This post assumes that you are a member of the iOS Developer Program and that you are familiar with creating a Mobile Project in Flash Builder for Windows.     In this scenario you have created your first iPad2 application (HelloApple) and now you want to deploy and test it on the device:

When you first go to run the application you right-click the project and select Run As Mobile Application:

The first time you do this the “Launch method” needs to be configured.  In our case we want to create a package so that it can be installed on the iPad2 device.  I selected Standard Packaging method which takes awhile to compile but is useful for performance testing the application (release build).  Click “Configure package settings”

At first the configuration for the Digital Signature looks fairly straightforward.  You just need to provide a Certificate and Provisioning file.   These file can be downloaded from the iOS Developer Center but you must first setup these files.  

Jeanette Stallons has a great post on how to get the required certificates (the post covers Windows and Mac):

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/packaging-air-apps-ios.html

Below is a summary of the steps outlined in the article:

1. Enroll in the iOS Developer Program
2. Log into the iOS Provisioning Portal
3. Create an App ID on the iOS Provisioning Portal
4. Use iTunes to get iOS device IDs
5. Register your iOS device
6. Create a certificate signing request (CSR) file (Generate a CSR on Windows)
7. Create developer certificate (CER) on iOS Provisioning Portal
8. Convert iOS developer certificate to P12 format (Create P12 on Windows)

Steps 1 to 5 are straight forward.  But steps 6 to 8 can be confusing depending on the current state of your provisioning portal.  If this is your first time setting everything up then I recommend reading Jeanette Stallions post with the exception of the Mac sections. 

If you have followed Jeanette’s post but are still having trouble generating the P12 files then review the notes below.  

In order to perform steps 6 to 8 on windows you need to have OpenSSL installed on your Windows Machine.  You can download OpenSSL for Windows from here:

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/openssl.htm

Another option for OpenSSL especially if you are looking for a Source Control tool is to download and install msysgit (Git for Windows).   Git integrates well with Flash Builder but that is a topic for another post.  When installing msysgit make sure to install Git Bash:

If you have Cygwin installed on  your system it can also be configured to support OpenSSL but it is probably overkill to install it just for the purpose of using the tool. 

The first thing we need to do using OpenSSL is to create a private key with a password:

openssl genrsa -out mykey.key -passout pass:mypassword 2048

Next (see Step 6) create the Certificate Signing Request (CSR) using the private key created in the previous step (mykey.key).  The signing request contains important pieces of information that you must provide:

• emailAdress=email@domain.com
• CN=Your Name
• C=Your Country (two character code:  United States: US, Canada: CA)

openssl req -new -key mykey.key -out CertificateSigningRequest.certSigningReqest -subj /emailAddress=mymail@gmail.com, CN=Troy Scott, C=CA

Step 7, is creating a new developer certificate.  This is done by making a certificate request using the certificate created in Step 6.  Click the “Request Certificate” button and upload the CertificateSigningRequest.certSigningRequest file.

Request Certificate	Choose File and then Submit

If the process was successful you will have a new developer certificate with a status of “Approved”. 

Refresh the Certificates screen and you will have the option to download it.  Download the certificate file (developer_identity.cer) and convert it to pem format using OpenSSL utility:

openssl x509 -in developer_identity.cer -inform DER -out developer_identity.pem -outform PEM

This will generate the developer_identity.pem file which will be used with the mykey.key file to generate the P12 file (Step 8):

openssl pkcs12 -export -inkey mykey.key -in developer_identity.pem -out ipad_dev.p12

When you run this command you will be prompted for the private key password which was “mypassword” in this example.   Below is an example of running the command using the Git Bash prompt (openssl):

Next we need to configure the Provisioning File.  The developer certificate must be configured and “Approved” before this file can be downloaded.  Currently the Status of my Provisioning File is Invalid:

Select Modify and you should be able to see the Developer Certificate that was created and approved.  Check the checkbox by the Certificate and click Submit:

Once the status is “Active” the Provisioning file can be downloaded.    Now we can configure the Digital Signatures with the following files:

• Certificate: ipad_dev.p12   (full path to the file)
• Provisioning File: AppDev.mobileprovision  (full path to the file)

When you select “Run” in the Run Configuration, Flash Builder will prompt you for the private key password (mypassword).    Once you enter the password it may take several minutes for the compilation to complete. 

