
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006
CMX Weekly Newsletter News Fun and Freebies Recent CMX Content Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats Check the News! TODcon 2006 in Orlando For the few who haven't experienced it yet, TODCon is the most informative yet informal Macromedia/Adobe-related event you're going to find. Whether you're a seasoned veteran of Macromedia or Adobe products or you're just starting out, you will have a great time learning a great deal from many knowledgeable speakers about CSS, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, ColdFusion, Flash, Central and even about running your business properly. Those who attend usually end up coming back every year because of the unique and informal atmosphere. You don't want to miss out on this event. This year, TODcon will take place in beautiful Orlando, Florida, just a hop, skip and jump from Disney World. Your registration (with the rooming option) includes three nights (May 18th, 19th and 20th) at the Wyndham plus a 3-day trolley pass that covers transportation throughout the International Drive attractions area. You're invited to register for this fantastic, one-of-a-kind event. Do it quick, while the early bird pricing is still effect. Dell vs. Dell Anyone who frequents Macromedia's Dreamweaver forums has probably run across Paul Dell, otherwise known as Pablo. Paul runs a website design company named Dell Websites, whose company website is dellwebsites.com. His name is Dell, and he builds websites - makes sense, right? The folks over at Dell.com don't like this bit of logic, and they're suing Paul Dell to make him stop using that web address. Paul's friends have banded together and put up a website, appropriately named help-paul-dell.com, where you can keep up to date on what's happening with the lawsuit. His plight has been picked up by several news sources, and tons of blogs. Anyone wanting to help Paul with legal fees can do so by making a donation on his website. Hopefully Paul can keep his name. "PabloSites.com" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Say It With Me: It's a Feature, Not a Bug Since Firefox 1.5 - and its subsequent update - came out a couple of months ago, there have been quite a few complaints about it hogging resources, and generally slowing down people's computers. A developer explained that much of the system memory was allotted to a new feature in Firefox, which ironically enough is supposed to speed up your browsing experience. If you've experienced the lag, there are a couple of things you can do about it, and neither one involves uninstalling Firefox. First, head over to the SpartanEdge.com blog and check out the tips from Hutch for speeding things up. Secondly, go to Mozillazine.org and see if you are running any of the Firefox extensions on their list. Some of the extensions listed have a fix or workaround, so you might be up and running - more quickly - in no time flat. If You Use ColdFusion, You'll Dig This Our friend Massimo Foti recently posted a link to RemoteSynthesis.com where they have listed a barrage of open source projects for ColdFusion. In this list, you'll find links to CFCs, custom tags and full-blown applications dealing with AJAX, bug tracking, blogs, bulletin boards and plenty of other useful ColdFusion stuff. Fantastic resource. We Feel Their Pain Mac users got an interesting wake-up call this week when three vulnerabilities were exposed in the OS X operating system. We'll link to all three via News.com articles: The first trojan to target Macs was discovered, a worm that exploits an 8-month old OS X vulnerability reared its ugly head, and finally, a flaw was found in the Mac OS that could allow hackers to take control of your computer via a rootkit, just from visiting a site with malicious code on it. As of this writing, Apple has not issued a patch as yet, so make sure to be careful with email attachments, and stay away from strange sites (you have to tell Mac users this, because they're not used to watching out for this kind of stuff).
Satisfied Customers Speak Out! "This is one of the best articles I have read on CommunityMX -- in fact all things considered I would call it the best for its information, order of presentation and usefulness. I am moving from the php world to asp.net. I am probably classifed as a part time web designer so the methods I chose to learn by are not orderly. I just jump in and start doing things. This article was great. " - James A., CMX Subscriber, commenting on Heidi Bautista's Tutorial, Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 4: Customizing the asp:Login Control Whether you're just starting out or need advanced support, Community MX will give you answers and ideas to work through your tough issues. Don't miss out. Learn more about CMX or sign up for a free trial today!
Great Quotes: "Looking at the proliferation of personal web pages on the net, it looks like very soon everyone on earth will have 15 Megabytes of fame." — M.G. Siriam Wonder If They're Taking Requests Google and Earthlink have teamed up in a bid to offer free wireless internet access to the entire city of San Francisco. They'll be competing with several other companies who want the business, but the name recognition of both companies will bolster Google and Earthlink's chances. Both companies say they want to be a positive part of the San Francisco community and simply want everyone to experience everything the internet has to offer. Somewhere in there, they forgot to mention the outrageous amount of advertising and demographic information they'll be getting out of this. The full story is at Yahoo.com. You Mean $6,000 For a Powerbook Isn't a Good Deal? Some of us here at Community MX aren't sure how we survived before we bought laptops. Being able to work at any given time, anywhere at all is a great luxury, and with most hotels now having internet access, you can have all the benefits of having a desktop computer everywhere you go. If you're thinking about getting a laptop, but you'd rather save a few bucks by buying a used or refurbished unit, you'll want to read this article at NotebookReview.com that explains how to buy laptops