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Monday, July 28, 2003

Jimg Dandy 3:15 PM
I finally got Jimg to work with ColdFusion MX. I don't know why these steps were left out of the DRK4 documentation, but in any case, here's what you do:

You should now be able to run the Jimg examples without raising any Java errors.

Despite the confusing installation instructions, Jimg is pretty impressive. With a little hand-coding, you can revise the demo files (e.g., cfcResults.cfm, manip.cfm) to save the images to a folder on your server. This enables you to generate thumbnails, add borders and watermarks, and extract a new image's width and height. Unfortunately, you cannot save to the GIF format, or choose the amount of JPEG compression, but Jimg is still a good alternative to Jukka Manner's cfx_image tag because it will work on non-Windows machines.

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Saturday, July 26, 2003

DRK4 (Christmas in July) 11:14 AM
Omigosh! Have you seen DevNet Resource Kit Volume 4? Right off the bat, I noticed that Advanced Query Wizard, which I reviewed back in March, is included among the Dreamweaver MX extensions. The standalone price for AQW is $99.95, so it's like getting all the other extensions and components for free.

Also, in what I consider a classy move, Macromedia has released a DevNet Resource Kit Special Edition to DevNet Essentials subscribers. The Special Edition includes much of the content from DRK1 and DRK2, including the Flash DataGrid component, Flash UI Components Sets 3 and 4, the Flash Media Components, and a number of useful PHP extensions for Dreamweaver MX. This is great news for people who became DevNet Essentials subscribers after DRK1 or DRK2 was released, although I suppose I'd feel a little miffed if I'd already purchased them separately.

What most excites me about DRK4 are the new ColdFusion components, utilities and custom tags. The XML2Query component "translates XML into a ColdFusion query object to make the data as easy to work with as possible." The Query2XML component does the opposite: it "translates any query into a standard, easy-to-read XML format." Something like this has been available for .NET for a while, but it's nice to see it finally implemented in ColdFusion MX. I see lots of potential uses for this, not the least of which is making it easier to work with XML documents in Flash Remoting.

Wait, it gets better. Jimg is a custom ColdFusion tag and "component wrapper for JAI (Java Advanced Imaging) which allows ColdFusion developers to manipulate images in a variety of ways. Jimg supports 10 different image operations, including scaling, cropping, rotating, tinting, drawing, filling, repeating, adding borders, and overlaying text." Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get Jimg to work, but maybe it's because I don't have the latest and greatest version of ColdFusion. In any case, a little more documentation from MM on compiling the Java class files would be useful (I keep getting errors, even though I have Java 1.4).

For Dreamweaver MX users, the extensions include Data Source Hints and Hand-Coder Right-Click Tools. Last, but not least, there are two sample Flash Remoting applications. Commerce Search and Internet Search incorporate the Amazon and Google APIs, respectively, and you can learn a lot about calling web services from Flash Remoting just by studying the ActionScript and CFC source files. Thanks, Santa!

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Thursday, July 17, 2003

Windoze XP 2:51 PM
Last night, I dreamt that someone hacked into my Dell and the keyboard started typing itself, like a player piano. I guess Apple users don't have these kinds of nightmares.

Speaking of which, I finally installed ColdFusion MX on OS 10.2 (Jaguar), and it worked like a dream, just like my friend Tom said it would. ColdFusion even comes with drivers for MySQL, so there's no need to connect to a Windows machine running SQL Server (unless you absolutely have to). My only complaint is that I have to manually start MySQL, JRun and ColdFusion using Terminal. If someone has a nice shell script for doing this — e.g., startmeup.command — let me know.

In the meantime, I think I'll unsubscribe from the Microsoft Security Notification Service so I can get a good night's sleep.

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Monday, July 07, 2003

PC-Mac File Sharing 5:25 PM
Turns out, PC-Mac file sharing with Windows XP and Mac OS 10.2 (Jaguar) is a snap. By default, Windows XP shares one folder, appropriately named Shared Documents. Its actual, physical location on the hard drive is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents. (You can tell it's shared because the icon is a folder cradled by a hand.) To client computers on the network, this folder will appear as SharedDocs. To change its settings, right-click Shared Documents in Windows Explorer and choose Sharing and Security. To change the folder's Shared Name, select the Do Not Share This Folder radio button and click Apply. Then select the Share This Folder radio button, type the new name in the Share Name text box, and click Apply again. While you're at it, click Permissions and uncheck Allow in the Full Control and Change columns (unless you want others to be able to edit and delete files in the Shared Documents folder). To share another folder on XP — for instance, My Music — simply right-click it and select Sharing and Security. Select the Share This Folder radio button and click Apply. It's that simple.

