Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
CMX Weekly Newsletter
Check the News!
TODcon 2006 in Orlando - Getting Closer Every Day
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.
Windows Vista Lives Up To Its Name
At Dictionary.com, the word "Vista" means "A distant view or prospect", which seems even more appropriate now that Microsoft has announced that they're pushing the launch date back a while. Instead of later in 2006, we'll be seeing Vista, tentatively, in January 2007. Because MS will be offering six different flavors of Vista when it is released, we feel better about it being pushed back. If it helps reduce the number of bugs - and there will be bugs - we're all for it. Check out more on this at CNN.com. Also, check out PCWorld.com for an article that ponders whether the Vista delay is a good thing for Apple (Hint: The answer is yes)
Them's The Rules
There is a huge industry built around search engine submission, and a lot of that business focuses around how to rank high on Google. Why does "high on Google" sound like something from a bad 70s summer movie? In any case, while Google has kept their lips pretty tight regarding what will get you to the number one spot, they're specific about what will just plain get you kicked out of their index, or not even get considered for inclusion to begin with. If you haven't seen it yet, follow this link to Google.
Making The Case For Video Games
For anyone who thinks that video games are a brain-melting waste of time, Yahoo.com has an article that delves into the many uses of video games in health regimens and rehabilitation. One new way that video games are being used as a positive force in the medical field is through the use of neuro-feedback. While playing some games, valuable feedback from a child's brain can be retrieved and analyzed and used to help further diagnose problems. Some video games help kids to work through the anxiety they go through with disease. Interesting article at Yahoo.com.
Yahoo! Skype Competition
Yahoo has just made available a beta version of its instant messaging software that has voice capability. Like one of its competitors, Skype, Yahoo's IM will be free when calling from PC to PC and they won't charge for incoming calls. Calls made from PC to landline will be charged, but at a price that comes in under the competition. Yahoo will also offer a local telephone number for your PC so people can call you from a landline. Hear all about it at TechNewsWorld.com.
Satisfied Customers Speak Out!
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"I saw this tutorial a while back and thought 'Why on earth would I want to do this tutorial, when browsers already provide tool tips for the user.' So yesterday I decided to see how you guys could stretch what seemed like a silly topic into 6 parts. Last night I did parts 1-3 and was impressed. This morning I have done part 4, and have been blown away... This tutorial is fantastic, my mind is working overtime thinking about what visual effects I can create using this technique (and I have yet to work through Parts 4 & 5).
Thank you for such a great tutorial, this has to be the best I have done so far. Brilliant!"
- Very enthusiastic CMX Subscriber Stuart, commenting on Holly Bergevin and John Gallant's tutorial "CSS Tooltips - Part IV"
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:
"The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable." — John Kenneth Galbraith
Dell and the Alien
Sometimes the rumor mill is right. In this case it sure was: Dell Computers has just announced its purchase of Alienware. There was a time when Dell was one of the only computer makers that was able to get away with charging a higher price on their PCs, and their great customer service at the time justified that cost. They've driven their prices down in recent years, but Alienware still charges up the wazoo for their machines. They get away with it by delivering quality machines with a unique look. Dell is smart to want to attach themselves to Alienware's innovation... and money, of course. See DesignTechnica.com for more on this. You can also read John Dvorak's article at Marketwatch.com that asks the question "What's Wrong With Dell?"
Good For What Ails Your iPod
What's that, Skippy? You say your iPod is behaving strangely? You may not know that your iPod has a diagnostics mode that will help you pinpoint the problem. Run on over to MethodShop.com and learn how to give your iPod the medicine it needs.
Bon Echo? Isn't That An 80s New Wave Band?
The Firefox 2 alpha is available for download. Named "Bon Echo", it boasts changes to FF's tabbed browsing, more efficient data storage for bookmarks and history and a few other goodies that you might want to check out. Being an alpha release, you could experience some instabilities that could cause problems with your system. You should really only run the download, available at Mozilla.org, if you have a real need to do so, or in the words of Danilo Celic, "if you're into finding and reporting bugs for the good of all mankind, you may want to take a stab at it."
Firefox: Breaking Up Couples Since 2006
From Digg.com, we found a link to a bug at Mozilla.org for its Firefox browser. You can see the bug report here - scroll down that page to see it. Just to give you an idea, a woman reported a bug that causes users of the same computers, even though they had separate Windows XP accounts, to be able to use the "Save password" feature in FF and get into each other's password-protected sites. Apparently Joe was visiting dating sites, and his fiance, who filed the bug, didn't care for it too much. I'm sure Joe's history on his ex-fiance's computer is now history as well.
