WordPress CSS: How to create an automatically evenly spaced menu

by Lena Shore · 0 comments

Here is a method to create a WordPress menu using CSS to keep all of the navigation items spread out and even, no matter how many navigation items you have.

  1. Create your menu using WordPress’ built in menu system.
  2. Add an extra custom link at the end of the menu with # for the URL. Name it anything you want, but name it something meaningful so you’ll remember why it is there 3 months later. This must be in the last position of the menu.
  3. Use the following CSS code and pay attention to the commented areas of the CSS code and update to reflect the width and name of your specific menu:
    • Change “menu-mainmenu” to whatever you called your menu. You can look at the source code of your website to find this. Even easier if you use Firefox’s Firebug or Safari’s built in Code Inspector.
    • Change the width from 990px to whatever the width is of your menu.
    • “menu-item-1470″ is the last “filler” menu item you added to your menu. Change the name of it to reflect the name of yours.

ul#menu-mainmenu { /* Change the name of menu to whatever you called yours */
text-align:justify;
width:990px; /* Change the width to match the width of your menu */
margin:0 auto;}

ul#menu-mainmenu li { /* Change the name of menu to whatever you called yours */
display:inline-block; float:none;}

#menu-item-1470 { /* Change the name of this nav button to yours */
width:100%;
display: inline-block;
height:0px;
}

#menu-item-1470 a, #menu-item-1470 a:hover{ /* Change the name of these nav buttons to yours */
display: none;
}

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Set up a MacMini (or Other Computer) Without a Monitor

by Lena Shore · 6 comments

I recently procured an older MacMini that I plan to run my PBX software. I don’t need (or have) a monitor for it. I just need it to be accessible over the network. I needed to use my iMac as a monitor to access the MacMini so I could set it up.

Here is the simple steps it took to get it up and running.

What you’ll need.

  • Firewire to firewire transfer cable. This is a cable where both ends look the same. They are both male 6-pin connectors. They are cheap (less than $5.00) and you can find them at Amazon if you can’t find one at your local Radio Hack or computer store.
  • Intel-based Mac Target computer (this is the newly aquired computer you want to access without a monitor.)
  • Intel-based Mac Host computer (this is probably the computer you have up and running already).
  • Keyboard (an extra keyboard is handy, but you could use the one you already have attached to your host computer).
  1. Turn off target computer.
  2. Connect a keyboard to the target computer.
  3. Connect your host computer and target computer with the firewire transfer cable(your host computer can be on). Make sure no other firewire devices are connected.
  4. Start the target computer while holding down the T key on your keyboard. This will put the target computer in Firewire Target Disk Mode.
  5. Restart the host computer using the target computer as the boot disk (System Preferences –> Start up Disk)
  6. Setup the target computer with network access and remote management (Sharing)
  7. Reboot the host computer with its own disk
  8. Disconnect the target computer and reboot.

Magic! You should now be able to use Screen Sharing over your network to remotely control your target computer without a mouse or keyboard.

To share another computer’s screen:

  1. Click the disclosure triangle next to Shared in the sidebar of a Finder window to display the shared computers on your network.
  2. Select the computer whose screen you want to share, and then click Share Screen.
  3. Select how you want to connect to the computer:

As a registered user: Select this to connect to the other computer using a valid login name and password. If “Only these users” is selected on the other computer, make sure the login name you’re using is on the list of allowed users.

By asking permission: Select this if you want to ask the current user of the other computer for permission to share their screen.

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How to Add Quotes to Your Cells in Excel Automatically

by Lena Shore · 0 comments

This tip is going to be mostly helpful to people who working with databases. But, if you work with Excel and find yourself needing to deal with repetitive formatting, you might also appreciate the technique.

When working with CSV files you may need to add quotes to either side of a cell’s contents in order to upload them properly to your database. You can easily find yourself working with an Excel file from a workmate that needs to be formatted.

You got this:

But really need this:

This can be a big damn deal if you have hundreds of fields. No one wants to add this by hand. Fortunately, the solution is a snap! It all has to do with applying specific formatting to your cells.

