Stylehack

[editor's note: I teach the XHTML Intermediate class at LVS, called "Build Your Website II", as well as the Flash courses. You'll also run into me in other coding or programming classes from time to time as I fill in for instructors who are out.]

12+ NEW Classes, over 100 Classes in All!

With 12 new classes being offered this session, LVS has over 100 classes on its roster. From Instructor-led to Self-study, LVS covers a wide range of subjects. And don’t forget the FREE Windows XP and Vista classes!

To check out the courses you would like to take, a complete list is given at LVS Course Schedule.

Intructor-led Classes in a Virtual Setting

If you’ve never participated in a virtual classroom setting, you’ll find LVS the perfect choice for initiation into the online learning environment. Administrators and instructors alike understand what it’s like to be a first-time enrollee and work with you to overcome any concerns you may have.

Each instructor-led course has its own virtual classroom accessible to enrolled students with a forum-type message board used to post assignments, ask questions, and interact with the instructor as well as the other students who signed up for that class. Instructors maintain a friendly, fun, and energetic setting in which to learn.

Instructor-led classes begin August 30th so head on over to LVS Online Classes to enroll now.

Build a Website

LVS offers a 3-part website coding series that takes you from “I don’t know anything about X/HTML & CSS” to “WOW - I can create a valid website” in no time at all and you’ll have a great time doing it, too.

If web site coding is something you’ve always wanted to learn, now is the time. Get started by registering for the introductory-level course Build Your Web Site I today!

Don’t need an intro class but you’d like to strengthen and/or build on the skills you have?  Head on over and check out the Level II and Level III courses. I happen to know the Level II instructor will be happy to check out samples of your work; if you meet the criteria she’ll accept you as a student without your having to take the intro class! How do I know this? I’m the instructor. “-)

I never thought I would say this, but DO NOT UPGRADE TO OPERA 9.5.x of any version or flavor.

Opera PTB and Dev Team, I have one thing to say to you:  It is dangerous to buy into your own legend and think you know better than your users what they want. When you buy into your own legend you may find that it is simply a figment of your imagination — i.e., that you are a legend in your own mind and nowhere else.

If I wanted a dumbed down browser for the masses, there are two that pop to mind (Firefox for the wanna-be-geeks, and IE for the typical apathetic mass user). Why did you have to ruin Opera for the rest of us????

I have been a faithful user of Opera since its inception, yes I even paid for each new version. But 9.5.x is beyond the pale. For the same reason I feel almost violent when I think about Firefox and its development team (notice the all lower case letters), I am now feeling ill thinking of how badly Opera has mangled a beautiful, clean product.

Read the entire article »

Over the years I’ve tried a lot of screen capture utilities — some TSR, some not.  I’ve always ended up back at “print screen” and pasting it into a full-blown app for editing… until now.  I heard about Snippy from a friend and have fallen in love with it!  It’s just a nice, basic utility to let you capture exactly what you want to capture from the screen with little or no bells and whistles to muck things up.

It makes documenting things for clients a snap! “-)

1.  Click on Snippy
2.  Select Area to Capture
3.  [Magic Happens]
4.  Right click on Snippy and Save
5.  Repeat as necessary

Hypothetically you can paste directly into a document instead of saving the image like I do, but I prefer to get all the images at once and then fool around with placement in the target document.

Here’s a review from Appsource.com (a PCMag Network Site):

“Snippy is a tiny application, only about 84KB, that will help make taking screenshots much easier. Sure, you can just press print-screen and paste the image into paint, but that doesn’t let you take shots of only part of your screen, or let you freehand what you need to take a shot of and exclude what you don’t need. When you use Snippy, you get a cursor that lets you draw around what you want a screenshot of. When you let go of the mouse, the image is stored in the clipboard, ready to be pasted into any document of your choice. If you hold down shift when you click Snippy, you get a target cursor that will take rectangular shots of whatever you select.”

“The best part about Snippy is that it’s lightweight and portable. It doesn’t require an installation, and the executable can be stored on a USB drive or copied from computer to computer easily. Best of all, it’s free.”

[Source: http://www.appscout.com/2007/04/snippy_makes_screenshots_easy.php]

And here’s some info from the Author of Snippy:

“Simply save the Snippy executable in some convenient location on your hard-drive. We also recommend that you add a shortcut to your Startup folder so that Snippy starts up automatically when you turn on your computer.”

“Snippy works only with Windows XP.”

[Source: http://www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy/]

Download Snippy here: http://www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy/SnippyDownload.htm (Note: Download starts immediately; for more info read the Source page link above.]

“Which would you rather write… postcards or business?!”  http://www.DynamicBusinessBuilder.com

Easy answer!  In looking for a solution to build more referral business, I’ve been looking at this customer relationship marketing solution and like the flexibility and customizable options… plus their attitude as expressed in their tagline.  Even better, they’re priced for a small and/or independent professional (a la Stylehack!). And did I mention it’s web-driven, my favorite way to do business?

In the past I’ve done a limited form of this type of marketing, and it worked very well for me for many years.  Now it’s time to crank things up a notch.

Yeah, yeah… it’s not my typical type of post but I need to get back into the swing of posting here and it’s a start!

BIG NEWS: Opera has removed all banners and is offering the Opera Web Browser for desktops free of licensing fees! Get your copy now at http://opera.com/free/! Quote from Opera: ‘Opera has removed the banners, found within our browser, and the licensing fee. Opera’s growth, due to tremendous worldwide customer support, has made todays milestone an achievable goal. Premium support is available.’ Note: If you purchased Opera in the last 30 days you can get a full refund! Why Opera? There are many reasons, so I’ll try to limit myself to a what I consider a few key points:

General Use

• built-in pop-up blocker
• excellent bookmark management features
• store a series of web pages in sessions instead of individual bookmarks, then open them all at once
• reopen pages you just closed with one click of a button
• search from the address bar (ex: ‘g mysearchterm’ displays the results of a Google search)
• change settings on-the-fly — no need to close/re-open
• built-in note taking function
• built-in password manager
• built-in download manager/panel which doesn’t slow down your continued browsing
• move menu bars, panels & buttons around at will
• highly-configurable thru gui, not through text file hacks
• no need to download/trust/install extensions from unknown authors
• supports SVG
• more standards compliant than any other browser

Accessibility

• support for portions of Aural CSS
• mouse gestures built-in
• extensive keyboard control
• extensive, easily customizable keyboard shortcuts (my favorite is using Z and X to move forward/backward thru pages I’ve visited)
• easily disable or change page styles for improved readability (custom or use pre-defined)
• true page zooming at the touch of a key (enlarges both text and images)

Geekier Toys

• built-in RSS reader
• built-in IRC chat
• built-in bit torrent client
• built-in searchable, email client (similar to gmail - I put that here because I use ~gasp~ Thunderbird - old dog, no new tricks scenario)

Basically, it comes “out of the box”, ready to go and requires much less fiddling around with it to make it operate the way I prefer. All in less than 4MB… and REALLY, REALLY FAST! More info from Opera on browser features is at http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/ A well-written user review can be found at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=162788&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=95&mode=thread&cid=13603510 Go get it! That’s an order. “-) http://opera.com/free/