Have you ever designed a flash button or image animation that you need to redo and then you find out that you misplaced the original files?

Well usually this means that you end up eating your own time and starting over from the beginning. In some cases its not the end of the world but it can be seriously annoying.

Well this is where you would want to make use of a decompiler program or in this case an online service.Flash probe is meant to provide web developers and design enthusiasts a means of quickly creating HTML pages out of Flash-based websites. The free tool will decompile your SWF and show you the images, text and links that are contained in it. Apart from usage statistics, Flash Probe does not collect, resell or permanently host third party content on its server. After submission of a file, the text and images are available for around 30 minutes after which time all content is deleted.

For the most part you can’t expect to get everything that was part of the project but you should be able to grab enough parts to get started again.

Simply upload or enter the url of the flash object that you want to decompile and let the service do the work.

In a short time you will be presented with what they could retrieve from the file.

Again you are not going to endup with the total source that you can just modify and recompile but it is a starting point.

Visit their website

http://www.flashprobe.com

Well probably the guy staying up all night for 16 weeks writing that special ap that you love so much… He needs pizza too :o)

But really there is a lot of software that is best in class that is free / opensource and taking advantage of it even if it is just using it and telling your friends about it is a nice way to give props to coders that like to do it for love or learning.

Another great thing about open source software is you can adapt it to meet your needs and contribute back that code to be included in the original version or in a branch project.

The fact is no one can know everything but by sharing we can all raise our understanding to a higher level.

Maybe you know how to make a great video editing program but you have no idea how to put your resulting files on a dvd. Well all you need to do is add your project and someone else’s together and you have something that helps more people.

Anyway if there is an idea there is probably software to do it at SourceForge

And if not start your own project and maybe others will join in to help.

visit http://sourceforge.net

If you are use to using Illustrator you will notice that some of the tools are different which will require another learning curve to forget your normal habits and adapt to new ways of doing things.

But this package does provide enough ways to draw controlled images with a variety of tools that it is definitely worth it.

The major drawback is export options at this time. If you are use to jumping between Illustrator and Photoshop or a desktop publishing package you will need to be able to use one of the 10 or so formats available to export your work.

Since PostScript is one of the options your images should still be able to be used however we have not pumped any files through a prepress processor to check how they will print.

The most important tools are all there.

You can draw freehand and bezier curved lines.

There are a few presets like drawing 3d box shapes or spirals … the developers must like spirals heh.

Rotation of objects can be done through a dialog box or by double clicking with the arrow select tool.

Blends and fills are available including directional fills.

There are a variety of ways to create clipping paths.

All in all this is a pretty nice tool that we are just getting use to playing with.

If it continues to perform as our first trials have shown then it will be a likely replacement for illustrator.

Inkscape is a project with a few years work behind it so you can depend that it will continue as long as a project of this type is needed.

We hope to do a few howtos with this software in the future and you should go download your own copy.

Linkscape is available for Windows, Mac and linux variants.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkscape/

This is a pretty decent deal for students that need some extra tools.

The project software includes the standard set of 2d and 3d drafting tools along with scheduling, estimating and other real world tools that set it apart from basic drafting.

For more information visit their website

http://www.vicosoftware.com/

Driving Dimensions is a plugin for Google SketchUp 6 and 7 (a free, easy-to-learn 3D-modeling program) running on Windows 2000/XP/Vista that allows the addition of driving dimensions to SketchUp models.

Using the tool you can modify the dimensions of an object to fit the measurements of real world objects. When you enter the size dimensions the object will take on that dimension without your need to modify it manually.

After a simple installation process (just run ldd_setup.exe and follow the instructions), run SketchUp and find a new toolbar with Driving Dimensions. The first time user can control the dimensions of shapes with no knowledge of variational design concept. Productivity can be enhanced by using different tools available with Driving Dimension plug-in.

Here is a demo video

Download the plugin from their website

http://drivingdimensions.com/

Well Imsi just released DoubleCad a 2D drafting product that is suppose to exceed the features found in AutoCad LT.

