Archive for November, 2007

Adobe Soundbooth CS3 Classroom in a Book

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

 Get yourself up to speed quickly with Adobe Soundbooth CS3. The Classroom in a book series does what it intends to, give you enough info to hit the ground running and at least be able to communicate confidently on the subject after reading and doing the lesson.Each chapter gives you hands on projects that get you involved.If you need to create and publish sound for the web, Soundbooth makes it easy and The Classroom in a book series will get you going. Publisher: Adobe Press; Pap/Cdr edition (August 9, 2007) Language: English

ISBN-10: 0321499778

http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321499778

SQL Pocket Guide (Pocket References)

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

This is a handy guide to have around when you’re not a DBA but find yourself dealing with Databases from the different vendors. Each vendor has there own little differences of SQL syntax that make them special. I don’t want to be a DBA I just want a little data and the guide will help you quickly deal with the quirks and special features of the major Databases.

This is not a how to book, if you want that get the Head First SQL book. If you need to know the difference on correct syntax for using Regular Expressions with MS SQL and mySQL, this guide is for you.

 

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 2 edition (April 17, 2006) Language: English ISBN-10: 0596526881

 

Flex Builder 2

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

Flex Builder 2 is an awesome product!

I was skeptical at first, being new to the built on Eclipse IDE, though the interface proved to be very intuitive to the new user. If you're a Dreamweaver user, never fear, this IDE is a synch once you use it a bit.

There are two views, Source View and Design View:

Source View – If you're a coder, you'll feel right at home here. It has color coding, line numbering, line collapsing, tag hinting, easy tabbing features to separate your code and the list goes on. One of the features that amazes me is tag hinting for your custom classes. If you were to create a custom class (or component which would be a class) then by declaring it with a namespace or importing it, Flex Builder will automatically add it to the tag hinting along with all of the built-in classes, methods, properties and events.

Design View – Without a doubt, Design View simplifies building your interface. Being able to drag and drop built in components into your app, give you the ability to build your interface quickly while Flex Builder handles the code. Flex Builder manages layout nicely unlike the browser specific markup of the past. You can specify x and y coordinates, expand and contract using percentages and have components float based on constraints.

Debugging mode is an extremely powerful feature of Flex Builder. You can set breakpoints, see all variables and expressions. It also has the ability to step through the breakpoints.

There are many more features I am not going to mention in this review. I will say that if you plan on developing RIA’s, Flex is the way to go with increased productivity of Flex Builder 2.

Also, Flex Builder 2 is available FREE to educational institutions and students!

 

Andrew Maurer