
Wednesday, May 24th, 2006
CMX Weekly Newsletter News Fun and Freebies Recent CMX Content Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats Check the News! The Latest Community MX Element: Mercury 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 in any way that fits your page specs. We leave elements Carbon, Krypton, and Gold, and this time offer you element Mercury in our CMX Design Element Mercury. Of course the article gives you another scintillating installment in Gordon's chemistry lesson series, this time about element Mercury (Hg). Did you know that Mercury is also a great piece of music (Holst's Planets)? And let's not forget Mercury as the fleet Winged Messenger. The characteristics attributed to the god Mercury include eloquence, swiftness, and changeability. What more could one ask for in a design template? To be able to produce it quickly, to easily modify it for individualized specs, and to render it in all its visual glory and flow make it a developer's dream. Here is what the CMX Design Element Mercury package includes: A Gordon Mackay chemistry lesson ;-) The complete Mercury design in a Fireworks PNG file, organized into logical layers according to best practices 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 layers A companion article that includes documentation on topics such as how to use the layers and adapt to the width of the layout Custom web icons drawn in Fireworks that will compliment the Mercury design perfectly Extra bullets and buttons specially designed to be used with Mercury An STL file that will allow you to re-apply all the Fireworks Styles used in Mercury's design via the Styles Panel Full support via our forums CMX Design Element Mercury article for nonmembers CMX Design Element Mercury article and file download for members and those who would like to purchase Mercury now. Guest Author This Week David Stiller has written a free tutorial for Community MX this week on Tackling the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference. David Stiller is a career multimedia programmer/designer whose portfolio includes NASA, Macromedia, and major US automotive and boat manufacturers. He likes anaglyph 3D photography, finely crafted wooden game boards, Library of Congress field recordings, and Turkish coffee. David is self taught and gets a kick out of sharing "Aha!" moments with others through consultation, mentoring, and regular contributions to a variety of Flash and ActionScript forums. He lives in Virginia with his amazing wife Dawn and his beguiling daughter Meridian. David runs Quip.net which shows off some his talents nicely. What Have You Got To Lose? We love freeware. It's like going shopping and going to the checkout stand only to have the cashier say "This one's on us." PCWorld.com has a list of 101 Fabulous Freebies, which kept us busy for an hour or so as we sifted through all of the software to see what we'd be installing. One that we like to use is WordWeb Thesaurus and Dictionary. It's fantastic. Extraordinary. Far out. Excellent, even. Motorola Gives The RazzBerry to The BlackBerry Motorola is unveiling their Moto Q phone, which they believe will be at least as popular, if not more popular, than Research in Motion's BlackBerry phone. The size is smaller than that of the BlackBerry, and the features rival that of the BlackBerry, while the actual phone features are - according to Motorola - much better than similar phones. More details at SunTimes.com. Thinking About Going To Work For Microsoft? Now might be the time. Microsoft has implemented a program called MyMicrosoft, which is aimed at raising morale among its employees through better review processes, an enhanced share plan and a generally improved work environment. MS has gotten some flack in recent years for not treating their employees well. For example, some perks seem to have disappeared, and a lot of workers are complaining about wages. You can read more about MyMicrosoft at EWeek.com and you can see many employees reaction to the new program at the "MiniMicrosoft" blog.
Satisfied Customers Speak Out! "Stephanie, I have been trying to figure out how to do this for ages. Thank you, thank you, thank you!" CMX Subscriber Mary H., commenting on Stephanie Sullivan's tutorial "Persistent Page Indicator" 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: "Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient." — Eugene S. Wilson Carry Your Hard Drive With You Samsung is making a laptop available in Korea - and probably Japan and the US after a while - that doesn't have a hard drive. Instead, it uses 32-gig removable Flash drives for storage. The Samsung Q1 laptop will set you back $2,700 or so, but this is much more affordable than most folks speculated. Using Flash drives is a logical step for laptops, since just about every other kind of mobile device utilizes this technology. Don't look for regular hard drives to be disappearing anytime soon though. With vertical drive technology enabling much higher hard drive capacity than was thought possible, computer manufacturers will still be catering users looking for oodles of storage. ITWire.com has more on this story. Microsoft Will Release These Apps Yet Robert Vamosi, a Senior Editor at CNet.com, has Windows Vista installed on his laptop. Don't believe us? Check out this video at CNet.com where Vamosi will walk you through some of the features of Vista. Most of us have seen screen captures of Vista, but it's nice to see it in action. It's definitely a sleek-looking application, and we're looking forward to using it. Speaking of future Microsoft products, if you