Jeff and John were kind enough to have me on the Flex Show to talk about Flex and SEO. If you follow this blog you’ve read it all already, but it never hurts to hear it again.

The last few weeks I’ve been busy working on an app for creative writing, called Copybox. On monday it was finally launched publicly at the TechCrunch50 conference. Below is a video of the presentation, which explains the motivations of the application, and how it works.

The splash screen of the video is a bit odd, it has nothing to do with anything, I don’t know why.

You can watch the video at blip.tv too.

Copybox was build in Flex, using the Mate application framework. It’s going to be deployed both as a hosted version running in the browser and in a desktop version running on AIR. We’re currently in private beta alpha, but if you’re a copywriter go to the Copybox site and sign up, because we need your input.

Writing testable code isn’t just about writing code that is easy to test, writing testable code is also a way to write higher quality code. If you can test it it is likely to be reusable, loosely coupled and easier to maintain.

The Google Testing Blog, mostly written by Miško Hevery, is amongst the most brilliant things I’ve read on software engineering. If you’re not convinced about the benefits of writing testable code after reading Miško’s articles I think you may be a lost cause. These are my favourites from the last few months:

• Root cause of Singletons
• Singletons are Pathological Liars
• Writing Testable Code
• How to write 3v1l untestable code
• Breaking the Law of Demeter is Like Looking for a Needle in the Haystack

The articles explain testing and good practices in software engineering in a simple, accessible, to-the-point manner without droning on about theory. Great writing and great insight. Read it.

Today, while refactoring some code, I had an epiphany I’d like to share. It’s why you should chose clean code over apparent performance, because your gut feeling is usually wrong.

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This is exactly why I’m a freelance consultant. I want what I do to be more important than where I am. Being employed is all about where you are for the eight hours that you owe your employer.

Can I just say I told you so?

…but according to the list at Flex.org I am:

I even had to ask to get Sweden as an option in the filter. Seriously, I can’t be the only Flex consultant in Sweden. Where are you guys?

The news is that the proposed ECMAScript 4 (ES4) that created such a stir in the ActionScript community half a year ago is no more. Instead the ECMAScript working groups is going to pursue an update to version 3. I say good riddance to ES 4, it had a lot of interesting stuff in it that I would have loved to see in ActionScript, but that was only because ES4 had every possible feature from every language that its authors had ever laid their eyes on.

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I think that OpenID is a great idea, but there are just too many providers to choose from. Without even actively signing up for one, I’ve got at least six OpenID’s already: one from Wordpress, another from Technorati, and from Blogger, Yahoo!, Flickr and AOL. Either one would do fine, but one thing bugs me: do I really want my identity associated with one of these companies? I don’t dislike either one, but my only relation to them is that I use their products. I don’t think of myself as a Wordpress user, I’m not even a loyal one (my other blog is based on Chyrp).

One solution is to go with an OpenID provider that uses less branded URL:s. By way of recommendation I have found myOpenID, which works. Your ID URL looks like http://username.myopenid.com/, which I think is perfectly acceptable. But it gets better. It turns out that myOpenID has a feature where you can use your own domain in your OpenID URL (look for “Your Domains” in the menu). If your hosting company gives you access to the DNS records of your domain you can set it up so that you can create OpenID’s that look like they are hosted by you — and in the background myOpenID does all the authentication and provides the administrative tools.

In a few minutes I managed to get it configured and I’m happy to say that I can now identify myself as http://openid.iconara.net/theo. That is the kind of URL that I think everyone should be able to have if OpenID is going to become the one and only authentication platform on the web. It describes what it is (“openid”) and who I am (“theo” of “iconara”).

Oh, and is it only me or does the OpenID logo look just like the PlayStation logo when it appears in icon size (as it usually does in login screens and such)?

Adobe has a blatant lack of respect for my filesystem. The various applications that I currently have installed scatter files everywhere, without asking me and with total disregard of Apple’s documentation. Read on for a list of the offences.

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