I can not confirm this news, however, I can say it is from close source.

This is not unusual, I have seen some start-ups seem to be doing this. They bootstrap with a team in India, once they get funded, they start expanding in USA. Expansion is good thing but please don't disrespect the existing team by firing or not giving due credit because you got a team in USA.

That's unfair and it shows, how such start-ups treat people. Equity/rewards are at far end, I see, people are not even treated with respect. From my experience at Mixercast, perhaps this was one of things I felt and that made me move on.

I am not writing this post because of my stock-options issue, though let me take this opportunity to express my feeling, I deserved some credit and respect for what I have done at Mixercast. They couldn't reconsider my case here as I know, they allowed someone else to exercise, even when they guy was fired before vesting period.

Anyway, I don't like, if someone is not treated with respect, specially engineers from India. I know, not all of us are doing as expected but we are learning and getting better day by day. We must consider, India is huge country and thousands of engineers/developers start their career every year, I would say it's companies who need to make sure of quality and make individuals learn what is good and bad during early years of their career. Unfortunately, not all companies think that day, perhaps achieving sales target is the only thing they look at?

I am sure everyone from Mixercast Pune development center would do good, I know them personally and I can say they all are rockstars. Mixercast had 0% attrition rate for first year or more, very rare to see in India.

I am sure none of these events would make them feel low. I wish them all the best.

Update (July 2, 2008): I am not sure whether Mixercast allowed someone to exercise the options before vesting, I was wrong and I should have not posted that particular line without confirmation. I have heard it from very close and reliable source within company, however, I am not sure. I didn't mean to offend anyone hence I have struck that line (sentence) and please accept my apologies for that, hope I don't repeat it. BTW! As someone pointed, I should have proof while ranting, he is right, please accept my apologies again and I didn't mean to offend. My mistake.

Another source says, people are not exactly fired, they have been asked to find a new job because there is not much of work left for them. All these people would get everything (options, etc) - That's great.

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(Another Developer on Jul 1, 2008 11:31 PM) Ok, yes you are dead on getting fired before your vesting period has given you your options is wrong. I have had the experience of working with several firms in India and unfortunately the code is not always top notch. I have been through a fair share of projects where I have to go in and re-write code and made the product more extensible. As a start up using India engineering to get started is good, respect for your team is necessary but also remember that you are getting paid to produce and not to learn on the job. Sure some of that happens regardless on the job but reality is you are not getting paid to learn but to produce. Being outsourced several times for an India crew has made me a little biased. So take my comments with consideration. But to see more US based workers get a salary once again as opposed to outsourcing helps the economy here.

(Bill on Jul 1, 2008 11:53 PM) "They couldn't reconsider my case where as I know, they allowed someone else to exercise, even when they guy was fired before vesting period." I can fully understand your feelings. But whenever you rant also please put forward proof. Do not hit from the back. Who is this guy/gal ?

(Abdul Qabiz on Jul 2, 2008 12:58 AM) @Another Developer: I understand what you mean. But let me tell you, in this case of Mixercast, everything was done from scratch in India, even the first couple of versions. So I would not say quality of code was bad, infact Mixercast has some amazing architecture underneath. However, I mentioned last paragraph (about code quality in India), that's in general context (outsource or whatever). Sorry, it got mixed with main subject of the post. Thanks for the comment. @Bill: My mistake, I don't have proof and I was not sure, I should have taken care while posting. Thanks for pointing it out, I have update the post and accepted my fault. Once again, I don't mean to offend anyone, sorry I can not disclose the name of that person. Thanks -abdul

