As part of my new job, I got myself a MacBook pro and have been running Bootcamp on it over the last few days. All in all the experience is good, but there are issues with Windows running on the MacBook that bother me (bad sound drivers, and the fact that the clock resets on each startup). However, before I installed BootCamp I spent quite a bit of time on the Mac and got over some of my "floating windows" phobias. To that end, I'm considering going all the way and switching to OSX. So to get to my point, is there anyone out there that's recently been through this that can give me some pointers on what I might miss?
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That's right, I have confirmed through sources yet to be named (ACE people) that MAX will be this October 22nd to the 26th in sunny Las Vegas. They planned it on my birfday on purpose y'know...
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If you haven't already, be sure to register for Web Design World Boston. I'll be presenting The ColdFusion Connection: Dynamic Development with Dreamweaver, and my main squeeze will be presenting Dreamweaver 8 Tips and Tricks and Customizing Dreamweaver. Check out the full agenda to see all of the other great speakers.
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If you're down in the LA/San Diego area, I'm going to be infiltrating the March Mingle on Monday. If you're a Cartweaver'er (or something) just look for me in my fancy Cartweaver shirt and say hello. There are going to be some good giveaways, and there should be a lot of geek-ness going on. You can find out some more details on what's being given away at Angela's blog.
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I've finally found a program for reading my newsgroups in Outlook :). No more Outlook Express to deal with, and I can use all of the management features of Outlook to keep track of all of my newsgroup posts. The program is called Newshound, and it's a plugin for Microsoft Outlook, which is a steal at $30. You can find screenshots and a features list on their site.
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Macromedia has just announced Captivate, the replacement for RoboDemo, and what a replacement it is. I've been using Camtasia for some time for doing instructional movies, but will most likely be switching to Captivate once it actually goes on sale :). They've added support for simulations, in-line audio recording, live screen capture on click-and-drag actions (sorely missing in RoboDemo) as well as the ability to import all of my old Camtasia recordings and convert them to Captivate movies.
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I attended the WorldWide User Group Meeting at Hot Pepper Studios here in Portland. Please forgive the spotty reporting here, but I was simply taking notes as I went, and I've done my best to clean them up so they're legible :)
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Posting this to my blog from the new FireFox browser (used to be FireBird) and I must say that it's pretty darn slick. Faster, still with the same great developer tools like CSS edit, but there's also a new DOM Inspector. Talk about tasty stuff :)
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Spider Food has risen from the dead :). After a long personal hiatus, JK Bowman is back at it, hot on the trail of every search engine out there. He's also upgraded and improved his forums, and is starting to build some lively discussion about the goings on at Google and the other big engines. There's a lot of movement in the industry lately with rumors of a Google IPO and AOL dropping them from their search listings. Fun fun fun :).
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Tom Muck's new Dreamweaver MX 2004 Complete Reference is out in stores now :). Pick up your copy today, cause I said so dontcha know...
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Did I spell that right? Anyway... if you're going to MAX, and you get into town a little early there's gonna be a party goin' on... I'll be there, will you?
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I don't know who told them they could put my picture on the cover. I only gave them permission to put it on the inside....
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Studio MX has been officially launched. Find out more at Macromedia.com. I'll be giving some of my own impressions over the next week or two, but right off the bat I'll tell you this version is worth buying if for no other reason than the improved CSS support... nuf said for now.
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The new Macromedia DRK 4 is ready for to snagged up. Always guaranteed to find some tasty stuff on here :)
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Macromedia is getting better about releasing updates for their current products (thank goodness) and have just released an update for users who have installed the ASP.NET 1.1 Framework. You can find the update in their support section of Macromedia.com.
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Well Angela has a ton of pics up from TODCON Vegas. I'm sorry I didn't get to make it this year, looks like a good time was had by all. I'm particulary sad that I didn't get to meet/chat with Eric Meyer. I heard his sessions were awesome, and that his dinner decorum was exceptional (I'm a bit skeptical on that last one). Angela tells me he's a lot like me, but skinnier, so he must be fun :).
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That's right... I've had people actually making me work, which is why there haven't been many posts to the blog lately. Needless to say I'm looking forward to getting a few projects wrapped up and out to the masses.
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I know, I've been remiss in my posting recently. Been too busy with client and the oh-so interesting political intrigues of the Dreamweaver Newsgroup. So quite a bit has happened in the last week or three.
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I sure the heck hope this is true, and not some cruel joke :). The articles states:
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Even though I'm not in a single picture they still managed to harass me. Wassup wif dat?
