Well mates here is a great story within a story about the popular phrase “15 baby…” and how it all began.
1st part of the story:
Back in the day when I was a boy scout, I was over at my friend Flynn’s house preparing for a scout camp. Flynn and I were outside in Flynn’s yard when I happened to notice that Flynn’s large family tent was up. As you may know, tent sizes are measured on man size. Me being a somewhat curious lad questioned Flynn on the size of his family’s tent.
Me: ‘Flynn, how many man tent is your family tent?’
Flynn: ‘hmmm…I’d say about a 15 baby tent’
Me: ‘I didn’t realize that they had started measuring tents in number of babies you could fit inside…’

2nd Part:
This story has been passed down through the ages to this very point in time. Just this last week, my good mate Jdawg offered to purchase for me an iPod online (he has some connection to get a discount of sorts) and I would thereby pay him back. Jdawg, being the loving caring kinfolk that he is, had the iPod shipped directly to my place of resident. A few days later, I arrived home anxious to tear open my iPod and start filling her full of music files….when to my amazement upon all the tearing and opening I noticed inscribed on the reverse side in silver and grey: ‘This is a 15 baby iPod’.
I recommend to everyone to start today and measure anything you can in number of babies. For example, instead of a 5 passenger vehicle…a 9 baby vehicle. Or, rather than a 20 servings per container on a cereal box…45 baby servings per box. See how it works?
The 15 baby legacy lives on….. Dan.

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This is how you create a custom cursor in flash.

First create a movieClip symbol and put the following actionscript on it:

onClipEvent (load) {
startDrag("", true);
}

Then, in frame #1, put the following actionscript:

mouse.hide();

That’s it. Fairly simple.

Sample fla – mousehide.fla

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For whatever reason, today I didn’t apply as much gel/goo to my hair today. I’ve been trying to cutback over the past few weeks and rely more on the natural hair oils that my head produces to style and sculp my hair. One of the other methods I’ve tried is the leave in hair conditioner. I’m not sure how well this is working. But, it does make for a soft head of hair.

Other methods I’ve tried include: shampoo every other day, leave the conditioner in for 5 minutes instead of the standard 1 minute, condition instead of shampoo for a week straight, and many more things I’m not willing to difulge at this time.

See, the reason that I have to go to such lengths is because of my naturally feathered hair. My hair, by sher nature, is feathery. Yeah, like the ’80s pop band Wham.

If you have any pointers or ideas then post them in the comments. Here is a live pic of my hair and the featheriness.

http://d-mode.ww.com

Technorati : Feathered Hair

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Here is how I gauge:

Anything where you have to compete with music playing in the background is
not a sport.

Yes, figure skaters are very talented at what they do and it does take a tremendous amount of skill. But, that doesn’t make it a sport.

Technorati : Figure Skating

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Chris Flick is the creative genius behind the CMX Suite cartoon strip. Each Tuesday there is a new version posted on the site. Chris website is http://www.csfgraphics.com/index.html

Expertise: DWMX, FWMX, FreehandMX, Photoshop and Acrobat. Also a traditional illustrator and cartoonist.

Contributions: Contributing author of “Building Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX” and “Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX” for New Riders – and poking light fun at all the other CMX partners. Especially Tom Green.

DAN: Where are you from, where are you now?

CHRIS: Born, raised and currently living in the Northern Virginia area. When I was an Air Force brat, I lived in Germany, Las Vegas, Nevada and Orlando, Florida. My brother loved Vegas so much, he decided to live out there. He’s an elementary school art teacher.

DAN: How did you (Chris) get started in webdesign?

CHRIS: I got burned out on designing car ads for newspapers!
I was a newspaper graphic designer for a number of years right before the internet boom. Around the late 90’s, my friends really started to convince me my cartoons would translate really well on the ‘net.
At the time, I was teaching cartooning for adults through my local high school education system so in exchange for that, they let me take a basic html learning course for free. From there, I started out using Pagemill 2.0 – yes, I said Pagemill! LOL!
And eventually I progressed to Dreamweaver 2 to 3 to 4 and now I’m currently using Dreamweaver 8.

