The OpenSource Flex site has released the team’s Flex SDK coding conventions and best practices.  If you’re planning on committing code to the SDK, these are the guidelines that you will have to follow.  These guidelines are also useful even if you’re just looking to be a better AS3 coder.

I’ve updated my Prevent Dupliate Tabs Firefox extension to allow for whitelisting of URLs that should be prevented from being opened in duplicate tabs.  You can grab latest version here.  Read the instructions about the new UI, checkout the changelog, and take a look at what I have planned next.

I created the extension to solve an annoyance that has always bugged me about Flex Builder, or more specifically any Eclipse based tool (ie. Aptana).  When you click the Run/Debug/Build button (or F11/ctrl-11) your project is always opened up in a new browser tab.  It doesn’t take long until you realize that you have 20 tabs open!

Will Python and Django become the next hot languages for web developers? With Google’s recent App Engine announcement the spotlight is certainly shinning bright on this scripting language and web application framework.   The  Atomeo blog hast a great post to get you ready for Google Apps Engine by Learning Python and Django.

Well it has been almost 2 months since my switch from OSX to Vista for my day job.  Overall, I’m liking Vista more than I thought - although I still get confused between the ctrl and command keys.  One little built in gem that I came across last week was a built in screenshot capture tool called Snipping Tool.  Essentially it is a little application that lets you drag your mouse across your screen to determine what area to take a screenshot of.  To get to the application you can click on the Start menu, choose All Programs, then choose Accessories, and finally click on Snipping Tools.

An alternate way is to use the Windows key on your keyboard (yes their is actually a use for it in Vista).  Pressing the Windows key now opens the start menu and place the cursor focus into a search field that work amazingly fast.  So to open this app, press the Windows key and start typing “snipp”.  The snipping application will be filtered in the list.  Press return to launch it.  Using the Windows key and the search filter, you can also search for files, emails, etc.

Dustin Diaz is getting naked again!  Well at least his blog is.  CSS Naked Day is back for a third year.  Head on over and sign up then strip away your CSS on April 9th.
Hey Dustin - any chance we’ll see GMail going naked this year?

Earlier this week, I wrote a Firefox extension to prevent duplicate tabs from opening.  Reader Jimmy Fung posted a comment with a link to  Firefox 2 and Flex: Launching builds in the same window.  It makes my extension somewhat (alright completely) useless - but hey, I learned a lot about making Firefox extensions in the process!

One thing that has always bugged me about Flex Builder (or more specifically Eclipse) is that when you click the Run/Debug/Build button (or F11/ctrl-11) your project is always opened up in a new browser tab.  It doesn’t take long until you realize that you have 20 tabs open – or at least in my workflow it happens!

So last night I built a Firefox extension that I have been wanting to make for a while.  It’s called Prevent Duplicate Tabs, and ensures that only the most recent tab of a given url is open at any one time.   After its installed, you will notice that there is a menu item in the Tools menu called “Prevent Duplicate Tabs”.  By default it is checked, and if you want to turn the extension off, you can simple toggle the menu item.

This is my first ever Firefox extension.  It was a bit of a pain to develop, and I now have even greater appreciation for the Flex documentation ;-)

Feedback is welcome – source is available by request.