My first game published for mobile devices is here.

Made in Flash Builder with Adobe AIR, Startling and Feathers (for the buttons and other components). Next on my list is to publish it to iOS, but for that, I need to get myself a Mac first, since Apple does not allow developers without an Apple machine to compile the application for the App Store.

For now, please check the Android version and let me know if you like it:
MiniPong Game on Google Play

Update:
The game has a new graphic interface and it’s also available online:
www.vamapaull.com/games/minipong

This weekend GreetingsIsland.com released the new and beautifully designed website. With the new design of the website we also updated the design of the Flash applications and added a few more features for a better user experience.

Please check it out and keep in mind that I didn’t have anything to to with the actual design, I just developed the Flash applications and implemented the design elements afterwards.

Yesterday I spent some time and made a cool little application with Adobe AIR technology, a simple application that will count down the days ’till Christmas.

Update: At the beginning of this year, the client requested a few new features and a some features removed. Above you have a screen shot of the new app and below you can find an image with the old interface.

Lately I’ve been absent because I have been working on a cool Book Creator Flash application.

This project was a new experience for me since I got to work with Flash and server-side code.

The application is made for kids between the ages of 8 and 12 years.

It’s a Book Creator type of app that lets you configure a simple book. You can then print the book to your local printer or save on your profile.

I have worked on this application for a few months and now I see it’s finally implemented into greetingsisland.com.

The project was for two Flash applications, Cards and Invitations, both very similar with very few different features.

It lets you make your own greeting card and invitation design. It’s great looking and easy to use, especially for kids. After you’ve made the perfect greeting, you can either print it on your home printer or save it as a PDF file.

The development itself was demanding and very rewarding, as I got to use techniques like singleton pattern, I’ve used the Facebook API to retrieve photos from Facebook albums and I’ve learned some new coding styles from my friend Biro Barna.

Go on, check it out and let me know if you like it 😉

Today I made some experiments with AIR for Android. The process was very smooth and I like how simple everything is, in just a few minutes I managed to compile an application and play with it on my Android device. Totally love the way that I can reuse the ActionScript 3 code and make beautiful applications for Android!

Not so many good words about the Android Market. I started an account, then I was asked to pay a fee of $25 and then when my account was created I noticed that I can’t really make paid applications for the Android market since Google Checkout is not available in Romania. How messed up is that? You want people to develop applications for your marketplace, you request a fee and then they have no way to at least get some of that money back. It’s not that I can’t live without 25 bucks, but that really sucks, I feel like I’m giving them money so I can develop for their marketplace and help it grow a little more (so they can earn even more money). I love Flash related technologies and Android, but this doesn’t have any logic.

Anyway, I tried to implement an older youtube player into my AIR application so I can test it out and see how it works. The problem was that when I played a video and hit the hardware back button on my device, the video was still playing because the application minimized instead of closing (as I imagined it would). Then I started to search for a solution, and sure enough, I found it very fast on Tom Krcha’s blog. To close the button when you hit the back button you first need to register a handler:

if(Capabilities.cpuArchitecture=="ARM")
{
	NativeApplication.nativeApplication.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, handleKeys);
}

Then you need to make the function for that handler:

function handleKeys(event:KeyboardEvent):void
{
	if(event.keyCode == Keyboard.BACK)
	NativeApplication.nativeApplication.exit();
}

That’s it. I will continue to work with AIR for Android and hopefully make some cool apps 🙂