So, File Sharers Are Not Filled With Warm, Fuzzy Integrity?
StopBadware.org exists only to make you aware of the dangers of spyware, malware and the like, and try to help eradicate from existence. A noble cause in our book. They also keep track of which programs can be identified as "badware" so that you can avoid them. Topping their list is Kazaa, a P2P file sharing program that evidently "advertises itself as spywarefree, does not completely remove all components during the uninstall process, interferes with computer use, and makes undisclosed modifications to other software." Yep. That's bad alright. See StopBadware.org for more badware information.
CMX AJAX Form Submit Extension For Dreamweaver
- The CMX AJAX Form Submit Behavior for Dreamweaver and Dreamweaver MX 2004 allows you to use AJAX technology to submit form information to a server-side processing script and receive the results back without having to reload the page.
Check out the Extension by CMX Partner Rob Williams
Fun and Freebies
Will Ferrel Apple Parody
Apple is better than a Parfait... Check it out at Google Video.
They Pixelate, So You Don't Have To
You know how a lot of the time they'll pixelate the logos on people's t-shirts and hats on TV? Reality TV shows are a good example of that. Someone came up with the fantastic idea of pre-pixelating logos and putting them on shirts and hats. Plenty of people are kicking themselves for not having thought of it first. Check out the new pixel-ware at IronicSans.com.
Stringing You Along
A maddening Flash game for you at ZeroNews-fr.com. The idea is to pull a string through several types of mazes without it touching anything. Sure, it sounds simple, but wait until you start pulling your hair out. Then again, if you get that frustrated over games, maybe you shouldn't play after all.
Using JumpStarts with Cartweaver, Featuring Minneapolis
- Community MX has released several JumpStarts that make ideal site designs for e-commerce sites, but the latest release of Minneapolis is a dedicated e-commerce design. This tutorial will discuss how Minneapolis (and other JumpStarts) can be used with Cartweaver, a third-party shopping cart. As a member of both Community MX and the Cartweaver team, I hope I can give you a good perspective of how to implement a third-party cart like Cartweaver with a Community MX JumpStart.
This free article by CMX Partner Tom Muck can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing
Comparing Illustrator and Freehand
Illustrator and Freehand have worked hard to outdo each other over the years. If one of these applications added a new tool or feature to its resume the other would soon follow with a similar update. Therefore it's not surprising these programs are able to produce very similar results. Both applications specialize in producing vector based artwork for print or the web. As well, both can work with multiple color modes, many different file types and offer drawing tools for producing complex artwork.
Although Illustrator and Freehand have the ability to produce similar results the steps to acheive these results may be quite different. Understanding the different terminology and location of tools in a new application can be frustrating and time consuming. This article will help reduce that frustration by demonstrating how to complete the same basic tasks in each application. In addition we will compare the panels in Freehand to the palettes in Illustrator. If you are a Freehand or Illustrator user and have had the need or interest to use the other application, this tutorial will get you started.
Flash Video Cue Points: Part 4 - Adding Cue Points with Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 [FREE]
When Flash Professional 8 was released in 2005, the only tool available to add embedded cue points to Flash Video (.flv) files was Macromedia's own Flash 8 Video Encoder tool. Now, Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 adds a powerful cue point creation feature to the mix. Read this tutorial to learn how to add navigation cue points to your Flash Video files.
The Flash Video Cue Points Series:
Flash Video Cue Points: Part 1 - Overview of Cue Points
Flash Video Cue Points: Part 2 - Embedded Navigation Cue Points with Flash Pro 8
Flash Video Cue Points: Part 3 - Building a List of Embedded Cue Points
Flash Video Cue Points: Part 4 - Adding Cue Points with Sorenson Squeeze 4.3
Approximate download size: 4.6MB
More Mozilla Mojo [FREE]
Many (actually, most) of today's most innovative and standards-compliant browsers have a family connection in common: Mozilla. This review will look at three of the most recent Mozilla descendants — Camino 1.0, Netscape 8.1 and SeaMonkey 1.0 — to see what they have to offer, both from a developer perspective and for end users.
Simple Layer Masking with Photoshop
If you've read any of my articles, you've probably heard me rant and rave about the power and flexibility of using masks while working in Fireworks. Photoshop has some pretty powerful masking features as well. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create and edit a layer mask from a bitmap selection, and drop in a new background behind the masked object.