  • Highlight the cells you want to add the quotes.
  • Go to Format –> Cells –> Custom
  • Paste the following into the “Type” field: ”””@””” (see blow up below)
  • Click “okay”
  • Be happy you didn’t do it all by hand.

NOTE: It’s always a good idea to open your file in a text editor to double-check your CSV export. Sometimes you need to do a little find/replace action to get your file picture perfect.

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So You Want to be a Graphic Designer?

by Lena Shore · 2 comments

This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by a student from a high school in Illinois, who was doing a research paper on jobs they might want after graduation.

What kinds of things do you design?

I design things related to the internet (Web sites, banners, eblasts, etc.), and just about anything on paper (logos, brochures, stationery, rack cards, direct mail, annual reports, etc.). I also do illustration work.

Have you designed anything for a major company?

The easy answer is yes, though it isn’t as glamorous as the question makes it sound. Girl Scouts and BlueCross spring to mind as major companies that I’ve done work for. I was the art director for global high end staffing company for about 5 years. I also did a lot of work for a lot of our subsidiary companies.

What do you like most about being a graphic designer?

Solving problems for clients and making them happy. Getting new clients from recommendations from existing clients. It’s the highest form of flattery. (Because it pays better than imitation.)

What do you like the least about being a graphic designer?

“Design by committee”. This is when you work for a company and there is a large team of people that will be approving your work. Many times there are so many opinions flying around the work gets watered down to the point that it sucks. Everything that was unique and eye-catching is chipped away leaving nothing but mediocrity.

How long have you been a graphic designer?

I started freelancing about for 23 years ago while I was still in college. Since then I have had many formal graphic design jobs, but eventually decided to go back to being a full-time freelancer and have been for about for 11 years.

What did you have to do to get started as a graphic designer?

I knew I always wanted to do something in the art field. My mother was artistic and I always loved creating things and drawing growing up. My parents always encouraged me.

Even before high school was out, I knew I wanted to be a graphic designer. Later, I got my degree in Graphic Design and Illustration.

While I was still in college I worked for print shops on the computer working on layouts. The jobs came to me mostly by accident, but it was the best job I could have had to prepare me for the rest of my career.

What do you do as a typical day for a graphic designer?

As a freelancer

Today, my typical day starts with waking up when I’ve had enough sleep. The funny thing is you’d think I would sleep in since no one is making me get up. But, I find myself happier on a self-imposed schedule. I go to bed at a reasonable hour and wake up before 6:00 most days. I know designers that would rather stay up late and work into the night – but I’d rather keep the same hours my clients do (9 to 5).

I shuffle into my office in my pajamas and spend about an hour answering emails and adding items to my to-do list. A bit later, after breakfast and exercise, I start banging away at my list.

I try to book about 80% of my day with scheduled work. The other 20% is for unexpected phone calls and emergency projects that crop up. The first half of the day I spend working on big projects like web sites, logo designs, or brochures. The other half of the day I work on smaller projects like making changes to client’s websites, changing a few words on a brochure, adding a new email address to a client’s account, making a requested grayscale version of a client logo, writing blog articles, etc.

The day is peppered with phone calls, answering emails, adjusting my schedule and dogs begging for biscuits and to be played with. I try to stop working by 5:00 p.m.

When I was working for a big company…

I would be at work by 8:00 and gone by 5:00. I never skipped lunch. When jobs came in I didn’t schedule too much. I just did whatever was on top. New jobs went on the bottom. It was more simple and only an occasional emergency. There was less pressure to keep everyone happy. Whenever I had free time, I was teaching myself web design or a new program.

I did the same types of things I do now minus the web design work: logos, brochures, newsletters, manuals, reports, PowerPoint presentations, charts.

Do you see yourself designing until you retire?

Absolutely. Although, I don’t really plan on retiring. I like to keep busy. I imagine the type of work I will want to continue doing will change. I see myself getting more into illustration work that requires less attention to deadlines… like stock illustration.