DAN: What made you decide to go with Dreamweaver as opposed to, say, GoLive?

CHRIS: Well, mainly because when I was designer car ads for newspapers, we all were using Freehand. Freehand was a Macromedia product and, as I started playing around with the Dreamweaver demo, I thought it was organized very, very similar to the way Freehand was. I was just able to pick it up so much easier then I did GoLive.

DAN: You managed to be a co-author of two books. Care to talk about that?

CHRIS: Oh sure. The two books are from New Riders. The first one is called “Building web sites with Macromedia Studio MX� and the second is “Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004�. My two partners in crime are Tom Green (from Community MX) and Jord Chilcott. Both are from Canada.

Being a book author was a lot of hard work – especially since I had never done it before. But I found by doing both books, it REALLY forced me to concentrate and think about every single step I do when I go about creating web graphics and how I go about building my own web sites. Hopefully, both books have – or are – helping people. I know when they first came out, we got some really great responses.

DAN: What does “CSFGraphics� stand for? How’d you come up with that name?

CHRIS: Oh… Totally a bit of brilliant inspiration on that one. The name is just the initials of my full name (Christopher Sean Flick) with “graphicsâ€? thrown in at the end. It took me about 30 minutes to come up with that.
Actually, when I was in art school and college, I always said if I had a studio, I would call myself “CSFsomethingâ€? – Graphics… Illustration… – eventaully, since I was studying to be a graphic designer at the time, I settled for “Graphicsâ€? since that sounded more “professionalâ€?. And, then when it came time to decide on a web site name, the name stuck.

DAN: How is CSFGraphics different from the other webdev/graphics shops in your area?

CHRIS: Well, I’m so busy doing my weekly web comic strip at CommunityMX, I’m not really keeping track of what other web designers in my area are doing. LOL!
I will say this though: I always tried to treat “CSFGraphics� as a portfolio piece to people who might be interested in hiring me as a web designer, a graphic designer, a freelance artist, caricaturist or cartoonist. For a long time now, I’ve though about maybe getting another URL and making my CSFGraphics site more web design/graphic design orientated while my other site would focus more on my illustration skills. Maybe by the end of this year, that’ll happen.

DAN: What is the source of your desire to increase your business?

CHRIS: My wife! LOL!
And the fact that we just recently bought a new house so the bills have to be paid. That’s a great desire to increase my business right there! LOL!

DAN: A few years ago, cartooning and animation on the web was rarely talked about. What do you think has helped shift it into the spotlight?

CHRIS: Oh, how much time do we have? LOL!
I think a lot of factors can be given credit here. Just speaking of my area or the States in general, Broadband connection has increased significantly. That makes it easier and faster to download animations from the likes of JIB JAB… Flash has gotten better – and easier to use for a lot of people (including me). I think you can also look at web comic strips like PvP, Penny Arcade, Ctrl-Alt-Delete and see how popular they have grown over the years. I mean, the popularity of those web comic strips are certainly responsible (in part) for why I ultimately decided to create my “CMX Suiteâ€? strip for CommunityMX.

DAN: For designers/artists who are just getting started into web standards, what do you feel is the best place for them to start?

CHRIS: Well, this is going to come off as very self-promoting but CommunityMX is where I would go if I was interested in learning about the latest in web standards, CSS, table-less designs and what not. Heck, I myself learn so much from e-mail exchanges with my fellow CommunityMX staffers.
Plus… You get a FREE web cartoon every Tuesday! How can you beat that??? LOL!!!

But seriously, there’s so much out there… You can join the Webweavers’ Google group I’m a member of. You can find a Dreamweaver list to join. You can go to things like TODCON – TODCON is a great web developing conference and anyone and everyone who is interested in web design should attend at least ONE TODCON if they can!

DAN: Where do you feel the web is headed?

