Starting to understand Flash MX 2004 Actionscripting

The Flash books I mention below are 7,  as follows: 2 O'Reilly books: Actionscript for Flash MX Second edition, and ActionsScript Cookbook. Peachpit Press: Macromedia Flash MX Advanced Flash MX Savvy (Sybex) Flash MX Actionscript Bible (Wiley) MaranGraphics/Hungry Minds "Visual" series: Flash Actionscript (just noticed it uses Flash 5 Actionscripting) I also bought another O'reilly book, Amazon Hacks I was in a hurry to find some immediate help on some MovieClip code I need to load a single frame from a movie into my "Placeholder Clip" that I put in my movie to hold the other swf files I am loading for each of the main sections of my site application.  What I end up doing quite often is "borrowing" books from Amazon and/or Barnes and Noble,  and if they turn out to be a "must have",  I order them via Amazon and then return the copy (usually full price purchase) to the store.  I figure that I support those stores well via coffee purchases (a usual step in the bookstore visit) and the books I end up keeping (like the WIRED: A Romance) I bought,  or DreamweaverMX/FireworksMX Savvy, or Fireworks MX: From Zero to Hero,  etc. I also expect that soon I'll be set up at OSG to get some stuff via their Bookstore,  and perhaps eventually get a Dev resource Budget to get useful reference and/or training books.  I'm looking eagerly forward to getting my hands on the new Macromedia Training From The Source Books on Flash MX 2004 Pro and Flash MX ---one of the authors of Macromedia Flash MX 2004 ActionScript : Training from the Source, Derek Franklin,  has a blog  where he is planning to do some "preview" of some of that content in that book.  (Right now he's working on the Macromedia/Microsoft browser change workaround made neccessary by the insane negotiations about the permissions of IE to "auto-load" embedded content (read bout that  from Derek here

10:14:18 AM    

Opacity Fade?

8:34:53 AM    

gotoAndStop on final frame

8:21:14 AM    

Web Dev tools of late

The OSG Board meeting got moved back on the calendar a couple of weeks,  so I feel a bit of breathing room on the tight development schedule,  especially since I have been working through some Flash-learning exercises over on Lynda.com.  I don't plan on "sitting back" with this extra room, though,  but to be thankful for the opportunity to look diligently for the solutions I seek. I'll take the opportunity to get my arms around some specific techniques that I'm after by exploring some further "how-tos" on Lynda.com online training,  and perhaps do a quick Bookstore run later today or tomorrow to find something on Actionscripting (that might lead me to the code I need to achieve the gotoAndStop effect I mention in my next post)  I learned yesterday that our non-profit "Volume license" for Studio MX 2004 is in,  and so I 'll be able to update my Trial to full versions when I get up there this weekend/next week.   Flash is an incredibly versatile set of tools.  I'm just beginning to see the power of Actionscripting.  In combination with Dreamweaver and Fireworks,  this trio (I"ve been using FW and DW for about2 and a hlf years now,  and learned ASP via the Dreamweaver interface) is a heavyweight in Web development.  As MX incorporated the .Net features/support ,  this also gave me a nudge in the direction of learning what's up in the DotNet world.  And,  as I wrote about not too long ago,  ColdFusion was introduced to me as a powerful Web app platform in my Contract job that I had for a little while.  I have a few questions I'm gonna explore about Flash tohelp me with where I am developing right now.

8:11:23 AM    

Resyncing the IWAM and IUSR passwords

Borrowed from a Google User Group when I did e search in groups.google.com using:

not "asp pages"

A common problem when ASP pages do not display (but html
pages do) is that the password of the IIS
IWAM_computername user is not syncing properly. 
Authentication/permissions to ASP pages is a complex area,
but this particular problem is easy to remedy and, I
think, well worth trying.  To check this, do the following.

   1.)  Temporarily assign the IIS anonymous accounts
(IUSR_computername and IWAM_computername) to the machine's
Administrator group. For Win 2K, do this as follows:
          a.) Go to Settings, Control Panel, select
Administrative Tools.
          b.) Double-click 'Computer Management',
expand 'Local Users and Groups', double-click 'Users'.
          c.) Select (double-click) IUSR_computer name
account, select 'Member of' tab, click 'Add' button,
highlight 'Administrator' (group), click 'Apply'.
          d.) Repeat above procedure for IWAM_computer
name account.

    2.) Navigate to the following file -
C:InetpubAdminScriptssynciwam.vbs
Execute this file by double-clicking it.  The hourglass
will display momentarily and then disappear.  No other
indication of the program running will appear.

     3.)  Reboot the workstation. If this was indeed the
problem, ASP pages should now render fine.

     4.)  Don't forget to remove the IIS anonymous
accounts from the Administrator group.

