Things are still a long way from normal

Things are still a long way from normal

Some times it seems like repairs have come a long way - but they have so far to go.
Even now it is hard to grasp the full scale of Katrina's destruction!

Amy and I have been maintaining a semblance of normality over the last couple of weeks, but this morning I was struck by how far from normality we really are. Here's what was going through my mind.

Firstly, we normally go to a local gym each weekday morning before we start work. Our gym lost its roof and suffered considerable damage from Katrina, so right now it is closed so they can rebuild. We have to travel an extra 15 miles or so to go to a different gym - a gym that we found quite by accident when we were unable to go to a second gym that is normally our backup!

Secondly, as we travel along Pass Road through Gulfport and Biloxi, I am struck buy the fact that fewer than 10% of retail outlets and businesses appear to be open. Can you even begin to comprehend what that is doing to the local economy? Thousand and thousands of people are missing, scattered about the USA now that their homes are destroyed or unfit to live in. But hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses have been equally badly affected. The local newspaper, the Sun Herald, published an article today that said, among other things,"Of the 171,000 dwellings in the area, more than 65,100 homes, or 38 percent, are destroyed and an additional 38,000 sustained major damage". 65,100 homes destroyed!

Thirdly, with all those businesses closed, there are few restaurants open (most with very restricted menus), only one movie theatre within about a 50 mile radius, few grocery stores, only a small number of banks, roughly 30% of gas stations ... etc, etc. In other words most of the places where people normally go for neccesities, luxuries and entertainment are all gone. Even those people who were lucky enough to be barely touched by Katrina are now being starved not only of their luxuries, but many of their necessities.

Why was I so struck by all of this? Monday will be 4 weeks since Katrina hit. Almost a month. In nearly 4 weeks the teams of people repairing services to our homes and businesses have done unbelievable work, returning electricity, phone, water and sewerage services to almost everyone who can receive such services. But no amount of wonderful work by those people can possibly speed up the repairs to homes and businesses, or replace those that were completely washed away. It really is going to take years to make repairs on that scale.

Rain hits the Mississipi coast

Rain hits the Mississipi coast

This is really the first rain since Katrina was here!

Over three weeks since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, we finally got rain today. This might have been good news but for a series of less-happy facts:-

• The rain is the northern-most tip of Rita, so this is the harbinger of much worse weather that will hit land to the west and north of us.


• Much of the coastal flooding has still not completely receded.


• New Orleans is absolutely not ready to take another storm - it won't take much to create fresh flooding and to burst the levvies again.


• The rest of the coast is not ready for another storm either. Most of the storm damage has not yet been made secure. Many, many buildings still have no kind of roof or even a tarpaulin to protect them from further damage.


• What debris there is that has been gathered together is mostly piled at the side of the road waiting for the local goverment or FEMA to collect it and take it away for disposal - it's going to take little more than a whiff of wind and a few drops of rain to start spreading that debris all over the place.


• If we get anything more than about 10 mph winds, a lot of that debris will be flying around causing new damage.


• Fresh rain will encourage fresh mosquitos - they have not yet been as bad as some had predicted.

On the plus side - there has to be a plus side, right?

• The fact that a lot of the debris has not been cleared away means that most of the coast is smelling bad right now. I reckon at least some of that smell will be eased as the rain washes a lot of the cause of that away. Although making it wet will most likely make it worse than ever in another day or two :-(


• There has been a burn-ban across the 6 southern counties of Mississippi, and no dound in Alabama and Louisiana too - making it impossible for people to dispose of their own debris. This may well be lifted. OK I know it's a bad idea to encourage people to burn all their storm debris, but for many in outlying areas it will be the only way to clean up.


• Nature needs a drink. I have mentioned a couple of times how pleased I have been to see trees regrowing their leaves. I am sure a day or two of rain will help to fuel that regrowth. It will be nice to see the trees with their clothes back on, providing us with a less-bleak view of the world, and of course some shade form the relentless sun.

