
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
CMX Weekly Newsletter News Fun and Freebies Recent CMX Content Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats Check the News! He's Such a Showoff Peter Rojas covered Steve Jobs' keynote speech for Apple's Mac Product Conference for enGadget.com. Offering pictures along with what we can only assume is shorthand in lieu of quicker typing skills, Rojas' coverage gives us the gist of Jobs' keynote. The new iMac was understandably front and center, with Jobs discussing the new(?) design, peripherals and new software. But why read about it when you can watch the whole keynote on Apple's website? There's nothing like listening to a CEO talk about quarterly profits, aluminum and glass to really get you interested in his products. By the way, check out this PCWorld.com review to see how they rated the newest version of the iMac. WaitJustaDangMinute. Perl Developers Make $120k a year? This is a pretty enlightening blog entry at RevSys.com. It talks about the best strategies to consider when hiring programmers, specifically delving into the notion that a couple of well-paid developers is much better than a whole team of moderately paid developers. While it's probably geared toward managers in charge of hiring for large development firms, there is some wisdom to be gleaned from the article that could just as easily apply to those thinking of hiring subcontractors to help them on their projects. Just Say "No" When you freelance, especially in the beginning, it seems that taking on every project you can get your hands on is the best thing you can do, especially in lean times. FreelanceSwitch.com is a great website for freelancers, and this article really drives home the point of why it is sometimes important to just say "no" to some projects. Ask anyone who's been working for themselves long enough and you'll find that we've all taken on projects that either (a) did not match our skillset, making the job more difficult and/or time consuming than it was worth, or (b) we knew they would be a pain in the butt, but we took them because of the money. Either way, it's not the most fun or efficient way to make a living. Learn how - and more importantly, why - it's sometimes important to say no. Hey, Where Ya Goin'? Mozilla has determined that approximately twenty five percent of all users who download Firefox end up using it as their main browser. The other seventy five percent either ditch it to move to another browser or just stick with their old favorite. Mozilla is in a good place with Firefox; they've experienced the quickest growth in terms of user-base than any other browser to come around in the past five years. But rather than sit back complacently with that knowledge, they've created a plan to get some of those seventy five percent to stick with Firefox. How? They will be providing better documentation, especially for first-time users, a more intuitive user interface and they're creating a new support site to deal with the problems that users experience. Read more about it at ArsTechnica.com. Oh, Come ON! We Were Just Getting Used To 2.0! Let's get this straight: There is no such thing as Web 2.0. There. We said it. Until Web 1.0 is no longer supported, we will not accept that there is a new version that deserves our attention. I mean, really... when color movies came out, did anyone coin the phrase "Movies 2.0"? No. "Video Games 2.0"? Never happened. Why not? Because it's goofy, that's why. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, is probably more busy contemplating the future of Google than thinking about "anything" point 0, but was asked about his thoughts on Web 3.0 at the Seoul Digital Forum. Yes, someone actually threw up out that question. Schmidt's answer, whether or not you believe that any "point oh" webs exists, was thoughtful and insightful. That reminds me... You should check out Kim Cavanaugh's interview with the latest web 2.0 startup on our CMXtraneous blog.
Satisfied Customers Speak Out! "I'm almost finished with the site I've been working on for several months. I'm about to put it on the air, knowing that there will be more features added over the next several weeks - one being a way to search the site. I was just visiting Community MX, and there was this article. You make everything sound so easy. Now I don't have to wait to add the search feature to my site! Thanks Very Much for the timely article!" Rick H., commenting on Tom Muck's tutorial "Create a Simple Database Web Search" 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: "It is not good enough for things to be planned -- they still have to be done; for the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation." — Pir Vilayat Khan On a