I created a class focusing on Flash ActionScript 3.0 called Flash ActionScript 3.0 Basics for Designers at LVSOnline.com. This class is for existing Flash designers who want to incorporate user interactivity in their Flash web site or Flash developers who have not made the switch from earlier versions of ActionScript.
Currently ActionScript 3.0 is the internal programming language of Flash, Flex and Adobe AIR. This object oriented language is more adherent to the ECMA-262 standard which many other languages (i.e. JavaScript) follow.
Students will learn the basics of the core language of ActionScript 3.0, how it is used within the timeline, interact with objects (movieclips) on the stage and library, develop simple animations with just ActionScript and understand the importance and how to create preloaders for your movies.
The class is only $30 and students need either Adobe Flash CS4 or CS3.
Topics covered:
Week 1: Trace statement, comments, variables, loops, functions and object basics.
Week 2: Manipulating movie clip properties
Week 3: Events: overview, targeting, propagating, timeline control methods
Week 4: More events: frame and keyboard events; timer events
Week 5: Loading external assets (images and movies); Display list explained
Week 6: Working with preloaders and sound
To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).
When Does Class Start?
The class runs five times a year for six weeks in January, March, May, August and October. To learn more view the course description page and contact me to find out the exact date on when you can register
I created a class focusing on T-SQL class called Understanding T-SQL using Microsoft SQL Server at LVSOnline.com. This class is for web administrators, web developers, analysts, or anybody else wanting to learn how to write simple to complex queries to retrieve and manipulate data from a SQL Server database.
SQL stands for Structured Query Language. SQL is a standard language that was designed to query and manage data in relational database management systems (RDBMS). An RDBMS is a database management system that is used today in every type of desktop or web-based application. Microsoft provides T-SQL (Transact SQL) as a dialect of, or extension to, SQL in Microsoft SQL Server, its RDBMS
Microsoft SQL Server is one of the most popular RDBMS used today and a solid understanding of T-SQL is critical if you want to have a successful career in Microsoft application development (desktop or web).
The class is only $30 and there are no other materials or software needed to purchase.
Topics covered:
Week 1: Setting up SQL Server 2008 Express & Management Studio
Week 2: SELECT statements; Predicates and Operators, Case Expressions
Week 3: Joins: Cross, Outer and Inner
Week 4: Subqueries
Week 5: Data Modification: Inserting, Updating, Deleting and Merging
Week 6: Programmable Objects: Variables, Routines and Functions
To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).
When Does Class Start?
The class runs five times a year for six weeks in January, March, May, August and October. To learn more view the course description page and contact me to find out the exact date on when you can register
I created a class focusing on jQuery class called jQuery: Enhancing Web Development at LVSOnline.com. This class is geared for web designers to help and learnand use jQuery to enhance existing web pages as well as web developers to teach them how to use a very popular and powerful JavaScript library.
If you’ve spent any time at all trying to add dynamic functionality to your pages, you’ve found that you’re constantly following a pattern of selecting an element or group of elements and operating upon those elements in some fashion. You could be hiding or revealing the elements, adding a CSS class to them, animating them, or modifying their attributes.
Using raw JavaScript can result in dozens of lines of code for each of these tasks. The creators of jQuery specifically created the library to make common tasks trivial.
The class will be teaching not only how to use the many functions and properties of API, but practical examples you can use right away.
The class is only $30 and there are no other materials or software needed to purchase.
Topics covered:
Week 1: jQuery Overview; using $(), how selectors work
Week 2: Using filters, traversing the document, statement chaining
Week 3: Manipulating page content, working with CSS content
Week 4: Events: bind() and unbind(), helper functions, event object
Week 5: UI Library: Widgets, Interaction and Effects
Week 6: jQuery Project: Adding jQuery to an existing website
To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).
When Does Class Start?
The class runs five times a year for six weeks in January, March, May, August and October. To learn more view the course description page and contact me to find out the exact date on when you can register.
I created an AJAX ASP.NET class called AJAX Web Development with ASP.NET at LVSOnline.com. This fourth ASP.NET class in the series focuses on teaching students how the Ajax can be integrated within the ASP.NET framework.
Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) isn’t a technology but rather a grouping of technologies. Ajax uses a communication technology (typically SOAP and XML) to send and receive an asynchronous request/response to the server, and then leverages presentation technologies (JavaScript, DOM, HTML, and CSS) to process the response.
Ajax lets you execute a server-side method through a JavaScript call, without requiring a browser refresh.
The class is only $30 and there are no other materials or software needed to purchase.
