http://www.communitymx.com/blog/ Community MX Member Blog admin@communitymx.com en-us Yes that's right. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is now available for public beta testing at Adobe Labs.And it's very cool.For those of you who don't know, Lightroom is literally a digital photo darkroom.  Where Photoshop has many workflows - digital imaging, creative design and pre-press - Lightroom has a truly singular workflow: digital photography. It combines many features of Bridge, Camera RAW, and digital image correction/enhancement in a very slick package. It also offers multiple output workflows: slideshow (with music, even), print (single images and packages) and web (photo galleries and direct to flickr upload).If any of this has piqued your interest, be sure to drop by Adobe Labs for the beta, and to watch some excellent Lightroom 3 videos by Julieanne Kost   ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=956 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=956 Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:54:27 GMT I will be presenting 'Using 3D Tools in Photoshop CS4 Extended' to the User Group and Experts community on September 16th via Adobe Connect. I'll cover the basics of how the tools work using a graphic design example, as well as a model from Google's free Warehouse 3D collection. Here's the info you need: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada) If you are a member of Adobe Groups, you can check out the details here: http://groups.adobe.com/posts/aebfa20efe Or just join the meeting on the 16th: http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/techweds2009/ This is a free community event, one of the last of the summer, so stop in and soak up some 3D goodness!... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=955 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=955 Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:33:51 GMT When I reviewed Extensis Suitcase Fusion 2 released last November, it was only available for Mac OS X. At the time, they promised a Windows version with feature parity. Now, Extensis has released Suitcase Fusion 2 for Windows. A review of the product site reveals that the new Windows version does seem to have parity with the most critical features: font previewing featuring the floating preview plug-in based auto-activation for the latest creative professional applications robust database featuring SQL Lite portable built-in font vault font searching, tagging and classification options system font management They promise the same graphic performance as on Mac OS X in Windows XP, Vista. Their blog mentions that they have been performing tests in the upcoming release of Windows 7. If you do a significant amount of graphic design or wish to more easily manage a lot of fonts, I suggest you give Suitcase Fusion 2 for Windows a look. They have a free 30 day trial. If you are not familiar with the product, have a look at the videos.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=954 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=954 Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:44:16 GMT Finally, the video training product many of us here at CMX have used on the Windows platform is now available on the Mac! Camtasia lets you easily create engaging presentations, demos, software tutorials and even marketing videos. If it's on your screen, you can recrod it in action!I've used Camtasia for Windows for many years and love it. Now that I've recently switched to the Mac platform, I can't wait to add this software. And even better, Techsmith is offering a special promotional price of $99 US. If you're an educator who teaches software to your students, you have to try out Camtasia.To learn more, check out Techsmith's press release. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=953 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=953 Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:58:36 GMT I'm very excited to announce that my latest video training title is now available on lynda.com!Recorded earlier this summer, the 4.5 hour course discusses and walks you through wireframing, storyboarding, interactive HTML prototyping, in a far more in-depth manner than my Essential Training title is able to. I also introduce you to creating Flex skins, exporting MXML and exporting FXG.I had a lot of fun putting this course together and I think it will be a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about using Fireworks for prototyping web and other interactive projects such as AIR applications.Here's a quick run down of the main lesson topics:Rapid Prototyping Options in FireworksWireframingStoryboardingMulti-page MockupsAdding InteractivityCreating AIR PrototypesCreating Flex MockupsGoing Further with HTML PrototypingIf you're interested in how to maximize Fireworks' potential as your mockup tool of choice, I hope you check out this course.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=952 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=952 Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:17:36 GMT My photos are now online from the camping trip with Tom Green and sons.I shot approximately 600 images, and have edited them down to about 240, using Adobe Bridge as my primary tool.I experimented with slow shutter speeds on many water shots this year and also made a conscious effort to find scenes which I thought would translate well into black and white. In fact, you'll get a first-hand look at how I created the black and white images on flickr in my latest tutorial, which is running on Tuesday of this week.I've also included a few panoramics from the trip as well, including the one of the campsite. I hope you get a chance to check out the photos. Feel free to comment on them; I love to know what people think.  ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=951 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=951 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:32:56 GMT Yes it is almost that time again. This coming Saturday, August 1, my good friend Tom Green, I and our sons will be making the 12 hour trek to Obatanga Provincial Park for a week of very low tech relaxation.Now we don't raise our noses at all technology, you understand; we'll still have our digital cameras so we can capture shots like those seen at mine and Tom's flickr sites. But overall it's a time to chill, read a book, go hiking or canoeing and watch the sun set over a wonderfully peaceful lake. There will be no laptops and our cell phones don't work up there (Tom keeps trying for a signal.)I have no idea how Mr. Green will survive, as he will be unable to Twitter various profundities at any given time of day. Perhaps he will write them down and later do a massive post-adventure Twitter rampage . . .This is, of course, assuming:We don't strand him on some tiny outcropping of Canadian shield poking out of a lake . . .And that we can keep all the sharp and pointy objects from his eager grasp . . .And that he doesn't get adopted by a black bear as her long lost albino cub . . .Or that he doesn't become the ringleader of the local Red Squirrel brigade, stealing careless camp... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=950 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=950 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:59:34 GMT Hey Everybody!I'm picking through my idea file for new tutorial concepts for Fireworks and I thought I'd put the request out to you, our faithful CMX subscribers. Is there something you've been dying to know about Fireworks? (or Photoshop or Dreamweaver or ~insert favorite app here~ . . .)And what about the types of articles? Creative? Technical? Workflow? Business oriented? Drop by the Community Clubhouse forum and share your thoughts and ideas. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=949 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=949 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:09:04 GMT Yes that's right!Adobe has released the very long awaited patch for Fireworks CS4 for both Mac and Windows. The updater addresses some of the big issues related to text and stability. You can download the update from http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/downloads_updaters.html.After applying the update, please ensure that the version screen now shows as shown below. http://blogs.adobe.com/sarthak/FwCS4_update_about.jpg You can also read more details about what was fixed in the patch by reading the release notes.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=948 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=948 Wed, 06 May 2009 21:18:11 GMT Hey, the economy sucks and everybody's scared. What better time to work on your education, up your web skills and earn a little extra job security? There are several upcoming conference opportunities I want to bring to your attention -- as well as reasons you might want to do it at all. If you're smart about it, you can streamline costs and make it an affordable trip. Are conferences really worth it? For my business, conferences have been invaluable -- and I'm referring to the time before I spoke at them. Not only do you have the ability to learn about many different subjects all in one place, but the networking can also be a key reason to attend. I can trace most of the original opportunities I've had in this industry back to the very first conference I attended -- TODCon (which sadly isn't happening this year). I recently ran into some old pictures from that conference and it occurred to me just how much of my web beginnings started there. At TODCon, I met Matt Brown who was then the Community Manager at Macromedia. Matt bugged, errr, I mean encouraged me until I agreed to write an article for the DevNet Center (yes, my first, and I was petrified). I also met Angela Buraligia, ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=947 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=947 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:08:09 GMT W00t!A very exciting day, yesterday; I received my shipment of books and I must say, I'm very happy with the overall production quality of the book. It's pretty cool to see all the illustrations in full color!Sporting a bright banana-yellow cover (you almost need sunglasses!) the book definitely stands out. Kinda like some of my shirts . . .In the next few weeks, I hope to release a few excerpts of the book here on CMX, so stay tuned. It should be in bookstores soon, so if you're interested in learning FW from the ground up, make sure to check it out.    ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=946 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=946 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:01:06 GMT Have you ever wondered if (or how) you can add an iframe to a Fireworks prototype? What about inserting a SWF? Or adding some jQuery functionality?Well, I just finished reading a truly excellent article at the Adobe Developer Center, written by David Hogue and Mariano Ferrario that takes protyping with Fireworks to the next level.The article shows you how to leverage CSS, JavaScript and HTML using Fireworks and Dreamweaver to create a highly interactive HTML prototype. There's a great synergistic result when you combine the design capabilities of Fireworks with the coding strength of Dreamweaver. If you're interested in prototyping, head on over to the Adobe Developer Center and check out this article. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=945 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=945 Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:00:13 GMT Well, it's finally happened.I just pressed the checkout button at the Apple store and in a few days I will be the proud owner of my very first Macintosh.I ordered the 15" Macbook Pro with the faster, bigger hard drive.My old Toshiba doesn't owe me any favors; it's had a hard three year life span - and will probably end up in the hands of my nephew for at least a year, but with the writing I've been doing, having the ability to work with both Mac and PC apps is becoming pretty important. I'll just install a trusty copy of XP on the system so I can still work on both sides of the Force.  ;-)Can't wait till it gets here. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=944 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=944 Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:42:14 GMT Ahhhhhh! A huge sigh of relief and great sense of accomplishment are the two things I am feeling most at the moment. As the headline states, the very first Classroom in a Book for Fireworks is off to the presses.I'm so freakin' excited! The book has a total of 11 lessons, plus two supplemental lessons on the CD which accompanies the book. Just like other CiaB's, the artwork is included so people can work along with the same assets I used in the book. Some of the assets are supplied by - or inspired by  - Adobe, and some are my own, including several photos.I think this will be it for me on the book scene for a while, but I have some other projects in the works, including some new video titles with Lynda.com . . . and of course, I'll keep writing here at my home away from home, Community MX. I'll keep you posted on the release date. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=943 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=943 Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:37:12 GMT When I write and speak, I often talk about using em units to size layouts giving the user the ability to resize the entire layout if they change their font size. In fact, chapter 5 of the book I co-authored with Greg Rewis is an entire project based on em units. Until all browsers zoom, this is my personal preferred method. My personal site is built using this method. Last year, I wrote a blog post about Scaling fonts using em units and how I saw that affecting different types of users. A comment was made recently, and I wanted to address it in a new post while sharing a couple charts I made for myself. The comment said: "A simple calculation as 1pt equals 1px at 72dpi (MAC) so: 1pt equals 1.33px at 96dpi (PC} 12px (pt) font in MAC is therefore 16px in a 96dpi PC. If you have a parent element with a 11 pt font then to convert px dimensions to em you divide them by 14.63 (11pt x1.33) Dont interchange pt and px on a PC." First I'd like to address using points for the screen on either a Mac or a PC. Simply don't do it. Ever. Points are for print. I regularly use points (as well as inches and serif fonts) when I create a print style sheet. I updated an article recently called ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=941 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=941 Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:38:40 GMT Though Greg Rewis and my updated book, Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4, was listed on most sites with a February 9th release date, it's available now online! Since we were so late with the last one, we thought being early with this one might make up for it. Well, that's not entirely true. I think our publisher thought we'd be just as late this time and put a later date on it. Either way, the release date snuck up on me and since I'd promised to share it I wanted to give you a quick announcement here. Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 has been updated for the completely overhauled interface in Dreamweaver CS4 and as such all screen shots and verbiage relating to that is updated. The new workflows in Dreamweaver CS4 are also introduced throughout the updated book. One change in Dreamweaver greatly affected the rewrite. Removing Layout mode took away the tool we showed to collapse tables and convert a table-based site. For that reason, principles taught in chapter 3 were integrated into chapter 4 (and I personally like chapter 4 better now -- the flow was completely rewritten). Throughout each project, we changed a few of the CSS techniques (as well as adding a couple new ones) a... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=939 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=939 Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:20:23 GMT My new book, Real World Compositing with Photoshop CS4, is set to hit shelves in early January 2009. We turned in the final manuscript this past week. It's been an interesting journey, and I'm already collecting notes for a 2nd edition (if we're lucky), and possibly another book altogether.We took the approach of going from concept to execution, hoping for a more holistic way of creating composite artwork. The goal was to help people understand that creating works, especially very realistic or goal-oriented pieces, is not something that can be done by piling up tutorial after tutorial. In fact, we rarely discuss specific techniques. Instead, we take the reader from concept development on up to the point of starting actual work, but not much further.So, early on, we worked at guiding the reader towards having a vision in place, and working on elements along the way that support the vision. Planning, photography, sketches, notes, etc. are all wrapped up in the process of managing the vision. With any luck, there will be a supporting website to handle specific techniques and challenges, some of which will be brought to CMX as articles and tutorials. Keep your eyes peeled!... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=938 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=938 Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:04:43 GMT Well, MAX San Francisco has come and gone. What an experience; 5000+ geeks attending a single event!Seriously, it was a great event and I had the opportunity to meet and mingle with many new people. There were also a few networking opportunities as well. Both my Fireworks Mock Up labs were full, and I saw several other very interesting sessions and labs. I for one, was very impressed by the number of Fireworks sessions that were available. Yep, the secret is out! :-) On my return, I was informed by a very happy publisher that 28 copies of my book sold in the MAX Store during the event, which made me very happy as well.I know I promised pics much earlier, but I've just gotten around to getting them online. So if you want to see a few shots from the event and a few from the aquariums at the California Academy of Sciences, head on over to my flickr site.Enjoy! ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=935 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=935 Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:45:03 GMT Fireworks CS4 finally began to answer the problem of designing and exporting standards compliant web pages, with the inclusion of a new export feature, CSS and images. This feature was an enhanced version of the Smart CSS extension which was available for FW CS3. Well, the shipping version of this CS4 feature still had some issues. but luckily for us, Fireworks evangelist Matt Stow worked with Adobe to improve the export script.You will find his article and the new export assets on Adobe's web site: This article and the support files are definitely worth a read.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=934 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=934 Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:00:01 GMT Well day 1 has come to a close (for me, anyway) and it was quite a whirlwind!  The keynote session this morning was pretty cool. There's some pretty amazing stuff happening with AIR, FLEX and Flash in terms of development projects from companies like Disney Interactive and the New York Times Company.I thought MAX was big last year; the attendance this year is even higher! I'm told there are over 5000 people attending the event. I ran my first Fireworks Mock Up lab this morning and it went over very well. I'm very happy to not ethat both labs are at capacity (50 people per lab). It is so awesome to see this kind of interest in Fireworks!It's been a blast hanging with friends; Danilo Celic, Joe Lowery, Alan Musselman and Aaron Beall, Stephanie Sullivan and Greg Rewis and may others. I haven't seen some of these people for months (or longer) so it's nice to get a chance to talk face to face. This evening, Alan and I tooled around a bit in his car, taking a few night shots of the Bay Bridge and just enjoying the local scenery. I'll post some photos soon on Flickr and update you when they're online. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=933 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=933 Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:19:52 GMT Yes, I've been meaning to put this up for quite some time but my schedule of late has made it tough to get much blog writing done. Before Adobe MAX starts, while people are deciding on their sessions, I wanted to make a quick post with more info about my sessions and other MAX happenings. Here they are in order of occurrence: Greg Rewis (my co-author) and his fellow CS4 Web Tools evangelists will be doing a full day session on Sunday called, Designing Across Media with Adobe Creative Suite 4. This was an extremely popular session last year. The evangelists show how to use the tools in an integrated manor and really get the most out of then to benefit your web projects. Believe me, after writing a book with one of them, I can testify that they know stuff about these tools we never even thought of. ;) You must sign up for this in advance, so act quickly. Monday, Greg Rewis and I will be doing a book signing at noon. Yes, the CS4 version of our book won't be out till December, but you can pre-order both the book and the upcoming videos. (I've done one for Pearson/Peachpit about Structure and Presentation -- along with CSS tips and tricks. Greg's upcoming video is about Behavior -- ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=932 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=932 Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:51:12 GMT In a few days I'll be flying down to San Francisco to attend and present at this year's Adobe MAX. Last year was my first time going to MAX and it was certainly impressive. I'm very interested to see if that "MAX fever" is maintained.As for the work side of MAX, I'll be running the Fireworks Mock Up lab, where we will take a couple half built sample files and add the interactivity and other steps necessary to turn the files into interactive PDF documents and AIR prototypes. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and making some new ones (and giving out a few copies of my book). If you're attending MAX, I hope to see ya there. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=931 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=931 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:02:44 GMT There are several exciting, upcoming events I've been meaning to blog about but... life's been wild. This is my first blog post since making the move to Phoenix, Arizona, rewriting Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4, and shooting a video for Pearson on CSS and Dreamweaver. I'll blog again when those two items have release dates. It's safe to say I've been scarce everywhere--except twitter (where I'm stefsull). Before I miss the opportunity, I'd like to mention that the first, virtual, world-wide conference is this weekend! The <head> conference, created by my friend Aral Balkan boasts an amazing line up of speakers. It would be hard to get this many people from this many places into, well, one place. Some speakers will be speaking live from hubs (like London) and the rest of us will be coming to you live from our own offices or, since it's the weekend, our homes. :) There are three virtual conference rooms using Adobe Connect Pro (viewed directly in your browser), chat for participants to get to know each other, a room (and events) in Second Life and other creative ways to allow attendees to interact virtually. Since you can't be in all three rooms at once (just like a regu... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=930 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=930 Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:29:40 GMT I'm very proud to announce that Adobe Fireworks CS4 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques will be available October 20, 2008. It was a heck of an experience and I owe a big thanks to Kim Cavanaugh who was my tech editor. You can learn more about the book here: http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321562879 I'm very excited about the book. I think it's a great introduction to Fireworks. ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=929 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=929 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:25:54 GMT At 12:01 this morning, Adobe publicly announced the upcoming release of Creative Suite 4. Some very cool new features have been added to all our favorite software applications. Fireworks CS4 is - IMO - the most significant upgrade in a long while. And other apps like Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash are also chock full of new goodies.For more details, be sure to stay tuned here at CMX, and also make sure to drop by Adobe's web site for a breakdown of the Suite packages.... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=928 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=928 Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:06:25 GMT Well, it's coming! Adobe has disclosed the the announce date for Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 on www.adobe.com.Details about Creative Suite 4 at will be made available at  12:01 A.M. Eastern Standard Time (USA) on September 23. You can register to hear the special launch webcasts at: www.adobe.com/go/somethingbrilliant ... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=927 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=927 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:55:48 GMT An article over at Information Week details the court case between an open source developer and someone who violated their copyright. Check out the article. I'm particularly impressed with the rulings reasoning, specifically: There are substantial benefits, including economic benefits, to the creation and distribution of copyrighted works under public licenses that range far beyond traditional license royalties. For example, program creators may generate market share for their programs by providing certain components free of charge. Similarly, a programmer or company may increase its national or international reputation by incubating open source projects, As that is exactly one of the reasons why I've released some of my products free. It is nice to see that the court system is taking on the open source legal questions and, for this ruling, seems to be siding with the intellectual property owner's rights instead of those who wish to violate those rights. Score another one for open source!... http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=926 http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=926 Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:17:30 GMT 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