We're getting lots of comments to our "Will you upgrade?" poll (scroll down) and on our MX 2004 forum. As usual, the forum makes it look all doom and gloom - but still a largest group of DMXzone members voting in the poll say they "can't wait to upgrade".
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Since Eolas won $521million in a lawsuit against Microsoft last month, Microsoft, Macromedia and the W3C have been in conclave on how to work around the patent dispute. Eolas seem to own the patent on a browser's ability to automatically launch and display multimedia programs with plug-ins - eg, click and see a Flash movie/ hear an MP3 / watch a quick-time video.
One way round the monumentally moronic ruling is for broswer manufacturers to insert dialogue boxes ("Are you sure you want to see the movie you clicked to watch, yes or no?") between broswer and plug-in. Another way is to move the data to the Web page itself, rather than pulling it from an external source - requiring a huge amount of work on the part of the developer. That's you.
This issue potentially affects every modern browser, although only Microsoft has been sued. Microsoft is appealing. (More on ZDNet.) It's pretty obvious that Eolas are very petty: their website points out "A final note: Eolas also 'invented' (designed, actually) the now-ubiquitous stylized "e" logo. IBM purchased rights to use it from us in 1997." Well, aren't they clever?
This is an example of a stupid lawsuit and a ridiculous patent, although U.S. patent officers have a history of approving idiotic things like this - for example, Amazon patenting "one-click" e-commerce.
Maybe if enough people write to Eolas and ask them to stop pursuing this claim, they'll listen. Here's a mail that I sent them today; I'll post any response I get from them.
Read MoreEnter a URL in the Analyser to calculate page size, composition, and download time. The script calculates the size of individual elements and finds the total for each type of web page component. Based on these page characteristics the script then offers advice on how to improve page display time.
This is part of the site for the book Speed Up your Site:Web Site Optimisation, which we will be reviewing in the near future.
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ReUSEIT is, to borrow a quote from the W3Remix contest, "a design challenge for coders, and a coding challenge for designers." Here’s the idea: create a redesign of Jakob Nielsen's useit.com. Design a usable, intuitive layout and navigation, organize the content with usability in mind, and create a work of art which still reflects the importance and influence of Nielsen's work.
Many of you who have purchased an extension from DMXzone have a hard time finding the support forums for each extension.
We get this question asked frequently and we as a support team found it necessary to give you an overview where to go. Here is a list with all the support forums. We hope you find it helpful.
Tip from Martha: Look through the support forum and faq's first to see if your problem or issue has been answered before.
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After losing a ludicrous law suit, Microsoft have told the W3C that they're going to make some changes to Internet Explorer.
"In the near term, Microsoft has indicated to W3C that they will very soon be making changes to its Internet Explorer browser software in response to this ruling," a statement issued by Steven R Bratt, W3C's chief operating officer, said.
"These changes may affect a large number of existing Web pages," the statement continued. "W3C does not yet have any indication of what action, if any, other vendors of Web tools might take."
The Register reports, "According to W3C, members of the consortium met in California on 19 August to discuss the consequences of the ruling, which effectively said that Microsoft had used Eolas-patented technology such as plug-ins, applets and scriptlets in Internet Explorer.
Were the offending portions of the software to be removed, it would significantly alter the way IE works and countless Web sites would be forced to change their own to accommodate changes in IE."
(Regular readers will know that we are never slow to point the finger of blame at Microsoft for the latest virus attacks, for example - but in this case, MS are completely the innocent party. A judge upheld a ridiculous patent claim - almost as stupid as when British Telecom tried to claim ownership of Hyperlinks.)
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We’re delighted to welcome Brad Halstead as a Premium Tutorial author today. Brad is considered by New Riders publishing to be their stellar technical editor on matters Dreamweaver, and has also co-written “Inside Dreamweaver MX”, “Dreamweaver MX Magic”, and “Dreamweaver MX Templates” (with Murray Summers, with whom he maintains the web site http://www.dreamweavermx-templates.com/)
Brad will be writing on Dreamweaver Templates every second Tuesday. The tutorial plan (which is subject to change after feedback) is:
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Ian Lloyd of Accessify.com is interviewed by Dave Shea on mezzoblue. Worth a read. And for those who think that real companies can't waste time worrying about Web Accessibility, Ian works for a high-street bank; you can't get more conservative than those. Read More 
CNN.com: A virus-like infection that was the subject of urgent U.S. government and industry warnings spread rapidly Monday across the Internet, causing computers to mysteriously restart and coordinating an electronic attack against Microsoft Corp.
Infected computers were programmed to automatically launch an attack on a Web site operated by Microsoft on Saturday. The site, windowsupdate.com, is used to deliver repairing software patches to Microsoft customers to prevent against these types of infections.
Read more at CNN.com. Read the DMXzone hack report.
07.55 GMT August 12 ZDnet reports: "The fast-spreading MSBlast worm seems to be crashing as many Windows computers as it's infecting, demonstrating to administrators that they need to patch their systems, security experts said on Monday. By midafternoon on Monday, the worm had infected at least 7,000 computers in a matter of hours, according to data provided by security company Symantec. Still, security experts stressed that the program had several flaws that had slowed its spread."
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