My reign as MAX has definitely ended... I was not asked to be a speaker at MAX this year. I'm not sure yet if I'll even attend. (I'll post again if I am going.)

Funny thing happened though a couple days ago. Telling the story to a friend made me think that I ought to share the story on my blog...

A lady called, gave her name and said she's with Adobe and wanted to invite me to MAX. So I responded, "You mean to be a speaker?"

She responded something along the lines of, "Well I'm calling to invite you to MAX." Confused by this I responded, "Ok, so I don't understand... are you calling to give me a free pass for some reason or to ask me to be a speaker?"

To which she said "no I'm calling to invite you to MAX. You attended last year and we're offering an early bird special."

I just couldn't help but crack up laughing. I had to explain it to her because the poor thing was just as confused by my responses as I'd been with her "invitation".

Oh well, maybe next year! :-)

There's a bunch more interviews up on SYS-CON.TV from MAX, including one with Dan Short who is the Lead Developer of Cartweaver, a coder extraordinaire, and more. (Yes, I am quite biased!)

Find out why Dan's asking for "more love" and from whom. View Dan's interview or check them all out, whatever you'd like...

First print ads, now I'm on TV! Ok, so it isn't regular TV, it's SYS-CON.TV but its still TV...

On Tuesday (October 18, 2005) at about 5:45pm I was interviewed by SYS-CON.TV's Jeremy Geelan, live and unscripted. The interview was recorded at MAX 2005 right there in SYS-CON's booth. The interview appears to be completely unedited*, lasting a bit over 5 minutes.

*The interview is a bit of a blur, I was so tired at the time. To the best of my memory, everything recorded is being played.

I think the camera added a good 10lbs., I say "um" and "uh" a whole lot, and my grammar could have been better if I'd thought a bit more before answering, but otherwise it was pretty good for me. (I'm probably my worst critic...) Once you watch the interview, feel free to leave a comment here on my blog to let me know what you thought.

Today I gave my Dreamweaver Killer Tips session twice at MAX. During the second session someone asked about changing the order of files once they're open. I joked about how Adobe has that technology and since a merger is pending there's hope for that feature in the future, the audience all chuckled and that was pretty much that...or so I thought.

After the session, Jen Taylor (Dreamweaver Product Manager) and Alain Dumesny (Dreamweaver Engineer) came up and informed me that the feature is there; Alain added the ability to drag document tabs to reorder them as a last minute new feature. Way to go Alain! I'm glad it is in there (even if it isn't obvious since there's no gripper indicator or other visual queue... hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

I would not have minded one bit if Jen or Alain chimed in to say the feature was added in there at all. I love learning new tips as much as my audience. If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing what I do...

Most importanly I'm hoping that the 300 people in the room forgive me for my mistake! I am blogging this for you in hopes that I've made it up to you.

I'm truly sorry I missed that feature, but hopefully your feedback to Macromedia will help show them that there needs to be some little enhancments to make the feature more obvious. (Click-n-hold an open document's tab while dragging it where you want. Release your mouse when the filename tab is where you want it.)

Thank you Jen, Alain, and all of the Dreamweaver product team for all the "lesser known" features in Dreamweaver and even a few of the "bugs" which I consider to be "undocumented features" (like docking the Code inspector to the right or left of the document window).

The team has done a great job listening to the community. For that I thank Macromedia for hearing us and I also thank everyone who fills out the wish form to report both features and flaws. Keep up the good work!

I can't believe I forgot to blog this, so rather than update the original post...

I showed Gaetano the MXDJ and told him to look at all the pages. He flipped through them and commented about various things that he saw. When he came to the "MAX is Angela Buraglia" ad, he said to me. "That looks like you mama... That is you!" It was too cute :-)

My apologies if this post seems at all vain. I'm posting mostly for family and friends who are interested. Few others will care at all, except for perhaps my supposed fan club in Italy...

Back in July when the ads first debuted via email, I had no idea just how much more the ads would circulate. I got a good laugh when David Robinison said:

"This afternoon I got a couple of emails in my inbox with Macromedia's new MAX ad campaign. They both begin "MAX is..." and have the names of MAX 2005 speakers. I got Angela Buraglia and Justin Everett-Church. (They seem like little trading cards in some ways...collect 'em all!)"

Since then, variations of the ad have appeared on sys-con.com's site and full page ads inside the MX Developers Journal (Volume 3 Issue 7), just inside the back cover of ColdFusion Developer's Journal (July 2005 Volume:7 Issue:7 & August 2005 Volume:7 Issue:8), and just two pages away from being the centerfold of the Special Issue: Studio 8 edition of the MX Developer's Journal (Volume 3 Issue 8).

