August 27, 2008

WebAssist Launches SiteAssist Professional

Setting up a new Dreamweaver site project can be quite a chore. Sure, you have the FTP/SSH info for your host on hand, a URL you can hit in a browser, and a shrinking deadline (who doesn't these days?), but building robust sitewide designs and the directory structure that houses them can require a huge amount of preplanning and headwork to do well. Just getting that 'clickable site framework' up and live can be a major undertaking, especially with clients breathing down your neck.

Joe Lowery from WebAssist just gave me a demo of their newest solution to this problem- SiteAssist Professional (a ground-up rewrite of their popular SiteAssist Dreamweaver extension) - that can have you up and running with a robust, CSS-based framework for your site in roughly 8 mouse clicks (and probably a few keystrokes too, but who's counting) that will look great on any modern web browser. To get started with a new site project, the SiteAssist Pro wizard will step you through:

... after which you should be up and live with a clickable, functional Dreamweaver site you can then flesh out and customize to the nth degree. If that 'blank canvas' problem faces you regularly with new client projects, SiteAssist looks to be a great way to kick out the logistical jams and get rolling fast.

Reusability is a key with SiteAssist- aside from the many great visual/functional/site-level presets available, you can easily save new custom site types (with their own specific collection of page types) as well as quickly apply new designs. Page types are great ways to save and encapsulate common page-specific functionality - like a detail page, a contact form, a video player page, etc - and then reuse them across all your projects in a design-neutral fashion. Clientside and server-side functionality can be partitioned off and saved this way- a real productivity boost if you're managing a lot of projects in Dreamweaver.

Layout and design is equally flexible- aside from shipping with 16 beautifully-designed native templates you can use to kickstart the process, SiteAssist Pro now works with your existing Dreamweaver templates- making it that much easier to integrate SiteAssist Pro into your existing site designs and workflows. SiteAssist Pro also supports exported layouts from their popular CSS Sculptor product (developed with CSS guru Eric Meyer) and custom page types that allow you to quickly define standard functionality and common design themes for your site. Interoperability appears to be a key feature of the release, it also works seamlessly with the WebAssist's CSS MenuWriter menu generation extension.

SiteAssist Pro is a commercial extension- $199.99 but available thru September 9th for a reduced $149.99 - and you can get more information on it at the WebAssist site:

http://www.webassist.com/professional/products/productdetails.asp?PID=241&utm_content=home_page_fma

Great stuff!

Posted by sfegette at 08:32 AM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2007

Egads, I'm Back.

I'm freshly back in the house at Adobe after an amazing 6 weeks of parental leave, and wow, what a great time I had. I strongly recommend unplugging for a few weeks if you get the opportunity, it's a great chance to pull in some external perspective and pull up from the keys and mice a bit. My son Devin was born on June 1st, so I changed a lot of diapers, too. Cool kid. Aside from a grueling 38 hours of labor on my wife's part, parenthood has been very cool so far. Strongly recommended!

Aside from diaper detail and professional slacking, I spent much of my time off shooting pictures with my Nikon D80 and related glass (some topical shots up on my photostream, if you're interested), and putting Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom through their paces. Before switching to a RAW workflow, iPhoto covered most of my needs, but switching to a DSLR I had to dump it quickly for Lightroom, and will NEVER look back. Nitpickingly, my final reservation was not being able to use the wonderful Flickr Export plug in with Lightroom, but fortunately you can hook up Lightroom's Export Actions (a feature I'm growing to love) to pipe selected exported photos over to the Flickr Uploadr application (which subsequently maintains all your Lightroom-specified tags and metadata, all you have to do is delete the 'default' image title in Uploadr and you're golden).

I also spent a lot of time with the iPhone the latter part of my break. This little device is really shaking up my preconceptions of how and why I use a phone - not to mention my preconceptions of user design and interaction in web development. Quite possibly my only regret over the vacation was being on the road during iPhoneDevCamp (whurley, would have loved to buy you a beer - maybe next time?), which explored exactly these conundrums and hurdles in painful detail. Just my type of gathering. O' well, perhaps next time.

Anyway, I'm now back on the game as part of Dreamweaver's product management team along with Devin Fernandez, and there's a lot for us to get working on. I helped wrangle the AIR Extension for Dreamweaver release before going on break, but now the CS4 planning is ramping up and I'm working on demos and presos for the remainder of the year (including MAX), so it looks like there's no shortage of things to work on for now.

Good to be back!