Now for the fun part. To access SharedDocs from Jaguar, open System Preferences and click the Sharing icon. On the Services tab, check Personal File Sharing and click Apply. (If you want Windows users to be able to access shared folders on the Mac, also check Windows File Sharing and Remote Login. See "Inside Samba: Windows Sharing for the Mac" for more information.) To mount one or more shared folders from your network, select Connect to Server from the Finder's Go menu. Jaguar's "Network Discovery" displays a list of the other clients on the network. Select the desired computer and click Connect. At this point, you will be prompted for the username and password you use to log in to Windows XP. (Obviously, if you're connecting to another Mac, you will be prompted for that computer's username and password.) Enter the login information and click OK. Finally, select the folder you want to access (e.g., SharedDocs) and click OK. The folder appears on the Jaguar desktop with a hard drive icon. Double-click the folder and you have immediate access to all its files. To disconnect the shared folder, drag and drop it into the Trash.

To auto-mount the SharedDocs folder every time Jaguar starts up, you could write a shell script, but there's an easier way. Simply drag and drop the SharedDocs icon onto the Dock. The next time you want to mount the XP folder, all you have to do is click its Dock icon. (Tip: Control-clicking the icon displays a folder menu.) To avoid entering the password each time, select the check box to add the password to the Mac OS X Keychain. For more information on PC-Mac file sharing, check out these excellent tutorials on apple.com.

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Thursday, July 03, 2003

Sharing a DirecWay Broadband Connection 6:19 PM
This is a bit off-topic, but I finally figured out how to share my DirecWay satellite connection and thought I'd post this information to save others the trouble I went through.

First off, let me say that I am not endorsing DirecWay by any means. The service is expensive and hasn't been that reliable since it was installed two weeks ago. However, if you live in an area where cable and DSL are unavailable, satellite broadband may be your only option. Of course, one way to justify paying too much for broadband is sharing your Internet connection and canceling your second phone line, dial-up Internet provider, etc.

Having said that, here is how I set up my wireless home network:

Step 1: Get a Wireless Router
Some of the most popular brands are the Linksys BEFW11S4, the D-Link DI-713P, and the Netgear MR814. I started off with the Linksys but had some trouble with it, so I brought it back to Best Buy and bought the Netgear MR814 instead. After rebate, the Netgear was 40 dollars less than the Linksys, but Amazon.com is currently selling them for the same price ($59).

Step 2: Enable Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Since Direcway's software only supports Windows, you need a Windows machine with ICS to make this work (this will be the host computer for the other clients on the network). To enable ICS in XP Pro, do the following:

At this point, you may be prompted to reboot your computer.

Step 3: Connect Your Cables
Since DirecWay's modem doesn't have ethernet ports, you cannot connect it directly to the router. Instead, connect the RJ45 cable that came with the router from the ethernet port on the back of your computer into one of the four ethernet ports on the router. Do not plug the cable into the router's Internet or Uplink port. This is the mistake I made. Essentially, you're using the router as a glorified wireless hub or switch. If you prefer, you could simply buy a wireless hub, but I chose this method because as soon as cable is available, I plan to drop DirecWay like sixth period French.

Step 4: Change the IP Address of Your Ethernet Port
Complete this step only if Windows XP tells you there's an IP address conflict (in my case, Netgear and my ethernet port both had the same IP address: 192.168.0.1). Here's what you do:

Step 5: Disable DHCP on the Router
This is important. Since ICS includes a DHCP server, you don't want the router to be assigning IP addresses as well. To disable DHCP, log in to the admin page of your router using one of the client computers (for example, Netgear's admin page is http://192.168.0.1). Enter the username and password provided in the router's manual and follow the instructions to disable DHCP. At this point, your network should be up and running. If not, try rebooting your computers and resetting or power-cycling the router.

I know this seems like a lot of work — it's easier if you have cable or DSL — but the ability to roam your house with an always-on Internet connection is worth the effort. Right now, my XP is sharing DirecWay with an iMac in the office and an iBook in the living room (the Apple AirPort cards were $79 and very easy to install). At 200 feet, the iBook's reception is fairly weak, but downloads still max out at a respectable 20K/second. What really excites me is that this fall I'll be able to purchase a SanDisk SD wi-fi card to enable my Treo 90 to share the connection as well. Not too shabby.

So there you have it: a wireless home network for just over $200. Next step? PC-Mac file sharing using Samba.

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