Jan 30 2009

Why InDesign Training Courses Must Always Cover Styles

All Computer Training courses should include coverage of the use of styles to improve workflow and maintain consistency within a document and across several documents. Most computer users have some familiarity with what styles are: named formats which can be applied to your text as an alternative to manually applying each formatting attribute individually. Even users new to InDesign will probably have encountered styles in Microsoft Word: “Heading 1″, “Heading2″, “Normal”, etc. However, InDesign’s use of styles is much more sophisticated and we always ensure, when we run InDesign training courses in London, that we emphasise their importance.

The obvious benefits of using styles are, firstly, consistency: the same formats are applied each time without variations accidentally creeping in. Secondly, speed: if a heading needs six formatting attributes applied then, if you do not use a style, you will have to apply each attribute manually. If you use a style, you can apply the necessary formats with one click or one keystroke. A third benefit is the ability to update and modify the look of your text simply by modifying the definition of your style(s).

One less obvious benefit of using styles in InDesign is what might be called scalability. Styles play a key role in some of the program’s advanced features and documents that do not use styles cannot benefit from these features. For example, a key part of creating XML-based layouts, is the mapping of XML tags to styles within a document.

A second example is the creation of tables of contents. InDesign creates tables of contents based on the use of styles. In designing the table of contents, one specifies which styles are to be included. When the table of contents is generated, InDesign finds each piece of text in that style and places the appropriate page number next to it.

In fact, the table of contents feature is more flexible than the name suggests since it can be used to produce a list of anything within a document where a particular style has been used consistently. For example, if every image in a document has a caption formatted with a particular style, the table of contents facility can be used to produce a list of images.

A third example of the advanced use of styles is when working with books; a features which enables multiple InDesign documents to be treated as one entity for such operations as preflighting, printing and the production of tables of contents. Different users can work on each document within the book and the styles used within all documents can be streamlined by a process called synchronisation.

Because of its importance, we cover styles both on our basic InDesign training courses and on or advanced InDesign training as well. On our advanced courses, we explain the use of such features as nested styles whereby a character style can be included within a paragraph style and automatically applied to certain characters within the paragraph; for example, all characters up to the first occurrence of a colon or an em dash.

The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Training, an independent computer training company offering InDesign training courses in London and throughout the UK.

 
Jan 30 2009

Ubuntu Computer Buy

Buntfu is a Siswati expression, a word that encompasses a lot of meanings. There is love in there, there is trust, and there are feelings. Buntfu is a word that describes being human – how you relate to your neighbor, how you relate to the person sitting next to you, how you feel for that person.

We felt this name should be everyones approach when setting up a computer running GNU/Linux and selling it here. As a buyer if this idea is followed by a seller you should feel confident that you will be getting their very best work.

Buntfu.com is a community based computer vendor. Our definition of that means:

1. Anyone can list their inventory of fedora based computers on our auction style store.

2. Everyones system listed is preconfigured with a complete fedora computer or server OS.

3. Placing and fulfilling custom order systems can be achieved using the wanted area of our site.

4. Together we can provide support for and find help through our community based support forums.

5. Our advertising, popularity and success depends on all of us, our support and the systems we offer.

Buntfu.com will always be free of charge. You do not pay any site fees or closing cost fees to buy or sell your GNU/Linux based computer. All features within the site are available to everyone without charge . We encourage you to use the site to the fullest and take advantage of all of its features.

Buntfu believes that the community can provide great computers and services. Using GNU/Linux and used, new, custom, and frankenstein style computers can be of a great value and benefit for all its users.

As a buyer Buntfu can benefit you by providing:

A unique source of GNU/Linux computers from around the world or in your hometown. Buyers benefit from lower cost since there are no site fees for sellers to pay. Our main focus is to help you find or get a great GNU/Linux computer whether it would be through buying one preinstalled or getting someone to install and customize it for you.

As a seller Buntfu can benefit you by providing:

PCs listed here are automatically syndicated to multiple shopping feeds, RSS feeds, coupled with paid & exchange based advertising on some of the biggest networks available. Our advertising of your systems is very focused and targeted since this is the main purpose and responsibility of our site. This is all done automatically at no cost to you which saves you an enormous amount of time advertising by yourself. Also within the site are manual promotional tools to advertise your personal RSS feed of your listing to RSS services you pick with just a click or two. All features of the site are available free of charge including stores, etc etc..