Posted by sfegette at 05:04 PM | Comments (2)

September 07, 2006

New iPod Patent published?

Caught an interesting post at MacNN regarding a 'multipurpose device' patent filed by Apple recently, published today by the US Patent and Trade office. Sporting a 'chameleon' interface that can easily switch between UI/functionality such as telephony, GPS, gaming, PMP functionality (among many other possibilities), I have to wonder if this is what we'll hear about during Apple's rather cloak-and-dagger 'Showtime' event planned for September 12th (next Tuesday)? If so, cool! My 5G iPod took a digger on the pavement last month during a run, and has never been the same since, so I'm interested in upgrading at some point soon. If not, this is definitely an interesting patent to read through, and could be a sign of things to come in the not-so-distant future?

Posted by sfegette at 10:45 AM | Comments (1)

January 13, 2006

viliv P1 Personal Media Player

Nice! The viliv P1 PMP has a new site up where you can check out the specs and more screenshots (thanks to Scott Janousek for the link). Claiming to be the first PMP supporting Flash (wasn't that title claimed by the iRiver U10, which also supports Flash Lite 1.1 SWFs?), the viliv P1 has a much more PSP-esque form factor and display (480x272 resolution- which theoretically should have more detail/clarity than the PSP for flash-media based video files).

Further, the P1's 20/30 GB drive options (and CompactFlash slot) offer far more storage capacity and potential than the PSP at it's best (1 GB and 2 GB Memory Sticks being the current max for PSPs, with larger capacities coming soon), and a click-wheel interface more in line with the video iPods. 5.1 surround support is a nice touch too, for those times when you need the larger-screen experience. The P1 will support MPEG 1 L2, MPEG 2, OGG, MP3, WMA AC3 and AAC audio/video file formats. On first glance, this could be a deal-breaker for me, as there doesn't appear to be MPEG-4 support (which is the current 'common' codec I'm using to move vids between my PSP and video iPod).

Although it'll be hard to beat the gaming experience of the PSP with the Flash Lite 1.1 spec (despite my fondness for it), the added flexibility and ease of development will undoubtedly make gaming content much easier to generate (and re-generate from existing Flash content/games/etc), so this could end up being a non-issue.

All in all, a very nice PMP device- although there's precious little information up on development specs/Flash support specifics on the site (paging Bill Perry?), the P1 could become a serious contender for my pocket space in short order. Has anyone picked one of these up (prototype or not) and tried it in meatspace? If so, please drop some comments in below- I'm very interested in this device as yet another 'crossover' PMP for my arsenal!

Posted by sfegette at 09:37 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

December 07, 2005

Pandora, your Flash-based jukebox

I've been listening to Pandora a lot lately- it's a really cool front-end to the Music Genome Project, letting you choose a favorite artist or song, and then letting Pandora create a custom 'station' for you- streaming the music down to your browser/Flash Player. Nice way to explore musicspace on your own terms- check it out!

Posted by sfegette at 03:10 PM | Comments (7)

November 07, 2005

Yahoo, TiVo to connect services

By way of CNet News- this interesting pairing of Yahoo and TiVo's back-end services could prove quite interesting in the months to come. If the recent Yahoo! Maps beta is any early indicator of what's in store for developers, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a rich set of APIs will made available for this service. (Cause if so- I'll be mashing this up six ways from Sunday in very short order.)

Posted by sfegette at 08:07 AM | Comments (3)

October 16, 2005

Prince of Persia in Flash

Just caught this on Digg.com, one of my old favorite side-scroller gams - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - has been recreated in Flash. Check it out- a fun diversion for your MAX Sunday!

Posted by sfegette at 01:41 PM | Comments (5)

September 27, 2005

Mint: yes, it IS fresh and tasty.

I must admit- the hype a few weeks back appears quite justified- Shaun Inman's new site analytical tool Mint is one of my favorite new toys- I've been using it to monitor a personal site for a few weeks now and am impressed well beyond my initial expectations. I haven't seen a more usable (not to mention aesthetically-pleasing) way to scan my current referrers, visits, page views and search terms to date. I really resisted the urge to post right after the release (as the Mint beta squad did a pretty thorough job of getting the message out on their own), but can't hold back any longer.

