We got hit by some kind of odd storm yesterday...tornadoes, wind, rain, and other assorted nastiness. My server has been out the entire time -- over 24 hours -- but I'm back now.

Adobe has released the latest version of Dreamweaver to public beta at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/dreamweavercs4/. As always, I have had a love/hate relationship with the program. Having used it a while now, I can say the same for the new version. I like many of the new features, like the related files views, the Subversion integration, and the collapsable panels (it's about time for this feature!). I will definitely be using DW 10 in the future, and have no intention of going back to the previous version. The collapsable panels alone are worth the price of admission. DW has always had problems with the usability of panels from the earliest days, but this time they got it right.

On the other hand, some things look like they were tacked on as an afterthought, and the overall interface is not as user-friendly as a basic Windows program should be that has been around for as many years as it has. The title bar is gone and the path to the current file has been stuck into a little spot that is reserved for page tabs. It sounds like a minor thing, but it's one of the most important parts of coding in a multi-tab editor. As soon as you open more than a few pages, the file path is cut off, and with a few more open, it disappears. Major step backwards here:

The other obvious usability problem here is the black text on dark grey in the tabs. On a laptop it's impossible to see, as is the white text on the dark grey. Also, the individual pages have a close button (X) which is a great bonus, but it would have been nice to have a close button on the frequently used panels (like Find/Replace) so you don't have to right click to pick a menu item to close a panel. Also, the entire border of the program is gone, making it blend into other open programs on your desktop. I understand this is the new "owl" interface, but owls should be left in the woods to live in trees. We really don't need the artsy fartsy stuff in a code editor.

But all in all, I would recommend the program. I use Eclipse all day long at my place of employment, and it is simply not as intuitive or easy to use as DW. Code view in DW has come a long way since the days of Ultradev. Download it and try it out, and by all means make suggestions in the forums on things that can be made better.

Community MX is celebrating its 5 year anniversary this week. They said it would never last, but we have been putting out 2 pieces of fresh content every day for 5 years, for a total of 2557 articles, tutorials, extensions, Jumpstarts, and more. Congratulations to the partners at CMX for 5 good years.

I've finally decided to sell my old 100 watt Marshall head and 412 cabinet. It has been sitting around my house now for almost 10 years without any use, so it doesn't make sense to keep it any more. On top of that, the townhouse I live in is small and too close to neighbors to play guitar at any decent volume. The eBay link is here.. It can't hurt to try to drive some traffic to it. :-) It got a lot of good use back in the 80's and 90's, but it's time to find a new owner. If I ever get in a situation where I need volume, I'll have to pick up another one on eBay, I guess. . . .

There seems to be a new rash of scamming/phishing attempts, and eBay is partly to blame. It seems eBay itself has a redirection service in place on one of their pages. Scammers are using links that point to the real eBay site, but redirect to the scammer site. This is especially insidious, as the link you see and the link you hover over are actual eBay addresses, and eBay is actually forwarding you to the scammer site. Below is a the link used in one I received:

http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?RedirectEnter&partner=ShowItem&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fus.ebayobjects.com%2F2c%3B9739597%3B9123118%3Bz%3Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fcontactbay-ws-bayisapi.xm.com%2F

It's amazing that with all the phishing attempts out there, eBay is actually falling down on the job by allowing their own site to redirect unsuspecting users to the phishing web site.

Community MX is having an open house where visitors are able to view over 2400 articles and tutorials. Community MX is a subscription service, so this is a good opportunity to see what is available. The open house is from 12/24/2007 through 1/1/2008. For a full list of what I've written for Community MX, see this page: http://www.communitymx.com/author.cfm?cid=1003

Community MX is always looking for new writers to join as full-time partners, or to simply supply tutorials on a one-off basis. CMX pays it's authors, so if anyone is interested in writing one or more tutorials or extensions, contact me via my contact form and I'll put you in touch with the right people. I've been with CMX since the beginning in 2003, and it is a great place to get exposure, help out your fellow developers, and get your content out there.

CMX is focused on Adobe products, but also all web technologies -- html, asp, php, coldfusion, sql, css, javascript, and any other technology related to web development.

I created a new plugin for Cartweaver for building a digital download store that was released yesterday. The Cartweaver Downloadable Products Plug-In was created for Cartweaver 3 for both PHP and ColdFusion. Here is the announcement from Lawrence at cartweaver.com:

The Cartweaver development team is pleased to announce the release of the Downloadable Products Plug-in for Cartweaver 3 CF

Now you can deliver your digital products immediately! This Cartweaver plug in allows your customers to download documents, PDFs, music, photos, artwork, software, and other digital products right away!

- Easy to integrate with your Cartweaver 3 CF store
- Upload your digital products via the store admin
- Customers can log in and download immediately after purchase
- Customers can re-download as few or as many times as you allow
- Customers can update contact information
- View entire order history
- Print out previous history

Available now! Go to the Products - Plug-Ins page and log in for availability and pricing.

I'm in the middle of a server move for this site and a few others. I'm moving to a dedicated server on IIS 6 and ColdFusion 8 using SQL 2005. If anyone notices any problems, let me know at tommuck AT hotmail DOT com. Everything seems fine from here, but a few email problems still need to be worked out. The dark grey background is the new server...ugly green, old server.

I dug up an old PHP class that I wrote a few years back and thought I would post it for anyone who needs CSV functionality on their site. It will work with any PHP recordset, including Cartweaver recordsets, which use my custom DB abstraction class (only for MySQL, though). The CSVFile class is simple, and can be downloaded here.

The class is typically used on a page by itself, or on any page within conditional statements. You link to the page and the file download begins. The class constructor has 3 arguments:

$csvfile = new CSVFile(recordsetName, [quotes true or false], [filename]);

The first is the MySQL recordset. The second optional argument is true or false to put quotes around the fields. The third optional argument is the filename, which defaults to Download.csv by default.

To use it, follow these instructions:

1. If this is a Cartweaver recordset, make sure you include the application.php file at the top of the page:

require_once("application.php");

2. Include the class file:

require_once("yourclassdirectory/CSVFile.php");

3. Create your recordset. Below is a typical Dreamweaver recordset, using the Northwind database that you can download here for MySQL if you don't have it:

mysql_select_db($database_connNorthwind, $connNorthwind);
$query_rs = "SELECT p.ProductID, p.ProductName, p.UnitPrice FROM products p ORDER BY p.ProductID";
$rs = mysql_query($query_limit_rs, $connNorthwind) or die(mysql_error());

For Cartweaver, a typical recordset might look like this:

$query_rs = "SELECT * FROM tbl_orders ORDER BY order_Date";
$rs = $cartweaver->db->executeQuery($query_rs, "rs");

4. Add a line to invoke the CSVFile class:

$csvfile = new CSVFile($rs, true);

5. Link to the file.

Now, when the page is browsed, the file download will begin immediately.