Category: Technology

Dreamweaver Crashes on Tiger when expanding files panel

Posted on February 11, 2006 by ellen

Since installing Dreamweaver 8, expanding the files panel to show both remote and local sites caused freezes. The application would become unresponsive, and a few seconds later “not responding” would show up by Dreamweaver’s title

Safari shows blank pages

Posted on December 25, 2005 by ellen

For a short time now, Safari has been showing blank pages on certain sites, most notably my OWN sites. This was extremely irritating. I am not certain if it is related to the recent security

Setting Finder to show invisible items in Tiger

Posted on December 4, 2005 by ellen

There was an application called “TinkerTool” that made it easy to toggle the view of invisible items in Panther (10.3.x) but since Tiger came out, I have had trouble finding one that does the same

Can’t use 2 separate mail clients with Gmail account

Posted on December 1, 2005 by ellen

I set up mail.app to get my gmail at home, and it worked great. Then used the same settings at work – no luck! I kept getting “connection timed out on port 110”. Thanks to

My Gallery on Deviantart.com

Posted on November 12, 2005 by ellen

My artwork is here on DeviantArt.com. Take a look, leave a comment, leave links to your own galleries – I’d love to see them.

How to publish Powerpoint files for the web

Posted on October 10, 2005 by ellen

This procedure which will leave you with an original PowerPoint-format (to use in lectures) document, and a web-enabled version:

Create a standard powerpoint presentation. Save it as ProjectName.ppt in the folder you are using for the project. Make sure every slide has a Title. These titles will be used as the titles of the buttons on the left navigation column in your web page. It helps to use a powerpoint template so that you are definitely creating a title with each new slide.
When you are done editing, and ready to make a web version of the presentation, select Save as Webpage from the File menu.
The Save As dialog comes up.
Navigate to your project folder in the file list area. Double-click on the folder so that it opens and you are working inside it.
Click the CreateNewFolder icon just to the right of the Save in: box. (the icon looks like a folder with a spark on it.)
A New Folder dialog will pop up. Type learningmodule in the Name box.
Hit OK. You will now be “inside” the learningmodule folder.

Issues with Shared Excel and Word files on Novell servers

Posted on September 5, 2005 by ellen

I’ve been using a shared Novell drive to collaborate with a team. We use Excel and Word files, and I’ve attempted to make them “shareable”. Quite often the file will work for a while, then “lose” its shareable attribute.

To make an excel file shareable on a Novell server, you have to do two things.

Open the file, select “Tools: Shared Workbook”. Check “Allow changes by more than one user at the same time.”

Adding Narration to Powerpoint

Posted on September 5, 2005 by ellen

Preparation:

You will need to purchase a microphone or a headset Microphone. I recommend the Plantronics USB headset mics, LISTED HERE. I use the Plantronics DSP 400, but the less expensive ones work well also.
Find a quiet room, preferably one with no air-conditioning or heating blower hum, and no other ambient noises. If you work in an older building this can be a challenge, enough so you may want to consider doing the recording elsewhere.
Prepare a script for your narration. Run through it once or twice, to eliminate “umms” and “errr’s” in your rendition.
Plug in the microphone, and if you are using Windows, you will also need to install the software that comes with it, and restart. On a Mac, simply plug in the mic, then select System Preferences from the Apple menu or the Dock, select
If you haven’t already, create your Powerpoint slides.

Java console on Mac

Posted on August 17, 2005 by ellen

It’s not obvious when using Safari on the Mac how to get the Java console to start up. Go to Applications/Utilities/Java/Java 1.x/x Plugin Settings and turn it on there. Then it will show up whenever

Google vs. AskJeeves

Posted on July 24, 2005 by ellen

A 1-round search battle

I recently read that AskJeeves (now “ask.com”) would be making some changes to try to reclaim some market share from Google. I hadn’t used that site in a while, so I decided to test it against Google. I came up with one of those questions that rattle around in my head:

How do they train oil tanker captains?

Ask.com Results (click to enlarge)