
Friday, July 6th, 2007
CMX Weekly Newsletter News Fun and Freebies Recent CMX Content Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats Check the News! Yet Another Fantastic Application From The Folks At Adobe With all of the buzz still in the air regarding CS3, Sound Booth almost slipped through the cracks. Sound Booth can be used as a standalone product, but also integrates with Premiere Pro or Flash and allows you full editing control over sound and music editing. You can easily raise/lower volume at specific portions of a video or flash file or take out background noise. Another great feature for Flash users is the ability to export markers from Sound Booth to an XML file so they can be referenced via ActionScript. Sound Booth also comes with a lot of audio effects like flange, echo and reverb and ready-made musical compositions you can add to your file. Thinking About Buying An iPhone? The iPhone is this month's "gotta-have" item, and it's already flying off the shelves in record numbers. If you do a search on "iPhone", you'll find countless reviews and articles describing the good and bad about the iPhone, as well as plenty of rants from fans and foes. Gizmodo.com has a list of ten things you should know before buying the iPhone. The "things" in question are of the negative variety, but are meant to make the reader aware of what the iPhone is "not." If you're still looking for unbiased reviews on the iPhone, the WirelessInfo.com has a pretty good one. Apple Insider also has a great review. Oh- and if you want to see some Thrill of Victory and Agony of Defeat involving the iPhone, check out this video at MyFoxdfw.com. That Still Doesn't Explain How My Socks Keep Getting Lost Are we all just part of a computer simulation? Don't ask us, we only know what we're programmed to know. Simulation-Argument.com poses the hyphothesis that we could all be concious products of sophisticated software. We don't tend to get too philosophical in our newsletter, so we'll opt out of giving our opinion one way or another, but Simulation-Argument has posted other arguments for and against the idea that we're living in some form of the Matrix. Spammers Please Don't Read This. Everyone Else Is OK. CampaignMonitor.com has a set of thirty html email templates you can download from their site for free. They've been tested - by CampaignMonitor, not us - in all of the major email clients, and they look pretty darn good. And darn pretty. Flash: The Lost Years Flash was once one of the most popular web-related apps in existence. It was the media darling of the jet set web crowd. But then something happened. Flash started taking a back seat to Dreamweaver and other up-and-coming programs. What happened? Did Flash lose its mojo? To find the answers, WallStrip.com spoke to Flash, and a video of the interview is posted at YouTube.com. The truth is not pretty, but it's important to understand what happens to those who are put on a pedestal...
Satisfied Customers Speak Out! "Thanks, this solified my understanding and knowledge (very limited) of data bases." - Carolyn M., CMX Subscriber, commenting on Tom Muck's Top Ten Tips for Creating a Database for the Web. 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: "Voodoo Programming: Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling everything." -Karl Lehenbauer Bowling For Ranking This article at Forbes.com, Brendon Scott talks about "Negative Search Engine Optimization", which involves getting a website to the top of a Google search by making sure that your competitor's websites rank poorly. Brendon knows a lot about the subject, because he brags openly about sabotaging other company's websites to make his own client's websites look better to Google. He talks about the practice of "Google Bowling", which entails creating a ton of links on the internet to your competitor's website. Google likes the fact that a site has a lot of links pointing back to it, but if it thinks that those links are fake, it will bury that website in its search results. As Scott says, "you make someone look naughty, and then get them caught." The article also provides a list of seven ways your site can be sabotaged. It doesn't tell you how to prevent being sabotaged, but it helps to know what you're up against in the world of SEO. It's Only Business... Cards If you've ever gone about making business cards for your company, then you know it can be a gut-wrenching experience for us A-type personalities. A business card is not something to be taken lightly. This is something that represents you and your company and tells people a lot about what level of service they can expect from you. Properly stressed out now? Don't be. Just head over to TypePad.com, where they've got a ton of business card examples to provide inspiration in your quest for the perfect business card. Best WhoIS Tool We've Seen Yet We were pretty jazzed about WhoIsHostingThis.com, where you can easily find out who is hosting any website. But then we found PsychicWhois.com. Here you can look up any website and find out who is hosting it, when their SSL certificate expires, their SEO score, number of images used on the website, their blacklist status, and a ton of other information that we didn't even know you could get from a third party. One Step Forward, One Step Back If you're going to sue people for downloading and distributing copyrighted material, you should make sure that you're following the letter of the law when doing so, lest ye be sued yourself. The RIAA brought a sut against yet another grandmother who had never heard of file sharing before being sued, but this grandma decided to countersue. Her suit says that the RIAA's investigative practices are illegal since it uses unlicensed investigators, which is illegal in Texas, the grandma's home state. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially after other defendants hear about it. Read more on this at Arstechnica.com. The Name Game I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about business names. We thought it was interesting how some companies will use their business name to indicate what it is they do, like "San Diego Plumbing", while others are just seemingly random, like "Yahoo!" At KongTechnology.com, they've got a list of companies you've heard of and the origins of their name. For instance, "Cisco" was named after the abbreviation for "San Francisco."