CHRIS: Well, if you look at the new Dreamweaver 8, it looks like the web is headed to cell phones! LOL!
But heck… It’s the year 2000 and plus, right? As a kid, I grew up watching George Jetson cartoons and thinking “Boy, I can’t wait until the year 2000 comes so I can have my very own personal space ship to fly around in…â€? But where is it, man?

Dude! Screw the internet! I wanna know where my George Jetson flying space ship is, man! I gotta avoiud all this crazy Washington DC metropolitan traffic SOMEhow! LOL! LOL! LOL!

DAN: What can we expect from CSFGraphics this next year?

CHRIS: Well, there is one particular project I’m really excited about. I blogged about this some time ago on my CommunityMX blog. I did an illustration for a fundraising comic book called “Bots�. All the proceeds of the book will go to the Autistic Society of America. I just heard from the guy who put it all together and the book just recently went to press and will be available in Spring or Summer.

Other then that, I just hope to keep creating great buz for “CMX Suite� and try to make it grow from what it already is now.

CSFGraphics -
http://www.csfgraphics.com/index.html
CommunityMX – http://www.communitymx.com/

Books:
Building Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX by Tom Green, Jordan L. Chilcott, and Chris Flick (Paperback – Nov 5, 2002)
Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004 (Voices That Matter) by Tom Green, Jordan L. Chilcott, and Chris S. Flick (Paperback – Oct 20, 2003)

To learn more about Global Warming and Globalwarming awareness, click here.

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Hey Every Folk!

I’d like to add some links to my blogroll. I’m happy to add your blog link to my list if you do so in return. If you are interested in exchanging links, leave a comment to this post and your email address and I’ll add it.

Thanks,
Dan.

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Link: http://www.flashforwardconference.com/sessions?title=how_and_why_homestar_runner_cartoons_get_made

Here is one of the sessions at the upcoming Flashforward Tuesday, February 28, 2006 03:45 PM-05:00 PM.

Take a step back in time as Mike and Matt Chapman show how they still use Flash® 5 to make the weekly cartoons featured on HomestarRunner.com. Learn the secrets and not-so-secrets of making a 3-5 minute cartoon every week. Hear abour their six years on the web, watch some of their stuff, and learn how they’ve managed to make a living doing something they like.

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While going to the bathroom at the local Albertsons, this sign was starring back at me. Needless to say, I didn’t buy any flowers.

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Posted in: Dmode Pics | Comments(1)

Something that is useful to know in flash is using the Key.getCode functionality where you can trigger different events when a user presses a key at runtime in the Flash Player. Below is a sample that plays a sound when a user presses the ‘Enter’ key from a mediaplayback component. It also adds the text to a dynamic text field when a user pushes any corresponding button on the keyboard. All of this functionality is handled with an event listener.

var sentence:String = new String();
var keyListener:Object = new Object();
keyListener.onKeyDown = function() {
myText.text += String.fromCharCode(Key.getAscii());
trace("\tThe Key code is: "+Key.getCode());
trace("\tThe ASCII value is: "+Key.getAscii());

if ((Key.getCode()) == (13)) {
myPlay.play();
}
};
Key.addListener(keyListener);

Sample fla file: trackingKeystrokes.fla
Sample swf file: trackingKeystrokes.swf

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Click Here for image

“What’s wrong with the NBA”, you ask?

Answer: When your star players’ rap is better than their game.

The NBA’s All-Star weekend is a joke. Over-rated players playing other over-rated players. It’s an ego party where the egos are invited but the players somehow don’t show up. The word “fundamentals” refers to other skills like dancing, money making, and less work for a bigger paycheck.

Technorati : Allstar, NBA, weekend

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Today @ PC World – Bye-bye, FrontPage in New Office, Says Microsoft:

Microsoft will close the book on its FrontPage Web-design program with the release of Office 2007, formerly known as Office 12, late this year. Microsoft acquired FrontPage in the mid-1990s, and it soon outdistanced Adobe’s PageMill and other popular low-cost what-you-see-is-what-you-get Web-creation tools. FrontPage does serve as the foundation for two different Web-design programs: SharePoint Designer 2007, which is intended for organizations using the SharePoint server-based Web-development platform; and Expression Web Designer, which appears to be outside of the Office application family (it isn’t included in any of the Office 2007 bundles, nor is it listed as a standalone Office app the way Project and Visio have been and will continue to be in the new release).