from eBay and other online marketplaces. Not To Lay a Bummer On You, But... It looks like PlayStation 3 from Sony may not be hitting the store shelves as early as they'd originally anticipated. Certain specifications have not been decided on, and unless the spec's are made definite very soon, the launch of the PS3 could be pushed back as late as November of this year or early 2007. Read it and weep at SignOnSanDiego.com. See Bob. See The Kids Hate Bob. If you're worried that your kids are spending too much time on the computer, TV or playing video games and you just don't have the time or inclination to get them doing something else, get Bob. Bob is a new gadget from Hopscotch Technology that you plug your TV, computer or video game into. Bob shuts off the device after a specified amount of time, forcing your kid to actually explore an area away from whatever is hogging their attention. Learn more about Bob at News.com. AOL: Same Old Service, Higher Prices AOL is raising the price of their dial-up service to match the price they now charge for their broadband internet service. Both services will cost $25.90. This article at BetaNews.com says that this change is an effort on the part of AOL to get subscribers to move to AOL's broadband service. It is said that AOL has lost quite a few subscribers in the past couple of years, and that if they can get people to experience their speedy broadband, their customers might be more likely to stick with them. Either that, or there will be a mass exodus of dial-up users angered by higher prices. We'll see how this pans out for AOL.
CMX Expiration Dates The CMX Expiration Dates extension allows you to set dates for files you work with that expire. If a page is beyond its expiration date, when you next start Dreamweaver this extension will let you know that you have a file to be edited. This functionality can be useful when you need to update a page (or set of pages) on an occasional basis, or even on an ongoing basis. For example, you may manage the company's knowledge management system, and you want to make sure that your content contributors are alerted when their content needs to be checked for "freshness" to ensure that the information contained on the pages they cover does not go stale, then the Expiration Date extension can help you acheive your goals. Or if your home page should be updated on Mondays to reflect the next set of featured products that arrived just this weekend, then you can set the expiration date for the home page for the upcoming Monday; then when you start Dreamweaver up on Monday morning, Dreamweaver will alert you to the fact that you need to update a file (in this case the home page). You can then edit that file, publish it. If desired, you can then set the expiration date for the file for the following Monday, to lather, rinse and repeat the cycle of updates as necessary. Check out the Extension by CMX Partner Danilo Celic
Fun and Freebies Fink Has a Big Eye Ed Fink is a photographer who specializes in panoramas. Some of his work is beautiful to look at, and we thought we'd share a link to his website at BigEyeInTheSky.com. Check out the "Fireworks" panorama. Art is in the Big Eye of the Beholder We're not sure why anyone would want to paint their fingernails so they look like name brand sodas, but this page at ImpactLabs.com proves once again that if there's anything wierd going on anywhere, you'll find it on the internet. Maybe He Just Needs One of Those Sleep Number Beds A Vietnamese man claims not to have slept for a little over thirty years. We heard psychosis sets in after just a week of no sleep. This guy must have gone to crazyville and back a few times already.Sixty-four-year-old Thai Ngoc had this to say: “I don’t know whether the insomnia has impacted my health or not. But I’m still healthy and can farm normally like others." The article neglects to mention that Ngoc followed up that statement by saying "My penguin nebulus mombo dogface to the banana patch."
List Display Problems In Explorer For Windows - Part One This tutorial begins a series about display problems encountered in Internet Explorer for Windows when using list elements. First up, we will discover some differences between browsers and how to compensate for them, and then we will solve the mystery of the missing bullets in IE. Join us! This free article by CMX Partners Holly Bergevin and John Gallant can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing Stupid Web Cam Tricks - Part Two Tom Green In this installment of Stupiud Web Cam Tricks you are shown how to create a series of blocks with video in them. You are also shown how to create your own stack. Convert an Existing Site to Use ASP.NET Master Pages and Themes Heidi Bautista One of the great advantages in ASP.NET v2.0 is the introduction of master pages and themes. This tutorial presents a practical example of converting an existing site to use master pages and themes. Our example site is the Community MX North Pole JumpStart. You'll learn how to chop up the code to create the master page, where to put the theme files and how to modify the existing css file so that it works well with the theme. It's actually a very quick process and one that can be adapted to any JumpStart offered by Community MX. Approximate download size: 320k Dynamic & Accessible Navigation with ColdFusion Adrian Senior In this tutorial we are going to be looking at creating a dynamic and accessible navigation system. To do this we will be using cfoutput queries and the group attribute to gather in the information for both our top level and our sub level navigation options. Cool GoLive Features Part 4: The QuickTime Editor Sheri German It's really rather surprising. Hidden in Adobe GoLive you get a whole other application: a QuickTime movie maker and editor. It includes everything from Sprite tools to Flash integration to drop-dead simple slide shows. So don't despair if you don't have an expensive, dedicated movie editing program but you do have Adobe CS2. You will be amazed at what you can do with the GoLive QuickTime Editor. In this first tutorial in the QuickTime series, we'll look at the GoLive QuickTime tools and environment, and