andrewlucking.com

After having rolled the hull I was a little uncertain as to how difficult it would be to install the centerboard box. In the end though I think it worked out quite well.

In order to hold the box in position while it was fibreglassed into the hull I slapped together a temporary supporting frame made of 2×4 remains from the original basket mold. It took a number of test fits to get the various members supporting the centerboard box properly adjusted and I was able to stand on the inverted hull and simply lower the box onto my frame from above. Once the box was glued in place I dismantled the frame and applied fibregass tape to all the seams.

I was updating an Authorware project recently and became frustrated by the inability to zoom in on areas of the presentation window. After struggling to find a comfortable work flow with a couple of the various magnifier applications for windows I remembered an experimental Authorware command that I’d built some time ago. Upon digging it out and making a small update to make it a bit more useable I can report that it seems to meet the need adequately.

I’ve posted the magnifier command for Authorware here for download. It supports Authorware 7.01+ , integrates into the IDE somewhat like a palette and has a couple of handy features:
- Double click the palette’s titlebar area to toggle magnification on/off.
-When the ‘Tools’ palette is available double click the ‘Magnify’ palette’s display region to dock next to the ‘Tools’ palette.

To install extract the zip to the Authorware Commands directory. Launch the command from the Authorware Commands menu.

Mark Tomlinson of AuthorwareXtras fame has filled a void by launching the Flash eLearning List, “A [mailing] list to discuss creating eLearning using Flash”.

Among the numerous Flash anniversary posts of the past few days I especially enjoyed reading John Dowdell’s reminiscence on the first 10 years of Flash.

One of the anecdotes he shares described Flex as the fulfillment of a quest for an authoring environment that uses XML to natively describe multimedia “experiences” and once again reminded me of what I’m starting to think of as “Authorware’s past glories”. When Authorware 7 was released in 2003 it included functionality that allows one to export (and import) an XML description of Authorware files. (Sadly, it remains just too incomplete to fulfill it’s true potential). Nevertheless, while JD does a good job of connecting the XML dots to Flex it bears noting that Authorware was also a dot on that path.

Authorware, a dot in so many ways.

It would appear that an annoying RMD issue has been introduced in some of the recent versions of both Firefox and Thunderbird. Ironically, it doesn’t seem to affect Bon Echo (which I’ve been using almost exclusively since first giving it a go). Thanks to some eagle eyed RMD users for pointing it out in the comments section and via email.

What’s up?:
The Domain Name Mismatch dialog is very quickly appearing when a mismatch is “remembered”. Actually, it seems to be appearing twice:

(click for a larger image)

I was pretty suprised to get that screengrab. (I put it down to the fact that I’d just had a coffee so my reflexes were a-buzzin’).

Hey, I’ve seen that!:
Some quick testing seems to indicate that it began with version 1.5.0.5 of both Firefox and Thunderbird. Thunderbird 2 alpha 1 is also affected while strangely enough Firefox Alpha 1 (Bon Echo) isn’t.

So… What’s up, doc?:
To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. The way RMD does it’s business is by overlaying the domain name mismatch dialog window and automatically okaying the mismatch for those mismatches it’s been convinced to “remember”. The extension adds this logic to the ‘onload‘ event for the dialog. For whatever reason, it seems that (atleast) the dialog’s chrome is being displayed prior to RMD kicking in.

Hey Andrew, rant already:
Look, RMD is nearly a year old. Plus it’s a ummm…, “workaround“. I think the large group of folks who are using RMD have demonstrated that we can use such functionality without hurting ourselves, so perhaps those who feel they’re protecting we ‘mortals’ could think about helping us as well. If Scott MacGregor and his collaborators are worried about treading on my RMD toes they needn’t be. Crickey, if Scott can help a hack like me hook up nsIBadCertListener in Thunderbird then maybe we don’t need his extension writers ;-) Fat chance, I’ll probably end up trying to workaround this one too.

Last month Sys-Con Media posted an interesting interview (brace yourself before clicking - ads on that page tend to get in your face) with Adobe General Manager David Mendels. One of the first points David makes addresses a question about “hiccups” during the Adobe acquisition of Macromedia. He does a great job of dismissing the suggestion, mentioning that any hiccups are “internal”. I have no doubt this may be the case from a Flash or Flex perspective however I think that a few Macromedia products and groups actually have stumbled under Adobe’s guidance.

While eLearning wasn’t exactly a primary focus at Macromedia they did have a few of the leading tools for developing learning content (Captivate, Authorware, Director…), people (Tom King) and even an “enterprise solution” (Breeze). Add Flash and Dreamweaver to the mix and they had a reasonable offering for the broad spectrum that is “eLearning”. While some of the tools are becoming long in the tooth and had languished, (to a degree), with small dev teams and little marketing there was also strong community involvement from MM folks. In many cases this was the product developers themselves out in forums and on mailing lists supporting users. Unfortunately, it would seem that has changed under Adobe’s watch. The fact that Adobe recently felt the need to release a set of FAQ documents stating a degree of commitment to the continued development of these tools really makes it apparent. What can be said about the state of your community relations if one the most frequently asked questions about a product is ‘what’s going on’ ?

To be fair to David the interview was focused on his Enterprise and Developer group and most specifically Flex and large scale application development. However, it is worth pointing out that as these large business applications are built, as rich and collaborative as they are, the organizations that own them will be looking for ways to get employees up to speed on ways to use them effectively. This will become even more true as tools like Apollo come about and even further change the way people do their jobs.

As a developer I find it kind of ironic that I’m thinking about this so much. While the development I do is training related, I really consider myself more of a developer who happens to develop training rather than a trainer who develops. Because of that however, I tend to subscribe to mailing lists and read forums / newsgroups where some of the true eLearning thinkers are and from my perspective a good number are becoming increasingly frustrated with Adobe’s apparent neglect of the tools and communities they use.

Now, the good thing about hiccups is that there are a number of simple “cures“…