http://www.communitymx.com/blog/?cat=8 Community MX Member Blog admin@communitymx.com en-us If you haven't already, head over to Community MX and look at our gorgeous new face! Of course, our look is more than skin deep. Here are just a few of the exciting changes that go along with the new design. New Pricing: If you ever hesitated to join CMX because of the price, you'll be delighted to see that you can now get the student discount of $9.99 a month all year, every year. Why? Because we're all students in this ever changing business. Graded Tutorials: If you ever had trouble finding tutorials that were appropriate for your level of expertise, you'll love the menus of graded tutorials. Better search: With almost 4000 tutorials, it can be hard to locate what you're looking for. Photo collections? JumpStarts? CSS or PHP tutorials? Find them more easily with the CMX search box. We're running an open house for a week so that you'll have a chance to look around and see if what we have to offer is for you. You can also download the stunning new CMX stock photo collection of 12 images from New York City, look at scores of JumpStarts, and access thousands of extensions, tutorials, and articles that will give you a valuable technology lifeline.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=972 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=972 Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:39:11 GMT It may seem a little quiet at CMX these days, but that's because we have been working hard on big changes behind the scenes. What would you think about a brand new look? How about graded tutorials and a lessons section? Would you go for easier navigation and better search? And if none of that impresses you, surely you would be interested in new subscription prices - that we promise you're going to love! Keep your eyes on this site in the coming weeks. You won't want to miss the new and improved Community MX.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=970 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=970 Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:45:57 GMT W00t!A very exciting day, yesterday; I received my shipment of books and I must say, I'm very happy with the overall production quality of the book. It's pretty cool to see all the illustrations in full color!Sporting a bright banana-yellow cover (you almost need sunglasses!) the book definitely stands out. Kinda like some of my shirts . . .In the next few weeks, I hope to release a few excerpts of the book here on CMX, so stay tuned. It should be in bookstores soon, so if you're interested in learning FW from the ground up, make sure to check it out.    ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=946 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=946 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:01:06 GMT TODCon will be here very soon. Yep, I'm counting the days. OK that's not the secret.It'll be great to hook up with some CMX friends and regular TODCon attendees and speakers. Well, that's no secret either.I've written the last three CMXtraneous blog posts! That's more of a shock than a surprise, though. I'm pretty stoked about the Fireworks public beta. The Fireworks engineering team has done a phenominal job. It's to the point now where I don't like going back to CS3. Yeah, not really a secret there either, the way I've been blabbing all week long about it.The secret is my second TODCon session. It will be a live demo of the new features in the Fireworks Public beta! We'll look at some of the cool features you've read about in my recent articles as well as Kim Cavanaugh's piece on the Path panel. Based on what you've read and heard this week, I hope you pull up a chair for my session. Alan Musselman from Adobe will also be presenting a session on Fireworks. He'll no doubt have some very awesome and cool stuff to share as well.I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'll be the guy with the loud shirt and - new this year - a limp (sprained my ankle and pulled a tendon a co... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=918 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=918 Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:29:01 GMT Happy Anniversary to CMX and my fellow CMX'ers!! Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard to make this site the success it is. And of course a huge thank you to all of our loyal subscribers, we wouldn't be here without you. :-) Wow...hard to believe it's been 5 years! I have to say it's been a hell of a ride, and one I've thouroughly enjoyed and been proud to be a part of. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=908 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=908 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:06:15 GMT If you have read my most recent article, Tools for Designers: del.icio.us and Flickr', I made mention of starting a CMX Blog piece for anyone interested in sharing their design and inspiration tools,resourceful solutions for their business, and for self-organizational purposes. Please leave a comment on this post to share your thoughts. I look forward to seeing what you're up to and if I can get new ideas and be inspired by your ideas. Happy blogging!... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=887 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=887 Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:34:47 GMT We get a lot of positive feedback about our JumpStarts. They are a great way to kick start the design and production process and can really speed up development time. They're so great, I use them myself!Last month I was approached by a personal trainer who needed a web site. A friend had been promising for about 4 months to make one for her but at the time she contacted me, nothing had yet materialized. My client was serious about promoting her business and really wanted to get her name on the web. As a small business owner, her budget was not very large and while her site was going to be fairly simple, she really wanted someting clean, professional and contemporary.Enter CMX JumpStarts. After my initial meeting with Caroline, I experimented with a few JS's, and decided that Traverse City woud be the perfect answer. Opening the PNG in Fireworks, I created my own custom banner and navigation icons. When I was happy, I exported out full size jpegs for my client to view. With some tweaking, the design got a green light and I jumped right into development.The site took less than a month in real time before it went live (that was tonight - woo hoo) but in actual production hours, it too... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=873 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=873 Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:02:55 GMT TODCON 2007 RULED! Ok, this was the best TODCon ever (exceptions listed below) and here are my top reasons: It was the largest so far! Great speaker line up with many new speakers Good deal of regulars attended and I always love seeing the regulars Adobe was there in force! (and they are a really great bunch of people, took time to speak to everyone they could and accepted everyone's suggestions and opinions to make the products better). Ken - wow, managed to handle questions very diplomatically and with great patience (and yes, we want everything) Randy - was sent to speak to the extension developers, which was me and Tom Muck - we had excellent conversations with some good dialog, really appreciated your time! Christian - yes, Spry's code base is too big and, yes, I know you'll work on that :-) I enjoyed the conversations with you a lot and appreciate the time you spent talking with me (and the ideas you gave me for products I could make!) Sharon - congrats on the promotion to manager! And thanks for the discussions on the product and helping us realize the daunting task of quality Adobe faces each cycle. Greg - thanks for the dinner! And for bringing Steph in on ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=861 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=861 Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:13:17 GMT A web buddy has just hipped me to This. See that item down in the left corner? Safari now has a shiny new version number, and it works on the PC too. So old Stevie has entered the PC Browser Wars, eh? That should stir the pot a bit. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=859 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=859 Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:46:46 GMT It's coming. In two short days, TODCon will be here once again. And I can't wait. Bright lights, big city, geeks . . . what more could someone ask for?And the line up looks great. Some very cool topics will be covered. No doubt much fun will be had in the city that never sleeps.If you're attending for the first time, you're in for a treat. If you're a veteran (like me and many others) it will be great to hook up with all of you again. If ya can't make it this year, save them nickels and book your spot for next year. It's a great networking and learning experience for everyone. Not to mention the most fun a geek ever had.I'm holding two sessions this year, one about Fireworks integration with Bridge and Photoshop and the other on working with the new pages and sub layers features in FW.It's been fantastic to see what Adobe has done as they bring all the products into the Adobe family. New life (and I believe new respect) has been breathed into Fireworks. As the sole true web graphics program in the Adobe line, I'm seeing lots of new users coing on board. Many are skeptical, but once they see how fast they can work in Fireworks without having to switch applications, I think they'll b... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=857 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=857 Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:43:44 GMT It's coming! Our 2000th article. What a milestone that is for us here at Community MX. And we couldn't have done it without you! Our loyal readership. To say "thanks" we're giving away something special tomorrow. Be sure to check out Community MX on Tuesday, February 20, to find out what the surprise is. Members ... you rock! Thanks for supporting Community MX and helping to make us the resource for Adobe/Macromedia and web information. Visitors ... check us out! Tomorrow's surprise is a sample of the quality information we publish each and every day. The trial subscription is free!... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=824 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=824 Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:51:21 GMT You may have noticed the release of the CMX mobile/handheld device CSS reference resource yesterday. With mobile access becoming an increasingly important area of our work. and information in general on CSS support for mobile browsers being scarce we thought it would be good to have an open source mobile reference point, a place where you can search for mobile device/browser information and also add devices to the resource. When designing for the mobile internet you need to be aware that not all handheld devices' browsers support the handheld media type, many only see the screen media type which means your small screen design needs to be carefully planned out to ensure that you get the display you need. Further to this some handheld browsers read both the screen and handheld media style sheets so you need to be fully aware of the rules of specificity and how to implement them to deal with these browsers correctly. Don't get caught in a trap where you think just declaring a handheld media type is good enough, it isn't. You can access the desk top search interface here: http://www.communitymx.com/mobile/mobileD/ For info on handheld browser support you would ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=817 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=817 Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:13:08 GMT Sometimes I get a bit behind on my Community MX reading and have to catch up in one fell swoop. This morning, I was having a look at the past few articles and found a most awesome resource that Sheri German put together. Though we're in the midst of a site redesign (yes, we know it's sometimes tough to find the exact article you want as CMX approaches 1950 articles!) it's not done yet. In the interim, Sheri has compiled the CSS section of the site into a great learning guide that you'll want to keep nearby. It's free, for those that aren't members, and groups articles by subject and gives you an idea of their levels and what to tackle first. I had to share this one! Design Your Own Custom CMX CSS Course -- a learning resource guide. Also, in case you missed it, over the holidays Adobe launched a CSS-related beta of their own - CSS Advisor. CSS Advisor is a resource where information on CSS bugs will be compiled by the community with links to their originators and other resources where possible. A kind of all-in-one-place starting point to pinpoint what your bugs might be and find solutions. Design Resources Finally, more related to design than CSS, Adobe has another beta you ma... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=813 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=813 Fri, 05 Jan 2007 14:20:40 GMT Last year, I made a blog post here describing a certain holiday song/story that my brother and I used to listen to on a holiday album my mother used to have. The story was by Red Skelton and it was called "The Littlest Christmas Tree". Since that post last year, I have received so many personal e-mails and responses to my blog from people telling me how they too had listened to that story on that same album and how they thought they'd never be able to find it ever again. Needless to say, when I did my very thorough internet search last year for this Red Skelton story, I never thought I'd get the response that I have. Last year, I was just trying to find out if I could still purchase the story some where or if that old holiday album even existed any more. Apparently, the album has been re-recorded but the story has been left off. I found a lot of Red Skelton stuff - CDs and DVds but nothing that gave definitive proof whether this story was included on any of his collections. But I did find a web site that had a WAV file of the story. It was here: www.albertarose.org. If you go to my original blog, you can get the direct link from there. But what I thought I'd do this year... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=811 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=811 Sun, 24 Dec 2006 17:02:53 GMT The last part of a 3-part series I wrote about building a multi-language site goes live today at Community MX. I've seen different ways of creating data-driven multi-language sites, but the method I used in the series uses an incredibly underused technique involving ColdFusion custom tags. Basically, the technique will turn any simple, well-formed HTML or XHTML page into a content management system with only one tag required on the page. Using <cfimport> you can create custom tags using any name you want -- including the names of HTML tags. What that essentially means is that your h1, h2, h3, p, a, td, th, and any other tag you want to use can become a custom tag with the full power of the ColdFusion language. Maybe it's been done before, but I devised the system because I'm lazy -- I didn't want to have to rewrite pages and have to type content again. The system actually sucks the current content out of your site and puts it in the database -- and then from that moment on uses the content from the database instead. Also, the fact that you can use ColdFusion code in the custom tags allows you to insert things like administrative links to edit content. The article series s... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=796 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=796 Fri, 10 Nov 2006 04:59:51 GMT Today our article Newly Supported CSS Selectors in IE7 appeared, and by pure serendipity we got a note all the way from Brazil on this very subject. Mauricio Samy Silva has created a PHP page that allows you to type advanced compound CSS selectors into a field and see the results live on the same page. Cool! Just what we need to cram those new combinator combinations into our craniums. Sorry. :-D ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=795 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=795 Thu, 09 Nov 2006 01:58:00 GMT Now that I have your attention :-)Santorini is the location for our latest JumpStart offering. Sun-drenched beaches, legends of Atlantis, strong coffee. What could be better? ... Something free, of course.The Santorini JumpStart is free. Take the design and make it your own. It's got the goods with respect to valid XHTML and CSS and compliance to accessibility and 508 standards. And when you're done, submit your adaptation to our brilliant panel of CMX judges.You might just win a one-year subscription to Community MX! Oh, and did I mention that Santorini is a 3-column fixed/fluid layout? The two outside columns are fixed width but the center one is liquid, stretching to fill the remaining space. Plus, it's got a bunch of cool, Gordon-Mackay-quality icons.