Parallel with Parallels Actually, VMware Fusion looks better than Parallells. The demonstration shown on VMware's blog - which includes a list of the top ten things you can do with VMware Fusion and your Mac - is very impressive. Besides using some some outdated apps to prove their point, it's just how we'd expect Mac and Windows to work together on the same machine. If you look at the blog entries, you'll find some folks knocking the product, but they don't appear to have used it, and don't offer a superior existing alternative to Fusion. Picking Up Men Who Say They're Women In Halo Just Got Easier! What's that? You say you've met a really [insert adjective here] girl while playing Halo and you need the perfect line to make her fall madly head over heels in love with you? Not a problem, buddy. Hawty McBloggy has what you need: The Top 10 Halo Pick-Up Lines. Hawty swears all of these lines are original and have never been used, so you've got it made, at least until the girl says she read the same article, at which point you're back to having to talk to girls on your own. UMGI and DRM No Longer BFF Universal Music Group Inc., which boasts an impressive roster of artists, has decided to make a test run of selling their music online without the benefit (?) of any type of Digital Rights Management. Yes, Univeral will be selling their music through Google, WalMart, Amazon and others (but not iTunes) in unprotected mp3 format. Digital rights management is the mantra of the RIAA, as they see it as the most basic way to protect recording artist's music. EMI set the trend a while back, and don't be surprised if more record labels follow suit. More on this at NYTimes.com. Google Giveth, Google Taketh Away Google is getting out of the Video Download business. If you've ever purchased any videos from Google.com, you'll find that the word "purchase" doesn't quite mean what it used to. Although you bought the videos, you will no longer be able to view them within a few days, because Google never sold you the rights to the actual video. Confused? All this means is that whenever you purchase anything digital goods, make sure you've read the small print to see whether you own what you've purchased, or whether you've just bought a temporary item that could be revoked at whatever point the seller decides. More at BoingBoing.net. Google is offering slighted customers a $5 coupon to Google Checkout. Oh Yeah? What Do YOU Know? Tech support gets raked over the coals everywhere you look. They're portrayed on television as smarmy know-it-alls and if they're lucky, as pocket-protected nerds in the movies. Most of us have had to utilize the help of some kind of tech support for our software or hardware woes at some point. There are just some things that we don't know, no matter how much we'd rather not admit it. At the Kludgespot blog, we'll find out what one tech support person learned from their years in the biz, including, "If possible, ask to speak to the youngest person present."
The Bitmap Auto-Crop Command for Fireworks Have you ever labored over a repetitive task and wished that there was a way to speed things up? You can often accomplish a great deal more if you just work out a more efficient way to get the job done. Such was the case recently when I needed to make a number of screen captures then crop the captured images to different sizes and shapes. Of course, there are excellent screen capture programs out there, but in this case I ultimately found it easier to crop my images in Fireworks so I could do some additional work. After a few renditions of copy, paste, select, cut, delete, paste, and then trim I was definitely ready for something easier. In the end, I created a custom command that takes most of the work out of the selection and cropping process. With the Bitmap Auto-Crop command that you'll find here you can take any bitmap selection no matter its size or shape and quickly remove all of the image except for the selected area, leaving you with a canvas that is sized based on your selection. And the entire process takes only seconds and one quick trip to the Menu bar. Heck, you can even assign a shortcut key to the command to make it even easier to use. Check out the Fireworks Command by CMX Partner Kim Cavanaugh
Fun and Freebies But Where Is "I Love You, You Know It's True. Mr. Potato Head, I Love You"? Spinner.com has posted a list of the Twenty Five Best Opening Lyrics for a song. Considering it starts with Human League's "Don't You Want Me" (You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar...), we didn't have high hopes for this list, but it does include some entries we definitely agree with. Dilbert Nail It Again This time, it's a simple observation about open source. But... We don't know and we don't care what this site is all about. We couldn't get past the butts. We're pretty sure at least one of the butts belongs to Tom Green, but we can't be positive.
