A rant to suggest designers stop using PDF files at web sites
I really wish folks would stop using PDF files as web pages on web sites.
I know that some folks don’t like having to look at a rant, so if you want to see it, you will have to open the next pain pane.
Technorati Tags: Portable Document Format
Which Linux is right for me?
I’m amazed by Open Office, which is the Linux world’s replacement for MS Office. I’m using it on a Windows XP desktop to give it a try.
This has got me thinking - maybe I should try working on a Linux PC. I have a spare PC that I could load up with Linux and give it a test drive. But which Linux?
Is Open Office a replacement for MS Office?
Open Office 2.3 is very different from the version I looked at a few years ago. It could well be ready to take the top spot from MS Office on my desktop.
I am a power user of MS Office. I need to link MS Access database fields to Word documents in order to insert data into form letters and the like. I use spreadsheets to model financial “what if” scenarios using functions that are built in to Excel.
Strange: A Google search reports differently to Windows and Macintosh
This is a brand new blog, and we are still fiddling with the concept and design. So we have believed that no one is yet watching what we are doing. Well, yesterday we discovered that Google is now offering this blog to anyone searching. Deepak uses Windows and I use a Macintosh. We discovered that Google was serving each of us different results. More on this in the next pane.
Setting up NolaPro accounting program on Dreamhost
My first hurdle with setting up NolaPro was that it did not install on my website’s current server. Fortunately, NolaPro has a great installation utility, which clearly identifies the specific things that are preventing its installation, which is great when you are talking to your ISP’s help desk.
The hitch in my case was that NolaPro required some PHP configuration setting changes that my ISP would not allow because I am on a shared hosting plan. I was advised to switch to a dedicated server, but that was too expensive an option. Finding a shared hosting provider that will run NolaPro has been a challenge.
Blog progress: Header Title & Philosophy
It was a sunny day. Instead of working at computers, we went for a high-altitude walk along the Howe Sound Crest Trail in Cypress Provincial Park — about 3,000 feet above West Vancouver, BC. There was a lovely mix of sun and cloud. Although there is no snow at sea-level; up there in the open areas there was a couple of inches of light fluff. We talked about some of the plans that included what might appear in this blog.
When I returned home, I spent a while trying to design a temporary image to replace the header that is provided with this blog template. When we have the time, we’d like to honour the original design and create a photograph; but for now check the thumbnail for today’s work. I use a Macintosh, and I made this with a graphic program called Intaglio that uses the Mac OS capabilities of Quartz and CoreImage.
I also set up the blogging program, ecto to allow me to write articles off-line. This is the first post on this blog prepared on ecto. I had a small problem, and the author provided the answer in his forum within the hour.
Technorati Tags: blog, Blogging, ecto
Using Dreamhost and php
The instructions posted in the wiki for Dreamhost assumes deep knowledge on the part of the user, and they post warnings in red telling user not to proceed if s/he doesn’t know what he is doing as it could destroy the site. The rest of the story about a special file called .htaccess, and the the php.ini file, is in the next pane. [Click the title if you don't see the rest of this article... ]
The first post in a new blog
Please click ABOUT in the header to discover what we will be trying to accomplish with this blog.
For the first few days most of what you will see are adjustments to the format.
Today, Deepak acquired the domain name, UsingIweb.com. Finding one that was easy-to-remember and seemed to suggest the direction of this project was our first work.
While we don’t imagine that this will be a cash cow, we hope that some ads will make us feel good about the time we spend here writing and posting. So we went shopping for a free 3-column theme that we liked. We will keep the left column for the ads. If this theme appeals to you, the information about it and the author are links in the footer (below).
As I write, all that we’ve done is install the theme and adjust what we think will be useful in the right-sidebar. And we are planning to change the banner image in the header.