CMX MapLink v1.0 - Server Behavior The CMX MapLink Server Behavior creates a link to Google Maps. You can use static values, or dynamic values from the data sources palette. The behavior creates a link around a selection (text, image, etc...). The only parameters are: Address, City, State, Zip. US Addresses only (sorry international users). ASP Only. Take a look at this extension by CMX Partner Joel Martinez
Fun and Freebies! Ah, Kid Stuff The internet is not all porn. Just most of it. There are some great websites for kids to visit that provide them with entertainment, activities and learning - if you know where too look. AllExperts.com has a great list of links for you and your kid(s) to check out. With Friends Like This... I don't know about you, but when one of my friends leaves on vacation, I never thinking about wrapping everything in his apartment in pink wrapping paper. The folks at PinkPrankProject.com think otherwise... Finally A Place To Buy Buzz Kola! The Simpson's Movie comes out this month, and as part of the movie's promotion, select 7-11 chains in the U.S. have converted to Kwik-E-Marts, the Simpson's version of 7-11. There are only a handfull of the Kwik-E-Marts around, but if you're lucky enough to live near one, you'll have to let us know what you thought - and buy a Squishee for us. Read more at msn.com.
Control Block Formatting Context In order to become a skilled CSS developer, you need to understand the underlying concepts of CSS that make it work and not just how to produce certain visual effects. The "block formatting context" is one of those concepts that drives how CSS affects your page without you even knowing it. Most of the time, you don't need to worry about it; it's just something that's going on behind the scenes that you don't need to get involved with. Sometimes, however, the lack of a new context can make elements interact in undesirable ways. The primary reason for setting a new context is to keep cleared elements inside a main content div from clearing floated sidebars. We'll use this problem as a case study for how to establish new block formatting contexts and to see what their effect is on the other elements around them. This free article by CMX Partner Zoe Gillenwater can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing Still Another Sharpening Method Knut Kubenz Yes still another way to sharpen your images. This technique is quite fast, involving only a few steps and is totally forgiving and adjustable. We're not going to even use the Sharpen Filter for this one, but instead we're going to be using a High Pass Filter, some Layer Adjustment Modes and finally give the image an adjustable vignette to top it all off. Accessibility and 508: A Guide to Web Standards and Government Regulations [FREE] Bevi Chagnon The buzzwords flying around this topic seem endless...usability...accessibility...Web standards...WCAG...WAI. Add government regulations to the mix — such as US Section 508 and Access Board Standards, Canadian CLF Standards, and the European Commission's e-Inclusion policy — and it's enough to drive you crazy! This comprehensive overview clears up the confusion by reviewing what the standards are, who's affected by the government regulations, and what you must do — or are encouraged to do — to be compliant. Although the Web standards are voluntary international standards, Section 508 regulations are only for US Federal government web sites and are required by federal law. And Canada's Content Look and Feel Standards affect only Canadian government websites. WCAG standards are not quite the same as US 508-accessibility standards, but this article shows were they converge...and where they don't. Links to other US Federal, state, and local regulations are included, as well as several international government regulations, and relevant CMX articles and tutorials. This article is for: web developers and designers audio, video, and animation developers web masters project managers usability specialists GUI (interface) designers government contractors government contracting officers, procurement specialists, and FAR specialists Topics covered in this article: Web standards, regulations, and entities: what's what and who's who. When must you adhere to the standards And when it's "smart" to meet the standards WCAG guidelines and checkpoints Comparison of WCAG guidelines and US Federal 508-accessibility requirements Resources: Catalog of CMX articles and tutorials on building accessibility into your websites Resources: Links to US Federal, local, state websites on accessibility Resources: Links to international websites on accessibility Motion Tween Effects in Flash CS3 [FREE] Tom Green, David Stiller In a series of excerpts from their new book, Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers, Community MX partners Tom Green and David Stiller show you how to apply the Glow effect to Jay Maynard, better known as Tron Guy. Yahoo! Pipes: Mash-up a Customized News Feed Kim Cavanaugh Yahoo Pipes has been on my personal radar since it was announced in February of this year. At the time of its roll-out there was a great deal of interest around the web design world as Yahoo provided what appeared to be an easy way for anyone (even non-developers like myself) to mash-up RSS feeds into new web services. If you’re developing web sites for customers, the ability to provide them with live data that can be displayed on their site will be a valuable service that just may set you apart from your competition. You don’t even have to tell anyone how easy Yahoo makes this. In this series of articles we'll be looking at the world of Yahoo Pipes from both exploratory and practical viewpoints. We'll start out by looking at the Pipes design environment and previewing feeds developed and shared by others in the Pipes community. From there you'll build your first customized feed and finish things up with a look at how feeds published using the Pipes service can be consumed in different ways on your own sites. The Yahoo! Pipes Series: Yahoo! Pipes: An Introduction Yahoo! Pipes: Mash-up a Customized News Feed Yahoo! Pipes: Create a Persistent News Search with Web Services Coming Soon Yahoo! Pipes: Options for Publishing a Customized RSS Feed Coming Soon Happy 4th of July! 