Due to the gazillion hours I spend at my computer, I had begun to develop a little tendonitis in the outer part of my right wrist. I'm certain many of you relate to this all too well. My work area is ergonomically pretty good. I have a actual office desk and chair, my dual monitors are on risers (I'm rather tall and I found myself scrunching down to read everything causing upper back pain), I have a padded mouse pad, and a wrist pad for my keyboard. But still, there was the wrist problem.

I did a little research and finally bit the bullet and purchased an ergonomic Microsoft keyboard (with cordless mouse). After the initial couple days of repeatedly whacking the wrong keys, I adapted and I find it to be a much more comfortable typing position (my wrist seems to be getting better as well which makes my volleyball partners much happier).

After our recent visit from hurricane Ophelia, the power spikes and outages required me to do some computer maintenance to get several programs running again. No problem. I know how to boot into single user mode (I have a dual G4). I can use the console to run the /sbin/fsck -fy command to run directory repairs and such. No, I hadn't done it in a while, but a quick glance at my MacAddict Cheat Sheet gave me the key commands.

Problem was, no matter how many times I started up holding down Cmd-S, I kept getting the Startup Manager -- allowing me to choose a startup volume. But once chosen, I couldn't continue the boot in single user mode. This made no sense. I called a couple friends who are Unix geeks (Tom Pletcher and Andrew Jeffery - thanks guys!) to get their take on it since my main programs were not usable till these repairs were made. We went through the whole scenario together and finally surmised that it might be related to the whole master/slave linking of my two internal drives. I went under the hood and disconnected the slave drive as well as some fun little things like resetting internal memory and such. But nothing worked.

Finally, at my wit's end, I had a brainstorm (isn't that always the time?). Since holding down the Option key is what is supposed to bring up the Startup Manager, could my Microsoft keyboard be confusing my system? (This had not occurred to me before since I am the keyboard command queen. I constantly use the Alt key on this keyboard -- to the left of the space bar -- for the equivalent keyboard shortcuts I would use the Command key on my Apple keyboard for. And that's the same key I had been using here.) After several hours working on the issue, I knew I was clutching at straws, but I was willing to try anything at that point.

I pulled my Apple keyboard out of the box, plugged it in, held down Cmd-S and booted directly into Single User mode. Ack! Hours of wasted time -- due to a foreign keyboard. (Why the same key that maps to the equivalent of Command when doing things like Cmd-Q or Cmd-V maps as Option on startup, I have no clue. These are just the facts as I found them.) If there is another mapping I need to use with the MS keyboard on start up, I don't know it (please leave me a note if you do). But I thought I would get this out into the public arena. Perhaps my frustration won't be wasted if it saves you a little troubleshooting time. Meanwhile -- keep your Apple keyboard close by.

I'm sure most everyone wants the new Studio 8. It rocks! But maybe you just recently broke down and purchased Studio MX 2004 (or any of the products contained therein) and you're just not ready to fork over more cash just yet. Well -- maybe you don't have to. If you purchased on or after July 8th, make sure to read Macromedia's page with the upgrade rules. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Also, don't forget that if you own Dreamweaver, Fireworks or Flash, you can upgrade and get the whole Studio 8 package for the normal studio upgrade price ($399USD). That's quite a generous deal. Not sure you want to upgrade? Take the 30-day test drive -- you may become addicted like I did and not be able to return to your previous versions.

(BTW, I make no money whether you upgrade or not. I just love the stuff. ;))

I've seen a few confused posters on the various Dreamweaver forums since the release of Dreamweaver 8 that relate to templates. These templates were created in Dreamweaver MX or Dreamweaver MX 2004 and now they're not acting/updating the same. Jesse Rodgers, from University of Waterloo, and were trying to figure this out today. I had ran into a similar situation to the one he was dealing with with one of my personal sites.

The issue stems from the fact that DW MX and DW MX 2004 let us be sloppy. If we linked to our CSS in the template using this syntax - href="scripts/local.css" DW said, "Hmmm, I'm sure they don't really want to link to a folder and file within the Template directory, so I won't change the path of this link." And it worked perfectly for me. I took advantage of this by creating links to site assets this way when I wanted the item I was linking to, to actually be in the directory the child file was saved into.

A perfect example is my KS Pope site. This client wanted each directory to have a different color and picture. I put the CSS files for the basic structure of each page into the script directory in the root and all XHTML documents link to that. The template link was written - href="../scripts/structure.css" and when the file was saved, it showed up linked into the scripts directory in the root. However, each directory also had a scripts directory within it, where I placed the local CSS file that brought in the color and individual picture for each directory. I was very happy in my ignorance.

