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August 30, 2004
4-day Server promotion
Should a client, colleague our yourself be in either the evaluation or procurement process right now, I just got word that there's an online-only promotion for some of the Macromedia server products (JRun 4, Flash Communication Server Personal & Professional editions, and Flash Remoting) running from today - 8/30/04 - through 5pm on 9/2/04. The deal: $200 off new purchases and $100 off upgrades (excluding the Flash Communications Server Personal Edition). You can get more details at the Macromedia Online Store if interested.
Posted by sfegette at 06:09 PM | Comments (3)
CMX: Site-Wide Design-Time Stylesheets
Wow. I just checked out a GREAT new extension for Dreamweaver, developed by Paul Boon and brought to you by the fine folks over at Community MX.
One of my personal favorite CSS features in DW was design-time stylesheets- the ability to specify a custom stylesheet for use during the local development of your pages (separate from your 'deploy-time' stylesheet used for your published site), however you were only allowed to specify this on an individual page level- and for larger projects there's always been the case where I needed to set design-time stylesheets for a large group of files, or even an entire local site.
And the new "CMX Design-Time Styles" extension ($5 USD) does exactly that- allows you to specify design-time stylesheets for a document, a selected folder, or even the entire local site. Awesome- and highly recommended!
Posted by sfegette at 11:32 AM | Comments (5)
XCode for Flash/AS2 Projects- Tutorial
If you've been using an external editor on your Mac for Actionscript 2 development, then you'll definitely want to take a run thru this custom XCode Flash/AS2 project framework tutorial by Isaac Rivera and Sam Robbins, which even supports the old-standby 'command (apple)- return' Test Movie feature. Very nice tutorial, I highly recommend giving it a whirl if you're interested in using XCode as an external AS editor on your Macintosh!
Posted by sfegette at 11:16 AM | Comments (2)
August 26, 2004
New Kaosweaver DW Extensions
I just got word that Paul Davis and Kaosweaver have released three new freeware Dreamweaver extensions, here's the details:
Add Field - a short utility behavior to add additional textfields to the form for variable input items.
Server Includes - a minor improvement on the ASP and PHP include objectss, this lets you navigate to a file and directly include it.
Submit Once - a command that provides a javascript function to prevent forms from being submitted or reset multiple times.
Posted by sfegette at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2004
Can't play DOOM 3 yet?
Is your gaming system/video card underpowered for the heavy load of id Software's recently-released DOOM 3? If so, you'll want to take another look at DOOM Reloaded v0.7 for a quick fix- which has been freshly updated with new features and improvements. What can I say, I'm an old-school DOOM freak at heart- so can't wait for Necromanthus' Shockwave FPS homage to hit v1.0.
Posted by sfegette at 10:42 AM | Comments (4)
August 20, 2004
CMX - Flash Video Tutorial
With the announcement of the Flash Video Kit this past Monday, I've seen several questions arise asking how those without Flash Professional can leverage FLV content on their sites. And just in the nick of time- Tom Green just put up a free tutorial on Community MX discussing exactly this subject! Based on a prior tutorial he'd written on building the Vodaphone Video Bracelet, this new tute gives the scoop for achieving the same results sans Flash Pro. Nice!
On related subjects- the Flash Video Topic Center was released this week on Macromedia.com, aggregating tons of good tutorials, articles and guides for incorporating FLV video in your projects- a great bookmark/reference for anyone just now considering building out video-enabled sites/applications.
Posted by sfegette at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2004
Blackstone at SD Times
The extensible gateway architecture is the lead feature in this article on Blackstone (i.e. the next version of ColdFusion) in Software Development Times, followed closely by the Flash forms and reporting features. I've personally heard more rumblings about Flash forms in general discussions than the gateway architecture, but am personally more interested in the latter.
Posted by sfegette at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)
Flash Video Kit Announced
The Flash Video Kit was announced today- a package deal including a Flash Video Extension for Dreamweaver (allowing for easy integration of FLV video into your websites), a special version of the Sorenson Squeeze transcoder, the Flash Video Learner's Guide (an introductory guide to deploying Flash Video) and a 15-day free trial of the VitalStream Flash Video Streaming Service- great for those who don't have the inclination or resources to host their own dedicated FlashCom server.
You can get the Flash Video Kit (a $99 value) free when you buy or upgrade to Studio MX 2004 with Flash Professional- and register it online by September 30. I believe there is also a discount/deal for existing Studio/Flash Pro customers as well, for all the specifics you'll want to look over the terms and conditions, of course.
Update: I just updated this 'blog entry, as the Flash Video Kit was *announced* today- and will not actually be available until Sept 1st. Apologies for any confusion on that point!
Posted by sfegette at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2004
Blackstone article on C/Net
More press coverage at C/Net yesterday on Blackstone (i.e. the next major version of ColdFusion, for the uninitiated). Lots of great new features on tap, give it a read and post comments here if you're new to the topic!
Posted by sfegette at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2004
MXNA on your iPod
Christian Cantrell's blog posting sums it up well- MXNA-aggregated news on your iPod, for either reading or listening. I just got back from my morning run listening to the latest articles- a very cool way to catch up with your news, check it out!
Posted by sfegette at 09:54 AM | Comments (4)
August 09, 2004
MM-Exporter Updated
One of the most handy third-party freeware utilities for Studio developers (particularly if you have large volumes of site definitions) is Jorg Schmalenberger's MM-Exporter, which was just updated to version 2.1. MM-Exporter lets you quickly and easily back up all your important settings and data from Dreamweaver, Flash, Contribute and Fireworks. MM-Exporter is Windows-only, highly recommended, and available for download here:
Posted by sfegette at 01:43 PM | Comments (2)
August 06, 2004
2 New Dreamweaver Add-Ons
On the Dreamweaver front, two interesting recent releases caught my eye today.
First up, Project Seven released a new commercial CSS Design Pack - Fabrizio. I've always been really impressed with the depth and quality of the PVII software, and their design packs (actually 'starting points' for CSS-driven designs that include not only source code but supporting extensions and a truckload of documentation) are no exception. Price is $45.
Second up, a free extension from Ranjan- the Dreamlettes Scroller. A quick and easy CSS scrollable region available in MXP extension format- and rather nicely done.
Enjoy!
Posted by sfegette at 12:23 PM | Comments (1)
Blackstone Revealed
Courtesy of Tim Buntel's blog, more public information on what the next ColdFusion release (code named 'Blackstone') will entail has just been released on Macromedia.com. If you haven't been exposed to this info through either Ben Forta's road tour or general bloggings of late, definitely worth a read- Blackstone is shaping up to be one hard-core release!
Posted by sfegette at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)