
Wednesday, April 26th, 2006
CMX Weekly Newsletter News Fun and Freebies Recent CMX Content Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats 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 in effect. The Next CMX Design Element, Straight From Krypton Our CMX design sorcerer, Gordon Mackay, is back with another CMX Design Element in our series of fully developed Fireworks design comps that you can slice and code any way you please. We leave element Carbon, and this time offer you element Kr, aka Krypton, in our CMX Design Element Krypton. Krypton no doubt conjures up Superman's green power crystals, and indeed we do intend to empower you with these designs. The element Krypton, however, is more commonly used in photographic flashes for speed photography. Well, what do you know! The Krypton design also includes a photo gallery example. The CMX Design Element Krypton package comes with the following: The complete design, organized into logical layers and frames Color scheme layer that you can use as is or to develop your own set of matching color swatches Bundled articles that will guide you in the use of included design techniques such as importing an .STL, slicing and exporting, using fills and strokes, applying styles and using frames 14 useful icons that are hand drawn in Fireworks as completely customizable vector objects 4 styles of form control buttons 8 styles of bullets for use in lists and headings A companion article that includes documentation on how to use the design An .STL file that can be imported into Fireworks and used to re-apply all the styles used in the design of Krypton CMX Design Element Krypton article for nonmembers and members who would like to read suggestions about how you might code this design. CMX Design Element Krypton article and file download for members and those who would like to purchase Krypton now. Opera 9 Beta Released Opera, one of the best browsers that most folks haven't used, has just released a beta that might interest folks who either use Opera already or just like to compare and contrast. New features include Opera Widgets, a built-in BitTorrent client, the ability to customize the way Opera handles different websites and a content blocker. The press release at Opera.com will give you more information. We Shall Name It... The Choudri Defense Toquir Choudri liked to connect to the internet at work. His boss on the other hand, wasn't so fond of Choudri taking internet liberties and canned him, which resulted in Choudri taking his employer to court. The judge decided that Choudri's work was not affected by his internet sessions, and said that looking at the internet is not unlike taking a personal call or reading a newspaper at work. Choudri was probably jazzed at the outcome of the suit, since the previous discrimination suit against his employer hadn't panned out. More at EarthTimes.org. USB Drive Freeware For Fanatics Computer techs in particular might be interested in this one: From a link at Digg.com, we found SnapFiles.com, which has a list of freeware applications that fit on your USB drive, and do not need to be installed, meaning that they can run right off of the USB drive. Some of the applications listed include WinAudit, FTP Server Lite and Drive Manager.
Satisfied Customers Speak Out! "This series is incredibly cool, Tom. It makes me feel young again and believe me, that's quite a task. Thanks for making this subject so simple! " CMX Subscriber David S., commenting on Tom Green's tutorial "Teaming up Fireworks and Flash 8 to Create a Custom Video Player" 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 future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive." — John Sladek "MySpace"? More Like "Taking Up Too Much Space"! Students at Del Mar College in Texas won't be visiting MySpace from the campus anymore. After internet service started getting sluggish, the college IT department looked into the slowdown and found that 40% of all the campus' bandwidth was being consumed by students visiting MySpace.com. MySpace is now blocked at the Del Mar campus, and feelings about it are mixed among the students. It's unknown whether or not August Alfonso, the school's chief of the IT department just wanted to shut it down because no one would give him a shout out on his page... MSNBC.com has more on the story. They Know If You've Been Bad or Good If you run Windows, Microsoft will be checking to see if you're running a legitimate copy each time you use Windows Update, Microsoft Update for Windows or Microsoft Download Center. If you're running a bogus copy of Windows, they'll let you know right then. Microsoft says that they're doing this to alert people that they're running a bad copy of Windows just in case they didn't already know. This is a voluntary program for now, meaning users can opt out of Microsoft checking their copy of Windows, but Director of Genuine Windows, David Lazar, said that MS may make it mandatory within the coming year. Computers found with bogus copies of Windows will not be able to upload IE 7 or