Version control (also known as source code management or source control) is a formal system by which changes to a set of documents are tracked and managed. Used in software and web development, law, and business, version control systems provide a historical audit trail of when changes were made, who made them, and what was changed. Version control systems make it easier for multiple people to modify the same documents without stepping on each other's toes. And even if you're working by yourself, version control provides an easy way to back up and have multiple versions of your documents.
In this video, we will explore what version control is and how to use it when building a website in Dreamweaver CS4:
There's been a lot in the news lately about Microsoft and security vulnerabilities. A vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 has been linked to the recent attacks on Google and Adobe, and now a new vulnerability has been uncovered that affects all 32-bit versions of Windows from Windows 3.11 all the way up to Windows 7. The vulnerability is an attack on the Virtual DOS Machine introduced into Windows Operating Systems in 1993 to run 16-bit applications. The vulnerability was discovered by a member of Google's security team, Tavis Ormandy.
While a patch has not yet been issued by Microsoft, Windows users have a couple of options to seal off this security hole. Administrators of machines running Windows 2003 and newer can edit the Group Policy of a machine to disallow use of 16-bit applications.
To do this, navigate to the Group Policy Editor in the Administrative Tools.
Once there, navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Application Compatibility.
You should see an option to "Prevent access to 16-bit applications." This option should be set to True to block access to the Virtual DOS Machine, preventing the attack.
Users using a version of Windows prior to Windows 2003 (i.e. Windows XP) can create a new registry key to close off the vulnerability.
To get to the registry editor, from the Start Menu, select Run... and type regedit and press enter.
Navigate to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\AppCompat
Create a new DWORD named VDMDisallowed
Set the value of the new DWORD to 1.
Now Windows versions prior to Windows 2003 simply won't allow the use of the Virtual DOS Machine.
If you would like to read more about this exploit including exploit code, you can check out this Neohapsis Archive Document.
In Microsoft Access, when a main form and subform are created based on one-to-many relationships, you can display aggregate information in the main form; for example, a total COUNT of customer records for each sales person or a SUM total of sales amounts that have been displayed in a subform.
As you scroll through this main form, many customers may be associated with each sales representative:
Welcome to another edition of The Green Bar of Go Cascade Server column. In this column, I'm going to discuss briefly some of the new features coming in the latest version of Cascade Server, Cascade Server 6.4. If you're involved with WCMS at IU, you've been using Cascade Server 5.7.5, so as you can imagine, the switch to 6.4 will be pretty substantial.
For a list of the biggest features and a link to the Hannon Hill webinar demonstrating the features, continue reading after the jump.
One of the effects used infrequently back in the day was the split screen. Using the split screen, filmmakers could make it appear as if the same actor was on screen twice (see "The Parent Trap"). This required the camera to stay perfectly stationary and the lighting to be identical. Most of the time, this effect was used as a gimmick, and as time has gone on, filmmakers have gotten a lot more sophisticated effects, including computer controlled cameras that can be used to make much more complex effects that accomplish the same goal(the same actor on screen multiple times), but also allows the camera to move, and actors to move in front of each other and even interact with each other.
But since I don't have a fancy computer controlled camera, I decided to do this old school. It's actually pretty simple in After Effects. Check out the final result:
Screenshot of website created in Dreamweaver CS4, showing main navigation drop-down menus
Specifically, we use Show-Hide Elements to control when, and under what conditions, the navigation sub-menu should appear and disappear. Show-Hide Elements is a fast and easy way to create drop-down menu items, but it can also be used, with a slight adaptation, to make pieces of content in the main part of a page appear and disappear based on the user's behavior. Read on to find out more...
In our last After Effects training video, we felt pretty cool about using Corner Pin to get a piece of video to appear on a monitor within our video.
Then we hit play...
And we quickly discovered that though corner pin is an incredibly useful effect, once your video starts moving, it loses it's utility very quickly.
This is where motion tracking comes in. We have a couple of options for motion tracking in CS4. After Effects has a built-in motion tracker, which we can access through the "Tracker" panel, and there is a helper application called "Mocha for After Effects" that is included in the Production Premium install (assuming you didn't de-select it). We'll explore both in this post.
With the power of Mocha motion tracking, you can accomplish results like this (low quality video):
Learn how to accomplish the results in the above video after the break.
As a web designer, developer, or administrator, are you constantly managing simple requests to change page content for nontechnical team members ? If so, you may find Adobe InContext Editing useful. InContext Editing gives clients and nontechnical team members the ability to update website content without having to learn any HTML. Potentially, this could save you a lot of time in updating web pages, providing time-consuming training, or recovering from user mistakes.
InContext Editing is an online service that designers may use to allow content editors and publishers to update website content directly through their browsers — without compromising design integrity. Your team members won't need to learn HTML, nor even install extra software. And for now, it is free.
In After Effects, it is often useful to place an image or video into another video project. Sometimes this works like the Picture-in-Picture function on some televisions, where the video appears in the corner of the screen, but other times, you might want to make the video or image appear on a screen within the original video, or perhaps on a wall.
Our great enemy in this second case is perspective. If you aren't careful, the new video will appear out of place in the background video, ruining the effect. Coming to the rescue is the Corner Pin effect. The Corner Pin effect allows us to control each corner of the image or video individually, which lets us "pin" the foreground videos corners to any four points we want in the background video. The best part about it is it's extremely easy to use.
In the training video below, we'll explore how to attach a new video to two blank monitors in our background video. It requires a small amount of After Effects knowledge to follow along, which you can acquire by attending IT Training & Education's After Effects workshop, or by browsing the Lynda training library.
At the end of the video, we'll notice a small problem. As our background video zooms and pans, the foreground video stays in its original position. That's a problem that can only be fixed by motion tracking. Check back next week, and I'll post another video that describes how to use motion tracking to allow your foreground video to follow the motion of the camera.
As a web designer, developer, or administrator, are you constantly managing simple requests to change page content for nontechnical team members ? If so, you may find Adobe InContext Editing useful. InContext Editing gives clients and nontechnical team members the ability to update website content without having to learn any HTML. Potentially, this could save you a lot of time in updating web pages, providing time-consuming training, or recovering from user mistakes.
