Wednesday, July 5th, 2006
CMX Weekly Newsletter
Check the News!
Google Checkout Available
When rumors were first flying around about Google starting up their own online payment system, Google spokespeople (spokespersons? spokesdruids?) indicated that their system would not be competing with other online systems such as PayPal. However, looking over the information about Google Checkout, we're not seeing much of a difference, with one notable exception: While you can now purchase goods or services through PayPal without having a Paypal account, it looks like your buyers will need to sign up for a Google account before they can purchase through your Checkout-enabled web page. Other differences exist, but are not monumental, such as most accounts starting out with a $500/month receiving limit. For now, this system will not take the world by storm. However, Google has huge name recognition, and Checkout has the potential to be a serious competitor in the online payment system game.
Don't You Believe It
If you get an email from Community MX and it seems suspicious, by all means, don't open it. We have received a few emails ourselves from addresses like "mail@communitymx.com", "register@communitymx.com", etc. Some tell us our password has expired, another says we've violated the terms of our agreement, and yet another said we'd won a free iPod. All came with attachments in the form of a zip file which, of course, we have not opened - and neither should you. Most of the emails we send to subscribers come from "info at communitymx.com." If you don't know whether or not you're looking at a legitimate email from Community MX, then send us an email at info at communitymx.com and we'll let you know. Spoofing like this is pretty mainstream stuff these days, and there's no way we can really control it, but we apologize if it's caused anyone a pain in their posterior.
Feature, or Possible Exploit? You Decide
If you create a shortcut on your desktop, name it "www.microsoft.com" and point it to an executable file on your computer, you'll find that typing www.microsoft.com into the address bar of Internet Explorer will result in opening the executable file. Microsoft doesn't think this is a bug, but rather, they say it's a feature that allows users to automate certain processes. By the way, this trick doesn't work in Firefox browsers. It seems to be Internet Explorer-only. More about this at ZDNET.
A Sort of "Hot or Not" For Websites
SEO for Firefox, a new Firefox extension has just been released. It's filled with tons of features to help you figure out how to prepare your website in order to get optimum results in search engines. For instance, once you've installed the extension, go to Google and type in "real estate." You'll get the usual results, but you'll get a wealth of added information added on to each result, like how many websites link to that website, how many pages are indexed by Google, how many pages are indexed by DMOZ, how many websites listed in DMOZ link to that website, the website's official Google ranking and bunches of other stuff. You can use the extension to see how your competitors stack up with you, or just look at results for your web page specifically. Pick it up at SEOBook.com.
It Beats Buying a Whole Bunch of Computers
Some developers will test their websites in one or two browsers and be satisfied, while others will use every browser they can get their hands on, using every operating system they can run, in order to insure that their websites pass muster in all of them. If your website is accessible by the general public, then it makes sense to test it with whatever browsers you can. How do you do that without owning a bunch of computers? There are a couple of options available to you. For a free solution, you can go to BrowserShots.org, where they serve up screen shots of your website in nearly every imaginable browser and operating system known. Unfortunately, you have to wait in a queue for a serious amount of time before seeing anything, and the results are public, so folks could possibly see pages from your website you may not want them to see. Another solution, much like BrowserShots.org, except the results are immediate and private, is BrowserCam.com. As you might guess, the results are not free at BrowserCam, but it is only $25/year if you sign up a group of twenty people, and sign up through the forums at SitePoint.com. One of our subscribers is trying to get a group together right now, so if you're a CMX subscriber and might be interested, check out this thread on our forums.
Satisfied Customers Speak Out!
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"Great article and I agree 100%. I never knew as much as what little I know about what you guys can do with this stuff as what I have seen here on Community MX. In fact, you guys are my best kept secret.
CMX Subscriber Michael O., commenting on Ray West's FREE article "What We Don't Account For"
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:
"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand." — Chinese Proverb
It Pays To Stay In School
There are a lot of price breaks for students. One of the latest breaks is an iMac from Apple, costing only $899. It's not fully "loaded", but it does have a dvd player, iLife, Airport Extreme, a 1.83 GHz Intel processor and an iSight camera, among other things. To see the full specs and more information, check out this article at Yahoo!
National Semiconductor: The Bad Karma Company
National Semiconductor had some pretty jazzed employees when the company, after having their most profitable year ever, decided to make a gift of a 30-gig Video iPod to each of its employees. Generous, right? The company then turned around and laid off thirty five of its employees, and asked them to return their iPods. Brutal. Spokespeople at NS said that the iPods were never intended as gifts. They were merely "equipping their employees" with the devices. When asked if other employees would have to give back the iPods should they leave the company, Scott Kahl, the HR director for NS said "We haven't crossed that bridge." To us, it sounds like they simply haven't decided on a policy yet, which makes their "un-gifting" that much more lame. Read the news at dfw.com.
New Video Site With Cash To Give Away
Google Video and You Tube are probably the most well-known websites where you can submit your own video for others to watch, but there's a new website called Eefoof.com where you can submit your video, and possibly get paid for it. The more popular your video is, the more cash you get from Eefoof. Yep, the more hits your video or graphic gets on their website, the more money you get. It's not a monumental amount, but if you were going to post your video somewhere, why not do it where it might make you some cash? Read more about it at News.com.