then create a slide show movie with picture, sound and text tracks. In upcoming tutorials we will look at Sprites, Flash integration, filters, and other more advanced GoLive QuickTime features. This tutorial includes a sample MP3 and folder of images so that you can follow along. Approximate download size: 1.8MB Creating Edge/Border Effects in Fireworks Jim Babbage You never stop learning. Something I have always been interested in is a way to produce a similar result or effect in different software packages. Take Photoshop and Fireworks, for example. Photoshop gives you the ability to create some pretty cool edge and border effects without having to go out and buy third-party software, as you'll see in Knut Kubenz' recent tutorial. Reading that tutorial, I got to wondering how I could do the same kind of thing in Fireworks. One inherent difference between the two programs is that PhotoShop's roots are firmly planted in the raster graphic half of digital imaging. Fireworks has its roots in the vector graphics half. So, needless to say, there are some different ways to achieve the same kind of result. One thing I do like about this method is that it is non-destructive; no pixel data will be harmed or deleted during the making of this edge effect. My focus will be on using vector shapes and the built-in Live Filters of Fireworks to create my edge effects. You have a great deal of control with vector shapes. Combine that with the power of Live Filters and your own sense of imagination and you've got a lot of creative potential ready to be unleashed. We'll be looking at three methods in detail using: vector shapes custom paths Live Filters strokes I'll also touch on using bitmap masks to create edge effects. Super Edge Effects Using the Quick Mask in Photoshop Knut Kubenz Why spend extra money on third party software when you can create a variety of super edge effects using simple tools in Photoshop?! Approximate download size: 770k Emulate the Best Thomas Pletcher Emulation and virtualization software enables you to sample a broad range of operating systems and development tools, easily and safely. QEMU is an open source, cross-platform processor emulator that offers great versatility and, on the right hardware, usable speed. This article describes how to install QEMU on Windows, Linux and OS X, and how to install the kqemu QEMU Accelerator for Windows. It also shows how to use QEMU with two Linux virtual machines (Debian and SUSE). Preparing For IE7 - Part Five John Gallant, Holly Bergevin Well, Microsoft has done it. In case you haven't heard, MS has actually released a public beta version of their new IE7 bowser! Will wonders never cease? Join us as we explain how to not only get the IE7 beta release, but also how to easily install an IE6 standalone version to work alongside IE7. That's right, you may see the future right now, and still have IE6 to kick around too! Don't worry, it's is easy revert back to the primary IE6 install if you are not happy with the beta results. As a bonus we will talk about changes you can make when supplying filtered CSS values to the different versions of IE. So buckle those seatbelts, here we go! The Preparing for IE7 Series: Preparing for IE7 - Part One Preparing for IE7 - Part Two Preparing for IE7 - Part Three: Multiple IE Browsers on One Computer Preparing for IE7 - Part Four: Updating a Real World Style Sheet Preparing for IE7 - Part Five Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 4: Customizing the asp:Login Control Heidi Bautista In this part of the Exploring ASP.NET v2 series you'll learn how to customize the asp:Login control using VWD's built-in "chrome" feature, which allows you to convert the control to use a layout template. This allows for much greater flexibility in the look of the login form. Plus you can replace the auto-generated table markup with more accessible and css-friendly code that you provide. This article also discusses several of the login control's attributes, such as the "Remember me next time" checkbox, pages to redirect to upon success of failure, and form validation error messages. The Exploring ASP.NET v2 Series: Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 1: Membership Tags, VWD, and Cassini Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 2: VWD's ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 3: Graduate to SQL Server 2000 and IIS Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 4: Customizing the asp:Login control HTTP 500: Getting to the Root of the Error [FREE] Adrian Senior Setting out on the path to dynamic web site development can be a daunting task — it really is a whole new ball game. We can make things a little easier on ourselves by making an adjustment within Internet Explorers default settings and do away with the dreaded, and utterly useless, HTTP 500 error.
Testing ColdFusion Forms One of the most frequent problems that arises when developing ColdFusion applications is form processing. Often, forms don't work because they don't return the expected results. In this article, you'll learn how to create a form tester page that you can use to view the results of forms submitted via GET and POST. These can be regular HTML forms, or forms created using the cfform tag. You can even test Flash forms in ColdFusion MX 7. Check out the Article by CMX Partner Paul Newman
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats! This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX admirer Michelle Horvath Going Back in Time With Photoshop Most folks know that you can go back several steps in Photoshop by going back in the History Pallet. However, you can only go back so many steps this way. If you have a major project and want to be able to go back quite a few steps when necessary, go to the "Snapshot" option under the History Pallet. Use this to save steps along the way in any Photoshop project. You can save the steps within an entire document, merged layers or just the current layer. This saves having to guess which step in your History pallet you wanted to go back to. Would you like your tip published? Submit it to tips@communitymx.com. That's it for this week. Stay tuned for the next CMX newsletter!

