Home again, home again

Home again, home again

Now the work starts!

We got home Friday evening - it's great to be in your own bed in your own home, even if everything is upside down outside. How much have things changed? Well, as I already said we really suffered no significant damage from the hurricane to our home, but we awful damage to our property - take a look at these before and after images taken just a few weeks apart ...





It's not totally clear there, but we lost 5 or 6 large pecan trees, as well as one old oak tree and probably scores of younger oak and pine trees. The pecan's could have been a couple of hundred years old http://www.floridata.com/ref/C/cary_ill.cfm. But look in the background of both pictures and you can see that what was once full of dense undergrowth and a rich mixture of trees has now been flattened. It is like this everywhere around where we live and for tens of miles around. We live around 20 miles from the sea shore at Gulfport, and the damage caused there is even worse. It is not difficult to imagine the damage done by strong winds in a storm - I am sure you have all seen what can be the result of heavy winds. But it is hard to comprehend the kind of storm that can inflict that sort of damage not just on a few houses here and there, but on almost every house and business along the coast of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and parts of Florida, and for hundreds of miles inland.

I'll be posting some more images over the next few days. I'll probably put up a more detailed before/after album when I have the time.

Meantime I have had to buy a more powerful chainsaw to cope with cutting up the pecan trees (hardwood) and scores of oak and pine that litter our property. If anyone really wants to help us now we know our home is OK, we can offer you food, lodging and a week of chainsawing and clearance work for anyone who wants to enjoy a break in the Mississippi sun ;-)

All is fine

Relax, everythuing is fine

We still have a home!!!

So I have been down to Gulfport. All of our property is fine, but we have loads and loads of trees down. I took some photos and was going to post them here with before/after images, but I lost my camera.

I lost the camera when I had to run away from a crowd of angry bees! I suffer an allergic reaction to their stings, so when I got a dozen or so stings I panicked and ran through the woods. No doubt I will find the camera one day, but right now I don't want to go back to where I was stung.

I am annoyed at the current news coverage here in Mississippi, and nationally. It is full of heavy criticism of how badly the government handled the aftermath of the storm. Newspaper and tv coverage is full of images of the defvastation. There is nothing positivre being written or depicted anywhere so far as I can see!

So let's set the record straight - when I drove down to Gulfport there were literally thousands of people heading to the coast tohelp. They had fule, generators, food, water ... the effort to help is outstanding! The work already done to clear trees - all major highways are clear of trees, and most minor too. And the electric is coming back on. Water and sewerage is coming back on ... the repairs still have a long way to go, but no-one should be in any doubt that there is not a huge assistance effort going on.

-

I'm heading south

I'm heading south

Time to drive down and see if we have something or nothing

The power came on last night here in the area of Jackson, Mississippi, that we evacuated to. Yaaaaay for air conditioning!

So today I am going to make the epic 200 mile journey south to see if we have a home to return to, and to take food, drinks and wet wipes to our 80-year-old neighbour who stayed throughout the storm. I'm going to stay overnight and probably bring back clothes for Amy and me - and our two poor little goats that have been stuck down there with no fresh food or water since Sunday ...

I'll finish my daily notes when I get back - probably starting Monday. I'll have lots to say about what I see thre, and maybe I will post a couple of pictures too ...

-

--

No power, but we are fine

Tuesday

No power, but everything is fine ...

We still have no power. So we bring out the battery-operated radios. News reports tell us 99% of Jackson has no electricity. Later reports confirm the same for almost the entire state!

Then we hear that the coastal towns have been virtually destroyed! Everything South of the railtracks in Gulfport and Biloxi has "just gone, it's not there". We have a little house less than half a mile north of the railtracks in Gulfport ... is it still there?

Around lunchtime we head out to try to get some orange juice, batteries some other odds and ends. Had to travel about 20 miles to find somewhere open. Later in the day Walmart, about 3 miles away, and a couple of gas stations open. Oh almost back to normal ... We'll have power by morning says Amy :-) Power company say it could be weeks.

As a Brit I am shocked by this state of affairs - It is amazing how much America still relies on overhead powerlines even in the big cities. And there are trees next to most of them just waiting for an excuse to fall on the lines ...

New Orleans Spared

Monday

Wow. New Orleans spared

... but a direct hit between Bay St Lewis and Biloxi if we are seeing the news reports correctly.

At the time we thought Gulfport (which is between Bay St Lewis and Biloxi) was getting the worst of the storm at around 9 or 10 am. We later heard that the storm surge - the rise in sea water that wiped out everything south of the railroad tracks - actually began to hit around 3 am. By 8am or so it was at its highest.

200 miles North in Jackson, we started to suffer around 5 pm when we lost electric power. I hardly slept that night since we had no air conditioning. We had NO idea what was going on, but did not think it was near as bad as things turned out ... we saw on tv that New Orleans had a bad storm, but it looked like they were relatively unscathed.

No news from Gulfport - but then there wouldn't be would there ...

Now it's looking a bit scary

Sunday

Now it is looking a bit scary.

Recent storms have consistently come ashore sa little to the east of the projected path ... which puts Gulfport, and us, right in it's path.

As usual, Amy and I were indecisive about whether we would evacuate. We have had a couple of near-misses - Ivan, Dennis - where we evacuated for nothing more than some strong winds and a little rain.

Amy's mum called "are you goiung to evacuate? It looks bad!". Amy wanted to finish a little work, then we drove into Gulfport to pick up some dogfood so we had plenty for the dogs if we had to evacuate.

Gulfport was already closed up. Nowhere was open - not Walmart, not MacDonalds, not even Waffle House!!!

We know a hint when we see one. We drove home, had lunch and Amy looked up recommended evacuation routes on the internet. We picked a seemingly obscure route that took us about 30 miles round our normal route - straight up 49 to Jackson - but it seemed like it was a wise move as we travelled. The roads were mostly empty.

Somewhat worryingly there seemed to be few people on the route we took that had or was evacuating. There was evidence of scores of hurricane parties though ...

Should we stay or should we go?

Saturday

Should we stay or should we go now?

Weather forecast says the hurricane is getting stronger ... will Katrina come to visit? Looks like it is heading for New Orleans.

I worked really late on a project, so I could get it finished just in case we decide to evacuate on Sunday. Mailed the files off to my cient at about 11PM.

First comment about Hurricane Katrina

Friday - "that's not a real hurricane!"

The first post in my breif retrospective about hurricane Katrina

Today we heard about a 'hurricane' in Florida. "It was not a 'real' hurricane", said the guy in our Pilates class "it was just a CAT 1, but we better watch it ..."

You know, if he hadn't said that, we might not have known about the hurricane at all. If anyone reading this knows Amy and I, you will know we don't watch t.v ... so we would not have seen a weather forecast for instance. As it was, with Lee's forewarning (thanks!) we were thinking about being prepared.

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

We got out safe!

I'll be posting more later today, or maybe tomorrow, but this is to let you know Amy and I got out safe and sound on Sunday. We could see it was going to be a bad storm!

We are in Jackson, Mississippi, staying with Amy's mum. No electric as yet ... I write this Friday afternoon, we've had no power since about 5 PM Monday. No idea when we will have power, bt it could be weeks. No real hassle, Walmart is open down the street :-)


More later ... I have been keeping a simple journal while we had no power. I want to post my thoughts and our experiences here.

Just one thing before I go.

Why are there not more overt attempts to evacuate teh coastal area? Sure there are *finally* busses taking people out of New Orleans .... but what about Gulfport, Biloxi and the rest of the Mississippi coast that has been devastated? Surely the railways could be used to take peop[le north???

Find and Fix updated

Find & Fix updated

Ron Lubensky continues to update his great Authorware command

Here's the information he posted recently to the Aware List


I've updated my Find & Fix Command to version 2.43.

For those of you who don't know, this is a big swiss-army knife for your Authorware development.

In addition to squashing a couple of bugs, I've added another sample script called MoveObjects which shifts the location of multiple display objects and interaction responses (ie buttons, hotspots) en mass. It is especially useful for shifting display and motion icon paths!

Find & Fix is one of the most useful add-ons you can buy for Authorware. It is way more than a search and replace on steroids!! You cannot afford not to have it in your toolkit.

Update or get a trial version of Find & Fix at http://www.clickcraft.com

Adobe to buy Macromedia

Adobe to buy Macromedia

I turn my back for three weeks and look what happens!

I am not going to even try to make comment about all I have read, but suffice to say this is interesting and exciting news.