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 holiday with their families, CMX will not be releasing content on Wednesday, July 4th. We will be back on Thursday, July 5th, with two brand new pieces of content. Enjoy your holiday! The PHP Insert Bar Explained Paul Davis The PHP Insert bar is a collection of commonly used programming features in PHP. The collection is used to insert a snippet of PHP code in the page and relies upon you to complete the variable information. We will walk through each of the icons on this bar and detail what it does and how to make it complete for your purposes. Water Drops on Surfaces Gordon Mackay A while ago Jim Babbage wrote an excellent tutorial about creating photo-realistic water drops that could be placed on images. In this tutorial I'd like to do a similar thing, slightly scaled-down and more suited to general graphics rather than photographic effects. This is a very simple tutorial that demonstrates how to created a reasonable realistic looking water drop on a surface using Fireworks and only a small handful of tools. It's really easy... so come on in and have a go. Removing a Background in InDesign CS2 or CS3 Kim Dudley Layouts in applications such as InDesign typically include images, text and other graphical elements. All of these objects are positioned and layered to create an effective design. When you import a bitmap image into a layout it is usually contained within a rectangular shape. Even if the image has been close cropped so there is no background it will still be surrounded by a white box. If this image is placed over top of other artwork it will cover the objects behind it. One way to avoid this is to save the image with a clipping path, this can be done in an image editing application such as Photoshop. For more information on how to do this check out Bitmaps Without Backgrounds - Using Clipping Paths in Photoshop. This is not the only way that a clipping path can be added to an image. In this tutorial we will look at how a clipping path can be added to a bitmap image right in InDesign CS2 or newer. Depending on the image, this can be done with a few simple clicks of the mouse avoiding the need to open another application. In this tutorial we will use InDesign's Clipping path tool to hide the background of an imported bitmap image. Playing Nice with Dreamweaver -- Making Code and Design View More Useful Tom Muck Dreamweaver, as a visual tool and a coding tool, has achieved status as the premier development tool for the web—not only for static HTML pages, but for dynamic pages in ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, PHP, and ASP.NET. One of the reasons is the combination of design view with code view, and the fairly accurate representation in design view of your page. It's not a WYSIWYG program, but design view does present a very close approximation of WYSIWYG. The time when DW does not accurately represent a page is usually when there is some server-side code involved. This article will show a few ways to make your server code "play nice" with Dreamweaver, while not sacrificing quality of coding. I will show examples in various server languages, but the examples are only meant to illustrate the concepts. This article should apply equally to all server models. Rule #4 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Self-Preservation Derrick Ypenburg Self-preservation as a freelancer is a very hard task. Having to be disciplined enough to get work done on your own, having a clean home office, sending out invoices on time, eating meals, picking up the kids, etc., etc.. It's hard to handle everything, but there are things you can do for yourself to help you get into a better groove. The points I'm making in this article are not published, industry standard rules, but rather a personal list of items I've found out for myself and good pieces advice I have received over the years. These serious, yet humorous tips on self-preservation are in no particular order. Enjoy! The Rules for Busy Freelancers Series: Rule #1 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Don't Be Everything to Everybody Rule #2 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Be Honest with Your Scheduling Rule #3 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Manage Your Client as Well as the Project Rule #4 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Self-Preservation
Image > Mode > Grayscale Is Out - Part 1 The time has come to forget about using the old standby, Image > Mode > Grayscale, for converting your color images to Grayscale. In this tutorial we're going to look at two methods, which allow you to have even more control over the tonality of your Grayscale images using the Lab Mode in Photoshop as well as the Layer Adjustment functions. In some cases you'll actually be able to select specific colors in the image and automatically adjust their respective, individual tones. Check out the Article by CMX Partner Knut Kubenz
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats! This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of Tom Green , CMX Partner. Getting The Dimensions of Your FLV Let's say you have an FLV that you don't want to use in the FLVPlayback component but in a video object instead. The problem is, you need to know the dimensions of the FLV for the video object. No problem. Place the component on the stage, link the component to the video and the dimensions of the FLV appear in the Flash Property inspector. Note the dimension and delete the component from the stage and the 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!

