Wednesday, February 28th, 2007
CMX Weekly Newsletter
Check the News!
TODCon 2007 Announced
For the few who haven't experienced it yet, TODCon is the most informative yet informal Adobe-related event you're going to find. Whether you're a seasoned veteran of Macromedia products or just starting out, you will have a great time learning a great deal from many knowledgeable speakers about CSS, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, ColdFusion, Flash, Central and even about running your business properly. Those who attend usually end up coming back every year because of the unique and informal atmosphere. You don't want to miss out on this event. This year, TODCon will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada. We predict that this year's turnout will be even bigger than last year's.
You're invited to register for this fantastic, one of a kind event. Hurry, so you can get the early bird registration fee.
What's Up With Photoshop CS3?
If anyone would know, it would be John Nack, Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop. You can watch an interview with John at 49Sparks.com. In the interview he answers questions like "is it tough to make a product appeal to both designers and photographers?" John's answer: "Yes." Thankfully most of the interview is much more informative.
Great Zeus! It's Apollo!
For anyone who is interested in using all of their hard-earned skills with Flash, Flex and AJAX to build some awesome Rich Internet Applications, you'll want to follow the progress of Adobe's Apollo, which promises to help you build some great desktop applications as well. Adobe's saying that all of the amazing web apps that were made possible by combinations of Flex, HTML, Flash and AJAX can now be built as desktop applications. There's a lot of buzz about it, but you can start by checking out ReadWriteWeb.com.
Use Photoshop Anywhere
In what would seem like a pretty huge undertaking, Adobe is preparing to release a web-accessed version of Photoshop, and it should be a reality within six months. It will not be a full-blown Photoshop, but will provide basic photo editing tools... for free. Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen says that he wants to make sure Adobe just wants to stay ahead of others that are aiming to provide similar services. Read all about it at News.com.
Sick of Google Yet?
If you are, head over to ReadWriteWeb.com where they're keeping an update list of the top 100 alternative search engines. This month, they're showcasing GoshMe, which is a very capable search engine that fishes for results from other search engines, but filters them in a more meaningful way than your typical DogPile or MetaCrawler.
Satisfied Customers Speak Out!
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"Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! We're switching to brand new css layouts and have been going crazy trying to match up IE with other browsers. You just saved us days and days of aggravation figuring out why it wasn't working. Bless you!"
CMX Subscriber Dale C., commenting on CMX Partner Sheri German's FREE Article "The Dreamweaver Web Standards Lesson Plan Series - Part 3"
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:
"Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction." — Al Bernstein
Routers and Switches and Hubs? Oh My!
A lot of designers, developers and people of other computer-oriented occupations read this newsletter. One common misconception is that since we work on the computer, we must be able to "work on" computers. But not all of us are computer fix-it types. Some of us have no idea how to hook up a wireless network, and are quite happy not having that idea. But if you are so inclined, check out this article at LiveDigitally.com and you could soon become the techy-type that gets all the phone calls from technically challenged family and friends.
You're Going That Way? Oh, You Don't Want To Do That...
Google Maps has just added real-time traffic data to its already terrific mapping application. So far it's only available in thirty or so cities, but no doubt it will be rolled out in more and more cities as the year goes on. Just go to Maps.Google.com and plug in a local address. If you see a "traffic" button, you're one of the chosen cities.
The Day The Tubes Burst
Will the profound increase in videos, Rich Internet Applications and other bandwidth-suckers grow faster than the infrastructure needed to hold it all together, or will the internet, suffering from sheer overload, simply implode upon itself? We don't know, but we do know this: Articles such as this one at ChicagoTribune.com, while interesting, don't take into account that when there are bigger mice, people will always build a bigger mousetrap.
First Woman to Win Turing Award
74-year-old Frances E. Allen became the first woman ever to win the $100,000 Turing Award. Until now, 39 men had won the award, until Allen was recognized for her superior contributions at IBM, where she worked on "techniques for optimizing the performance of compilers, the programs that translate one computer language into another." She has recently been active in encouraging girls and women to explore the technical field. Read about more of Allen's accomplishments at CNN.com.
Microsoft Says Vista May Not Run Your Programs, But You Shouldn't Let That Stop You...