And then I needed to update the site with DW 8. Oh my. Suddenly, all my pretty colors are gone and on viewing the code for the child pages, I see - href="../Templates/scripts/print.css". Defintely not what I had in mind. On discussing this with people at Macromedia that understand the changes, Jesse and I found the following -- shared with you to save you hair-pulling and other mindless madness. :)

You can use template expressions or template parameters to keep DW from changing your link paths. This applies to includes, CSS, images and links (anchors). I'll paste the info in below. Hope this helps!

For INCLUDES

1. Without using template parameters:
   1. Simply change double quotes to single quotes for the include file path. This only works for ASP and .NET templates. For example: <!--#include file='include.inc' -->.
   2. Use template expression:
      PHP: <?php include("@@('include.inc')@@"); ?>
      CFM: <cfinclude template="@@('include.inc')@@">
      JSP: <%@include file="@@('include.inc')@@" %>
      ASP & .NET: <!--#include file="@@('include.inc')@@" -->
      (NOTE: include.inc is the real file path, not the template parameter, so it has to be quoted.)
      
2. Using template parameters:
   1. Create a template parameter in the head section of the template: <!--TemplateParam name="inc_url_param" type="text" value='file="include.inc"' -->
      (NOTE: the parameter is given the "text" type)
   2. Change the include in the template to: <!--#include @@(inc_url_param)@@ -->

For other dependent files -- CSS, IMAGE, and LINK (<A> anchor)

1. Without using template parameters, change the css link or image tag to:
   <link href="@@('styles.css')@@" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
   @import url("@@('styles.css')@@");
   <img src="@@('image.gif')@@" />
   <a href="@@('link.htm')@@">link text</a>
   (NOTE: styles.css, image.gif and link.htm are the real file paths, not the template paramters, so they should be quoted.)
2. Using template parameters:
   1. Create template parameters in the head section of the template:
      <!--TemplateParam name="img_url_param" type="text" value="image.gif" -->
      <!--TemplateParam name="css_url_param" type="text" value="styles.css" -->
      (NOTE: the parameter is given the "text" type)
   2. Change the css link and img tag in the template to:
      <link href="@@(css_url_param)@@" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
      @import url("@@(css_url_param)@@");
      <img src="@@(img_url_param)@@" />

Many of you are probably way ahead of me in this social networking phenomenon. I stay extremely busy, so I've stayed on the periphery with no time to really look into it -- till now. Last week, my friend Molly Holzschlag, made a blog post and mentioned LinkedIn. With some of my recent duties completed, I decided to accept an invitation I recieved back in July from Laura Carlson (I told you I was slow). I thought a little networking for new and trusted subcontractors, or possibly some new CSS Chef jobs as a subcontractor, might be in order. I signed up and began inviting some friends and co-workers.

A woman who does some copywriting for my clients joined LinkedIn on my recommendation. In turn, she got a web developer from Atlanta, whom she also works with, to sign up as well. Right -- this is how it works -- I'm learning. I viewed her profile, including her network. I was startled to see an extremely familiar name -- Milt Webb -- a blast from the past in an unexpected place. It was a name I hadn't seen in over 15 years, and certainly not in the city where I last had contact with him. Sure -- there could be more than one -- but it's not a common name.

Back story -- Long ago, in a younger land far, far away from the web, I modeled (no, it's not mentioned in my bios :~)). For about five years I walked the catwalk and did photography work in Milan, Atlanta and Florida. In Florida, my favorite photographer's name was Milt Webb. We kept in touch for a few years after I moved on. But life took us in different directions and somehow, we lost track of one another.

I googled the Atlanta Milt Webb, went to his web site, and found that he does product photography along with his web work. Hmmmmmm...that's interesting. I decided to email. It was a simple email. I gave him my maiden name -- Stephanie Haupt -- and said that if he knew who I was, to please show me. (I hate to give out too much information to a stranger.) Back came an email with this photo attached. Oh my word! (Don't be frightened -- it was the 80's.) How ironic that we not only used to work together regularly, but once again we're working in the same field. I was about as excited as I've been in the past five years (that likely frightens those that know me well). My kids came from the living room to see what the ruckus was about.

We spent about three hours on phone call number one -- with more to come I'm sure (fifteen years takes a while). What a blast! My husband was rather disgusted that we talked shop as much as we did. But hey -- we're geeks -- what does he expect? One cool thing I found out is that he's gotten really into PHP. Since I'm an XHTML/CSS developer, there's always a chance we could work together again some day. He'll set the site up and make it work behind the scenes -- I'll style it and make it marketable on the front end. Sounds strangely familiar.

Obviously -- I'm pretty sold on this LinkedIn thing. ;~)