CMX Weekly Newsletter

News
Fun and Freebies
Recent CMX Content
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats

Check the News!

TODcon 2006 in Orlando

For the few who haven't experienced it yet, TODCon is the most informative yet informal Macromedia/Adobe-related event you're going to find. Whether you're a seasoned veteran of Macromedia or Adobe products or you're just starting out, you will have a great time learning a great deal from many knowledgeable speakers about CSS, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, ColdFusion, Flash, Central and even about running your business properly. Those who attend usually end up coming back every year because of the unique and informal atmosphere. You don't want to miss out on this event. This year, TODcon will take place in beautiful Orlando, Florida, just a hop, skip and jump from Disney World. Your registration (with the rooming option) includes three nights (May 18th, 19th and 20th) at the Wyndham plus a 3-day trolley pass that covers transportation throughout the International Drive attractions area.

You're invited to register for this fantastic, one-of-a-kind event. Do it quick, while the early bird pricing is still effect.

Dell vs. Dell

Anyone who frequents Macromedia's Dreamweaver forums has probably run across Paul Dell, otherwise known as Pablo. Paul runs a website design company named Dell Websites, whose company website is dellwebsites.com. His name is Dell, and he builds websites - makes sense, right? The folks over at Dell.com don't like this bit of logic, and they're suing Paul Dell to make him stop using that web address. Paul's friends have banded together and put up a website, appropriately named help-paul-dell.com, where you can keep up to date on what's happening with the lawsuit. His plight has been picked up by several news sources, and tons of blogs. Anyone wanting to help Paul with legal fees can do so by making a donation on his website. Hopefully Paul can keep his name. "PabloSites.com" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Say It With Me: It's a Feature, Not a Bug

Since Firefox 1.5 - and its subsequent update - came out a couple of months ago, there have been quite a few complaints about it hogging resources, and generally slowing down people's computers. A developer explained that much of the system memory was allotted to a new feature in Firefox, which ironically enough is supposed to speed up your browsing experience. If you've experienced the lag, there are a couple of things you can do about it, and neither one involves uninstalling Firefox. First, head over to the SpartanEdge.com blog and check out the tips from Hutch for speeding things up. Secondly, go to Mozillazine.org and see if you are running any of the Firefox extensions on their list. Some of the extensions listed have a fix or workaround, so you might be up and running - more quickly - in no time flat.