(rv on Jul 2, 2008 2:46 PM) @Abdul - I would say they were really smart in doing this. They managed to hire some of the best people in India (I know most of the people who worked in MC) and create a really good product with a lean budget (and some promises may be). Now they have a cool product which they can show off to people and get funded and now they think the team who build that is of no value-add as they now have the money to have a local team in the place where they came from. And believe me for this, you are not alone I know of at least 3 different cases like this. @Another Developer - I tend to disagree with your comment about the code quality of Indian programmers and for that matter a lot of softwares and web applications which are being used by the Fortune 50's are developed in India (and not rewritten elsewhere). I have been part of more than 100 project's myself and there has been probably 3 or 4 isolated cases in which this has happened and in most of the cases (2 in this instance) I would say that the person on the other side just didn't want this project to be done out of India and was unnecessarily making peoples life toucher so the project can be taken away. There were only 2 cases in which the problem was genuine. "As a start up using India engineering to get started is good, respect for your team is necessary but also remember that you are getting paid to produce and not to learn on the job." - It's the interviewers responsibility to choose the right candidate who can perform on the job rather than those who practice on the job. If the interviewer is not capable of identifying the difference then its his fault not the candidates. Secondly, I have seen that, because its India people want to pay programmers 10% of what they pay in the US and if thats the case you will only get a programmer who is worth 10%. I agree that the reason for outsourcing to India is because of lesser cost but when people want to recruit guys at 10% of the cost they would spend there, one would only get candidates who are beginners and not pro's. What you pay is what you get - it's that simple.

(lavnish on Jul 12, 2008 11:31 AM) I completely agree with RV

It's simple to install using PEAR and requires PHP5+. I like the command-line interface of R3, though it's easier to use it's web-based GUI, as shown in documentation. I couldn't get R3 GUI running, but it seems sometime is wrong, I am not able to get it running on my Mac OSX (Leopard) with Apache HTTP 2.2.x.

Something similar is used with-in Yahoo!, I would not go in detail rather let you explore R3, which is indeed an exciting project. I am, hopefully, going to use in some project, if I do that, I would post more about my experience with R3.

Technorati tags: r3, yahoo, localization, internationalization, i18n, L10n, templating

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Server machine(s):-

• Subversion Server
• Apache HTTPD
• Trac
• Mail Server
• MySql Server
• ActiveDirectory/LDAP

I am planning to have all of these one server machine (IBM) in virtualized environment. Subversion and Trac can go in one VM, perhaps under Apache. Second VM can have Apache for web-apps, third VM can have mysql, fourth VM can have MailServer and ActiveDirectory/LDAP?

Do you think above makes sense?

Developer/Designer workstations:-

• Aptana as development-ide (with Subclipse + Flex/AIR tools)
• Ubuntu (GNU/Linux) as developer's box
• MS Windows/Mac OSX as designer's box
• Apache Server
• MySql

Though there should not be any restrictions on using a development IDE of choice, but I have realized if entire team uses same IDE things get far easier. The development workflow is easy, knowledge sharing and management is easy. Eclipse, which Aptana is based on, can be used for variety of projects.

Ubuntu is good operating system, I have been using for over one year, not regularly but quite often. There might be Windows/OSX boxes for designers.

Why do we need Apache and MySQL on each workstation?

I think, developers are more effective if they have their own sandbox. They can play with code freely, take certain risks and innovate. There is no harm done. We do face issues, when it comes to sync mysql data into local mysql instances, I think it can be done via some scripts.

Virtualization can be done on client and I am thinking to do it, specially for folks who are not comfortable with Linux, so they can be on Windows while they also have access to Linux VM, they are encouraged to use Linux VM. They can use Windows box (Host), if something is messed up in Linux VM and there is strict timeline that doesn't allow to fix VM.

Over the period, these developers would be comfortable with Linux and that is the time they can start using real Linux box :-)

These are some thoughts, I might be missing something here. I hope, I would write more in another post.

As you know, I have been on break and been thinking on all these things. BTW! I don't work with Yahoo! anymore, once I am done with break I have to figure out what to do. Perhaps, time to be in my own city and do something my own (consultancy, startup or something like that). Heh, that's news, if you have read so far :-)

Technorati tags: development, setup, subversion, apache, httpd, trac, ubuntu, linux, virtualization, windows, aptana, eclipse, flex, air, subclipse

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(saumya on Jun 25, 2008 12:54 PM) Hi Abdul, Nice to get you back. I am actually missing the tweets and sometimes thought to DM you but for one reason or other could not. Congratulations and hope you all the best for whatever you chose to do. The thing most interesting thing here is I am also thinking in the same line as you. But I think I will take some time for that.Its always good to be in a place where you can concentrate more on the work and grow. Now world has shrunk a lot and there is nothing impossible from anywhere. Its better to be placed well and healthy so as to maximise the efficiency. Tweet often, it shortens the distance. All the best.