Our preferred GNU/Linux distribution is Ubuntu and its family, primarily for ease of use, most support, large community, OS recognition and frequent updates. But we also have many other great GNU/Linux based PC’s such as PCLOS Systems

 
Jan 26 2009

Top New Features Covered On Our Dreamweaver Training Courses

Top new topics covered on our Dreamweaver training courses

1. Photoshop Smart Objects

The Photoshop integration which was begun in Dreamweaver CS3 has been enhanced in CS4 to offer via the use of Adobe’s Smart Objects technology. A Photoshop file can be imported directly into Dreamweaver and will automatically come in as a smart object.

Photoshop images are can be inserted using the same techniques as inserting any other image file: Insert > Image; dragging from the Files panel; dragging from the Assets panel; or using the Insert toolbar. A Photoshop-style Optimise window automatically appears and you can choose the settings appropriate for that particular image usually GIF, JPEG or PNG.

Once the image has been imported, an icon is displayed in the upper left of the image indicating that it is a smart object. Also, in the Property Inspector, the location of the original PSD file is shown in a box marked “Original”.

The fact that the image is a smart object means that if we resize it in Dreamweaver, it will automatically be re-optimised and a new version of the image will be generated with the new dimensions. (In previous versions, resizing an image would mean that the browser was responsible for resizing leading to poor image quality.

2. Related Files

HTML is a notoriously sparse environment which relies on files created with other technologies to add functionality to web pages. Typical examples of related files are server-side includes, CSS, JavaScript and XML. Dreamweaver now includes a feature called “Related Files” which enables you to edit the content of such files, without having to open them separately, and to instantly see the effect of your changes on the main file.

Whenever you open a file which contains linked files, Dreamweaver displays each of the linked files in the Related Files Bar. To access a related file just click on its name. If you make any changes to a related file and asterisk appears next to its name in the Related Files Bar to remind you to save your changes. When you do, the impact of the changes is immediately visible in the main file.

3. Creating CSS styles in the Property Inspector

The Property Inspector can be used to change the attributes of any element you select on an HTML page. In previous versions of Dreamweaver, changing the attributes of highlighted text would cause the program to create CSS classes with names like “Style1″, “Style2″, etc. in the head area of the current page. This random creation of styles was often responsible for getting new web developers into bad habits.

In Dreamweaver CS4, the Property Inspector contains buttons which allow you to switch between HTML and CSS options. When working in the CSS options, you can now target a specific CSS rule before choosing an attribute or, if necessary, create a new rule.

The author is a trainer and developer with dreamweaver training, an independent computer training company offering dreamweaver courses in London and throughout the UK.

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Jan 24 2009

You Should Perform A Registry Scan On Your PC If Your Computer Is Running Slow

Having problems with a slow pc? We all go through that especially when your computer has been with you for over a year without any maintenance work or updates.

Ordinarily, many assume that the problems is in lack of memory and space, that your hard disk is full and you should just delete files to free up some space. Unfortunately while that may be one reason (if your hard disk is really full with less 5% space left), often times the problem lies in your registry files.

A registry is part of your operating system in Windows. It is a key tool to making your programs run. It starts to fail when you start changing your setting or from daily prolonged surfing online. It tends to get bloated with missing or invalid and obsolete entries.

Thus, the more you tinker with your system and download files to your computer, then delete them, the faster your registry will get fragmented, and the performance of your computer will be greatly affected.

Listed below are some of the common problems of a faulty registry:

• Your computer hangs. This is when the mouse cursor or keyboard stops responding. The cursor will not move at all. With this situation, you will lose your work (if not saved) because you will have to either manually restart your computer, or press on Control-Alt-Del.

• Surfing on the internet takes too long. The waiting time between opening and closing websites start taking too long. Plus, you cannot open video or music files without it stalling.

• Boot up takes forever. When you turn on your computer, and it takes forever to open, then you have a system problem. Many times, the cause of slow boot ups is caused by a bloated registry. You may also start seeing error messages about corrupt files.

• You see the blue screen. The kiss of death is when your monitor turns blue and you get a message about your system not functioning.

All these can happen suddenly and without warning, so your best option would be to find a registry cleaner that will prepare you for such eventuality or, better yet, prevent it from happening at all.

If you have any experience with how an operating system works, you can clean out your registry manually, although this could take a lot of your time, and you might delete an important operating system file in the process.

If you have no experience, there are several reputable registry cleaners products that will do the job for you. Look for one that can scan and automatically fix the problem by cleaning out obsolete files, then compressing your registry so that it will function like new. It would also be a good idea to find a registry repair program program that you can keep updated, thereby your computer is always updated as well.

There is something about your computer not functioning that gives you a sinking lost feeling, like someone died. Performing a system registry check will really make this scenario just about impossible.