Apparently nothing is certain about the takeover until there is legal permission for the purchase to go ahead. Everything should be Work As Normal in both the Macromedia and the Adobe camps until then. I look forward to some fascinating new tools when Adobe get to grips with stitching Flash and Acrobat together. Then there is Photoshop and Fireworks, Director and Premier, Dreamweaver and GoLive ... Authorware and new heights perhaps?

Given that Authorware is the most consistently profitable application Macromedia has (allegedly) those of us with a vested interest in the product are hopeful that Adobe will elect to keep it alive and develop it for the 21st century.

Watch this space!

testing

Pocketblogger works!

Here I sit in the garden

OK maybe I fibbed, l am actually lying on the couch - but I am blogging from my PDA!.

I'll be trying this again in Blackpool!

Sorry for the silence ...

Sorry for the silence ...

We just moved house and communication has been difficult, d@mn Bellsouth

Plus I have had a busy patch with work.


The dry patch will continue next week as I fly back to Britain - for the first time since May last year - for this year's EuroTAAC conference. Have you booked your ticket yet? There's still time if you are quick, although international travel could be a bit of a pain to organise this late in the day.


We should have wireless internet connection available in all the conference rooms so I hope to be able to sneakily post the occasional blog message, but no promises!!! I am going to see if I can get something working with my PDA so I can post things using that, then I can leave my laptop out of the way most of the time. First try will be Pocketblogger.




Normal blogging service should resume when I return from Britain.

Macintosh Hacker Attacks Are on the Rise - Symantec

Macintosh Hacker Attacks Are on the Rise -Symantec

Apparently hackers are starting to take ai interest in the minority interest platfor.

Maybe it's because they noticed Macs run a version of Unix?

Check out this story from Reuters

New PDA comments

I got a new PDA this week

A Toshiba E830

Since we cannot officially get this machine in my mother coutry or here in America, I thought it might be useful for some to read my impressions of this machine after a full week of use. So here's some thoughts, randomly dropped in as bullet points.

• The screen is wonderful!


• MS Reader works fine in VGA mode (SE_VGA) and the amazingly tiny text is clear as could be, easy to read. I am nearly 40 and don't need reading glasses ...


• Some dialoges don't like VGA


• When I first tried to use Transcriber in VGA (first I tried to use it at all in fact) it wanted to get me to read some help. It came up on a huge dialogue that I could not move to find the text. I used Wisebar Advanced to kill the process.


• Transcriber ROCKS in VGA mode. Suddenly it can read my spidery writing


• Seem to get lots of "MS Reader can no longer find this file" errors. Not sure if this means my SD card is dodgy, or if there is something inherent with this machine.


• Need to try a different card to store my books on.


• Virtual Pool Mobile does not support VGA


• I was able to install (virtually) ALL of the software I had on my old E755 simply by hooking up the 830 and going to Add/Remove Programs in ActiveSync. This is a great 'feature' of AS ... not sure if it is meant to do this or not, but I love it.


• Pocket Artist is way better in VGA mode.


• The various Outlook programs do not like VGA ... the dialoges don't scale.


• Did I mention how great the sceen is?


• Screen is bright even at lowest setting. I'd love to be able to set it dimmer for reading in bed. Suggestions anyone?


• I was even able to install ArcSoft Photobase that came on my E755 support disc.


• Graphic performance seems poor compared to E755 - probably coz I am running in VGA mode?


• Flash files play great using the Macromedia Standalone Player, but if set to run full screen, what they do is play full screen, with a 240x360 movie in the middle of the screen. Right-click and select "Show All" then it fills the screen nicely.


• Performace slower than E755 when played as "Show All" but the same if left at default 100%.


• Advanced Explorer takes its time to catalogue each folder - a lot slower than E755 - VGA setting makes this a much more usable program though.


• Pocket Streets seems to support VGA!!


• Wi-Fi works flawlessly and connects in about half the time E755 did.


• Web browsing is SOOOO much better, but default QVGA settig has HUGE scroll bars, even though the browser window seems to run VGA. SE_VGA fixes this.


• I seem to get more crashes in Internet Explorer than ever ... machine? SE_VGA? Dodgy OS?


• Built-in IPphone software (Gphone) is great for peer-to-peer as a local walkie-talkie. Wife and I can communicate in house and garden.


• Have tried to register with Gphine but their registrstion page is goosed - the buttons you have to press to register are disabled!!!


• Battery life not too good - could be bright screen + SE_VGA setting ...


• I want a Mugen extended battery.


• Wisebar Advanced works really well! But I still have not found a decent VGA theme.


• Ulti-Planner seems to work really well in VGA - especially the calendar view.


• What's with the teeny 2002 keyboard that pops up in VGA mode. Can that be fixed?


• The speaker is a lot louder than E755 - not that that would be hard!!!


• The Toshiba voice recorder software looks cool. Not tried it yet.


• Windows Media Player is disappointing in VGA, the old tiny video problem Need to try Beta Player.


• RealPlayer dialogues don't support VGA but movies seem to fill screen as expected.


• Calculator looks funny in VGA (it stretches to fit, without scaling buttons) but seems to work.
  
• My favourite card game suite Pocket Solitaire works fine - just rescales to fill screen - unlike Microsoft's version ... which seems to have some nice new card decks.

OK that's it for now.

Dazzletech announces JavaScript in Authorware book

Dazzletech announces JavaScript in Authorware book

At last a book that should help users trying to use JavaScript in Authorware

This week, Dazzletech announced the completion of their JavaScript in Authorware book, entitled JavaScript For Macromedia® Authorware®. The published a link to the Table of Contents of the book, and you can pre-order the book here.

You should read the full thread that followed the announcement of the book on the Aware List.

The discussion included pros and cons of JavaScript in Authorware, and extended into more general discussion of the features and evolution of Authorware.

And for once there was no blood :-)

By the way - JavaScript is a great addition to Authorware, finally adding OOP code to the long-in-the-tooth development tool. My personal opinion is that this iteration of JavaScript inside Authorware 7 is too much a bolt-on with too little integration (you cannot really embed JS expressions or variables in display icons or in response properties for instance). Macromedia has idicated that they intend to extend the features and functionality of JavaScript in future versions of Authorware so I am looking forward to something special in the future.

For now, for me, JavaScript is not important in Authorware, but I know that many 'code head' sorts are using it extensively and with glee. If/when it becomes easier to employ JavaScript in Authorware (like when the Help files reflect JavaScript syntax too ...) then I am sure I will happily drop the old AW Script for JavaScript and all the OOP goodness it brings.

No Laptop? How do you cope?

No Laptop? How do you cope?

Occasionally I mention my PDA obsession. This week it saved my sanity.

With no working laptop to let me surf the web, check eMail and genarally amuse myself, I was forced to resort to my PocketPC PDA to fill in the blanks.

Fortunately mine has Wi-Fi so I can use our home wireless LAN to connect to the internet to surf and to check email. I also have a cool little Belkin foldaway keyboard that I can use if I have a lot to type, otherwise the in-built entry methods work fine.

Surfing the web on a 240x320 screen should be a terrible thing, but with the aid of PocketIE Plus from Reensoft it becomes bareable. PIE adds full-screen mode, a clever reflow mode and the ability to open multiple IE windows, as well as the ability to map your hardware buttons to things like toggle full screen, page back, page forward etc.

Pretty soon I'll have a VGA PDA (Toshiba E830 480x640 screen) and I am looking forward to seeing how that performs on the internet. Soon the only thing I will need my laptop for will be work :-)

Sick Laptop

Sick Laptop

After over 3 years of abuse, the power socket on my Dell Inspiron 8100 broke

It is a great machine, still fast and easily capable of running all the software that I use day-to-day for work. So I needed to find a quick and cheap way to fix it.

Off to eBay I went to see what I could do.

I was amazed to see that I could find a similar machine to mine for about $600. Of course it would be 3 years or so old too, so no telling what wear and tear it had suffered, although I doubt your average laptop gets the same 8 - 16 hours use 7 days a week that mine has been through for 3.5 years.

Or I could pick up a mother board for about $300. That would be fine, but most of the mother boards seem to have been pulled from dismantled laptops, so the same wear and tear issues remained, plus I would have had to contend with things like could I upgrade that 800MHz processor with my 1.2 GHz one? Would I be able to dismantle and rebuild my machine without breaking anything?

I also had a look about to see if someone local could fix the socket. I figured I could get someone to solder it or whatever, but I could not find anyone who wanted to touch it without threatening me with a long sucking inhale first ...