(saumya on Jun 25, 2008 1:40 PM) Hi Abdul, Nice to get you back. I am actually missing the tweets and sometimes thought to DM you but for one reason or other could not. Congratulations and hope you all the best for whatever you chose to do. The thing most interesting thing here is I am also thinking in the same line as you. But I think I will take some time for that.Its always good to be in a place where you can concentrate more on the work and grow. Now world has shrunk a lot and there is nothing impossible from anywhere. Its better to be placed well and healthy so as to maximise the efficiency. Tweet often, it shortens the distance. All the best.

(Arun.P.C on Jun 26, 2008 8:40 AM) Hi Abdul, Just wanted to know what virtualization platform you are going to use? That becomes all the more important if you are going to rely on virtual machines for all your VMs. Thanks, Arun.P.C

(Jason on Jun 26, 2008 12:33 PM) Get rid of Linux! Use Windows Server System 2008 and SQL Server 2008. I know I know the usual exclamation " Holy crap!" But trust me it will save lot of time and prevent tons of headache. You will be able to concentrate on product development rather wasting time how to figure out mundane things that we take for granted in Windows. Check out technet.microsoft.com for more information.

(Tarun Dua on Jun 27, 2008 3:36 PM) All of it makes sense. Separate MySQL VM makes a lot of sense when one realizes the kind of assumptions developer's can make. Only for a moment I thought you should have combined Apache and MySQL on one VM. I would add a bind9 DNS+ a DHCP server with dynamic reverse DNS configured to the list. To the e-mail server I would add an internal GNU mailman. What do you need Active Directory/LDAP for ;-), un-less you want to manage central authentication and mess with Samba (which is increasingly difficult with Vista) or need have a central corporate addressbook served from directory. Wonder if you want to try out Kolab for shared calendering, addressbooks and other groupware goodies. Actually you can have a VMWare Server running on 1 or 2 central boxes which developers can use with VMWare Server's client if their machines are not powerful enough. But your world looks very good even without the things I am suggesting. -Tarun

(Debabrata Acharjee on Jun 27, 2008 6:28 PM) Hey Abdul, Its really a news for me!I liked the idea of going back to the city you belong.It will definitely provide you more satisfaction and on the top of it you would be able to be around your parents when they really need you. All the best, Deb

(Abhishek on Jul 1, 2008 3:12 PM) Hey, Watz up with u and Yahoo! 2 don't seem to be together for more than some months :) nyways, do remember wat we chatted abt the other day...am still game for that Best of luck and do keep in touch. Abhishek

(Ashish on Jul 2, 2008 2:34 AM) Hey, This is really a nice and quite informative post about the recommended setup. It specially helps me a lot as I am a beginner with AS3 and Flex, but also love the Linux platform at the same time and was looking to find a way to have both in one place, rather than going dual boot. And yes, each developer having his/her local sandbox surely helps by leaps and bounds. I can vouch for this cos, currently the place I am in ..not even one developer has a complete local environment which causes frustration,headache and loads of time wastage. Thanks you, again for the above post. Wish you all the best in your new en devours.

iDesktop.tv is an incredibly cool dynamic web 2.0 application, with a terrific modern design, that brings you a better way to search and watch YouTube videos. Not only but you can download YouTube videos!
This is basically adding functionality and experience to what "should be" there. The possibilities of the site reach far beyond that. It gives you the chance to create your own environment for watching video clips, saving them and sharing them with friends.

I liked the neat and clean interface, which is mostly done in AJAX (=DHTML), Flash Player is used to play videos from YouTube. Entire experience blends well and user-interface is pretty intuitive.

Features like video downloads in various formats (wmv, mov, mp4, zip, exe, etc) and smart/intelligent playlist creation are cool.

iDesktop.tv increases the quality of user-experience, makes it easier to navigate, personalize, share and store the videos.

I thought to spread some words about iDesktop.tv, which is no doubt one of the coolest web-app, done on top of YouTube's platform and blurs the line between AJAX and Flash, as an user I didn't notice any difference when AJAX or Flash was in action.