Mobile information about Hurricane Rita

Mobile information about Hurricane Rita

As I write, it looks like Hurrricane Rita is going to hit Huston

My heart goes out to all of those who were affected so terribly by Katrina, only to have another hurricane chase them out of their place of refuge. Thousands of people are having to flee from Huston and other parts of Texas as the storm seems to be chasing many of the people who were most severely hurt by Katrina.

This morning I found this page of links to mobile friendly web pages giving information about Rita. If you are on the move and have access to the internat via cell phone or PDAphone these links may be useful for you. You should find they work fine for PC and Laptop computers too, but they may look odd as they have been optimised for the small screens of PDAs.

The page had been put together by Bev Howard. The idea is to encourage officials to make this sort of information available. Here's what Bev says about it:-

I'm winging this one, so page is being constantly updated... for the better hopefully... check back

http://bevhoward.com/Rita/


Suggestions and feedback will be appreciated.

PLEASE! If you think this minimalist approach is a good idea, pass the link along to as many other mobile users as possible and as many people along the texas/la coast asap who have the need, both mobile and non mobile.

I have a local counter to support the need, so, the more visits during this event, the more likely NHC will pay attention. The counter only updates if you "reload" on the ppc so it should reflect mobile hit's accurately although many browsers are set to reload every time.

If you want Noaa and NHC to provide mobile friendly sites and to let them know their current "text page" sucks, let them know at nhc.public.affairs@noaa.gov

Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]

Nature's recovery continues

Nature's recovery continues

I have been fascinated by all the new growth I see everywhere

One of the most shocking things for me when I returned home to Saucier - after seeing all the trees down everywhere - was the fact that almost every leaf was blown off of every tree. I posted a picture oa few days ago showing one of our surviving Pecans sprouting new leaves. Today I snpped a second picture showing the change in only a few days.




Since noticing this new growth, I have been looking out for it elsewhere. I see lovely bright green leaves sprouting everywhere At this rate we will have lots of trees with normal-looking compliments of leaves in another two or three weeks. For many that will be just in time for Autumn - oops, Fall :-) - but for the live oaks the plumage should be here to stay.

The single sad thing about this is the number of trees I have seen that are lying on their sides, doomed to be cut up and burned over the next few months, but still valiantly putting out new growth. My wife spoke to a tree expert about this earlier in the week. He said that the trees will, unfortunately, grow themselves to death. They will quickly outgrow the ruined roots that remain in action and essentially starve to death :-(

County assistance with clean-up?

We discovered this week that we should be able to get official assistance with the cleanup. Most people here in Saucier are not wealthy, but 5 acres of land is pretty normal for a typical household, and even the most meagre plot is an acre. Many older families have several tens of acres.

Everyone has lost many trees, but if we individually call lumber companies individually to get trees taken away, they will not be interested in clearing a couple of trees from a two-acre plot, or even 5 or 6 trees from a 5 acre plot, or if they are interested the cost would be prohibitive.

My wife Amy spoke with the local chairman of the marchants association and they have plans to gather together a town meeting to see if we can go forward and find a contractor or group of contractors who can help the entire town of Saucier clear away the worst of the trees.


As a possible added bonus, maybe they can help us get this tree of the little trailer we have on our property. Then we can quickly make it available to one of the poor families who are now homeless!

I forgot one bonus from Katrina

I forgot one bonus from Katrina

Billboards!

Scores and scores of billboards were destroyed by hurricane Katrina. It's been great not having these huge, ugly, garishly-coloured, grammatically aful advertisements!

Sadly, yesterday I noticed several of the casino-owned billboards north of I-10 on highway 49 have begun to sprout new adverts. I couldn't tell you what they say becuase I treat them the same way I do adverts on web sites - I ignore them!

I also noticed yesterday that at least one of the huge iron and scteel billboard frames that was knocked down was being replaced in Gulfport.

I sincerely hope these things are banned as part of the suggested swathe of new zoning abnd building codes. They are ugly and they destroy what could be beautiful views all over the country. At the very least they should be banned in places like Gulfport and Biloxi.