Windows updates, except for critical patches and fixes. More on this at TechNewsWorld.com. Apparently They're Not Fans of Internet Explorer When you're running a website named ExplorerDestroyer.com, there's a good chance that Internet Explorer is not your favorite browser. The website waxes poetic about the virtues of Firefox, saying that Firefox is the most important browser to come along in recent history (we should point out that there really aren't that many browsers out there...). The website even offers scripts to place on your website that can alert IE users that they should be using Firefox. Apparently there is a script that will even block IE users from using the website at all. Pretty hardcore folks. Some of us here at CMX use Firefox, but... we just like it. We don't loooooove it. Read more about it at Yahoo.com. Something For The Mac Users To Salivate Over Apple has unveiled their new MacBook Pro, which boasts a 17-inch monitor and a 2.16-GHz Intel Core Duo processor. It also comes with an iSight camera, and weighs just under seven pounds. Drooling yet? We thought so. With a remote control that allows you to give presentations or control your audio or video from across the room, and its sleek aluminum casing, it appears to be a powerful and good looking portable workstation. Is it too early to ask for one for Christmas? Check out Apple's website for the full low-down and spec's. It's Always Nice To Have Someone Else Be The Lab Rat A helpful article at Hardocp.com walks you through the experiences of buying a computer at Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and Fry’s Electronics so you'll know roughly what to expect the next time you're computer shopping at one of these major retailers. The article doesn't choose a favorite, but it does give you an idea of how each store treated its customers during the shopping experience.
CMX Insert FlashObject 1.2 (Dreamweaver Extension) FlashObject is an external JavaScript file, created by Geoff Stearns, that enables you to embed Flash movies into web pages using XHTML-compliant code. The CMX Insert FlashObject extension automatically inserts FlashObject code into Dreamweaver documents, and copies flashobject.js into the folder you specify. Now supports major, minor, and revision Flash Player detection. Check out the Extension by CMX Partner Paul Newman
Fun and Freebies A Complete Waste of Time But still, it's one of those things that once you see it, you have to respond. At NeedToGetOutMore.co.uk, you're given a refrigerator, and magnets to place on the refrigerator. Each magnet has a word, and after you arrange your words on the refrigerator, the words are repeated back in the order given. Lame, but... lame is fun sometimes. Looking At This Map Gives Us Gas Gas prices in the U.S. are at an all-time high. Some folks, or states rather, have it tougher than others. For a good look at who's paying what across the nation, visit GasBuddy.com. Now You Can Stink At Playing Piano Online, Too At TypOrganism.com, you can compose your own virtual song and have it played back. You can also submit your work of art to the website to make it available to all visitors. It's a bit tricky unless you know what keys are for which notes, but then again, not knowing might make for an interestingly creative mix.
Adding Flash Video to Dreamweaver 8 Web video is suddenly all the rage thanks to Flash Professional 8, those wonderful people at On2 and Sorenson and the folks at Adobe who provide the video editing software. It is enough to make a web developer's head spin. Suddenly we are confronted with putting web video in our web pages because clients see the neat stuff the "Cool Kids" over on the Flash side of the street are doing and we get caught with a "Me too!" The guys at Macromedia must have anticipated this because they did something with Flash Video in Dreamweaver 8 that is rather amazing; they made it even easier to use. Best off all, it is free. Prior to the release of Dreamweaver 8, the Flash Video Kit for Dreamweaver MX 2004 was a spending decision on your part if you wanted to add Flash video to your pages. Mind you, the "Kit" included a copy of Sorenson Squeeze Lite and it is still an integral FLV creation tool if you didn't purchase either Studio 8 or Flash Professional 8. The Video Kit is now bundled with the application and is even better than the retail version of the Video Kit. Macromedia has pulled off a rather amazing feat with Dreamweaver 8. They made adding video to your web pages even easier than ever. This free article by CMX Partner Tom Green can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing Sorting Out Illustrator's Selection Tools Kim Dudley When working with artwork in Illustrator you will likely find yourself spending a lot of time selecting parts of that artwork. This is not surprising since you must make a selection before you do almost any type of modification. With so much time spent on this task, and so many ways to make selections in Illustrator, I have written this tutorial to give an overview of Illustrator's