Tom's Fireworks MX Button:
Click this one to listen in on Kevin Kelly's first reaction to my slide viewer in SmackDown V4:
"Smackdown" is your opportunity to take me on- "one-on-one", "mano-a-mano.
The rules are simple. The challenge is issued and one of you accepts. The stakes are a book and the opportunity to tell your classmates you "took me down".
Student to do LA County site in Photoshop. I do the site in both Photoshop and Fireworks MX 2004. Smallest file size- psd vs png wins my first book. Smallest folder size containing slices and HTMl file.
Challenger: Paul De La Merced, First Year.
Results: No joy for Paul. I wiped him out on all counts.
Score : Tom: 1 De laMerced : Let's not go there.
For being a good sport about the whole thing, Paul will be presented with an autographed copy of my new book.
Student to create an Aqua button in Photoshop. Tom to create Aqua button in Fireworks MX 2004.Button must be embedded in a web page and, when clicked, must change to indicate a rollover and then link to a web site. The button should function as a regular button- Up, Over and Down states.
Challenger: Sunil Boodram, First Year.
At Stake: Book: Designing CSS Web Pages by Christopher Scmitt.
Smallest native file size- psd vs. png- and coolest use of the button in a page.
Results: The last we saw of Sunil was his slinking out the door when he realized he couldn't even hope to match my "no code" CSS-based button. Click this link if you want to see Sunil's entry-
Click here to see Sunil's Aqua Button.
Score- Tom: 2 Students: 0
Actually the button produced by Sunil was quite clever and when we last saw him slinking out the door in defeat he was clutching a copy of the book. Great try, Sunil.
Student to create streaming video presentation using the supplied file. The file is a QuickTime Video that is 108.1 mb. in size and contains both audio and video tracks. Smallest video based on file size and smallest web player, based on file size, wins. Student can get alll the help he or she needs. Tom, as usual, is on his own. Video must play from internet through a browser.
Challenger: Michelle D'Souza, First Year.
At Stake: Book:
In order to depress my challenger and force her to acknowledge that it was folly to even consider challenging me, here's:Tom's Kick at the can
Results: Let's just say it wasn't pretty. Michelle grabbed my article on this subject from the MX Developer Journal and got some help from her class mates but it just wasn't enough to compete with a 64K swf.
Michelle was "set up". I was working on an article regarding this very subject for CommunityMX so I used the MediaPlayback Components in Flash MX 2004 Professional. Then again, all is fair in love and SmackDown. Here's the article: Streaming Video
Score: Tom: 3 Students:0
Student to create an internet-based slide show produced using Director. The Slide show to contain the images supplied by Tom. Each image must be able to be panned and zoomed in the show. Smallest .swf file wins. Student can get alll the help he or she needs. Tom, as usual, is on his own.
Challenger: Kevin Kelly, First Year.
At Stake: Fireworks MX Fundamentals, Abigail Rudner. New Riders
Score: Will Kelly be the next notch on my gun or will he open a can of whoop ass on my head?
The "Evilness" of it all: Kevin and I agreed to use exactly the same images and that I would supply them. Considering the fundamental rule of "Smackdown" is: "All is fair in love and Smackdown", I tossed my worthy opponent a "curve". The images, and there were 7 of them, weighed in at over 40 Mb. Each one was a High Resolution .jpg image that had a hefty res of 300 pixels per inch. Totally unacceptable for web use. Being the "pro" that I am this was a minor issue thanks to the batch processing feature of Fireworks MX 2004.