Besides - I am sure that a significant percentage of the building damage that occured as Katrina scoured her way through the coastal towns and northwards was caused by debris torn from the billboards! I saw several buildings badly damaged by huge billboard columns that had fallen onto them...

Desktop replacement

Mobile computing? Detatchable screen!

This is the ultimate desktop replacement!

I was surfing around trying to get back to normal when I spotted this http://www.i4u.com/article4084.html and my gadgetosis nerve started itching!!!



I have wanted something like this for a long time. So has my wife, Amy, apparently :-)

More on 'Flood' Insurance

More on 'Flood' Insurance

"'Flood damage' issue must be national policy" says Hugo Newcomb Jr. in the Clarion Ledger

The article below speaks about the need for a national solution and policy" to make sure that insurance covers people properly in the event of a hurricane.

In short - people were told they did not need flood insurance becuase they did not live in a flood plain. Yet when their houses were swept away by Katrina's storm surge the insurance comanies have refused to pay up, because they had no flood insurance! It gets better - they could not even have boought flood insurance even if they wanted it!


Read on for a more reasoned and eloquent argument as to why the insurance industry needs its collective arse kicked.


http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050916/OPINION/509160317/1166

Not another one!

Not another one!

Let's hope Rita stays away.

Not-so-lovely Rita (OK I couldn't resist the Beatles reference http://www.e-wollmann.com/pleiadian1/lovely.htm) is heading into the Gulf of Mexico as I type. Florida Keys is taking a battering, but the forecast seems to be that Rita is coming into the Gulf and move on to Texas.

Fingers crossed no significant harm reaches anyone anywhere!

What worries me is that recent history shows the storms taking a slightly more Eastern path than the path predictions have indicated. At the moment Western Louisiana is at the extreme east of the projected path, but if this storm gets to be at all large it is going to affect areas further East than that. Also, if it does take a more Eastern path, then New Orleans could, at the very least, get more flooding. I think the Mayor of New Orleans has said that if they get more than 3 feeet of storm surge the levies will burst again!

Anyway - I am not a praying man but my fingers are crossed that the storm does not come ashore anywhere near the places already devastated by Katrina. Better yet, let it be a damp squip that fizzles out before it gets near any shoreline.

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Some more ramblings

Some more ramblings

How are things going on the coast?

I was asked on a local discussion forum to elaborate on some of the things I posted here ... I replied there, but I have decided to post the same stuff here.

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"When you mention the "negative press" can you provide more info on the subject? On what news? On what subjects?"

Hmmm - where do you want me to start? What little tv we had seen by that time was spending most of the time trying to point the finger of blame at whoever was responsible for the slow response to the storm. At that point the same was true of the radio coverage we were hearing and the newspapers we saw - at least until a day or so before I posted the message you read. From then on the local radio and newspaper coverage became noticably more positive about the current situation and the outlook for the future.

New Orleans has since taken most of the national coverage. At the time NO news was about evenly split between finger-pointing and terrible stories of the flood and the criminal activity, from looting to shooting at aid convoys and helicoptors to little children being raped and murdered. These were mentioned everywhere - CNN on the web and on the tv, public radio, newspapers.

Since then the national coverage I have seen has concentrated almost wholly on New Orleans, as the Mayor tries desperately to blame everyone but himself (it seems) for mistakes made, and poor preparation.

Meantime in Mississippi the local radio stations, local tv and local newspapers (do you get the emphasis on LOCAL? ) have almost completely stopped pointing the finger at anyone for any mistakes or lack of preparation.

Here's the score so far as I understand it (and I think most people here see the same thing) -

The storm was terrible - bigger and more devastating than anyone imagined possible. Aid was totally unable to get through to the Mississippi coast for at least 2 days because the main arterial road (hightway 49) to bring that aid was blocked by thousands of fallen trees. Much of the aid was held up at Camp Shelby (maybe 10 miles south of Hattisburg, about 60 miles north of the coast) while a route was cut through the debris.