selection tools. In this tutorial we will look at Illustrator's five selection tools, select menu and the layers palette selection options. I will discuss when it is best to use each tool or method and also include some tips and tricks for using some of the selection tools. A little practice using Illustrator's selection tools can really speed up your work and decrease your frustration when working with artwork in Illustrator. Flash Printing Tasks - Part 3: Adding Dynamic Text to the Certificate Robert Reinhardt In the last installment of this series, you learned how to print a certificate template that was created in Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Flash 8. In this next installment, you learn how to specify the name, title and date of the certificate using ActionScript. The Flash Printing Task Series: Flash Printing Tasks - Part 1: Building a Certificate Template in Illustrator and Flash Flash Printing Tasks - Part 2: Basic Printing of the Certificate Flash Printing Tasks - Part 3: Adding Dynamic Text to the Certificate JavaScript 101 - Part 2: Operators Rob Williams One of the primary aspects of effective web experiences is interactivity. Although most Flash developers will try to state otherwise, the reality of the fact is that the majority of non-standard interactivity, that is interactivity beyond what the broswer provides automatically, is driven by JavaScript. Over the last few years the acceptance of both standards and some new JavaScript technologies such as XMLHttpRequest, or AJAX to the masses, has opened up a whole new realm of possibilites that have helped to bring JavaScript back into the mainstream focus as an important and leading-edge technology. The purpose of this series of articles is to introduce newcomers to the concepts and fundamentals of JavaScript, so that you can begin to leverage the power of this technology in your own web projects. In Part 2 we'll continue our exploration of the fundamentals by looking at operators. Creating Dreamweaver Extension Packages Tom Muck This article will show how to create an extension package for Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver extensions are basically HTML and JavaScript files stored in a user's local configuration folder. To move an extension to a different machine or share it with other users, you can create an extension package. Dreamweaver comes with a free Extension Manager, which also includes a built-in packager for extensions. Building a Video Scrub Bar Tom Green The dreaded "video scrubber" isn't as scary as you may think. In fact, when you really think about it, it isn't that hard to create. You just have to think about the process in a slightly different manner. In this tutorial you will be creating a scrubber bar that allows you to drag the Progress widget and move forwards and backwards in the currently playing video. When you release the mouse, the video will start playing at that point. Like all of the previous tutorials in this series, we aren't going to dive right into the project. The first thing we are going to do is answer that "Age Old" question: How does the dang thing work? Approximate download size: 14.7MB Extending the ASP.NET AdRotator Joel Martinez ASP.NET's ad rotator control allows you to easily implement an ad campaign on your site. Unfortunately, the basic functionality of the built in control limits its uses because you can only have regular image-based ads. So to get around the problem, this article shows you how to use the , a custom server control that simply extends the built in control's functionality. Using the AdRotatorPlus, you will be able to serve regular images, Flash, text, and even ads from other ad networks. In addition to instructions on how to use the custom server control, the article also offers insight into the construction of the server control. You will learn concepts such as object oriented programming, and software design patterns. The code is presented in C# and ASP.NET 2.0 ... though some time is spent on discussion on how to get it running under ASP.NET 1.1 Flash Printing Tasks - Part 2: Basic Printing of the Certificate Robert Reinhardt In the last installment of this series, you learned how to create a certificate template in Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Flash 8. In this next installment, you learn how to add the appropriate ActionScript to your Flash movie to send output to a printer. The Flash Printing Task Series: Flash Printing Tasks - Part 1: Building a Certificate Template in Illustrator and Flash Flash Printing Tasks - Part 2: Basic Printing of the Certificate Flash Printing Tasks - Part 3: Adding Dynamic Text to the Certificate Coming Soon Retouching in Photoshop - Part 3 - More Image Adjustments Jim Babbage It's pretty much an undisputed fact that Photoshop is the king of bitmap editing tools — especially for high resolution, print-destined images. Photoshop CS and CS2 have some very cool and useful tools (seen in Part 1 and Part 2) and commands that can help you fix or clean up almost any image that