Are You Geek Enough?
Something for the Flash UberGeeks: SoundMixer.computeSpectrum() is quite possibly one of coolest things to come out of AS3.0. You would still have to build the parsing algorithm, but it enables you to capture a sound object to a ByteArray, enabling realtime filtering of frequency and other data. Hook it up to some visuals and you've got yourself a Winamp visualizer! Read about and join the challenge at TheFlashBlog.com.
The Man With Two First Names
Blake Ross, co-creator of Firefox, recently sat down for an interview with SeattlePi.com. Ross discusses what the future holds for Firefox, offers up compliments for Internet Explorer 7, his relationship with Google, and many other things, but stays predictably mum when asked about a new project involving Joe Hewitt, Firefox co-creator. There are plenty of interesting comments left by readers, following the interview.
CMX Text Field Auto Complete Extension
- The CMX Auto Complete Behavior for Dreamweaver and Dreamweaver MX 2004 allows you to quickly and easily add fully customizable "auto complete" functionality (think Google Suggest) to any text or textarea input field on a web page. The "auto complete suggestions" box can easily be customized using CSS to integrate seamlessly into your page design and automatically sizes and positions itself for each input/textarea; no knowledge of JavaScript of the complexities of AJAX required!
Check out this Extension by CMX Partner Rob Williams
Fun and Freebies
Remember Me? The Guy With The Pop-Ups?
When one of the writers for the Conan O'Brien Show encounters a need for tech support, what does he do? Simply calling the NBC Tech Support desk could be funny, but not quite funny enough. Having the writer take the computer to India where the tech support team is, and filming it all, now that's funny. At least the folks in India seem to have a great sense of humor. Check out the video at Video.Feber.se.
Sponsored by Microsoft
Apple computers have become known for their stability and security, and more PC owners than ever are looking at them in a new light. But it wasn't that long ago that they were still considered an annoyance by elite PC users, as witnessed by this blast from the past "Apple/Switch" parody, available at Google Video. For some added fun, check out Will Farrel's version as well.
Get Those Elusive Videos
Have you ever gone to YouTube.com and found a video that you've got to add to your collection? It's not so easy, is it? Javimoya.com has released Video Downloader 2.0, which lets you quickly and easily download video from YouTube, iFilm, Google Video, MySpace and other video websites. They even have an extension for Firefox that puts the download functionality right into your browser.
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 1 - Installation and the Testing Server
- Welcome to the first in a series of articles aimed at providing an extensive overview of the ColdFusion language to newcomers to server-side development. The series will start at the beginnning with a look at the make-up of the language and progress to basic server-side development allowing you to build on your knowledge with each new addition to the series.
This free article by CMX Partner Adrian Senior can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing
CMX SendEmail User Control for ASP.NET Sites
This article introduces you to the CMX SendEmail user control. Drop the control on your .aspx page and you immediately have a CSS-styleable contact form for your website.
The CMX SendEmail user control's ease of use is especially convenient when you're working with designers who are comfortable using tags but may not be familiar with code. Even if you're a hardcore programmer you may still find the control convenient since it effectively separates presentation from business/logic.
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4a - Creating a Datasource
The whole concept of server-side coding is aimed at automation, this is everything from generating the URL variables value to providing content for your web pages.
We want ColdFusion to do all this for us, in Part 4 you will take the first steps down this road as I introduce creating a Data Source Name and the database.
The Let's Learn ColdFusion Series:
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 1 - Installation and the Testing Server
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 2 - The URL Scope, Variable Names and Values
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 3 - Adding Simple Logic and Error Checking
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4a - Creating a Datasource
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4b - Building a Dynamic List Menu Coming Soon
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4c - Filtering Your Queries and the cfqueryparam Tag Coming Soon
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4d - Error Checking Your ColdFusion Queries Coming Soon
Happy 4th of July Weekend! [FREE]
Have a Safe and Happy 4th of July!
Everyone at Community MX wishes to thank the brave men and women of the Armed Forces, and remember those who have lost their lives defending liberty.
To allow all of our partners to enjoy the long weekend with their families, CMX will not be releasing content on July 3rd and 4th. We will be back on Wednesday, July 5th, with two brand new pieces of content.
Enjoy your weekend!
Happy 4th of July Weekend! [FREE]
Have a Safe and Happy 4th of July!
Everyone at Community MX wishes to thank the brave men and women of the Armed Forces, and remember those who have lost their lives defending liberty.
To allow all of our partners to enjoy the long weekend with their families, CMX will not be releasing content on July 3rd and 4th. We will be back on Wednesday, July 5th, with two brand new pieces of content.
Enjoy your weekend!