BTW! This web application is created by the guys behind flashjester, if you are Flash vetran (like me ;-) ), you know what flashjester meant to us in those days, still means a lot to many today.

Technorati tags: iDesktop.tv, idesktop, youtube, video, flashjester

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• Programmer Insecurity
• http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001134.html

I thought to put some sentences, which I understood from these posts:-

• You are not your code.
• Share your code for reviews, as often as you can
• Accept code reviews/suggestions positively
• Give positive and constructive criticism to your peers

Doing all of these would increase collaboration, better quality of code and understanding of requirements. All these things are good, so why not do it?

We all go through whatever has been said in those posts, where we feel like finishing/cleaning-up something before we could share, but soon or later we realize the importance of code-reviews.

For last many years, wherever I have worked, I have subscribed to all notifications lists for repositories (SVN, Perforce, etc) as well as development lists. This way, I could see what my peers are doing, which allowed me to learn more about the projects/products and also made me offer my two-cents wherever I could. I also expected to get reviews on my work, which I got a lot of times, and believe me it always helped me write better code resulting in better product.

In the end, a quote from the post (the first link above): You are not your code.

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In case you are wondering, where am I? What I am up to? First of all, thanks for being concerned. I am doing well and currently taking a break while spending time with my family. This is the only such a long (a month or perhaps more) break in last five years, where I am taking time to be with my family. Even in summer of North India, which is not that pleasant compared to that of Pune/Bangalore, I am feeling good.

I think, I need some more time to relax, but I wish I could do that. I have to get back to work and resume things.

During this break, I am not away from programming, I am reading and sometimes writing code. I took break from IMs and emails, I would need to catch up with emails and online buddies when I get back.

If you have sent an email to me and still waiting for response, hope you understand now and don't mind the delay or no response from my side. Please accept my apologies.

In the end, I would like to share my excitement about Adobe Flash Player 10, which would have some kick-ass features, that it rocks.

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(harry on Jun 10, 2008 1:47 AM) interesting blog u have here! :D

(ashwinee on Jun 13, 2008 1:24 PM) we all need break. glad you took it. enjoy :-D

Currently this mashup is being used on Yahoo! Live WMC site for World Music Conference (WMC).

You can see the mashup here. If you go to Yahoo! Live WMC site, you might notice my name there, Yahoo! Live guys are very kind to give the credit to me by putting my name there, though it's currently misspelled :-)

I generally don't do shameless boasting or self-promotion, but in this case I feel good that one of my mashup makes to Yahoo! Live page :-)

Technorati tags: yahoo, live, upcoming, wmc, mashup

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(ashish on Mar 31, 2008 10:33 AM) good work buddy. great job. even i think adobe max should be made easily available in india. www.paradise-india.blogspot.com

It would be great to have event like MAX in India but practically speaking, it might not be successful from organizers point of view. I have attended Macromedia MAX 2005 and noticed things which I have never seen in any Indian Flash/Flex events and others too (except a few). I am optimistic, it would notice similar thing in India, in future.

We hardly notice 70-80% attendance in most of the flex/flash/air events/group-meetings within a city. It would not be good idea to assume people would fly from different cities to attend a two-three days event? Only a few do, and did in initRIA - those guys are probably the right audience for MAX like event in India.

Let's not look the numbers that how many people are using flex/air for development? That way, there are thousands. Only a few of them show up in events probably they can afford time/money and have more motivation (networking, learning and other stuff) to be at events.

I don't mean to offend anyone by saying those who don't attend events are not passionate. There are practical reasons - we can't afford attending events due to time and money. We don't have to prove our passion by registering our presence in any such events or participating in any lists. We are passionate about the technology and programming, we can prove our passion by writing good code and building kick ass-applications. If we can afford time/money - we can participate in different ways (lists, events, group-meetings, etc).

Generally passionate guys do beyond the normal, there is a great example how someone(Gopal) vacated his house and used advance-refund to buy tickets for LCA 2007 - later he has to stay at his friend's place and office. Not many people (can) do that.

I am happy that Indian flex community is growing, but as said I would rather like to see the quality and passion instead of just numbers. I would love to see more contribution from Indian Flex community, including me. Contribution in form of code, projects, libraries, ideas and talks. I hate to say, many of us are still stuck writing code for what is required by client. Many of us just end up getting things done instead of pushing the limits. There are reasons for what we do now, that's how sometimes thing (market) work. This is the reality now, might be different after sometime.

