http://www.communitymx.com/blog/ Community MX Member Blog admin@communitymx.com en-us Back in November, I wrote a blog post explaining a fix for the poor and varied rendering you will get with a wordy legend that forces its containing fieldset to be wider than you've specified. You can read more details in the previous post. In a nutshell, it involves placing a span within the legend. Since a span (and a legend) are inline, the span won't render the width until you change its display to block. The styling is then applied using a descendent selector - legend span. (The span within the legend technique is demonstrated here.) And all was well in the world of cross browser fixes -- until the birth of Firefox 3. The changes made to FFOX 3 mean the span technique now fails in that browser. (Thanks to Atus for the heads up.) The behavior of FFOX 3 continues to be a legend that doesn't wrap. However, instead of making the fieldset wider, the legend now protrudes out the right side of the fieldset. (If you view the file linked above with FFOX3, you'll see that the span does render at the width specified in the selector - but the content within continues and protrudes to the right, until it ends. Unsightly to say the least.) Just one more declaration After filing a bug at ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=923 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=923 Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:59:17 GMT So there's been a pretty decent sized debate going on through the webosphere. Designers should know how to code. Developers should know how to design (or shouldn't need to design). I considered weighing in on the 37 Signals blog -- but the comments were already closed. Call me slow (yes, I've been on the road, had a birthday, and had my mom visiting with her birthday. ;). You'd be right. Oh well. I do have one thing to say. Well, I probably have more than one, but I'll start with that. I recently did a couple sessions at the HOW design conference. One was on "Mistakes Print Designers Make on the Web." Yes, I definitely agree there are common mistakes from the print paradigm. Many times I can tell how people's brains work when they ask for help on lists. I can tell they don't understand the web or come from a print background. However, that does NOT mean I think they are useless. Do I think they should know how the web works? That the web is a fluid, not static medium? Am I willing to help them learn (if they're going to be in my "designer stable")? He77s yea. I am willing. Because I think they are very important to our industry. Do I think that coders should not use a graphic med... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=922 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=922 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:26:26 GMT There is a bill which passed in the US congress which is H.R. 5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008. I'd contacted my congressman about the bill and my concerns over the bill. I've received a reply which I would like to pass on here: Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding H.R. 5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008. I appreciate knowing your thoughts on this important issue. In January 2006, the U.S. Copyright Office issued their Report on Orphan Works. Orphan works are copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or impossible to identify and/or locate. The goal of the report was to elicit public comment and evaluate the extent of real or perceived problems that content users encounter in their efforts to use these works. Orphan works are perceived to be inaccessible because of the risk of infringement liability that a user might incur if and when a copyright owner subsequently appears. Consequently, many works that are, in fact, abandoned by owners are withheld from public view and circulation because of uncertainty about the owner and the risk of liability. In response to the report's findings and conclusions, legislation was introduced to address the problem. Rep. Howard B... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=921 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=921 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:41:37 GMT WOW - TODCon slipped by so fast ... it is over too quickly... Anyways, this year we had an incredible line up of speakers, a bunch of wonderful attenders and the usual great time at the after events (i.e. dinner!). Florida is still hot, wouldn't mind it being a lot cooler, but that just isn't in the cards in June when you're in Orlando FL. Some of the regulars didn't make it this year and they all were missed. We also had some new speakers who were standing up getting it done. Got to chat with a couple of the new speakers (Denise and Estell) and they are really cool people, hope you get a chance to meet them! Best session (I went to...) was Derek's - he dressed up in a "Jedi" outfit (ok, it was a brown robe, but in context, he was a Jedi!) and I also picked up info from the other sessions I attended. The conference was great - you should plan to go to it next year - start saving today! ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=920 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=920 Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:42:51 GMT Having a great time here at TODCon, but I wanted to take a minute to tell everyone that there's yet another new feature to kuler. You can now pull color schemes from flickr! I'll be posting an article about his new enhancement in the next few days, but if you can't wait, head on over to kuler and check it out.