There are 2 versions of DoubelCad… the free version and the pro but for light use most users can get away with the free version.

So, what are you missing if you get the free version?

Double Parallel Lines
Double Perpendicular Lines
Multi Lines
Multi Lines Parallel
Regions
Revision Cloud
Chain Pollyline

Other then those basic tools you also lose some helper features used mostly by architects to draw roofs, walls, doors and other things.

You also lose some dimensional drawing constraint tools.

All in all if you are generating some simple plans for a Deck, Shed or a layout of your furniture or office then you will have everything you need. If you are working as an Architect’s Drafter then you can also get by if you delegate most of the basic drawing tasks to this package and final prep that can be completed either in the pro version or another drafting application.

Dwg DXF and a few other standard file formats are available for import and export in the free version however standard output of PDF often used for printing at service bureaus for larger format output is only available in the Pro Version.

For that reason you will probably need another tool if you are printing large output documents.

For more information and a free download which requires registration visit.

http://doublecad.com

Adobe’s Air platform will mean downloading additional tools from adobe as this is a desktop client and not a standard web based client.  Unfortunately this seems like a lot of overhead developers producing software for desktops may want to use it for cross compatibility but you can expect that the curve for these applications to be steep and products few and hard to find. This is not to say Adobe lacks skills in desktop software development but even Microsoft has problems organizing their handful of compilers into structures that will provide quick and easy development experiences.

With that said its not the compiler its the product within.

Some of twhirl’s features:

* runs on both Windows (2000/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX
* connects to multiple Twitter, laconi.ca, Friendfeed and Seesmic accounts
* displays notifications for new messages
* shorten long URLs (using bit.ly, snurl, twurl or is.gd)
* cross-post your updates to Jaiku and many other sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more via Ping.fm
* post images to TwitPic
* search tweets using Twitter Search and TweetScan, and follow topics in near-real time with saved searches
* automatically find tweets mentioning your @username
* record a video on Seesmic, and share it on twitter immediately
* get your seesmic updates in real-time using XMPP
* English spell checking

There are a lot more things twhirl can do to improve your experience, and it offers various configuration options to adapt to your personal needs.

For more information visit

http://www.twhirl.org

First you should have an understanding of how to make the best use of Twitter.

You should split your personal and business / professional hobby  tweets.

Get more then one account and although you might post a human form of a post to your professional account you don’t want to go off on rants about the price of pancake mix at the local grocery and how it is basically flour with a little baking soda in it.

Once you understand that then you know you should also limit the monitoring of these accounts on your PDA or other devices.  Don’t monitor accounts that are not necessary and limit traffic to your pda to D direct communications.

Every PDA out there whether its an IPhone, Blackberry or a standard phone that can sms can connect to Twitter.  You really need to find an ap that is best for your device but for blackberry users you might want to use TwitterBerry http://orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/

For mobile devices you can use the
Twitter Mobile Interface http://m.twitter.com

For IPhone
Twittelator http://www.stone.com/Twittelator/

Code Monkeys
TwitterIrcGateway http://www.misuzilla.org/dist/net/twitterircgateway/

Desktop Clients
Twhirl http://www.twhirl.org/
TweetDeck http://www.tweetdeck.com

Twadget http://arsecandle.org/twadget/

Foreign Language
Twit http://cheebow.info/chemt/archives/2007/04/twitterwindowst.html

Browser Plugin
TwitterFox http://twitterfox.net/

For OSX
Twitterrific http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific

Nambu http://www.nambu.com/

Blogs
Twitter Feed http://twitterfeed.com/
TwitterTools for WordPress

And NPSites is soon to release our own Twitter Plugin for WordPress.

Linking your BLOG to Twitter

Is this useful to do?

well yes and no and the NO is a big no….

We have seen a number of products that will post to Twitter and this is not a bad idea because you can send a post title and a short url to your Twitter account that others can read if they think its interesting.