want to beta test Office 2007, it's available for download at Microsoft.com. Skype Makes First WiFi Phone Available Netgear has made a wireless phone specifically for Skype. It allows you to call other Skype users from anywhere you can get a wireless connection or - at least through the end of the year - any phone within the United States or Canada, for free. With a $300 price tag, you'd have to be sure you'd make your money back somehow. To some, it's worth it to be able to pay $300 to call other Skype users, and not have to use the headset or pay a dime besides the cost of the phone. You can see what people are saying about it at Digg.com. There's Nothing To Worry About. But.. Just In Case... Microsoft is advising Word users to run the program in safe mode to keep your computer safe from a Trojan virus that eeks its way into your system via Word and installs a program that could potentially be used by hackers to perform any number of malicious activities. Although the damage done by the trojan could be pretty bad, the actual threat is not high, as not many users have been infected. Read more on this at PCWorld.com. Those Precocious Kids... Schools have a right to block their PCs from accessing websites they don't want students to get to. For instance, MySpace.com is one website that is blocked by most high schools, due to questionable content. However, some students have found ways to get around the filters that most schools use. One way is by using their home computer as a proxy gateway that they can route http requests through. Stories like this get a mixed reaction. On the one hand, the rules of the schools should be followed. On the other hand, seeing young kids use their minds... well, that's what school is about, right? Check out the article at Cnet.com.
CMX MP3 Player (Flash Extension) The CMX MP3 Player component enables you to load external MP3s from an XML playlist. Features include track info display (title, artist), elapsed and remaining time, audio scrubber, volume slider, and playlist navigation. Check out the Extension by CMX Partner Paul Newman
Fun and Freebies Them's Some Fancy Words Geoffrey Chaucer at House of Fame recaps the beginning of the Da Vinci Code, or "The Cipher of Leonardo" in Middle English. It's a bit tough to read at first, but once you get used to it, you'll see it's pretty much dead-on. This Could've Given Someone Some Major Gastro-Intestinal Distress The next time you eat french fries, for God's sake, make sure there are no explosives in them. At a french fry plant in England, workers actually found bomb parts from World War I and World War II mixed in with the potatos they'd imported from France and Belgium. Sounds pretty freaky, but apparently it's not uncommon. According to a spokesman at McCain Foods, the folks who run the french fry plant, "Occasionally during the use of imported potatoes from Belgium and northern France, ordnance debris from the First and Second World War is found." More on this at MSN.com. Useless. Just Useless. But we couldn't resist. When a website lets you throw a whole bunch of refrigerator magnets together and have them read back to you by Fabio, how can you not post a link to that? Check it out at the KitchenOfLove.com. Women will like that it's Fabio. Men will like that it's just lame enough to be funny.
Masking Flash Video Sometimes you are handed a video that is just so good, it should be framed. For instance there was that video shot when Chris Flick, whose career has been built on "slandering" me, and I "hooked up" at TODCON and I did my version of "Kill Chris"! Here's how to put it in a frame and, along the way, you learn how to mask a video. This free article by CMX Partner Tom Green can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing CMX Design Elements - Mercury Gordon Mackay Hello, and welcome to the fourth CMX Design Element. This Design Element's code name is Mercury due to its gentle lines and pale metallic palette. While our previous Design Elements have been loose designs with no particular theme, Mercury is a design that is focused towards (but not in any way limited to) photography sites. It looks like this: CMX Design Element - Mercury. What's Included? The Mercury PNG file. Custom web icons drawn in Fireworks that will compliment the Mercury design perfectly. A STL file that will allow you to re-apply all the Fireworks Styles used in Mercury's design via the Styles Panel. Extra bullets and buttons specially designed to be used with Mercury. Full support via our forums. You also receive 6 bundled articles that explore the concepts and techniques used in the development of CMX Design Element - Mercury in detail: Share Your Style by Gordon Mackay Using Guides to Help Slice an Image by Jim Babbage Fireworks Layers - Best Practices by Jim Babbage Designing with Gradients and Glows by Adrian Senior Creating Great Curves in Fireworks by Kim Cavanaugh Fireworks: Rollovers Made Easy by Bill Horvath We aim to make CMX Design Elements educational as well as productivity enhancing. Approximate download size: 5.3MB Introducing CMX Design Element Mercury [FREE] Sheri German 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 in any way that fits your page specs. We leave elements Carbon, Krypton, and Gold, and this time offer you element Mercury in our CMX Design Element Mercury. JavaScript 101 - Part 4: Loops Rob Williams Description: 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 4 we'll be taking a look at Loop structures and the benefits of using them. The JavaScript 101 Series: JavaScript 101 - Part 1: The Basics JavaScript 101 - Part 2: Operators