Sound Visualization in Flash CS3 Sometimes a little foreknowledge is a good thing. Let's all take a deep breath and explore a sound visualization exercise in Flash Professional CS3. This free article by CMX Partner Tom Green can be found here.
Weekly Content Listing Optimize Images in Dreamweaver Paul Davis You are in Dreamweaver, working hard and heavy in the page and you insert an image that is the wrong size - what do you do? Load Fireworks? Load Photoshop? Change the size in the properties panel? Nope, none of those - you optimize the image in Dreamweaver. The World's Easiest PHP/MySQL Testing Server Rob Williams Setting up a local testing server can be a real pain at times, especially when you want to do more "complex" testing involving PHP, MySQL and Apache. Although there are some good installation packages out there, they can still at times be difficult and frustrating to work with and maintain. In this article we're going to take a look at what has to be the simplest and easiest "local testing server" set up possible: the Uniform Server. CSS Cheat Sheet: Inheritance, Cascade, Specificity [FREE] Zoe Gillenwater Even seasoned CSS developers need a quick refresher course in CSS concepts and techniques from time to time. This CSS Cheat Sheet is designed for just that need. Use it as a reference on topics that you've already learned about in-depth but need a few reminders on. If you're still a beginner to CSS, use it to learn the nuts and bolts of working with CSS, then use our other articles, listed at the end of this one, to extend your learning and practice your new skills. This Cheat Sheet reviews how the fundamental CSS concepts of inheritance, cascading and specificity work. It also contains a printable PDF illustration of the rules of the cascade that you can download and keep handy for continued reference. Installing ColdFusion 8 Report Builder [FREE] Chaz Chumley With the release of ColdFusion 8 comes a new version of the ColdFusion Report Builder which was introduced back with version 7. There have been some great enhancements to the free reporting tool by Adobe. In future articles we will look at some examples, but for now lets take a look at how easy it is to install on Microsoft Windows Vista. The Object Oriented Designer - Part 2: Making the Button Class Derrick Ypenburg The Object Oriented Designer series of articles will focus on the OOP method of writing ActionScript from an Graphical User Interface (GUI) designers point of view. I am personally in denial about being a "coder". I consider myself a designer that learned ActionScript to make my GUI's look and work better in an interactive environment. I have no other interest in programming except for the front-end aspect of things. GUI Designers in Flash are not only responsible for design and layout, they are also responsible for how a design is interacted with, and what kind of things happen when a design is interfaced by the end-user. This series will also be done in ActionScript 3 so this is a perfect place to move your current AS2 skills into the world of CS3. Part 1 of this series started out with a fully animated button using Mouse events and the Tween/Easing classes with ActionScript 3. The ActionScript in Part 1 was timeline based. In Part 2, we will move the frame based ActionScript into a custom Button class and make the animated button a true class. The Object Oriented Designer Series The Object Oriented Designer - Part 1: Animated Buttons The Object Oriented Designer - Part 2: Making the Button Class The Object Oriented Designer - Part 3: Creating Reflective Images with AS 3 Coming Soon Water Drops in Illustrator Kim Dudley Recently I was working on a design job that used water drops in the layout. The water drops created a nice effect and portrayed the refreshing look that the project called for. Drawing water drops are a lot of fun since each drop can be a unique shape, just keep them smooth and rounded. The drops created in this tutorial are a simple vector graphic that makes use of some of Illustrator's basic drawing and effects tools. It also uses one of Illustrator's older effects, the blend tool, to create shading. In this tutorial we will using the following Illustrator tools: Oval tool Roughen filter Rotate tool Scale tool Blend tool Feather effect Move tool Transparency effect Going Mobile in Flash CS3 [FREE] Tom Green, David Stiller New to Flash CS3 is Device Central. In this, the seventh of eight excerpts from their new book Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers (friendsofED), Community MX authors