Category Archives: BlackBerry PlayBook

BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet

Customizing Flex applicationDPI for a multiple screen size application

Building a Flex mobile application that works across smartphones and tablets takes an understanding of screen sizes, screen dots per inch (DPI) and screen resolutions. In the current landscape of devices typically you consider a tablet something bigger then a 5-6 inch physical screen. Also in the current device landscape screen resolutions are for tablets [...]

Hackathons Are Becoming Quite Popular

I have seen an increase of mobile hackathons, hack days, and/or startup weekends in the last year. Typically the format runs over 1-3 day timeframe, where teams come together and code up a storm. Typically prizes are decent, people are friendly, and its a great way to learn new things. I would definitely recommend it [...]

Caltrain Times at MAX and Source Code

I have been working on an application called Caltrain Times. It is available in quite a few marketplaces and runs across smartphones and tablets. I have made the source code for this application available on my github here. Adobe MAX is coming up in a few weeks and I will be speaking again at MAX. [...]

PlayBook (.bar) Application Signing Roundup

NOTE: There is an AIR application that was created to help with signing and other Tablet OS common commands. Check it out here. I wanted to post a round up post to both serve as an overview for new people but gather a bunch of info in one place for others that might have been [...]

Using BlackBerry ID in your PlayBook Application

The latest release of the PlayBook's BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for AIR provides some new APIs. One of the newer BlackBerry APIs is around getting BlackBerry ID information. You can test the API calls that integrate the PlayBook user's BlackBerry ID information in your application. This is what it looks like for a user to [...]

Using MacBook Pro for AIR/Flash P2P local multicast demos

I show a lot of demos on mobile devices. One of the best ways I have been able to demo applications at conferences with out having great wifi or device overhead projectors is to use a local network from my MacBook Pro. I use this for my P2P local multicast demos like PickQuick as well [...]

PlayBook QNXApplication SWIPE_DOWN in a multi platform SWF

A question came up from a developer that was creating a Flex Hero (the 4+ Flex SDK geared towards mobile) mobile application about tapping into the PlayBook's bezel swipe down event, but also be able to use the SWF on other platforms. PlayBook is a great platform that QNX, a subsidary of RIM, has created [...]

PlayBook sample ActionScript Application using QNX components

I recently participated in the BlackBerry Developer Day co-presenting the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Bootcamp: Adobe AIR sessions. We led developers through the process of installing all the tools (Flash Builder Burrito, VMWare, BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK and Simulator) and getting up and running to build their first application. As part of this presentation I wanted [...]

Workaround for PPSChannel error when running QNX PlayBook specific APIs on the Desktop

First thing is to note this is a workaround and might not work in the future or might not cover all the errors you might see. Take the simple use case of creating an AIR application for PlayBook and with a qnx.ui.text.TextInput component in the display list. Because the qnx.ui.text.TextInput class allows you to define [...]

QMXML and as3viewnavigator for the PlayBook

I continue to play with different ideas around using QNX (ActionScript 3 only classes) with MXML (non-Flex MXML) in a project called QMXML. My co-worker, Piotr Walczyszyn, at Adobe posted some classes to that provide view based navigation in ActionScript 3. I decided to extend his classes and make them work with QMXML. The source [...]