So Much Time

We spend so much time in life, trying to figure out where we are going, that we often get lost along the way. It seems that life passes us by at the speed of light with so little time in between moments, that the bigger picture eludes us. As a modern day, educated, technical woman, I feel torn between what’s real, what could be, and what I should be. I am not my mother’s daughter. I am a product of her, and her mother, and her mother before her. I am a product of time, secrets and unspoken things. Maybe I’ve waited too long to recognize the things that are really important. Maybe it’s too late, or maybe they are right around the corner, waiting to happen…

Above the Fold – BLASTED!

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/blasting-the-myth-of

Milissa is a veteran of AOL, and has done extensive studies on whether the old adage of designing for above the fold still holds true.

After These Messages…

The tagline is “Communication affects society. Now society can affect communication.”

http://www.afterthesemessages.com/

Design Articles

Some General Design Articles

Some design articles for review:

Review AND Description of Dreamweaver MX:
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/macromedia-dreamweaver-mx/

Consistent Web Design with DW Templates:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/dreamweaver/articles/dw_templates.html

Using CSS in Dreamweaver MX:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20503.html?origin=story

Integrating MX and Contribute 3:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/contribute/articles/contribute_dw_integration.html

Introducing Templates for Contribute:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/contribute/articles/templates_macrochat.html

All About FTP:
http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/02/36/index4a.html

Lynda.com Hex Color Information:
http://www.lynda.com/hex.html

Death of the Websafe Color Palette:
http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/00/37/index2a.html

Dreamweaver Error / Bug

Damn Dreamweaver sometimes. It drives me nuts.

Below are some documented responses to solving this problem. They do not all work, but a combination of them seem to fix the bug at most times.

ERROR:
You have made changes to that is not marked as editable. If you retain your changes, they will be lost the next time you apply a template update to this file. Do you want to retain the changes until then? Yes /No

Error seems to show when you are inside of an editable region, yet it thinks you are outside of it, changing something that is template driven – when in fact, you are just trying to edit text on the page that is editable.

Clicking either Yes or No doesnt seem to matter – it removes the changes.

The error seems erratic, and is not always consistent. It seems more prone on older sites, or sites where code is not pristine.

——
Original source: http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16637

I’ve experienced the same problem not being able to edit the code of my documents based on templates using Dreamweaver 8(Mac). I have tried the various recommended fixes without success. I figured that something specific must have changed, because I’ve used templates successfully in the past with dreamweaver MX 2004. The first thing I tried was to just ‘detach’ the document from the template and was able to edit the code. Ok, that was not really a solution, but at least I was able to make the code modifications I needed. So, back to trying other things.

I then noticed that I was able to make modifications in the ‘design’ view, but not in code view. I could copy elements from another page in design view and paste them into the template-based document, and not get the uneditable region error. I could also make modifications in the preferences panel without inducing the error. But, I still needed to be able to edit the code directly. One other thing I noticed was that when I did edit the code directly in code view, and then induced the error, after cancelling the error, when I tried to select some of the code in code view, there seems to be a bug that is highlighting the wrong portion of the text. So it seems that Dreamweaver might having a problem identifying what portion of the code is within the editable region, and what isn’t. Finally I just started altering anything within Dreamweaver that might be having some effect on how things are displayed in each view. The first thing I tried was to turn off the display of CSS styles: “View > Style Rendering > Display Styles”. I tried editing the code, and voilà, it worked! I turn of CSS styles, edit the code, turn styles back on, and no error.

My conclusion is that Dreamweaver has a bug somewhere relating to the displaying of CSS styles. It’s a little bit of a pain to toggle back and forth. But it works for now. If anyone comes up with any other permanent fixes, I’d appreciate the info.  

——

Original Source: http://gthelp.com/showthread.php?t=24075

More thoughts on why this happens – it seems to possibly be related to using Library items inside of noneditable regions on the template.

One solution might be to remove the library items (ie, just make them part of the template), and see if that alleviates the problem. It’s not a great solution, but might make it more workable in the older sites.

Print Vendors, Etc.

Vendors – Print, Products, and Other

Some vendors I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with in the past.

US NEWSPAPERS
They run a series of ads for a monthly fee in weekly and daily newspapers by region. They offer a 7% agency discount. This is negotiable.

Jim Trammel – jimtrammel@usnewspapers.com
http://www.usnewspapers.com

MODERN POSTCARD
I’ve used them in the past for postcard printing and also for mailing. Nice work, large quantities only. They do a mailing service where they verify all addresses in your list with the USPS and then send the pieces bulk mail. Very efficient.

Jayne at jaynew@MitchellGraphics.com or 800-583-9402.
Modern Postcard  - 1675 Faraday Avenue, Carlsbad, CA 92008

COLAD
They do really nice folder printing – I’ve used them for folders. They only do large quantities, but the quality is very good.

Kate Arundell karundell@colad.com or Joe Shea – jshea@colad.com
The Colad Group  - 801 Exchange St, Buffalo, NY 14210

PHOTO COMMUNICATIONS:
Booth production for all types of booth displays, Hopup printed fabric, podiums and containers for transport/travel of booth. Ron is local in Rockville and will deliver items for free.

