Here’s what happened. I blogged recently about a bug I introduced into Attest 3.2 (you’re welcome!) and quickly created a patch for. The problem was, the Adobe AIR Marketplace is shutting down as of August 31st 2011, and they wouldn’t release that patch in the meantime.

To remedy this, I reverted Attest 3.3 (which nobody has but me) back to 3.2 with the fix in place. So you won’t be prompted to update to 3.3 since it technically doesn’t exist. Instead, if you don’t see the Study content, simply install Attest 3.2 again with the link provided above, and you’ll become a secret Attest 3.3 owner like myself but no one will know. If you need to uninstall first, that’s fine, just do it through the AIR installer interface that pops up from the badge. The AIR Marketplace will still recognize your license if you purchased a copy prior, so you don’t have to worry about losing it. Anyway, by doing that, you’ll have the fix for the bug.

Going forward, any current Attest users who purchased through the AIR Marketplace will no longer be able to get updates through the Adobe framework directly since the marketplace is getting chopped and diced. The questions in Attest and content in general can be updated outside of the Adobe framework, so as always, if you find errata or you want to debate over a question, feel free to get in touch and I’ll push fixes as needed.

Questions…

What will happen with future versions of Attest?
We’re working on mobile versions for Android and iOS phones and tablets right now, and they’re fairly close to release. The problem is trying to fit all that content on a tiny screen for phones.

Is the desktop version going away?
We’re strongly leaning towards moving Attest to a web-based application instead of desktop like it’s always been in the past. This way, it’ll be much quicker and easier to fix errata and bugs, create and release new content, etc, and the only real downside is there’s no offline support. There will be more info on this soon. Desktop might just make the cut regardless if I can figure out a way to keep my hair from turning gray.

Hang around Monday morning, I can neither confirm or deny that there may be a giveaway for those who want to grab a copy of Attest quick before the Marketplace shuts down You didn’t hear that from me.

You may or may not be aware that the AIR Marketplace is shutting down as of August 31st 2011. If you currently own a license for Attest, or you get a copy before Aug 31, you’ll be able to continue to use it in the future. However, there will be no more sales for any apps on the AIR Marketplace after that date unfortunately.

In the meantime, we’ve been working on mobile versions of Attest 3.3 (soon to be released – hopefully this week). It currently works well on tablets, but the screen real estate is too small to show all the content on phones. So we need to get fancy with fitting all the content onscreen for the smaller displays on phones.

We’re aiming for Android and iOS support for tablets first, phones will probably come later. In the near future, we’ve tossed the idea around of moving Attest to a web-based service instead. Since the use of Attest is to help study for the Flex certification exams, it really only has a temporary lifespan and doesn’t need to be a desktop app. The benefits of moving it to web-based are:

1. Subscription payment methods. Pay for 1-3 months, or a custom time period for as long as you need to study
2. New content and bug fixes will be released quicker because we remove the approval process
3. Access the app and study from anywhere with an internet connection

The only possible downside we found for web-based is no offline support. I haven’t had many requests for offline so it feels like a non issue.

I want to try to gather some info from you so I know where best to focus our production time for future releases of Attest. So make sure you run through the polls below and let me know what you think in the comments.

Download Attest 3.1.1

Note: We switched providers for the code signing certificate a while ago, and I believe that may cause some problems when trying to upgrade from a version of Attest that was installed prior to April 7th, 2001. If you are having troubles upgrading, just uninstall/reinstall, click the green buy button if you’ve purchased before, and log into the Adobe website. Once you log in, the application will be activated automatically.

Adobe AIR Marketplace allows for 3 installs per licensed copy of software. As always, if you have any problems activating, or if you want to deactivate all copies of a purchased license, just log in to the Marketplace. Their FAQ is located here http://www.adobe.com/devnet/inmarket/articles/try_buy_faq.html

Some things to note and some history on Attest:
There were many late night bug fixes, involuntary naps where heads hit the desk from hours of reading livedocs, the AIR Marketplace submission process bug that held things up a bit, but it feels great to finally release Attest bigger and badder than before!

I will definitely take this opportunity to thank Holly again for all her help. She had jumped in on Attest from the 2nd version and has been true blue ever since. I’m very thankful to have such an excellent colleague, without her work Attest would not be the de facto study guide for the Flex ACE exams it became.

Facts about Attest
The free version is the actual trial version. It got too tough to maintain two different versions of the app with our workloads, so we decided to make the trial last forever and give access to one mini for starters. The Adobe AIR Marketplace software allows for a 99 month trial maximum, so instead of infinity you have 99 months to get certified.

In the future as we write more questions, we plan on upping the amount available for the free/trial version. This version is not the beta version it was two weeks ago when I blogged about it. We planned on getting the beta version on the Marketplace but then their approval process bug showed up and by the time the Adobe team fixed it, we had the full version ready.

The current version for download is 3.0.3. This version has a few bug fixes that were pretty annoying. It was just approved on the AIR Marketplace.

The version currently available for download at software.pxldesigns.com/attest3 is (3.0.2). We submitted a patched version 3.0.3 which fixes a few minor bugs and issues we ran into and fixed quickly. This version has been submitted to the AIR Marketplace for vetting. It will be available shortly and I’ll post once it’s out.