I've been told the ad will also appear on webdeveloper.com and a devx.com and possibly others but I haven't seen them yet. If you happen to spot me somewhere please let me know.

I've uploaded a copy of the original email blast, the sys-con site's ads, and a PDF copy of the full page magazine ad if you're curious.

Long before I was ever a web developer, I was an aspiring actress turned makeup artist for film. I never expected to make it in print work! ;-)

Word on the street is that Macromedia and Adobe shareholders approved the acquisition editor for, say it with me now... 3.4 <voice character="Austin Powers">billion</voice>. Regulators still have to approve it, though I can't see why they wouldn't.

Given the sneak peek I posted about, I'd say both companies expect it to be official soon. Looks like it will be in the Fall, on schedule.

This just in... Macromedia has put up more MAX session sneak peeks. Yes, there's even one from yours truly. Ok, so I'm not "yours" but you know what I mean.

This month's Macromedia Edge newsletter has an article called, "Top 10 Reasons to Attend MAX 2005" that you should definitely check out even if you have no intention of going. (Hint: You may find #10 interesting.)

If you've been looking for more Dreamweaver 8 sneak peeks, here's a few you may not have seen yet. The following three links will lead you to previews of three MAX 2005 presentations. Can you guess which one of these three were written by yours truly? ~ Using the Power of XML with Dreamweaver ~ Using the CSS Box Model for Page Layout ~ Dreamweaver Killer Tips

Since I've been back from MAX it's been non-stop work! I've been coding extensions and making site updates all day and all night... Below is the official announcement of some the work I've been doing in addition to the soon-to-be-released Cartweaver 2 ASP.

If you have any questions please let me know!

CCR began nearly 2 years ago, but never got packaged for public use because I always had one thing or another going on. I can't express how pleased that I am to finally release it! I must take this opportunity to thank Dan for all his hard work and patience. I'd also like to thank Tom Muck for introducing me to writing translators the EDML way nearly 2 years ago. I wouldn't have been able to do CCR without you two...thanks guys! I'll add another tick to the tally of beers I owe you both... ;-)

Well, it looks like one of the links I provided in my Dreamweaver Killer Tips session is down. Good news is, I have a new link for you and I'll see about getting my presentation updated. The link I'm refering to is to Tom Muck's Speedup Hints for Dreamweaver MX article which covers a variety of methods you can use to help speed up Dreamweaver. (Though it was originally written for Dreamweaver MX, it still applies to Dreamweaver MX 2004.) The new link to his article is: http://www.tom-muck.com/articles/speedhints/

Thanks Tom for getting that taken care of so quickly for me!

I just wanted to post a few words about the Community Pit at MAX. If you didn't stop by there you seriously missed out, especially if you didn't come by on Tuesday after the conference was done for the day. All you had to do was talk to one of the TMM's or MMUG managers to get a raffle ticket to win a cool bag. There were at least 20 given away and several t-shirts given out too.

At the Community Pit there was also a little introduction to Macromedia.com's new knowledge base. "If you put your hands on the keyboard and try it, you get (free) Louisiana hot sauce."

There were huge comfy bean bag chairs and cables for getting connected to the internet for those without wireless access. It's the hangout spot for TMMs and MMUG managers, making it the place to go to get your burning questions answered by non-MM employees. (There was also an area of MM product support engineers answering questions.)

If you missed "the pit" this year, be sure to stop by next year. I'm sure there'll be more fun to be had, and we're a friendly bunch who loves to talk to people. Don't be shy!

Thanks to Amy Brooks, Ed Sullivan, Scott Fegette, Christine Lawson and any others who were responsible for the Community Pit and the sponsored event. I had a great time. (Special thanks to Amy for going easy on us with the t-shirts this year. In comparison to the ones we had to wear last year, these were great!)

Thursday was the final day of Macromedia MAX 2004. This year was even better than the last, and I'm already looking forward to next year's MAX. (Hopefully, next year will be scheduled a tad further away from Halloween or other holiday.)

I met a few people at lunch yesterday that were at the same table who were at MAX last year and caught my last year's session and my session this year. I'd been worried that people who attended both years would not be happy to see some of the same tips. They assured me they were more than satisfied with the ammount of new content, so I'm relieved.

There were a few people I didn't meet that I had hoped to meet. If you're Steve from Fig Leaf or Randy Edmunds from Macromedia and you're reading this, I kept my eye out for you but didn't find you. Mike Hazard, I was also hoping I'd get the chance to introduce myself and say congrats on the MAX award. When they played the video, your name seemed very familiar to me, and sure enough you're also a DWfaq.com customer. :-) Hopefully I'll get to meet all three of you next time!