Tom Green and David Stiller take you through the mobile pace from content to upload. The Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers Excerpts Motion Tween Effects in Flash CS3 Optimizing Flash Content for Use in Video Adding Audio to Flash CS3 XML Captions for Video Notes from the Photoshop File Importer Create a Soft Mask in Flash CS3 Going Mobile in Flash CS3 Using XML in Flash CS3 to Build a Slideshow Coming Soon Flex 101: Part 1 - Introducing Adobe Flex 2 [FREE] Joseph Balderson Learning Flex 2 can be can seem overwhelming at first glance, considering all the elements that go into the making of a Flex application, from the Flex product line, the development IDE, the source files, the runtime and the APIs, not to mention the abundance of documentation, examples and blog entries to choose from, not all of which are intended for novices. This series aims to take some of the mystery and confusion out of learning Flex 2, providing both a beginner's overview of building applications in Flex, as well as some in-depth examination of the basics for intermediate Flex developers. In this article, we will look at the evolution and history of Flex, what is Flex as a technology and its range of products. The Object Oriented Designer - Part 1: Animated Buttons with AS3 Derrick Ypenburg The Object Oriented Designer series of articles will focus on the OOP method of writing ActionScript from a Flash designers point of view. I am personally in denial about being a "coder". I consider myself a designer that learned ActionScript to make my designs look, and work, better in an interactive environment. I have no other interest in programming except for the front-end aspect of things. Designers in Flash are not only responsible for design, they are also responsible for how a design is interacted with, and what kind of things happen when a design is interfaced by the end user. This series will also be done in ActionScript 3 so this is a prefect place to move your current AS2 skills into the world of CS3. The first code-driven bit of design/interactivity I will cover is animated buttons. The Object Oriented Designer Series The Object Oriented Designer - Part 1: Animated Buttons The Object Oriented Designer - Part 2: Making the Button Class The Object Oriented Designer - Part 3: Creating Reflective Images with AS 3 Coming Soon Triple Threat III: Tri-Platform Perfection [FREE] Thomas Pletcher Although VMware Fusion is not as well known as Parallels, it gives you -- together with Apple's Boot Camp -- the smoothest, most polished way to run a killer three-platform developer machine. The Triple Threat Series: Triple Threat: Adding a Third OS to Your Dual-Boot Mac Triple Threat II: Tiger, Vista & Ubuntu Triple Threat III: Tri-Platform Perfection
Positioning Outside The Box - Part One When someone looking at a printed book speaks to someone looking at an online PDF of that same book and tells them to delete the last paragraph on Page 19, they may both be looking at Page 19 but actually be seeing different pages. In this tutorial we will look at how PDF page numbers differ from printed page numbers, and follow along with the sample files to learn how to reconcile them. Check out the Article by CMX authors John Gallant and Holly Bergevin
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats! This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX author Stephanie Sullivan Using Snippets to Speed up CSS Development One of the easiest ways to speed up your CSS development in Dreamweaver is through the use of your own custom snippets. They also get you around a little short-coming in Dreamweaver whereby you can only create a new CSS rule using the CSS dialog. Sometimes I simply want to add a property/value pair using the Properties pane of the CSS Styles panel. Due to the numerous coding jobs I do for other web development companies, I've created my snippets in a couple different manners. I divided them into folders -- XHTML snippets and CSS snippets. For the XHTML, I created a two-column and three-column version. They're simply empty divs with the basic structure of the page using my naming conventions. For the CSS, I have one set with empty rules which allows me to access them from the Properties panel. The other set has basic properties and styling so that I can modify them to create a custom page. I also created starter snippets for both horizontal and vertical menus, float/clear classes, form styling, special footers used by some clients, etc. And of course, I have the CMX CSS hacks snippets installed to use when necessary. Snippets can be your very best friend. Would you like your tip published? Submit it to tips@communitymx.com. That's it for this week. Stay tuned for the next CMX newsletter!

