Wednesday, August 18th, 2004
CMX Weekly Newsletter
Check the News!
I'd hate to have been the one to tell Steve Jobs...
The time has finally come for competition in the online music market. RealPlayer announced a promotion on Tuesday that puts their online music at about 1/2 the cost of what you're currently spending at iTunes. Each song is 49 cents, and a whole album can be had for the small price of $4.99. Real Networks claims that Apple is not a target in this campaign, but the words "Half the Price of Apple" splattered on their home page would indicate otherwise... You can read Ray West's take on it here, and start downloading here.
Macromedia announces Flash Video Kit for Dreamweaver
Have you ever had the need to stream in video to your web site and worried about the side effects of plug-ins, page size and slow download times? Well, your worries are at an end. On August 17th, Macromedia announced the forthcoming release of their new "Flash Video Kit" for Dreamweaver!
Yes, you read that correctly, not Flash, Dreamweaver. The Flash Video Kit will open the door for all of us to easily create and add streaming video content to our web sites. OK, I can hear you say:"This sounds great, but I know nothing about video, streaming or otherwise, what sort of knowledge am I going to need to implement this functionality?" The answer to that is very little; certainly you won't need any video knowledge. You need only be a proud owner of Studio MX 2004 with Flash Pro. That is where all your required knowledge and expertise of working with FLV - Flash Video Format- files starts and ends. The Flash Video Kit handles all the technicalities for you and is being released on September 1st, 2004. Read Adrian Senior's free article about Macromedia's newest product.
Fireworks is better than Photoshop. So there.
Brian Edgin has thrown down the gauntlet. He is challenging Photoshop users to design something in Photoshop that they believe cannot be reproduced with Fireworks, or would take more steps to recreate in Fireworks. Brian is prepared to reproduce the work in Fireworks in less steps than the Photoshop version. Check out Brian's blog at Community MX for more information. Keep watching his Blog, as Brian plans on providing links to the "before and after" files there.
But hey, it's just a security update after all
Service Pack 2 for Windows XP has been touted as being all about security enhancement, and it's true that MS has made great strides in this area with the release of SP2. But security is not the only thing you'll find in this 265mb download. A quick scan of this page will tell you that there are bug fixes galore as well. One fix is listed simply as "Your Windows XP computer stops responding after you log on." You know, it's kind of hard to worry about whether or not you're getting an annoying popup window if you can't even get to your desktop. Macromedia has devoted a page to SP2 as well.
Nature calls...
You've had one of those days; deadlines came and went, your boss yelled at you (via her cellphone, because she's in Hawaii) and you come home hoping to see dinner on the table and a family eager to cater to your every need.
Well, one may dream, but there is a way to soothe your nerves after the daily grind, and, thanks to modern technology, it's only a web site away.
Orca Live is your chance to commune with nature from the comfort of your own home. Off the northeast shore of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada, is a group of scientists studying resident Orca (Killer Whale) pods. Underwater cameras might allow you to capture a glimpse of a pod of the large dolphins as they hunt for salmon or socialize in the area. Hydrophones, which are underwater microphones, record the cacophony of the aural landscape under the surface. A soothing way to unravel from a tough 9 to 5, Orca Live is a small window into a world unseen by most of us.
I guess now it will be HeyThanksForThatLiver.com
When Todd Crampitz of Houston, Texas, was told that he needed a new liver to save his life, he didn't wait around to see if he'd get a donor in time. He advertised his plight on billboards and on his website, ToddNeedsaLiver.com. Todd and his family's ingenuity paid off and they got a donor from out of state to donate a recently deceased relative's liver. It is this kind of story that renews your faith in people, and just reminds you how darned handy this whole "internet" thing is.
Satisfied Customers Speak Out!
- "I'm really looking forward to accessing more of the content and participating in some of the dialogues in the forums. I already recognize the names of a large number of the authors on your site. In fact, I learned a lot of what I now know about Flash, Dreamweaver and ColdFusion from those very same authors. That's very comforting and awesome at the same time! =)
I'm planning to purchase a yearly subscription"
- Shawn, in an email to CMX Marketing Manager, Paula Bright
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:
"Of course, the best way to get accurate information on Usenet is to post something wrong and wait for corrections." — Matthew Austern
Now, we're not saying you should sign us up, but...