It's always nice to meet the people that I exchange emails with and DWfaq.com or Cartweaver.com customers. This year I met Cornel Ivanescu, who is using Cartweaver to sell registration for the upcoming ColdFusion and Flash focussed Powered by Detroit conference in April 2005. (Cornel, it was a pleasure meeting you and see you in April!) I also met Scott Fegette, Christine Lawson, Ray Camden, Rob Christiansen, Angela Kozlowski, Michael and Judy Dinowitz, Adam Bell, Shlomy Gantz, Simon Horwith and quite a few people who's first names I remember and last names I can't remember how to spell so please forgive the exclusion here. ;-)

It's an overwhelming experience meeting so many people! Here's hoping that I get to see all of you again next year at MAX (or other event) and if I draw a blank on your name, please don't hold it against me. I'm terrible with names, but after we meet a second time I usually can remember...

Until next year...cheers!

Wednesday I gave my session twice, both having the same projector issues. Nobody was able to solve the problem, so I adjusted the same way I did on Tuesday. The audience was understanding, and I didn't get started late at the second session, so all the better. (The projector guy messed everything up so nothing was working and I had to figure out how to get it back myself, so we started about 5 minutes late. He had checked extended desktop, oy!)

Both sessions were well attended and audience feedback tells me they learned at least 2 things. In one of the sessions I asked if they learned 3, 4, 5, and 6 things. Half of the room was still raising their hand at 6 things! I was amazed and naturally quite pleased. C'mon, can you blame me? I admit, I get a big kick out of seeing eyes lighting up when they learn something new. The best part has been talking with attendees one on one and showing them how to do things that are new to them.

There was a special cocktail hour even for Team Macromedia members, User Group managers, and instructors at the Hilton hotel nearby the conference center. I saw lots of pictures being taken, so if you know where I can find them do let me know. A few were snapped of me talking with various people while enjoying a Corona. (Hey, you can't expect me to turn away a free beer. Well, at least not the first one since one is my limit...)

Later on we went to the Macromedia event held at Mardi Gras World. It was interesting to see all the floats, but the event as a whole wasn't too exciting for me. I would have rather they thrown it at the aquarium and let it be a more quiet event, but perhaps that's just me.

Those who read my blog regularly are probably noticing an influx of posts... Well, I wrote the previous post at MAX in a .txt file then forgot to post it much until later. Sorry! I'm also fudging the time stamp on this one and a few more. I know, I know... Cut me a little slack will ya? These conferences are so busy that I just didn't find the time to post sooner. Now, on with Tuesday...

Last night Dan, Joe Marini and I went to a tasty little place in the French Quarter called Bayona with the folks from Lynda.com. The food was incredible, and the company was very nice. It's always fun hanging out with Joe and talking about Dreamweaver's extensibility.

If you get the chance to go to Bayona and you're a fan of garlic like I am, be sure to try the Cream of Garlic Soup. Yummmmm

I just finished my first presenation of Dreamweaver Killer Tips at Macromedia MAX 2004. Aside from a few typos in my slides (the slides should be updated on Macromedia's site in the coming week) and a projection glitch, I think it went over pretty well. Whenever I give a tips session, I make it my goal to teach the audience at least two things they didn't know before they came to my session. From the show of hands it looks like I accomplished my goal.

Unfortunately a problem with the projector got me started about 5 minutes late. It was cutting off the first 300 pixels of my screen so I had to adjust. Instead of doing the Power Point full screen as a slide show, I had to open Power Point and click through the slides along the left. Things weren't as large this way unfortunately but at least it was all showing.

My presentation is available online at Macromedia's site for conference attendees. I noticed a few typos in the slides, and will get those fixed and over to Macromedia so they can upload the changes. The typos weren't anything too major. I'll list them here so that those who don't want to download again (or wait for Macromedia to upload the changes).

On the slide "How to Create collapsing Borders" it should say: table.tabulardata, tabular.tabulardata td, tabular.tabulardata th{ border: 1px solid #000000; border-collapse: collapse; }

There was a funky character encoding going on in the "Resources: Extensions for Dreamweaver" slide that changed a line continuation character into something that looked like an E with a ^ above it. The URL should be: http://www.macromedia.com/exchange/dreamweaver/

Two silly mistakes of which I'm sorry. Hopefully if you were there you learned at least 2 things and that made up for the typos and projector glitches. Thanks to everyone for their patience with the pojection issue.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions here on my blog or shoot me an email (at the address on the last slide). I'm always my worst critic, and know I'll do better the next 3 times. :-)

Thanks!

I'll be presenting Dreamweaver Killer Tips at this year's Macromedia MAX conference being held in New Orleans from November 1-4.

