Wheelz Online

After reading my last post back to myself I decided that the best way to make myself worth something again was to branch out and try other technologies.  I’ve been developing in Adobe Flash for a few years now and although the things I’ve done have been nice and pretty and sometimes useful, I always felt I could do more interesting apps if I had the time.  I came across Flex 3 when i was browsing the Adobe website.

Flex is a XML based language that creates .swf files  without having to know too much about Actionscript.  The Flex SDK is actually free and opensource so you can just go to the adobe website and download it for free.  But the best way is to use Flexbuilder.  Its an IDE, much like Flash or Dreamweaver, that you can use to create Flex apps by dragging components onto the stage.  For code junkies you can easily switch into code view and write is solid code if you would rather.

At the moment Adobe are running a competition to win a copy of Flex builder so head on over to their facebook page for more information.  One last bonus - If you are a student or lecturer you can get a copy of Flexbuilder for free.

After what seems like more time that it actually was, I finally went back to work on Monday morning and was greeted unexpectently.  I had people from different offices coming in to welcome me back to my desk which was a nice feeling really.  Its nice to be missed.  Even though i’m only going to be back for 8 weeks before I have to go back into hospital.  Yes, they have pushed back my operation until the end of November now.  Great i’m going to be laid up over Christmas - arn’t I the lucky one..

I’ve also started to refind my love of programming over the past few weeks when I downloaded Adobe Flex builder 3.  This is a programming language for Flash and my geeky side likes it more than the artistic way you do things in Flash CS3.  So i’ve been reading every book i can get my hands on and I have really enjoyed myself for the first time in months working on a computer.

Myself and my girlfriend went to the townhall on Sunday to look at what they can do in the way of weddings as we have decided its about time that we actually got married rather than just assuming that it would happen on its own.  September 2009 is the general timespan for it to happen although we havent narrowed it down to a date yet.

Apart from that its been quite a normal few weeks; my nephew has started school and he appears to like it, my sister has started back in her second year of midwife course and my brother still hasn’t got a new job yet.

As a power user and web designer I tend to use multiple monitors on my pc all the time.  And logically I decided to try the same on my macbook.  Now, i know its only a notebook computer but there is a miniDV out and my monitor on my desk is a DVI input.  So off down to the Apple store I went.  I picked up a miniDV to DVI converter and also while I was there I bought a wireless keyboard because I thought if I can hook it up to a full size monitor I could use it at my desk most of the time and I would need a keyboard that doesn’t require me looking at the macbook screen all the time.

So I get home with my good and wired the mac up to the monitor and hey presto! mac on my monitor.  Great I thought.  Then it came to configuring it.  Two options are presented; either cloned screens, which I can’t really see the point of, or expanding the desktop onto both monitors.  The later option is how I configure my PCs to use multiple monitors.

Here is where I have cause to complain about OSX for the first time.  Sure you can have multiple monitors but the laptop screen has to be screen 1 with the apple bar, icons, and taskbar on it.  Now if I’m setting it up with a larger screen, I want to be able to make that screen the No.1 monitor so that all the applications open on it then I can choose what to send down to my mac screen.  I wanted to be able to have my laptop screen with mail and ical on it and use the main screen for Dreamweaver/Flash and Photoshop and have the dock on it, but this is not to be.  If anyone does know how to get over this then please do add a comment and tell me how to do it.

Being a web deveoper I use a lot of the Adobe Creative suite products like Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop and Flash.  So when I made the move to mac I bought the design package which had all these in.  Its great, it all ‘just works’ and it was quite quick to install.  Anyway, one of my clients wanted some work with video on there so I looked around for apps which I could use and came to Premier Pro.  Now, because the mac I have is only a macbook there is no way I would be able to run it on one so I decided to buy it for PC.  Also because of all the other work I do I thought I may as well buy the Master collection which contains everything.

So over an hour later, its still installing but there are 12 programs to put on so I’m fine with that.  Bingo, its on.  So I go to have a look at PP and its fine; Dreamweaver fine; photoshop fine.  After Effects which i was looking forward to playing with and seeing what it did crashed my machine EVERY time I try to run it.  So like any geek I go check out Adobes KnowledgeBase and find an article which seems to desrcribe what it happening.  It says that the best thing to do is to delete the preference files that it creates and it should work.

Thats great!!! Except that because the damn thing won’t even start it hasn’t created any preference files.  So I put in a support call to adobe.  They tell me to check out the KB article which i’ve just looked at.  They say it will work if I do that.  HELLO!!!! I beg to differ.  So if I managed to get it working I’ll let you know, but i’m not holding my breath.

So, after months of speculating what was going to happen to all the software packages Adobe aquired when they bought Macromedia, we finally got to see the new lineup of products yesterday on the webcase for the CS3 launch.  What is in it and is it any good?  The first thing I noticed, even before I looked into the contents of it, is that although they announced it today, you can’t actually buy it until the end of April.

Coming from a web background my main concern was what will they do with Fireworks.  I used this extensively in my work because I found it easier for web graphics that photoshop.  Well it turns out its very much alive and well and to be used for website prototyping now.  This makes sense really as it is a lot more web friendly than Photoshop anyday in my opinion.  Dreamweaver has been given a few extra bells and whistles, but nothing too major.. except…  You can now import PSD files straight into Dreamweaver and it converts it there.  This is the killer feature for CS3 for most web developers I think.  I work in an area where most of my content comes from artists who use Photoshop so I had to spend ages in other packages to get the assets ready to use; now I can just click and go..

The only thing I saw which i was a little disapointed at was the content of the suites.  There are 3 main suites in their product line, CS3 Design, CS3 Web and CS3 production.  Leaving the last one alone, both of the other two are very similar in thay they have components for both web and print.  The problem is this.  I work with files which have come from Indesign which suggests I use CS3 Design.  BUT..  I need to use Fireworks which comes with CS3 Web. So to be able to carry on my workflow i have to have both packages.  But Adobe also have CS3 Master edition, which contains one of everything (and the price to go along with it), but I don’t need any of the production suite.  So i’m being forced into buying a package with loads of software I’m never going to use.

I’ll end up getting it probably, as the features and benefits of the whole creative workers toolbox being integrated is a fantastic thing.  Just got to save up the £1000+ now.