9:20:58 AM    

IIS can't serve up my asp pages

7:12:32 PM    

Fireworks MX

8:05:18 PM    

First Contract Week Went well

First week of Contarct work over.  My first real "Saturday feeling" (ie.  That feeling of waking up on a day when one can rest from the weekday routine).   The week went well,  as everyday routines and various "fires to be put out" allowed me to observe the typical goings on of the business,  and the Contractor who I am replacing,  who is an excellent coder and Cold Fusion developer,  is going to be availabe for another week (originally slated to be available only for 3 days.....I felt much better when I learned he would be there for 7 more days --- through next Friday).  I feel I can greatly benefit from those 7 extra days (and indeed I did in days 1 and 2 of those 7,  Yesterday and Thursday).

I set up my test Cold Fusion server yesterday,  and was finding a few Dreamweaver MX helps almost immediately (the Snippets panel and its insert before/insert after which allows you to wrap selected code between the opening and closing tages.  This will allow me to createa collection of code blocks most often used in our applications.  I alo look forward to seeing what I can do with various Stored Procedures usage,  with the way data binding and the Database panel allows me to drag a field into Design View and have ColdFusion query tags placed around it to call from the proper database and field without having to remember it. 

I completed 2 or 3 items,  about half the items on a to-do list we were given (the contractor I am learning from and eventuall replacing took the other half) yesterday afternoon,  which pleased me.  I feel I am going to be just fine.  Still a  lot of learning the data here,  and the various processes and data updates through which the Web applications must take a particular action, but I am feeling much more "capable" now. 

3:07:10 PM    

MICROSOFT® SQL SERVER: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services - - ADVISOR.com - -

9:14:36 PM    

OSG possibilities

At OSG, the "cybergoals" are,  among others,

Extending and adding to existing OSG web....portal additions......bookstore data integration

Webs for Media Studies and Churches,  TV/Movie Reviews, resources,  links,  discussions,  production of media study pieces.

Lab or "Cyberplace" developments

SmartMobs technologies ramp-up (ie. scheduling, contact infos,  blogging remotely, hall rental, group booking,  etc.)

Webs for Studies of/in Third Places

Webs for Discussion Forums (linked to Booktables,  linked to Bookstore data)

Webs with "Portal-ability" via DotNetNuke and .Net

Webs to aggregate and highlight Weblogs and their place in the OSG schema

Webs for Books/Book talks/Book Authors with Weblogs,  encouraging authjors to do Weblog extensions of their books (eg. SmartMobs.com)

Webs for Education (e-learning, e-seminary, online education)  (also using some of the above hybrids that create online community)

Webs for OSG Smart Mobs  (or is that "Great Good Smart Mobs" ala Smart Mobs and Great Good Places)

Webs for Online Community Studies;  Social Psychology of Online Community; CMC; Social Software

Webs for Churches;  extending Church groups into online groups; extending the reach;  Web hospitality and open discussion,  encouraging seekers,  highlighting the interests and gifts of your Church or theological community,  encouaging weblogs and web stories,  Smart Mobbing the Church

3:01:25 PM    

A 90-day trip of discovery and development

10:47:55 AM    

Web Development Notes for July 2-July 7

I have been up and about over these past 4 days since returning from Cincinnati,  anxiously setting up shop as "OSG cyber-engine south".  Larry gave me his scanner off his desk to bring home and experiment with ways of getting various printed materials into Web-publishable form,  so we can begin to put some of the content on the OSG site that they've long desired to have as part of their Christian Community Portal vision. 

The fact that they have ,  for years,  described themselves as "A Great Good Place for Community and Spiritual Renewal",   gives all my "Web history" and Web Skills immediate relevance and power.

When I went out to the bookstore yesterday,  I sat reading a book called something like "The Columbia University Guide to Electronic Publishing",  and turned to the section on e-book production,  formats,  and distribution.   I also looked at an issue of Business 2.0 where there were several articles on wireless and cellular's solutions to some of the WiFi offerings. 

I've also spent time looking at the Portable PC mag Larry gave me to read up on various features and models, in order to choose one that they will then go and acquire for me.  It was another instance of a great gap in the approaches taken by OSG and Larry vs prior experiences.  It is a matter of having developers in the organization who actually use and arer "intimate" with the technologies,  in order to develop the most appropriate applications and uses for PDA/Portable networked information.  Who but a person fluent in the use of and "feel for" the portable/handheld  features would be in the best position to conceive the most practical and popular uses for the data to be retrieved,  the connections to be made to contact data,  the ways in which to receive text messages,  email messages,  video messages,  forum message notifications,  and to feedback into the loop from what kinds of local device data? 

This relates closely to what I've been reading in Natural Born Cyborgs,  where Andy Clark is now (in what I'm reading this morning) exploring the possibilities for bio-techno implants (in the context of discussions about experiments with blind or deaf or paralyzed patients or animals),  and what these experiments tell us about the way our brain-networks send and receive neural operation messages and sensory information.  Clark's book is much more than studies of the brain.  He is exploring the way brains adapt to sensory input and surroundings, including the use of various "scaffolding" to help support the processing of information.  I am anxious to read further as it seems promising that he will address the kinds of fears I was discussing yesterday concerning the "Rise of the Machines",  and how the popular theme of machine vs human has conjured up a vast array of warnings and apocalytptic tales that urge caution and perhaps abandonment of the attempts to place too much human activity into the care of computational environments.

10:37:36 AM