Megabytes

I just downloaded and installed Codeweavers‘ Crossover for Mac. As a Mac-using website developer, I need access to the Windows environment to view my websites through the filter of the dark side.
I have been using Parallels since I purchased my Intel Mac this summer. And it’s great. Fast. Secure (with a few extra steps). And easy to use.
Just one drawback, without installing another Windows partition on my Mac, I can only run IE6 or IE7 in my Windows XP environment.
It was at a MacForce class on running Windows on a Mac that I heard about Crossover and decided to give it a try.
My plan was to run IE6 in Parallels and IE7 in Crossover. However, I’ve needed to readjust since learning that IE7 does not work in Crossover. Instead, I will switch that around and run IE7 in Parallels and IE6 in Crossover.
IE6 installed flawlessly in Crossover. I chose the minimal installation. I must say, it is a little unnerving to see the Windows dialog boxes on my Mac screen. Did some minimal surfing to known and trusted websites. No problems.
Now to install IE7 in my Parallels Window environment. Easy. Again I surfed some known and trusted websites in IE7 and had no problems.
I have not tested keeping both programs open and going back and forth between IE6 and IE7 in the two environments. In the Codeweaver forums, I read about a possible runtime interaction issue, machine “getting confused about whether to relay packets to the virtual machine in Parallels vs. IE running natively on your Mac.” Although this individual, a staff person at Codeweavers, says he does run Crossover and Parallels at the same time without ill-effects.
Another day, I will try that. For now, it works well for me and achieves the results I was looking for. Looks like I’ll be purchasing Crossover after my trial runs out.

I have been changing the image in the masthead of this blog since April of this year. It began when a reader suggested I change the default image and make this blog reflect my personality.
Sounds like a rather innocuous suggestion. I went into my backyard and took a photo of our brilliant blue Dark Star Ceanothus. I cropped and adjusted the image, optimized it for the web, and uploaded it to the server.
But changing the masthead image meant adjusting the position and color of the <H1> and #headerimg .description styles. The <H1> tag is the blog title and the #headerimg .description class is assigned to the tagline that also appears in the masthead. With a clean-looking gradient background image, these items can be positioned anywhere. Once you change the background image to a photo, the positioning and color of items on top of said photo has to be adjusted to remain readable against the new background.
I loved the new masthead and thanked my friend for encouraging me in this pursuit. I liked it so much, I decided to make it a regular occurrence by changing the masthead image each month and having the image reflect the seasonal changes of the natural world.
You see, that’s part of my personality, too. Embracing Change and Being Different. I like to rearrange the furniture in my living areas and office periodically. It’s only natural to extend this change to my blog area. I know I’m not alone in my desire to be different and stand out. As Margaret Mead once said, “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
So, each month, this opportunity comes my way that enables me, no, motivates me to change. November’s image is a close-up of some turning leaves representing the high point of Autumn.

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 did a little digging around in the WordPress DOCS area today. The online help and support for this blogging software is quite extensive. Not only are there DOCS which describe every facet of the app, but there is a discussion forum, too. Sign in and you can post questions to other WP users. Even without signing in, you can search the forum.

So I was digging around, looking for the way to add a graphical calendar to my sidebar. I like the look of a month view, where days that have posts are highlighted and you can view posts of a particular day simply by clicking on a date.

There are many options provided by WordPress for navigating the posts of your blog. The default settings include a search box right at the top of the sidebar, as well as to list Archives by month, and posts by Categories. That’s a lot of navigating.

Still, I added the calendar. And a few days ago, I added the listing of the 7 most recent posts. The sidebar’s getting pretty busy. I think I’ll keep all of these options for now and get some feedback from you.

Which of these options do you use when navigating this blog? What do you use when navigating other blogs? Do you like to read all the posts about astronomy? Perhaps you prefer to read all the posts that occurred during your 3-week vacation. Do you just want to see what I’ve recently written about?

Let me know. Because no matter what method I like, it is what you, my readers like, that is paramount.