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=919 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=919 Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:25:04 GMT TODCon will be here very soon. Yep, I'm counting the days. OK that's not the secret.It'll be great to hook up with some CMX friends and regular TODCon attendees and speakers. Well, that's no secret either.I've written the last three CMXtraneous blog posts! That's more of a shock than a surprise, though. I'm pretty stoked about the Fireworks public beta. The Fireworks engineering team has done a phenominal job. It's to the point now where I don't like going back to CS3. Yeah, not really a secret there either, the way I've been blabbing all week long about it.The secret is my second TODCon session. It will be a live demo of the new features in the Fireworks Public beta! We'll look at some of the cool features you've read about in my recent articles as well as Kim Cavanaugh's piece on the Path panel. Based on what you've read and heard this week, I hope you pull up a chair for my session. Alan Musselman from Adobe will also be presenting a session on Fireworks. He'll no doubt have some very awesome and cool stuff to share as well.I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'll be the guy with the loud shirt and - new this year - a limp (sprained my ankle and pulled a tendon a co... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=918 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=918 Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:29:01 GMT Today is a great day! At 12:01 am this morning, Adobe made available public betas for both Dreamweaver and Fireworks.Not only that, but we've got brand spanking new content for both Fireworks and Dreamweaver public betas, starting today. Walk, run, fly, teleport on over to Adobe labs and get your own beta copies while supplies last. The public beta software will be available for download for the duration of the beta program and will run for 2 days as a demo before requiring unlocking. Unlocking the public beta for the remainder of the beta period requires an active CS3 serial number.I've been nosing through both applications and the updates are quite impressive. Stay tuned here at CMX for a variety of sneak-peaks into both applications. And if you are a Fireworks Junkie, you can learn even more in the coming days at the Adobe Dev Center, Peach Pit Press and Lynda.com. Yep, I've been a busy boy. ;-) ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=917 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=917 Mon, 26 May 2008 16:18:20 GMT In less than one month, geeks will gather in Sunny Florida to catch some rays, share some laughs and learn a whole whack of geek stuff. Yep, TODCon is coming. I can't say enough positive things about this event. It's certainly opened up opportunities for me in my business, and the size of the event means you've got a great chance of hanging with your favorite authors or speakers, or making new connections to help you in your business.There are some pretty interesting topics on the agenda as well (and I'm sure there will be a few surprises.) I'll be doing two sessions on Fireworks (Ok, that's no surprise).The Wyndham Resort is a very nice place to spend a few days as well. You walk into the grounds area and forget how close you are to the hustle and bustle of Orlando.So if you're in the mood for a break, and want to justify it as a business expense, TODCon may be just right for you. You get it all, sun, fun, education and networking in a nice little package. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=916 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=916 Fri, 16 May 2008 20:00:18 GMT I'm not one to put a lot of personal information on my blog. I don't have problem with people that do it, it's just not my personal style. When I was first on the web, it took about 3 or 4 years before you could find a picture of me anywhere (as a woman, I needed brain respect first). I was one of the last people I know to join Facebook (never have had a Myspace page). Don't get me wrong, I love the web, but I've just never found the need to expose a lot of personal information there. Enter our new, confusing age I've posted here about Twitter. And I do love it for a variety of reasons. I post more information there than I do in other places. Oddly, it feels like I'm talking to my friends--in some giant, controlled IM. Of course, I know that since I don't protect my tweets, anyone that follows me, google, and the world can read them. Still... Facebook however, has turned out to be another animal entirely. After joining for an orchestrated birthday prank on a friend, I stayed and connected with a lot of folks--from real life friends to web friends I've not yet met in real life (IRL). In the past few months in fact, I've connected with several old friends, from grade school to co... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=915 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=915 Tue, 13 May 2008 03:36:14 GMT Tomorrow, I get on a plane to Web Design World Chicago. It looks like it's going to be a great conference. If you're in the area, come on over and join in the geek fun. Jeff Veen, Jared Spool, Dan Rubin, Joe Marini, Greg Rewis and more! Then it's on to HOW Design in Boston followed by Multi-Mania in Brussels, Belgium, TODCon in Orlando and finally Web Down Under in Sydney. The organizers have worked hard, and done a great job on all these conferences so be sure to come to the one closest to you. You will not regret it. Promise! Grab me in the hall if you're there. I love to meet people. :)... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=914 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=914 Mon, 05 May 2008 07:55:12 GMT <soapbox> Just a little update to Ray's article today. After receiving many negative comments on his blog, emails from CMX and a not-so-subtle email from me, my article has finally been removed from the offending blogger's site.Thank you to the CMX subscribers - and partners - who helped in this matter by posting comments on the blogger's site. You guys are great! In an email response from the blogger, he stated, "...i had already your name in the end of this article..."Yet again, this individual completely missed the point. Attribution is  not a replacement for permission. Copying is not a form of flattery. And hey, if you've ever seen my loud shirt collection, you'd know I wasn't that much into flattery, anyway. Why the score of 2 - 0, you ask? Well, at the same time I found this blog site, I also discovered a commercial software site which had not only republished another of my articles, but had edited the article in such a way that it seemed I was endorsing the product. One email to them and the article came down. Ironically, at THAT point they asked how much it would cost to reproduce the article.Fat chance. </soapbox> ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=913 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=913 Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:20:11 GMT Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS3, the book I co-wrote with Greg Rewis, is finally out. Yes, I know, it was long overdue. I took a picture of it when I finally got to see it at Greg's house (no, my copies haven't arrived yet), so if you'll excuse the exhausted, traipsing around Phoenix all day look on my face, you can see me with the book on Flickr. Greg and I didn't want to create the same CSS or Dreamweaver book that others have written. Those books are published, are very useful, and if that's what you need buy the appropriate book. Our goal instead was to show how to create standards-based, accessible web layouts using Dreamweaver. It's a myth that you have to hand code to be a real web developer. Is it best to know how to semantically mark up your page? Yes, absolutely. This is a craft and you should know as much as you can about it. Can you hand code within the Dreamweaver environment? Of course you can -- I do it all the time. Do you have to? Absolutely not. There are tools within Dreamweaver that make your work faster, and more effective whether you're working in code or design view. If you haven't looked at Dreamweaver since about MX or so, it's come a long way baby! Ch... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=912 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=912 Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:10:57 GMT As the title indicates, my Fireworks article is now live on Adobe Edge. Feel free to check it out. I'm quite happy with the end result and I hope you gain some insights on the Fireworks work flow as well.I have covered this topic in both written and video form here on CMX, but in this article, I atcually take someone else's single page design and build it out into a series of interconnected pages.Enjoy! ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=911 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=911 Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:03:06 GMT John Nack has a lengthy post about why you won't see 64-bit Photoshop goodness on Mac for CS4.There is a lot of good information there about what 64-bit does and doesn't mean, both in general and for running Photoshop. In the end, it's about market, and Apple has decided to leave Carbon-64 in the trash heap. So, Adobe will be focusing on moving to the Cocoa way of doing things.John brings up some good information for Mac folks, and also tries to head off any media-baited flame wars. However, I am willing to bet this will just spark a frenzy of armchair developers wagging fingers and charry-picking lame arguments. It's business, folks... take an objective step back and see what makes sense to all parties involved. Pay special attention to the 3 points made near the end of his blog entry. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=910 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=910 Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:03:20 GMT Adobe Lightroom 2.0 is available for download on Adobe labs. Touted as the "photographer's software" Lightroom has made great strides since version 1. V 2 integrates nicely with Photoshop CS3, sports new editing tools, and much more. for all the details, check out John Nack's Blog or just head on over to Adobe Labs... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=909 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=909 Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:34:02 GMT Happy Anniversary to CMX and my fellow CMX'ers!! Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard to make this site the success it is. And of course a huge thank you to all of our loyal subscribers, we wouldn't be here without you. :-) Wow...hard to believe it's been 5 years! I have to say it's been a hell of a ride, and one I've thouroughly enjoyed and been proud to be a part of. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=908 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=908 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:06:15 GMT Some months ago, I wrote about my interest in a new audio book category, the podcast novel. These novels are similar to those movie serials of old (Flash Gordon, Lone Ranger), radio serials of not so old (The Shadow, Green Hornet) and TV mini-series of today. Their popularity has grown and many of the authors have earned a certain amount of fame (if not fortune) by writing and narrating their own books in serial form.Some of these podcast novel authors are now going from cyberspace to the printed page! Yep, they're signing book deals for the novels they used to narrate for free. I think this is pretty cool.Scott Sigler's sci-fi (and ultra violent) podcast novels can be subscribed to for free on iTunes, but he now has a book deal for the print release of his novel, Infected, coming out in April.Seth Harwood's film noire private detective podcast novel, Jack Wakes Up is also now in print.J.C. Hutchins, author of the Seventh Son Trilogy will see the first of the trilogy, Descent, hit the printed page this summer.What I love about all this is how things got started; online, free, serialized but complete, versions of the books. These authors, and others, I am sure (I'm a sci-fi geek... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=906 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=906 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:43:57 GMT Ok, I'm in Kansas and I thought we're pretty good with online business tech stuff - I have to file, monthly, on my income, etc. I can do this online which is quick, convenient and saved me a stamp and a check (EFT payment). Now, I'm no fan of taxes, but it is the law and not paying is more painful than paying, so I've been faithful to make the payments every month before the due date (errr.... on the due date) and get the yearly required paperwork in too. Each transaction has a confirmation ID and each monthly form is stored, electronically, on their site. I can see that I've paid for the entire 2007 year, have everything filed, etc... However, today I get a call from the Kansas Department of Revenue - I wasn't there, so I call back when I get in. It is a long distance call and they are only open from 9am to 5pm. I have voip service, so I dial away. I'm put on hold. (insert elevator music here with brief interruptions telling me how important my call is to them...) Mike answers the phone, I chat a little letting him know why I'm calling, give the case number and wait. He asks some questions to make sure I'm the right guy (you know, that hard to get information, like the... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=905 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=905 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:22:55 GMT Keep your eyes peeled for the April issue of Adobe Edge because yours truly is making a guest appearance. Here at CMX as well as in my teaching, I've been focusing recently on using Fireworks to create click-through prototypes, and establishing best practices for one's FW workflow. With the evolution of Fireworks, it's much easier to create these interactive mock ups quickly, allowing more immediate client feedback/approval of a site's design and flow. The beauty of this process is many changes are made early in the design stage, rather than during the coding process.As designs get more complex, it becomes even more important to set up some best practices for workflow. This helps in case you have to revisit the design weeks or months down the road. It is also very helpful if you have to pass on the design to someone else.My article on Adobe Edge will focus on the creation of a click-through mock up from a finalized multi-page Fireworks PNG file. If you've not heard of Adobe Edge before, here's the low-down:Adobe Edge is a free electronic newsletter that comes out every couple months. It features content for web designers and developers, covering stuff going on at Adobe... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=904 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=904 Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:03:35 GMT Coming up in the next couple months, I'll be at several conferences where I'd love to meet you! This week, Austin beckons! At South by Southwest Interactive, I'll be doing three panels. On Saturday, What Women Need to Succeed will explore women in technology--what it takes to make your mark and succeed in the tech world we love. Are women really different? On Sunday, I'll do a panel with Greg Rewis of Adobe on Responsible Web Design. And finally, on Monday afternoon, we'll discuss where WaSP has been and where it's going in Don't Break the Web. On April 14th, I'll be presenting a three hour session at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) in Las Vegas, In-Depth: Using New Media with Adobe Dreamweaver. On April 25th, In the great city of New Orleans (right before the first weekend of the Jazz Fest!), An Event Apart will take place. Jeffery Zeldman and Eric Meyer invite you to come join us. I'll be presenting Design Challenges, Standards Solutions. Practical, real-world solutions to common problems. If you mention my code -AEASULL- you'll get a $50 discount. Go for it, it will be a great conference! And plan to stay for JazzFest on the weekend. On May 5-7, Web Design World... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=903 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=903 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:28:28 GMT So maybe you've never heard of twitter, or maybe it's old news but you thought it seemed silly. That's what happened to me at first as well. A friend told me to check it out (with no instructions), I took a look at the home page, wondered why I cared what all those people I didn't know were doing right now, and closed it. For those that haven't heard of it, twitter is a social networking tool that requires you to answer one simple question - "What are you doing?" - in 140 characters or less. And I agree, it does sound rather silly every time I try to explain it. However, I've found Twitter to be my favorite social tool. I've basically turned off IM (which can be an extreme time sink for me when friends need CSS help!), but I can still keep up with people I care about. In light of the confusion of new people looking at the app, I thought I'd write a few tips I've found along the way that make it work for me. A Quick Twitter Primer Your initial job is to find people you want to follow. You follow them by viewing their profile page and clicking "Follow" under their main icon. These are your friends. (They're called "Following" in your Stats sidebar and their icon will now appear ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=902 