Coming back to the topic, if someone/company organizes a event like MAX (like MAX in USA - that kind of scale), that person/company wants to make sure how successful it would be, considering all the costs involved and speakers (important key people) flying to speak and finding not enough (number and quality) audience?

Now above is my take why Adobe MAX (note - such large scale event) doesn't make sense in India, might make sense in coming years. But I am wondering, why does Adobe think about it? Probably following paragraphs, which I have observed/heard.

How many independent developers in India actually buy original software/license? They want to use a cool software but don't want to buy the software and they also don't prefer to use free software (FOSS or free as in bear)?

I know it's not directly related to the main topic, but probably it makes sense when you are talking about an event like MAX which is sponsored by Adobe (which develops the technologies discussed in the event).

Adobe makes money in India through key accounts like IT/eLearning companies, (Bollywood/advertisement) studios/agencies and banks (for document management servers). Adobe doesn't see huge demand by individuals or smaller companies - anyway most of these use pirated version. Similar case, every second computer runs Microsoft Windows and most of times, pirated version, Microsoft doesn't seem to be bother much about because they make a lot of money from companies and government. What is motivation for companies like Adobe (not talking about Microsoft - they have motivation, relatively larger user-base where they can make more money by converting pirated to genuine) to organize events in India?

Adobe can look at it like this - Most of the companies in USA get their work done in India, the better ecosystem in India would lead more profits for Adobe in long term. Adobe currently pitches it's technologies to US companies via sales channels and those companies put the technologies as requirement for projects (which gets executed by Indian companies). That's how it works most of the time. Now there are support channels - Adobe Evangelists, sales/support guys in India and training partners - for Indian service companies, that's the another reasons not many of developers working in these companies show up in these events?

Whatever I have said so far is my opinion/observation/thoughts I am not judging anyone, neither Adobe nor the flex/air/flash community, here. I would love to be wrong, because as a passionate developer I would want many more events and better ecosystem in India.

It's a long post and with different thoughts, which might sound conflicting with each other. I have gone through various phases in my life and I have noticed different things. All summed together above. I used to travel long distances for half/full day events, even when I was not earning much. I used to be more active on lists/forums compared to what I am now. I think, there are different ways we all are passionate about any things, it all depends on various situations/circumstances. With easy Internet access today, compared to past, I am more connected than I was even after being to all those events. Apologies, if something is not clear - formatting or idea.

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(Peter Elst on Mar 23, 2008 8:56 PM) Thanks for your perspective Abdul, its a very interesting read! While I would love to see a MAX conference come to India I'm sure it wouldn't make sense to scale it like the US edition -- what I found particularly interesting is how they managed to set pricing for MAX Japan. http://www.onflex.org/ted/2007/10/adobe-max-2007-japan-arrival.php The growth of Flex in India is especially interesting if you look at the whole open source roadmap. This is not just a marketing effort but it actually democratizes development to a lot of people. Whereas before, lets not kid ourselves, a lot of Indian independent developers and small companies were practically forced to work with illegal software copies. Its about more than a conference, if Adobe does not pay attention and starts to invest in India and its developer community there are other parties that are ready to take over. I strongly believe they need to act without delay, we're not talking about huge scale events but rather building a strong presence and commit developers to your products. Its not straightforward if this is just being looked at in terms of costs. As you probably know I've been trying to get some Flex/AIR workshops off the ground in India and it is not easy to get partners involved. Adobe has the funds to make it happen and its in their best interest to see that it does happen.

(Abdul Qabiz on Mar 23, 2008 10:41 PM) @Peter Macromedia used to organize MAX (so called) thingy in INdia. But MM sales guys tried to pitch project most of the time. Last time we had it in 2004, we saw some external speakers - Macromedia partners (indiagames, etc). I am sure, it can happen anytime. I suspect, it's not Adobe USA which has to decide, it's Adobe India management. Adobe India would have to spend money from their budget, since it's different business unit.. That could have been the reason, Ted's promise (last year) couldn't work out now, just guessing :-) Posted more thoughts on Mrinal's post, please check it out. Thanks -abdul

I am going to sort out all the issues and bounce back. I would not be active on this blog or else-where until I fix things.