Then I saw the solution! A second-hand Advanced Port Replicator (APR). I found several companies selling these through eBay, and a few promising to swap any faulty devices. $81 secured me the APR, including postage. 2 (working) days later here it is and it works fine.

The downside is that my laptop footprint has now grown by about 25%, but the good news is I can stretch it's useful working life out for another year or two. Dell's reputation for support has suffered over the last couple of years since it started to outsource to India, and USA support certainly seems less than what I was used to in the UK, although they are still OK if a little slow to reach a resolution.

There is nothing wrong with the machines they build though, so I'll be on their web site regularly, building that Dream Machine until the momemt is right - either I can afford the $3000 or so that gets the top of the line machine or this laptop finally pops its little clogs.

Road Trip

Road Trip

Random thoughts of a pink-eyed road warrior

I had to drive to Texas and back this week. All part of moving home, it's a long story that I won't bore you with. But I had to drive 1300 miles in a couple of days, and my mind got to wandering a time or two ...

• Why do you never see a police speed trap when it is raining?


• Texas road kill - skunk, armadillo, hound dawg.


• There are way too many Country radio stations in Texas to be considered healthy.


• What's whith that Mexican music? It sounds like a mixture between Spanish and Bavarian ... Flamenco meets lederhosen, Spanish guitar meets oompah!


• Ohh that Cajun stuff in Louisiana is just as odd.


• So what do American road builders have against corners?


• ... and why do they make the roads out of concrete and Teflon?


• I hate cruise-control-induced synchronised driving. There is absolutely no sense in 'overtaking' another car ar the rate of 1 inch per fortnight!


• Fountain drinks in gas stations. Amazing. A 3 pint 'cup' of Coke costs about $1.20. That's less than 75p in real money. I wish they would learn how cheap these drinks are in Britain, and then install them in service stations everywhere - and stop charging £3 (about $5.40) for one pint of the stuff in the pubs!!!!


• What's with the temperature here??? 80 farenheit in February!


• Is there really any need for those heeeeeeeeuuuuuuuge trucks just to go to Walmart?


• Looks like CB radio technology here has not moved on 20 years ... they're still using Firesticks and k40s. Wow.


• Why don't the police cars get a proper paint job over here?
  
  
  
  
  
  


• MacDonald's burgers really do taste the same everywhere.


• Waffle House is the perfect on-the-road junk food!


• There may be 12000 radio stations between Mississippi and Texas, but the ones that do not play Country seem to have only 12 songs that they share between them.


• ... and about 237 adverts.


• Armadillos really are ugly - but it sure seems hard to crush them.


• You can smell a squashed skunk from about a mile away!


• The trees are budding everywhere.


• There seem to be little clumps of miniature Daffodils wherever I look.


• The City of Martindale, Polulation 691. That's not a city, it's a friggin' hamlet!


• But it has its own police force of 2 and they are hot on speeders! ... nothing else to do, and they need to earn their own pay somehow.


• If you are ever in the region of San Marcos in Texas you must try Mamacita's
  mexican restaurant. They have a machine there in the restaurant that churns out fresh tortillas all day. Yummmmm. Fresh-baked tortillas. Oh heaven.


• And the HEB store around the corner has the same. You can buy fresh hot tortillas all day.

Cold Fusion user group conference

Scotch on the Rocks

Cold Fusion user group conference, May 2005

I just got this notification about a Cold Fusion User Group in Edinburgh holding a conference in May 2005 ...

Scotch on the Rocks, May 26/27 Edinburgh University

The Scottish ColdFusion User Group is both proud and excited to announce a two day conference covering Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7.

Taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 26th and 27th May, you are invited to join speakers, including representatives from Macromedia, Firstserv and InterAKT, as they present on why ColdFusion MX 7 is the fastest and easiest way to build and deploy Internet applications.

There will be a number of big prizes up for grabs, including a copy of ColdFusion MX 7 Standard, as well as an iPod. To top this off, each event attendee will go home with a gift, which will be included in their goodie bag.

As well as all the fun during the day, the Scottish ColdFusion User Group will take you on a pub crawl on both the Thursday and Friday nights, so prepare yourself for an almighty hangover.

Tickets for the event are 25(GBP), which covers both days attendance. Registration for the event will open soon.

More details including confirmed speakers, sponsors, as well as promotional documents including how to sponsor the event, can all be found at http://www.scottishcfug.com


Edinburgh is an absolutely gorgeous city. If you have not been there before you should use this conference as an excuse to go. Here's some photographs of Edinburgh that I took a couple or three years ago to help publicise EuroTAAC.

How far into your own digital navel can you gaze

"How far into your own digital navel can you gaze?"

"Each of us populates a personal tech-bubble of one. Solo-tech-travelers often are unaware that others occupy the same dimensions as them -- that's why they often bump into others, in their cars or on foot."

D. Pravaz from the Seattle Post writes about how personal technology is isolating us from the rest of the world, instead of bringing us closer together like the adverts say they do ... you didn't believe what T-mobile said did you???

The article is both entertaining and thought-provoking. If you are obsessed with your iPod, PDA and camera phone(s) take a look in Pravaz'z mirror.

Testing Post and ReadURL

Testing Post and ReadURL

I needed to test some cfm calls, so I built a little tool

Whilst working with Cold Fusion and Authorware this week I discovered the need of a simple tool to test calls to cfm pages. I also realised that this same tool could be useful for ASP, php and any other TLA server-side-scripting page.

So anyway, I built a simple tool that can be placed on your web server and used to test your calls to the database or whatever without having to build your full Authorware application. I posted the tool on my Downloads page

http://www.tomorrows-key.com/downloads.asp

It's (at the time of writing) the first question:-

---

Q. How can I easily test my calls to Cold Fusion, ASP, PHP or any other web pages that enable communications between Authorware and a server and/or database over the web?

A. I built this test application that lets you quickly test PostURL and ReadURL code in Authorware (Post and Get in HTML form terms). It displays the pure text of the return from the server, so if the server returns HTML or XML or plain text, you see the exact contents of the return without any formatting.

---

Use this page to send any comments or feedback you have about the tool. Remember, it's free and as-is, so I make no promises of perfection, but I will make changes based on feedback to fix bugs or make improvements ... time permitting of course!

You could always make changes yourself and send them back to me too :-)

Cold Fusion and Authorware PostURL

Cold Fusion and Authorware PostURL

I discovered today that Cold Fusion pages act strangely with Authorware and PostURL if no parameters are sent

I have been working with a client over the last couple of weeks, setting up a simple tracking system using Cold Fusion pages to handle the communication between the database and Authorware.

We hit an odd situation where one specific call to one specific .cfm page failed to return anything to Authorware, and instead opened a new web page containing the expected return.

After a bit of digging about I discovered that the cause of the problem was that this particular call sent no parameters to the cfm page, yet was still using PostURL. I had set up a function in Authorware that used PostURL for all the database calls, and for security and consistency I did not want to change that.

The ultimate workaround was to send the following parameter when none were actually required

true=true

So the final call to the cfm page became something like

result:=PostUrl(NetLocation^"call.cfm", "true=true", 5)

Scrolling RTF with hyperlinks

Have you ever tried to use scrolling RTF files with hyperinks?

Did you find that the RTF KO did not work as expected?

While teaching an Authorware class recently, one of my students pointed out that she had been unable to get the Insert RTF Object Hot Text Interaction to work correcly with scrolling RTF text. She asked if it were possible to get this to work using RTFObj.u32 functions.

After a little head scratching I came up with some working code that seems to do what she needed. You can try it out by downloading it from my web site

http://www.tomorrows-key.com/downloads.asp

Look for the question Q. How can I use RTFObj.u32 with scrolling rtf pages that contain hyperlinks?

Recorded Breeze presentations

Macromedia has released a number of recorded Breeze presentations

Something for everyone in this bundle of presentations

If you have never seen Breeze in action, you should take the time to look at at least one of the following presentations. Of course, you should look at them anyway if you want to get to know more about Macromedia's products.

Please note these are recordings of live presentations, lasting about an hour
each. Some of the presentations take a minute or two to get up and running.

1. Shape Tweening in Flash MX 2004


2. Cold Fusion 7


3. Cold Fusion Forms


4. Creating Raster Effects in Freehand


5. Fireworks Best Practices


6. Introducing the Flash Player Detection Kit


7. Troubleshooting FTP issues in Dreamweaver

Cold Fusion MX 7

Macromedia has released Cold Fusion MX 7

And it's the ost customer-driven version yet

Unlike most other Beta cycles, Macromedia has been pretty public with the development of Cold Fusion 7. It seems like for months, everywhere I have turned I have seen Macromedia talking about the next release of Cold Fusion, showing what they are developing with it, and getting customer feedback before the product was completed and released.