Once the roads were cleared, aid came through thick and fast. when I drove back down to the coast from Jackson on the Friday (or Saturday) after the storm it was evident that 49 had essentially been impassable from Jackson onwards ... thats 150 miles of 4-way highway blocked in both directions!! As I drove down that road I was stunned not only by the devastation that steadily worsened the further south I drove, but at the scale of the work that had to be done to clear it.

When I got to Gulfport that day there were traffic jams caused by the volume of aid traffic flooding into the city. I have no doubt that the same was true along the rest of the coast. Sadly many smaller communities remained inaccessible for a long time after then, but any lack of aid to them is likely to have been caused by logistical problems - blocked and or destroyed roads and bridges - rather than any lack of willing or ability to send aid to them.

All through this, the contrast between Governor Haley Barbour and the mayor of New Orleans has been striking. G. Barbour has maintained a "let's fix it and be better for it" attitude, with huge volumes of thanks to the (quite incredible!) work of the electric repair crews and aid helpers and volunteers, while it appears that the mayor of NO has concentrated of whining, finger pointing and demanding assistance. These attitudes have clearly affected the populations each man has responsability to, and the media coverage devoted to them.

As I said in my blog, the general attitude down here on the coast is very positive, in spite of the fact that whole cities have been washed away - and I am sure that the leadership of G Barbour and others has helped to maintain that posiive attitude.

Sure they are not cities the size of New Orleans, but if you have not seen the pictures, the sight of streets of houses scoured clean leaving only empty slabs and mountains of debris is heart-rending!

Check out this image of Bay St Louis http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24614510.jpg

Here's where you can see more pictures of the devastation all along the coast:-
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM

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"Please give more information on your personal opinion. Here in Florida where we were almot hit by infamous Katrina, Fidelity who holds most Flood Ins. does not want to pay either. I don't know why we need flood insurance in a floor area if they won't pay when it gets flooded? It sounds like a riddle, right?"

Hmm - my earlier information seems to have been contradicted. Public radio announcements suggested early on that the insurance companies were instructed to play fair, but the Attorney General of Mississippi took 5 insurance companies to court this week to get them to quit trying to wriggle out of their responsabilitis by saying their insured customers had no flood insurance. He says there is no specific exclusion for Storm Surge so they have to pay up. I look forward to seeing the outcome of that.

Some people had specific Hurricane insurance, so they expected to be insured for hurricanes ... yet the insurance companies are saying they lost their homes or were damaged by flood. How was that flood caused? Wind-driven storm surge, not a river bursting its banks, or a flash flood or a burst water main!

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/local/12658408.htm

Nature is fast to recover

Nature is fast to recover

Already our surviving trees are putting out new leaves

I noticed last night that there were some new leaves on one of the unharmed Pecan trees. I looked again this morning and was pleased to see that there is loads of new growth.

Let's talk about insurance - pt 2

Let's talk about insurance - pt 2

No flood insurance?

Apparently some of the insurance companies are telling people who lost their homes due to the storm surge from Katrina that they are not covered since the did not have flood insurance.

Guess why they had no flood insurance? Because the insurance companies told them they didn't need it!

Apparently the mayor of Biloxi has spoken the to the President asking him to slap the insurance companies about the ears. This is not a time to be messing people about when they have lost everything.

---

On a lighter not, we met with our insurance loss adjuster on Monday. He turned up with a smart little digital camera and proceeded to snap away merrily at the holes in our roof and the various evidence of water damage. Suddenly he stopped and started fiddling about with his camera to check and see that it was taking pictures OK. Everything he had taken was black. He fiddled and looked worried for about 20 miutes, complaining that he thought his daughter might have dropped it.

Eventually he gave up and made some hadwritten notes. He promised to be back yesterday then today (Wednesday) to take the pcitures. I'm still waiting. Hopefully he won't take too much longer...

I found my camera!

Yippee I found my camera!

It was hiding next to a bees' nest, surprise surprise

I managed to fight my way back through the woods behind our house today, after spending a couple of hours clearing a path. I was pleased to find the camera that I dropped last week. If you've been following this blog you will recall that I dropped it when I panicked and ran from an angry swarm of bees.

