Today is pretty much your last chance to register for Flash Platform Camp Wellington on September 4th, 2010 AND go into the draw for a license of Flash Builder 4 Premium for the platform of your choice (OSX/Win). This promotion runs out tomorrow – 15th of July mid-day NZ Standard time.

You ask why we’re doing this? Early registration helps us to plan the event and to make calls on how much food and drinks we need, how much T-Shirts to order and much more. So, if you know you’re going to attend, let us know as early as possible please. Another reason to register rather sooner than later is that more than half of the tickets are already gone now – even though the event is another 8 weeks out, get your ticket now to avoid disappointment.

Why should you attend? Let’s have a glance over the agenda:

The keynote will be delivered by Tim Buntel – Group Product Manager for Developer tools at Atlassian (and product manager for Flex Builder and ColdFusion at Adobe in his former Northern Hemisphere life). Tim’s talk is titled “More than just a pretty .as” and is going to be great!

After the keynote we break down into two tracks and the sessions are going to cover a variety of topics, here’s are some of the sessions:

Flash:

Campbell Anderson – Introducing the Orchid framework for Flash CS 5
Tanya Gray – Flex for Flash Developers – Why Flex is not scary and can make your life easier

Flex:

Marielle Lange – Migrating a project from FB3 to FB4
Ross Phillips – CSS Selector Mash-up in Flex 4

Architecture and general development:

Robin Hilliard – MVC From First Principles
Lenz Gschwendtner – Why NoSQL, what it actually is and why also front end developers should know about it
Chris Velevitch – Introduction to Distributed Version Control Systems (DVCS) with Mercurial

Multimedia and integration with the Flash Platform

Diane Sieger – Acrobat 9 Pro multimedia projects
Cameron Prebble – Flexing Rails: Connecting Flex to a Ruby on Rails Application
Mark Szulc – Adding real-time collaboration to your project with LC Collaboration Services

Again – make sure you register now – you don’t want to miss those awesome speakers and their sessions.

You might have heard that our antipodean version of cf.Objective – coincidentally named cf.Objective(ANZ) – is coming back again in 2010. After the very successful first run in 2009, we’re going to be back to Melbourne on November 18 & 19, 2010 for two days on advanced CF content, networking with attendees and presenters from all over the world.

We’ve got a pretty awesome speaker lineup comprising local AU/NZ talent and international guests, it’s def. worth checking out who’s coming. Note – it’s not even complete, stay tuned for more announcements in the next few weeks. The same is true for the agenda – we’ve published a whole bunch of awesome sessions during the last few days but the list is obviously continuing to grow further and there’s more to come.

The conference is going to offer an early bird price (until the 31st of August) of AU$ 749 (incl. GST), from 1st of September the price increases to AU$ 869 (incl. GST). The registration is available as well – go for it and book your tickets now!

And obviously – a big thanks to Mark for heading this enterprise and to all the other folks in the cf.Objective(ANZ) committee with me who help to make this event a go again in 2010.

Some people have asked me how to actually get rid of the Vodafone Nexus One firmware EPF30 and upgrade their device to Froyo (Android 2.2) pretty much now.

Note: the only known way of doing this is by unlocking the boot loader of your Nexus One and that will void any warranty you might have on the phone. I just didn’t care because I planned to hack and play around with this phone anyway right away when I purchased it. So be warned: if you decide to go ahead it’s your own risk – if your phone breaks within the warranty period, you’ll be on your own.

Also: unlocking your boot loader and installing custom firmware on your phone is in principle not without risks. You might brick your phone, you might experience weird effects with a different firmware, the universe might collapse all of a sudden – tons of stuff could go wrong. For the vast majority of most of the people this method works just fine and it doesn’t seem to be illegal to go with this approach in most countries.

Still: If you decide to try any of the explanations I’m providing here, it’s your own choice and by your own free will. Don’t ask me for support, I’m also not liable for any damage you inflict on your device, other hardware, yourself or other living creatures of any species. Make sure to check if the authorities of the country you live and reside in don’t think it’s an illegal act of espionage and computer hacking to modify the boot loader of you own phone that you most likely have purchased for a few hundred dollars/euros etc.

This process will also most likely wipe your phone a few times during the process. Make sure you have backups of everything on the phone or can easily restore it. Don’t blame anyone but yourself if you haven’t. If you have all the files ready, the acutal updating will take about 15 minutes. Ready?