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There's a really odd phenomenon (PHENOMENON!!!) I've noticed with geeks. If there are more than 3 in a room time seems to expand and contract at odd intervals. I looked up last night and it was 2:30am, and I was still awake. What's up with that? So I slept in this morning and skipped they keynote session (it should have been a session in itself, and not a keynote). I'm sitting in Joe and Angela's Killer Tips session right now. Always learn something good from that book :)
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Just finished my first presentation. I hate talking that long :).
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Disclaimer: The following comment is more a commentary on my lack of extensibility understanding and Joe's sheer wealth of knowledge, and not a comment on the quality of his presentation :).
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Jeremy's keynote didn't really do a whole lot for me. He talked about Internet 1.0 (the internet of the 90s) and what he sees as Internet 2.0 (the typical Rich Internet experience as well as web services).
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The nCubed Free Image Gallery has finally been released through the DWfaq Store
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I'm getting ready to head out for TODCON tomorrow, so of course I have to bring some movies. I'm hoping there's someone there local to Toronto that can bring some heavy duty speakers for a movie screening. My little laptop certainly won't do the trick :). Here's what I have in the CD carrier right now...
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I'm working on quite a few features on the blog, but what do you, the people of the internet, feel a blog really needs? What would make you go "Honey?!?! Can you get the checkbook?". Inquiring minds want to know...
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After more than 2 years with my old site design, I've finally updated Web Shorts with a new look. Hope ya like it :)
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Matt has left Macromedia... what a shame...
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Tickets for TODCON MX North... you got yours?
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Just got 4 copies of the new book. It looks pretty snazzy if I do say so myself...
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Just got my copy of Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Killer Tips, and I must say it's quite a pretty book. It's full color and chock full of useful stuff. As the intro says, when you go to the book store, you often just flip through the book reading all the nifty little tips that there never seem to be enough of. Well... this book is nothing but tips, so how can you go wrong? I'll try to post a more in depth review of it once I get a chance to read more. I hear the intro to Chapter 8 is hilarious.
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If you look really close at the book cover of Dreamweaver MX: Advanced ASP Web Development you just might see my name ;).
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Using the latest version of the image gallery now.
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It's coming along nicely now. The demo here on the blog is an earlier incarnation of the script, and so it's a bit slower, and doesn't have all the goodies of the latest one. Not only will you be able to instantly add galleries, you'll be able to edit the captions, descriptions and displayed image names all online, using a Gallery Manager. All you need is correct permissions to your gallery folders and you can do it all online. Wam, bam, thank you ma'am, wonderful XML.
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Just wanted to catch people up, since I've had some inquiries regarding the blog development. Things are moving slow :). I haven't made any significant additions to the application since before Thanksgiving, as I've been working on other project, such as a Dynamic Image Gallery that will allow you to display galleries of images by just uploading files. You can see pictures of my bar at the demo page.
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Just spending the day today wrapping up loose ends and getting ready to head for Seattle. Gonna spend Monday night through Thursday up there with the in-laws, and will be meeting the sis-in-law's boyfriend, so it should be fun.
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I was the top scorer on the MM certification for the week I took the exam ;). My name will be listed in the annals of history at the Certification Challenge Archives. once it moves off of the main page. We've all gotta have our moment in the sun, no matter how small right?
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Now that I've passed my Certification I wonder if I get a secret decoder ring (95% btw).
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Got the last chapter turned in today and whooped my brother-in-law at Halo and Dead or Alive :). Glad to have everything turned in, but I'm just waiting for the other ball to drop and a whole ton of stuff back to fix (hoping not :). The editors told me to enjoy my Thanksgiving while they slave away, so I'm gonna ;).
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hehehe... saw my new book title on Amazon.com today. But it didn't have the authors listed yet so I can't tell you what it is. My fingers are itching though... :)
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Got my final chapter turned in on Thursday (a day early even) and turned in my first review chapter today. Just gotta review three more (and hope they accept them) and I'm done and onto other projects.
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Well JK's back home and up to his usual antics. He sounds fantastic and had me in stitches the entire time we were on the phone. He told the doctors "Ya can't kill a bad weed..." and he was apparently right.
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It's time for Dan's birthday, so let's make a mess!
What do you say we give him a nice CMS?
We'll fill it with snippets and columns that sort,
All for FAQ-Man (You know- Dan Short!)
--
Bill Horvath
*This poem is © Bill "The Pill" Horvath, and it's usage outside of this blog means you're in big trouble mister...
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The DWfaq Date/Time Format Suite is for sale. Buy it for my birthday (you can keep the suite, I'll take the payment), for your geek's Christmas present or just for the heck of it. Whatever you do, you should definitely buy it (should I be a car salesman?). More info at the DWfaq Store, including screenshots and demos.
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Angela has sent the Server Formats suite out to our beta testers, so hopefully things will be ready for release soon. You can find some more info and screenshots at DWmommy.com.
