This past week I was able to write a small application with the Flex 4 API and FlashBuilder. I have quite a bit of previous experience with Flex 3. As a side note, it seems that the name change from FlexBuilder to FlashBuilder came about to emphasize the new integration capabilities with Adobe’s new Catalyst product. Catalyst advertises as a visual (no code) designer tool to create composite applications with existing Photoshop, Fireworks and Illustrator artifacts. These can then be imported with FlashBuilder into your Flex 4 projects.



One of the major changes is an entirely new set of UI components called Spark. These will take a little bit of getting used to as you create separate mxml files (FXG Flex 4 XML Skinning markup) to handle visual aspects of your components. Once you get a grasp of this new architecture it will become apparent how much easier it will be to skin your custom components and work with state. This will also enable the separation of the visual design from the component. You can now have someone that specializes in visual design more easily skin components. This is also where Catalyst comes in to work with FXG to create your skinning.



Another aspect that I really like is the ability to continue to use Flex 3 objects with Flex 4. This will allow you to gradually integrate some of the new features. A piece of advice though is to remember which component group you are using. For instance, MX RadioButton events are not always captured by a Spark RadioButtonGroup. Make sure you are always paying attention to your name spaces:

Spark Component

<s:RadioButton/>

MX Component

<mx:RadioButton/>

Some of the other aspects that win kudos:

• Two way binding e.g. @{object}. Cuts down the amount of code, that’s always a good thing!
• The new Group and Scroller classes. Using the Group to handle layout while having a defined scroller object makes it easier to work with containers and makes dynamic scrolling easier. For Instance, bring a component into view:
  • Mxml:

    <s:Scroller width="100%" height="100%">
    <s:Group id="content">
    <s:TextInput id="myField"/>

  • ActionScript:

    var myFieldBounds:Rectangle = myField.getBounds (this)
    content.verticalScrollPosition = myFieldBounds.bottom;

• Faster compile times. It is not as fast as Java but it is helping with one of the gripes developers have about Flex.
• Find/Replace across the entire project. Another extremelly useful feature is now part of Flex and FlashBuilder.
• FlexUnit integration, improved refactoring and new data tools are all new features that should make Flex even more enjoyable to work with.

Just scratching the surface with the changes but they do look very positive. Like any tool set there are always frustrating aspects, but all-in-all, I believe Flex is heading in a very positive direction.



Lastly, owning a MacBook Pro allows one to appreciate Apple’s innovation and craftsmanship. Apple’s reluctance to install the Flash player on the iPhone and IPad is problematic for all. There are an enormous amount of websites using Flash and now Flex/Flash applications. There needs to be a meeting of the minds between Steve Jobs and Adobe. Any concerns voiced or changes that need to be made should be in an open and transparent fashion. It will be interesting watching this story play out.

At M&S, we are going virtual all the way. We have delivered a number of virtualized environments for customers. Some have been for Oracle Middleware solutions, some for complete Microsoft domains. Some for open source system. And many for development instances.

We have tinkered with going totally virtual for own infrastructure over the years, but decided to avoid biting the bullet for a number of reasons: migration time/effort has typically been at the top of the list. But with the improvements in virtualization technology, advantages proven now over years, apparent “stickiness” of the leading players, our own maturity in this space, and general adoption by the community at large (more clearly read, “readily available support”), we are diving in.

Over the next few weeks and months, each component of the M&S infrastructure will be moved to virtual machines. Certain details of our infrastructure will not be posted on this blog for security reasons, but there are team members working on this who will try to keep the blog up-to-date. If you are interested in how things are going, feel free to contact us. We are excited about this ride.

I just can’t wait for Flash on Android…and for Apple’s hand to [hopefully] get forced into supporting Flash as well.

I am excited about BPEL’s proliferation. But for some organizations (specifically, IT shops), BPEL is being used in areas it is simple not well-suited. For example, some places where IT has gotten ahead of the business, it is used as a process modeling tool. True, BPEL “represents” a process, it is my opinion that proper business modeling tools be used prior to orchestration being defined in BPEL.

Another scenario I continue to find is that people are using BPEL for just about every piece of logic that goes into a business process being executed. The fact is, BPEL does very well at integrating with other services where complex — and more importantly, “fast-changing” — logic is executed. So, my advise is to not throw away every other tool in the belt in the face of BPEL. Fast-changing decisions are better handled outside of BPEL, especially as you consider the deployment process for BPEL, and most especially if you have long-running processes. Business rules engines, databases, and external services that perform specific logic/functions should continue to be leveraged in these cases. I’d be interested in hearing from others who are concerned about this challenge or maybe have already faced it.

I have been somewhat enamored by Google Apps and its potential. Many enterprises have been happy with Exchange for mail, calendaring, contacts, and more. I have been one of those people. However, I have found Google Apps to be getting better and better for use in the enterprise and I will not be surprised to see it begin to take significantly larger chunk of market share from Microsoft over time.

We recently had a customer request help with configuring OBIEE for use on both PCs and mobile devices (specifically, the iPhone). Of course, this is possible, but Oracle does not have a clearly documented approach. You might think that a separate server is required to accomplish this. However, the fact is that you can actually use a single server to deliver OBIEE reports for both PCs and the iPhone.

For those interested, following is a link to the Oracle OBIEE Indicators iPhone Demo:

Please browse our OBIEE Consulting Services

This article is part of the recent work short blurb series.

A few of us have got some writer’s cramp (is there such a thing when typing?) from writing an excellent WebCenter 11g book.

If there were a buzz word that could compete with the speed to fame, breadth of use (and misuse), and popularity of “Web 2.0″, it would have to be “Cloud Computing”.

We recently integrated Oracle IdM with the SAML SSO Service from Google Apps. Now customers can continue to authenticate against OID even while accessing Google Apps assets!

This article is a look at Oracle’s BPEL Sensor approach to publishing real time data and events for in flight BPEL Processes.

Oracle BPEL has tried to fill a gap in the BPEL Spec using sensors. Specifically, sensors allow users to overlay listeners on BPEL tasks and process variables that will generate events out of a process that is being executed. This is definitely a step in the right direction, and does a good job of staying true to the BPEL specification. This document will define what sensors are, how they should be designed into BPEL Processes, and a future outlook of event models.