1 New Extension and 3 Updated...

Since I've been back from MAX it's been non-stop work! I've been coding extensions and making site updates all day and all night... Below is the official announcement of some the work I've been doing in addition to the soon-to-be-released Cartweaver 2 ASP.

If you have any questions please let me know!

CCR began nearly 2 years ago, but never got packaged for public use because I always had one thing or another going on. I can't express how pleased that I am to finally release it! I must take this opportunity to thank Dan for all his hard work and patience. I'd also like to thank Tom Muck for introducing me to writing translators the EDML way nearly 2 years ago. I wouldn't have been able to do CCR without you two...thanks guys! I'll add another tick to the tally of beers I owe you both... ;-)

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MAX Presentation Resource Update

Well, it looks like one of the links I provided in my Dreamweaver Killer Tips session is down. Good news is, I have a new link for you and I'll see about getting my presentation updated. The link I'm refering to is to Tom Muck's Speedup Hints for Dreamweaver MX article which covers a variety of methods you can use to help speed up Dreamweaver. (Though it was originally written for Dreamweaver MX, it still applies to Dreamweaver MX 2004.) The new link to his article is:
http://www.tom-muck.com/articles/speedhints/

Thanks Tom for getting that taken care of so quickly for me!

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MAX Community Pit

I just wanted to post a few words about the Community Pit at MAX. If you didn't stop by there you seriously missed out, especially if you didn't come by on Tuesday after the conference was done for the day. All you had to do was talk to one of the TMM's or MMUG managers to get a raffle ticket to win a cool bag. There were at least 20 given away and several t-shirts given out too.

At the Community Pit there was also a little introduction to Macromedia.com's new knowledge base. "If you put your hands on the keyboard and try it, you get (free) Louisiana hot sauce."

There were huge comfy bean bag chairs and cables for getting connected to the internet for those without wireless access. It's the hangout spot for TMMs and MMUG managers, making it the place to go to get your burning questions answered by non-MM employees. (There was also an area of MM product support engineers answering questions.)

If you missed "the pit" this year, be sure to stop by next year. I'm sure there'll be more fun to be had, and we're a friendly bunch who loves to talk to people. Don't be shy!

Thanks to Amy Brooks, Ed Sullivan, Scott Fegette, Christine Lawson and any others who were responsible for the Community Pit and the sponsored event. I had a great time. (Special thanks to Amy for going easy on us with the t-shirts this year. In comparison to the ones we had to wear last year, these were great!)

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All Good Things Must Come to an End - MAX 2004

Thursday was the final day of Macromedia MAX 2004. This year was even better than the last, and I'm already looking forward to next year's MAX. (Hopefully, next year will be scheduled a tad further away from Halloween or other holiday.)

I met a few people at lunch yesterday that were at the same table who were at MAX last year and caught my last year's session and my session this year. I'd been worried that people who attended both years would not be happy to see some of the same tips. They assured me they were more than satisfied with the ammount of new content, so I'm relieved.

There were a few people I didn't meet that I had hoped to meet. If you're Steve from Fig Leaf or Randy Edmunds from Macromedia and you're reading this, I kept my eye out for you but didn't find you. Mike Hazard, I was also hoping I'd get the chance to introduce myself and say congrats on the MAX award. When they played the video, your name seemed very familiar to me, and sure enough you're also a DWfaq.com customer. :-) Hopefully I'll get to meet all three of you next time!

It's always nice to meet the people that I exchange emails with and DWfaq.com or Cartweaver.com customers. This year I met Cornel Ivanescu, who is using Cartweaver to sell registration for the upcoming ColdFusion and Flash focussed Powered by Detroit conference in April 2005. (Cornel, it was a pleasure meeting you and see you in April!) I also met Scott Fegette, Christine Lawson, Ray Camden, Rob Christiansen, Angela Kozlowski, Michael and Judy Dinowitz, Adam Bell, Shlomy Gantz, Simon Horwith and quite a few people who's first names I remember and last names I can't remember how to spell so please forgive the exclusion here. ;-)

It's an overwhelming experience meeting so many people! Here's hoping that I get to see all of you again next year at MAX (or other event) and if I draw a blank on your name, please don't hold it against me. I'm terrible with names, but after we meet a second time I usually can remember...