Step 1: Unlock the boot loader of your Google Nexus One

You need:
- Fastboot (zip contains Win/Mac/Linux versions)
- Your Nexus One connected to your computer via the USB cable (best is to never unplug it during the whole process)

Actions:
[Update: I forgot to mention one step here: Go to the settings screen of the phone, select "Applications" - "Development" and enable USB debugging]
- Switch off your phone.
- Push and hold the trackball, switch on phone while doing that -> you end up in the boot loader of the phone. Don’t do anything yet.
- Take the Fastboot download and unzip it into any folder you like. Open a command prompt and run the executable that matches your platform. I’m on OS X, so I did: ./fastboot-mac oem unlock
- That will trigger a new screen on your phone, and you have to confirm that you really want to unlock the boot loader. If you still think that’s a good idea, confirm and your phone will do a few things, it might go through one or two restart-like procedures and finally it will restart and boot into the operating system. Notice that from now on you have a little unlocked padlock icon below the Nexus Icon when you start up the phone.

Result:
Unlocked boot loader on your Nexus One, still on EPF30 though.

Step 2: Downgrade the Nexus One to firmware ERD79

You need:
- Firmware image: PASSIMG_Passion_Google_WWE_1.01.1700.1_ERD79_release_signed.zip (google for it, I’m not linking to it from here)
- Your Nexus One connected to your computer via the USB cable

Actions:
- Take the downloaded firmware and for ease of use unzip the file into the same folder as you’ve put Fastboot into
- Switch off your phone
- Push and hold the trackball, switch on phone while doing that -> you end up in the boot loader of the phone. Don’t do anything yet.
- Run the command: ./fastboot-mac devices
- It should list a device serial number, mine started with HT followed by lots of digits. That means your phone has been recognised. Good.
- Now we flash the ERD79 image on the phone. You need to run a series of commands in your command prompt:

./fastboot-mac erase cache
./fastboot-mac flash userdata userdata.img
./fastboot-mac flash boot boot.img
./fastboot-mac flash system system.img
./fastboot-mac flash recovery recovery.img
./fastboot-mac reboot

Result:
Now your phone will reboot – don’t panic, it might just take a while. After it has come up (again wiped), it will be on ERD79. That’s a win because from here we can easily get to Froyo in two more steps.

Step 3: Upgrade to ERE27

You need:
- Firmware image: signed-passion-ERE27-from-ERD79.a487b405.zip (google for it, I’m not linking to it from here)
- Your Nexus One connected to your computer via the USB cable

Actions:
- Take the downloaded firmware and rename it to update.zip (nothing else, all lowercase, no update.zip.zip etc)
- Mount the Nexus One as a USB drive and copy update.zip on the SD memory card
- Switch off your phone
- Push and hold the trackball, switch on phone while doing that -> you end up in the boot loader of the phone.
- Select Bootloader
- Select Recovery, when the Android robot shows up (also an exclamation mark) press Power and Volume Up at the same time
- Select “Apply sdcard:update.zip” and the installation will start. This will take quite a while and you will get another Android robot screen but your phone WILL eventually come back on firmware ERE27 (wiped).

Result:
Your phone is on firmware ERE27.

Step 4: Upgrade to FRF85B (Froyo)

You need:
- Firmware image: signed-passion-ota-42745.dc39ca1f.zip
- Your Nexus One connected to your computer via the USB cable

Actions:
- Take the downloaded firmware and rename it to update.zip (nothing else, all lowercase, no update.zip.zip etc)
- Mount the Nexus One as a USB drive and copy update.zip on the SD memory card
- Switch off your phone
- Push and hold the trackball, switch on phone while doing that -> you end up in the boot loader of the phone.
- Select Bootloader
- Select Recovery, when the Android robot shows up (also an exclamation mark) press Power and Volume Up at the same time
- Select “Apply sdcard:update.zip” and the installation will start. This will take quite a while and MUCH LONGER than step 3 and you will get another Android robot screen but your phone WILL eventually come back on firmware FRF85B (wiped).

Result:
Your phone is on Froyo, Android 2.2

Next steps: Treat your Nexus One well, because your out of warranty now. Have fun with Android 2.2, Flash Player 10.1 beta and AIR 2 for Android!

After I wrote and published my post on the doomed Froyo update situation for owners of the Google Nexus One phone purchased from Vodafone in Europe, the problem has hit Australia as well. Today, Vodafone Australia has announced that they start selling Google Nexus One phones in Australia. I saw it on Twitter and tried to find out what the story is re the firmware in Australia.

Turns out that the Australian Nexus One firmware is EPF30 as well as Kirsty from @vodafoneau_help confirmed: “@agentK I’ve checked with devices, and they said “ships on EPF30″ – does that make sense? ^k”.Unfortunately it does make sense and it makes me believe that all Vodafone Nexus One devices in the world are pushed out with the EPF30 firmware.