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Jan 24 2009

How To Speed Up Internet Speed

Tricks to Optimize PC Speed

Search more useful tips and tricks to improve internet bandwidth

• Delete the startup programs: When you start up Windows, several programs start and get loaded on to memory. These take up precious memory. Ideally, you should remove them using the settings provided in the programs themselves. But, if you can’t, then use Startup Control Panel to do that. This program after its installation will be found in the Control Panel.

• RAM: A machine’s speed can be simply improved by adding more RAM rather than going for a CPU upgrade. Get some additional RAM and see the improvement. If you have adequate RAM, but memory supply seems to be bottlenecked, then use RamBooster. It routinely frees some memory and can be custom adjusted for your needs. There are several such programs, but most of them make your system unstable. I had found no such problems with Rambooster.

• Watch the programs in memory: Using software such as TaskInfo to find out which are the programs that are running in memory and weed out those that you do not need.

• Three-button salute: If you cannot get software such as Taskinfo, then just press Ctrl+Alt+Delete combination once to bring up the Close Program dialog box. Ideally, when you have all programs closed and your taskbar is empty, there should be just three programs in this box – explorer, system tray, and your antivirus program. All other programs should be a waste. Most common culprits are Microsoft office, RealPlayer, Winamp, antivirus scheduler, etc. Just remove all those that are not needed using Startup Control Panel or using msconfig from the Run dialog box.

• Increasing the performance of individual programs: You can increase the speed of a program, by setting the priority of the program’s process thread to either High or Realtime. Use TaskInfo (in Win 9x/ME) or Task Manager (in Windows 2000 by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del). Do not go overboard on this or your system will look very unresponsive.

• Active Desktop: Unless you run stock market price tickers on your desktop, deactivate Active Desktop to save memory. If you have enabled Active Desktop just to enable a GIF or JPEG file as the background, then convert the file to a BMP file and set that as the wallpaper without Active Desktop.

• Plain desktop: Remove the desktop background image and set it None. This will save some memory.

• Screen resolution: Set your screen resolution to 15 bit or 16 bit for both speed and saving memory. Set a higher level only when playing games and other such special stuff that require better resolutions.

• Clean the Desktop: Remove all unwanted icons from the desktop and shortcuts from the desktop and the quick launch bar. If you have shortcuts for CD drives, windows will check for their contents every time it loads up and cause a delay.

• Remove sound events: If you remove the sound events, your operations will get faster and are less likely to hang. To do so, go to Control Panel » Sounds and Multimedia » Schemes and then choose No Sounds.

Get more free useful tips and tricks how to improve windows performance

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Jan 9 2009

Amazing Technique To Recover Windows Registry

If you would like to learn how to make a Windows registry recovery, then this article is for you. a lot of windows users want to find out how to speed up a sluggish computer, which in almost all cases involves repairing the windows registry from a corruption. in particular, we will talk about about why windows registry recovery is needed, how it can be done and easy ways of doing it. Remember how fast you computer was the first time you got it from the computer shop. however as times went by, it became more and more slow and started giving strange errors. You are not alone,as it is very common. The cause for this is the windows registry error. What happens is that, as more and more programs are installed and uninstalled, the windows registry accumulates many unused registry entries. When these accumulate to a huge number, the operating system finds it hard to use the important registry entries properly. It’s like having a desk which is very much disorganized, and you have to wade through a large amount of papers in order to locate the paper which you are particularly searching for. hence, a registry must be cleaned at least once in a month.

If you have any particular errors displayed in your screen that is linked to windows registry like dll errors, it is most advisable to first search for this error and find out what exactly it is and what can be done to eliminate this error. Once you know precisely what the error is, you will need to locate the particular registry error from your computers registry and then remove it. This can be very tedious as well as dangerous. Why is it risky? This is because there are a lot of registry entries which are used by more than one program. If you remove one of those entries, then one or more of the functional application might stop functioning. Fortunately there is an easier solution, you can use software that is explicitly built for this use.

A registry cleaning program is in reality a life saver. Why? Because, Windows registry is huge. It is really huge. so it is highly impractical to attempt to repair any issues in the windows registry manually. A Registry cleaner can perform the repair within ten minutes. The question that arises now is that, as there are thousands] of registry cleaning software out in the market, how do you determine which one to use? luckily for you, I have performed some research and testing on quite a few of the most widely used registry cleaning software brands, and looked particularly for the value for money and how safe is it to use the particular software. I have found that Registry Easy is the most dependable and safe registry cleaning software that can be used effectively in a windows XP registry recovery. Safe since Registry Easy has a backup option, that can take you back to previous state if required.