This yummy, minty morsel of site-statistical joy is implemented in Ajaxian PHP, MySQL and Javascript, and a compatibility test is also available for download to quickly verify if your server config will support Mint. Pepper (i.e. Mint plug-ins...) can also be written relatively easily to extend the system beyond it's core modules. Two extra Peppers are already available with Mint; User Agent 007 - which breaks down browser types, versions, platforms and Flash plug-in versions, and Local Search - which allows you to scope how users navigate via search terms once they reach your site. An RSS feed of the newest unique referrers is also available, which allows for a handy drop-down menu via Firefox's 'Live Bookmarks' of the last visitors who've wandered thru. Nice touch.

Even cooler- for Mac users like myself, there's an OS X Dashboard widget (appropriately named 'Junior Mint') which allows you to scan hit totals for the last hour, day and month without firing up a browser- and links right to the main Mint web app for more details. Sweet.

Now to be fair- Mint isn't really a replacement for long-term traffic analysis (or an iterative rev of Shaun's other site analytical tool, ShortStat), Mint's more geared towards a current view of what people are doing on your site *right now*, and is incredibly handy in this respect. For example, you may want to base tactical shifts on Mint data- like AdSense settings based on what your incoming search terms have been over the last day or two- or drop Flash 5 support for a page or two based on your current metrics. At $30 per domain, the price (although contested by some others) ain't too bad either, in my opinion. I spend more than $30 just taking my wife out to dinner, so have gotten more ROI out of Mint already than the last high-brow French dinner I ate, come to think of it.

If you're interested in writing Peppers to extend Mint, make sure to also check out Marc Garrett's tutorial here. You should also bookmark "Peppermint Tea" - an index of third-party Peppers maintained by Peter Parkes.

Your mileage may vary of course, but in my opinion- Mint's definitely worth a taste.

Posted by sfegette at 10:44 AM | Comments (5)

July 01, 2005

Lynchian Weather (OT)

If you're located in the LA area, take a moment to enjoy legendary director David Lynch giving you the local weather each day. It's not really a web app (in fact just a QuickTime movie link), and I don't live in LA anymore- but I must admit I'll still probably check it out daily- just in case he breaks out an oxygen mask. Only thing missing is an eerie Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack droning in the background, if you ask me. :)
(stumbled upon via Xeni Jardin's post at Boing Boing)

Posted by sfegette at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)

June 21, 2005

Apple sued over iTunes UI

Vermont developer Contois Music & Technology filed a suit against Apple Computer last week over the interface for Apple's iTunes- alleging that owner David Contois' demos of an early interface for 'controlling media playback' at trade events between '95 and '96 were hijacked by future Apple employees. Although this really seems a case of 'too little, too late' to me, one has to wonder how this could affect the future of the popular MP3 jukebox- which (as noted in this post by Eric Dolecki paraphrasing a recent Adam Curry podcast) seems poised to take on the podcasting wave by storm in short order.

Posted by sfegette at 05:19 PM | Comments (2)

June 17, 2005

Recursive Browsing?

Maybe I'm just being short-sighted today, but other than being a rather nifty widget, is there really a practical use for Bitty Browser? I suppose for browsing RSS feeds inline it could be handy, but honestly I'd probably just aggregate 'em myself and maintain control over the design/experience. Coming strictly from a user experience perspective, I'm not sure why I'd want to enable 'browsing within browsing' like this on projects, but will admit it's a nifty and well-done little mini-browser for those so inclined. ;-)

Posted by sfegette at 04:18 PM | Comments (4)

May 01, 2005

PSP Accessories

I've had a PSP for a week or so now, and am somewhat surprised at how quickly it integrated into my synching/media workflows- especially on the Mac platform (which hasn't always benefitted from Sony's proprietary media handling and PC bias). However, it certainly wasn't turnkey out of the box. Although I do love the PSP games (Lumines, Untold Legends and Wipeout:Pure being my faves), the media capabilities of the PSP are what I really get excited about. I do lots of side work on video clips (compositing/fx/motion graphics) and being able to tote around proofs/comps of work in progress is priceless. Christian Cantrell had asked me what accessories I'd consider must-haves, so here's a rundown of what I'd recommend for first-time PSP users (bias towards Macs as that's what I use the most, of course):

Hope these recommendations help if you're just thinking about diving into the wonderful world of PSPs afresh. My gamertag/nick on both XLink KAI and XBox Live is 'ihatei', so drop me a note if/when you're online and wanna play...