JavaScript 101 - Part 3: Control Structures JavaScript 101 - Part 4: Loops Quick Guide to The GIMP - Part 1: Basic Tools & Program Layout [FREE] Thomas Pletcher The GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a very powerful image editor that is frequently compared to Photoshop. The GIMP is free, open source, and available on all major platforms. This introductory article will describe the basic, top-level tools offered by the program, and highlight the elements of its program interface which are different from Photoshop and other image editors. Creating a Registration Page Tom Muck Dreamweaver contains many built-in tools to aid in quickly building dynamic sites. One such tool is the Record Insertion Form Wizard. Using this tool, I'll show how to set up a simple user registration form on a web site. The registration form will allow a user to register for a site (free site or membership site), and include a way for the user to agree to a user agreement and also opt-in/opt-out of a newsletter. The tutorial will apply equally to PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, and JSP using built in tools. This is the first part in a series. Part 2 will show validation and the user agreement, and Part 3 will show how to pass registration details to Paypal or other payment processor for a paid membership-type of site. The Rule of Thirds with the Help of Photoshop Knut Kubenz Why not use methods of composition artists have been using for years to make your images more visually powerful? Set up a grid in Photoshop which will automatically tell you all the hot spots for your image's composition and final crop. It's easy and something you'll use over and over again. Tackling the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference [FREE] David Stiller You've read Jen deHaan's excellent Flash ActionScript 2.0 Learning Guide and are eyeballing an empty Actions panel. Either that, or you've found a code sample online and have pasted it into the same. But you're stuck. You're itching to jump in, and yet ... something tugs at you, holds you back. For some reason, you still don't know where to begin. Sure, you have a handle on the concepts, but the nitty-gritty still evades you. It's that pesky ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference, isn't it? It's supposed to be your first stop, yet stop is all you've done. In theory, it's got everything you need, but it seems so vast! How is anyone expected to plod through this seemingly endless reference? So you sit... Until now. Keeping it Small with JPG Compression Tom Green Trying to fit a big fat JPG image into a small Flash SWF can be much like trying to stuff five pounds of leaves into a three pound bag. In this article we take a JPG that weighs in at over 100k and, using a few features of Fireworks, slim it dowwn to a "svelte" 10k. Approximate download size: 481k Blends and Masks - A Fireworks Project - Part 1 Jim Babbage I've been playing more with blending modes and masks lately in an effort to come up with some unique collages that still have a business/corporate feel to them. With all the new Blend Modes in Fireworks 8, it's amazing to see what you can come up with—not to mention, fun! A great deal of my personal photography is landscape and nature. Incorporating these types of images into a business presentation or homepage can at times be challenging—unless you're the Sierra Club. What I have done—and you will do—in Part 1 of this tutorial is create a cover page with an annual report feel. You'll be working with: Blend modes Masks Live filters Importing images into Fireworks Guides Symbols and Instances Approximate download size: 1.4MB Text in Motion With the Wiggler [FREE] Tom Green When you start using After Effects, there will come a time when you look at the presets and think, "Gosh, I am bored with these." That will be the point where you discover Adobe has a wonderful sense of humor and you start using the Wiggler. In the text options, on the timeline, the Wiggly selector can be added to a chunk of text to randomize the values of any of the properties associated with that group. That description may sound rather formal, but when it comes to adding effects, randomness can lead to some happy surprises. Approximate download size: 541k
Better Sharpening Using Photoshop's Lab Mode Mother's Day is fast approaching and I thought it would be fitting to make a new card for my Mom. Because I'll be emailing it and because of some of its very useful features, I'll be using Fireworks 8 to create my "Ode to Mom." This tutorial will cover the use of: Converting a Mask to a selection Saving and restoring bitmap selections Modifying bitmap selections Combining two images using blends and masks Text on a path Dodging and burning Using blend modes and opacity with the Rubber Stamp Applying the Radial Motion Blur filter Check out the Article by CMX partner Jim Babbage
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats! This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX partners Jim Babbage and Tom Green Tricks With Borders and CSS Looking for a design elements head-start in Fireworks? Go to Edit > Libraries and choose from one of five categories to get you going. You can import individual symbols or entire sets. They will automatically be inserted onto the canvas as instances and inserted as Symbols into the Library tab of the Asset Panels Group. To add to this, all you have to do is to drag the green overlay of a button symbol instance from FW to Flash and you have an instant Flash button in the Flash library. 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!