Check out the Cold Fusion 7 Product Page.

And the Cold Fusion Developers Center has links to getting-started tutorials and loads more great information.

Even the bar prices are a gamble

Here in Gulfport there are a number of Casinos

Last night we discovered even the bar prices are a gamble

Round 1, 3 drinks: Screwdriver, Bacardi and Coke, Heiniken, $4.75
Round 2, 2 drinks: Bacardi and Coke, Heiniken, $8.50
Round 3, 2 drinks: Screwdriver, Heiniken, $4.75
Round 4, 1 drink: Heiniken, $FREE!!!

I guess that's one way to get you to go to a casino more often :+)

Stress relief

Stress relief

Can you resist this?

Feeling stressed? See if you can resist coming back to this more than once in the next week ...

Controlling Flash sound

Control the sound in Flash files embedded in Authorware

Someone was asking recently on teh Macromedia forums ...

... about controlling the sound in a Flash file embedded in Authorware. I noticed that Joshua Burkholder has a sample posted on his website that controls the Flash sound volume:-

http://www.geocities.com/joshuaburkholder/


You should check his examples out for some other cool code snippets too.

Opening a running Authorware file

Have you ever saved your Authorware file running?

Isn't it annoying trying to troubleshoot a file that automatically launches itself?

There are two ways to prevent your Authorware file from automatically launching when you open it in the Authorware editor.

The first, and best known, is to locate the .rec file for the Authorware file and delete it. Before Authorware 7 you would find this in

C:\WINDOWS\AnW_DATA

Where n is the Authorware version number,3, 4, 5 or 6.

Authorware 7 uses the current user's profile directory, so on Windows XP you should find it here

C:\Documents and Settings\{UserName}\Application Data\Macromedia\Authorware 7\A7W_DATA

where {UserName} is the current logged-on user's logon ID.

But there is a simpler way. When you launch the file hold down the left mouse button. Thanks to Jamil Zainasheff from Macromedia for sharing that gem on the Aware List.

LMS testing

Local testing of LMS features with Authorware 7

Did you know Authorware 7 comes with an LMS emulator?

Use the LMS Emulator in conjunction with the LMS KOs, and access it through the Commands menu

Commands > LMS > Emulator

You see this dialogue:-



The opening screen points out, the emulator is a simulation of an LMS, not a full LMS. It uses the AICC-LAN protocol, and stores data in a local text file. Note that you can save time with the next step by loading values from a pre-defined default text file.



You can simulate your users' details and Lesson Location, Lesson Status, Score, Time and Lesson Data. These are the most fundamental fields utilised when tracking in an LMS.



When you are done setting up you can save your current settings to a default file, which can later be loaded back in via the Introduction screen shown above.

For full details on how to use this, see the technote Creating AICC and SCORM-Compliant Content with Authorware 7 on Macromedia's web site. The technote is written by Andrew Chemey who created the LMS KOs and the LMS Emulator.

Incidentally, if you like the free LMS KOs that come with Authorware 7, but find that they do not give you everything you need, you should consider purchasing the professional version of the KOs from AEC Consulting.

Memphis = rain

Memphis = rain

I went to Memphis today and all I saw was ...

rain, the inside of Burger King and the inside of the INS office.

As part of my goal of permanent residence and citizenship - make that duel British/US citizenship - I had to go to Memphis to get my fingerprints taken. 12 hours of driving for 10 minutes in the fingerprint lab .

So I can add Memphis to my list of US cities visited, but I don;t think it counts since I didn't get to visit Graceland or even Elvis Presley Boulevard.

Incidentally, apparently Elvis just racked up his 21st number 1 hit in the UK. And his third this year!

Controlling Captivate Movies

Controlling Captivate Movies

Jim Leichliter just posted the information we have all been waiting for ...

... on the Macromedia Authorware forum. I must confess that if I had taken the time to explore a Captivate movie I could have discivered this already, but ... well Jim is obviously a better man than I.

Here's what he had to say:-

In Authorware using the syntax:

CallSprite(@gotMovie, #GetVariable, "_root.rdinfoCurrentSlide")

Where "_root." can be prefixed to these listed variables:

rdinfoFrameCount
rdinfoSlidesInProject
rdinfoFPS
rdinfocurrFrame
rdinfoCurrentFrame
rdinfoCurrentSlide
rdinfoCurrentSlideInProject
rdinfoSlideCount
rdIsMainMovie
________________________
rdcmndGotoFrame
rdcmndResume
rdcmndPause
rdcmndPrevious
rdcmndNext
rdcmndRewindAndStop
rdcmndRewindAndPlay
rdcmndGotoFrameAndResume
rdcmndNextSlide
rdcmndInfo
rdcmndExit

The rdcmnd can control the Captivate movie by using the SetVariable syntax and providing a 1 (true) or 0 (false). For Example:-

CallSprite(@gotMovie, #SetVariable, "_root.rdcmdResume", 1)

will resume the Captivate movie after it has been paused.

Nice one Jim!!

Cognitive Impairment

Cognitive Impairment

We often talk about accessability for the disabled, like section 508 requirements, but what about cognitive impairment

I found a link to this article on cognitive impairment while poking around looking for something else - as you do.

It gives clear descriptions of the sorts of learning and comprehension difficulties you might encounter, and ways to make it easier for your users to absorb and understand your content. The methods described, and the code samples given, apply purely to web pages, as they are all HTML, CSS or JavaScript solutions, but we can easily apply the ideas and suggestions to our work in any tool.

This is one instance where I would like to reiterate my desire for the ability to control the look and feel of text in Authorware at runtime. Whilst we could fake the text changes suggested, it would be a lot of work. It would be great to be able to use code to dynamically highlight and/or underline text. In fact, if we were able to do this we might be able to modify some of the JavaScrip code tips supplied in the article above.

More on Authorware and XP SP2

More on Authorware and XP SP2

Get rid of the block on running local Authorware and other ActiveX controls

By now you should have read my other tips about running Authorware 7 web-packaged files locally. This one shouild help get rid of any lingering blocks on running files locally.

By default Internet Explorer in XP SP2 blocks all locally stored ActiveX controls and maybe some other stuff I don;t know about. This effects developers because we often need to test our work locally, and it kills things like Flash and Authorware. Actually it does not block them, but you do have to mess about with the little drop-down panel that appears at the top of the Explorer window as shown here.



If you don't want to see this any more, go to Tools > Internet Options and select the Advanced tab. Scroll down the dialogue until you see the option "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer". Make sure it is checked.

Oh I am in heaven!

Oh I am in heaven!

Finally, a decent Indian restaurant!!!!!

I have lived here in Mississippi since May 31st last year. 8 months. There are NO Indian restaurants here in Gulfport, or anywhere else on the Mississippi Gulf Coast so far as we have been able to discover. I am British. I am addicted to Vindaloo. I love Mexican food, but the Mexican restaurants here do not understand about HOT food, so it does not fill my craving. Can you imagine? 8 months without a decent curry.

OK OK I admit it, we found a great Indian restaurant in Pheonix when we were there on honeymoon, but still, it's been 5 months since then.

By the way, when I say HOT I mean that first mouthful causes your heart to jump in fear! Gimme a good Indian Vindaloo and I am a happy (if slightly sweaty) man :-).

So on Saturday Amy and I went to New Orleans (N'orl'ns to the locals) with friends to see HOTEL RWANDA, a very moving film in my humble opinion. It is terrible the way the world ignored the plight of so many innocents in Rwanda until it was too late. But enough of that, go elsewhere if you want political discussion or an in-depth film critique ...

After the movie we went for dinner. We had pre-planned to locate either Cuban or Indian food, having decided to find something 'foreign' that most of us had not eaten before. You can imagine (if you are British) how heartbroken I was (n't) to discover that the decision was for us to seek out Indian food.

We found a restaurant reasonably close to the theater (cinema to us Brits) called, with outcredible originality, The Taj Mahal. Anyway, the important bit was that it was a small restaurant (by local standards) with great food, great atmosphere, and 4 very happy customers.

Next time we go there I'll have to have a word with them about their "very hot" vindaloo though. I didn't even break sweat, let alone endure even a single moment of fear! Soon .... !!!!

