I am working on creating a new Google Chrome extension, and needed a way to quickly test and iterate on toolbar badges and icons. So, I created a simple Google Chrome extension to make it easy to test Google Chrome extension toolbard icons. The extension is called Chrome Extension Icon Tester and is avaliable as an open source project via Github. The extension allows you to quickly test and iterate through multiple icons, as well as set and test badge overlays and test.

I recently received my amateur radio general license and setup my station. One of the first formats I was interested in was JT65, as it provides good reception, even with poor signals, and it has a fairly structured format which makes it a bit easier to start with. So, what is JT65? From Wikipedia: JT65, developed and released in late 2003,[3] is intended for extremely weak but slowly varying signals, such as those found on troposcatter or Earth-Moon-Earth (EME, or “moonbounce”) paths.

I have just released a project called pizone that uses a Raspberry PI, along with some NodeJS code to create a customer Nintendo Zone access point. This allows you to connect your Nintendo 3DS to the point, and get Spot and Street Passes (along with other game specific items) from players around the world. You can see a quick video here: Features include: Creates a portable and custom Nintendo Zone access point.

I am using a lot of Adobe Kuler Adobe Color themes in one of my projects. However, there is not a quick way to get the color theme information in a format that is easy to use in code (I have been manually copying and pasting each individual color value). I was going to write a Chrome content script, but then found out it can’t read variables from the page. So, I put together a quick code snippet that you can paste into the Chrome developer console, which will grab the colors and format them so they are easy to use in code.

Recently I have been spending some time playing around with Paper.js, an open source vector graphics scripting framework that runs on top of the HTML5 Canvas, similar to CreateJS. One of the cool features of Paper.js (and the reason I am using it) is that it has support for exporting its content via SVG. Among other things, this allows me to bring anything I create into Illustrator, and gives me the option to do resolution independent prints.

I recently completed migrating my blog from Wordpress to Jekyll (complete post on that soon). One of the main reasons for the move is that I didn’t want to continue to have to maintain MySQL, Apache, PHP and everything else required by Wordpress. However, before I shut everything down, I wanted to create a static archive of the entire Wordpress blog, in case I find some content in the future that did not export corectly to the Jekyll based blog.

I am currently playing around with the HTML5 FileSystem API, and have a need to test my files served via a web server. I could setup a virtual director for my local apache server, but given the number of simple tests and experiments I do, I wanted something easier that required little to no configuration and setup. So, I put together a super simple script that uses python’s SimpleHTTPServer class.

Just as we did in Europe a couple of weeks ago, Lee Brimelow and I are doing a series of Flash get togethers in North America over the next couple of weeks. I will be talking about the roadmap for the Flash runtimes, and leading a discussion around recent development in the Flash world. Lee will be showing off some of the new stuff we are working on around gaming.

We have just posted a new whitepaper on Adobe.com. The whitepaper, titled Adobe roadmap for the Flash runtimes lays out the 1 to 2 year roadmap for the Flash runtimes (primarily Adobe AIR and Flash Player). This includes information on specific planned releases, longer term player work, and supported platforms. This is actually the third Flash platform white paper that we have released in the past week (Adobe’s view of Flex and its commitments to Flex in the future, Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR security), and is a part of a larger process of trying to provide clear and open communications around our thinking and plans for the Flash platform.

If you follow me on twitter, then you may have noticed that I have been working on a white-paper laying out the roadmap and strategy for the Flash runtimes (Flash Player and Adobe AIR). The white-paper is going through internal review now, and should be available in the next 7 to 10 days. As part of the release of the white-paper, I, along with Lee Brimelow, and Thibault Imbert will be spending two weeks in Europe meeting with the Flash community and laying out Adobe’s vision and strategy for the Flash runtimes.