The Latest Community MX Element: Mercury

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 in any way that fits your page specs. We leave elements Carbon, Krypton, and Gold, and this time offer you element Mercury in our CMX Design Element Mercury.

Of course the article gives you another scintillating installment in Gordon's chemistry lesson series, this time about element Mercury (Hg). Did you know that Mercury is also a great piece of music (Holst's Planets)? And let's not forget Mercury as the fleet Winged Messenger. The characteristics attributed to the god Mercury include eloquence, swiftness, and changeability. What more could one ask for in a design template? To be able to produce it quickly, to easily modify it for individualized specs, and to render it in all its visual glory and flow make it a developer's dream.

Here is what the CMX Design Element Mercury package includes:

A Gordon Mackay chemistry lesson ;-)
The complete Mercury design in a Fireworks PNG file, organized into logical layers according to best practices
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 layers
A companion article that includes documentation on topics such as how to use the layers and adapt to the width of the layout
Custom web icons drawn in Fireworks that will compliment the Mercury design perfectly
Extra bullets and buttons specially designed to be used with Mercury
An STL file that will allow you to re-apply all the Fireworks Styles used in Mercury's design via the Styles Panel
Full support via our forums

CMX Design Element Mercury article for nonmembers

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

Guest Author This Week

David Stiller has written a free tutorial for Community MX this week on Tackling the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference. David Stiller is a career multimedia programmer/designer whose portfolio includes NASA, Macromedia, and major US automotive and boat manufacturers. He likes anaglyph 3D photography, finely crafted wooden game boards, Library of Congress field recordings, and Turkish coffee. David is self taught and gets a kick out of sharing "Aha!" moments with others through consultation, mentoring, and regular contributions to a variety of Flash and ActionScript forums. He lives in Virginia with his amazing wife Dawn and his beguiling daughter Meridian. David runs Quip.net which shows off some his talents nicely.

What Have You Got To Lose?