Just wanted to update here, so that you know I am not gone, I am very much here but sorting out issues which are blocking my way to reach where I want to be. I am not giving up.

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(Suketu Vyas on Mar 18, 2008 1:24 AM) Good Luck Abdul...

(Mariam Dholkawala on Mar 18, 2008 5:39 PM) I'm sure you'll get out of it soon because you are really cool in everything you do! Buzz back whenever you feel like it :0) Mariam

(Jignesh Dodiya on Mar 20, 2008 12:10 AM) Abdul, Hope you are on the right way, but I am thinking that I am knowing something that you are searching..........lets discuss

(Ashish Shukla on Mar 20, 2008 7:29 PM) Happy qsort()-ing things :)

(Anand on Apr 1, 2008 10:43 PM) Hello Abdul, I read your interview and thanks for sharing your valuable views on Flex. I am really interested in taking some tips from you. I have been in IT Consulting for the past 19 years, and just 9 months back I started my own company here in the U.S. I am currently working on a product idea and have all the requirements specd out. Though I have been in IT for so many years I moved to Managerial positions and did not keep up to handson technology. Basically I have not done any java coding. Now I would like to obviously use Adove Flex for the UI layer of my product and have been trying to get some good Adobe Flex resources in India and couldn't find any. I am not able to afford the U.S. companies for this work. Following are my questions: 1. Can you refer me to any small company that has really good Adobe Flex resources? 2. For a non-Java guy like me, will it be easy for me to pick up Adobe Flex easily. I am willing to learn. 3. ANy other tips would be helpful. Thanks, Anand anand.ganesan@matrixprecise.com

Check out my two-cents (Interview) on O'reilly network.

I would love to hear, what you guys think about it? Please let me know (comments, emails or IM).

Thanks to Shashank for giving me this opportunity to share my views with a larger community.

Technorati tags: flex, india, ria, community, interview, oreilly, java, opensource, jobs

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(Anand Vardhan on May 3, 2008 10:32 AM) Hi Abdul, First of all CONGRATULATIONS on moving the Flex community a step ahead. Shashank did the right thing, you are the face of Flex community so nobody can give you an insight of growth of flex in India better than you. Hats off to you man ... you rock .. Adding one more good news from my side, This week on 30th we had a Flex Boot Camp organized by Adobe in pune. and Guess there were more than 100 passionate participants. You would have amazed looking the response.

• most of the times, I start writing something at home and end up posting using office computer or vice-versa
• end up using some editing cum publishing software (not many are cross-platform - I always feel like writing Windows Live Writer clone in AIR)
• VIM is handy for writing but who doesn't want a cross-platform WYSIWYG editor, which can generate valid xhtml?

Google Docs can post to most of the blogs (Blogger, Wordpress, MovableType, LiveJournal, etc).

Check out this article to learn - how to post to your blogs from Google Docs

BTW! This post is authored and published using Google Docs

Update (March 14, 2008): Google Docs is buggy, at least with Movable Type API, It didn't post the subject-title properly, I had to remove preview post

Technorati tags: google, docs, blog, publish

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(Bhasker V Kode on Mar 14, 2008 1:02 PM) I felt Flock's blog composer was also a time saver. allows simple source edits,previwing, saving as draft,etc. and posting to most of blogging platforms out there. This apart form the nice twitter ,flickr, ( N other social aspects) integrated into the browser . Keep Clicking, Bhasker V Kode

• Updated API to allow CRUD - Create, read, update and delete - operations
• Upload API
• Chromeless Player
• Player's JavaScript API
• H.264 videos - Notice the high-quality playback link below videos on youtube

I am yet to confirm, how easy it is to load and control YouTube's player in our Flash/Flex apps? Controlling loaded SWFs is hard, unless it allows cross-site scripting through Security.allowDomain ("loaderdomain.com"). I hope, some day Flash Player would have more Security APIs, which would let us expose a set of interfaces to loaders (SWF loads another swf from different domain).

In any case, we can overlay iframe/div to show the video. That's what I am doing for Yahoo! Live Mashup.

