A Quick How-To on Installing IIS and .NET under Windows XP Pro

I’ve got a client that needs a site with a simple navigational program to be hosted under IIS with ASP.NET.

So, I put together IIS on a VMWare XP install and here’s the quick how-to:
1. Go to Add/Remove programs
2. Put the WinXP Pro install CD in the machine.
3. Click on Add/Remove Windows Components and click on the check box next to Internet Information Services (IIS)
4. After installation you should be able to open up a browser → Continue reading “A Quick How-To on Installing IIS and .NET under Windows XP Pro”

Dynamically Instantiating New Objects in ActionScript 3.0

Let’s say you are building an application and want to be able to dynamically instantiate new objects in AS 3.0 (Flash CS3)?

Read on for the answer . . .

The syntax for doing this has drastically changed from AS 2.0, however there is still one gotcha that remains the same.

In my case, I’m not only dynamically instantiating class names, but also their reference names.

Here’s how I figured out how to do it:

// Import the getDefinitionByName util Continue reading “Dynamically Instantiating New Objects in ActionScript 3.0”

Web Design Safe Areas for Common Screen Resolutions

When you are designing a website one of the first things that you have to decide is the screen resolution that your audience will be using.  There are still plenty of people out there using 1024×768 or, in some cases, smaller resolutions.

800×600 monitors: 760×410
1024×768 monitors: 960×575

Continue reading “Web Design Safe Areas for Common Screen Resolutions”

Using svn over ssh on Windows to access a Subversion repository

First I downloaded and installed a windows binary of subversion, so that I would have the svn client executables.

I went the extra step and set up ssh keys between the widows client and the server so that I could svn without having to enter a password each time.  To so so:

  • Download plink.exe, pageant.exe, and puttygen.exe from the Putty website.
  • Run puttygen.exe to generate a private and public key.
  • After the key has been generated, click on
Continue reading “Using svn over ssh on Windows to access a Subversion repository”

Using FlashVars with ActionScript 3.0

I’m working on a video component in AS 3.0 that takes the location of a dynamically generated xml file and passes it to a SWF via FlashVars.

3.0 deals with FlashVars and query string variables much differently than 2.0.

Here’s an article that’ll get you going in the right direction.Continue reading “Using FlashVars with ActionScript 3.0”

Creating Dynamic Scrolling Text Boxes with Flash CS3

Here’s a quick how to for creating dynamic scrolling text boxes in flash.  (This also works with Flash 8, Flash MX, and Flash MX 2004.)
Let’s say that you would like to have a text box in your flash movie and that you will be loading arbitrary amounts of text data into it.  You can set it up so that no matter how much text you add to the text instance you will have the scroll bar controls dynamically update → Continue reading “Creating Dynamic Scrolling Text Boxes with Flash CS3”

Integrating Thunderbird and Firefox Under Linux

Here’s a quick how-to on getting Firefox to start new mail messages with Thunderbird and getting Thunderbird to open links in Firefox under Linux.

For Thunderbird:
All you need to do is edit the prefs.js file in your .mozilla-thunderbird/blahblah.defaults/ (or similarly named) directory.  Add the following (specifying your path to Firefox):
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http", "/usr/bin/firefox" );
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https", "/usr/bin/firefox" );

For Firefox:
Edit the prefs.js file in your .mozilla/firefox/blahblah.defaults/ directory.  Add the following:
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.mailto","/usr/bin/thunderbird");

Continue reading “Integrating Thunderbird and Firefox Under Linux”