Andrew Shorten, one of the Platform Evangelists at Adobe, has mentioned recently that Adobe has announced that if you’re a developer or aspiring developer and have recently been laid off, you can qualify for a free version of Flex Builder – an idea that is targeted to increase your skill set in Flex while looking for your next gig.

Although the announcement was made via a British website, the free tool is available to anyone in the world, as long as they contact any Adobe evangelist (like Shorten). You can also KEEP your copy of Flex Builder once you do find that new job. But if you’re like me and are reading this, you probably already have several copies of FB laying around and some that haven’t even been released

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=12218

I think this subject probably gets asked a lot by most new Flex programmers. Unfortunately, most of the companies I have worked for did little to enforce or even develop coding standards. Larger companies typically make it a priority to develop standards simply due to the number of incoming and outgoing contractors hired for specific projects. Lack of standards can cause code nightmares later on and virtually no project maintainability.

A good starting point for standards can be from Adobe themselves, who have come up with a nice document detailing basic Flex coding conventions and best practices. See for yourself!

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Coding+Conventions

Want to know more about your favorite Flex Evangelist?

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ErichCervantez

So my wife and I did our taxes last night. I usually use TurboTax online for our taxes and this year would be no different, however I decided to try out the FREE version online just to see if I could. Our return for last year was very simple with just two W-2′s, two dependents and that’s it, so why not?

Interestingly, the FREE edition of TurboTax online uses Flex. It was unmistakable. After a little digging, it appears this Flex version was released last year as TurboTax Personal Pro, however that name has been discontinued in favor of “Free Edition”. Music to my ears…