Nominations have opened for the MX Developers Reader's Choice Awards and the CF Developers Reader's Choice Awards. These awards, sponsored by MX Developer's Journal, "highlight excellence in the solutions and services provided by the top firms in the industry." You can suggest new categories for awards, and nominate a company that you feel helps drive our industry forward. Really. It could be anyone. Anyone at all...
You bet your CSS
Have a look at this site and see what this guy is doing with CSS. How about a CSS "font"? Yep, you read that right...text on a page using nothing but CSS. Possibly a good tool for hiding your email address from bots, or generally protecting any text you want to keep from being easily copied.
Hi, Chief? It's MAX
Now is the time to register for Macromedia's MAX 2004, taking place in New Orleans November 1st through the 4th. You can choose from seven tracks, such as "Developing Rich Internet Applications" or "Web Application Development" or "Mobile & Devices". MAX is always a great learning experience, and there's a good chance that new products and/or services could be announced.
Fictional? We'll let you be the judge
Interesting fiction about what semantics means and how it relates to syntax. Built within the framework of a company that seems to understand semantics - Google - and companies that don't - eBay and Amazon.
Kids are so cute at that age
Jeffrey Parson, a 19-year old from Hopkins, Minnesota, plead guilty to spreading a variant of the Blaster worm, which virtually (no pun intended) disabled thousands of computers last summer. Parson had originally plead not guilty to spreading the worm, but probably changed his mind when his Mom threatened to send him to bed with no supper. Jeffrey will undoubtedly be fined, and may face jail time, and millions of dollars in restitution. We hope that he can flip enough burgers to cover the costs.
Consuming RSS Feeds in ColdFusion, Part I
- RSS feeds provide an easy way for sites to syndicate news headlines and stories, and are widely used by sites such as Yahoo! which want to make it easy for others to reuse their content. RSS is a simple XML language for defining the content of these feeds, and using ColdFusion's XML object it is easy to consume and process these feeds in your ColdFusion Application. This first installment of our series on consuming RSS feeds in ColdFusion introduces RSS and the basics of the XML object. Take a look at this fantastic article by our own Arman Danesh, naturally.
Fun and Freebies!
Balancing Act
Yes, there are tons of Flash games out there and you would think we would have grown completely bored of them by now. But what is it about some of them that compel us to keep playing them? Is it a personal best we're trying to achieve? Is it just an endless pursuit of fun? Is it obsessive-compulsive disorder? Here's another Flash game to add to our list of games that we keep playing, but aren't sure why...
And that's just a moiety of the story!
According to Houghton Mifflin, there are 100 words that every high school graduate should know. Like moiety (1/2, or part of), unctuous (insincere earnestness), and quite a few (well, 98 to be exact) more. Most of these were familiar, but others were not, which caused us to become lugubrious...
That's going to be one bear of a hangover
If the folks at Ranier Beer don't take advantage of this marketing opportunity, they must be drunk. A two-year-old bear was found passed out drunk in a Washington State Park. He had broken into a camper's beer supply and consumed about 36 cans of beer. Not only that, but he had a choice of a couple beers. He tried Busch, but decided it wasn't to his liking and drank all the Ranier beer he could find. Local officials set a trap for the bear made up of honey, donuts and... two cans of beer. The bear went for it, and was relocated. Hopefully someone at Ranier sees this story.
Flash, DHTML Menus and Accessibility (Free)
- It's not uncommon to hear developers complaining that their DHTML menus, when triggered, have dropped behind the Flash movie below them. It's also not uncommon to hear, "that's just how they work." Before Flash Player 6, that was true in many browsers. But nowadays, it's become urban legend. With Flash Player 6, Macromedia introduced windowless mode for Netscape and Mac OS X (previously it was supported only for Windows). In the process, this also gave developers a way to completely hide Flash from older screen readers and the focus issues they can have with it. In fact, when Flash is purely used as eye candy, it's wise to remove it from the flow of the screen reader's page so that they don't have to listen to Flash without a purpose.
Article from Stephanie Sullivan can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing
Working With SQL Server Part 2: Exploring the EM and Tables
The aim of this tutorial is to understand the flow of the dynamic data in our web development projects. We'll begin by looking at where the database fits into the grand scheme of things, and then look into how the data is handled and processed by our applications.