If You Use ColdFusion, You'll Dig This

Our friend Massimo Foti recently posted a link to RemoteSynthesis.com where they have listed a barrage of open source projects for ColdFusion. In this list, you'll find links to CFCs, custom tags and full-blown applications dealing with AJAX, bug tracking, blogs, bulletin boards and plenty of other useful ColdFusion stuff. Fantastic resource.

We Feel Their Pain

Mac users got an interesting wake-up call this week when three vulnerabilities were exposed in the OS X operating system. We'll link to all three via News.com articles: The first trojan to target Macs was discovered, a worm that exploits an 8-month old OS X vulnerability reared its ugly head, and finally, a flaw was found in the Mac OS that could allow hackers to take control of your computer via a rootkit, just from visiting a site with malicious code on it. As of this writing, Apple has not issued a patch as yet, so make sure to be careful with email attachments, and stay away from strange sites (you have to tell Mac users this, because they're not used to watching out for this kind of stuff).

Satisfied Customers Speak Out!

"This is one of the best articles I have read on CommunityMX -- in fact all things considered I would call it the best for its information, order of presentation and usefulness. I am moving from the php world to asp.net. I am probably classifed as a part time web designer so the methods I chose to learn by are not orderly. I just jump in and start doing things. This article was great. "

- James A., CMX Subscriber, commenting on Heidi Bautista's Tutorial, Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 4: Customizing the asp:Login Control

Whether you're just starting out or need advanced support, Community MX will give you answers and ideas to work through your tough issues. Don't miss out. Learn more about CMX or sign up for a free trial today!

Great Quotes:

"Looking at the proliferation of personal web pages on the net, it looks like very soon everyone on earth will have 15 Megabytes of fame." — M.G. Siriam

Wonder If They're Taking Requests

Google and Earthlink have teamed up in a bid to offer free wireless internet access to the entire city of San Francisco. They'll be competing with several other companies who want the business, but the name recognition of both companies will bolster Google and Earthlink's chances. Both companies say they want to be a positive part of the San Francisco community and simply want everyone to experience everything the internet has to offer. Somewhere in there, they forgot to mention the outrageous amount of advertising and demographic information they'll be getting out of this. The full story is at Yahoo.com.

You Mean $6,000 For a Powerbook Isn't a Good Deal?

Some of us here at Community MX aren't sure how we survived before we bought laptops. Being able to work at any given time, anywhere at all is a great luxury, and with most hotels now having internet access, you can have all the benefits of having a desktop computer everywhere you go. If you're thinking about getting a laptop, but you'd rather save a few bucks by buying a used or refurbished unit, you'll want to read this article at NotebookReview.com that explains how to buy laptops from eBay and other online marketplaces.

Not To Lay a Bummer On You, But...

It looks like PlayStation 3 from Sony may not be hitting the store shelves as early as they'd originally anticipated. Certain specifications have not been decided on, and unless the spec's are made definite very soon, the launch of the PS3 could be pushed back as late as November of this year or early 2007. Read it and weep at SignOnSanDiego.com.

See Bob. See The Kids Hate Bob.

If you're worried that your kids are spending too much time on the computer, TV or playing video games and you just don't have the time or inclination to get them doing something else, get Bob. Bob is a new gadget from Hopscotch Technology that you plug your TV, computer or video game into. Bob shuts off the device after a specified amount of time, forcing your kid to actually explore an area away from whatever is hogging their attention. Learn more about Bob at News.com.

AOL: Same Old Service, Higher Prices

AOL is raising the price of their dial-up service to match the price they now charge for their broadband internet service. Both services will cost $25.90. This article at BetaNews.com says that this change is an effort on the part of AOL to get subscribers to move to AOL's broadband service. It is said that AOL has lost quite a few subscribers in the past couple of years, and that if they can get people to experience their speedy broadband, their customers might be more likely to stick with them. Either that, or there will be a mass exodus of dial-up users angered by higher prices. We'll see how this pans out for AOL.

