by-expression blog

Blogging Tools for Mac?

2008-08-17T14:17:02Z

Like most professional front-end web developers I have both Mac and Windows computers around. Lately I've been taking with several others about Windows Live Writer which I totally adore. I love the way I can use it offline, add images, videos, and a whole bunchof other stuff to my blog. Then tag it, spell check and sent it up to either my WordPress or my Community Server based blog.

Others use it with Windows Live spaces, SharePoint based blogs, Movable Type, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, PBlogs, MetaWeblog API and other blogs that support RSD (Really Simple Discoverability).

While I have Windows installed on my Mac via Parallels, I was wondering if there was a Mac equivalent to Windows Live Writer, preferably like Live Writer a free tool.

So tell me what is the best tool for creating posts when not connected to the net to upload once connected when using a Mac?

Technorati Tags: livewriter,mac,blog tools

Migrating from FrontPage

2008-08-08T18:36:03Z

I am pleased to announce that there is a new class being offered at Start to Web by FrontPage MVPs Pat Geary & Tina Clarke on migrating the website you created in FrontPage to Expression Web.

Tina and Pat have been working with people migrating their websites since the first beta of Expression Web version 1 was released. They have spent the last several months putting together material based on their experience for a class on migrating from FrontPage over to Expression Web.

Cleanup Preparations

Making a Cleanup Toolbar
Making Regular Expressions Queries

Technorati Tags: FrontPage,Expression Web,training

Removal Preparations

Check for redundant graphics
Removing Themes
Remove Shared borders and Nav bots
Detach DWT if you are using them
Replace/Insert doctypes
Replace/Remove other bots
Clean Tables

Pages Preparation

Use Cleanup Toolbar
Run Regular Expression Queries

Revising Pages

Add Semantic Markup
Add Meta Tags
Validate
Attach DWT
Add Include Menu
Use Site Summary

The first class will start August 30, 2008 and you can register for it now at a special introductory rate of $39.50 which is half off the regular price of the class.

Other classes being offered in the August 30, 2008 session at Start to Web include: Introduction to CSS and Introduction to Expression Web. For readers of this blog I have a coupon code worth 10% off any regular full priced class. When you go to pay for your class put in coupon code "CDWfriends" and you will automatically get 10% off.

New Session Start to Web

2008-07-28T22:58:57Z

Today we opened registration for a new session of classes at Start to Web. Classes will start August 30, 2008 and last for 4 weeks. There will be two classes offered this session:

Introduction to Expression Web - updated to include Expression Web 2. This class will last four weeks. To view the full Expression Web syllabus at http://starttoweb.com/classes/ewd.php

Introduction to CSS - this class is web editor independent and designed to teach you the basics of CSS. For more information on this class see: http://starttoweb.com/classes/css101.php

Special Opportunity: be the first to take the new class from FrontPage MVPs Tina Clarke and Pat Geary: Migrating FrontPage Websites to Expression Web. Pat and Tina plan on offering a special sneak peak class in the August session at a reduced rate on to those willing to provide feedback to help them fine tune the class material. Check the Start to Web home page for more information as it becomes available.

Technorati Tags: expression web,training

CassieRae made my day

2008-07-28T20:36:02Z

I've recently had to make a couple of changes to some of the tutorials we offer here on by-expression.com because of bandwidth overage charges and I have to admit that I was wondering if it was worth the time and expense to create and make them available since there hasn't been much feedback on them.

Today I was skimming though the official Microsoft forums for Expression Web and came across a post by CassieRae that made my day. So I just wanted to say thank you back to CassieRae.

Now I'll take a moment to answer CassieRae's question on how applicable my Expression Web book is to the new version of Expression Web released a year after my book.

First, there are three types of new features in Expression Web 2 that were not in the original Expression Web.

Insert media - this lets you insert Flash, Silverlight and Windows Media on your web pages created in Expression Web without having to write code or use swfobject (the most frequently recommended method of inserting Flash that works in IE without triggering the 'click to activate' message.)
Insert picture > Adobe Photoshop - lets you bring in psd images with layers from Photoshop. I will admit that I have not actually tried this new feature because my web images are all created as layered pngs in Fireworks. When I get Photoshop files from clients I bring them into Fireworks to prepare and optimize for the web.
Support for PHP - In the original version of Expression Web there was no support for PHP and what I consider to be a nasty bug actively caused problems with PHP includes and other PHP pages causing Greek characters to appear on the page. Not only has Expression Web version two solved the BOM - PHP issue but it has added support for inserting some of the most commonly used PHP script elements. It also allows you to preview your PHP pages in the Cassini web server that ships with Expression Web simply by installing PHP on your computer without the need to install and configure IIS or Apache. See Introducing PHP Support in Expression Web 2 for more details.

When I have a chance I'll add some content on each of the above topics to the secure portion of the book's website (don't forget to get the updated chapter 3 files if you have the first printing, and the credentials for accessing the secure section are printed in the book.)