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I've informally confirmed a new book deal. I'll be co-author on a new book due out some time about some thing (NDA and all that). This time I'll have my name on the front cover. More details will be provided here once I'm able to release more information :-).
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It's an explosive combination I tell ya. Jay has just finished his first major database driven site, Bear Creek Baptist Church.
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Here are some screenshots of the admin area of the site.
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Thank the all-mighty newsgroup gods that school has finally started again. The Macromedia Newsgroups become a mad house every summer as kids are out of school and loitering in the newsgroups causing mischeif. It happens every summer, and it seems only the regulars think it will ever end. Each summer means more regulars though, so hopefully it will get to a point where the people who know what's going on will outnumber the summer hooligans.
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Dat's right peoples, I'm currently working on an ASP conversion of Cartweaver, in cooperation with Lawrence Cramer. It should be ready sometime in the first quarter of 2003 and will be sold alongside the CF version from the DWfaq Store. We're not sure yet on the release date, as new features are being worked into the product at the same time. But it will definitely be the same Cartweaver quality, just in an ASP flava (I always wanted to say flava...)
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I just put together a new nifty little mini-app for the DWfaq Store. Customers can now choose to email the products to themselves instead of downloading. If you're like me, I keep my email around for ages, so it would be nice to have my downloaded products categorized in there like everything else :). My email inbox is more organized than my house. Kinda scary.
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Unfortunately I've had to cancel my scheduled appearances at DEVCON due to some work conflicts. Hopefully I didn't put MM into too much of a bind and they'll see fit to have me for the next one :). Not sure who's going to be taking over my presentations (XHTML and XML) but I'll post here once I find out.
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I must say, that TODCON has got to be the best conference I've ever attended. And no, I'm not saying that because Ray told me to. The attitude is so completely different than any other group.
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That's right folks, TODCON starts on Friday, which means that people will start showing up tomorrow, myself included. There are plans for everyone to get together and go out for dinner, although "everyone" could end up being a really large group, so not sure how this will shake out. I'm looking forward to the conference, hoping it will re-energize me. Been slacking lately, and largely unmotivated, so hopefully this will kick me into gear.
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I just got the digital copy of the next MXInsite magazine. And yep, there's an article by me regarding MX Templates. This will be my first article in print, so I'm pretty excited :).
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For those of you who may wish to harass me before we even hit the hotel for TODCON, here's my itinerary. I'll be renting a car at Midway, so I might be able to give one or two people a ride if you arrive around the same time I do (and don't have a 100 lb suitcase).
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I'm getting hip deep into a new project (actually nearing 40% completion) and things are starting to click. What is it you ask??? Think ASP (you know you love it), think eCommerce, shopping cart, think customers with fat wallets giving you money... I think you get the picture. More when I'm able.
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This post is for Danilo. His printer sometimes doesn't work on his cabled router.
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Probably what I like least about VBScript is it's lack of built in functions for manipulating arrays. This means you've gotta write your own. In working on my new top secret project, I needed a way to remove an item from a 2 dimensional array without affecting the rest of the items in the array. And to that end, after 2 hours of searching on Google, I decided to write my own dang functions. You can find them in the test area of Web-Shorts.
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Just starting on a new project with some other DW group developers. Wish I could say what it was, but rest assured, you *will* like it (or else).
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I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this JavaScript stuff. Been putting together some js to filter shipping options based on the shipping destination. Pretty fun stuff. Does that make me officially a geek?
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I've just finished up my latest product, the StoreFront Related Products Add-on, and I must say I'm very pleased. It's now possible to add Amazon.com-style related product information to your product detail pages, thereby increasing cross-selling throughout your store.
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I finally finished up my two new tutorials on DataShaping and gifStream. Check them out in the Dynamic section of dwfaq.com.
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Been playing with CafePress.com lately, and I've opened my own ego-stroking store where I'll be selling WebShorts merchandise, and other goofy HTML geek type stuff. Let me know if you like it :). You can even buy an actual pair of Dan's Shorts.
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That's right, say it with me now... datashaping.
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Well, Jag over at UltraSuite has been on an extension packaging fit and has released several new suites this evening. Find out all the latest at his Announcements page.
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That's right, I'm being strict. XHTML Strict to be exact. What did it take? Removing target attributes and borders from links and images. <br /> instead of <br>. Hmm... that's about it :). Dontcha just love it. Check out my article on MM DesDev (The X(HTML) Files) to learn a little more.
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I've just finished testing the final beta release of the extension for my Image Manager application. If I can stay on schedule, I'll be releasing the update to current customers, and putting up some screenshots of the interface in the DWfaq /Store.
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Well, I went and got myself registered for DEVCON. Here's are all the sessions I'll be attending.
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Macromedia's put up the new Team Macromedia pages, where we each get our own personal shrine ;-).
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