We love freeware. It's like going shopping and going to the checkout stand only to have the cashier say "This one's on us." PCWorld.com has a list of 101 Fabulous Freebies, which kept us busy for an hour or so as we sifted through all of the software to see what we'd be installing. One that we like to use is WordWeb Thesaurus and Dictionary. It's fantastic. Extraordinary. Far out. Excellent, even.

Motorola Gives The RazzBerry to The BlackBerry

Motorola is unveiling their Moto Q phone, which they believe will be at least as popular, if not more popular, than Research in Motion's BlackBerry phone. The size is smaller than that of the BlackBerry, and the features rival that of the BlackBerry, while the actual phone features are - according to Motorola - much better than similar phones. More details at SunTimes.com.

Thinking About Going To Work For Microsoft?

Now might be the time. Microsoft has implemented a program called MyMicrosoft, which is aimed at raising morale among its employees through better review processes, an enhanced share plan and a generally improved work environment. MS has gotten some flack in recent years for not treating their employees well. For example, some perks seem to have disappeared, and a lot of workers are complaining about wages. You can read more about MyMicrosoft at EWeek.com and you can see many employees reaction to the new program at the "MiniMicrosoft" blog.

Satisfied Customers Speak Out!

"Stephanie, I have been trying to figure out how to do this for ages. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

CMX Subscriber Mary H., commenting on Stephanie Sullivan's tutorial "Persistent Page Indicator"

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:

"Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient." — Eugene S. Wilson

Carry Your Hard Drive With You

Samsung is making a laptop available in Korea - and probably Japan and the US after a while - that doesn't have a hard drive. Instead, it uses 32-gig removable Flash drives for storage. The Samsung Q1 laptop will set you back $2,700 or so, but this is much more affordable than most folks speculated. Using Flash drives is a logical step for laptops, since just about every other kind of mobile device utilizes this technology. Don't look for regular hard drives to be disappearing anytime soon though. With vertical drive technology enabling much higher hard drive capacity than was thought possible, computer manufacturers will still be catering users looking for oodles of storage. ITWire.com has more on this story.

Microsoft Will Release These Apps Yet

Robert Vamosi, a Senior Editor at CNet.com, has Windows Vista installed on his laptop. Don't believe us? Check out this video at CNet.com where Vamosi will walk you through some of the features of Vista. Most of us have seen screen captures of Vista, but it's nice to see it in action. It's definitely a sleek-looking application, and we're looking forward to using it. Speaking of future Microsoft products, if you want to beta test Office 2007, it's available for download at Microsoft.com.

Skype Makes First WiFi Phone Available

Netgear has made a wireless phone specifically for Skype. It allows you to call other Skype users from anywhere you can get a wireless connection or - at least through the end of the year - any phone within the United States or Canada, for free. With a $300 price tag, you'd have to be sure you'd make your money back somehow. To some, it's worth it to be able to pay $300 to call other Skype users, and not have to use the headset or pay a dime besides the cost of the phone. You can see what people are saying about it at Digg.com.

There's Nothing To Worry About. But.. Just In Case...

Microsoft is advising Word users to run the program in safe mode to keep your computer safe from a Trojan virus that eeks its way into your system via Word and installs a program that could potentially be used by hackers to perform any number of malicious activities. Although the damage done by the trojan could be pretty bad, the actual threat is not high, as not many users have been infected. Read more on this at PCWorld.com.

Those Precocious Kids...

Schools have a right to block their PCs from accessing websites they don't want students to get to. For instance, MySpace.com is one website that is blocked by most high schools, due to questionable content. However, some students have found ways to get around the filters that most schools use. One way is by using their home computer as a proxy gateway that they can route http requests through. Stories like this get a mixed reaction. On the one hand, the rules of the schools should be followed. On the other hand, seeing young kids use their minds... well, that's what school is about, right? Check out the article at Cnet.com.

CMX MP3 Player (Flash Extension)

The CMX MP3 Player component enables you to load external MP3s from an XML playlist. Features include track info display (title, artist), elapsed and remaining time, audio scrubber, volume slider, and playlist navigation.

