Megabytes

1) MacWorld - San Francisco, January 14-18, 2008
2) MacCamp - Silver Falls State Park, October 26-28, 2007

I went to MacWorld for the first time last January and raved about my experience. Registration for the 2008 event has just opened. Discounts are available for early registration. You can get in to the exhibit hall for free with this priority code: 08-E-VF01 if you register by October 5, 2007. Use the same code to register for the conference by December 14 for other big savings.

I have attended MacCamp on a regular basis for many years. This weekend-long educational and entertaining conference occurs twice a year, Spring and Fall, and is sponsored by PMUG. Choose from two classes each offered Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning. Classes for this camp include Filemaker Pro 9.0, Numbers ‘08, Intro to iMovie ‘08, Getting the Most From Digital Images, Leopard Mac OSX 10.5, and Dreamweaver Made Easy.

I’ll be teaching the Dreamweaver class. In my class, I’ll lead campers through the Dreamweaver CS3 landscape and we’ll build a simple site using Dreamweaver’s built-in CSS layouts. This is one of the new features in the CS3 version.

Register now for MacCamp to receive a discounted price: $189 for a user group member, $231 for non-user group members. After October 2, prices are $199 and $241.

Your registration fee includes lodging at Silver Falls Conference Center, meals from Friday dinner to Sunday lunch, AND the classes! What a beautiful setting for a weekend of Mac-ing!

I spent the weekend at the Oregon Coast, rented a charming cottage for three nights. cross the street to the beach. lovely place.

Atop one of the bookcases was this potted succulent. I wasn’t able to identify it. If my drawing has done it justice, is it recognizable to you, reader?

Dave McFarland, teacher, web developer, and entertaining guy, reports that the next rev of Dreamweaver will drop eleven features of the program. As a member of the Dreamweaver Advisory Council, he know of what he speaks.

Fluidly-designed web pages automatically adjust the page layout and redesitribute the content when a user resizes the browser window. Unfortunately, any inline images are not included in this resizing effort. Wouldn’t it be neat-o if the images reshaped themselves when a user resized the browser window? Of course it would.

That technology is closer than ever. Two visual research scientists, Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir have presented their research at the recent SigGraph 2007 Conference held in San Diego this past August.

Check out this YouTube video of their presentation. Will we see this as a new feature in Photoshop CS4? Or better yet, as a Photoshop plug-in!

I recently discovered this song, in particular, the rendition by Peggy Lee. This woman is the swingingest singer around. Get out of town, ol’ blue eyes! Miss Peggy Lee sings songs around you.

The Song
Written in 1963 by Henry Mancini for a Pink Panther movie, Italian lyrics were written by Franco Migliacci. Johnny Mercer kept some of the original italian phrases and words when he wrote the English lyrics. Meglio stasera is his title and loosely translated means ‘It had better be tonight.’ Fa subito means ‘do it quickly.’
Here are the complete English lyrics, with breaks at the choruses and verses:

Meglio stasera
Baby go go go
Or as we natives say
“Fa subito!”

If you’re ever gonna kiss me
It had better be tonight
While the mandolins are playing
And stars are bright

If you’ve anything to tell me
It had better be tonight
Or somebody else may tell me
And whisper the words just right

Meglio stasera
Baby go go go
Or as we natives say
“Fa subito!”

For this poor Americana
Who knows little of your speech
Be a nice Italiano
And start to teach

Show me how in old Milano
Lovers hold each other tight
But I warn you sweet paesano
It had better be tonight

Meglio stasera
Baby go go go
Or as we natives say
“Fa subito!”

The Songstress
I’ve written about Miss Peggy Lee before; raving about her song, It’s a Good Day. When It Had Better Be Tonight came up in my iTunes party shuffle, I quickly gave it a 5-star rating.
It starts out with a latin-style trumpet soli intro. Then she sings. and swings. Lee has a way of singing that suggests she is only sharing half of her hot, steamy, sultry self. I’ve always loved that about her. She leaves you wanting more. She sings with a relaxed, laid back feel, that is at the same time driving and forceful. This delivery by Lee is what makes the tune so captivating.
The drummer kicks the band up a notch after the first two verses and the trumpets throw out some accented falls. Then I hear in her voice, an almost growl of craving in the last chorus as she sings, ‘Baby, go go go.’ She holds her last note for a strong 28 beats as the band swings behind her, trumpets screaming into the stratosphere! Very exciting.

Listen
If you want to hear this song, contact me via email. We can set up an iChat over which I can play the song.