7 days till Launch!
Next Thursday, May 15th, is the first day of our Premium Content Articles. At DMXzone we are delighted to announce our regular Thursday authors, Gareth Downes-Powell and Rachel Andrew.
Gareth will write every second Thursday, starting May 15. He’s been a great teacher of the new PHP capabilities of Dreamweaver MX and will be writing a series of advanced PHP tutorials describing how to use Objects and Classes to create reusable code. As a demonstration he’ll show how to create a custom database class, that makes it easy to work with a MySQL database from within your own code, and take your PHP/ MySQL skills to the next level.
Rachel will write every second Thursday, starting from May 22. Her first articles for DMXzone will be on Cascading Style Sheets, and Web Accessibility. Many people are aware that Style Sheets are a cure for cancer and will put an end to war and famine (or so many CSS advocates seem to claim!). However, finding out how to use them in your day to day web development, or how to retrofit your nested-tables site is difficult. So Rachel will take a traditional ‘tabular’ site apart, replacing the old fashioned, bandwidth-guzzling layout with CSS producing an identical (or better!) –looking site that can be used on any internet-enabled device, is compatible with all modern browsers, and downloads much faster - and is accessible for users with a disability.
Then Rachel will teach on the mysterious art of making your sites Accessible. From being regarded as a fringe activity a year ago, now Web Accessibility is asked for on job adverts - and in some circumstances is legally required in the US, Japan and Europe.
Gareth Downes-Powell
Gareth has a range of skills, covering many computer and internet related subjects. He is proficient in many different languages including ASP and PHP, and is responsible for the setup and maintenance of both Windows and Linux servers on a daily basis.
In his daily web development work he uses the complete range of Macromedia software, including Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, Fireworks MX and Director to build a number of websites and applications. Gareth has a close relationship with Macromedia, and as a member of Team Macromedia Dreamweaver, he has worked closely in the development of Dreamweaver, and was a beta tester for Dreamweaver MX.
On a daily basis he provides support for users in the Macromedia forums, answering questions and providing help on a range of different web related subjects. He has also written a number of free and commercial extensions for Dreamweaver MX, to further extend its capabilities using its native JavaScript API’s or C++.
As a web host, Gareth has worked with a range of different servers and operating systems, with the Linux OS as his personal favourite. Most of his development work is done using a combination of Linux, Apache and MySQL and he has written extensively about setting up this type of system, and also running Apache and MySQL under Windows.
Websites
Over the years Gareth has written or contributed to a number of web sites. Almost all of the sites have been dynamic or custom web applications, for a number of clients, and using a range of different languages and technologies.With a passion for learning and using new technology, he is usually an “early adopter”, and enjoys using the latest technologies such as XML.
In his spare time he runs his own Dreamweaver MX and PHP support site at http://www.dreamweavermxsupport.com/, which contains many articles and code examples to help people to make the best of Dreamweaver MX and PHP. The site has become extremely successful, and recently reached its first million hits.
Publications
Gareth’s first book was for glasshaus in 2002, and this uncovered a passion for writing, and more glasshaus books quickly followed.
Dreamweaver MX: Instant Troubleshooter (Not Yet Published) | ISBN:1904151299 |
Practical Intranet Development (March 2003) | ISBN:190415123X |
Dreamweaver MX: Advanced PHP Development (Jan 2003) | ISBN:1904151191 |
Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development (July 2002) | ISBN:1904151116 |
As well as writing books, Gareth has also written a number of articles for magazines and websites, including his own Dreamweaver MX support site, and is soon to be a regular contributor to DMX Zone.
He also writes articles on a voluntary basis for sites such as the Macromedia Dev Net centre, and for inclusion on other third party websites. As well as writing, Gareth has also acted as a Technical Reviewer for a number of publishers, helping to ensure the continuity and accuracy of many books, covering a range of different computer related subjects.
Anagram
If you rearrange the letters of “Gareth Downes-Powell”, you get "Well! red-hot pages now” – a great start to the Dynamic Zones Premium Content articles!
Rachel Andrew
Rachel Andrew is a trained dancer and singer, whose CV lists jobs as diverse as company choreographer for a physical theatre company to chargehand carpenter for “The Mousetrap” at St. Martin’s Theatre in London’s West End. After leaving the theatre when pregnant with her daughter, Rachel started to design sites mainly out of curiosity into how it worked. It didn’t take too long for her to figure out that her skills lay in development as opposed to design and these days she tends to leave the design to designers so she can concentrate on writing code, dismantling computers and installing Linux on anything that stays still long enough.
In her spare time Rachel studies for ‘fun’ with the Open University, does family and local history research and spends time with her 5 year old daughter and her other half, Drew McLellan.
Websites
Rachel has worked in the industry as a webmaster, technical project manager and senior web developer but in September 2001 set up her own company http://www.edgeofmyseat.com , which provides complete web solutions and outsourced development services for design agencies and Internet start-ups who do not have in-house web developers.
Rachel is also a member of the Web Standards project serving on The Dreamweaver Task Force.
Publications
As well as managing and doing much of the development on projects for edgofmyseat.com Rachel is a published author and worked as a co-author on the following titles for glasshaus:
Dynamic Dreamweaver MX (May 2002) |
ISBN:1904151108 |
Fundmental Web Design and development Skills (Dec 2002) | ISBN:1904151175 |
Dreamweaver MX Design Projects (April 2003) | ISBN:1904151272 |
Anagram
Rearranging the letters of “Rachel Andrew” gives you three of Rachels’ greatest loves, “Ranch, Drew, ale”.
To read the full article on the Premium Content addition click here
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