Private Key Password	Packaging

Once packaging is complete follow the instructions to install ipa package on the iOS device.   Refer to the Using Flash Builder 4.5 to package applications for Apple iOS devices post for the remaining details. 

Troy

The first Distro that I setup and installed on my 800 Mhz in 2000 was Red Hat Linux 6.1.   Linux became more of a hobby than anything else.  But over the years I have found the Linux is a great development environment.    Sure you can run most open source software today in Windows like Apache and MySql  but a client /server model is valuable when learning how to deploy and troubleshoot your solution.

Secondly, if you are developing for the internet or web applications most of today’s servers run on some distro of Linux.   With today’s virtualization software like Virtual Box it is very easy to setup and install a Linux Virtual Machine

I recommend Ubuntu, especially the Ubuntu Server edition.  It is lightweight, easy to configure and you can create a virtual machine in 10 to 15 minutes with the latest PC hardware.  Although Ubuntu does provide a solid desktop environment comparable to Windows 7 and Mac, I am afraid it just does not have the software required for most end users (Microsoft Office, iTunes, Flash Builder).  Sure if you are technically savvy or don’t mind taking a moment to read the Ubunutu online forms (excellent source of information) then Ubuntu is a great choice.    In my opinion,  I don’t think it comes down to picking one of the three operating systems (Microsoft, Apple, Linux).   I run all three environments on my network and they all have their pro’s and con’s and different uses.

If you want to get started with Linux I recommend installing some Virtualization software like Virtual Box on your main computer (Windows, Mac):

• https://www.virtualbox.org/
• http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox

A virtual Ubuntu Desktop will require at least 1 GHz processor , 512 MB RAM and 5 GB hard drive space.  Whereas the Ubuntu Server can run on any Intel or AMD x86/AMD_64 processor with 192 MB of RAM and 1 GB of disk space.  I currently run a  small Ubuntu Server (no GUI) for my source control and it is configured to use 256 MB of RAM.  I never have any performance issues.

• Ubuntu Desktop
• Ubuntu Server

If you don’t enjoy reading online documentation but are interested in setting up the Ubuntu Server, I recommend the following book:

Official Ubuntu Server Book

Troy

I just installed Joomla! version 1.5.22 the other day for a Not-For-Profit organization.   I tried to change the Color Variation and Background Variation property from Black to Blue in the Template Manager:

When I applied the change I received the following errors:

• JFTP::write: Bad Response
• Operation Failed!: failed to open /home/user/public_html/imagearts/…/params.ini for writing

Many time when there is a problem with file write permissions people have a tendency to perform a chmod 777.   Sure this approach works but it allows any to have access to the file.   So I took a conservative approach and started by looking at the existing permissions which was 555 and change it to 755 which gives the Owner Write access. 

I used Filezilla to modify the file permissions.  Once the permissions were modified to 755 the changes were applied successfully:

I also experienced a similar situation with the configuration.php file but in this case it was the Group that required Write permissions (the Owner already had Write).  You need to set the permissions to chmod 664 :

The web server is hosted by Host Papa and it is a Linux/Apache server. 

Troy

Troy Scott – Blog

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When I built the Sandboxed solution the project would build and package without any errors but when I tried to deploy it to the SharePoint site the following error occurred:

Error    1    Error occurred in deployment step ‘Activate Features’: Cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on computer ‘SERVERNAME’ 0    0    SP2010Dev1

The error can be easily resolved by starting the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service which can be accessed through the Central Administration site in SharePoint.   Open the Central Administration site and go to System Settings and click on Manage Service on server:

Check to see if Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service  is running, it should be stopped :

Start the service and try deploying the Sandboxed solution.

Thanks to Sergey Hyper Kravchenko for his post on the MSDN SharePoint discussion forum:

error occurred in deployment step ‘retract solution’ cannot start service SPUserCodeV4 on this computer

Troy