CMX Expiration Dates

The CMX Expiration Dates extension allows you to set dates for files you work with that expire. If a page is beyond its expiration date, when you next start Dreamweaver this extension will let you know that you have a file to be edited. This functionality can be useful when you need to update a page (or set of pages) on an occasional basis, or even on an ongoing basis. For example, you may manage the company's knowledge management system, and you want to make sure that your content contributors are alerted when their content needs to be checked for "freshness" to ensure that the information contained on the pages they cover does not go stale, then the Expiration Date extension can help you acheive your goals. Or if your home page should be updated on Mondays to reflect the next set of featured products that arrived just this weekend, then you can set the expiration date for the home page for the upcoming Monday; then when you start Dreamweaver up on Monday morning, Dreamweaver will alert you to the fact that you need to update a file (in this case the home page). You can then edit that file, publish it. If desired, you can then set the expiration date for the file for the following Monday, to lather, rinse and repeat the cycle of updates as necessary.

Check out the Extension by CMX Partner Danilo Celic

Fun and Freebies

Fink Has a Big Eye

Ed Fink is a photographer who specializes in panoramas. Some of his work is beautiful to look at, and we thought we'd share a link to his website at BigEyeInTheSky.com. Check out the "Fireworks" panorama.

Art is in the Big Eye of the Beholder

We're not sure why anyone would want to paint their fingernails so they look like name brand sodas, but this page at ImpactLabs.com proves once again that if there's anything wierd going on anywhere, you'll find it on the internet.

Maybe He Just Needs One of Those Sleep Number Beds

A Vietnamese man claims not to have slept for a little over thirty years. We heard psychosis sets in after just a week of no sleep. This guy must have gone to crazyville and back a few times already.Sixty-four-year-old Thai Ngoc had this to say: “I don’t know whether the insomnia has impacted my health or not. But I’m still healthy and can farm normally like others." The article neglects to mention that Ngoc followed up that statement by saying "My penguin nebulus mombo dogface to the banana patch."

List Display Problems In Explorer For Windows - Part One

This tutorial begins a series about display problems encountered in Internet Explorer for Windows when using list elements. First up, we will discover some differences between browsers and how to compensate for them, and then we will solve the mystery of the missing bullets in IE. Join us!

This free article by CMX Partners Holly Bergevin and John Gallant can be found here.

Weekly Content Listing

Stupid Web Cam Tricks - Part Two

Tom Green

In this installment of Stupiud Web Cam Tricks you are shown how to create a series of blocks with video in them. You are also shown how to create your own stack.

Convert an Existing Site to Use ASP.NET Master Pages and Themes

Heidi Bautista

One of the great advantages in ASP.NET v2.0 is the introduction of master pages and themes. This tutorial presents a practical example of converting an existing site to use master pages and themes. Our example site is the Community MX North Pole JumpStart. You'll learn how to chop up the code to create the master page, where to put the theme files and how to modify the existing css file so that it works well with the theme. It's actually a very quick process and one that can be adapted to any JumpStart offered by Community MX.

Approximate download size: 320k

Dynamic & Accessible Navigation with ColdFusion

Adrian Senior

In this tutorial we are going to be looking at creating a dynamic and accessible navigation system. To do this we will be using cfoutput queries and the group attribute to gather in the information for both our top level and our sub level navigation options.

Cool GoLive Features Part 4: The QuickTime Editor

Sheri German

It's really rather surprising. Hidden in Adobe GoLive you get a whole other application: a QuickTime movie maker and editor. It includes everything from Sprite tools to Flash integration to drop-dead simple slide shows. So don't despair if you don't have an expensive, dedicated movie editing program but you do have Adobe CS2. You will be amazed at what you can do with the GoLive QuickTime Editor.

In this first tutorial in the QuickTime series, we'll look at the GoLive QuickTime tools and environment, and then create a slide show movie with picture, sound and text tracks. In upcoming tutorials we will look at Sprites, Flash integration, filters, and other more advanced GoLive QuickTime features.
This tutorial includes a sample MP3 and folder of images so that you can follow along.

Approximate download size: 1.8MB

Creating Edge/Border Effects in Fireworks

Jim Babbage

You never stop learning. Something I have always been interested in is a way to produce a similar result or effect in different software packages. Take Photoshop and Fireworks, for example. Photoshop gives you the ability to create some pretty cool edge and border effects without having to go out and buy third-party software, as you'll see in Knut Kubenz' recent tutorial.

