Jun 23rd, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
Have you ever forgotten your FTP password, but you had it saved in Dreamweaver?
Once you store the password part of your FTP login in the Dreamweaver site profile, Dreamweaver encripts the password.
You can use this tool to decrypt the password that Dreamweaver stores in the sites profile.
http://apptools.com/password.php
Great tool to bookmark!
Jun 23rd, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
Lately clients have been asking for long textareas to fit either their terms & conditions or their policy which visitors need to agree to before submitting a form.
Even though you specify the cols and rows, the scrollbar does not show up for visitors to easily scroll down to read all the text. This is an issues in IE and FF.
Here is a workaround to the issue.
So your code will look like this:
This should fix your problem for Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers. Just apply it to the style or your separate CSS file.
Also, you can specify “Read Only” (see code above) to not allow visitors to change the text contained in the textarea.
Jun 4th, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
Here is a quick way to detect users coming to your site using an iPhone/iPod Touch and to redirect them to your MOBILE version of your site.
The script should go between the HEAD section of your page. Just replace iphone-version.html with the URL of your MOBILE version of your site.
<script language=javascript>
<!–
if((navigator.userAgent.match(/iPhone/i)) || (navigator.userAgent.match(/iPod/i)))
{
location.replace("iphone-version.html");
}
–>
</script>
Once you got that going and your MOBILE version of your site is up, don’t forget to customize your Web Clip icon (Website’s iPhone Icon). Watch this video for the how-to.
May 21st, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
Lately we have had clients ask about making their logo have a reflection with a gradient look to it, a Web 2.0 trend.
So here is a quick write up on how to achieve this in Photoshop (most versions should be able to handle it).
This “how-to” assumes in your Quick Mask Options you have selected “Selected Areas” in the Color Indicates. To make sure the selection you make in Quick Mask is the selection you want, while in Quick Mask mode, go into the Channels palette and double click the image for Quick Mask and change the Color Indicates option to Selected Areas.
Let’s get started:
Duplicate layer of image you want to reflect by dragging that layer over the New Layer icon in the layers palette, or by pressing Ctrl + J.
Then, while the copied layer is highlighted, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical. Drag that layer down vertically by moving it with the move tool and holding the Shift key as you move the cursor down. Bring down the flipped layer until the top touches the bottom of the original image.
Next, while that same flipped layer is selected, go into Quick Mask Mode by clicking on the rectangular box with the white circle in it below the Foreground and Background color chooser or by pressing Q. In Quick Mask Mode, use the gradient tool (under the paint bucket button menu option, or press G) to create a gradient over the flipped layer. Press and hold shift while dragging to make a gradient that is perfectly vertical. You should start at the top of the layer, and move down as far as you want the gradient to last.
After you make a gradient in Quick Mask Mode, exit Quick Mask Mode (press Q) and you should see a selection on the canvas that will appear like a plain rectangular selection. While that flipped layer is still selected in the layers palette, click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the palette to hide a portion of the flipped image but with a gradient.
With the same flipped layer selected, change the opacity of the layer from the layers palette to about 30% (or more if you wish). Then go to Edit > Transform > Skew; grab one of the two bottom corners and drag out while holding Alt + Shift. Skew layer as you see fit for your own custom reflection.
Here is what you end up with. Gradient reflections tend to look better on dark backgrounds.
Feb 24th, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
If you are looking for a blogging tool for your business, look no further than WordPress. I believe it’s the best one out there, and it’s FREE. You can use it as a hosted solution or download the platform and install it on your own hosting account. It could actually replace your entire site, and provide easy maintenance like a CMS platform. This site is actually powered by WordPress. Another reason to love WordPress, the many, many themes and plugins available for free to extend it’s functionality. You can easily add static content (pages) and posts to compliment each other. You could have your WordPress site up and running within 30 minutes, then slowly add the themes and plugins that are right for you.
Here are some of my favorite themes:
Here are some of my favorite plugins:
Feb 24th, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
When designing and coding websites, it’s very important to make sure the site renders correctly in the most used browsers. Since IE comes with Windows, I recommend getting Firefox. Probably not news for most of you.