What helped you decide that you wanted to be a graphic designer?

Sometime in the middle of high school I started thinking about how I could apply creativity to a job and came up with graphic design. I am not a purely logic-based personality nor am I totally creative-based. Graphic design was something that had the right amount of creativity and structure for me to be interested in. Plus, my local college had a degree plan for it.

Watching the movie Big, with Tom Hanks, may or may not have had an impact on my decision.

What recommendations/advice do you have for someone who wants to enter into the profession?

  • Make a decision. Do you want to work for yourself as a freelancer, or work for a company? Do you want to stick with print design or web design? Or both?
  • Get educated. I recommend going to college, but if you were really motivated you could get by with individual course-work.
  • Lynda.com and your local library can teach you any program you want.
  • You will be judged on your portfolio. Work on freelance jobs for your friends or make up projects to help build your portfolio. College group projects will help you learn how to work with a team, but they aren’t good for your portfolio. The interviewer is going to want to know if you could do the work without the help of your team.
  • If you need to work while you are in school, find a job that will help you when you get out (print shop, t-shirt shop, sign-shop, etc.)
  • Act like a professional. Be on time. Keep your word. If you are going to be late, call ahead. Return phone calls in a timely manner. Write thank you notes after interviews and meetings with new clients.
  • Work with industry-standard programs (Adobe Creative Suite for example. You can get trial versions and student discounts). Microsoft Publisher is cheap — and there is a reason for it.
  • Back-up your work. There are two kinds of hard drives: those that have crashed, and those that will crash. Set up your computer to create back ups automatically. Manual backups are like using the rhythm method to avoid preganacy.
  • Look at other people’s work to fill your head with ideas.
  • Keep a sketch book. Learn to draw.
  • Proof-read and spell-check.
  • Keep organized.
  • Learn to listen to your clients and not to take criticism personally.
  • Your job is to create something pleasing and functional.
  • Read “The Mac is Not a Typewriter”.
  • If you find yourself without a project – do something to help yourself later. Work on your own marketing materials, file, create a new promotion, call a client, learn a new program, explore other designer’s work, etc.

If you have any other questions, post in the comments below.

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What Twitter Desktop App do you use?

by Lena Shore · 0 comments

Question

What is the Twitter desktop app you use? Or do you use one?

Answer

I fluctuate between Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. Both are great at managing social media.

Both:

  • Let you post to multiple social media services from one place.
  • Can send the same message to multiple services at once.
  • Have mobile apps that sync with your other platforms
  • Let you schedule posts (although, last I checked Hootsuite had more options)
  • Handle Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Facebook Fan Pages, Foursquare, MySpace
  • Utilize URL shorteners

Differences:

  • Tweetdeck has a desktop app while Hootsuite’s app is browser based.
  • Tweetdeck shows all your columns in one window. Hootsuite separates them by tabs and then has columns.
  • Tweetdeck has more options to adjust the columns the way you like them (Hide certain words or people; Create columns with just one subject).
  • Hootsuite has a neat little “hootlet” to quickly post links while surfing.
  • Hootsuite’s built in URL shortener has analytics built in. Tweetdeck lets you choose your shortener (some are tied to analytics).
  • Tweetdeck handles photos better with some different options of photo services.
  • Hootsuite has more robust analytics that let you integrate with Google’s Analytics.
  • Tweetdeck lets you add these additional accounts: Buzz.
  • Hootsuite lets you add these additional accounts: PingFm, WordPress, mixi.
  • Hootsuitle lets you have multiple users per account (great for business).

I like both of them. They both have their pluses and minuses. If you are an individual it comes down to personal preference which you’d like better. If you are heavy into social media or are using it for business – then you probably need Hootsuite.

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Share iTunes Across Multiple Users on Same Macintosh

by Lena Shore · 0 comments

I decided recently that I wanted to have multiple users on my main machine to divide my work items from my play items. It’s hard to get work done while you that Facebook bookmark it staring at you. Likewise, it’s tough to enjoy yourself when you are looking at the latest project looming in your desktop.