Once we have achieved these goals we'll move on to explore what a database is and look at the tables it contains. We'll also begin to explore the Enterprise Manager GUI.
Vodafone For the Rest Of Us: How Did They Do It? - Part 2 [FREE]
Just because you don't have the resources to pick up a copy of Flash Professional is no reason to be shut out of the web video game. Here's how to create the Vodafone Video Bracelet using Flash MX 2004.
Macromedia Announces: The Flash Video Kit for Dreamweaver [FREE]
Macromedia announces the Flash Video Kit. A new Dreamweaver extension that provides you with a hassle free way to implement video into your web pages. See how you can get this extension and bring your clients products to life with streaming video content.
Configuration Files Paths and Dreamweaver Extensibility API Calls
Many of the Dreamweaver extensibility API functions are configuration folder path agnostic. That is, regardless of which folder a file resides in, the application install folder, the user's folder, or the All Users/root folder, the API function will translate the passed in file path and grab the file that is supposed to be used (user's, then All Users/root, then install folder). DWfile methods copy and write, dw.getDocumentDOM() and dw.browseDocument() are examples of such path agnostic functions. However, some of Dreamweaver's API calls take file paths literally. Read on to find out how to get Dreamweaver to work with you when you need to use an exact path for some of its API calls.
What's New in Contribute 3 for Content Providers [FREE]
It's safe to say that with their latest release of Contribute, the software has moved from its awkward early adolescent stage and joins its bigger siblings in the Macromedia Suite as a full-fledged partner in the creation of content for the Web. Macromedia has gone so far as to package Contribute with its other web content products in what is now being called the "Web Publishing System". Indeed, the changes made in the newest version of Contribute vastly improve its ability to work within almost any kind of web production environment. In this article I'll be taking a look at the enhancements that are included in the latest version of Contribute as they affect the Contribute user.
Silk Screen / Rubber Stamp Effect with Fireworks
You see this effect in t-shirt designs right now from Old Navy and American Eagle Outfitters. Having your t-shirt look like it was your fathers rugby shirt when he was in highschool is popular with the "young-uns". Why not re-purpose this type of old, faded design into other design concepts. Faded murals, passport stamps or distressed, grunge design effects.
Creating A Photo Blog in PHP - Part 2
What good is a blog with no content? Not much good I'm afraid! So today, we will solve your problem of having no content. Today, we are going to setup the pages that will allow you to not only add new entries, but manage them as well, either through editing existing blog entries, or by deleting ones you don't like.
New and Improved CSS Rollovers - Part One
We regret to inform our readers that one of the IE bugs we thought had been eliminated has once again reared it's ugly head. The article is currently being rewritten so as to explain a workaround for this bug. We sincerely apologize for the oversight. The revised article will be online by the end of this weekend.
Holly and John
Programmatic Color Tweening
You've learned how to create programmatic tweens in another CommunityMX article. In this article learn how to apply that information in order to programmatically tween between colors in order to create complex and exacting effects.
cmxBean.cfc: A Very Simple Bean Implementation in ColdFusion - Part 2
In Part 2 of this series on building a simple bean implementation in ColdFusion, we look at some of the theory and features of ColdFusion behind cmxBean.cfc, including introspection and extending components, and then look at the first four methods that make up cmxBean.cfc.
Sending Webpage Information Directly to a Pager or Cellular Phone
- Sending information collected on your website directly to a clients pager or cell phone is easier than it sounds, and it just might be the extra wow factor you need to impress.
Check out the article by Ray West
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!
This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is brought to you by Kim Cavanaugh of Community MX .
Yet Another Way to Open a File in Fireworks
As a Mac user I'm used to saving files onto my desktop and opening them by dragging them to the Dock and dropping them on the applciation shortcut. Works great.
But most of my time during the work day is spent on a PC, and I miss that drag and drop function. Recently I found that you *can* do the same thing in Fireworks.
With the program open, drag a file from a folder or your desktop right onto the Fireworks button in the Task Bar. Keep the mouse button held down, and when Fireworks opens drag the file next to the top of the document window and release the mouse. Voila! The file will open right up in its owned tabbed window and away you go.
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!