CMX Weekly Newsletter

News
Fun and Freebies
Recent CMX Content
Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats

Check the News!

He's Such a Showoff

Peter Rojas covered Steve Jobs' keynote speech for Apple's Mac Product Conference for enGadget.com. Offering pictures along with what we can only assume is shorthand in lieu of quicker typing skills, Rojas' coverage gives us the gist of Jobs' keynote. The new iMac was understandably front and center, with Jobs discussing the new(?) design, peripherals and new software. But why read about it when you can watch the whole keynote on Apple's website? There's nothing like listening to a CEO talk about quarterly profits, aluminum and glass to really get you interested in his products. By the way, check out this PCWorld.com review to see how they rated the newest version of the iMac.

WaitJustaDangMinute. Perl Developers Make $120k a year?

This is a pretty enlightening blog entry at RevSys.com. It talks about the best strategies to consider when hiring programmers, specifically delving into the notion that a couple of well-paid developers is much better than a whole team of moderately paid developers. While it's probably geared toward managers in charge of hiring for large development firms, there is some wisdom to be gleaned from the article that could just as easily apply to those thinking of hiring subcontractors to help them on their projects.

Just Say "No"

When you freelance, especially in the beginning, it seems that taking on every project you can get your hands on is the best thing you can do, especially in lean times. FreelanceSwitch.com is a great website for freelancers, and this article really drives home the point of why it is sometimes important to just say "no" to some projects. Ask anyone who's been working for themselves long enough and you'll find that we've all taken on projects that either (a) did not match our skillset, making the job more difficult and/or time consuming than it was worth, or (b) we knew they would be a pain in the butt, but we took them because of the money. Either way, it's not the most fun or efficient way to make a living. Learn how - and more importantly, why - it's sometimes important to say no.

Hey, Where Ya Goin'?

Mozilla has determined that approximately twenty five percent of all users who download Firefox end up using it as their main browser. The other seventy five percent either ditch it to move to another browser or just stick with their old favorite. Mozilla is in a good place with Firefox; they've experienced the quickest growth in terms of user-base than any other browser to come around in the past five years. But rather than sit back complacently with that knowledge, they've created a plan to get some of those seventy five percent to stick with Firefox. How? They will be providing better documentation, especially for first-time users, a more intuitive user interface and they're creating a new support site to deal with the problems that users experience. Read more about it at ArsTechnica.com.

Oh, Come ON! We Were Just Getting Used To 2.0!

Let's get this straight: There is no such thing as Web 2.0. There. We said it. Until Web 1.0 is no longer supported, we will not accept that there is a new version that deserves our attention. I mean, really... when color movies came out, did anyone coin the phrase "Movies 2.0"? No. "Video Games 2.0"? Never happened. Why not? Because it's goofy, that's why. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, is probably more busy contemplating the future of Google than thinking about "anything" point 0, but was asked about his thoughts on Web 3.0 at the Seoul Digital Forum. Yes, someone actually threw up out that question. Schmidt's answer, whether or not you believe that any "point oh" webs exists, was thoughtful and insightful. That reminds me... You should check out Kim Cavanaugh's interview with the latest web 2.0 startup on our CMXtraneous blog.

Satisfied Customers Speak Out!

"I'm almost finished with the site I've been working on for several months. I'm about to put it on the air, knowing that there will be more features added over the next several weeks - one being a way to search the site. I was just visiting Community MX, and there was this article. You make everything sound so easy. Now I don't have to wait to add the search feature to my site! Thanks Very Much for the timely article!"

Rick H., commenting on Tom Muck's tutorial "Create a Simple Database Web Search"

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:

"It is not good enough for things to be planned -- they still have to be done; for the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation." — Pir Vilayat Khan

On a Parallel with Parallels

Actually, VMware Fusion looks better than Parallells. The demonstration shown on VMware's blog - which includes a list of the top ten things you can do with VMware Fusion and your Mac - is very impressive. Besides using some some outdated apps to prove their point, it's just how we'd expect Mac and Windows to work together on the same machine. If you look at the blog entries, you'll find some folks knocking the product, but they don't appear to have used it, and don't offer a superior existing alternative to Fusion.

