Tag Archives: work

Photo: MSU Writing Center crew from way back

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MSU Writing Center crew from 1996

MSU Writing Center crew from 1996

Chey showed me this picture a day or so ago. I think Jill Pennington (shown in the photo, middle row, second from the right) lent it to her. It was weird to see—it is from a completely different time of life. A good time, but very, very far removed from now. It even pre-dates Chey.

I’d try to name all the people, but I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember all the names. Some I see are Mark Hara, Brad Kik, David Mosher, Sharon Thomas, Jill Johnson (now Pennington), Julie Bevins, Aimee Brazil, Laura Julier…and many others who I remember, but whose names escape me. It has been so long.

So, anyone from the MSU Writing Center who remember the names?

Incidentally, this photo was taken in a small enclosed garden inside of Bessey Hall on MSU’s campus. I’m guessing that it was taken in Spring of 1996. Give or take a year.

Teaching DW MX 2004 L2

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Today I taught Dreamweaver MX 2004-Level 2.

It was the second time I’ve done the course, and I don’t feel like it went as well as the first time I did it. The feedback from the students was fine. No major complaints, though I had a suggestion to go through some of the examples more slowly.

There were a couple people in the course that are taking over or need to manage fairly substantial web sites. It makes me realize that these people are walking out of these courses facing really severe demands, and there is only so much we can communicate in a 7 hour course. But there is so much that should be said, beyond the scope of the class.

Good luck to them, I guess. Hopefully they left the course today having learned something that will pay off for them with their projects.

Dreamweaver MX 2004: Less than great for dynamic web applications

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So, I’m supposed to teach a course in Dreamweaver Dynamic Web Applications and one in Dreamweaver/PHP Web Development. In preparation, I’m working on a little project that should help with some internal LCTTP record keeping as well as give me practice using DW to build web apps.

Here’s the trouble: Web applications generally require some custom coding, and with a properly designed database, the SQL queries can prove challenging for DW to handle.

Dreamweaver works by setting up a database connection file, and then you can create what DW calls Recordsets that are based on the database connection. Each Recordset includes the query itself and the code used to retrieve the information. The Recordset then becomes a data resource that can be used to bind specific values to specific elements on a web page.

The trouble is, when you go in to the code to tweak the recordset, DW loses the Recordset. It just disappears from DW’s panel of Application Bindings. This is frustrating.

For a specific example, I was putting together a basic user login screen. I set up the Recordset fine, but I needed to apply an md5 function to a password value that was used in the query. Adding that one line of code to the Recordset causes DW to lose the recordset–which means I then cannot use it for any other data bindings.

My challenge is this: How do I decide to teach this course? Do I discourage people from using DW’s recordsets? That would negate a lot of potential value of using Dreamweaver. Certainly not all value, but it makes much of the GUI pointless. In what other ways is DW a helpful tool for creating dynamic sites? Of course, that is an easily answerable question, but I just need to get my thoughts in order.