Until next year...cheers!

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Wednesday at MAX

Wednesday I gave my session twice, both having the same projector issues. Nobody was able to solve the problem, so I adjusted the same way I did on Tuesday. The audience was understanding, and I didn't get started late at the second session, so all the better. (The projector guy messed everything up so nothing was working and I had to figure out how to get it back myself, so we started about 5 minutes late. He had checked extended desktop, oy!)

Both sessions were well attended and audience feedback tells me they learned at least 2 things. In one of the sessions I asked if they learned 3, 4, 5, and 6 things. Half of the room was still raising their hand at 6 things! I was amazed and naturally quite pleased. C'mon, can you blame me? I admit, I get a big kick out of seeing eyes lighting up when they learn something new. The best part has been talking with attendees one on one and showing them how to do things that are new to them.

There was a special cocktail hour even for Team Macromedia members, User Group managers, and instructors at the Hilton hotel nearby the conference center. I saw lots of pictures being taken, so if you know where I can find them do let me know. A few were snapped of me talking with various people while enjoying a Corona. (Hey, you can't expect me to turn away a free beer. Well, at least not the first one since one is my limit...)

Later on we went to the Macromedia event held at Mardi Gras World. It was interesting to see all the floats, but the event as a whole wasn't too exciting for me. I would have rather they thrown it at the aquarium and let it be a more quiet event, but perhaps that's just me.

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Tuesday Night at Bayona

Those who read my blog regularly are probably noticing an influx of posts... Well, I wrote the previous post at MAX in a .txt file then forgot to post it much until later. Sorry! I'm also fudging the time stamp on this one and a few more. I know, I know... Cut me a little slack will ya? These conferences are so busy that I just didn't find the time to post sooner. Now, on with Tuesday...

Last night Dan, Joe Marini and I went to a tasty little place in the French Quarter called Bayona with the folks from Lynda.com. The food was incredible, and the company was very nice. It's always fun hanging out with Joe and talking about Dreamweaver's extensibility.

If you get the chance to go to Bayona and you're a fan of garlic like I am, be sure to try the Cream of Garlic Soup. Yummmmm

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Tuesday Morning's Session at MAX

I just finished my first presenation of Dreamweaver Killer Tips at Macromedia MAX 2004. Aside from a few typos in my slides (the slides should be updated on Macromedia's site in the coming week) and a projection glitch, I think it went over pretty well. Whenever I give a tips session, I make it my goal to teach the audience at least two things they didn't know before they came to my session. From the show of hands it looks like I accomplished my goal.

Unfortunately a problem with the projector got me started about 5 minutes late. It was cutting off the first 300 pixels of my screen so I had to adjust. Instead of doing the Power Point full screen as a slide show, I had to open Power Point and click through the slides along the left. Things weren't as large this way unfortunately but at least it was all showing.

My presentation is available online at Macromedia's site for conference attendees. I noticed a few typos in the slides, and will get those fixed and over to Macromedia so they can upload the changes. The typos weren't anything too major. I'll list them here so that those who don't want to download again (or wait for Macromedia to upload the changes).

On the slide "How to Create collapsing Borders" it should say:
table.tabulardata, tabular.tabulardata td, tabular.tabulardata th{
border: 1px solid #000000;
border-collapse: collapse;
}

There was a funky character encoding going on in the "Resources: Extensions for Dreamweaver" slide that changed a line continuation character into something that looked like an E with a ^ above it. The URL should be:
http://www.macromedia.com/exchange/dreamweaver/

Two silly mistakes of which I'm sorry. Hopefully if you were there you learned at least 2 things and that made up for the typos and projector glitches. Thanks to everyone for their patience with the pojection issue.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions here on my blog or shoot me an email (at the address on the last slide). I'm always my worst critic, and know I'll do better the next 3 times. :-)

Thanks!

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