I recently had to modify an online slide show for a site I was working on and had the pleasure of working with a shareware program called Slide Show Pro.
This software has a Flash based (.swf file) player that interacts with a standard XML file and a folder of images to create a very classy looking player that can be easily modified by the user.
I liked it so much I went and purchased the Flash version yesterday for the reasonable price of $29. It was easy to purchase with my PayPal balance or you can use a credit card.
You install it into Flash and then it is available as a component from within Flash. You just drag an instance of the player onto the stage and size it how you want. There are dozens of options available to customize the player via a simple drop down menu interface and the changes show up live on the stage.
Making a folder of images interact with the player and the XML file is super easy and they have video help and instructions for the whole operation. You don’t even have to re-size the images before making it because the player adjusts all the images to the size of player you set.
I really love this program. Please check out the site and try the demo if you want to play around without committing to the $29 price.
I have already used it today on a site I am designing and it saved me many hours that I would have spent setting up a gallery by hand.
If you try one yourself, give me a link to the player so we can check out your example.
A few weeks ago I bought this software bundle from Macheist where you get 14 shareware apps for $47, all for Mac OS X. The reason I bought it was that cssEdit was part of the bundle and I was just about to plunk down $30 on it alone. So of course I got the bundle and it has many very cool apps, some I will use, some I won’t. They do these bundles a few times a year and part of the money goes to charity.
So cssEdit is part edit css (a Firefox extension that lets you view changes as you change the css) and part inspect element (a Mac OS X Safari plug-in that lets you highlight an element on the page and see the cascade of css from that element).
The cssEdit program does both, plus lets you upload changes to your hmtl or php pages and then refresh within cssEdit and see the changes while still retaining the ability to interact with the css.
It’s quite amazing once you start to figure out all the program options and features. It has made me much more productive when working with css on sites.
The only thing I have not figured out how to do (I think) is to use the “pretend we are using Internet Explorer” feature. Gotta figure that one out, cuz as we all know, if a site is gonna break, it’s most likely gonna break under IE 6 or 7.
Too bad this one is only for Apple computers. I have a few friends that could use this on a PC too. If I figure out that IE option I will post it here.
I just put up 5 eBay auctions tonight.
It has been a few years since I did any auctions on eBay. with school, getting married, finishing my web development degree and moving there just has not been any time.
But I was in Office Depot the other day and I found a new copy of a Mac only program I had used a few years back (I tried out the shareware program) called “Garage Sale“. It let’s you make templates out of your auctions and tracks them all, plus does all sorts of neat stuff I have not even discovered yet, all wrapped in a nice Mac like wrapper. They had it for about 1/2 the online price so I figured why not?
I like it. Now let’s just hope some people actually place bids on my camera stuff I have listed for auction!