Layer masks can be created using either another bitmap image or a bitmap selection. In this particular example, we'll be using a bitmap selection to mask the background of an image. I'll show you how easy it can be to create a layer mask, and adjust it to suit your needs.
This type of masking has many uses. It comes in very handy if — for example — you are working on a catalogue site and need to have all the products on an identical background. Another situation might be a scenic photo that was shot on a drab, overcast day. Wouldn't it be great if you could replace that nondescript grey sky with a bright blue one with fluffy clouds? Well, you can with masking, and keep everything editable in case you change your mind later (or find a better sky).
Preventing Accidental Data Loss - Or Giving Your Clients a Second Chance
In this article we will look at providing ways of preventing accidental data loss when providing Content Management Systems to your clients. We will specificlly look at providing an archive mechanism and interfacing delete requests with a confirmation page.
Low Cost Developer Tools: Part Two - Toolbars
Our Low Cost Developer Tools series continues with a look at five 'toolbars' and a DOM Inspector available for Internet Explorer, Mozilla/Firefox and Opera. These web developer tools are like Swiss Army knives for web pages, letting you experiment on, dissect, and partially disable pages with ease. In short, dozens of developer-related functions are available at the click of a mouse! Let's check them out.
The Low Cost Developer Tools Series:
Low Cost Developer Tools: Part One - Firefox Extensions
Low Cost Developer Tools: Part Two - Toolbars
Hand Coloring and Tinting a Photo in Photoshop
Harken back to the days of olde when a photographer used FILM and made enlargements in a DARKROOM. This tutorial will show you step-by-step, how to recreate some of the coloring and tinting techniques that have been used for years on traditional black and white photographs, using Photoshop's Actions, adjustment layers, masks, gradients, bitmap selections and the paint brush tool.
ASP.NET v2.0 - Using the SqlDataSource and GridView Controls
In this tutorial you'll learn how to connect to the SQL Server database using VWD and how to get the connection string needed for the web.config. You'll learn how to use the SqlDataSource control to retrieve data from a SQL Server database. You'll see how the SqlDataSource can be used with a SELECT statement and with a stored procedure. And you'll learn how to create a SqlDataSource with or without parameters. You'll learn how to tell data-bound controls (DropDownList and GridView) where to get the data with which to populate the controls. Last but not least you'll learn how the process of getting data and binding the data to controls in ASP.NET v2.0 (and VWD) differs from the way you did it in DW with ASP.NET v1.1.
Modifying the Machu Picchu JumpStart to Work with Short Pages
The Machu Picchu JumpStart is a great two-column, fixed-width design that can work for many types of sites. But like any web site design, it is not one-size-fits-all. If you have pages that are rather short on content, you'll notice that the side menu can overlap the footer. For most sites, this problem will never be revealed due to the length of the pages, making Machu Picchu an effortless choice. If you fall into the minority with short pages, however, there are a few easy modifications you can make to Machu Picchu to stop the footer overlap and allow you to keep using this beautiful JumpStart.
This tutorial will walk you through the basic changes to the XHTML and CSS that are needed to keep the sidebar from overlapping the footer on short pages. Included in the download for this tutorial is a revised version of both the HTML file and screen style sheet that can be used in place of the original Machu Picchu files on projects where very long sidebars or very short pages may be a reality.
Loaders Demystified - Part 2: Creating a Simple Loader [FREE]
The process of creating a loading progress indicator for your Flash movie is more involved than you may think. Here's one way of constructing one that is "bullet proof".
The Loaders Demystified Series
Loaders Demystified - Part 1: Usability Guidelines
Loaders Demystified - Part 2: Creating a Simple Loader
Approximate download size: 2.2MB
CSS Picker in ASP.NET
- The first time I came across a site that allowed you to select your own stylesheet, I was amazed at the stunning simplicity of the technique, and the powerful effect it could have on the user experience. Seeing as how ASP.NET is my server language of choice, I wanted to show how easy it was to implement this functionality in your very own site. This article will show you how to create a CSS picker with ASP.NET using a Session variable and an HttpHandler. Code is presented in C# and you do not need a compiler to run the sample provided with the article.
Check out the Article by CMX Partner Joel Martinez
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!
This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX Associate Kim Cavanaugh
Flash Video Tip
When designing compositions that include a video player in Flash I like to take a screenshot of the player in a browser window. I can then use that bitmap image in a guide layer to help in designing the rest of the interface and for making decisions on skinning the player.
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!