing those at Adobe writing about DreamWeaver’s wonderful subversion integration would not keep omitting Deletion. Perhaps it is because deletion is not implemented in any automated sense (link) in DreamWeaver’s subversion client and the only sensible way to manage deletions or indeed renames (which as far as subversion is concerned is delete old file and add new file) is to use a 3rd party client. In my opinion this is all the more reason to mention this in articles like that in December’s EDGE “A guide to Subversion integration in Adobe Dreamweaver CS4”. Failing to provide notes on file deletions and file renames is going to leave newbie subversion users in a bit of a mess, with old files hanging around, or being restored when not expected following a revert.

My earlier notes related: Dreamweaver CS4, Subversion and site Synchronize. Two cautions.

Posted by creacog in Adobe, DreamWeaver, Subversion, 0 comments
23
Nov
2008

an AIR pet hate : Forcing Windows UI on users of other platforms

An emerging pet hate of mine: AIR applications that do-away with the system chrome, only to then re-implement parts of it, but ignoring host-system conventions. Note this isn’t anything to do with AIR itself, more to do with designers and/or developers not entirely considering user-experience across all platforms.

window controls

The example above taken from Tour de Flex.

Personally for this app I see no reason not to have used the host system’s chrome. Doing so would have entirely avoided this issue. But to re-implement fundamental controls such as those pictured using positioning and icons based on only one operating system in an app which is cross-platform undermines the user-experience for users of other systems. In the example, a Windows arrangement and appearance is used which feels wrong on a Macintosh system, where the arrangement should be reversed and in the left rather than the right corner of the window. That it is Adobe setting this presedent in a number of their AIR applications is disapointing. I hope it is a convention other AIR developers will not follow. I certainly wont.

Posted by creacog in Adobe, AIR, Flex, 2 comments
18
Nov
2008

1st debug run following Flex SDK 3.2 update

Will probably yield scary looking error:

Process terminated without establishing connection to debugger.
Command:
“/Applications/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/3.2.0/bin/adl” -runtime “/Applications/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/3.2.0/runtimes/air/mac” /PathToProject/bin-debug/Project-app.xml /PathToProject/bin-debug
Output from command:
error while loading initial content

So, basically by setting the project to compile against the SDK 3.2 you are implicitly changing the version of AIR you are building against from earlier versions to 1.5. To fix you need to open file :

/PathToProject/Project-app.xml

and change the namespace to “http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/1.5”

This has already been logged as a bug (FB-15687) in the bugbase against Gumbo, by the release of which, hopefully it will be intercepted to present a more meaningful message.

Posted by creacog in AIR, Flex, Flex Builder, 0 comments
17
Nov
2008

Peddling Tour de Flex

New Tour De Flex application looking like a very cool and a very useful resource. More information…

http://flex.org/tour

Basically it’s a Flex Component explorer as an AIR application and Eclipse plugin.

Just thinking I’d have preferred that the System Chrome was used in the AIR app to provide the min/max/close buttons rather than those alien windows style icons on the wrong side of the window. Mac user me! 😉

Posted by creacog in ActionScript, Adobe, Flex, 0 comments