Running Authorware locally

More on running an Authorware file locally

Authorware Web Player files prompt a message when played back locally

According to Macromedia Technote number 19503 Windows XP SP2 can cause local playback of Authorware web-packaged content to give this error message

"Enable active content

Enabling active content on your Local Machine may harm your computer. Do you want to continue?"

The technote explains how best to avoid the error message and allow your content to run. I'll add some more tips to help you run local content later.

eLearning Design Challenge

Ron Lubensky has posted the latest eLearning design challenge

There is a severe drought. Strict domestic water usage restrictions are in place.

This is the fourth such challenge Ron has posted in recent months. They have inspired some lively debate and I am sure this latest challenge will do the same.

Discuss how you and others would approach this challenge on Ron's site eLearning Design Challenge #4.

Useful Windows XP tips

Windows XP tips, tricks, tweaks and tools

My wife found this great tip site for Windows XP

"Index of Windows XP Tips

Repository of XP Shell, User Interface tips, extensive troubleshooting guides and utilities for home users, IT Professionals, helpdesk / onsite support technicians. Most of the resources here deal with the Windows registry."

I notice the home page of this site has even more tips. Well worth looking at if you have trouble with your machine, and definitely worth looking at if you like to tinker under the bonnet (that's under the hood for you American folks).

Here's one cool example of the things available - ToolbarCop. This is a utility you can install to help get rid of all those helpful annoying toolbars and 'extensions' that your nephew has installed while you were mowing the lawn.

"ToolbarCop is a browser extensions manager which can disable or eliminate the following browser add-ons selectively from Internet Explorer:

• Unwanted Browser Helper Objects (BHO)
• Toolbars (Tool Band)
• Standard Toolbar buttons
• Context menu Extensions
• Third-party download managers &
• Third-party Protocol Handlers and their residual entries remaining in the registry.
• Horizontal / Vertical Explorer Bars (side-search bars)
• Startup applications originating from RUN registry keys."

Authorware 7 books

Where are all the Authorware 7 books?

Good question - let's take a look at what's on offer

First, there is the manual that comes with Authorware. It's OK, but you should treat it as a reference book. It contains exactly the same information that is in the Help files, so it's mostly of use if you want to browse or if you prefer to use a book.

Secondly, Joseph Ganci, of Dazzletech has written some excellent Authorware manuals and training courses over the years. You can purchase courses from the Dazzletech web site. The scripting courses cover Authorware versions from 5.2 to 7.0, so you will find more than enough information to make you a skilled Authorware developer.

Shameless Plug Dazzletch is again presenting excellent training courses at EuroTAAC this year.

Finally, perhaps you want to add some additional scripting power to Authoware 7. You can with JavaScript. Maybe you already know it well having done other web development. Maybe you are a Flash > Authorware convert and you just cannot get out of the ActionScript mentality. Maybe you just prefer object-based code ... Whatever, JavaScript in Authorware 7 is a powerful new addition, and you may need help getting it to work for you. Ron Lubensky (did I mention he is a God?) has a great JavaScript Quick Reference for Authorware...

"Instead of having browser objects like document, window and navigator, JavaScript for Authorware has its own Authorware Object Model that relates to its icons. This quick reference is a Command that you can display while you author. Use it to learn and remind yourself about syntax and object usage. It is presented as an Explorer-style tree. There is even an option to install it into your Authorware 7.0 script editor snippets"


So far that is really it for Authorware 7 books. Maybe when we get Authorware 8 there will be some new books. Anyone willing to sponsor me and Amy to write one? ;-)

PocketPC Flash Player

Looking for the Flash player for your PocketPC?

It seems like some people don't want you to find it

If you look an the Macromedia web site, it says you should check with your vendor, and offers a link to the Microsoft site. It sends you off somewhere else. If you are lucky, you will eventually find yourself back at the Macromedia download site for the PocketPC 2002 Flash Player.

Yes, that's right, it says the 2002 player. But don't worry, the player should be good for machines running one of the versions of PocketPC 2003 too.

But be careful as it seems like support for the Flash player is something your device vendor apparently can control, so you may find that your PocketPC phone does not support it. Standard PocketPCs should be OK though.

Why did I tell you this? You may recall that I did a little PocketPC work a while ago, and I am obsessed by the little devices. It amazes me to consider the power of these. In many ways they are more powerful than my first PC in 1998, for a start mine has built-in Wi-Fi, and it plays movies better than my old PC could ...

RSS Feed

RSS feed addded

Good news for all you syndication fans!

Andrew Lucking asked if I could add a syndication feed, and Andrew, your wish is my command! Point your RSS reader to

http://stevehoward.blogspot.com/atom.xml

or click the button at the top left of this page.

It is not the most advanced RSS feed in the world, but what do you expect for free? :+)

Hot on the heels ...

More on the Authorware 2004 Web Player

Almost as soon as I had posted a comment about Ron Lubensky's Web Player helper ...

... and I receive a comment asking for more information about the web player:-


"I agree that Ron's Command is pretty good but can you tell us more about *local* web packaged AW pieces that:

1 - are run without a manifest
2 - need to work under XP SP2's security features
3 - resolve AW security issues on Gecko based browsers"

Quick as a flash I had a dig about and I found some answers that might help.

1 - Andrew Poulos tells us here what to do with a file that does not have an associated Manifest

2 - This gem from Andrew Poulos describes how to get an Authorware file to run properly locally so he does not always have to be connected to the internet to get access to the Macromedia web site. Obviously this also has relevance to 1 above.

3 - And, remarkably, it appears the answer to 2 also answers 3 above ;-)

I think maybe I see a coincidence out the corner of my eye. What do you think?

Learn to love the Aware List archives. They are your best friend, ever!

Did I mention Ron L, the God?

Did I mention Ron L, the God?

Not content with giving us the GREAT Find & Fix command ...

... Ron recently created the AW 2004 Web Player Helper Command.

Macromedia launched a fine new version of the Authorware Web Player last spring, designed to make life simpler for us poor developers who had to deliver to locked-down Corporate systems - especially windows XP. The new web player needs a little extra tickling to make it work perfectly. Ron, the sweetheart that he is, took some time out to create a command that takes the pain out of the tickling...

Authorware 2004 Web Player Helper Command (ver 1.2 22K)
Click here to download for Authorware 6.5 and 7.0. Just copy the appropriate file in the zip to your Commands folder.

The new Authorware 2004 Web Player is fantastic. But One Button Publishing (OBP) in Authorware 6.5 and 7.0 isn't set up to take advantage of it. The default configuration is for the player to install the complete set of support files, but you can speed up the process by specifying a compact set of files and supply xtras with your package. Also, intranet deployment requires that player support files be referenced from a client location rather than from the Macromedia site. After publishing your learning object for web deployment, run this Command to:

1, add or replace a PLR line in your web player map file to specify complete, compact or custom installation.

2, check that OBP can select the codebase reference for the new player in any HTML template by updating your OBP.INI file.

EuroTAAC 2005, Blackpool, England

EuroTAAC 2005, Blackpool, England

Bring your buckets and spades

This year EuroTAAC is scheduled for April 14th to April 16th, and we are taking the conference to Blackpool, home to Britain's answer to the Eiffel Tower. Here's some cool web-cam pictures from the top of the tower.

The conference reaches new heights of luxury this year, in the Heron's Reach Hotel.

A full schedule of events and a list of speakers has now been posted. Highlights include Joseph Ganci, with his delicately entitled presentation Making Your E-Learning Engaging: Getting Past the Crap Factor, and a new-format Networking Event on Friday afternoon, where you are encouraged to bring your laptops and your business cards to swap problems, solutions and telephone numbers.

If you are interested in booking for either the conference or the pre- and post-conference training, then head to our registration page, but don't forget to check out the rest of the web site first!

Follow these links for travel and accommodation information, and more information about the Heron's Reach hotel.

Illegal character in aam file

Illegal character in aam file

Every now and then this error message appears ...

... when people are web publishing:

Warning: "Your File.ext" includes illegal Web Player characters. Legal
characters are A-Z. a-z, 0-9, and $-_.+!*,().

All it is telling you is that your file name has illegal characters in it. In the case above, all you need to do is rename the file and the aam reference so that there are no spaces in the filename.

Why did this happen? For a long time the convention (more accurately, rule since many browsers did not support long filenames) was to never use long filenames when publishing anything to the Internet. Macromedia set up the Authorware Web Player and the Web Publisher to follow that convention. These days many browsers will happily cope with spaces in the filenames, but it is still wise to adhere to the convention, especially when you are unsure of the capabilites of the browser you are publishing to.