Check out the Extension by CMX Partner Paul Newman

Fun and Freebies

Them's Some Fancy Words

Geoffrey Chaucer at House of Fame recaps the beginning of the Da Vinci Code, or "The Cipher of Leonardo" in Middle English. It's a bit tough to read at first, but once you get used to it, you'll see it's pretty much dead-on.

This Could've Given Someone Some Major Gastro-Intestinal Distress

The next time you eat french fries, for God's sake, make sure there are no explosives in them. At a french fry plant in England, workers actually found bomb parts from World War I and World War II mixed in with the potatos they'd imported from France and Belgium. Sounds pretty freaky, but apparently it's not uncommon. According to a spokesman at McCain Foods, the folks who run the french fry plant, "Occasionally during the use of imported potatoes from Belgium and northern France, ordnance debris from the First and Second World War is found." More on this at MSN.com.

Useless. Just Useless.

But we couldn't resist. When a website lets you throw a whole bunch of refrigerator magnets together and have them read back to you by Fabio, how can you not post a link to that? Check it out at the KitchenOfLove.com. Women will like that it's Fabio. Men will like that it's just lame enough to be funny.

Masking Flash Video

Sometimes you are handed a video that is just so good, it should be framed. For instance there was that video shot when Chris Flick, whose career has been built on "slandering" me, and I "hooked up" at TODCON and I did my version of "Kill Chris"! Here's how to put it in a frame and, along the way, you learn how to mask a video.

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

Weekly Content Listing

CMX Design Elements - Mercury

Gordon Mackay

Hello, and welcome to the fourth CMX Design Element.

This Design Element's code name is Mercury due to its gentle lines and pale metallic palette.

While our previous Design Elements have been loose designs with no particular theme, Mercury is a design that is focused towards (but not in any way limited to) photography sites. It looks like this:

Mercury
CMX Design Element - Mercury.

What's Included?

The Mercury PNG file.
Custom web icons drawn in Fireworks that will compliment the Mercury design perfectly.
A STL file that will allow you to re-apply all the Fireworks Styles used in Mercury's design via the Styles Panel.
Extra bullets and buttons specially designed to be used with Mercury.
Full support via our forums.

You also receive 6 bundled articles that explore the concepts and techniques used in the development of CMX Design Element - Mercury in detail:

Share Your Style by Gordon Mackay
Using Guides to Help Slice an Image by Jim Babbage
Fireworks Layers - Best Practices by Jim Babbage
Designing with Gradients and Glows by Adrian Senior
Creating Great Curves in Fireworks by Kim Cavanaugh
Fireworks: Rollovers Made Easy by Bill Horvath

We aim to make CMX Design Elements educational as well as productivity enhancing.

Approximate download size: 5.3MB

Introducing CMX Design Element Mercury [FREE]

Sheri German

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 in any way that fits your page specs. We leave elements Carbon, Krypton, and Gold, and this time offer you element Mercury in our CMX Design Element Mercury.

JavaScript 101 - Part 4: Loops

Rob Williams

Description: 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 4 we'll be taking a look at Loop structures and the benefits of using them.

The JavaScript 101 Series:
JavaScript 101 - Part 1: The Basics
JavaScript 101 - Part 2: Operators
JavaScript 101 - Part 3: Control Structures
JavaScript 101 - Part 4: Loops

Quick Guide to The GIMP - Part 1: Basic Tools & Program Layout [FREE]

Thomas Pletcher

The GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a very powerful image editor that is frequently compared to Photoshop. The GIMP is free, open source, and available on all major platforms. This introductory article will describe the basic, top-level tools offered by the program, and highlight the elements of its program interface which are different from Photoshop and other image editors.