More goodies to come later in the week hopefully. Look for more updates, questions, and study data in the near future, and as always, let us know what you think. Let’s DO this thing!

The good news is that the version that was submitted was only the free/trial version, and there was no full product yet because it wasn’t 100% ready, but the full version will be out soon. Word from Adobe is that the bug will be fixed this week, and that means I should be posting again this week when the full version is out.

If all goes well, this should be the week where you can start knocking your head against the desk once you start reading the tougher questions Holly and I created for the latest version of Attest It was our goal to make some of them tougher, more subjective and if anything, make Attest harder to pass than the actual exam. So once it’s released, as always, let us know what you think as we continue to write new material for the app.

Here’s how Attest 3 is going to work. Instead of maintaining two different applications, Holly and I made it slightly easier on ourselves by combining the free and commercial versions into one. So there’s only one download from now on, no more Attest vs Attest PRO, there’s only Attest 3. If you run Attest 3, you’ve basically installed the trial version of the application.

Attest 3 Screenshot

The trial version is going to offer the mini exam feature and upgrading to the commercial version will unlock the full version with the show answers feature, timed vs un-timed, learning mode, etc. For the time being, the free version (trial) is coming out in roughly a week. We’re just ironing out some more testing (how ironic for a testing app – ha!) and last minute tweaks.

In the short term, Attest 3 will be released as the free version only. The full commercial version is coming soon thereafter. The app currently runs one mini exam and it will not allow you to purchase until we release the full version through the AIR Marketplace. You should be able to download the app within a week or so and start using it to study. This should be enough to tide you over for another week or two for the full version, but we’re on track to have the commercial app ready by mid-August.

We had planned on having Attest out sooner, but believe it or not this will still be the app’s earliest release in comparison to the Flex ACE exam’s release. Old timer Attest users should be happy this time around

As always, I’ll post as soon as there’s more.

Edit** I should add that the “trial” that doubles as the free version will not expire. So you can use it for all of eternity or until the Flex 5 ACE comes and I’m late with Attest 4 – ha!

In response to questions of late, yes, new versions of Attest and Attest PRO for the Flex 4 certification are currently in construction deep in the confines of the factory Holly and I are digging up heaps of goodies for Attest and other projects. I can tell you this, there will be tons of new material on the Adobe Developer Center and Attest itself to help you study. From what I’ve heard, the exam itself sounds tougher than the older ones.

If you haven’t seen them already, I’d especially recommend the Learn Flex 4 beta in a Week video series on the ADC. Happy studying! I’ll post any new updates as always.

Attest PRO

There will be two versions of Attest going forward. The free version, which has been out for most of 2009, gets a bit beefed up with few new goodies in the near future, and the commercial version, called Attest PRO has many new features and content.

Holly and I are still always going to maintain the free versions of Attest for Flex developers to study for the Adobe Flex 3 with AIR certification, and eventually Flex 4, and so on. The current version is for non-commercial use only, so we decided to create a new version of the app, call it Attest PRO, and include a commercially available license for it. We’ve received many requests for people who wanted ways to help train employees, even have custom exams, and bulk licenses.

For Attest PRO 1.0, we have randomization of questions, the ability to turn on/off the timing per exam, show the answers during an exam if you choose, upgraded results view with better explanations, much more content, and a whole new section to read up on more material for the exam.

See Holly’s excellent write up on her blog at devgirl.wordpress.com. You can read more about Attest PRO on it’s new website at http://software.pxldesigns.com/attestpro/ check out some screenshots at http://software.pxldesigns.com/attestpro/screenshots
or visit the Adobe AIR Marketplace to learn more and download the app.

Holly and I were privileged enough to be part of the Try/Buy prerelease program to get this commercial version of the app out there. Many thanks to Shikha Bhargava who runs the AIR Marketplace and Randy McFarland and the rest of the AIR team who made the Try/Buy possible!

Important note:

It’s my understanding that for the time being, sales on the AIR Marketplace are USA only. I believe they’re working on that currently, but I’ll post any updates as I get them. This is a beta program, so there may be bugs. As always, if you have any issues with a purchase, or running Attest PRO, please don’t hesitate to contact me dave AT pxldesigns DOT com or use the contact form at www.pxldesigns.com

So to help spread the word and get Flexers linked up with projects, I was looking for an easier way to post the info rather than having to go to forums, etc (which is a big PIA). Turns out Greg Wilson’s tblurb.com offers the perfect solution. Greg came up with tblurb as a way to post a larger amount of characters along with Twitter. Since Twitter only allows 140 characters, using tblurb enables you to share large snippets of code or Grannies brownie recipe, or whatever you like.

I was just contacted for a project today that sounded pretty good, and tblurb came to mind as the perfect way to share. So going forward, as I run across the good projects, I’ll post them to tblurb through my Twitter account

dflatley

Both of us are inundated with client work at the moment, but the vote went well and we found the time to get these new exams out. So hopefully, for those studying for the Flex 3 with AIR certification, you’ll have much more here in the way of study material. Along with releasing new questions and answers periodically, we plan on implementing most of the other great feedback we received from users when time permits. Until then…it’s busy being a Flexer go get certified!