Starting out with Flex, I used the command-line compiler of the open source Adobe Flex 3 SDK for compiling MXML and ActionScript source files into SWF files.
A full list of compiler options and default behaviours are available in the Flex 3 documentation, but following is a summary to get going, including some links on Flex components and styles.
DataTierGenerator is a .NET desktop app that generates a C# class, a C# data class and several SQL stored procs for every table in the database you specify. This takes a lot of the hassle out of creating a data layer for a multi-tier application – all you have to do is tweak the logic classes and T-SQL if required.
Inkscape is a great free and intuitive vector editor, but I could not find an easy way to apply brush effects when I first experimented with it (I have version 0.45). Here’s how.
To be able to implement most web page designs, a grid is required. With traditional HTML, tables were used, but markup with many nested layout tables is not good for accessibility, and cleaner code is easier to maintain. The following examples are XHTML and CSS valid (except for the minimum width IE workaround), accessible to screen readers, and have been tested in Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 2, Opera 9, Safari 2 and Camino 1.5.