Posted by sfegette at 11:56 AM | Comments (23)

March 14, 2005

Montage-a-Google

Classic random Flash app for a Monday evening diversion- Grant Robinson's Montage-a-google allows you to enter a few keywords, and have a random collage made for you from the resulting Google Images search. Try a few names (or even cooler- phrases), you may be surprised at what comes back! And check out the rest of Grant's site while you're there- he's got some really interesting explorations of code and design lurking within.
(props to Sean Corfield for the forward)

Posted by sfegette at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2005

podSites.com

Recently released from the folks who brought you Style Master's podGuide, podSites.com. What's a podSite, you ask? Simply a collection of related text files, links to other text files and/or related sound and image assets, all accessible from your iPod. Check out the link for more information, an online 'emulator' (to test your podSite content) and most importantly (as text notes are not necessarily a new concept on iPods), a well-formed style guide containing best practices for creating 'podSites'. Great concept, and an excellent free resource for those interested in publishing similar content to iPods... check it out!

Posted by sfegette at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)

January 04, 2005

Your Next Tour Guide?

By way of the USC Interactive Media Division's weblog, I discovered the Node Explorer v2, a location-aware, embedded-Linux handheld device that provides contextual information (maps, audio annotations, etc.) based on your current location. The twist? As opposed to consumer-based urban references such as restaurants, wifi hotspots, etc.- the waterproof, wireless, touchscreen enabled, card-sized Node Explorer is geared more for assisting site and visitor management at parks/national monuments/etc.- basically wide-open spaces that would normally require guided tours. The entire solution includes the Explorer, the Node Dock (for updating devices with new contextual info and recording back a visitors' trip data for analysis, as well as the obvious closed-loop monitoring of visitor admission/registration that becomes possible with such microdevices) and the Node Engine- a software platform for both monitoring visitor behavior as well as updating and managing the content that's provided to the handheld devices.

Considering the crappy (but oh-so-promising) experiences I've had with CD and RF-based physical tour guides, I'd like to try wandering around Yosemite with one of these little devices! Has anyone actually tried one of these out in meatspace?

Posted by sfegette at 04:11 PM | Comments (2)

TiVoToGo

Yesterday the much-anticipated TiVoToGo transfer service was launched by the wildly-popular DVR manufacturer. Alas, it's only available on PCs (of which I've but one), although eventual Macintosh support is hinted at in their press release, which gives me hope as a new
DVR owner and home Mac user myself.

The skinny? If your TiVo DVR is connected to your home network and you have the TiVo Desktop 2.0 software installed on your desktop/laptop machines (which enabled viewing of Mac/Windows-based MP3 and image files on your networked TiVo box in v1), you can transfer shows recorded on your DVR directly to your computer(s) for remote viewing. Once transferred, you can also burn shows to DVD (using Sonic's MyDVD software- sold separately for Windows)- which to be honest, is the feature I'm after personally. Given TiVo's excellent support of Apple's iApps (iPhoto, iTunes) so far, I'd hazard a guess that iDVD/DVD Studio Pro integration is the Mac path they'll pursue for the same. There appears to be very specific, limited codecs supported by the service, as it reportedly also disables the transferring/burning of Macrovision-encoded streams such as Pay-Per-View or commercial content, for obvious reasons.

I'll be watching the connected devices space a lot more in the coming year, so if you have any great links/references/suggestions/etc. for new TiVo owners who aren't afraid to hack (of which I'm now one), please post a comment! In particular, if there's any way to get a bash prompt across the network (my limited attempts have only worked by using the serial port on the back of the DVR itself, not the network), I'm all ears.

Posted by sfegette at 10:07 AM | Comments (2)

NetNewsWire does podcasting

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had a good holiday season and spent some time away from the keys.
A few developments of note this morning- first, NetNewsWire's new beta adds podcasting support, so users of this Mac-based feedreader can get their podcasting jones on in a common environment with their RSS feeds. Nice update and I'll check it out for a while, although personally I've settled down on Sage again after brief trips thru NetNewsWire, PulpFiction, FeedDemon (which I still do use from time to time) the combination of Sage and Firefox Bookmarks Synchronizer keep all my machines in synch rather nicely. Since I'm an audiobook junkie, I don't listen to podcasts *that* often anyway. Check it out ASAP if you're a NetNewsWire junkie, tho- although I had a few little bugs here and there it seems to be shaping up nicely. If you're not RSS-wired, you may note that recent surveys show the mainstream web world is becoming much more interested in exploring the 'blogosphere in recent months. Great time to engage!