Yet Another Fantastic Application From The Folks At Adobe

With all of the buzz still in the air regarding CS3, Sound Booth almost slipped through the cracks. Sound Booth can be used as a standalone product, but also integrates with Premiere Pro or Flash and allows you full editing control over sound and music editing. You can easily raise/lower volume at specific portions of a video or flash file or take out background noise. Another great feature for Flash users is the ability to export markers from Sound Booth to an XML file so they can be referenced via ActionScript. Sound Booth also comes with a lot of audio effects like flange, echo and reverb and ready-made musical compositions you can add to your file.

Thinking About Buying An iPhone?

The iPhone is this month's "gotta-have" item, and it's already flying off the shelves in record numbers. If you do a search on "iPhone", you'll find countless reviews and articles describing the good and bad about the iPhone, as well as plenty of rants from fans and foes. Gizmodo.com has a list of ten things you should know before buying the iPhone. The "things" in question are of the negative variety, but are meant to make the reader aware of what the iPhone is "not." If you're still looking for unbiased reviews on the iPhone, the WirelessInfo.com has a pretty good one. Apple Insider also has a great review. Oh- and if you want to see some Thrill of Victory and Agony of Defeat involving the iPhone, check out this video at MyFoxdfw.com.

That Still Doesn't Explain How My Socks Keep Getting Lost

Are we all just part of a computer simulation? Don't ask us, we only know what we're programmed to know. Simulation-Argument.com poses the hyphothesis that we could all be concious products of sophisticated software. We don't tend to get too philosophical in our newsletter, so we'll opt out of giving our opinion one way or another, but Simulation-Argument has posted other arguments for and against the idea that we're living in some form of the Matrix.

Spammers Please Don't Read This. Everyone Else Is OK.

CampaignMonitor.com has a set of thirty html email templates you can download from their site for free. They've been tested - by CampaignMonitor, not us - in all of the major email clients, and they look pretty darn good. And darn pretty.