Microsoft put out a big list of Vista-compatible software that left out some pretty big vendors. But now they're saying that just because you don't see a particular piece of software on that list, it doesn't mean that the software won't work, just that it may not work. Well. That's... clear? For instance, Symantec says their software passes the Vista tests, but they just haven't finished the paperwork that would include them in Microsoft's big list. Read more about it at PCWorld.com.
CMX Insert SWFObject 1.4
- SWFObject is an external JavaScript file, created by Geoff Stearns, that enables you to embed Flash movies into web pages using XHTML-compliant code. The CMX Insert SWFObject extension automatically inserts SWFObject code into Dreamweaver documents, and copies swfobject.js into the folder you specify. Now supports major, minor, and revision Flash Player detection.
Check Out This Dreamweaver Extension from Paul Newman
Fun and Freebies
An Absinthe Spoon?
No, not just an absinthe spoon. It's a usb absinthe spoon. Just to prove that not all usb devices suit any functional purpose, check out USBAbsintheSpoon.com.
A Wonderful Collection of Awful Jokes
Some jokes just make you groan or roll your eyes. RinkWorks.com has just about all of them.
You're Still Lost, But At Least You Got a Laugh Out Of It
ThermoSprayCorp.com has a pretty funny 404 page.
Creating a Blurred Mask
- In this exercise you will create a video that blurs the edges of a mask to create the effect of a video that is in focus in a "knock out" area while the remainder of the video, under a black bitmap, is blurred using a Threshold effect. The key to this exercise, is to understand that the shapes you draw are composed of colored pixels. These pixels form a shape and that shape, when the movie is displayed on your screen, is seen by the computer as a bitmap.
This free article by CMX Partner Tom Green can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing
Anti-Spam Measures for PHP and ColdFusion
Spam, spam, spam, spam. Spammers have taken over the Internet and made it a horrible place to maintain a web site. Spammers have gone beyond simply spamming your email account -- now they are spamming blogs and guestbooks, spamming trackbacks, and spamming signup forms. Even a child's home page with a guestbook for friends is not safe from links for cialis, porn, or web hosting. Obviously these spammers are getting some return from their criminal activity, because they keep doing it. Unfortunately, you can't reach through the computer screen and grab them by the throat to strangle the life out of them. All you can do is put in place some safeguards and try to minimize the attack.
The Dreamweaver Web Standards Lesson Plan Series - Part Four
In part four of the Dreamweaver Web Standards Lesson Plan series, you will extend your skills by learning how to do the following:
- Center the layout
- Fix the double float margin bug in the left column
- Export the style sheet
- Create a site template
- Add pages based on the site template
The Dreamweaver Web Standards Lesson Plan Series:
The Dreamweaver Web Standards Lesson Plan Series - Part 1
The Dreamweaver Web Standards Lesson Plan Series - Part 2
The Dreamweaver Web Standards Lesson Plan Series - Part 3
The Dreamweaver Web Standards Lesson Plan Series - Part 4
Profiting Through Tax-Free Fringe Benefits [FREE]
Fringe benefits you can use to turn some personal after tax expenses into business expenses tax free!
The author is not a tax lawyer or tax accountant, take all advise to your tax lawyer and tax accountant to verify your business is eligible to use these fringe benefits. This article is written based only upon USA federal tax laws
From Flash to After Effects
Who says you have to export QuickTime out of Flash to get a video?
Smarter Link Lists With PHP
On most personal web sites you will find a listing of the the author's favorite sites, but often these links become outdated, or the sites at the end of the links go down for whatever reason. It's very frustrating for users to click on a link, only to be given a 404 page or timeout error, so in this tutorial I will show you how to make a smarter link list that checks to see if the domain being linked to is available or not before printing the link.
Building a Custom Flash Video Player Part 1: The Basic Application [FREE]
For online video, delivering it with Flash is your best bet. Flash gives you the ability to create a fully customized and branded streaming experience for the end user. Other streaming formats and platforms stream through players that cannot be customized, or that are extremely difficult to embed and integrate into a customized environment and require expensive development and testing to do so. Further, ad insertion, closed captioning and selective player controls are also quite easy to integrate in Flash video applications. The ubiquity of the Flash player and fast download time of the plug-in allows you to reach a much larger audience.
This series will guide you from creating the basic building blocks for a simple customized Flash video application to developing a full-on television station type of environment complete with error handling and status messaging, playlists, ad insertion and many other bells and whistles.