Captivate movies in Authorware

Captivate movies in Authorware

Trouble at t' mill!

The new version of RoboDemo from Macromedia, now renamed Captivate, has been causing Authoware users a couple of problems. Robodemo used to create Flash files that were on a single timeline, and it was easy for Authorware users to detect the end of the movie, create custom buttons to pause, play, navigate etc through the RoboDemo movie.

With Captivate, Macromedia has changed the way the movies are created and now they contain numerous movie clips. Whilst this is definitely a better way to make Flash movies, it has broken the custom code used by developers for some time.

Macromedia has promised a technote soon to help users overcome this issue. Watch this space. Meantime, if you are a skilled flash user, or have access to one, you should publish your Captivate movie as an fla then you can edit it in Flash. You should be able to add some custom functions in Flash that you can call from Authorware to do your bidding. Also, you can add a GetURL message to tell Authorware the movie has finished, as per this example file I made some time ago. The zip file contains example Authorware and Flash code to show you haw to send an event from Flash to Authorware. You can use the same method to send other messages, such as navigation messages from a custom menu.

Have fun!!

Ron Lubensky is an Authorware GOD

Ron Lubensky is an Authorware GOD

Ron keeps on updating Find & Fix for us.

His latest version of this amazing command was recently updated to version 2.31. Here's what he has to say about it:-

"Use this command with AW6.5 or AW7.0 to perform maintenance operations on your applications. If you need to perform repetitive tasks with a certain degree of complexity, use Find & Fix to automate the process and complete them quickly.

To give you an idea of what it does, here is a gif of the Command's interface.
I use Find & Fix almost every day in my own development, I couldn't be as productive as I am without it.

This version includes the following new features:

• Batch file facility -- yes, you can now process a folder of AW files in one go!
• Ability to maximise script text areas -- many have asked for a larger space for scripting
• Ability to insert continuation character ¬ in scripts
• Easier to find settings files -- the open and save dialogs open in the default folder

Update or get a trial version of Find & Fix at www.clickcraft.com"

Wedding pictures

Wedding pictures

Just in case you don't believe it really happened!

Here are some of our wedding photos.
And just for the record, nothing is worn under a Scotsman's kilt. Everything is in perfect working order.

Oh My Goodness!

Father forgive me for I have sinned.

It has been over a year since my last submission.

Since then I have sold, thrown away or given away almost all of my posessions.

I have left my home in England and travelled across the Atlantic to settle in Mississippi.

In August 2004, the 24th to be exact, I married my sweetheart of almost 4 years, Amy Blankenship, and now we are embarking on our 'happily ever after'.

I promise to be good from now on.

I will submit to my blog on regular occasions.
I promise to keep my regular readers informed.
I promise to post useful tips and tricks for using Authorware 7 and beyond.
And post about other stuff too. Some of it will have absolutely no relationship with Macromedia or multimedia whatsoever.

Really.

I will

Honest.

Cross my heart!

EuroTAAC :: Authorware and eLearning conference

Thursday 25 March to Saturday 27 March 2004.
EuroTAAC is the premier conference in Europe for Authorware and all things eLearning

Each year EuroTAAC brings together some of the best talent in the world to share their expertise in a wide range of topics. In 2003, for instance, presentations included:-

• Creating professional graphics for your eLearning using Fireworks
• The Top 10 Blunders in Developing E-Learning and How to Avoid Them
• An introduction to creating Authorware Extensions
• Extending Databases - how to create and utilise a database for dynamic courses
• Standards for exchanging data with LMSs
• Self-updating Authorware executables
• Building a dynamic application using sub-routines and script functions in 6.5
• 3D in Authorware
• Quality in e-Learning
• Authorware and the OS security issues
• The security associated with Authorware in a web browser.
• Data-driven Wizardry: Uses of Dynamic Data in Authorware
• Authorware Accessibility: Issues, Guidelines and Solutions
• collaborative systems in Authorware
• Interactive simulations for training

EuroTAAC also offers classes from some of the most respected Authorware developers and trainers in the World. This year EuroTAAC is offering:

Authorware Scripting 1 Monday 22nd March to Wednesday 24th March, 2004
Facilitated by: Joe Ganci, DazzleTech DazzleTech.

JavaScript for Authorware Monday 22nd March to Wednesday 24th March, 2004
Facilitated by: Dan Clinger, DazzleTech DazzleTech.

Extending Authorware - Building Commands, Knowledge Objects, and other Extensions Monday 29th March to Wednesday 31st March 2004
Facilitated by: Chris Swenson, DazzleTech.

E-Learning Project Management from Soup to Nuts Monday 29th March to Wednesday 31st March 2004
Facilitated by: Joe Ganci, DazzleTech.

Who should attend?

Teachers - those who teach students to use tools like Authorware for eLearning and other multimedi tasks.

Students - those who wish to learn not only how to use Authorware but to learn about some of the amazing things that it can do. You will also learn about how to integrate Authorware with LMS and LCMSs, databases and more. If you want to find out about eLearning standards (AICC ,SCORM ...) EuroTAAC is the place to come.

Managers - do you manage a team that produces eLearning? Or are you responsible for purchasing eLearning tools, products or expertise? Well EuroTAAC is a great place to come to get contacts and to see what the market has to offer.

Developers - learn from the best Authorware developers in the World. Se what amazing things that can be done with Authorware. Not enough? See how easy it is to extend Authorware so that it can be utilised in an amazing array of tasks.

Attendees come from all over Europe, the USA, Canada, Mexico, South America and Australia to attend EuroTAAC! EuroTAAC is the best place in Europe to learn about Authorware and all things eLearning.

I look forward to seeing you at EuroTAAC in Edinburgh in March!

TAAC 8, Macromedia's Eye View

Aaron Jones was one of several Macromedia employees to attend this year's TAAC conference. Aaron was good enough to take the time to write an article describing his experience there.
Well done Aaron, no longer a TAAC virgin :-)

Authorware finally gets a presence on DevNet!

Thanks to Amy Blankenship and Andrew Chemey for writing these cool articles for Authorware posted to the AW devnet page.

Andrew's article discusses creating AICC and SCORM compliant courses with Authorware. Amy's is a tutorial showing how you can use Fireworks to create great graphics for your Authorware courses.

Thanks to you both!

Oh - and please note there are several other great articles there too!

Want to put Flash in your Windows Pocket PC PDA?

Recently I was asked to put together a demo of a work aid tool to be used on a Pocket PC PDA.
The breif was simple. It needed to:
• work on Pocket PC
• be as lean as possible
• run from RAM or from a memory card, not via the Web
• run full screen
• be a simple, proof of concept memory aid, used as a ready reference that supplimented existing training.

After a little pain ( I don't enjoy working with Flash), the end result was a simple little XML-driven application. I have a version of it here, scaled to 480x640 for PC users, and a second version designed to run on Pocket PC, scaled to fit into the standard Pocket IE window. Note that the scaling means it is smaller than designed, as the real thing runs full-screen using Macromedia's Standalone Player for Pocket PC.

More PDA joy

I ordered a new PDA. There was nothing wrong with my old one, but I wanted more. Faster processor. More RAM. Integrated Wi-Fi. Now my PDA is fully connected to my home wireles LAN. I can send/receive emails, surf the Net, get files from my local machines, even control my server, all from the comfort of my bedroom, the yard ... anywhere.

Or I can go to Starbucks :-)

If you care, this is what I bought - Toshiba E755

Here is what I should have bought - Toshiba E805! It has a larger screen, higher resolution (480x640), VIOP, text to speech, voice commands. ... wow, PCs were not this good 5 or 6 years ago!

TAAC 8, been and gone

I couldn't make it to TAAC this year :-( Too busy between work and studies. By all accounts TAAC was a little quieter this year than of late, although no less informative or fun!

I see Mark has links to all previous year's TAAC presentations. Hopefully he will be able to get this year's presentations up soon.

EuroTAAC 2004 is in Edinburgh

EuroTAAC :: Authorware and eLearning conference

Thursday 25 March to Saturday 27 March 2004.

EuroTAAC is the premier conference in Europe for Authorware and all things eLearning

Latest News - EuroTAAC 2004

Where is EuroTAAC 2004?
I have decided to return to the beautiful Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, Scotland (I took it there in 2002). Make a note in your diary - 22-27 March 2004, with the main conference taking place on 25-27 March. I am also planning post-conference training this year. Look out for further announcements soon.


EuroTAAC 2004. Go on! You know you want to!