Flash: The Lost Years

Flash was once one of the most popular web-related apps in existence. It was the media darling of the jet set web crowd. But then something happened. Flash started taking a back seat to Dreamweaver and other up-and-coming programs. What happened? Did Flash lose its mojo? To find the answers, WallStrip.com spoke to Flash, and a video of the interview is posted at YouTube.com. The truth is not pretty, but it's important to understand what happens to those who are put on a pedestal...

Satisfied Customers Speak Out!

"Thanks, this solified my understanding and knowledge (very limited) of data bases."

- Carolyn M., CMX Subscriber, commenting on Tom Muck's Top Ten Tips for Creating a Database for the Web.

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:

"Voodoo Programming: Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling everything." -Karl Lehenbauer

Bowling For Ranking

This article at Forbes.com, Brendon Scott talks about "Negative Search Engine Optimization", which involves getting a website to the top of a Google search by making sure that your competitor's websites rank poorly. Brendon knows a lot about the subject, because he brags openly about sabotaging other company's websites to make his own client's websites look better to Google. He talks about the practice of "Google Bowling", which entails creating a ton of links on the internet to your competitor's website. Google likes the fact that a site has a lot of links pointing back to it, but if it thinks that those links are fake, it will bury that website in its search results. As Scott says, "you make someone look naughty, and then get them caught." The article also provides a list of seven ways your site can be sabotaged. It doesn't tell you how to prevent being sabotaged, but it helps to know what you're up against in the world of SEO.

It's Only Business... Cards

If you've ever gone about making business cards for your company, then you know it can be a gut-wrenching experience for us A-type personalities. A business card is not something to be taken lightly. This is something that represents you and your company and tells people a lot about what level of service they can expect from you. Properly stressed out now? Don't be. Just head over to TypePad.com, where they've got a ton of business card examples to provide inspiration in your quest for the perfect business card.

Best WhoIS Tool We've Seen Yet

We were pretty jazzed about WhoIsHostingThis.com, where you can easily find out who is hosting any website. But then we found PsychicWhois.com. Here you can look up any website and find out who is hosting it, when their SSL certificate expires, their SEO score, number of images used on the website, their blacklist status, and a ton of other information that we didn't even know you could get from a third party.

One Step Forward, One Step Back

If you're going to sue people for downloading and distributing copyrighted material, you should make sure that you're following the letter of the law when doing so, lest ye be sued yourself. The RIAA brought a sut against yet another grandmother who had never heard of file sharing before being sued, but this grandma decided to countersue. Her suit says that the RIAA's investigative practices are illegal since it uses unlicensed investigators, which is illegal in Texas, the grandma's home state. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially after other defendants hear about it. Read more on this at Arstechnica.com.

The Name Game

I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about business names. We thought it was interesting how some companies will use their business name to indicate what it is they do, like "San Diego Plumbing", while others are just seemingly random, like "Yahoo!" At KongTechnology.com, they've got a list of companies you've heard of and the origins of their name. For instance, "Cisco" was named after the abbreviation for "San Francisco."

CMX MapLink v1.0 - Server Behavior

The CMX MapLink Server Behavior creates a link to Google Maps. You can use static values, or dynamic values from the data sources palette. The behavior creates a link around a selection (text, image, etc...). The only parameters are: Address, City, State, Zip. US Addresses only (sorry international users). ASP Only.

Take a look at this extension by CMX Partner Joel Martinez

Fun and Freebies!

Ah, Kid Stuff

The internet is not all porn. Just most of it. There are some great websites for kids to visit that provide them with entertainment, activities and learning - if you know where too look. AllExperts.com has a great list of links for you and your kid(s) to check out.

With Friends Like This...

I don't know about you, but when one of my friends leaves on vacation, I never thinking about wrapping everything in his apartment in pink wrapping paper. The folks at PinkPrankProject.com think otherwise...

Finally A Place To Buy Buzz Kola!

The Simpson's Movie comes out this month, and as part of the movie's promotion, select 7-11 chains in the U.S. have converted to Kwik-E-Marts, the Simpson's version of 7-11. There are only a handfull of the Kwik-E-Marts around, but if you're lucky enough to live near one, you'll have to let us know what you thought - and buy a Squishee for us. Read more at msn.com.

