Monday, February 10, 2003

FreeHand MX now available - The first major commercial application for Mac OSX is now the first product to go through a full development cycle as an OSX application and is the first second generation OSX app in the world. WooHoo. If you are a FreeHand user or a Flash user you should check out the press release or go on over to MacCentral where there is a good write up of the news. Too many features here to mention, but from what I understand there was a major effort to get community input into this release and there are lots of good things there.    7:31:24 AM      comment []

DevNet - Macromedia is announcing our new DevNet service that will ship shortly. DevNet is designed to get professionals into the Macromedia Studio at one fixed price that includes all the updates and upgrades for a year and periodic value in the form of DevNet Resource Kits that include extensions and add-ons for our products. Being able to count on your costs for software for the entire year without having to find supplementary budget when you don't expect to need it is a big plus. How did we do? For some folks the full subscription will be less useful than the essentials subscription (which does not cover the software, but gives you a yearly subscription to the quarterly DRKs.) Our initial responses have been really positive. Please let us know what you think. www.macromedia.com/devnet/subscriptions/ 7:27:06 AM      comment []

Macromedia Announces DevNet - DevNet bringings developers and enterprises an easy way to get the technologies and resources you need to create and deliver great digital experiences. DevNet Subscriptions is strategic as it builds on the strong existing relationships Macromedia has with its key developers and provides them with additional administrative and development value. Macromedia DevNet offers a comprehensive set of tools, servers, extensions, components, and other resources over a one-year annual subscription period. Leading developers and companies including OgilvyInteractive, Molecular, and Werner Enterprises are among the first DevNet subscribers. For more information, visit www.macromedia.com/devnet/subscriptions/. For the full press release vist our PR site. 7:20:44 AM      comment []

	Monday, February 03, 2003

On break - I am going to be on break (actually on and off) from Wednesday the 5th to the 23rd. I may post some, but I am working on getting some downtime and spending that with my partner on the seashore and in the mountains. 1:45:37 PM      comment []

Kevin Lynch starts a blog - Kevin Lynch, our tech guru and president, has started a blog this week and it is really cool. I sort of envy Kevin because he does a lot of things and he does them well. Right down to the photographs. Anyway, this is going to be an interesting blog to watch. Today Kevin is talking about the future of the browser and the legs of HTML. 1:43:03 PM      comment []

	Saturday, February 01, 2003

To the crew of the Columbia - What is there to say but we are humbled and saddened by the sacrafice you made for us in the pursuit of knowledge. Rest in peace with our thanks. Rick D. Husband William C. McCool Michael P. Anderson David M. Brown Kalpana Chawla Laurel Clark  Ilan Ramon 12:38:07 PM      comment []

	Friday, January 31, 2003

Blogging in the news (again) - c|net news - Nice article on the value of blogging in software development and the people that are starting blogs to take advantage of that. We have been doing this for 9 months now and the response has been excellent. We have been able to let people know about things early and get information out to people. We also get to present an anti-piracy message to all the folks that come here looking for serial numbers and cracks which is a really large number of folks... Anyway the story talks about Dan Bricklin and Mitch Kapor, computer visionary folks that have been using blogs. Dan has been around for ages, but Mitch is newish to the blogosphere so welcome Mitch. 2:04:00 PM      comment []

	Thursday, January 30, 2003

News from Matt - Sorry I missed yesterday. I am working on three new specs for extensions for upcoming Developer Resource Kits.. WOOHOO! I love doing technical stuff. When they are announced, I will talk about them more fully. Think you  are going to like them. 12:00:56 PM      comment []

The Made with Macromedia Library - (from Bob Tartar's blog) -  There have been some questions & concerns about Internet Archive and the Made with Macromedia program. There were erroneous reports of Macromedia "donating" 10,000 CD ROMS containing content authored in Macromedia Director and Authorware, and submitted to Macromedia through the Made with Macromedia program. We provided the database of Made with Macromedia submissions to the Internet Archive in order to accelerate the process of creating an online catalog. We agreed with the Internet Archive that publishing this catalog to the Internet was a valuable resource for developers and historians. This database is currently available from the Internet Archive servers at archive.org. The Internet Archive contacted 5 developers and publishers and secured rights to freely distribute the content of their multimedia applications from the Archive.org website. If you are a developer within the Made with Macromedia program, your content will not be made available without your express legal permission. Should you wish to make your content available, please contact info@archive.org. The statement that "10,000 Titles made available to Macromedia were donated to the Internet Archive" is false. In fact, Macromedia provided access for staffers of the Internet Archive to our archive in order to ensure that the database of titles was as complete and accurate as possible. If you do not want to be included in the archive, please contact info@archive.org. If you would like to be included in the database, please contact info@archive.org. Should you have any questions or comments, please contact us at mwmarchive@macromedia.com. Internet Archive has also revised their web site: Previous Statement: Macromedia has generously donated their collection of CD-ROM's to the Archive's CD-ROM & Software Library. The Collection consists of over 10,000 CD-ROM titles (from the Made-With-Macromedia Program) and we are in the process of making this into an accessible resource for people to use and enjoy. We welcome all feedback! Revised Statement: Macromedia and the Internet Archive are working together to provide an online catalog of the names, titles, publishers, and release dates of more than 10,000 CD-ROM titles developed with Macromedia products and published under the Made with Macromedia program. These titles are not available for download, except when an individual developer or publisher has expressly granted permission to the Internet Archive. Should you wish to make your title available for download, please contact info@archive.org. We hope you enjoy the archive and we welcome all feedback! 11:59:46 AM      comment []

	Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Special on the DRK ends this Friday January 31 - If you haven't bought the DRK version 1 and are thinking about getting volume 2, now is a good time to do it. If you buy before Friday, you can get the DRK1 for 50% off with the purchase of the DRK 2. For more details, see the DRK site. 3:17:10 PM      comment []

	Monday, January 27, 2003

Sapphire Worm - I don't know about you, but I was pretty much off the net since Friday. This worm, that struck on Saturday (Macromedia had some of its own problems on Friday) left large parts of the net down in an attack that struck at vulnerabilities in MSSQL. Vulnerabilities that had been reported and patched months ago. How many of us are running systems that are exposed to hacks and attacks because we don't read the MS security alerts? For information on MS Security patches see the MS site at http://www.microsoft.com/security (when it comes back up...). The larger question is whether servers based on desktop technology can ever really be secure. One of the advantages of Linux and Unix OSs is that they allow you to remove and turn off just about everything you don't want on a machine. You can strip them to the bone and control security better because you don't have to worry about the rest of the things on the Maching. Windows always has a load of things running and more and more it seems that that is the core problem. Maybe it is time for MS to create a "stripable" Windows where you can remove all the components you don't need. In this particular case, it might not have helped, but in general it might be the right way to go. 8:56:16 AM      comment []