is supplied to you. In this article (Part 3) we will look at some more Image Adjustment commands — some of which you will recognize if you are a veteran Fireworks user — and some which you will probably say, "Holy Image Adjustment heaven, Batman!" This article is intended as an introduction to some of Photoshop's image adjustment commands (with visual examples) and should not be considered an exhaustive exploration of these features. In this article we will look at some of the not-so familiar commands: Shadow/Highlight (Enhanced for CS 2) Exposure Replace Color Variations The Retouching Tools in Photoshop Series: Retouching Tools in Photoshop CS2: Part 1 Retouching Tools in Photoshop - Part 2: Image Adjustment Retouching Tools in Photoshop - Part 3: More Image Adjustments Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 3 Zoe Gillenwater This tutorial is the third part in a series on creating "teaser thumbnail lists" with CSS. Teaser thumbnail lists are those lists of items made up of a title, short description, and thumbnail. They're often used to provide short teasers that link to more information about the products, articles, or sections of the site being listed. In Parts 1 and 2, you've learned how to build teaser thumbnail lists from both definition lists and unordered lists and learned a couple different ways to style them. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a version of the teaser thumbnail list that is not seen as often as the versions we have already created: the horizontal version, where each item follows the next to its right instead of below. We'll give the horizontal list a unique style from the list created in Part 2 to illustrate the various styling possibilities that exist for lists like these. Without touching the markup and only editing the CSS slightly, you can create lists that match the look and feel of your site easily. The Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Series: Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 1 Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 2 Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 3 Retouching in Photoshop - Part 2 - Image Adjustments Jim Babbage It's pretty much an undisputed fact that Photoshop is the king of bitmap editing tools - especially for high resolution, print-destined images. Photoshop CS and CS2 have some very cool and useful tools (seen in Part 1) and commands that can help you fix or clean up almost any image that is supplied to you. In these article (Part 2 and Part 3) we will look at Image Adjustment commands - some of which you will recognize if you are a veteran Fireworks user - and some which you will probably say, "Holy Image Adjustment heaven, Batman!" This article is intended as an introduction to some of Photoshop's image adjustment commands (with visual examples) and should not be considered an exhaustive exploration of these features. In this article we will look at some of the not-so familiar commands: Auto Contrast Auto Color Color Balance Match Color The Retouching Tools in Photoshop Series: Retouching Tools in Photoshop CS2: Part 1 Retouching Tools in Photoshop - Part 2: Image Adjustment Retouching Tools in Photoshop - Part 3: More Image Adjustments
Share Your Style One of the greatest features of Fireworks is its extensibility. This extensibility allows developers to improve their workflow dramatically. Styles are one of those extensible features that people should be aware of and take advantage of as much as possible. In this tutorial we will learn about creating and sharing Fireworks styles with other Fireworks users. You may ask "Why would I want to share my Fireworks styles?" Let's look at a simple but realistic scenario: You are the lead designer on a project that encompasses a team of designers all working on the same composition. In order for numerous people to work on the same design, certain elements of that design must be kept consistent, this is where the ability to create, store and share Fireworks styles may become important. One other scenario may be that you're an incredibly generous mamber of the Fireworks community who likes to share their creativity with other users :) Either way this tutorial will be helpful, and will include some rather cool fireworks styles for you to use in your own projects. Check out the Article by CMX partner Gordon Mackay
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats! This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX Associate Bill Horvath Free Stuff Is Good Stuff They say you can't get anything for free nowadays. That's not entirely true. When it comes to free software, there is some great stuff out there, and a lot of it rivals comparable software that takes money out of your wallet. If you want one website that offers tons of free software, look no further than NoNags at Ded.com. For Windows users, we're confident that you'll find some treasures while browsing the site. 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 - 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 in effect.