It has not rained here in a couple of weeks, so when I got the camera home and switched it on, it was working perfectly. The pictures on the CF card are all unharmed too. I'll post a couple of them soon ...

Pictures after today's cleanup

Pictures after today's cleanup

I really appreciate the help from the work gang today!

Here's some pictures that show the state of our property before and after today's cleanup. They don't show the full scale of the improvement made today, but I sure appreciate the help from the cleanup crew. I made sure they each got a little extra reward for their efforts ... I know they are getting paid by the county government, but I never asked or expected all the help they gave me, and they saved me at least a couple of weeks of work!

Let's talk about insurance

Let's talk about insurance

So far reports about insurance are almost as positive as reports about the electricity companies!

First of all, let me just reiterate what has been said repeatedly elsewhere. The electricity companies, and the help they have received from as far away as Kansas, Texas, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico - no doubt further afield, but these are some of the license plates I have seen - have done an absolutely outstanding job. Electricity is back on in something like 60% of homes and businesses who can receive power on the coast. Having seen the damage first-hand I am stunned that they have managed to make so may repairs so quickly!

Anyway - insurance. Apparently the insurance companies have been told that if there is any kind of dispute, then they should fall on the side of the insured, not the insurance company. Also Lloyds of London have said that they are able to afford to underwrite any losses, as the insurance companies have been buying sufficient cover to pay for losses. Finally FEMA (Fedaral Emergency Association(?)) has said that they will cover losses that were not insured.

All-in-all that means most people should be able to afford to rebuild. That should also include even the poorest households, but of course we will have to wait and see to be sure.

We reported our losses to our insurance company on Wednesday. Today - Sunday - we got a call from our insurance loss adjuster who is driving to Gulfport as I type. We are going to meet him tomorrow at 10am in Gulfport to inspect the damage to that house and sort out insurance and repairs. This is fantastic news as we were about to lease the house to a young woman who has a 6-year-old daughter. She lost her current apartment and most of her belongings in the storm, so she needs a roof over her head ASAP. Fingers crossed we can get repairs sorted very quickly, although we will have to watch out carefully for all the scammers who are supposed to be preying on folk right now.

What a difference a day makes!

What a difference a day makes!

The local government is helping with the cleanup

we were woken at 7:30 this morning as a fleet of trucks towing trailers, a bobcat and about 10 guys weilding chainsaws descended upon our street.

Since I was awake, and it was relatively cool I went outside and started chainsawing some of the downed trees. After a little while one of the girls on the crew came over and asked if I needed a hand shifting limbs ... well who am I to refuse help from a pretty girl? ;-) She explained that she was supposed to be flagging (directing traffic around the work crews) but since we live on a dead-end street she was kind of redundant, so she had time to help me.

Before I knew what was happening, she had called one of the guys over to help me with the chainsawing (I am a novice, and a nervous one). Then she got the guy with the bobcat over too... as I type they are sawing away and clearing logs and debris with the bobcat. Later today I'll post some pictures - before and after. Maybe some during the clean-up too, if it's not too dangerous to get in the way!

Amongst the horror and suffering ...

Amongst the horror and suffering ...

There are some great stories of how people have coped

I have had enough of all of the negative press - all the finger pointing, blame-making and threats of legal action.

Fortunately here in Mississippi it seems that the local press, at least, have realised that such coverage was making people feel worse. Now they are concentrating on the more positive side of things - where power is coming on, what stores, schools, factories and other employers are getting back to normal etc. etc. But, perhaps most importantly, they are also concentrating on the energy and determination of the locals to rebuild and make the coast better than ever! Yes many people have lost everything, and many are suffering badly, but most are also looking to a better, brighter future.

So I want to share with you the story of how two friends of mine pulled together once the storm was over, how they helped neighbours, friends and tenants (they own a number of houses and apartments that they rent out), and how they made sure life was as good as normal during the time of adversity.