Update (March 12, 2008): YouTube's chromeless player can be loaded in Flash/Flex applications and can be controlled. That's what I heard Geoff Stearns, Flash Engineer in YouTube and SWFObject developer, saying in this video.

Technorati Tags: youtube, api, crud, upload, video, chromless, player, h.264

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(Geoff on Mar 13, 2008 9:48 AM) Currently the chromeless / embed player Flash API is limited to as2 apps, but it would be fairly easy to write a little wrapper that uses LocalConnection to talk between an as3 app and the player. I believe one of the 3rd party developers wrote one during our beta period, but I'm not sure if they posted it anywhere. As for exposing specific APIs to parent swf apps, here's how I did it with the YouTube players: We use two swfs - one is a very small loader swf witch allows any domain to make calls to it, then we have our main player swf which doesn't allow any other domains to make calls (the loader swf and the player swf are in the same domain, so they can talk to eachother). When the player swf loads into the loader swf, it registers some public API calls which are then accessible from any domain. So we keep our main player private, but can expose any functions we like by adding references in the loader swf. I'm very interested in hearing feedback from Flash devs about this new API, so don't hesitate to shoot me an email or post a comment on my blog about your experiences.

(Abdul Qabiz on Mar 13, 2008 10:08 PM) @Geoff, Thanks for more updates. I noticed AS2 thingy and infact wrote similar thing in youtube-gdata mailing list to update other flash devs about LocalConnection/ExternalInterface options of using chromeless player in AS3/Flex Apps. I am gonna play with the API and surely let you know of feedbacks.

(Tom Van den Eynde on Mar 14, 2008 7:41 PM) Any code examples on how to use the chromeless player in combination with Flex would be more than appreciated as I'm not a Flash developer :(

(Abdul Qabiz on Mar 14, 2008 9:05 PM) @Tom: Last night, I spent a lot of time writing a wrapper but realized chromeless player doesn't initialize properly when loaded in SWFLoader or Loader. Reason, it fails to resolve AS2 classes com.blah.blah. I remember, I had fixed something similar in past while loading SlideShare player (which is also in AS2 with lots of _level0 and _root references). I am not sure, if YouTube's chromeless player is defining all it's classes in _global scope. I tried locking the root (_lockroot = true), no success... I am gonna give some more try and probably update here or a new post. Thanks -abdul

(Sam on Mar 28, 2008 1:27 AM) Recently I have found that the FLV path to youtube videos have been changed. Since about a month a new format is being used: http://dal-v35.dal.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=gXQokBx0NJE&signature=C05B0CB57D538ADD83B942D0979E1BFC844CFD9A.B2ADC6CAB7D998D7743E910F6E0B67A4A6EC0CEE&ip=67.15.14.65&ipbits=16&expire=1205800518&key=yt1&sver=2 Now there is no way to get a permanent link to an flv. This one will expire after a certain amount of time. Before it was simply: http://dal-v35.dal.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=gXQokBx0NJE Abdul, since you have previously wrote on how to get the flv paths, any ideas on how to get a permanent link back? Thanks.

I wonder, why we (people from India) can not buy software from Adobe online store? There might be reasons but is Adobe working to solve/fix those issues (tax or whatever)?

BTW! This gives me another reason to evangelize opensource-flex. All the events, I attend, I say: We don't need FlexBuilder, we can do everything with Flex SDK.
Now I am going to say: We don't need FlexBuilder, we can't buy even if we want to, let's not waste our time. Start using Flex SDK - that's all we need :-)

I am very hopeful, we would start seeing opensource tools for flex development. I would love to be part of any such project and can contribute in anyway - hey I am totally cool with Java, so count me in ;-)

BTW! I have got some ideas, I would start some projects soon.

Technorati tags: adobe, store, sucks, flexbuilder, India, opensource, sdk, flex,

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(Mrinal Wadhwa on Mar 11, 2008 12:13 AM) Thanks for the sentimental echo, I hope someone from adobe responds. Yes we can do everything with the SDK, but Flex Builder helps in many ways .... for me the most prominent reason to buy Flex Builder 3 is the profiler but other than that there are many subtle ways in which Flex Builder saves me time. I would love to get involved with open source flex tools development, my java ain't that bad either ;) ... so let me know.