Ron – ron@photocommunications.com
Photo Communications  - 5408 Randolph Road, Rockville, MD 20852
Phone: 301-770-6016 or 1-888-770-6016

PRESS EXPRESS:
Small run print jobs; you can upload files for jobs at their website http://www.pressexpress.com/  – they will deliver items for free locally; turn around is a few days to a week or so, depending on the job. They can do small runs on a high end Xerox color printer as well.

Trish Creel – trish@pressexpress.com
Press Express  - 7483 Candlewood Road, Suite C, Hanover, MD 21076-3142
Phone: 410-850-4403

STITCHIN IT
Shirt embroidery, custom printed pieces like mugs and polo shirts. She can do very small runs of the shirts, for reasonable prices. She will match pms colors with her thread. For shirts, there is no downpayment, custom pieces require a deposit. Free local delivery.

Susan Keifline – susan@stitchinit.com
Stitchin It – P.O. Box 678, Greenbelt, MD 20768
301-345-3215 or 240-643-1456

MEGAPRINT
Small printshop in New Hampshire, they do large-scale prints (poster size and bigger) in a relatively quick time for a good price. Quality is not always stellar, and they’ve mixed up the shipping information once or twice for me, but they always quickly resolve it. Just stay on top of them. You can upload files online at their site.

Carolyn Soucy – carolyn@megaprint.com or 800-590-7850
MegaPrint
Shipping address: 1177 NH Rt. 175, Holderness, N.H. 03245
Mailing address: P.O. Box 87, Plymouth, N.H. 03264

POSTUPSTAND
Inexpensive retractable banners from this company. They offer other type of promotional (think conference) stuff. Small operation, and their pricing is very good if you are on a budget.

Tina Angersola – tina@postupstand.com
http://www.postupstand.com/products/posterinmotion.htm

All Hail Mailinglists

Mailing lists are killer ways to network, and troubleshoot, while catching lots of techie banter and occassionally, the petty flame war or two. Here are a few of my faves, which I’ve been an avid subscriber to for years.
DC Web Women http://www.dcwebwomen.org
This list is an extremely high traffic list, that often has 100’s of posts per day, but is a wealth of knowledge and a great resource for technical questions, local networking, RFP requests, and a pool of local DC-Baltimore-Metro designers, programmers and women in the tech industry. The list has approximately 4000+ members.

Notice I said “women” – it’s a list for women only, but nobody can keep you from subscribing and lurking under the guise of a woman Come on guys. It’s just like that time when you dressed up in your mom’s high heels, carried around her poodle, and called everyone dahling…

About the DCWW: http://www.dcwebwomen.org/
About the List: http://www.dcwebwomen.org/join/index.html

DC Pubs Mailing List Subscription
This list is an extremely high traffic list, that focuses mainly on print design, publishers, and printing companies in the industry. They are a great resource for writers, traditional print designers and print companies. Mostly DC metro area people, and a bit of a smaller community than DCWW – and it’s also co-ed ☺ The list has about 2300 members.

About DCPubs: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dcpubs/

Adobe Dreamweaver Mailing List
This list focuses mainly on use of Adobe Dreamweaver products in the industry. This is a good resource for templates, Contribute integration, and other application specific questions. This is a standard Yahoo group – and it’s also co-ed ☺

About ADW: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/adobe-dreamweaver/

CSS Style Mailing List
This list focuses mainly on use of CSS in Design in the industry. This is a standard Yahoo group – and it’s also co-ed ☺

About CSS-Style: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CSS-Style/

Flash Newbie Mailing List
This is a subscription based list for people in the general community who are using Flash and are relatively green experience-wise. It’s a great resource for posting basic design questions, introductory Actionscript questions (ie, how to build a preloader), or general testing (different versions). This list is often moderated by well-known flash gurus (Brandon Davis used to be a regular contributor). It’s based through Figleaf Software in DC.

About FlashNewbie: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashnewbie

Kick@ss Lightbox Feature – all hail Web 2.0

This lightbox feature has been all over the web, and it’s what we in the geeky design / programming world like to call a Web 2.0 feature. Dont ask me what that means. It’s super secret.

It’s basically all code. It can also be done in Flash. See the slimbox page here:

http://www.digitalia.be/software/slimbox

CSS – the bane of my existence

CSS has become the bane of my existence, not from a typography standpoint (gasp!) but from a layout perspective. I know tableless layouts are better, more user friendly, more accessible via search engines, yadda yadda. But Jesus. It drives me crazy.

So, here are some helpful sites, tutorials, etc, to guide me you along the way. Because really, it’s all about the kids…

CSS template gallery

This site collects many css formatted page templates, developed and
distributed by different designers. Our aim is to provide an easy to
use, comprehensive repository where people can find what they need.
These tools help both experienced professionals, who want to speed up
their developing process by using tested templates, and css newbies.
Css templates provide a fully commented page layout, which turns out
to be a great learning tool.

http://tools.i-use.it/index.aspx

Also, some other tight references:

http://www.sitepoint.com/subcat/css

http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

http://www.positioniseverything.net/ (browser bugs)

You might also find a CSS positioning tutorial helpful, such as
http://www.autisticcuckoo.net/archive.php?id=2004/12/07/relatively-absolute

Gradient Generator

Choose 2 colors and enter them in the start/end boxes, then click GO, to see a stepped gradient of color giving them various hex numbers. http://www.leavethatthingalone.com/examples/hexcolors/index.cfm