Creating a Registration Page

Tom Muck

Dreamweaver contains many built-in tools to aid in quickly building dynamic sites. One such tool is the Record Insertion Form Wizard. Using this tool, I'll show how to set up a simple user registration form on a web site. The registration form will allow a user to register for a site (free site or membership site), and include a way for the user to agree to a user agreement and also opt-in/opt-out of a newsletter. The tutorial will apply equally to PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, and JSP using built in tools. This is the first part in a series. Part 2 will show validation and the user agreement, and Part 3 will show how to pass registration details to Paypal or other payment processor for a paid membership-type of site.

The Rule of Thirds with the Help of Photoshop

Knut Kubenz

Why not use methods of composition artists have been using for years to make your images more visually powerful? Set up a grid in Photoshop which will automatically tell you all the hot spots for your image's composition and final crop. It's easy and something you'll use over and over again.

Tackling the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference [FREE]

David Stiller

You've read Jen deHaan's excellent Flash ActionScript 2.0 Learning Guide and are eyeballing an empty Actions panel. Either that, or you've found a code sample online and have pasted it into the same. But you're stuck. You're itching to jump in, and yet ... something tugs at you, holds you back. For some reason, you still don't know where to begin.

Sure, you have a handle on the concepts, but the nitty-gritty still evades you. It's that pesky ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference, isn't it? It's supposed to be your first stop, yet stop is all you've done. In theory, it's got everything you need, but it seems so vast! How is anyone expected to plod through this seemingly endless reference? So you sit... Until now.

Keeping it Small with JPG Compression

Tom Green

Trying to fit a big fat JPG image into a small Flash SWF can be much like trying to stuff five pounds of leaves into a three pound bag. In this article we take a JPG that weighs in at over 100k and, using a few features of Fireworks, slim it dowwn to a "svelte" 10k.

Approximate download size: 481k

Blends and Masks - A Fireworks Project - Part 1

Jim Babbage

I've been playing more with blending modes and masks lately in an effort to come up with some unique collages that still have a business/corporate feel to them. With all the new Blend Modes in Fireworks 8, it's amazing to see what you can come up with—not to mention, fun!

A great deal of my personal photography is landscape and nature. Incorporating these types of images into a business presentation or homepage can at times be challenging—unless you're the Sierra Club. What I have done—and you will do—in Part 1 of this tutorial is create a cover page with an annual report feel. You'll be working with:

Blend modes
Masks
Live filters
Importing images into Fireworks
Guides
Symbols and Instances

Approximate download size: 1.4MB

Text in Motion With the Wiggler [FREE]

Tom Green

When you start using After Effects, there will come a time when you look at the presets and think, "Gosh, I am bored with these." That will be the point where you discover Adobe has a wonderful sense of humor and you start using the Wiggler. In the text options, on the timeline, the Wiggly selector can be added to a chunk of text to randomize the values of any of the properties associated with that group. That description may sound rather formal, but when it comes to adding effects, randomness can lead to some happy surprises.

Approximate download size: 541k

Better Sharpening Using Photoshop's Lab Mode

Mother's Day is fast approaching and I thought it would be fitting to make a new card for my Mom. Because I'll be emailing it and because of some of its very useful features, I'll be using Fireworks 8 to create my "Ode to Mom." This tutorial will cover the use of:
Converting a Mask to a selection
Saving and restoring bitmap selections
Modifying bitmap selections
Combining two images using blends and masks
Text on a path
Dodging and burning
Using blend modes and opacity with the Rubber Stamp
Applying the Radial Motion Blur filter

Check out the Article by CMX partner Jim Babbage

Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!

This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX partners Jim Babbage and Tom Green

Tricks With Borders and CSS

Looking for a design elements head-start in Fireworks? Go to Edit > Libraries and choose from one of five categories to get you going. You can import individual symbols or entire sets. They will automatically be inserted onto the canvas as instances and inserted as Symbols into the Library tab of the Asset Panels Group. To add to this, all you have to do is to drag the green overlay of a button symbol instance from FW to Flash and you have an instant Flash button in the Flash library.

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