Picking Up Men Who Say They're Women In Halo Just Got Easier!

What's that? You say you've met a really [insert adjective here] girl while playing Halo and you need the perfect line to make her fall madly head over heels in love with you? Not a problem, buddy. Hawty McBloggy has what you need: The Top 10 Halo Pick-Up Lines. Hawty swears all of these lines are original and have never been used, so you've got it made, at least until the girl says she read the same article, at which point you're back to having to talk to girls on your own.

UMGI and DRM No Longer BFF

Universal Music Group Inc., which boasts an impressive roster of artists, has decided to make a test run of selling their music online without the benefit (?) of any type of Digital Rights Management. Yes, Univeral will be selling their music through Google, WalMart, Amazon and others (but not iTunes) in unprotected mp3 format. Digital rights management is the mantra of the RIAA, as they see it as the most basic way to protect recording artist's music. EMI set the trend a while back, and don't be surprised if more record labels follow suit. More on this at NYTimes.com.

Google Giveth, Google Taketh Away

Google is getting out of the Video Download business. If you've ever purchased any videos from Google.com, you'll find that the word "purchase" doesn't quite mean what it used to. Although you bought the videos, you will no longer be able to view them within a few days, because Google never sold you the rights to the actual video. Confused? All this means is that whenever you purchase anything digital goods, make sure you've read the small print to see whether you own what you've purchased, or whether you've just bought a temporary item that could be revoked at whatever point the seller decides. More at BoingBoing.net. Google is offering slighted customers a $5 coupon to Google Checkout.

Oh Yeah? What Do YOU Know?

Tech support gets raked over the coals everywhere you look. They're portrayed on television as smarmy know-it-alls and if they're lucky, as pocket-protected nerds in the movies. Most of us have had to utilize the help of some kind of tech support for our software or hardware woes at some point. There are just some things that we don't know, no matter how much we'd rather not admit it. At the Kludgespot blog, we'll find out what one tech support person learned from their years in the biz, including, "If possible, ask to speak to the youngest person present."

The Bitmap Auto-Crop Command for Fireworks

Have you ever labored over a repetitive task and wished that there was a way to speed things up? You can often accomplish a great deal more if you just work out a more efficient way to get the job done. Such was the case recently when I needed to make a number of screen captures then crop the captured images to different sizes and shapes. Of course, there are excellent screen capture programs out there, but in this case I ultimately found it easier to crop my images in Fireworks so I could do some additional work. After a few renditions of copy, paste, select, cut, delete, paste, and then trim I was definitely ready for something easier. In the end, I created a custom command that takes most of the work out of the selection and cropping process. With the Bitmap Auto-Crop command that you'll find here you can take any bitmap selection no matter its size or shape and quickly remove all of the image except for the selected area, leaving you with a canvas that is sized based on your selection. And the entire process takes only seconds and one quick trip to the Menu bar. Heck, you can even assign a shortcut key to the command to make it even easier to use.

Check out the Fireworks Command by CMX Partner Kim Cavanaugh

Fun and Freebies

But Where Is "I Love You, You Know It's True. Mr. Potato Head, I Love You"?

Spinner.com has posted a list of the Twenty Five Best Opening Lyrics for a song. Considering it starts with Human League's "Don't You Want Me" (You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar...), we didn't have high hopes for this list, but it does include some entries we definitely agree with.

Dilbert Nail It Again

This time, it's a simple observation about open source.

But...

We don't know and we don't care what this site is all about. We couldn't get past the butts. We're pretty sure at least one of the butts belongs to Tom Green, but we can't be positive.

Sound Visualization in Flash CS3

Sometimes a little foreknowledge is a good thing. Let's all take a deep breath and explore a sound visualization exercise in Flash Professional CS3.

