MediaMacros BlogMy thoughts on Development, Macromedia Products (especially Director), design, and whatever else comes to mind. Friday, January 31, 2003Found some fun goodies online. I was looking to make an external storage server. With fire wire and some low cost IDE bridgeboards it’s easy to make any cheap drive part of a Fire wire chain. SO far I have found a 21 bay server case. J This gives room for the initial drives and room to grow. I figure 4 of the new 250 GB IDE drives and I have a little TERRABYTE of storage. Also with Fire wire you can chain burners. Next replication job that comes in should easily cover the cost of 4-8 CD burners. Maybe even a couple of DVD burners. Also, if you want to slip a PC into your Mac’s extra drive bay check out http://www.littlepc.com. (Saw this on Tech TV) You can slide it into any drive bay, or use it in small areas like Cars, server racks, and more. These little items are very click and very tiny. Imagine an 8 bay tower that holds 8 different test systems. Pretty cool. Also thinking of pitching these to some clients for kiosk installations. Could make for a very cool install, and keep users wondering where we hid the PC. J .: posted by Chuck 8:17 PMWednesday, January 15, 2003Upgrade Griping - Can we stop it? Excitement typically precedes the release of any upgrade, but it is typically followed by more complaining than you could image. The funny thing to me is how much they contradict themselves. Comments like this.... Why does Macromedia want me to pay for a new version with features I don't need like Text to Speech.... MX has probably generated more complaints than most versions, and I just want to add some rebuttals. This is not blind agreement with Macromedia, but I am tired of some of these rants... Where are all the features? What about Flash MX. This is a huge feature to be able to use Flash MX content in Director. When pointing this out the first reaction I get is people saying they don't use it and it is not helpful to them. Well, then how about this.... If you don't need it don't buy it, but stop complaining. Text to speech, that will save you a few hundred $$. (Although Direct Xtras is probably not thrilled about this). Flash Comm server - Ok a sensitive topic, but Streaming video in Director is pretty slick. New UI - Personally this is the best feature of all. I already have made the money back in time saved while programming, Object inspector is absolutely awesome, and numbed lingo lines, drop downs with Xtra's functions, and dockable palettes are all major pluses for faster work flow. (And my 3 monitors don't hurt either.) Basically I wish people would just buy the upgrade for the software they make a lot more money from if they need it, if not, then stop complaining! Just my $.02 .: posted by Chuck 5:50 PMMulti User Server- Is it gone and why? For long time users of Macromedia Director, Multi-user server allowed us to add chat, online games, and more to our arsenal of products. With the release of Director MX, something is missing, and its getting a lot of attention. Macromedia's MUS newsgroup is usually pretty quiet, but one thread has come close to setting a record for usage of this forum. Buy Director MX and you get the MU Xtra for PC, Mac, and Mac OS X. Everything looks fine until you realize, WHERE IS THE SERVER? Yes Macromedia has officially released that they currently don't plan to continue developing MUS. Instead you can use Flash Comm server. While Flash Comm does some cool stuff, its missing a few things. No UDP support, its costs a lot more and what about all our MUS code? Personally I think its great that Macromedia is pushing the comm server but it needs some edits. First MUS users need some kind of cross grade, and 10 users free with Director is almost useless. Also the name is about as annoying to any Director developer as anything you could imagine. FLASH COMM SERVER? Yeah, and tell me that Director was in mind when this was created! Sure it works with Director, but why the name? If you are addicted to MUS there are alternatives. MUS still works if you own a license from Director 8.5, and Tabuleiro (http://xtras.tabuleiro.com) has a Java/Unix version. Tabuleiro's version is really nice as it can use Java files making it very powerful IF you know Java. :) Expect to hear more about this issue soon. A number of developers (myself included) are pushing for petitions to get MUS development either restarted or made open source. What do you think? Use Macromedia's wish list forms to give your feedback, just keep it nice. Demands and threats get us no where. Instead lets really flood them with real world reasons why its in everyone's best interests to keep MUS alive! Just my $.02 .: posted by Chuck 5:33 PMTuesday, January 14, 2003Welcome to the MediaMacros blog. I am starting this as a less formal way to talk, congratulate, rant, or otherwise comment on Director or development in general. This is totally my opinions, and in no way should reflect on the site policies, Macromedia, or anything else outside of my brain. Suggestions and comments always welcome. -Chuck .: posted by Chuck 9:06 PM |
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