Sometimes it is hard to find out how to do simple things when building a Flex or AIR application.  It's not that the documentation is lacking.  There are thousands of doc pages at Adobe, and then there are the wonderful video lessons over at Lynda.com.  The problem is that there is so much, and when you have a little question, your little question's answer is just a tiny dot in a sea of information, theory, and information about information.

So... here's a teeny question note.  How do you make your AIR app updateable?

Answer.  When you compile your new version, edit the YourAppName-app.xml file.  Make sure the version number is different from the original version number.  If your original version was v1, make this one v1.01, or v2. 

Here's another tiny tip.  How do you send variables to a component?

 <MyComp:ComponentName myuserpass="{userpass.text}" myusername="{username.text}" id="myprogram"/>

In your component, there must be a variable named "myuserpass" and "myusername".  In the main app, you have to have some sort of text widget with a text attribute whose id is userpass and another one whose id is username.