The Next CMX Design Element, Straight From Krypton

Our CMX design sorcerer, Gordon Mackay, is back with another CMX Design Element in our series of fully developed Fireworks design comps that you can slice and code any way you please. We leave element Carbon, and this time offer you element Kr, aka Krypton, in our CMX Design Element Krypton. Krypton no doubt conjures up Superman's green power crystals, and indeed we do intend to empower you with these designs. The element Krypton, however, is more commonly used in photographic flashes for speed photography. Well, what do you know! The Krypton design also includes a photo gallery example.

The CMX Design Element Krypton package comes with the following:

The complete design, organized into logical layers and frames
Color scheme layer that you can use as is or to develop your own set of matching color swatches
Bundled articles that will guide you in the use of included design techniques such as importing an .STL, slicing and exporting, using fills and strokes, applying styles and using frames
14 useful icons that are hand drawn in Fireworks as completely customizable vector objects
4 styles of form control buttons
8 styles of bullets for use in lists and headings
A companion article that includes documentation on how to use the design
An .STL file that can be imported into Fireworks and used to re-apply all the styles used in the design of Krypton

CMX Design Element Krypton article for nonmembers and members who would like to read suggestions about how you might code this design.

CMX Design Element Krypton article and file download for members and those who would like to purchase Krypton now.

Opera 9 Beta Released

Opera, one of the best browsers that most folks haven't used, has just released a beta that might interest folks who either use Opera already or just like to compare and contrast. New features include Opera Widgets, a built-in BitTorrent client, the ability to customize the way Opera handles different websites and a content blocker. The press release at Opera.com will give you more information.

We Shall Name It... The Choudri Defense

Toquir Choudri liked to connect to the internet at work. His boss on the other hand, wasn't so fond of Choudri taking internet liberties and canned him, which resulted in Choudri taking his employer to court. The judge decided that Choudri's work was not affected by his internet sessions, and said that looking at the internet is not unlike taking a personal call or reading a newspaper at work. Choudri was probably jazzed at the outcome of the suit, since the previous discrimination suit against his employer hadn't panned out. More at EarthTimes.org.

USB Drive Freeware For Fanatics

Computer techs in particular might be interested in this one: From a link at Digg.com, we found SnapFiles.com, which has a list of freeware applications that fit on your USB drive, and do not need to be installed, meaning that they can run right off of the USB drive. Some of the applications listed include WinAudit, FTP Server Lite and Drive Manager.

Satisfied Customers Speak Out!

"This series is incredibly cool, Tom. It makes me feel young again and believe me, that's quite a task. Thanks for making this subject so simple! "

CMX Subscriber David S., commenting on Tom Green's tutorial "Teaming up Fireworks and Flash 8 to Create a Custom Video Player"

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 future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive." — John Sladek

"MySpace"? More Like "Taking Up Too Much Space"!

Students at Del Mar College in Texas won't be visiting MySpace from the campus anymore. After internet service started getting sluggish, the college IT department looked into the slowdown and found that 40% of all the campus' bandwidth was being consumed by students visiting MySpace.com. MySpace is now blocked at the Del Mar campus, and feelings about it are mixed among the students. It's unknown whether or not August Alfonso, the school's chief of the IT department just wanted to shut it down because no one would give him a shout out on his page... MSNBC.com has more on the story.

They Know If You've Been Bad or Good

If you run Windows, Microsoft will be checking to see if you're running a legitimate copy each time you use Windows Update, Microsoft Update for Windows or Microsoft Download Center. If you're running a bogus copy of Windows, they'll let you know right then. Microsoft says that they're doing this to alert people that they're running a bad copy of Windows just in case they didn't already know. This is a voluntary program for now, meaning users can opt out of Microsoft checking their copy of Windows, but Director of Genuine Windows, David Lazar, said that MS may make it mandatory within the coming year. Computers found with bogus copies of Windows will not be able to upload IE 7 or Windows updates, except for critical patches and fixes. More on this at TechNewsWorld.com.