Technorati : FrontPage, Microsoft, web-design

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A Timeless Note for Folks with Issues

I think a given in life is that we will have issues. If you don’t have issues then you are not alive. But, that said, I guess if you are dead….that is a whole another issue….right?

If you think *you* have issues, then you need to take a look at this guy:

Looks like he’s ditched the gun and moved onto knives.

Technorati : Dick Cheney

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So, lets talk Jazz.

With the recent return of Carlos Boozer to the Jazz active roster, at this particular point in the season, leads many to wonder “why now”. Is it because he is finally healed from his injury? Is it because he is ready to start playing ball again and tired of sitting on the bench? Is it because of his love for the game and Sloan (yeah right)? OR, is it because he wanted to prove to all the would-be teams that might be looking for a trade that he can still play and his presence on their team would be a positive?

My vote it for the last. His return is a showcase. He wanted to prove that he can play and wants a trade….most likely to his new resident state of California. He doesn’t “fit” is the classic Sloan system of no communication and verbal abuse in the media ( who does?).

However, it is too late Carlos…you should’ve come back at least a week ago when you still had time to show-off your recently healed hammy. Now, the Jazz couldn’t trade you for Carlos Arroyo and a pair of future 1st round picks….you know, the Jazz seem to like the reoccurring players these days with return of Ostertag.

I don’t blame you for trying at all, Booz. I’d do the same thing if I were in your place: Extend your injury, buy a sweet pad, hang out in So. Cal for weeks and weeks, hate Sloan, try for a trade, etc. But, your window of opportunity was missed. You shot yourself in the foot…..looks like you’ll be out for another 360 days. Congrats.

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Last summer I played in a golf tourney that was sponsored by a company. They had all the neat little things that you could purchase to help donate to their cause. The cause was very worthy. It is a company that helps trouble teens with substance abuse problems as well as those that need social and mental guidance.

So, it was a scramble… meaning, you have 4 players on each team and you play the best play on every shot. Now, I love golf. Love to watch the world’s best players play in all the big PGA events throughout the year. They seriously make it look easy.

Without further sidetracking and ramblings, here is the top ten reasons why I suck at golf:

10. I am seriously the most impatient person I know. Golf is a game of patience. And, I got none.

9. My slice is so bad the ball ends up 3 holes over from where I just hit from.

8. Last Summer duing this event, I started off the day with 30+ golf balls in my bag…at the end of the day, I have 5.

7. I find more satisfaction in finding other people’s lost golf balls over finding my own lost golf balls.

6. My Driver (the club) probably cost in the neighborhood of $350…which is more than the rest of my clubs combined…times 2.

5. I have yet to hit a straight drive with that expensive driver.

4. They need to have an iPod hook-up in the carts….not really a reason why I suck at golf, but just an idea.

3. You have to get up early in the morning to play 18 holes, I am not in the least bit at all a ‘morning person’.

2. They say, ‘Practice makes Perfect’, but in golf..if you are practicing all the time incorrectly you will still suck. Perfect practice makes perfect in golf, or better.

1. I never practice. Cheers.

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You remember that insult war I had with Jdawg? Well, I figured out the solution. I’ll explain:
Let’s say you’ve got a list of variables that are being populated from a dynamic source. Now, what happens if one of those vars is not populated at the source? You get this runtime error:
Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01a8'

Here is how you fix this and allow the page to still be rendered and thereby getting it to work:

On Error Resume Next
myVar1 = (dynamic source var1)
myVar2 = (dynamic source var2)
myVar3 = (dynamic source var3)
myVar4 = (dynamic source var4)

Yeah, it seems fairly simple but it took me a couple days to figure it out……but, I’m happy that I did.

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