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=902 Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:59:23 GMT As I train all over the world, one of the issues I try to spend a good deal of time on is helping people to understand the malleable em unit. And how to utilize it for good and not evil. :) Anyone who knows me knows my burden for accessibility and the em unit is one of the most accessible ways to design. In fact, Greg and I spend a chapter on it in our upcoming book, so I won't go into a lot of detail here. But today, I stumbled upon a really great font-size calculator created by James Whittaker. If you'd rather keep it handy on your desktop, he also created it as an Adobe AIR application. In reading the comments of his blog post, I saw a couple people questioning the reasoning behind decreasing the default text size of a user at all. And I began to answer those questions with my own opinions. About three paragraphs into my reply, it occurred to me that I was monopolizing James' comments and it was best done as a blog post of my own (please read James' post for the full story). For the quick back story - the default text size of modern browsers is 16px (that would equal 1em). It's quite common to choose a 12px font-size which is 75% of the default sizing (.75em), as the ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=901 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=901 Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:05:33 GMT Free, I like free. I use free stuff all the time. Firefox, Filezilla, 7zip, and Thunderbird every day, for example. My server is on some flavor of GNU/Linux with Apache, phpmyadmin, Horde, mySQL and PHP (which also includes, I’m sure, TONs more software). I have a Yahoo, Hotmail, Myway, Gmail, and AOL free email address. All of those have a variety of free to them, some are open source free (GPL, for example), some are closed source free, some are just used for free (like Google, for example) where there is no source to see. Now, with open source, it is more than mere “free” software – it carries a philosophy with it, that software should be free. The preamble to the license includes: The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users. Now, where this all gets ironic is the drumbeat for donations. I have several extensions I use in Firefox and a couple of them make heartfelt, earnest pleas fo... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=900 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=900 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:05:50 GMT OK, so I'm reading ALA (A list apart) on the latest new thing to come out of the web standards group, something Microsoft intends to implement in IEv8. One of the biggest issues we web developers face in developing web pages is the varied version of browsers and code compatibility. If you look at the offerings here at CMX, you will find, from time to time, articles that address this in some manner (as in, for IEv6, you need to include; for Firefox, include; for IEv7 do this and for IEv5.x, try this - oh and Safari v1, just give it up). The proposed idea is to implement a meta tag which allows you to specify the browser engine to render the page with - for example, if you specify IEv8, when IEv9+ comes out, it is rendered with the same, prior, version of IE, v8. The goal of the standard would also to be allow multiple browsers to utilize this same functionality so that Firefox, Safari and the rest could also use this to render pages in prior engines for their product line (so I could specify IEv8, FFv2 and Safari v3, for example). The implementation will look like: <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" /> The articles went on to talk about the prior attempt ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=899 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=899 Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:18:55 GMT Well, it continues to happen and I'm not surprised. This time an open source company, mySQL, is bought by another company, SUN. I am curious, given the open source product development, as to the profits. See, a long time ago I heard a proprietary software developer laugh at the open source movement, something like "Someone is going to make a lot of money off of that and it won't be the contributors". Well it seems those words came to pass. The owners of mySQL are raking in a fortune while those who made it happen (the little people) got to participate. Compound that with companies, like facebook, which use open source tools, like mySQL and who sell parts of their company for millions - you've just got to wonder - how can I get a staff of people working for an open source project I own for free so that I can sell the company, who owns the main copyright of the open source project, years later for millions? To the point of the purchase, I do wonder what this will hold for mySQL? What will SUN do with the project? Will it become like Red Hat's distro for Linux - all for profit entries with the source files for the distro off somewhere else? Will the pre-install licensing chan... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=896 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=896 Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:49:12 GMT Something that had me quite frustrated for some time was a dynamic textfield in a button interfering with a mouse click. The buttons were added to the application dynamically when needed and the dynamic textfield was populated with the name for the button when added. Yes, I had the textfield's selectable property set to false but it was still a problem if the button's buttonMode and useHandCursor properties were set to true. The text field blocked any kind of mouse event through to the button. The solution was simple but poorly documented. I did not see this property in the help menu so here you go: textfieldName.mouseEnabled = false; Set this property before setting the selectable property to false and away you go. I hope this saves you some hair-pulling and you found this easy enough if you've been searching for a solution to this problem.