It’s a shame because just alone the Froyo update for owners of phones with this firmware will be weeks later than the Froyo update for the same phone purchased from Google directly. Also there’s apparently confusion within Vodafone themselves because they said: “…so it’s not a Vodafone Variant…”. That’s utterly wrong – it a Vodafone custom firmware and as an owner of any of their devices one is tied to when and how they decide to release a firmware upgrade even though it should not make a difference at all as the Google N1 is the same phone all over the place, besides the radio bands for AT&T.

So, my dear Aussie friends (or New Zealanders going over and purchase the phone over there) – be aware that there’s no immediate Froyo/Android 2.2 for you if you purchase the N1 from Vodafone in AU unless you unlock the bootloader (voiding your warranty) and patch it yourself. Also – it seems that for all subsequent updates you’re going to be tied into whatever plans Vodafone has for the phone and its future. Bad. If you’re not deeply attached to your warranty, my next post will explain you how to get Froyo on your device.

When I was living in Germany (back in the days) – Vodafone Germany used to be the most annoying mobile services provider ever. They basically took any phone they were selling, disassembled the firmware and the OS and rebranded the whole bloody device with their Vodafone corporate red, Vodafone live! and all sorts of other sh*t (yes, I mean it exactly this way). Those branding efforts often used to happen so deeply inside of the device that it was literally impossible to revert them (without sending the phone to dedicated obscure de-branding services in Germany) and Vodafone often locked the devices even people on postpaid contacts.

Recently I was in Germany to deliver a Flex training course and to attend webinale in Berlin. Toying with the idea of getting an Android phone to run Flash and AIR on it, I purchased a Google Nexus One at a Vodafone store in Berlin. Note: Vodafone Germany is the only official way to get the phone in Germany. I had done some research before and it seemed that the phone was totally unbranded (it really is when you get it – no trace of Vodafone branding on there) and in fact there are huge amounts of people using it successfully on one of the other networks in Germany anyway.

One of the reasons getting the Nexus One was the thought that it’ll be the first Android device to get Froyo (Android 2.2) so that I could get Flash Player 10.1 and the AIR runtime on the device. Towards mid/end of May, “leaked” updaters for various versions of the firmware bubbled up and most of them were geared towards the T-Mobile US version the the Nexus One. Now – in a phase of beta-testing and somewhat unofficial updates such a selection is fair enough, the guys who run the AT&T version didn’t get many upgrades either (I understand the firmwares are essentially identical, the only difference are the radio band frequencies).

But now it’s release time. Last week, Google lifted the Android 2.2 codebase into the daylight and there’s even a manual updater to firmware FRF85B that works “from ANY version of the firmware” according to some of the commenters. Unfortunately that’s utterly wrong as some people have now realised. Google has basically released and OTA’ed Froyo 2.2 for devices sold through their own channel.

Where does that leave users who purchased their Nexus One in Europe or other places in the world (I can see the same scenario happening in AU/NZ if it will ever hit the shelves here)? Basically – you’re lost and at the fate of the mobile network of your “choice” – in most cases that’d be Vodafone <yuk>. The underlying problem is that your phone has been modified to a special “Vodafone” version of the firmware (EPF30) that doesn’t get an OTA update any time soon and that you can’t manually update by just applying the signed-passion-ota-42745.dc39ca1f.zip all-in-one updater (trust me that I tried it and the phone wouldn’t access the update.zip with a verification failed error).

On the Android support forums, a google employee wrote:

“Nexus One customers that bought the phone from Vodafone will be getting Froyo, albeit a little delayed. We have to make a few changes to Froyo to optimize it for the Vodafone network (small stuff around Emergency calling, etc.), so it will take at least another couple of weeks (changes + testing).”

This is at least deceiving if not utterly bullsh*t. Lots of people who purchased the phone from Vodafone don’t even use it on the Vodafone network and what changes “around Emergency calling” would there be necessary. Funny enough – Vodafone UK is telling a totally different story: http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/topic/61110-google-nexus-one-android-22-froyo/ – according to them it’s about default APN settings (Funny, my German Vodafone Nexus One picked up the APN settings just fine from my NZ SIM card…). Oh and this is Vodafone’s policy on upgrades according to the same thread: “In regards to firmware updates once they have been released by Google, we approve them and then they get rolled out”

Given the history of Vodafone heavily branding and customising phones they sell (in a negative way), I shouldn’t be surprised about all this. Still, with the phone coming from Google I thought it would be different this time – I was wrong. Note: this is a typical #firstworldproblemblogpost and I’m aware of that. I’m 100% sure that the European Vodafone Nexus One phones WILL eventually get Froyo (Android 2.2) coming from EPF30, but I’m just sick of waiting another few weeks to start playing with Flash and AIR on mobiles and also sick of being tied to the decisions of the most annoying global mobile network ever when and how updates of my phone will happen. I’m also disappointed of Google and I seriously wonder what made them enter such an agreement with Vodafone.

