Neil Duffin Blog

Adobe has posted a ‘reminder’ page for a webcast about Creative Studio 4. You enter your name and email, they post you a reminder of the webcast which is set for the 23rd.

I’ve added user bookmarking buttons to the blog today. These appear on the blog posting lists (standard, search and archive) as well the bottom of each individual posting.

Pressing them allows you to submit the post to any of the 4 services - digg, reedit, delicious and/or stumbleupon. The first 3 require you to have an account to make the submission but stumbleupon seems to allow anyone to add pages.

Implementation with digg.com

If you are implementing digg.com…

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I’ve updated the blog code today, making several changes…

• The RSS feed, main blog post list, archive view and search now use ‘excerpts’ to make the list of posts easier to navigate. Before this, one post could extend down most of the page and make it difficult to see any new posts.
• The format of the Google Adverts has been changed. I’ve noticed some insanely bad advertising on this site, seemingly because the only text being scanned…

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I’ve been running a few tests on FTP packages. It’s a long story but basically I’m looking into changing over from Dreamweaver / Contribute to a CMS (Content Management System). Currently, my front runner is Expression Engine.

The reason for the proposed change is that Dreamweaver and Contribute drive me nuts. The versions I’m running (CS3) aren’t very good. They are full of bugs, seriously lacking in helpful management features and seem to get in…

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Adobe have released a beta of their new Flash Player version 10. Along with a number of other new features, it includes built-in support for 3D. This would have been very useful for some of the movies I’ve built over the last year or so - one with molecules in particular.

What’s particularly nice is that the new player off-loads to graphics handling to the computer’s GPU (Graphics Processor Unit). These are now in just about…

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Programming is an ever evolving technology and web programming in particular. Adobe’s new ‘AIR’ is a novel approach to allowing applications to break free of the internet.

It allows applications to be downloaded and run on a Mac or PC desktop - without continuous connection to the ‘net being needed. I suppose it’s a bit like Java but being based partly on Flash technology, it’s much more graphically orientated.

Hopefully, it will be a little more…

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Some security issues have been found in the Flash Player. The current and older versions of the player are affected but there is a fix in the very latest (9.0.115.0) player.

The recommendation is that you should update to the latest version to avoid any possible issues. This includes the Mac version.

You can download the 9.0.115.0 (or whatever has replaced it) from here, just click the ‘Download Now’ button.
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If you’re a long time reader of the blog. Then you may have noticed that Google Ads have appeared on this blog.

I thought I would give them a try, even if they only create a small income it does help to pay for the servers.

My main issue is with them being discreet - I don’t want flashing adverts, animations and terrible colours making the blog look a mess. Okay, this isn’t the best…

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I’ve uploaded a new article on Contribute CS3. It’s both a review and a ‘how-to’ for issues with the package. I hope you find it interesting.

If there’s anybody from Adobe reading this - please take note of the article. I’m still using Contribute CS3 (for now) and I’d actually like to continue but with Ecto v3 coming soon, I may be tempted away.

Apple have posted a list of the Apple Design Award winners (and runners up) for 2007.

There are some interesting applications on here and it’s definitely worth a look if you own a Mac.