Here are some FF Add-ons that come in handy while working on your site:
Feb 24th, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
More and more I find out that people are not aware of the FTP client built in Dreamweaver. People use 3rd party FTP clients to manage the updates for their own site. Although I do recommend in having a dedicated 3rd party FTP client, like FileZilla (my favorite), Dreamweaver allows you to easily maintain your site and upload/download to your hosting account.
To setup the FTP account to connect to your hosting account:
1. On the top menu bar in Dreamweaver, go to “Sites” -> “New Site…”. You will see this screen, which you will setup your web site’s site definition. (Use the advanced tab for more control):
2. The “Local Info”, is exactly that. Info on your local files (your site on your computer). Dreamweaver needs to know where your site’s local files are located. Once you set that up, click on the “Remote Info” to setup your FTP info.
3. Select FTP from the Access drop down. You will need the FTP info which should have been provided by your web host.
The rest you can take the defaults. Once you are done, click OK to create the new site definition. At this point you are all done. If you manage more than one site, you may create multiple site definitions.
Now you can just edit your site like usual, once you are ready to upload, click the 1st icon from the left (on the yellow bar below) to connect to your site. Use the arrows to upload/download. To see both local and remote files, click on the last icon.
That’s it. This is a great tool to manage multiple sites (for webmasters) or even for one site, you don’t have to launch that 3rd party FTP client every time you do an update.
Feb 22nd, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
Every website should have this implemented. It forces your site to always show the triple w’s before your domain.
This prevents search engines from indexing your site twice and showing duplicate content, which could have a negative impact in your page ranking.
Add the above code to your .htaccess file, make sure you replace the domain.com with your actual domain name.
Feb 22nd, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
Save yourself time when creating a form and you need all the states in a drop down.
<select name=”state”>
<option value=”AL”>Alabama</option>
<option value=”AK”>Alaska</option>
<option value=”AZ”>Arizona</option>
<option value=”AR”>Arkansas</option>
<option value=”CA”>California</option>
<option value=”CO”>Colorado</option>
<option value=”CT”>Connecticut</option>
<option value=”DE”>Delaware</option>
<option value=”FL”>Florida</option>
<option value=”GA”>Georgia</option>
<option value=”HI”>Hawaii</option>
<option value=”ID”>Idaho</option>
<option value=”IL”>Illinois</option>
<option value=”IN”>Indiana</option>
<option value=”IA”>Iowa</option>
<option value=”KS”>Kansas</option>
<option value=”KY”>Kentucky</option>
<option value=”LA”>Louisiana</option>
<option value=”ME”>Maine</option>
<option value=”MD”>Maryland</option>
<option value=”MA”>Massachusetts</option>
<option value=”MI”>Michigan</option>
<option value=”MN”>Minnesota</option>
<option value=”MS”>Mississippi</option>
<option value=”MO”>Missouri</option>
<option value=”MT”>Montana</option>
<option value=”NE”>Nebraska</option>
<option value=”NV”>Nevada</option>
<option value=”NH”>New Hampshire</option>
<option value=”NJ”>New Jersey</option>
<option value=”NM”>New Mexico</option>
<option value=”NY”>New York</option>
<option value=”NC”>North Carolina</option>
<option value=”ND”>North Dakota</option>
<option value=”OH”>Ohio</option>
<option value=”OK”>Oklahoma</option>
<option value=”OR”>Oregon</option>
<option value=”PA”>Pennsylvania</option>
<option value=”RI”>Rhode Island</option>
<option value=”SC”>South Carolina</option>
<option value=”SD”>South Dakota</option>
<option value=”TN”>Tennessee</option>
<option value=”TX”>Texas</option>
<option value=”UT”>Utah</option>
<option value=”VT”>Vermont</option>
<option value=”VA”>Virginia</option>
<option value=”WA”>Washington</option>
<option value=”WV”>West Virginia</option>
<option value=”WI”>Wisconsin</option>
<option value=”WY”>Wyoming</option>
</select>
Feb 22nd, 2008 by Leonard Ghazarian
Here is a quick way to access your AWStats (a statistics software that comes with cPanel control panel with your hosting account).
Allows you to view your stats without going to cpanel. To see your stats after adding the above code to your .htaccess file, go to:
yourdomain.com/stats
You will still need the user name and password of the account to access the stats. However you skip the control panel part and go straight to your AWStats.