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=771 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=771 Thu, 05 Oct 2006 18:09:32 GMT As you may have noticed from my recent articles, I've been on a bit of an organizational kick. It all started (or became more focused) when I downloaded the LightRoom beta from Adobe. Pretty cool software which I am still playing with. Ironically, playing with LightRoom got me thinking more and more about Adobe Bridge, and its functionality. While not near as sexy as LightRoom, Bridge is packed with functionality that can really help to streamline your workflow and business. I've been using Bridge for quite some time to add Metadata to all my images before they are burned to CD and/or shipped to the client, or even uploaded to my flickr site. But lately I've been experimenting more with the search, keyword and rating features. This experimentation has resulted in a series of articles about Adobe Bridge. So far, Parts 1 and 2 are online. Parts 3 and 4 are completed and will be hitting cyberspace some time soon.The Getting Organized with Adobe Bridge Series:Getting Organized with Adobe Bridge - Part 1: Batch RenamingGetting Organized with Adobe Bridge - Part 2: Working with MetadataComing Soon!  Getting Organized with Adobe Bridge - Part 3: Keywords and Searc... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=762 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=762 Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:07:38 GMT We published my very first JumpStart today. When I'm not working like a fiend, I love to garden. So I combined my two passions into our latest JumpStart offering: Greenville. Like all of our JumpStarts, this one is uses valid XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1 markup and follows WAI and Section 508 accessibility guidelinesBe sure to check out Sheri's redesign. Besides being a lovely site, it does a great job of showcasing how easy it is to adapt our JumpStarts to your own projects. I hope you have fun with Greenville!... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=738 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=738 Thu, 10 Aug 2006 19:40:28 GMT Well, what can you say? Another heartbreaking loss for the senior league in last night's All-star game. Brought back memories of two years or so ago when the National League had their best closer on the mound at the time - Eric Gagne - and he ended up blowing a save opportunity. I know a lot of people probably enjoy a higher scoring all-star game but last night was an enjoyable game to watch. At the same time though, it also proved to be exactly why I tend to dislike the American League so much. Last night proved exactly how meaningless the DH is - or, at least, how meaningless it SHOULD be. Big Pappi DH's because, apparently, he can't play defense yet he made a couple of outstanding fielding plays last night and, obviously, he played first base when the Red Sox beat the Cardinals in the World Series two years ago so why does he HAVE to be a DH? That's the thing I hate about the American League - and, with the American league winning the All-star game last night, the DH is going to again play a major advantage in the World Series this year since the American League will have, potentially, more games at home then the visiting National League team. The nice thing is that the Nati... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=720 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=720 Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:55:23 GMT You would have thought no one ever saw someone eat 3 lbs. of crabs before... Hey folks... I've been back from TODCON almost a full day now (got back into Washington DC at 7:00pm last night). So I thought I'd give you a brief synopsis of my trip and what I did, what I thought and what I experienced the last couple of days at TODCON. Thursday (leaving for Orlando): My one big purchase for this trip was a Washington Nationals baseball jersey. I promised myself I wouldn't purchase any Nationals merchandise until Major League Baseball got their proverbial act together and named an owner and, since they did that two days before I had to leave, I was good to go with my capitalistic morals still intact. Got to the hotel a few hours earlier then everyone else, so I got my room and walked around the lobby where I ran into Ray and Danielle Mickey. So, we helped Ray set up the registration table with all the books, t-shirts and name tags for all the TODCON attendees. For the t-shirts, I PROMISE I'll put the t-shirt design up on my web site today or tomorrow (I swear!). While Danielle and I were organizing the name tags, I grabbed Tom Green's name tag and re-inserted the generi... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=705 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=705 Mon, 22 May 2006 16:03:36 GMT For Immediate ReleaseYahoo! a global Internet communications, commerce and media company, today announced it has acquired Community MX, the world's leading online journal for web development information, tutorials, and news revolving around the Adobe Engagement Platform. The merger was announced at the winter meeting of the Community MX partners in St. Tropez, France."We're extremely excited about the partnership between Yahoo! and  Community MX", stated Mr. Ron Feeblebrewster, Vice President for Shoveling Cash at Internet 2.0 Companies. "We feel this will be a dynamic opportunity for Community MX to become part of the wider global audience and expand their offerings outside the English-speaking world."Ray West, titular head of Community MX, provided additional information on the merger. "Well, this wasn't an easy decision by any stretch. We're doing pretty well at Community MX, but the opportunity to take the cash and run ultimately overcame our initial reluctance. So, basically, we did it for the money."Details on the exact price that Yahoo! paid to acquire Community MX were not immediately available, but a company spokesperson described i... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=683 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=683 Sat, 01 Apr 2006 11:50:57 GMT Three years ago today Community MX opened its proverbial doors and released our first two pieces of content. It's hard to believe that that was three years ago! I can still remember that night as if it was yesterday, the excitement among the partners was palpable...MSN messages were flying, emails were whizzing back and forth, woohoo's were everywhere. :-) When within minutes we had our first subscriber, our very own Craig Hartel, I felt like we had just won the lottery. To this day Craig holds a special place in my heart. :-) Since that day three years ago, we have continued to grow and expand, but have never lost sight of our main goal: to provide current compelling content to our subscribers each and every business day. Each and every business day, a few holidays excluded, we have released two pieces of fresh new content. And with the exception of one day when the content appeared a few hours late (senior moment on my part...I plain forgot to do it, lol) we have never missed. Never. 1544 articles, extensions, tutorials and JumpStarts. That's quite an accomplishment and one I am very proud of. Our subs are not the only ones to benefit from this vast repository of knowledge... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=682 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=682 Fri, 31 Mar 2006 13:17:32 GMT Wow. Three years. In some ways it seems like only yesterday that I started writing for CMX. I've made a lot of friends and (I hope) helped and inspired others to push their creative limits - be it with Fireworks, photography or Photoshop. When Ray West contacted me in the early part of 2003, and asked me if I was interested in becoming a partner in "a new venture" I was flattered and more than a bit nervous. I had seen some of the other names in the partners list and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why he was asking someone like lil old me to join. I think I even said something to that effect. Frankly, I was also a little concerned about being able to come up with and write content on such a regular basis. I mean, what if I ran out of ideas? What if I didn't have anything interesting to tell or teach people? Ray said not to worry; I would do fine. Well three years and over 100 articles later, I'm still finding things to talk about and show people and I'm learning more and more every day. I've been inspired and challenged by the creativity of my fellow CMX partners and by you, the Community MX subscribers. You're why we're here - why we are still here. I ha... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=680 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=680 Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:37:58 GMT As you can see from today's strip, I am indeed 39 today (March 21st). Thanks so much for all the kind birthday wishes and e-mails I've received so far. My mom and dad reminded me today that 39 years ago, it snowed in Virginia. That's funny because today - in Virginia - they are calling for snow. Maybe not much but it's still kind of a weird sign, huh? Especially given the fact that my birthday also fell on a Tuesday this year. :-) But anyway... just the other day, I bought Journey's live version of "Don't stop believing" from iTunes. And maybe the combination of my birthday and listening to that tune have put me in a bit of a reflective mood as I can't stop thinking about the fact that I never got the chance to see Journey live. I've seen a lot of great concerts live but every time I hear a Journey or The Cars on the radio or CD, I can't help but think "man, that would have been so cool to see them live just once"... you know, the big arena rock concerts... hearing the thunderous high pitched sounds of Steve Perry's voice mixed in with the great guitar and pounding piano and synthesizer sounds that were the signature of their Escape album... But ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=677 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=677 Tue, 21 Mar 2006 18:17:37 GMT Community MX has grown over the years to the point where we will hit 1500 pieces of content tomorrow -- articles, tutorials, and extensions. The following is a list of various ways to keep track of new content and find existing content at Community MX: Main list of CMX categories: http://www.communitymx.com/categories.cfm Main RSS feed http://www.communitymx.com/services/cmxrss.cfm Add CMX feed to Google feed reader: http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://www.communitymx.com/services/cmxrss.cfm Full list of RSS feeds by author, category, most popular searched: http://www.communitymx.com/services/cmx_opml.cfm CMXTraneous blog RSS feed: http://www.communitymx.com/blog/rss.cfm CMXTraneous full post RSS feed: http://www.communitymx.com/blog/fullrss.cfm All CMXTraneous RSS feeds: http://www.communitymx.com/blog/cmx_opml.cfm Add CMXTraneous to Google feed reader: http://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=http://www.communitymx.com/blog/rss.cfm Free Community MXtra Central application: http://www.communitymx.com/abstract.cfm?cid=EE860 Free Community MX sidebar for Firefox: http://www.communitymx.com/abstract.cfm?cid=E0069 Free Context Help extension for Dreamweaver,... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=670 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=670 Tue, 28 Feb 2006 12:32:16 GMT Yes, it's finally happened. Someone thought I was worthy enough to be interviewed. That person is Dan Smith. Dan and I got to know each other from being members in Webweavers - a Google Group e-mail list for everything related to web designing (and ruled with an iron maiden thumb by our very own Stef! LOL!). Anyway, Dan hosts and creates audio interviews on his blog. He thought it would be interesting to let people know what I sound like and had the crazy notion others might be interested in hearing what my thoughts were on the wide variety of topics we discussed. It took a while to get all the logistics worked out, but you can finally hear our interview today. The interview consists of a wide range of topics such as how I got into web design, information about the two books I helped write with Tom Green, the 'Bots autistic benefit book I participated in (and wrote a blog about not too long ago) as well as some of my thoughts about web comic strips - including CMX Suite! - and a whole bunch of other stuff! So if you're interested in hearing what I sound like, now your curiosity can be appeased. :-) - Chris ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=669 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=669 Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:51:18 GMT After much arm twisting, this past weekend I updated my Context Help extension for Dreamweaver for ColdFusion 7. I am a big fan of the Homesite-style help system -- put your cursor on a tag or function in code view and pull up the help file for that particular keyword. Dreamweaver has similar funtionality, however the help file comes up in the tiny little miniscule useless Reference Panel. Of all the development tools on the market, Dreamweaver and Flash have the worst reference/help systems. This extension attempts to rectify that. You have to be online to use the help system, but it will pull up Livedocs to the appropriate page. There are also buttons on the toolbar for a Google search, Google group search of the Macromedia forums, and a search of Community MX. I've also updated the version at the Exchange. I think this is the most useful extension I've ever done, which is why it is my most frequently updated extension. It also has PHP, ASP, and ASP.NET help, as well as HTML help. Cross posted at my site.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=668 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=668 Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:59:22 GMT Well today is kind of a special day. Our two newest tutorials tell you how to do the very same thing. But in different programs. That's right ladies and gentlemen, web geeks of all ages; come one, come all and see the Amazing Edge Effects Mastery of both Photoshop and Fireworks. Read in awe and wonder (or pretend to, for the authors' benefits) how you can easily create extraordinary edge effects without having to purchase any extra software what-so-ever! OK, maybe I went a little over the big top with that. But if you've read many of my tutorials, one thing you'll notice is that every once in a while I write a piece that takes a Photoshop technique and puts a Fireworks spin to it. Today, you have - I think - a visual treat. Knut Kubenz, our newest partner and Photoshop guru shows you how to create some very nifty framing and edge effects using just Photoshop. Not to be outdone (I shamelessly admit his tutorial inspired me) I take you on a similar voyage using Fireworks as my creative tool of choice. There will be no bashing of software features in these articles; I use both on a regular basis and they both have their strengths and their weaknesses. They are two very diffe... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=666 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=666 Mon, 20 Feb 2006 02:32:18 GMT There was a question on the forum today about finding bounced emails in a mailing campaign after retrieving the results with CFPOP. The problem with email bounces is that you can't determine who the mail bounced from by looking at any of the headers: typically the mail server will respond with a message something like this: ----- Transcript of session follows ----- <jack@SOMEDOMAIN.COM>... Deferred: Connection timed out with mail.somedomain.com. Message could not be delivered for 5 days Message will be deleted from queue The message is also frequently loaded with other email addresses, like MAILERDAEMON, or some random characters that seem like an email address (message IDs frequently resemble email addresses). The only way I've found to reliably extract bounced email addresses is to examine each message, extract ALL email addresses, then compare them to the original list. The following function will extract all email addresses from a string: <cffunction name="getEmailAddresses">   <cfargument name="stringToParse" type="string" />   <cfargument name="emailArray" type=&... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=660 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=660 Sun, 05 Feb 2006 15:33:31 GMT