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=895 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=895 Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:27:58 GMT As I sit in my sun room, looking out a a thin blanket of fresh snow in the back yard on this last day of 2007, I find myself getting a bit reflective.Like any year, 2007 had its ups and its downs. Attending and speaking at TODCON is always one of the ups for me, but this year I received a special treat; I was invited to speak at Adobe MAX. I am hoping to be invited back to both again in 2008. They are two completely different types of conferences, both a lot of fun and hard worked combined.2007 also saw me teaching more than I ever thought I would. I held down two courses at Centennial and 2 - 3 courses at Humber. The total number of students ranged between 130 - 150 each week. I was relieved when the winter break set in but also proud of myself for making it through the semester without a nervous breakdown!In early 2007, we lost my brother-in-law to a terrible brain disease. He was only a year older than me, and it certainly gave me a far too keen sense of my own mortality. But his loss was traumatic on many more levels other than my own selfish ones. My wife lost her "baby brother," my niece and nephew lost their father and my sister-in-law (who exhibited phenom... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=892 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=892 Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:44:40 GMT My Dad is a kid at heart. A big, six foot, three inch kid. At Christmas time it just gets worse, and my family loves him for it. When we were kids, my siblings and I would be awakened by our father by 5:30am at the latest. He'd be shouting "Ho Ho Ho!" walking up and down the hallways, making sure that everyone knew that he was awake and wanted to get to the festivities. He hasn't changed a bit in the last 40 years. I typically stay at Mom and Dad's place on Christmas eve, like I'll be doing again this year. My brother and my sisters arrive on Christmas morning, since they live close by. But even though we're all adults now, my Dad makes sure we get the same treatment we got as children. He'll wake me up with his bellowing "Ho Ho Ho!" after making sure that he's got some coffee apologetically brewing. After making fun of how hilariously groggy I look at 5:30 in the morning, he proceeds to call everyone in the family that hasn't arrived yet - which is pretty much everyone, since no one in my family sets their alarm on Christmas morning. Thanks to Dad, they don't need to. Everyone gets the familiar "Ho Ho Ho!" followed by something like "Santa ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=891 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=891 Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:45:24 GMT Ok, so I'm curious about all the data services available for wireless internet access over cellular providers. I go looking around and, having worked with a telecom, I look for the "hidden" charges as I know it is their favorite thing to do, sucker you in with a "low" price and then - BAM - your bill is not what you expected. I was shocked at how brazen and, in my opinion, fraudulent these charges have become. In no particular order: AT&T Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge $1.25 Federal Universal Service Fund 11.0% State Universal Service Fund 4.99% On a $59.99 plan, you pay AT&T - $70.83 Verizon Tolls, taxes, surcharges and other fees up to 34% Monthly Federal Universal Service Charge is 11% Wireless monthly Regulatory Charge - $0.07/line Monthly Administrative Charge - $0.70/line On a $59.99 plan, you pay Verizon up to $87.76 Sprint One mention of an 11% "fee" charge was seen $1.55 in line fees Sprint hides their charges extremely well, so this number is probably lower than it should be - $59.99 plan, you pay Sprint $68.14 T-Mobile Regulatory Programs Fee of $0.86 per line Taxes, tolls, roaming, and other charges (including Universa... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=889 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=889 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:04:44 GMT As reported in the CMX Newsletter, an article about the IRS tax code delves in to the Section 179 deduction for office equipment. Reviewing the article, I found it to be a little simplistic and, perhaps, only accurate should you find yourself in the highest tax bracket - and a s-corp like you should be :). It also works for sole props and partnerships, but those are BAD business setups anyway. C-corps don't get the same complete benefits as an s-corp (due to pass through profiting), but they still benefit. The basics of it is the government, in their infinite wisdom, decided that computers have a FIVE YEAR business life... FIVE YEARS (I had to repeat that because it is so ridiculous - the average machine from five years ago used 256 Megs of RAM, had under 100 gigs of HD space, was the first releases of the Althon XP or Pentium 4 series processors and ran windows 98, 2000 or the brand new XP (or NT, I suppose - we've had therapy to block out all references to WinME). The Mac's where still using Mac Classic 9.2 and OS X was released as OS 10.1). Personally, I upgrade every other year or about 18 months at the shortest. So I have a series of mothballed PCs that, if I sell or d... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=888 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=888 Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:44:53 GMT