This tutorial will start with creating the basic building blocks to plan a strong, well-designed custom video application. After completing this tutorial, you will have a functional, custom Flash video player that you can build upon.
Create a Horizontal Band CSS Layout - Part 3
In Create a Horizontal Band CSS Layout - Part 1, you learned how to structure your XHTML and build your CSS to create a layout made up of stacked bands of color. In Part 2, you added background colors and images to the main content area. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to make the layout you've been working on fluid or liquid so that it adjusts to the width of the browser window. You'll also learn how to add a minimum and maximum width to restrict the fluidity to a range of widths.
This tutorial picks up right where Part 2 left off, so if you haven't read Parts 1 and 2 or it's been a while, make sure you go back and work through them or review as needed.
The Create a Horizontal Band CSS Layout Series:
Create a Horizontal Band CSS Layout - Part 1
Create a Horizontal Band CSS Layout - Part 2
Create a Horizontal Band CSS Layout - Part 3
Server-Side Includes in PHP - Part 2: Relative Paths
Server-side includes make the development and management of complex web sites easier and more efficient. One common problem that developers often run into though when first learning to use server-side includes is the idea of relative paths. In this article we'll look at why relative paths may not work the way you'd expect them to as well as a fairly simple little "trick" to solve the problem.
The Server-Side Includes in PHP Series:
Server-Side Includes in PHP - Part 1
Server-Side Includes in PHP - Part 2: Relative Paths
The Displacement Map Filter Demystified: Part 3 - Curvature
Flash Professional 8 introduced a number of exciting new visual filters — such as drop shadow, blur, glow, and bevel — which reproduce many of the corresponding filters of Photoshop and Fireworks. Of these, most are available via the Property inspector's Filters tab. All filters are accessible to ActionScript, but a few actually require programming. One of these is the DisplacementMapFilter class, which distorts images based on the colors or transparency in a special reference map. Here in Part 3 of this series, you will learn how to harness the magnification effect we achieved last time by adding a second layer of "strength factor" to the gradient displacement map. This can produce perspective distortion, only available with shapes until Flash 8, and even curved distortion, like a fisheye lens. In the next and final installment, we'll use ActionScript's built-in Perlin noise generator in conjunction with the DisplacementMapFilter class to add animated ripples to an image.
Putting the Sting into the CMX San Francisco JumpStart
I was recently contacted by a small, family run business who wished to update their website. They wanted to make some content changes and have the overall look of the site be more contemporary. Being a small business, their budget was limited as well. I took on the project, thinking that a CMX JumpStart would be the perfect solution.
I see many questions on our forums about the CMX JumpStarts and how to make them work for one's own specific needs. As you may be aware, the JumpStarts are designed and tested to work based on specific layout concepts - that's why we have so many and continue to create more.
But I'd like to share with you my own personal experience in customizing one of our recent JumpStarts: San Francisco. San Francisco is based on Gordon Mackay's CMX Design Element: Gold PNG file. My customizations include:
Fireworks PNG
- Color alterations
- Changing dimensions of the background image for the innerwrapper div
- Altering export format of slices
CSS
- Adjusting rules to change the position of the navigation
- Adding a custom bullet image
- Creating a secondary modified style sheet and web page for a pop up window requirement.
So what are you waiting for? Hop on that trolley and follow me from San Francisco to Sooke, British Columbia.
InDesign - Part 1: Setting up a Document
- InDesign is a great tool for setting up multiple page layouts or documents that have a combination of text and graphics. InDesign can be used for setting up documents for print or for publishing on the web. If you are not familiar with page layout applications you may be a bit uncertain about diving in to InDesign. This and the following three tutorials will help you get to know InDesign and develop the skills needed to work quickly and efficently in this application.This series of tutorials will follow the process of creating a basic multiple page document. The tutorials will be broken down into four separate parts covering the following topics:
* Setting up a new document with master pages
* Adding and formatting text
* Working with graphics
* Publishing the document for print and online
The techniques explained in these tutorials can be used to set up any document and are a good starting point for learning InDesign.
Check out the Article by CMX partner Kim Dudley
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!
This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX Partner Tom Green
Simple Import in After Effects
If you are constantly using File>Import in After Effects, there is an easier way of doing it. Simply double clicking in the content area of Project panel will open the Import menu.
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!