Authorware 7.01 released

Macromedia has released an update to Authorware 7 that addresses a number of bugs discovered after AW 7 was released.

You can get the update from here http://www.macromedia.com/support/authorware/download.html

And there are extensive release notes here:-

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/authorware/701/releasenotes.html


Probably the most exciting improvement is the inclusion of the ability to update files from Authorware 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 6.0 and 6.5 directly to Authorware 7

Useful stuff from Joshua Burkholder

Joshua Burkholder is one of the most talented AW developers about. He is also quite the Flash expert. Joshua has posted a number of useful files on hos web site

http://www.geocities.com/joshuaburkholder/

Using Authorware to extract CAB files

Have you ever wanted to extract files from a cabinet file (.CAB) using Authorware. alCabinet.u32 does just that - extract a file(s) from a .CAB. It's free and it's available from:
http://www.apixel.com/section05.htm#alcabinet

Video Magic in Authorware

alVideoMagic released. Have you ever wanted to play one video within another video, aka
"picture in a picture"? No, well try Apixel's new u32 - maybe it will change your mind :-)

alVideoMagic is a 32 bit UCD that uses DirectX 9 to play a secondary video within a primary video. It's pretty neat if not overly useful.

It's free and it available from:
http://www.apixel.com/section05.htm#alvideomagic

Authorware and SCORM

It was brought to my attention that Macromedia has the following article on their site. Nice to see an AWARE related item (SCORM)

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/authorware/articles/metadata_editor.html?trackingid=devnetupdate_email_100603

This is an excellent article form Sharon Brown.

Internet explorer changes to affect plugins

If you haven't read about the changes coming to Internet Explorer, you should have a good read of Macromedia's take, and their suggestions on how to work around the changes

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/

More handy tools - alToolTip

For all the users of alTooltip.u32, a UCD that allows Authorware developers to include tooltips within their applications, there is now an Authorware v.7 Knowledge Object available for download:

http://www.apixel.com/section05.htm#altooltip

I use alToolTip often in my work - not just for placing tips over buttons. I use it to add extra information to pages, adding tooltips to an i icon for instance.

Find and Fix Command updated

Ron Lubensky has anounced an update to his great Find and Fix command for Authorware 6.5 and 7. Enhancements include

• Javascript-enabled (for Authorware 7.0)
• New icon properties
• Find and fix library-linked icons (ver 2.04)
• Paste icons from clipboard or model (ver 2.05)

This command offers incredible workflow enhancements for those tedious maintenance tasks. The price is rediculously cheap!

For a complete rundown of its features, here is the help file for it:
http://www.clickcraft.com/ko/Click%20Craft%20Find%20and%20Fix.htm

and a screen grab of its interface:
http://www.clickcraft.com/ko/find&fixcmd.gif

Have you booked your TAAC 8 ticket yet?

TAAC 8 is in Las Vagas this year. To attend the best Authorware conference on the other side of The Pond, you should choose TAAC.



As always there will be the best Authorware talent around presenting on topics ranging from design to coding, extending Authorware, and sharing their best tips and tricks.

This year's program includes:

• Hands-On with Authorware 7
• Implementing JavaScript in Authorware
• Longer sessions; more meat, less filler
• Sessions that really get your hands dirty
• 1:1 Sessions with Resident Pros
• The Authorware Games
• The Ask Macromedia Panel Session
• Meet & Greet Reception (Thur, Oct 23)
• Poolside chat with MM Engineers
• Each and EVERY session will be recorded and offered in DVD format
• NEW and EXCITING Pre and Post-Conference Training Packages

For once I have a great excuse :-)

The Blogger site is undergoing redesign right now. Great.

But they have somehow lost the "Publish Template" button. And the "Publish Archive" button. So as I type things are a bit upside down. Hopefully it gets fixed soon so I can sort out the template (I have a dead image here on the left {pointing ineffectually}).

MX Suite 2004

Hot on the heels of AW 7 comes the new MX Suite 2004. Take a look at http://www.macromedia.com/software/mx2004/ for information about the fantastic updates to Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks MX 2004.

If you are not sure whether to buy Flash MX Professional 2004 or the standard version, do yourself a favour and just buy Professional! It's a simple decision - better code editing support, better video, better database components. More stuff too, but these are the clinchers for me! And for only $100 extra if you are buying hte upgrade - there really is nothing to choose.

Limited-edition, numbered MX 2004 t-shirts

Oh - and if you buy soon you could qualify for a free limited edition t-shirt. "Each MX 2004 t-shirt will be given your unique order number. The sooner you order, the lower the number."

Handy resources

Amy Blankenship has expanded her site http://authorware-amy.com/ to include the Newbie Resource Center - it's the panel on the right of the home page. Also check out the Examples section where Amy has some excellent samples of things you really wanted to do with Authorware but couldn't figure out how.

Erik Lord has a nice resource site here http://www.awaretips.net. As well as sample code, he has links to other Authorware sites and a FAQ page. Nice examples.

I did promise ...

... quite a while ago that there would be no more long breaks in my posts. OK it turns out that was a lie. I have been so busy this summer that Blogging has not been high on my list of priorities!

So what's been going on?

Since I last posted I have been furiously beta testing Authorware 7, which of course was launched in June ... so long ago! We have some cool new additions to Authorware, including the beginnings of OOP with full support for the core JavaScript language, a more modern interface, a speach Xtra and the ability to play DVDs.

Mostly, the rest of the time I have been working. I was supposed to spend the summer continuing with my studies, but I have been so busy with work that whenever I have not been working all I want to do is read a book ... for pleasure, not learning.

I have also continued on my quest to make my PDA invaluable to me. My two most used apps are Microsoft Reader and Internet Explorer. Reader for books, and IE for news. I use the built-in AvantGo app to sychronise several news and technology web sites each day. So no more need for a newspaper, and I can get the news I want from anywhere in the World :-) I also use the email app too, mostly to read mail, but occasionally to send messages while on the move, or sitting by the river.

Equally important are the apps I use less often

I got a great set of Solitaire games (about 234 different games!) from Mud Inc.

I also use Pocket Slideshow because it allows me to view my PowerPoint slides on the PDA. If I had a newer model, for instance a Toshiba 750 I could connect the PDA to a monitor or projector at 800x600 resolution to view the PowerPoint slideshow. Who needs to carry a laptop now?

Finally my new cellphone supports GPRS so now I can easily check my email, surf the internet and keep up to date while on the move. Even while sitting on a train :-)

When I got my PDA I was a little skeptical. It runs the Pocket Windows 2002 OS, and is labelled Pocket PC. The name is apt - these modern little machines really are pocket computers. If you don't already have one, go to your local computer store and have a play - you will be amazed what these tiny devices can do!!!

New Downloads section

I added a new Downoads section to mmy web site. Little code snippetds like reading an external file into a list or property list, a simple dictionary, dynamically size/position your hotspots, using SetMotionObject and SetTargetObect to simplify Drag and Drop routines and many more.

http://www.tomorrows-key.com/downloads.asp

But of course why bother with WinAPI when BudAPI has it all for you

If you think you want to use the WinAPI, make sure you take a look at BudAPI first! BudAPI is known throughout the Director and Authorware world as a wonderful tool for extending both products.

Not only does it work woth both Director and Authorware, it is cross-platform too and so it works on PC and Mac. This is not true of WinAPI!

You can use a couple of BudAPIs functions in an application without purchasing it. Or:-

The Limited Edition costs US $80 or $AUD 140, plus 10% GST for Australian residents. In this version, the Xtra allows you to call any seven functions in any projector or packaged application. Each function can be called multiple times. Full commercial use of the UCD/U32 is also included. Support is provided by e-mail.

The Full Version costs US $160 or $AUD 280, plus 10% GST for Australian residents. This contains a fully unlocked version of both the Xtra and the UCD/U32. Support is provided by e-mail. An upgrade to the full version from the limited version costs US $80 or $AUD 140, plus 10% GST for Australian residents.

This is a cheap plugin that can save you hours of work and frustration!

Authorware and WinAPI are there any references? - Part 1

Have you ever tried to use any functions from the WinAPI.u32 supplied with Authorware? If so you will no doubt have been frustrated by the 'information' provided with the functions. If not, here's a quick example.

Imagine you want to copy a file from your application CD to the user's hard drive. What Authorware function would you use? Seems like a simple enough request doesn't it? Well there is no native CopyFile() function in Authorware. There are many options for solving this problem, one of which is to load the CopyFile() function from WinAPI.u32. So let's try it.