(Anupam on Mar 11, 2008 1:18 AM) This is really causing problem to so many developers in India, and I think we got a good base in India :) Would love to see some open source tool which I can use to build Flex Application. :D I hope someone from Adobe look in to this :) Cheers! Anupam

(John Dowdell on Mar 11, 2008 2:37 AM) For what it's worth, I had passed this blogposts around internally in the previous few weeks. I don't think the decisionmakers have as regular a public contact as us technical folks do, though, so it's not unusual that we haven't seen public feedback yet. I'll bump your post internally, though. I know that there are signficant regulatory and accounting barriers to opening an online store in a new area. That's my guess of what the core issue may be, although I don't have any specific internal knowledge of this area myself. cu, jd/adobe

(Abdul Qabiz on Mar 11, 2008 2:53 AM) Hi JD, I know, you were the first and only person (if I remember) who has been pursuing this issue. I really appreciate it. I am sure there are issues but wondering, if there is any work going on in that direction. Thanks again for the comment. -abdul

It's really nice to see everyone, once upon a time I used to work with them.

In one particular scene, I laughed loud when Alex Harui says "No more questions". Most of the Flex team (Gordon, Deepa, et al) are very active, but Alex is like everywhere on high traffic flexcoders list. There was a time, Matt Chotin, Manish and I could be seen answering most of the questions on flexcoders.

I am always interested in behind-the-scene stuff, be it movies, software or anything else. Thanks Matt for the videos.

Check out the videos

Technorati tags: flex, team, video

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Not very long back, almost same time last year, we started discussing how to build Flex/Flash/AIR ecosystem in India. Though figures are encouraging, I feel, we still have a long way to go. Following are things, I would personally like to see and do:-

• More participation internationally (via flexcoders, blogs, etc)
• More code contribution (components, libraries, etc)
• More innovation (quality discussions, product development, etc)

We know that, most of us (Indian developers) are driven by client's requirement, which means most of the Indian companies are using Adobe RIA technologies because that's a requirement. What I would like to see, more proactive approach towards technology adoption, once that happens, the vision (above points) would come true.

I am sure, it would happen, I have been optimistic. I would try to my bits my way :-)

Congratulations to everyone for achieving this milestone and all the best for future.

Some of my blogs on Indian Flex/AIR community:-

• Flex/ActionScript developers from India - Please read
• Some Adobe Flex/Flash related resources from India
• Flash Platform (flex/flash/air/actionscript) blogs from India
• Update for Indian Adobe Flex Community
• Summary of Flex India meeting in Bangalore - First meeting
• Indian Adobe Flex/Apollo-AIR consultants - Please read

Technorati tags: Flex India, flex, community

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Comments on this Entry:

(Debabrata on Mar 2, 2008 9:12 PM) I must appreciate your effort to encourage Indian Developers to blog and contribute to the community development.I remember when you made the first draft of your Indian flex/flash bloggers list to put in your blog. That was really a great initiative to make them feel that they can also contribute. We have lots of good developers in our country but they just don not want to come out from their routine life.I think things are changing!

(Saravanan on Mar 2, 2008 9:17 PM) Yes you are right Abdul .. we are busy to complete our client requirements.. we need to do more with creating more components and excellent stuffs...that will tell every one rest of the world... regards Saravanan http://sara-intop.blogspot.com

(Anish on Mar 2, 2008 9:29 PM) Hi Abdul, I agree that quality matters than quantity. Most of Indian Flex developers is driven my client requirement. But my case is slightly different. I loved how easy it was to develop powerful n beautiful applications with Flex and I have always been a great fan of macromedia products. Now I am driving my clients to use flex and as a freelancer my clients are also happy with my work and willing to get me more work. -Anish

(AndyChou on Apr 20, 2008 11:36 AM) Need 3 Flex engineers in New York City: 1. You have to be living in New York City for now. 2. Work part time or full time with us. 3. Good at Adobe Flex technology. 4. Please contact us for other requirement and details. Busycode Inc. is a top Adobe Flex shop who develops Flex/AIR applications for clients. For more info, please visit http://www.busycode.com