I was reading some Flex docs online the other night, and in the live docs section I noticed a link to where you could download the example scripts for many of the examples shown in the Flex docs.  The zip file is available here and contains some great Flex/AS projects including a Wiki Editor, Video Jukebox, Display Object Transformer and many more.

If you are a Canadian who is (was) hoping to pick yourself up an iPhone on July 11th, Rogers Communciations just announced their voice and data plans.  WOW - they are totally screwing us Canadians over - just look at the plan comparisions between the US, UK and Canada. If you’re as outraged and disappointed as I am you should head on over to  RuinedIphone.com where you can sign a petition and open letter to Steve Jobs.  If anyone from Rogers is reading this post (not likely but I’ll say it anyhow) I will not be purchasing an iPhone nor a service plan from you.

If you use Firefox as your primary browser for debugging your Flex applications, you may want to read this bug report before you upgrade you browser to Firefox 3…

[#FB-13064] Firefox 3 and Flex Debug Not Working

If you must have the latest and greatest Firefox, you can always use the workaround of debugging with Safari or Internet Explorer!

 It’s a sad day if you’re a Vancouver Canuck Hockey fan.  One of our truly great players has retired.

I just now noticed that Parallels for OSX now has a Directory of Virtual Appliances that offers over 50 open source operating systems with specific features. For example there is an AMP Web Developer Suite that contains PHP/PERL/Python, MySQL and PostgreSQL all installed, configured, and ready to use.

Google has just announced the Google Maps API for Flash.  This AS3 library will allow you to natively put Google Maps into your Flex or Flash apps without having to do any hacky-hack iFrame/div methods.  You can read the announcement on Google’s blog.

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.