Megabytes

The new image of the crocuses in the masthead marks the 12th image used in my year-long experiment to update the top of my blog each month. Here is the full-sized un-cropped image.

In balmy Portland, where the meteorologists have been predicting rain for the last week, we’ve had sun, partly sunny and mid-60-degree weather. It IS a bit unusual for February, but we had a good rainy season already and the snow pack is deep. Nevertheless, the daffodils, crocuses and daphne are blooming everywhere you look.

Portland Macintosh Users Group (PMUG) has put together another wonderful lineup of Mac classes for the biannual MacCamp; held April 18-19-20 at Silver Falls Conference Center in Silverton, Oregon.
The six classes (2 each on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning) are:

1. Customizing Photoshop Workflows
2. Converting Analog Music to Digital
3. iLife Overview
4. iStopMotion
5. Bento
6. iPods Fully Loaded

You’ll need to choose between Photoshop and Digital Music; iLife and iStopMotion; and Bento and iPods. As you can see from this program, there is something for almost everyone.

For as low as $179, you get 3 classes, 2 nights bunking in a cozy lodge (six 2-person rooms share a cozy common area), delicious meals from Friday dinner to Sunday lunch, Mac networking, and Mac companionship, all in a beautiful, natural environment.

I’m looking forward to the iStopMotion workshop. That app was included in the recent MacHeist bundle (14 apps by Mac independent developers for one low price), which I purchased. I was also eager to explore Bento until I learned it requires Leopard (Mac OS 10.5), which I haven’t upgrade to yet. That’s alright, I now own an iPod after wanting one for years, so I can take that workshop.

Register now! The $179 rate for Mac User Group members goes up to $189 after March 1, and further increases to $199 after April 1

Have you ever wanted to put a © mark on a page in Dreamweaver, but couldn’t remember the HTML character code? For example, the HTML code for the © symbol is

& copy ; (without the spaces)

or you can use the keyboard shortcut option-g on a Mac.

That one is a simple, almost logical code to remember. The special character codes always begin with an ampersand, followed by the letters or numbers associated with the character, and close with a semi-colon. Remembering copyright as ‘ampersand’ ‘copy’ ’semi-colon’ isn’t too hard of a stretch. It becomes a little challenging to remember that

& rsaquo ; (without the spaces)

is the code for a right side close angle bracket.
Dreamweaver has two ways to help you with these special characters.
1) using code hints in code view
2) using the Text Insert bar

When in code view, type an ampersand and the code hints menu appears with a list of characters and their associated codes. You can scroll to the one you want and select. Typing the next letter in the code if you know it is a quick way to go to a specific part of the list. It IS a long list.

Using the Text Insert bar is much simpler. On the Insert Toolbar, select ‘Text’. On the Text Insert toolbar, select the character symbol, the last item on the right. There is a drop-down menu with the more commonly-used special characters and an option to see more characters.

I learned about this toolbar in the book, Dynamic Learning Dreamweaver CS3. I am reviewing it for the March issue of Mouse Tracks, the Portland Macintosh Users Group monthly newsletter.

Our goddaughter hangs out with us every Friday night; has since she was a few weeks old. Now that she is 12 and a budding teenager, we appreciate even more, our time together.
Last night, we got out some acrylic paints and a couple of canvases and had fun with a new activity together. I chose my usual pen and ink medium and created this.