Control Block Formatting Context

In order to become a skilled CSS developer, you need to understand the underlying concepts of CSS that make it work and not just how to produce certain visual effects. The "block formatting context" is one of those concepts that drives how CSS affects your page without you even knowing it. Most of the time, you don't need to worry about it; it's just something that's going on behind the scenes that you don't need to get involved with. Sometimes, however, the lack of a new context can make elements interact in undesirable ways. The primary reason for setting a new context is to keep cleared elements inside a main content div from clearing floated sidebars. We'll use this problem as a case study for how to establish new block formatting contexts and to see what their effect is on the other elements around them.

This free article by CMX Partner Zoe Gillenwater can be found here.

Weekly Content Listing

Still Another Sharpening Method

Knut Kubenz

Yes still another way to sharpen your images. This technique is quite fast, involving only a few steps and is totally forgiving and adjustable.

We're not going to even use the Sharpen Filter for this one, but instead we're going to be using a High Pass Filter, some Layer Adjustment Modes and finally give the image an adjustable vignette to top it all off.

Accessibility and 508: A Guide to Web Standards and Government Regulations [FREE]

Bevi Chagnon

The buzzwords flying around this topic seem endless...usability...accessibility...Web standards...WCAG...WAI. Add government regulations to the mix — such as US Section 508 and Access Board Standards, Canadian CLF Standards, and the European Commission's e-Inclusion policy — and it's enough to drive you crazy!

This comprehensive overview clears up the confusion by reviewing what the standards are, who's affected by the government regulations, and what you must do — or are encouraged to do — to be compliant.

Although the Web standards are voluntary international standards, Section 508 regulations are only for US Federal government web sites and are required by federal law. And Canada's Content Look and Feel Standards affect only Canadian government websites. WCAG standards are not quite the same as US 508-accessibility standards, but this article shows were they converge...and where they don't.

Links to other US Federal, state, and local regulations are included, as well as several international government regulations, and relevant CMX articles and tutorials.

This article is for:

web developers and designers
audio, video, and animation developers
web masters
project managers
usability specialists
GUI (interface) designers
government contractors
government contracting officers, procurement specialists, and FAR specialists

Topics covered in this article:

Web standards, regulations, and entities: what's what and who's who.
When must you adhere to the standards
And when it's "smart" to meet the standards
WCAG guidelines and checkpoints
Comparison of WCAG guidelines and US Federal 508-accessibility requirements
Resources: Catalog of CMX articles and tutorials on building accessibility into your websites
Resources: Links to US Federal, local, state websites on accessibility
Resources: Links to international websites on accessibility

Motion Tween Effects in Flash CS3 [FREE]

Tom Green, David Stiller

In a series of excerpts from their new book, Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers, Community MX partners Tom Green and David Stiller show you how to apply the Glow effect to Jay Maynard, better known as Tron Guy.

Yahoo! Pipes: Mash-up a Customized News Feed

Kim Cavanaugh

Yahoo Pipes has been on my personal radar since it was announced in February of this year. At the time of its roll-out there was a great deal of interest around the web design world as Yahoo provided what appeared to be an easy way for anyone (even non-developers like myself) to mash-up RSS feeds into new web services. If you’re developing web sites for customers, the ability to provide them with live data that can be displayed on their site will be a valuable service that just may set you apart from your competition. You don’t even have to tell anyone how easy Yahoo makes this.

In this series of articles we'll be looking at the world of Yahoo Pipes from both exploratory and practical viewpoints. We'll start out by looking at the Pipes design environment and previewing feeds developed and shared by others in the Pipes community. From there you'll build your first customized feed and finish things up with a look at how feeds published using the Pipes service can be consumed in different ways on your own sites.

The Yahoo! Pipes Series:
Yahoo! Pipes: An Introduction
Yahoo! Pipes: Mash-up a Customized News Feed
Yahoo! Pipes: Create a Persistent News Search with Web Services Coming Soon
Yahoo! Pipes: Options for Publishing a Customized RSS Feed Coming Soon

Happy 4th of July!

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 holiday with their families, CMX will not be releasing content on Wednesday, July 4th. We will be back on Thursday, July 5th, with two brand new pieces of content.

