Expression Web Blog

You know when your rushed off your feet and don’t have time for anything? Well I had to make time to tell you that Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web pre-release trial is available for free download. It will retail for $99.99 to begin with, so don’t waste time. I’ll be showing you the template I made with it shortly and a more indepth review.

 I’m in the middle of moving house, so I can’t get everything done as quickly as I would like but it will be worth the wait I promise <smiles>

Expression Web Addons and Video Training DVDs from Left To My Own Devices

I was glad to learn that Alex Tuskinsky a long time FrontPage Addon Developer had decided to revamp his site and addons and even make two new ones. Alex currently teaches web design and development at Bergen Community College, New Jersey and is a master at ASP.Net.

To that end he has produced three DVD Video Tutorials called:

Introduction to ASP.NET programming

These take you through the basics of programming using Visual Basic.NET on the ASP.NET platform. The videos are narrated and you can watch an example on his site. The DVDs are physically shipped.

• Visual Web Developer Express 2005
• SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
• ASP.NET Programming
• Creating and running queries
• Build a complete ASP.NET web site that uses SQL Server as the back-end data
  engine
• ASP.NET Security features

Best of all, if you have questions as you take the course, you can email Alex and get additional assistance as needed. All tools required for the class are completely free and can be downloaded from Microsoft. As well as his revamped FrontPage Addons his two new Expression Web Addons consist of the following:

Media Manager 2007 Expression Web Addon

Using your favourite players you can easily embed video and audio files into your web site. Supported players are:

• Apple QuickTime Player
• Adobe Flash Player
• Microsoft Media Player
• RealOne Player

Not only can Media Manager upload your media content to your web server. Media can
be embedded from either within your web site, a url link or a file from your hard drive.

Embedded Media Fix Expression Web Addon

Fix resolves the Microsoft Internet Explorer issue of activating interactive controls. Learn more information about this problem from the MSDN Library web site and about how Microsoft Internet Explorer handles ActiveX controls, and the impact of this behaviour on accessibility tools and applications hosting the WebBrowser Control.

EMF can either scan all or selected files on your site and replace all <object>, <embed> and <applet> tags with JavaScript code, storing the original HTML as JavaScript, in a separate, external file. This allows the controls to be active by default, without further user intervention.

NOTE: As always, existing customers can download an update completely free of charge. Simply login to your account and download the latest version. The same as many other Developers Alex would love to hear your thoughts on wish list Expression Web Addons, so why not drop him a line?

XZAKT Media have decided to sell of some of their rights and full source code for several of their addins for FrontPage and Expression Web

The addins, as one bundle include :

• SiteSeal (Recently updated for MS Expression)
• Picture Splitter (Recently updated for MS Expression. Currently free but
  very sellable)
• Tables Tool (Recently updated for MS Expression. Currently free but very
  sellable)
• PowerTag+ 2006. (FP. META tagging with other tools)
• Cool Cursors.

So why are XZAKT Media selling these?

Over recent years XZAKT Media has concentrated much of their development down
a Flash and Mulitmedia line of products.  Rather than pull these other very useful products off the market they would rather see them carry on or be further developed by someone who would like to support them and grow their own addin development business.

What would you get?

The buyer will receive all source code (excluding user registration modules common to other products that XZAKT Media will continue with) and full rights to modify and sell if desired under their own label.  XZAKT Media will not persue the development of these products or create competing products for the period of at least 3 years, if at all. 

So how much?

This is currently open to offer.  Five products with full source code and complete selling and modification rights may be worth $500 in one mind or $2500 to another.  All enquiries or bids should be sent to info@xzmedia.com by mid October 2007.