Apparently They're Not Fans of Internet Explorer

When you're running a website named ExplorerDestroyer.com, there's a good chance that Internet Explorer is not your favorite browser. The website waxes poetic about the virtues of Firefox, saying that Firefox is the most important browser to come along in recent history (we should point out that there really aren't that many browsers out there...). The website even offers scripts to place on your website that can alert IE users that they should be using Firefox. Apparently there is a script that will even block IE users from using the website at all. Pretty hardcore folks. Some of us here at CMX use Firefox, but... we just like it. We don't loooooove it. Read more about it at Yahoo.com.

Something For The Mac Users To Salivate Over

Apple has unveiled their new MacBook Pro, which boasts a 17-inch monitor and a 2.16-GHz Intel Core Duo processor. It also comes with an iSight camera, and weighs just under seven pounds. Drooling yet? We thought so. With a remote control that allows you to give presentations or control your audio or video from across the room, and its sleek aluminum casing, it appears to be a powerful and good looking portable workstation. Is it too early to ask for one for Christmas? Check out Apple's website for the full low-down and spec's.

It's Always Nice To Have Someone Else Be The Lab Rat

A helpful article at Hardocp.com walks you through the experiences of buying a computer at Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and Fry’s Electronics so you'll know roughly what to expect the next time you're computer shopping at one of these major retailers. The article doesn't choose a favorite, but it does give you an idea of how each store treated its customers during the shopping experience.

CMX Insert FlashObject 1.2 (Dreamweaver Extension)

FlashObject is an external JavaScript file, created by Geoff Stearns, that enables you to embed Flash movies into web pages using XHTML-compliant code. The CMX Insert FlashObject extension automatically inserts FlashObject code into Dreamweaver documents, and copies flashobject.js into the folder you specify. Now supports major, minor, and revision Flash Player detection.

Check out the Extension by CMX Partner Paul Newman

Fun and Freebies

A Complete Waste of Time

But still, it's one of those things that once you see it, you have to respond. At NeedToGetOutMore.co.uk, you're given a refrigerator, and magnets to place on the refrigerator. Each magnet has a word, and after you arrange your words on the refrigerator, the words are repeated back in the order given. Lame, but... lame is fun sometimes.

Looking At This Map Gives Us Gas

Gas prices in the U.S. are at an all-time high. Some folks, or states rather, have it tougher than others. For a good look at who's paying what across the nation, visit GasBuddy.com.

Now You Can Stink At Playing Piano Online, Too

At TypOrganism.com, you can compose your own virtual song and have it played back. You can also submit your work of art to the website to make it available to all visitors. It's a bit tricky unless you know what keys are for which notes, but then again, not knowing might make for an interestingly creative mix.

Adding Flash Video to Dreamweaver 8

Web video is suddenly all the rage thanks to Flash Professional 8, those wonderful people at On2 and Sorenson and the folks at Adobe who provide the video editing software. It is enough to make a web developer's head spin. Suddenly we are confronted with putting web video in our web pages because clients see the neat stuff the "Cool Kids" over on the Flash side of the street are doing and we get caught with a "Me too!" The guys at Macromedia must have anticipated this because they did something with Flash Video in Dreamweaver 8 that is rather amazing; they made it even easier to use. Best off all, it is free. Prior to the release of Dreamweaver 8, the Flash Video Kit for Dreamweaver MX 2004 was a spending decision on your part if you wanted to add Flash video to your pages. Mind you, the "Kit" included a copy of Sorenson Squeeze Lite and it is still an integral FLV creation tool if you didn't purchase either Studio 8 or Flash Professional 8. The Video Kit is now bundled with the application and is even better than the retail version of the Video Kit. Macromedia has pulled off a rather amazing feat with Dreamweaver 8. They made adding video to your web pages even easier than ever.

This free article by CMX Partner Tom Green can be found here.