It's best to register early for MAX because you have to choose your schedule in advance and sessions do fill up quickly. Last year I gave the session only three times, and it was full for all but the final presentation (but I think it was not quite filled because it was last session in its track of the last day). So this year, they're having me do the session four times!

I won't be giving the exact same presentation, though a few tips are too cool that I will have to include them even though I did them last year. Not all tips are in the book either, so Killer Tips fanatics can walk away with something new too.

What kind of tips do you want to see? Let me know by leaving a comment. Hurry though, I have deadlines to meet that are coming up really really fast. (Macromedia doesn't mess around; they have all sorts of deadlines for presenters months in advance of the conference. It's very well organized.)

I mean it; let me know what kind of tips you want...ColdFusion, CSS, WorkFlow, etc. ? Click the link* to leave a comment already...c'mon, you know you want to... Do it frenchy!

• If you don't see an Add Comments link, you're reading this from an RSS feed. Here's the URL for commenting on this post:

http://www.dwmommy.com/addcomment.asp?id=503

Friday I gave my final session for the conference at 2:45pm. This time they switched projectors so that I wouldn't have to look behind me to see what I was doing. The session went well, and was the last for the day. Nobody fell asleep ;-). It wasn't a full room like the last two sessions, but it was a pretty good turn out considering it was the last session.

I forgot to mention that for filling out a survey, conference attendees received a nice grey fleece jacket with an embroidered MAX conference logo. It is a comfy jacket, and one that we geeks will wear proudly I'm sure.

At long last, I finally met Sho Kuwomoto, vice president of product development for Dreamweaver. It was truly a pleasure to meet him, as well as Alain Dumesny and Dan Radigan on Thursday. Each of them took the time to talk with me about a few geeky extension related questions I had. I met several other Dreamweaver engineers, and enjoyed speaking with them too. I think Russ Helfland was hiding from me since I know he was there yet I never got to see him. (He's so busted...)

I've only just gotten back home an hour ago and I'm super tired. I guess I'll blog about MAX some more tomorrow...

Dan was asked, "Who do you most admire in your field and why?" at MAX on Thursday. If you want to know his answer, you'll have to go look...

Dan was asked, "Who do you most admire in your field and why?" at MAX on Thursday. If you want to know his answer, you'll have to go look...

Yesterday I gave the Dreamweaver Killer Tips session at 11:15am and again at 2:45pm. The first session went well and the crowd seemed pleased. The only complaint was that I had to set the projector to display smaller in order to show my desktop fully.

The 2:45pm session started 15 minutes late because the AV wouldn't display on screen and my monitor simultaneously. If it showed on both, then the screen was all blurry and there was a ton of banding. So I was a trooper and looked over my shoulder to do the presentation. I should have asked if there was a massage therapist in the house!

On another note, my session was features in the What You're Missing at MAX 2003 article by George Fox.

So here I was blogging live and when I finally hit submit, I lost the wireless connection and my post with it! Rather than give you all the points in our little Time Management presentation again, I'll just give you a few of the best ones:

• Create canned replies
• Learn to use your newsreader: Sorting, Highlighting via message rules, using signatures effectively
• Quality over Quantity: Spend time giving a good quality answer. Let other users answer the frequently asked.
• Provide links to answers: Direct links to the answer in the Google archives (not the home page), Specific Technotes, specific sites.

Here are a couple of the ideas we would like to see MM take some action on:

• Keeping the newsgroup and webforums synched (they're better than they were but there are occasional blips)
• Require webforum users to choose a category before posting. The category will be added to the subject line, and eventually the NNTP users will see this is a standard and adopt it too.

Our target goal is to improve how we manage our time on the newsgroups by January. The plan of action is to spread the word to the TMMs not present via mailing lists and possibly by Breeze conference.

This sort of event definitely gives us new energy and I hoep that we can channel some of that to the TMMs who weren't able to be here.

I was going to post about Flex, but Dan beat me to it. So instead I'll tell you a little about what is going on now.

Currently, we're prepping to do an excercise that will help us establish some goals and some realistic approaches to reaching those goals. This leadership session should prove to help me as a Team Macromedia member, enabling me to deal with the two biggest issues we face:

• Dealing with negative posts in the forums
• Managing time to optimize leadership efforts

So, off I go to our little group...

Just got through the MAX Community College keynote. I'm not real sure how much we're allowed to say about what we heard here today, but I can tell you that it was good stuff. ;-) Macromedia has some interesting plans for the future and a lot of it includes Flash. One of these days I'll finally have to learn some Flash I think... More later when I know what I can and cannot talk about ;-)

I'll be there, will you? If not, I'll be posting highlights from MAX here so stay tuned. Only a few days left so book it now if you haven't already.