Enjoy your holiday!

The PHP Insert Bar Explained

Paul Davis

The PHP Insert bar is a collection of commonly used programming features in PHP. The collection is used to insert a snippet of PHP code in the page and relies upon you to complete the variable information. We will walk through each of the icons on this bar and detail what it does and how to make it complete for your purposes.

Water Drops on Surfaces

Gordon Mackay

A while ago Jim Babbage wrote an excellent tutorial about creating photo-realistic water drops that could be placed on images. In this tutorial I'd like to do a similar thing, slightly scaled-down and more suited to general graphics rather than photographic effects.

This is a very simple tutorial that demonstrates how to created a reasonable realistic looking water drop on a surface using Fireworks and only a small handful of tools.

It's really easy... so come on in and have a go.

Removing a Background in InDesign CS2 or CS3

Kim Dudley

Layouts in applications such as InDesign typically include images, text and other graphical elements. All of these objects are positioned and layered to create an effective design. When you import a bitmap image into a layout it is usually contained within a rectangular shape. Even if the image has been close cropped so there is no background it will still be surrounded by a white box. If this image is placed over top of other artwork it will cover the objects behind it. One way to avoid this is to save the image with a clipping path, this can be done in an image editing application such as Photoshop. For more information on how to do this check out Bitmaps Without Backgrounds - Using Clipping Paths in Photoshop.

This is not the only way that a clipping path can be added to an image. In this tutorial we will look at how a clipping path can be added to a bitmap image right in InDesign CS2 or newer. Depending on the image, this can be done with a few simple clicks of the mouse avoiding the need to open another application.

In this tutorial we will use InDesign's Clipping path tool to hide the background of an imported bitmap image.

Playing Nice with Dreamweaver -- Making Code and Design View More Useful

Tom Muck

Dreamweaver, as a visual tool and a coding tool, has achieved status as the premier development tool for the web—not only for static HTML pages, but for dynamic pages in ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, PHP, and ASP.NET. One of the reasons is the combination of design view with code view, and the fairly accurate representation in design view of your page. It's not a WYSIWYG program, but design view does present a very close approximation of WYSIWYG.

The time when DW does not accurately represent a page is usually when there is some server-side code involved. This article will show a few ways to make your server code "play nice" with Dreamweaver, while not sacrificing quality of coding. I will show examples in various server languages, but the examples are only meant to illustrate the concepts. This article should apply equally to all server models.

Rule #4 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Self-Preservation

Derrick Ypenburg

Self-preservation as a freelancer is a very hard task. Having to be disciplined enough to get work done on your own, having a clean home office, sending out invoices on time, eating meals, picking up the kids, etc., etc.. It's hard to handle everything, but there are things you can do for yourself to help you get into a better groove.

The points I'm making in this article are not published, industry standard rules, but rather a personal list of items I've found out for myself and good pieces advice I have received over the years. These serious, yet humorous tips on self-preservation are in no particular order. Enjoy!

The Rules for Busy Freelancers Series:
Rule #1 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Don't Be Everything to Everybody
Rule #2 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Be Honest with Your Scheduling
Rule #3 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Manage Your Client as Well as the Project
Rule #4 For Busy Freelancers to Follow: Self-Preservation

Image > Mode > Grayscale Is Out - Part 1

The time has come to forget about using the old standby, Image > Mode > Grayscale, for converting your color images to Grayscale. In this tutorial we're going to look at two methods, which allow you to have even more control over the tonality of your Grayscale images using the Lab Mode in Photoshop as well as the Layer Adjustment functions. In some cases you'll actually be able to select specific colors in the image and automatically adjust their respective, individual tones.

Check out the Article by CMX Partner Knut Kubenz

Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!

This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of Tom Green , CMX Partner.

Getting The Dimensions of Your FLV

Let's say you have an FLV that you don't want to use in the FLVPlayback component but in a video object instead. The problem is, you need to know the dimensions of the FLV for the video object. No problem. Place the component on the stage, link the component to the video and the dimensions of the FLV appear in the Flash Property inspector. Note the dimension and delete the component from the stage and the 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!