Reading that tutorial, I got to wondering how I could do the same kind of thing in Fireworks. One inherent difference between the two programs is that PhotoShop's roots are firmly planted in the raster graphic half of digital imaging. Fireworks has its roots in the vector graphics half. So, needless to say, there are some different ways to achieve the same kind of result. One thing I do like about this method is that it is non-destructive; no pixel data will be harmed or deleted during the making of this edge effect.

My focus will be on using vector shapes and the built-in Live Filters of Fireworks to create my edge effects. You have a great deal of control with vector shapes. Combine that with the power of Live Filters and your own sense of imagination and you've got a lot of creative potential ready to be unleashed.

We'll be looking at three methods in detail using:

vector shapes
custom paths
Live Filters
strokes

I'll also touch on using bitmap masks to create edge effects.

Super Edge Effects Using the Quick Mask in Photoshop

Knut Kubenz

Why spend extra money on third party software when you can create a variety of super edge effects using simple tools in Photoshop?!

Approximate download size: 770k

Emulate the Best

Thomas Pletcher

Emulation and virtualization software enables you to sample a broad range of operating systems and development tools, easily and safely. QEMU is an open source, cross-platform processor emulator that offers great versatility and, on the right hardware, usable speed. This article describes how to install QEMU on Windows, Linux and OS X, and how to install the kqemu QEMU Accelerator for Windows. It also shows how to use QEMU with two Linux virtual machines (Debian and SUSE).

Preparing For IE7 - Part Five

John Gallant, Holly Bergevin

Well, Microsoft has done it. In case you haven't heard, MS has actually released a public beta version of their new IE7 bowser! Will wonders never cease? Join us as we explain how to not only get the IE7 beta release, but also how to easily install an IE6 standalone version to work alongside IE7. That's right, you may see the future right now, and still have IE6 to kick around too! Don't worry, it's is easy revert back to the primary IE6 install if you are not happy with the beta results. As a bonus we will talk about changes you can make when supplying filtered CSS values to the different versions of IE. So buckle those seatbelts, here we go!

The Preparing for IE7 Series:
Preparing for IE7 - Part One
Preparing for IE7 - Part Two
Preparing for IE7 - Part Three: Multiple IE Browsers on One Computer
Preparing for IE7 - Part Four: Updating a Real World Style Sheet
Preparing for IE7 - Part Five

Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 4: Customizing the asp:Login Control

Heidi Bautista

In this part of the Exploring ASP.NET v2 series you'll learn how to customize the asp:Login control using VWD's built-in "chrome" feature, which allows you to convert the control to use a layout template. This allows for much greater flexibility in the look of the login form. Plus you can replace the auto-generated table markup with more accessible and css-friendly code that you provide. This article also discusses several of the login control's attributes, such as the "Remember me next time" checkbox, pages to redirect to upon success of failure, and form validation error messages.

The Exploring ASP.NET v2 Series:
Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 1: Membership Tags, VWD, and Cassini
Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 2: VWD's ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool
Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 3: Graduate to SQL Server 2000 and IIS
Exploring ASP.NET v2 - Part 4: Customizing the asp:Login control

HTTP 500: Getting to the Root of the Error [FREE]

Adrian Senior

Setting out on the path to dynamic web site development can be a daunting task — it really is a whole new ball game. We can make things a little easier on ourselves by making an adjustment within Internet Explorers default settings and do away with the dreaded, and utterly useless, HTTP 500 error.

Testing ColdFusion Forms

One of the most frequent problems that arises when developing ColdFusion applications is form processing. Often, forms don't work because they don't return the expected results. In this article, you'll learn how to create a form tester page that you can use to view the results of forms submitted via GET and POST. These can be regular HTML forms, or forms created using the cfform tag. You can even test Flash forms in ColdFusion MX 7.

Check out the Article by CMX Partner Paul Newman

Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!

This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX admirer Michelle Horvath

Going Back in Time With Photoshop

Most folks know that you can go back several steps in Photoshop by going back in the History Pallet. However, you can only go back so many steps this way. If you have a major project and want to be able to go back quite a few steps when necessary, go to the "Snapshot" option under the History Pallet. Use this to save steps along the way in any Photoshop project. You can save the steps within an entire document, merged layers or just the current layer. This saves having to guess which step in your History pallet you wanted to go back to.

Would you like your tip published? Submit it to tips@communitymx.com.

That's it for this week. Stay tuned for the next CMX newsletter!