Placing twitter content on your site is a totally different thing.

It just really makes little sense to send all your twitter posts to your blog or website and remember separation of content and accounts … YOU NEVER want to put personal tweets or link your professional blog to a personal twitter account. NEVER.

We have seen a few sites that have allowed their directs and @’s to be shown in their sidebars and updated every 10 minutes.. its just kaos and uncontrolable. Even with the use of spam filters it is just not worth the effort to maintain that 24/7

Also there are some plugins that convert your twitter posts to posts on your site… so now for each 140 character twitter blurb you have a new post on your blog.  This just makes no sense at all and if you care about your visitors to your site or your position in search engines don’t do it.

So posting Blog / Website Titles and links to Twitter is good.

Grabbing them back from twitter to include on your site….  give it a shot if you want but don’t say you weren’t warned.

Take advantage of your time on Twitter

So, take advantage of your conversations on Twitter it is time you spend and if you can use it to your advantage some way … even if its just to share ideas and keep intouch then do it.

This is one editor that you need in your toolbox if you ever have to work with lots of files and code projects.

Even if you don’t code a lot one of my favorite features is its ability to search through a directory of files for word matches.

So how is that useful?
Lets say you have a div with an id of  chicken and you know its hiding someplace in your php files…. or you want to find all the <H1> tags and change them to something else.

Trying to find things with Windows Search is just about useless I have found a 90% fail rate for trying to find text in files especially if it has a Quote or Equal sign next to it….

Anyway that is my favorite feature right now because my current project really needs it but you will find hundreds of useful options in Komodo Edit especially if you like to code a bit.

Multi-language support

Advanced support for:

• Browser-side languages: CSS, HTML, JavaScript and XML
• Server-side languages: Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby and Tcl
• Web template languages: RHTML, Template-Toolkit, HTML-Smarty and Django

HTML preview

Check HTML, XML and CSS files side-by-side or in a browser, using arbitrary files or URLs.

Multilingual Input Method Editor (IME) support

Use your standard keyboard to enter multi-byte characters, such as Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Code snippets

Store any piece of code for reuse.

Code folding

Work quickly and efficiently with large sections of code.

Multi-document editing

Easily work on multiple documents simultaneously using multiple tab groups, split view, and cross-document search.

It is definitely worth the download

http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/

Blog Clients come in two basic flavors Executables which are stand alone application like msword and browser addons which requires the use of a specific browser.

The desktop applications are probably most useful for many people that find themselves away from an internet connection but still want to build some posts that can be uploaded when they return home or to the office.

Desktop or executable applications are available for Windows, Mac and Linux but they are also available for specific phones and PalmOS. If you look hard enough there are probably versions for any device you need to use.

Why use one?
So, honestly why would you want to use one of these applications when you can do everything you need from within your blog dashboard? Well as said before you might find yourself in situations where logging into your blog is not possible. In this case you can schedule posts to be uploaded later. Another reason may be added features.

Features
All of the better Blog Clients will have the ability to post directly to your blog with no need for copy and paste but what other features might make them attractive?

The ability to edit images is one option. Windows Live Writer has the ability to perform some basic image editing and positioning in your posts. It also has the ability to upload your images to Flicker and insert the links into your posts.

Social network announcements is another feature however most blog /cms solutions have the standard twitter, facebook announcement plugins.

Expanded Spell Checking is an option if you need to use an international dictionary not available in your blog tools but then again most browsers have built in spell checkers and you can always write in your word processor.

Mobility and the ability to Save Drafts is probably the most appropriate reason to use one of these tools.

Zoundry Raven is one such ap that can fit on a thumb drive and go with you where ever you know there is access to a computer. Now honestly we have not tried this application but since it offers that feature it is probably one worth taking a look at.

In addition the application does not need to be installed and it will not make entries in to the windows registry when you are using it so it should be ok to use on computers you feel are fairly secure.

Here is a list of a few that you may want to look at.

Post2Blog

LIPIDr Blog Client

Windows Live Writer