Lesson learnt: Never ever buy a phone through those channels unless you’re either happy with their way of doing things or willing to hack the phone. My solution (and be aware that this will instantly void the warranty of your phone) was to unlock the bootloader, downgrade the firmware to the official Google version and upgrade to Froyo from there. Absolutely smooth process, took me about 15 minutes and was def. worth it. Not just because I’ve got Froyo now and with that the phone is so much better now than it was with Android 2.1 but also because I’ve cut the ties to the Vodafone firmware for good now.

I’ll write another blog post tonight or tomorrow about how to do the upgrade, more to come.

Adobe’s Master Collection CS5 contains Flash Builder 4 (Standard edition). That’s actually awesome; it finally offers Flash CS5 users a way to use a professional and really well done Adobe tool to code applications and other rich media in ActionScript 3.

Then there’s Flash Builder 4 Premium which is being sold as a stand-alone tool that targets enterprise-level or in general more advanced Flex and AS3 developers. FB 4 Premium comes with features such as Unit Test integration, Profiling etc.

Unfortunately both products (and I assume that’d be true for all CS5 suite products that contain Flash Builder 4) create a license activation issue. It seems that the CS5 suites downgrade a Flash Builder 4 Premium license to a Flash Builder 4 Standard license – which actually can be quite disastrous if one has to rely on FB 4 Premium features.

Here’s what happened to me and how I fixed it for me.

Scenario: I installed and activated FB 4 Premium in March, it worked fine until I installed MC CS 5 and activated it the other week (without ever having installed FB 4 Standard that comes with Master Collection). The installation reverted my Flash Builder 4 Premium back to FB 4 Standard. All products are final and all happened on OS X 10.6.2.

There are a few resources out there that are supposed to help with this issue:

1. Tech note Upgrading FB 4 Standard to Premium

The tech note seems to cover the issue (that I have a FB 4 Standard and want my FB 4 Premium back), but it’s imho at best misleading and not helpful at all. You can pretty much disregard it.

2. Adobe Forums post providing help to fix the issue.

This one is much better, one can actually understand the steps to go through and give it a try. I know that this procedure worked for some people (both in the forums and on another mailing list), unfortunately it didn’t work for me.

Here’s my solution (very detailed and a variation of 2 above):

1. Launch FB 4 – deactivate it permanently (it just lists FB 4 as a product to be deactivated)
2. Close FB 4
3. Launch FB 4 again to find that it still works; it seems there are two overlapping activations, deactivate again permanently – this time the Master Collection CS 5 activation with all the other CS 5 tools that I had used/openend since installation
4. Close FB 4
5. (For the sake of checking) – open Photoshop CS 5 and find that it won’t start due to not being activated
6. (If you did 5) – close Photoshop CS 5

Note: At this stage neither FB 4 nor CS 5 should be activated

7. Launch FB 4 – it comes up with the activation screen
8. Pick the 60 day trial – for me it then loaded the splash screen of FB 4 Standard but had all the FB 4 Premium features
9. Close FB 4
10. Launch FB 4 – Continue your trial, now the splash screen shows FB 4 Premium and the features still should work.
11. Close FB 4
12. Launch FB 4 – Put in your FB 4 Premium key, splash screen shows FB 4 Premium, features are still there
13. Close FB 4
14. Launch PS CS 5 – it comes up with the CS 5 activation screen.
15. Put in CS 5 key, let PS load, make sure that the menu item to de-activate is NOT greyed out
16. Close PS CS 5
17. Launch FB 4 – it should still come up with FB 4 Premium

The crucial steps seem to be 7-11 – after the messed up installation/activation that was the only way for me to get the FB 4 Premium features back in the first place and it seems that the decision which feature set to enable is made way after the splash screen, i.e. the splash screen shows the feature set of the product launch before the current one (delayed by one execution) – hence I’d recommend to def. undertake steps 10 and 11.

That’s it – I’m not saying that this is the only or even best solution. It worked for me – your mileage might vary.

We’re doing it again – Flash Platform Code Camp Wellington is back:

Registration opens soon…