Setting up the new user was a snap. But, what I quickly found out was that iTunes plays a big part of both of my worlds, work and play. I didn’t want completely different music libraries mucking up my computer, so I altered the one I had so I could share it between users.

It’s not difficult to do. You can follow the instructions and be done in minutes. Here is how I did it.

Create a new folder in your shared folder

  1. Find your Shared folder (Users –> Shared)
  2. Create a new folder inside your Shared folder called “Music“

Move your existing iTunes folder

  1. Find your iTunes folder (Users –> lenashore–> Music –> iTunes). NOTE: “lenashore” is the name of my folder. You’ll want to look for your own user. This is the folder that looks like a house.
  2. Move this “iTunes” folder from it’s current Music folder into the new Music folder we created in the Sharedfolder. (Users –> Shared –> Music)

Change the permissions of the new Music folder

  1. Select the newly created Music folder (Users –> Shared –> Music) and “Get Info” on that folder (File –> Get Info OR Command+i)
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the info pane to get to the Sharing & Permissions area. If the padlock is closed in the lower right corner click on it and enter the password used to login to your computer.
  3. You will see a list of groups. Next to the everyone group it probably says Read only. Change “everyone” to “Read & Write”. NOTE: My permissions list may look different than yours.
  4. Click the gear icon at the bottom of the Sharing & Permissions section and select “Apply to enclosed items…”. Select OK to confirm.

 Tell iTunes where the new library is located

  1. Launch iTunes while holding down the Option key
  2. Select Choose Library on the resulting popup window
  3. Browse and select the new iTunes library file (iTunes Library.itl or iTunes Library) we moved to the Shared folder (Users –> Shared –> Music –> iTunes Library.itl).
  4. iTunes will now use the new shared library.

Share this same library with other users on the same computer

  1. Log Out of OS X and log back in as a different user who you want to access the same iTunes Library. NOTE: If you are using Fast User Switching make sure you quit iTunes before you switch or you’ll get an error.
  2. Launch iTunes while holding down the Option key
  3. Select Choose Library on the resulting popup window
  4. Browse and select the new iTunes library file (iTunes Library.itl or iTunes Library) we moved to the Shared folder (Users –> Shared –> Music –> iTunes Library.itl)
  5. iTunes will now use the new shared library.

Enjoy!

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How do I reinstall Lion on my Mac?

by Lena Shore · 0 comments

Question

I purchased Lion through the app store a while back for my Macintosh and there is no disk. Now I need to reinstall the operating system. How can I do this? I would really like to have a clean install of Lion.

Answer

  1. Order Lion on an USB thumb drive from Apple ($69.00) or
  2. Make your own bootable disk from the copy of Lion you downloaded (free)

Make your own bootable disk of Lion

What you’ll need:

  • The “Install Lion App” you downloaded from the app store
  • A thumb drive or DVD 4.05GB or more free space on it.
  1. Find the “Install Lion App” that you downloaded in your applications folder. If you don’t have it you can download it again from the app store by going to the Purchases area of the App Store. Even a good connection is going to take the better part of an hour as it is over 4GB. You may want to find something to do or take a break. When it is done installing, exit from the installation prompt. If you install it now, it will do an install and delete the image disk.
  2. Right click (or control-click) the program icon and select “Show Package Contents.
  3. Go to Contents –> Shared Support –> InstallESD.dmg. The “InstallESD.dmg is the file we will use to create our bootable disk of Lion. Copy/Paste this file to your desktop for easy access. NOTE: Do not drag and drop or you’ll get an alias of the file.
  4. Open up Disk Utility (Applications –> Utilities –> Disk Utility).
  5. Plug in your thumb drive or insert your blank DVD. Continue to the appropriate section below.