Posted by sfegette at 09:54 AM | Comments (2)

December 17, 2004

CSS podGuide

Feel the need to get introspective on CSS floats while on your morning run? Then you need a copy of Style Master's podGuide, a handy lil' version of their 'Complete CSS' reference you can tote around on your iPod. Categories include an overview of CSS concepts, as well as detailed information on all the various CSS 2.1 selectors, properties and @rules, it's a very helpful guide indeed. Play safe, now- and always keep your eyes on the trail when jogging...

Posted by sfegette at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2004

wiPod

Handy resource for the occasionally-connected... wiPod, an iPod-based field guide/reference listing free wi-fi hotspots across a good number of US cities. I loaded the California and Bay Area regional guide onto my iPod this Wednesday, and have been happily wireless-squatting across the city ever since. Handy resource- check to see if your city (or cities) are included, there's quite a good amount of coverage already.

Posted by sfegette at 09:00 AM | Comments (1)

November 17, 2004

Cool Tool Alert - Delicious Library

Okay, yes- Christian has been doing his own 'Cool Tool Friday' for a while now, so I'd been laying off the off-topic blogs. But I'm forced to make exception today for this Mac OSX gem. If you, like myself, have astronomically-large CD/DVD/book/videogame collections and haven't taken the plunge to try and catalogue them by hand, Delicious Library is your answer. A native OS 10.3.x application, Delicious Library can use your iSight (or other webcam) to scan barcodes off your media, automatically grabs the associated product data/cover art from Amazon's web service, and provides a VERY fast (and elegant) way to catalog your entire media collection. But that's not all- it integrates with your Mac Address Book and iCal to allow you to loan items to contacts and set due dates/reminders for returns (something I'm horrible at tracking in analog), as well as to search for related items/suggestions at Amazon based on your currently-owned items.

Sure, you say- sounds tasty, but does it really work well in practice? Case in point- I catalogued my entire 300+ DVD collection in less than an hour via iSight, and it only missed two of them in the lookup (which it subsequently found by keyword searching from within the Delicious Library UI later)- including some very obscure international titles and anime compilations. You can also purchase a portable, wireless Bluetooth barcode scanner device from Delicious (which allows caching of barcodes if you're out of Bluetooth range- nice touch).

In my opinion, this application is a world-class example of occasionally-connected applications leveraging web services, seamlessly integrated with external hardware and OS-level applications. Kudos to the development team (who apparently came from the well-known Mac/NeXt development shop Omni Group). I purchased the full license only 10 minutes after downloading the demo, if that's any indication... :)

Posted by sfegette at 03:57 PM | Comments (2)

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 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)

June 25, 2004

PulpFiction 1.0.1

Followup to an earlier post of mine- if you'd tried PulpFiction 1.0 (a very promising new RSS/Atom feedreader for Mac OSX) and were turned away by the bugs, prerelease/beta versions of 1.0.1 are now available- initially supporting registered users and soon to provide a reset demo period for trial users. You can get more information on Erik Barzeski's related blog posting here. Current prognosis- very solid and much speedier to boot, definitely worth a second look.

Posted by sfegette at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

June 09, 2004

OT: My next gadget...

Fresh off the FlashLounge list- it looks like a Swiss Army knife, but stores files like a USB microdrive. Their 128mb version isn't coming out until July, at which time I'll be retiring my tired old Leatherman Micra posthaste.

Posted by sfegette at 03:47 PM | Comments (8)

June 04, 2004

Palm-sized Desktop?

OQO announced a Palm-sized computer capable of running Windows XP at CES 2004, and the preliminary stats are impressive. Based on a 1ghz Crusoe processor, 256 megs of RAM and a 20 gig hard drive, this little powerhouse reportedly also includes a built-in keyboard, slide-out display, onboard 802.11b and Bluetooth, USB 1.1 and FireWire ports, it can also take stylus input and docks neatly for recharging and use as a (miniscule) desktop, supporting up to 1280x1024 external monitor resolutions. And all for a price between $1500 and $2000 USD, a solution that could drop into your shirt pocket and replace your PDA/laptop in one fell swoop. Interesting- I'll be keeping an eye on that for sure...

Posted by sfegette at 03:27 PM | Comments (2)

May 17, 2004

Pulp Fiction Released

Not the Tarentino flick, but a fresh tidbit for the Mac crowd- a new RSS/Atom feedreader called Pulp Fiction. If you're a 'blogspace-commander' and want to check out the latest- bang the link and give it a go. I really like it's consistent Apple interface and Applescript-ability, and will probably be switching off NetNewsWire shortly, gven how cool PF has been so far.

Posted by sfegette at 03:17 PM | Comments (2)