Topics covered:
Week 1: Ajax overview; partial rendering; Ajax Extension controls; Script Manager
Week 2: Update Panel; Handing client errors; Update Progress
Week 3: AJAX Control Toolkit
Week 4: JavaScript libraries: jQuery
Week 5: Timer, Web Services and JSON Overview
Week 6: AJAX ASP.NET Controls: Telerik
To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).
When Does Class Start?
The class runs five times a year for six weeks in January, March, May, August and October. To learn more view the course description page and contact me to find out the exact date on when you can register.
Creating an object-oriented AJAX engine
Once there is an understanding of the AJAX engine the focus can be on the actual response and page display; this is where the real power lies. Since rewriting the engine for each project is tedious and time consuming, an object-oriented solution can be very useful. This kind of engine can be reused for all of your AJAX projects and scaled to meet different projects’ needs.
An object-oriented AJAX engine will also help you separate your interface code from your request data, which will enable you to reuse this engine in multiple projects. The AJAX engine is not difficult to construct once you understand the syntax for creating custom JavaScript objects. The first step is to create a constructor function, which will be the access point to the object.
function Ajax() {
this.toString = function() {return "Ajax"; }
} read more…
Even with all the information on the web today, it can be difficult to find current information on JavaScript sometimes. There are a few good web magazines out there, but none truly focus solely on JavaScript related topics. I recently found an online magazine called JsMag.
The magazine has some great information on topics such as Ajax, code optimization, mashups, jQuery, web application testing, event handling, EXT JS, OOP, and much more. Its unique content, focusing on mainly JavaScript related topics, keeps me continously learning new things in the JavaScript world. Talented developers write different articles each month so content is always new and comes from different perspectives.
The monthly issues (.pdf) are only $4.99 or you can purchase a years subscription as well. It definitely is worth the small investment if you are a JavaScript developer or interested in learning more intermediate to advanced JavaScript topics.
AJAX, an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a group of technologies combines to accomplish powerful new forms of the web interactions. It’s composed of JavaScript, the XMLHTTPRequest object and XML, JSON, (X)HTML or even plain text.
Asynchronous means that you can make an HTTP request to a server and continue to process other data while waiting for the server’s response. For example, you can make requests to a server-side script to retrieve data from a database as XML, send data to a server-side script to be stored in a database or simple load a static XML file to populate pages of your web site without ever refreshing the page.
Behind the scenes data transfers are accomplished through the XMLHTTPRequest object, which is the heart of the AJAX engine, as it’s used to exchange data asynchronously with a server-side language, XML or other text format. It combines with the DOM (Document Object Model) to display the AJAX response data as (X)HTML and CSS.
The DOM is a language-independent interface that makes common web page elements accessible through scripting languages. This is extremely useful when working with dynamic data, such as an AJAX response, because it can be parsed by JavsScript and added to page elements on the fly without a browser refresh.
read more…
I created a third ASP.NET online class called Database Web Development with ASP.NET at LVS Online.com.
This 6-week class will focus on how you can interact with databases such as SQL Server, MySQL and Microsoft Access using ASP.NET and C#. I start with the very basics on explaining how to use data source controls and objects in ADO.NET (Connection, Command, DataReader and DataSet) to retrieve, update and delete records in a database.
The great thing about ASP.NET is that you can work with almost any data source and are not limited to a Microsoft based technology. I provide a sample database in three separate versions (SQL Server, MySQL and Microsoft Access) and explain how SQL (Structure Query Language) statements are used to interact with your data.
The class is only $30 and there are no other materials or software needed.
Topics Covered:
Week 1: Database Overview (SQL Server, MySQL, Microsoft Access)
Week 2: Using SqlDataSource; SELECT statement and filtering data
Week 3: ADO.NET Review; Connection, Command and DataReader objects
Week 4: Updating and Inserting data (using data controls and ADO.NET objects)
Week 5: Databinding Techniques with GridView and DetailsView controls
Week 6: Understanding Stored Procedures (SQL Server and MySQL)
Extra: Concurrency issues and Transaction benefits
To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).
When Does Class Start?
The class runs five times a year for six weeks in January, March, May, August and October. To learn more view the course description page and contact me to find out the exact date on when you can register.
Steve Souders is the author of High Performance Web Sites and the creator of YSlow, the Firebug extension gave a presentation at SXSW09 about how to speed up website performance.
Steve, now working at Google, discussed the next set of best practices he’s developed, including advanced techniques for loading JavaScript, where not to place inline scripts, and the importance of using multiple domains to improve web performance.
Here are his presentation notes (.pdf) as well.
