Dreamweaver Design View not working on certain filetypes

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I use Dreamweaver for editing Ruby on Rails files, Velocity files, and other files that don’t have native support but that do have extensions available in order to use with DW.

Although after installing said extensions these file types open fine, have proper code coloring, etc., I’ve had the problem that they don’t open in Design view, which was a real pain!

As a workaround I found that if I did a Spell Check on these pages, Design view would open as a split screen and as long as I didn’t close the file or click the Code view button I was OK. But recently I found the real problem and a real solution!

It turns out that I was adding these file extensions to the Edit > Preferences… > File Types / Editors > Open in code view list prior to installing the Dreamweaver extensions for that file type. Which was obviously…well…opening them in the code view.

Easy texture

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Today I accidentally discovered how to make a pretty interesting texture in either Fireworks or Photoshop (the process and outcome are almost identical in each) and probably many other image editing programs.

First, create a new 3 pixel by 3 pixel image. Now zoom in on the image as far as you possibly can. Select the pencil tool, and fill in the image with some random colors and patterns (you only get 9 pixels to play with in my example).

Now change the image size to something like 400px by 400px and watch what happens!

It kills me how simple this is, yet gives a nice effect. As you are playing around with it, try different starting sizes and ending sizes for different effects.

Web development that doesn't hurt

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I’ve recently had the opportunity of changing departments at my company from the Information System Services (ISS) team as a Software Engineer, to the Marketing team as a Web Designer. I’m extremely happy with this move because it allows me to continue doing all that I was doing before, but with much more freedom for creativity and much more ownership in my projects.

The first project I was involved in since the move was 2 new websites for Weatherby Locums. One site being their main site for prospective locum tenens physicians and the other is more of a resource site for existing clientele. Because of my new position, I was the lead designer and the sole programmer for both sites. I programmed the back-end using Ruby on Rails which I am completely infatuated with. In fact, you may have noticed the decline in activity on this blog recently for which I can only give one explaination: Ruby on Rails is so easy, so well documented, and has so many real world examples out there that I haven’t had to resolve a single issue on my own that would warrent a post on this blog (which I am already considering re-programming in Rails instead of PHP).

I highly recommend Rails to anyone out there, whether you are just beginning in web programming or are a novice. Their claim is true, it really is “Web development that doesn’t hurt.”

Introducing Salutr

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I just Launched a new web 2.0 ajax application for sending Flickr greetings or Flickr e-Cards called Salutr. Salutr uses Flickr images to create custom ecards/greetings I call Salutations. The app is in public beta right now, so have a look and give me some feedback.

PS if you are wondering why I made all three terms above clickable, I’m just trying to help my SEO 😉

Simple Windows Reminder

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I’ve always wanted to set up a little reminder to tell me to go home at the end of the day. Today I finally built one for myself using a pretty simple technique and without installing any additional software. Although, it does require turning on the Windows Messenger service, so if you aren’t behind a firewall I don’t recommend it.

1) turn on the Windows Messenger service (if not already running).

2) open notepad and enter the following text:

net send yourcomputername Go Home

and save it as gohome.bat somewhere convenient on your hard drive.

3) Set up a Scheduled Task to run the .bat file every weekday at 4:45pm.

Sweeeeeeet…..