The bugs discussed in the book that were resolved are the BOM and FTP userid/password issues. Though there is an issue with Expression Web and FTP with IIS 7 running on Windows Server 2008. When you go to publish via FPT on IIS 7 your user name will have a | in it and Expression Web sees that as an illegal character.

I'll add more info as I get a chance either here or on the book site.

Technorati Tags: expression web

Complete Basic Website Video-Download

2008-07-26T16:16:41Z

Bandwidth for the Creating a Basic Website in Expression Web tutorial is going over my budget. As a result I have made available from another website the full video tutorial as a Windows Media download to supplement the Flash version you can view online.

If you are planning on watching the video from start to finish (1:20) I would appreciate it if you would use the download option available at http://by-expression.com/content/fullbasic.aspx and watch it from your local hard drive. This does not mean you can redistribute it anywhere just that you can keep a copy for your own personal use. If you wish to share it with others, please send them to the preceding url.

Technorati Tags: expression web,tutorial,windows media

HAL-PC Presentation Files

2008-07-22T19:25:52Z

If you are attending my presentation tonight at the HAL-PC Web Design SIG and would like to follow along you can download the source file bladesofglory.zip Included in the zip file are the images uses and two text files of content. One for the main section and one for the sidebar.

A not quite complete version of what we will be doing looks like the image on the right.

What remains to be added is the menu that we will create (assuming time allows).

Expression Web relative vs document links

2008-07-20T17:26:33Z

Life with Expression Web would be much simpler if Expression Web supported root relative links properly.

I am seeing where people are using third party generators to create menus for their website. Then they want to put these menus into their Expression Web site.

In order for your menu links to work regardless of what level in your site the requesting page is at you need to use what is called root relative links. That means that when the page is requested it is resolved based on the root level of your website instead of where the the page requesting the link is located. Take a site that has a root, two folders: articles and products with additional folders and pages in each of those folders.

This means if you have a page in the "articles" folder in your site and the link goes to the "products" section Expression web using document relative links would create a link like "../products/page.html".

Translated the path means go up one level from "articles" then over to "products" and send the page.html to the browser.

With a root relative link it would look like "documents/page.html" without the ".." since it is instructing the server to go to the root and send the page.html in the documents folder.

If you had a folder in articles that was named 2008 and had a page named july-20.html and wanted to go to the documents/page.html the document relative path would be "../../documents/page.html" while the root relative path would stay the same as in the earlier example of "/documents/page.html".

The problems with document relative roots if the links are in a server side include page or are embedded in JavaScript that are generated using document relative links with root level of the site as the base is when you are on the "articles/2008/july-20.html" and the path from the page is "products/page.html" the server will be trying to find a the page at "articles/2008/products/page.html" because it is looking for a path that starts from the requesting page.

For links it is easy enough to modify the links created by the their party tool (assuming it doesn't support root relative links natively since many do).

Houston Presentation

2008-07-19T14:47:28Z

For any of you who may be in the Houston area I will be speaking at HAL-PC (Houston Area League of PC Users http://www.hal-pc.org) Next Tuesday, July 22nd at the Web Technologies SIG. While my presentation will focus on Expression Web 2 I intend to provide a preview of Dreamweaver CS 4 as well.

If you are going to attend and would like to follow along with either program you can get a trial version of Expression Web v2 from Microsoft at http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/cc136529.aspx

You can get the public beta of Adobe Dreamweaver CS 4 at http://labs.adobe.com/ while you are there take a look at the Fireworks CS 4 and Soundbooth betas as wells. Other programs to check out are Adobe Photoshop Express and if you ever wanted a tool that would help you with your website color scheming check out Kruler, http://kuler.adobe.com/.

Hope to see you there.

Technorati Tags: expression web,dreamweaver cs4,presentation

Google & Flash

2008-07-16T19:52:47Z

Some of you may have read the announcement not long ago that Google would now be able to index Flash files. Some said that meant HTML sites were dead and Flash would become "de rigour". Something I disagreed with for a wide variety of reasons not the least of which was a strong "wait and see" attitude towards how well Google would be able to implement indexing of Flash content.

Seems that I might have been right to be skeptical that Google would get everything in Flash, at least if you read what they have to say over on Sitepoint. http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/07/16/google%e2%80%99s-flash-indexing-disaster/

While it may not be quite the disaster they are painting it certainly does seem that Google was a mite premature in their implementation and documentation.

Technorati Tags: flash,google

Adding Metas to Individual Pages in Expression Web v2

2008-06-26T23:23:14Z

Lately I have seen several people having trouble adding meta elements for keyword and description on individual pages attached to a Dynamic Web Template in Expression Web version 2.

Once complaint I heard is that Expression Web puts the meta elements in a locked region of the DWT so I decided to try it for myself.

I began my test by creating a new site from the empty one page web template. The result was no problem in adding metas or editing the title using the page properties dialog on the attached page, all without once using code view.