Weekly Content Listing

Sorting Out Illustrator's Selection Tools

Kim Dudley

When working with artwork in Illustrator you will likely find yourself spending a lot of time selecting parts of that artwork. This is not surprising since you must make a selection before you do almost any type of modification. With so much time spent on this task, and so many ways to make selections in Illustrator, I have written this tutorial to give an overview of Illustrator's selection tools.

In this tutorial we will look at Illustrator's five selection tools, select menu and the layers palette selection options. I will discuss when it is best to use each tool or method and also include some tips and tricks for using some of the selection tools. A little practice using Illustrator's selection tools can really speed up your work and decrease your frustration when working with artwork in Illustrator.

Flash Printing Tasks - Part 3: Adding Dynamic Text to the Certificate

Robert Reinhardt

In the last installment of this series, you learned how to print a certificate template that was created in Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Flash 8. In this next installment, you learn how to specify the name, title and date of the certificate using ActionScript.

The Flash Printing Task Series:
Flash Printing Tasks - Part 1: Building a Certificate Template in Illustrator and Flash
Flash Printing Tasks - Part 2: Basic Printing of the Certificate
Flash Printing Tasks - Part 3: Adding Dynamic Text to the Certificate

JavaScript 101 - Part 2: Operators

Rob Williams

One of the primary aspects of effective web experiences is interactivity. Although most Flash developers will try to state otherwise, the reality of the fact is that the majority of non-standard interactivity, that is interactivity beyond what the broswer provides automatically, is driven by JavaScript. Over the last few years the acceptance of both standards and some new JavaScript technologies such as XMLHttpRequest, or AJAX to the masses, has opened up a whole new realm of possibilites that have helped to bring JavaScript back into the mainstream focus as an important and leading-edge technology.

The purpose of this series of articles is to introduce newcomers to the concepts and fundamentals of JavaScript, so that you can begin to leverage the power of this technology in your own web projects. In Part 2 we'll continue our exploration of the fundamentals by looking at operators.

Creating Dreamweaver Extension Packages

Tom Muck

This article will show how to create an extension package for Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver extensions are basically HTML and JavaScript files stored in a user's local configuration folder. To move an extension to a different machine or share it with other users, you can create an extension package. Dreamweaver comes with a free Extension Manager, which also includes a built-in packager for extensions.

Building a Video Scrub Bar

Tom Green

The dreaded "video scrubber" isn't as scary as you may think. In fact, when you really think about it, it isn't that hard to create. You just have to think about the process in a slightly different manner.

In this tutorial you will be creating a scrubber bar that allows you to drag the Progress widget and move forwards and backwards in the currently playing video. When you release the mouse, the video will start playing at that point. Like all of the previous tutorials in this series, we aren't going to dive right into the project. The first thing we are going to do is answer that "Age Old" question: How does the dang thing work?

Approximate download size: 14.7MB

Extending the ASP.NET AdRotator

Joel Martinez

ASP.NET's ad rotator control allows you to easily implement an ad campaign on your site. Unfortunately, the basic functionality of the built in control limits its uses because you can only have regular image-based ads. So to get around the problem, this article shows you how to use the , a custom server control that simply extends the built in control's functionality. Using the AdRotatorPlus, you will be able to serve regular images, Flash, text, and even ads from other ad networks.

In addition to instructions on how to use the custom server control, the article also offers insight into the construction of the server control. You will learn concepts such as object oriented programming, and software design patterns.

The code is presented in C# and ASP.NET 2.0 ... though some time is spent on discussion on how to get it running under ASP.NET 1.1

Flash Printing Tasks - Part 2: Basic Printing of the Certificate

Robert Reinhardt

In the last installment of this series, you learned how to create a certificate template in Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Flash 8. In this next installment, you learn how to add the appropriate ActionScript to your Flash movie to send output to a printer.