1. Open a new Authorware file, and save it somewhere convenient as TestCopy.
2. You need a test file to copy, so make a new text file in the same folder you just saved your Authorware file into. Call this text file TextCopy.txt,
and type some text in it. Something simple like Hello Mum.

Now we need that CopyFile() function. Loading a new function into Authorware from a .u32 is pretty simple.

3. Open the Functions dialogue either by pressing the Functions button or pressing the keys control+shift+f.
4. Click in the Category: drop-down and scroll down to the bottom until you find a category named TestCopy.axp (where the x in axp represents your version of Authorware - a4p for Authorware 4, a5p for Authorware 5 etc.) and select this category.
5. Press the Load button at the bottom-left of the Functions dialogue.
6. A Windows browse dialogue entitled Load function appears. Use it to browse to the folder containing your current version of Authorware - by default it should be:-

C:\program files\macromedia\Authorware x
(x will be your Authorware version number - 4, 5, 6, 6.5 ...)

Now here you take a sneaky shortcut. It is best to load your function from a u32 that is in the same folder as your application. When you do this Authorware stores the reference to the file as a relative reference, not a hard-coded path. Whilst it should not matter once the file is packaged, it is more elegant to use the relative path during development plus it helps to ensure that you package the correct files with your application.

So the sneaky shortcut is this:- Locate the file WinAPI.u32 in the browse dialogue, select it with a SINGLE mouse click and then press Control+C to copy the file to your clipboard. Keeping the browse dialogue open, now browse to the folder that you have saved your test file into. With the folder open, press Control+V to paste the WinAPI.u32 into your test folder.

Continued in part 2 below

Authorware and WinAPI are there any references? Part 2

7. Double-click the file WinAPI.u32. A dialogue opens entitled em<>Custom functions in WinAPI.u32.
8. A brief browse of this dialogue reveals hundreds of functions that are available to you from Authorware.
9. For now we are interested only in CopyFile, so scroll down to it and, for now, select it with a single click of your mouse.

This is where things stop being completely simple. Notice what the Description filed says :-

BOOL = CopyFile( LPCSTR lpExistingFileName, LPCSTR lpNewFileName, BOOL bFailIfExists )
Windows API Call See Windows SDK for description.

First, the parameters? What is that all about? Well as Authorware developers, all we need to know is that it translates to:-

success:=CopyFile(From, To, Overwrite?)

From would be the file you are copying, e.g.
FileLocation^"TestCopy.txt"

To would be the file you copy to, e.g.
RecordsLocation^"CopiedFile.txt"

Overwrite? is 1 if you want to overwrite the file if it already exists, and 0 if you don't want to overwrite.

So where is this Windows SDK that we are supposed to reference? Sadly not on your Authorware CD. You need to go to Microsoft for that. If you already do Windows development with, say C++ or Delphi you may already have an appropriate Windows API reference. If not, you need to go to MSDN. However the reference there is all aimed at C programmers. Take, for instance, the CopyFile() reference.

Fortunately there is a nice reference designed for Authorware - the Authorware Win API Guide. This site documents around 70 WinAPI functions with example code and files.

Important notes
Many WinAPI functions are not suitable for use with Authorware because they require variable types not available with Authorware, or the require advanced memory manipulation.

It appears some functions do not work with Windows XP. If in doubt, check with the Aware List, there are several people there who can answer specific questions about using WinAPI.

Free Sci-Fi/Fantasy books for your PDA

At Christmas I was given a PDA by my super-generous girlfriend. Being skeptical of such 'toys' I was then obliged to prove that I could make this little pocket computer into something useful in my life. I have several uses that mean I use it many times daily - sometime I'll post about more of those.

My main use for it is as a super-portable book. How so? you may ask. Well my PDA runs Microsoft's Reader software and I have found a great resource for free Sci-Fi/Fantasy books in many formats - one of which is the Microsoft Reader format.

Head over to the Baen Free Library and see for yourself.

Be warned - not all of the books are a great read, but since you can download approximately 60 books for free there are plenty to choose from. They take up a mere 25 Mb of storage space so you can carry them on your PDA storage card or on your laptop's hard drive and have them available wherever you go. I particularly enjoy reading mine on the train, plane, whilst cycling in the gym, even in restaurants when I work away from home. As you know, carrying even two books while you are travelling is a pain - even more so if you happen to finish reading them before the trip is over!

Pasting ASP source code into Authorware Display

I see this asked occasionally:-

"I am trying to paste ASP source code into an Authorware Display icon. When I close the Display icon I get the error "Where is function blah()?. How do I fix this?"

The answer is surprisingly simple. In JScript (and many other programming languages, for instance ActionScript, C) the code of custom functions is wrapped in curly brackets "{ }". Authorware uses these same characters in Display icons to denote variables or expressions that it is to evaluate at runtime. When Authorware sees these in code that has been pasted into a Display icon, it assumes you want to evaluate what is inside the brackets.

The cure is simple. Just escape the curly brackets. So if you want to paste in this simple JS function:-


function areaOfSphere(radius) {
return 4 * Math.PI * (Math.pow(radius, 2));
}


escape the curly brackets thus:-


function areaOfSphere(radius) \{
return 4 * Math.PI * (Math.pow(radius, 2));
\}


TAAC 8 dates and venu annouced - and special draw for early birds ...

TAAC8 - The Alternative Authorware Conference
Alexis Park Hotel, Las Vegas NV, Oct 23 - 25, 2003

*** EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION SPECIAL ***

Want to go to Vegas for FREE?

Register early, and WIN! One lucky winner will be drawn from the first 20 General Admission tickets sold to win an all expenses paid trip to TAAC8! That's right folks - one lucky person will win airfare, lodging, and their ticket compliments of Mark Henry Enterprises, Inc.

For more information, or to register, go to:

http://www.markhenryenterprises.com/

Another good FlashMX XML tutorial

This one also gives good explanation. Better - it mentions several neat tricks in passing, for instance suffixing your XML object name with "_xml" informs the ActionScript editor that the variable is an XML object and the editor will provide a dropdown list of appropriate methods during editing. Sweet :-)

The FlashMX XML tutorial can be found here and it is hosted by actionscript.org. This too appears to be an excellent resource.

Rant!

Why do so many web sites insist on turning off my status bar in Internet Explorer? What are they trying to hide? What right do they think they have to mess with my settings? It's my machine I am using and I should have every right to control my own settings!

If anyone knows of a way I can block these selfish idiots from changing my browser settings, I'd be pleased to hear from you.

A Simple Flash XML Tutorial

I was looking for a nice, simple, clear tutorial today to get me started with using XML in Flash. I found several badly written tutorials - ones with poor code, or with bad explanations. I won't tell you any more about them.

But I did find one tutorial that was perfect for my needs. It is clear and explains everything in great detail. Even better, the code is good - simple, efficient, no unexplained weirdness.

The tutorial in question is at http://www.studiowhiz.com/ and goes by the title of Philter's Flash/XML Tutorial. It explains how to create a simple dynamic menu in Flash MX, or to quote "A basic introduction to XML and it's usage in Flash to build a simple dynamic menu".

A scout of the web site shows a large number of other useful tutorials for Flash, Dreamweaver, Director, Photoshop, Freehand, PHP, Perl and many other tools. Seems like an excellent site.

Copy protect your AW CDs?

Occasionally people ask on the newsgroups if it is possible to copy-protect the CDs they sell to their clients. The economical answer is usually no. However Apixel has a product for sale called Castellan that looks like an affordable and viable solution. Developed by a well-respected UK company PTT, Castellan:-

• is the copy control system that strikes the right balance between security and ease of use for both you and the end-user of your software.
• has a proven reliability and robustness. PTT has been using this system to protect its own e-learning programs for over two years on PCs all over the world.
• will protect programs running under Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT4, 2000 and XP
• will protect programs developed using Macromedia Authorware and Director. Castellan will also protect software developed using programming languages such as C++, Delphi, and Visual Basic.

Please note that Castellan does not actually prevent disc copying, but it does tie the product installation to a single installation; think of it as a secure licensing system.

If you prefer a different solution, the following were all recently suggested on the macromedia.authorware newsgroup:-

CrypKey
DiscGuard
SafeDisc
SoftLock
sofpro.com

I also found these on a quick web search:-

http://www.barracuda99.cwc.net/How_To__/CD_Protect/cd_protect.html
Microsoft tools

Please note that since I have not used or tested any of these products I am making no comment about the quality or value of any of them. I am not recommending any of the products. I am merely bringing them to your attention.