My Steps:

I then added a couple of paragraphs and saved it as a DWT.
Then I wrapped one paragraph in an editable content region.
Next I used File > News Create from Dynamic Web Template.
In the editable region of the page created I right clicked and added a page description of " testing dwt".
Checked the head section and my page description was in the doctype editable region of the page.

Note: I did not add a description in the DWT.

Adding the meta elements to the DWT will put the meta tag outside the editable region. Rightly or wrongly Expression Web assumes that when you add the meta to the DWT you want the meta elements the same throughout the site. If you do not put it in the DWT then you can add them individuals on a page by page basis using the Page Properties dialog.

FWIW, since each page should have its own keywords and description related only to the content of that specific page so you have to go page by page anyway. A "site wide" default is useless for SEO optimization. As you have probably heard many times content is king and for more important than keywords.

Technorati Tags: expression web,dwt,tutorial

Keywords are usually ignored by search engines for the most put because of inappropriate keyword stuffing. Descriptions are of some limited use since that text may be displayed by search engines under certain circumstances.

Code name "Stiletto"

2008-05-27T04:44:24Z

Did the title of this blog post get your attention?

Just what is Stiletto?

It is the code name for Dreamweaver CS4 and if you are one of those folks brave enough to download and install beta software you can try it out for yourself by downloading it from http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/dreamweavercs4/

Personally, I am downloading it as I type but being a veteran beta software user there are a few things I do to so that I do not end up wishing I had not been so adventurous. First, on my Windows computers I set up a Virtual PC for testing. Fortunately Microsoft will make that easy for you since Virtual PC is free and the Internet Explorer team gives away free testing images for IE 6, IE 7 and IE 8. Yes, they are time bombed but hey we are talking about using it with beta software so it really does not matter. In fact, think about it you are killing two birds with one stone. You can test your websites in whatever version of IE you do not have while at the same time protecting your system form possible beta software bugs. (Mind you I am not saying that you will experience system instability or other problems using the beta of Dreamweaver CS 4 on your primary computer but play it safe just in case.)

Then install Dreamweaver Stiletto in the VPC and play away. As for me I want to see the new interface, related files and code navigator bits that are new in CS 4. I also want to see what is missing re ASP.NET.

Ah, I mentioned what I will be doing on my Windows computers for testing out Stiletto but I do have a Mac sitting here. Now I must admit that I don't really care that much if I trash OS X while beta testing because there is nothing critical on that machine but it is a pain in the you know what to reinstall and set things back up. Fortunately, I'm running 10.5 and I'll make an image of my system as it is and tuck it away on an external drive before I install any beta software on it. I'll also spend a little bit of time trying to get Time Machine to work properly since despite the fact the external drive I use to back-up my Mac has 3x the space available of the entire hard drive in my MacBook it keeps telling me I have insufficient space for Time Machine to work properly, sigh.

Oh well, guess I know some of what I will be doing tomorrow, how about you?

Technorati Tags: dreamweaver cs4,dreamweaver beta

TechEd Developers 2008

2008-05-11T22:06:05Z

I will be at TechEd again this year. Like last year I will he working in -the MVP booth. For a change I am going to actually try and use some of the sorrel networking tools so here is my TechEd connect card.

Technorati Tags: teched08

New Expression Web Tutorial Series released

2008-05-09T20:25:22Z

While I have had bits and pieces of the Expression Web Basic tutorial series up on the site (under Media) they are now officially linked on the by-expression.com site's tutorial page. It took me some time to figure out the best compression ratio to file size and the right number of key frames to make sure you can see the parts that I am working on without too much jumping around.

If you prefer there is also an iPod version you can download of each of the tutorials. Whichever you chose if you plan on working along with the tutorial you should download the zip file that contains all the assets used in the site and the completed project.

Like the sample sites and page layouts we provide on by-expression you may use the basic layouts and DWTs but I would request that you switch out the images for your own graphics since they probably won't fit your site anyway. ;-)

If you do use one of our sample templates I'd like to see what you did with it so drop us a note.

Technorati Tags: expression web tutorial

Expression Design

2008-05-08T15:32:32Z

Okay I normally limit my posting to Expression Web, general web design-development or Dreamweaver but thought I'd mention some graphic topics for a change.

First, the Expression Design team has started putty tutorials -video blogs in then blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/xdesignsupport/default.aspx

Next, I see people asking how attach text to a path. Since Fireworks is the image program I use most I found this tutorial worthwhile http://www.tommylogic.com/tutorial-blog/web-design-tutorials/39-web-related/66-fireworks-text-shape-tutorial

Finally, something I find myself needing to to is remove backgrounds from images. This is the best tutorial I know of for using Fireworks to remove the background http://www.tommylogic.com/tutorial-blog/web-design-tutorials/39-web-related/66-fireworks-text-shape-tutorial

Technorati Tags: expression design tutorial,fireworks tutorial

Moving my Blog

2008-05-06T15:49:24Z

Now that we have moved all the content from by-expression.com into the new community server 2008 based site I will be moving my blog in there as well. Sadly since there is not a good migration tool right now I will not be moving the archive over yet but all new posts will be at [...]...(read more)