Understanding Classpaths [FREE]
All objects in recent versions of ActionScript are defined by something called classes. Think of classes as blueprints that determine the unique combination of characteristics, actions, and reactions that comprises a particular object of a certain type. By "object," we are talking about the familiar things a Flash developer deals with every day: movie clips (the MovieClip class), text fields (the TextField class), buttons, sounds, math functions, components, you name it. They are all defined by classes.
Out of the box, Flash provides hundreds of built-in ActionScript classes. The great part is, you can even write your own! But there's a catch: the Flash compiler, which converts ActionScript into Flash Player bytecode, must be told where new classes are located, or it won't be able to find them. That's what this article is about.
Fireworks to Photoshop - Rebuilding the CMX Vienna JumpStart PNG as a PSD file
I'm sure that most people will agree, JumpStarts can be a great way to get a new site up and running quickly. Template pages are ready to roll, CSS is done and commented to death; just add content and away you go! From the graphics side, you've got a structured and sliced PNG file. All you need to to is change the graphic objects and you're good to go. IF you have Fireworks.
But what if (gasp! say it ain' t so, Joe) you don't own Fireworks? Hands up, you people; I know you're out there. 1...2...3.... yep, more than a couple of you are using a graphics editor other than FW. In fact, I'll bet the majority of you who aren't using Fireworks are probably using Photoshop. And as you may have discovered the hard way, opening a native FW PNG file in Photoshop gives you a flattened bitmap. Not much use when you are trying to customize the design to your own needs.
As a FW and PS user, I have been in the situation where I've been supplied with a Photoshop PSD file and have still chosen to convert it (rather easily, with a few hiccups) to a layered, editable PNG file. I am sure there are many PS users out there who wish the reverse was true.
In this, the first of several articles in the series, I will convert a native Fireworks PNG file to a useable Photoshop PSD file, ready for slicing.
By following along with this article you will learn how to:
- Prepare a Fireworks PNG file for save/export as a Photoshop PSD file to maximize its editability
- Build a layer structure similar to the layer/object model of Fireworks by creating Layer Groups
- Recreate vector shapes and editable Photoshop Shape Layers
- Accurately control the size and position of Shape Layers
- Work with Layer Styles to create gradient fills and strokes for the Shape Layers
- Create Layer-Based and User slices in Photoshop
- Use Save for Web to optimize the sliced images and save only the slices we created
You will also learn about some of the limitations of a Fireworks generated PSD.
Included with the article is a Photoshop format version of the Vienna design. For all other articles relating to JumpStart Vienna, make sure to download the Vienna JumpStart.
Approximate download size: 1.1MB
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 3 - Adding Simple Logic and Error Checking
In Part 3 you will learn how to apply simple logic to your pages and look at preventing errors from missing variables.
The Let's Learn ColdFusion Series:
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 1 - Installation and the Testing Server
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 2 - The URL Scope, Variable Names and Values
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 3 - Adding Simple Logic and Error Checking
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4a - Creating a Datasource Coming Soon
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4b - Building a Dynamic List Menu Coming Soon
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4c - Filtering Your Queries and the cfqueryparam Tag Coming Soon
Let's Learn ColdFusion: Part 4d - Error Checking Your ColdFusion Queries Coming Soon
What We Don't Account For [FREE]
As web programmers we want the world to think of us as professionals and treat us accordingly. Unfortunately there are dynamics in our industry that often cause us to act in ways that make us less than deserving of that designation. Are we allowing the least common denominator to drive down quality? There are things we don't account for.
Using the Crop Tool to Make Your Picture Larger? [FREE]
It may sound impossible, but you can actually change the Canvas Size of your picture, making it larger, by using Photoshop's Crop Tool, which normally makes the picture smaller, without any fancy calculations or head scratching.
The Crop Tool is often used to make pictures smaller. This quick and easy tip takes the guess work out of extending the Canvas size without the need for time consuming calculations.
All About CSS Drop Shadows - Part Two
Continuing our Drop Shadow series, we expand on the simple CSS method described in Part One, showing how to make easy modifications to achieve different effects.
Then we'll discuss certain vital considerations when implementing such techniques, in preparation for the more advanced methods to come.
The All About CSS Drop Shadows Series:
All About CSS Drop Shadows - Part One
All About CSS Drop Shadows - Part Two
Creating a Registration Page, Part II
- Dreamweaver contains many built-in tools to aid in quickly building dynamic sites. Part 1 of this series showed how to use the Record Insertion Form Wizard to set up a simple user registration form on a web site. The registration form allows a user to register for a site. Part 2 will show validation and the user agreement, using more built-in tools of Dreamweaver and a little rudimentary JavaScript. The tutorial will apply equally to PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, and JSP using built in tools. Part 3 will show how to pass registration details to PayPal or other payment processor for a paid membership-type of site.
Check out the Article by CMX partner Tom Muck
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!
This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX Partner Joseph Balderson
Opening Images From The Web
If you cut and paste a URL to an image file in the Open dialog in Photoshop, Fireworks or Illustrator CS2, it will download the image and open it up for editing. This applies to SVG, PNG, JPG, or any file format that Photoshop, Fireworks or Illustrator can open. A quick and easy way to edit web images on the fly.
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!