The Flash Printing Task Series:
Flash Printing Tasks - Part 1: Building a Certificate Template in Illustrator and Flash
Flash Printing Tasks - Part 2: Basic Printing of the Certificate
Flash Printing Tasks - Part 3: Adding Dynamic Text to the Certificate Coming Soon

Retouching in Photoshop - Part 3 - More Image Adjustments

Jim Babbage

It's pretty much an undisputed fact that Photoshop is the king of bitmap editing tools — especially for high resolution, print-destined images. Photoshop CS and CS2 have some very cool and useful tools (seen in Part 1 and Part 2) and commands that can help you fix or clean up almost any image that is supplied to you. In this article (Part 3) we will look at some more Image Adjustment commands — some of which you will recognize if you are a veteran Fireworks user — and some which you will probably say, "Holy Image Adjustment heaven, Batman!"

This article is intended as an introduction to some of Photoshop's image adjustment commands (with visual examples) and should not be considered an exhaustive exploration of these features.

In this article we will look at some of the not-so familiar commands:

Shadow/Highlight (Enhanced for CS 2)
Exposure
Replace Color
Variations

The Retouching Tools in Photoshop Series:
Retouching Tools in Photoshop CS2: Part 1
Retouching Tools in Photoshop - Part 2: Image Adjustment
Retouching Tools in Photoshop - Part 3: More Image Adjustments

Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 3

Zoe Gillenwater

This tutorial is the third part in a series on creating "teaser thumbnail lists" with CSS. Teaser thumbnail lists are those lists of items made up of a title, short description, and thumbnail. They're often used to provide short teasers that link to more information about the products, articles, or sections of the site being listed. In Parts 1 and 2, you've learned how to build teaser thumbnail lists from both definition lists and unordered lists and learned a couple different ways to style them.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a version of the teaser thumbnail list that is not seen as often as the versions we have already created: the horizontal version, where each item follows the next to its right instead of below. We'll give the horizontal list a unique style from the list created in Part 2 to illustrate the various styling possibilities that exist for lists like these. Without touching the markup and only editing the CSS slightly, you can create lists that match the look and feel of your site easily.

The Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Series:
Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 1
Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 2
Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 3

Retouching in Photoshop - Part 2 - Image Adjustments

Jim Babbage

It's pretty much an undisputed fact that Photoshop is the king of bitmap editing tools - especially for high resolution, print-destined images. Photoshop CS and CS2 have some very cool and useful tools (seen in Part 1) and commands that can help you fix or clean up almost any image that is supplied to you. In these article (Part 2 and Part 3) we will look at Image Adjustment commands - some of which you will recognize if you are a veteran Fireworks user - and some which you will probably say, "Holy Image Adjustment heaven, Batman!"

This article is intended as an introduction to some of Photoshop's image adjustment commands (with visual examples) and should not be considered an exhaustive exploration of these features.

In this article we will look at some of the not-so familiar commands:

Auto Contrast
Auto Color
Color Balance
Match Color

Share Your Style

One of the greatest features of Fireworks is its extensibility. This extensibility allows developers to improve their workflow dramatically. Styles are one of those extensible features that people should be aware of and take advantage of as much as possible. In this tutorial we will learn about creating and sharing Fireworks styles with other Fireworks users. You may ask "Why would I want to share my Fireworks styles?" Let's look at a simple but realistic scenario: You are the lead designer on a project that encompasses a team of designers all working on the same composition. In order for numerous people to work on the same design, certain elements of that design must be kept consistent, this is where the ability to create, store and share Fireworks styles may become important. One other scenario may be that you're an incredibly generous mamber of the Fireworks community who likes to share their creativity with other users :) Either way this tutorial will be helpful, and will include some rather cool fireworks styles for you to use in your own projects.

Check out the Article by CMX partner Gordon Mackay

Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!

This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX Associate Bill Horvath

Free Stuff Is Good Stuff

They say you can't get anything for free nowadays. That's not entirely true. When it comes to free software, there is some great stuff out there, and a lot of it rivals comparable software that takes money out of your wallet. If you want one website that offers tons of free software, look no further than NoNags at Ded.com. For Windows users, we're confident that you'll find some treasures while browsing the site.

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!