This free article by CMX Partner Tom Green can be found here.

Weekly Content Listing

Optimize Images in Dreamweaver

Paul Davis

You are in Dreamweaver, working hard and heavy in the page and you insert an image that is the wrong size - what do you do?

Load Fireworks?
Load Photoshop?
Change the size in the properties panel?

Nope, none of those - you optimize the image in Dreamweaver.

The World's Easiest PHP/MySQL Testing Server

Rob Williams

Setting up a local testing server can be a real pain at times, especially when you want to do more "complex" testing involving PHP, MySQL and Apache. Although there are some good installation packages out there, they can still at times be difficult and frustrating to work with and maintain. In this article we're going to take a look at what has to be the simplest and easiest "local testing server" set up possible: the Uniform Server.

CSS Cheat Sheet: Inheritance, Cascade, Specificity [FREE]

Zoe Gillenwater

Even seasoned CSS developers need a quick refresher course in CSS concepts and techniques from time to time. This CSS Cheat Sheet is designed for just that need. Use it as a reference on topics that you've already learned about in-depth but need a few reminders on. If you're still a beginner to CSS, use it to learn the nuts and bolts of working with CSS, then use our other articles, listed at the end of this one, to extend your learning and practice your new skills.

This Cheat Sheet reviews how the fundamental CSS concepts of inheritance, cascading and specificity work. It also contains a printable PDF illustration of the rules of the cascade that you can download and keep handy for continued reference.

Installing ColdFusion 8 Report Builder [FREE]

Chaz Chumley

With the release of ColdFusion 8 comes a new version of the ColdFusion Report Builder which was introduced back with version 7. There have been some great enhancements to the free reporting tool by Adobe. In future articles we will look at some examples, but for now lets take a look at how easy it is to install on Microsoft Windows Vista.

The Object Oriented Designer - Part 2: Making the Button Class

Derrick Ypenburg

The Object Oriented Designer series of articles will focus on the OOP method of writing ActionScript from an Graphical User Interface (GUI) designers point of view. I am personally in denial about being a "coder". I consider myself a designer that learned ActionScript to make my GUI's look and work better in an interactive environment. I have no other interest in programming except for the front-end aspect of things.

GUI Designers in Flash are not only responsible for design and layout, they are also responsible for how a design is interacted with, and what kind of things happen when a design is interfaced by the end-user. This series will also be done in ActionScript 3 so this is a perfect place to move your current AS2 skills into the world of CS3.

Part 1 of this series started out with a fully animated button using Mouse events and the Tween/Easing classes with ActionScript 3. The ActionScript in Part 1 was timeline based. In Part 2, we will move the frame based ActionScript into a custom Button class and make the animated button a true class.

The Object Oriented Designer Series
The Object Oriented Designer - Part 1: Animated Buttons
The Object Oriented Designer - Part 2: Making the Button Class
The Object Oriented Designer - Part 3: Creating Reflective Images with AS 3 Coming Soon

Water Drops in Illustrator

Kim Dudley

Recently I was working on a design job that used water drops in the layout. The water drops created a nice effect and portrayed the refreshing look that the project called for. Drawing water drops are a lot of fun since each drop can be a unique shape, just keep them smooth and rounded.

The drops created in this tutorial are a simple vector graphic that makes use of some of Illustrator's basic drawing and effects tools. It also uses one of Illustrator's older effects, the blend tool, to create shading. In this tutorial we will using the following Illustrator tools:

Oval tool
Roughen filter
Rotate tool
Scale tool
Blend tool
Feather effect
Move tool
Transparency effect

Resulting graphic

Going Mobile in Flash CS3 [FREE]

Tom Green, David Stiller

New to Flash CS3 is Device Central. In this, the seventh of eight excerpts from their new book Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers (friendsofED), Community MX authors Tom Green and David Stiller take you through the mobile pace from content to upload.

The Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers Excerpts
Motion Tween Effects in Flash CS3
Optimizing Flash Content for Use in Video
Adding Audio to Flash CS3
XML Captions for Video
Notes from the Photoshop File Importer
Create a Soft Mask in Flash CS3
Going Mobile in Flash CS3
Using XML in Flash CS3 to Build a Slideshow Coming Soon

Flex 101: Part 1 - Introducing Adobe Flex 2 [FREE]

Joseph Balderson

Learning Flex 2 can be can seem overwhelming at first glance, considering all the elements that go into the making of a Flex application, from the Flex product line, the development IDE, the source files, the runtime and the APIs, not to mention the abundance of documentation, examples and blog entries to choose from, not all of which are intended for novices. This series aims to take some of the mystery and confusion out of learning Flex 2, providing both a beginner's overview of building applications in Flex, as well as some in-depth examination of the basics for intermediate Flex developers.

In this article, we will look at the evolution and history of Flex, what is Flex as a technology and its range of products.

The Object Oriented Designer - Part 1: Animated Buttons with AS3

Derrick Ypenburg

The Object Oriented Designer series of articles will focus on the OOP method of writing ActionScript from a Flash designers point of view. I am personally in denial about being a "coder". I consider myself a designer that learned ActionScript to make my designs look, and work, better in an interactive environment. I have no other interest in programming except for the front-end aspect of things.

Designers in Flash are not only responsible for design, they are also responsible for how a design is interacted with, and what kind of things happen when a design is interfaced by the end user. This series will also be done in ActionScript 3 so this is a prefect place to move your current AS2 skills into the world of CS3.

The first code-driven bit of design/interactivity I will cover is animated buttons.

The Object Oriented Designer Series
The Object Oriented Designer - Part 1: Animated Buttons
The Object Oriented Designer - Part 2: Making the Button Class
The Object Oriented Designer - Part 3: Creating Reflective Images with AS 3 Coming Soon

Triple Threat III: Tri-Platform Perfection [FREE]

Thomas Pletcher

Although VMware Fusion is not as well known as Parallels, it gives you -- together with Apple's Boot Camp -- the smoothest, most polished way to run a killer three-platform developer machine.

The Triple Threat Series:
Triple Threat: Adding a Third OS to Your Dual-Boot Mac
Triple Threat II: Tiger, Vista & Ubuntu
Triple Threat III: Tri-Platform Perfection

Positioning Outside The Box - Part One

When someone looking at a printed book speaks to someone looking at an online PDF of that same book and tells them to delete the last paragraph on Page 19, they may both be looking at Page 19 but actually be seeing different pages. In this tutorial we will look at how PDF page numbers differ from printed page numbers, and follow along with the sample files to learn how to reconcile them.

Check out the Article by CMX authors John Gallant and Holly Bergevin

Tips, Tricks and Dirty Cheats!

This week's Tip, Trick or Dirty Cheat is courtesy of CMX author Stephanie Sullivan

Using Snippets to Speed up CSS Development

One of the easiest ways to speed up your CSS development in Dreamweaver is through the use of your own custom snippets. They also get you around a little short-coming in Dreamweaver whereby you can only create a new CSS rule using the CSS dialog. Sometimes I simply want to add a property/value pair using the Properties pane of the CSS Styles panel.

Due to the numerous coding jobs I do for other web development companies, I've created my snippets in a couple different manners. I divided them into folders -- XHTML snippets and CSS snippets. For the XHTML, I created a two-column and three-column version. They're simply empty divs with the basic structure of the page using my naming conventions. For the CSS, I have one set with empty rules which allows me to access them from the Properties panel. The other set has basic properties and styling so that I can modify them to create a custom page.

I also created starter snippets for both horizontal and vertical menus, float/clear classes, form styling, special footers used by some clients, etc. And of course, I have the CMX CSS hacks snippets installed to use when necessary. Snippets can be your very best friend.

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!