Thursday, March 31st
Prefer the Standard to the Offbeat - or
Suggestions and Cautionary Hints for the Writer
category: writing
The following is taken from cautionary hint no. 21, found in chapter 5 of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, now in its third edition. Chapter 5 is called An Approach to Style and was written by E. B. White, in 1971, for the second edition. Cautionary hint No. 21, Prefer the standard to the offbeat, is something anyone writing about business and technology, particularly on the Internet, should read and think about from time to time.
He said on 03.31.05 @ 05:54 PM CST [entry continued] on printer friendly page
Monday, March 28th
Interim Results - or
Stamping Layers in Photoshop
category: graphics, digital photography and image editing
If you need a merged version of some or all of the layers in an image, say for sharpening, but also want to keep all of the adjustment layers in your master file, then use a layer merge that Photoshop calls Pstamping.
Set all the layers you would like to merge into the stamped layer to visible. Create a new empty layer to be the target layer, hold down the Alt key while choosing Layers, and then choose Merge Visible.
He said on 03.28.05 @ 12:31 PM CST [entry page] is printer friendly
Saturday, March 26th
Blind Copy - or
Keeping Email Addresses Private
category: spamming
I often want to send the same email to multiple people, but I don't want to publicize the email addresses of the group members to the entire group. MS Outlook allows me to keep email addresses private using the Blind Copy command.
To use the Blind Copy command, open a new mail message. In the drop-down View Menu of the new message, there's a line called Bcc field. Click the command to make a check mark appear next to Bcc field. A new line will appear in the header of the message, Bcc. Bcc works just like the copy command in that the user can use the address book to select individual or group message recipients.
When using the Bcc option, the user can use his/her own email address in the To line and blind copy everyone else in the group. The user has to send only one email and members of the group maintain the privacy of their email addresses.
She said on 03.26.05 @ 02:08 PM CST [entry page] is printer friendly
Tuesday, March 22nd
Just Reboot - or
Rebooting is a Problem Resolution Shortcut
category: hardware, software
Computer advice for dummies? No, "just reboot" is sound, timesaving, and in some cases disaster saving advice for anyone. In fact, when something really weird happens, it's the computer savvy user who tends to get into the most trouble and waste the most time. Sophisticated fixes like expanding the size of virtual memory, tweaking the registry, or altering some application's .ini file are seldom necessary and are always dangerous. The dummies, on the other hand, will just give up in despair.
She said on 03.22.05 @ 01:56 PM CST [entry continued] on printer friendly page
Friday, March 18th
Cookies and Milk - or
Web Application Session Tracking
category: database
How do Web-based applications differ from stand-alone applications like your word processor? The basic difference is that Web applications require session tracking in order to duplicate the functionality of your stand-alone applications. What the hell does that mean? Read on.
He said on 03.18.05 @ 04:32 PM CST [entry continued] on printer friendly page
Friday, March 18th
Music Mavens - or
MP3 Blogs
category: trends
MP3 blogs have hit the fashion charts as evidenced by a CNN article
on their gowing popularity. The article of course has to point out that the blogs are breaking copyright law by making music downloads available on the internet. If you see these blogs as purveyors of free music, you're missing the point. They aren't huge catalogues of downloads. These blogs are about a passion for music and a desire to share the passion with others. The MP3 blogs, as brain children of single individuals or small groups, reflect one musical taste, and most blogs reflect some eclectic tastes.
After doing a little homework, I don't feel worthy to create an MP3 blog list, so I'll send you to the best MP3/audio blog list I found, over at MonkeyFilter.
She said on 03.18.05 @ 04:24 PM CST [entry page] is printer friendly
Tuesday, March 15th
Not Just Another Dusty Tome - or
Useful CSS Reference Book
category: CSS
There's a lot of material available on the internet to turn to when you're having problems with CSS. It can even be discouraging to see how much material there is. Would people post so many questions and answers if the stuff usually worked reliably? Probably not.
One much loved resource in my neck of the woods is Cascading Style Sheets: Separating Content from Presentation by Briggs et al. The book is published by Friends of Ed, a publishing imprint with many good titles to its credit. This book's greatest quality is not being too long; it's just shy of 400 pages, a tiny book in the computer reference world. It's written in decent English, and its multiple authors provide clear explanations of many CSS realities and work-arounds.
She said on 03.15.05 @ 01:08 PM CST [entry page] is printer friendly
Monday, March 7th
Megapixel Revolution - or
Differences Between Screen Resolution and Print Resolution
category: digital photography and image editing
Digital cameras are everywhere, and, with six plus megapixel cameras priced for the consumer market, a lot of people out there are learning to edit images and wondering what these huge images are all about. In a nutshell, these huge images are about print detail, the kind of detail that produces a printed image approaching film print quality. The operative idea to consider is print resolution. On screen presentation of images, on the other hand, is concerned with display resolution. Display resolution, size expressed as pixel dimensions, is entirely different than print resolution.
He said on 03.07.05 @ 01:57 PM CST [entry continued] on printer friendly page
Monday, March 7th
Eye Candy - or
Decorate Scrollbars Using IE in XHTML Strict Mode
category: CSS
If you decide you want to decorate your scrollbars (IE only, but that's 90% plus of anybody's traffic), and you're using the strict xhtml dtd so you can syndicate your blog or whatever, you can't use the CSS body tag to reference the scrollbar because it is nonstandard.
He said on 03.07.05 @ 01:37 PM CST [entry continued] on printer friendly page
Thursday, March 3rd
Hanging with Tweak Freaks - or
Technical Term Elucidated
category: people
I first saw this term as a word of the day from techtarget.com.
Once I read the definition and mused for a while, I realized that I spend a lot of time with tweak freaks.
I have a friend who has, at last count, 17 computers in his four-bedroom house. He built most of these himself. He has a few different networks, some of which connect multiple computers in one room and others connect computers in different rooms. None of these computers relate directly to what he does for a living. He simply likes them. He likes shopping online for parts and tweaking to make sure each work station is perfectly suited for some task.
Today's tweak freaks are probably the progeny of people who used to love to tinker with chemistry sets.
She said on 03.03.05 @ 02:58 PM CST [entry page] is printer friendly
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