Ronny and Bill were brave (stupid!) enough to stay in Gulfport during the storm. They live about half a mile north of the railroad tracks that seem to have saved so much of the coastal towns from much worse devastation than they suffered. In fact they live very close to the house we own in Glufport, pictured earlier.

When the storm was finished and they realised the scale of the damage locally, the first thing they did was tour their various homes and check on tenants. Realising that many had left, and others were severely affected by the storm (one house was almost crushed by a huge oak tree), and that power was off and likely to be off for a while, they emptied everyone's fridges and freezers, and took all the food back to their own place where they had a generator and knew they could keep the food fresh indefinitely. Having done that, they then arranged to deliver food to each occupied home every day until power and food stores were returned to a degree of normality (by the way, why on earth is every tv and radio reporter, politician and soldier in the USA now saying normalcy instead of normality?).

They then spent the next few days tidying up their own yard, the yards of the various homes and fixing roofs. In fact Bill helped me get the tarpaulin onto our house in Gulfport, and in return I helped him do the roof on one of his apartment blocks. Good job I am not scared of heights ... just scared of falling off roofs ;-)

At mealtimes, Ronny cooked food not only for himself and Bill, but also for several of their neighbours - and me when I was about. Ronny is quite a cook, and can do amazing things with a propane grill!

While doing all of that, they spent time thinking in the evenings ... "how can we make this more bareable?". They had a small amount of spare power from the generator, so they could run fans in their bedroom at night in place of air conditioning. Like many houses in the USA, they have access to a personal water supply in the form of a well. Bill got some plumbing supplies and switched the house over to using the well water instead of city water. The water was not drinkable, but was fine for showers and washing clothes, so they used the generator to pump and heat water, and (oh bliss!) flush the toilet! Their neighbours got wind of this and pretty soon they had a parade of visitors every night taking a shower before bedtime!

They had reached this stage by the time I first went down to Gulfport last saturday - 5 days after Katrina hit. Ronny mentioned to me that the first thing he wanted to do when the power came back was watch a movie. I realised that we could do that right then. At home I have a big screen outside, and we use our data projector to play DVD movies on it after dark - see the picture below.





All I needed to do was bring the projector, a DVD player and my PC speakers down to Gulfport and we could watch a movie right there on their driveway. We borrowed a white sheet from a neighbour who was more than happy to lend us one in return for the food and showers. As you can see in the other pictures below, we managed to get the whole thing working just fine :-) Sorry for the bad quality of these pictures!!







It later transpired that the City of Gulfport was asking people to restrict the amount of water they put into the over-stressed (destroyed!) sewer system. But I am hope they would forgive desparate people their little luxuries ...

Our Gulfport house is OK

Our house in Gulfport is OK

Just a little roof damage

As with our home in the countryside in Saucier, our house in Gulfport got away relatively unscathed. The shigles are almost all off the roof, and there is a little water damage inside, but nothing that should be unrepairable.




As with everywhere else, the trees are devastated. You can see here that the two pine trees we had have both snapped because the wind was so fierce! The trunks of those pine trees are about 2 feet (60cm) in diameter!

Amy was thrilled to see that the oak trees are still standing, if a little battered. I am going to have to get in there with the chainsaw to tidy things up a little...

The square of wood that you can see in the center of this picture is the base where our 12'x14' shed was. Hopefully that adds a little scale for you too.






Speaking of trees and chainsaws, I had to get the assistance of a neighbour to help me clear a path up our drive in Saucier so we could get home. Tim was great about it, came out in 90+ degree heat in his shorts, sandles and t-shirt and spent about 2.5 hours sawing away. It was only towards the end that I realised he was wearing his sandles. "Used to do this for a living" he said. I'd have thought he would have known better than to wear sandles then, but apparently not :-)

In the picture below you can see my car to the left, and if you look carefully you might just make out our house behind the trees that lie across the driveway. It's not clear, but the trees that are down are two of the big pecans we lost. The big tree on the left os one of the ones that survived.

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!