PiXELWiT

If you read my previous article Flex 3 Released you’d know that I was lucky enough to win a free copy of Flex Builder 3 at the February CPAUG meeting. I’m not sure why, but Adobe chose to send a boxed version of Flex Builder to all of the winners rather than e-mailing them a key-code for a downloaded copy. Oh well, that’s okay by me, I’m not really in a rush to try Flex and I wouldn’t mind having an installation disc around ‘just in case’ I ever need it.

After a couple weeks, my prize from Adobe finally arrived via Fed-Ex. I promptly stripped it from it’s bubble-wrapped confines and marveled at its splendor. Safely nestled within the Fed-Ex package was a shiny white box which contained another more cleverly shaped box which held yet another plastic box. Ooooo (pronounced the way you’d say it if you were watching a fireworks display) this was SO worth the wait! I opened the plastic case and beheld my shiny new Flex Builder disc. It’s so… physical. Not at all like those ethereal downloads.

Now that I had the disc in hand it was a simple matter of slapping it in the CD drive, setting some installation preferences and getting down to tickling all the fun bits. But then it occurred to me (the gaping hole in the front of my PC was my first clue), I had previously fixed my PC’s skittish motherboard by removing all of the “unnecessary” peripheral drives (CD, DVD, floppy etc.) and I still hadn’t put them back in. Oops.

So after playing a brief game of “Where the hell did I put that cable” I reinstalled my CD drive, popped in my shiny new Flex disc and promptly discovered that it was completely blank. Devoid of data. MT. WTF? I tested other CDs and they were all fine. What was going on here? Surely Adobe doesn’t send out blank CDs. Something mysterious was afoot. As a last resort I broke down and did what had to be done, I read the directions. Hmmm, let’s see here, Step #2 of Adobe’s Flex Builder Installation Instructions says, “Insert Flex Builder 3 DVD.” DVD? Dang It! Dang it hard!

Out came the freshly installed CD player and in went a more-freshly installed DVD player. Ta da! (or “tuh Duh!”), the previously empty 0 byte CD turned into a DVD with over 1 GB of data. Yay.

So in summation, my first impression of the Flex Builder 3 DVD goes something like this:

• Shiny.
• Quite well packaged.
• Will not play in CD player.

More brilliant insight to come after I complete the installation process.

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