If inserting a DVD:

  • In Disk Utility, click the “Burn” icon and then select the “installESD.dmg” file that you just copied to your desktop.
  • Let it burn.If inserting a thumb drive:

Select the USB thumb drive you want to use:

  • Go to the “Restore” tab.
  • In the source area, find and select the “installESD.dmg” file you copied to your desktop earlier.
  • In the destination area, choose the partition of the drive you want to use. NOTE: Be aware that you will erase everything on the partition/USB you choose and it will be replaced it with OS X Lion, so be sure you don’t have anything important on it.
  • Click Restore.

It’s new installation time!

After the image is burned to your USB thumb drive or DVD, restart your computer while holding down the option key. An option to boot from the DVD or USB drive will appear. Now you can go through the installation as normal.

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How to Personalize Your Facebook Fan Page Web Address

by Lena Shore · 0 comments

Question

How can I change my Facebook Fan Page to be easier to remember? It’s all full of numbers. I can’t remember it.

Answer

As you may have realized, when you create a fan page in Facebook, the default website URL isn’t easy to remember much less share with people. Plus, it doesn’t look too good on marketing materials. It looks something like this: https://www.facebook.com/pages/my-cool-fan-page/38130347023

However, it’s an easy thing to fix, keeping a couple things in mind.

  • You can only change it once. Facebook won’t let you rename it. So, type carefully and make sure it is what you want.
  • You must have 25 friends/likes on that fan page before you can change the URL. This rule was abandoned for a period of time and then reinstated. Given Facebook’s penchant for changing things who knows if this will stand.
  • You can’t transfer the ownership of the new URL to another party. You can’t squat it to resell it later.
  • You can’t violate anyone else’s trademark rights. And, if you do, you can get it taken away from you.

The actual process is easy. Just go to facebook.com/username to choose custom URLs for all of your pages.

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Where is my Library Folder?

by Lena Shore · 3 comments

Question

I am trying to follow some instructions on my Macintosh. It is telling me to go to my user folder and then the library folder. But, it’s not there?

Answer

You must have upgraded to Lion. Lion’s operating system hides some important folders including your user’s library folder. Presumably, it is to prevent you from accidentally deleting it.

It is an easy matter to instantly display it.

Launch your terminal (Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal) and enter this command to show your Library folder:

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

If you’d like to hide it again, you can enter this command when you are done:

chflags hidden ~/Library

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Return Receipt for Mail.app on Macintosh

by Lena Shore · 0 comments

Question

Is there a way to know that someone has opened your email using Mail on my Macintosh?

Answer

There are a couple of ways.

Sign up for a service

First, you can sign up for a service that will monitor your mail. I don’t have any specific recommendations, but you can google “return receipt email service” or “email tracking services” and get a bunch to choose from.

Use the terminal

Second you can login to your terminal and change the way your Mail.app works using the command-line. If the process below scares you, just sign up for a service. The terminal is powerful and if you typed in the correct command, you could wipe your machine. However, if working in the terminal doesn’t scare the crap out of you and makes you drool with power…

To make Mac OS X Mail request a read receipt for every message you send:

  1. Open your Terminal. (Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal)
  2. Enter “defaults read com.apple.mail UserHeaders” and press return.
    • NOTE: If that command returns “The domain/default pair of (com.apple.mail, UserHeaders) does not exist” Enter this instead (replace “Name” with your own name and “email@address” with your own email address.
    • defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders ‘{“Disposition-Notification-To” = “Name <email@address>”; }’
    • If the “defaults read” command above returns a line of values that starts with “{” and ends in “}”:
      • Highlight the entire line. It might read something like {Bcc = “bcc@example.com”; }, for example.
      • Press Command-C.
      • Type “defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders ‘” (excluding the outer quotation marks).
      • Press Command-V.
      • Type “‘”.
      • Insert ‘”Disposition-Notification-To” = “Name <email@address>”; ‘ in front of the closing “}” character, replacing Name with your name and email@address with your email address.
      • The line might now read
        • defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders ‘{Bcc = “bcc@example.com”; “Disposition-Notification-To” = “Heinz Tschabitscher <sender@example.com>”; }’, for example.
  3. Press Enter.

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