Word’s table tools include a feature called “Heading Rows Repeat” (in the “Table” menu) which is actually a formatting option. When you apply this option to your table’s first row, this indicates to Word that the first row is actually a “heading row”, i.e. a row that contains column headings. And if your table ends […]
Word has an automatic table of contents feature, which is fine if you make sure you are using the proper heading styles throughout your document and choose the correct options for the table of contents. Still, it being Microsoft, flakiness and unpredictability are to be expected. And, as usual, the problems occur at the most […]
Mac OS X’s Address Book has a somewhat hidden feature where, if you have selected a card in your Address Book database, holding the Option key down while the card is selected will highlight in yellow in the “Group” all the groups which contain the currently selected card. It’s handy, because you don’t always remember […]
For a giggle, head over to Microsoft developer Rick Schaut’s blog to read his post about Word and tabs (as in “tabulations”). The post itself is not particularly interesting… It attempts to explain how Word’s AutoFormatting feature works. (Rick Schaut calls it the “Auto Formatter” but I’ve never seen this phrase anywhere in the Word […]
It is the day of solutions… Not always pretty ones, but solutions nonetheless. This one is for the problem I described last week, where blog item authors other than the administrator (myself) were not getting e-mail notifications whenever someone submitted a comment on one of their blog entries that needed to be moderated (i.e. approved […]
Well, Mark Ghosh, the author of the Nicer Archives mod discussed earlier today, did get back to me today, which was greatly appreciated. And together we were able to identify what the problem was. It turns out that, in the process of customizing his Nicer Archives mod in order to make it look like my […]
The default templates included in WordPress are OK, but lack flexibility. While waiting to find a solution for searching items that match more than one category criterion (I still don’t have a workable solution), I thought I would at least develop a nicer interface to access the WordPress archives on my employer’s web site. The […]
The score line ended up being the same as three weeks ago, when Arsenal beat Newcastle at St. James’ Park — but it was definitely a very different game. In the game three weeks ago, the Gunners were far from impressive and there was no flow to their football after they took the lead through […]
I saw this movie in a French movie theatre in the 1980s, while I was still a university student — and I remember being quite taken by it, especially because of my original attraction to the Arthurian legend, and also because of the way music was used in this movie. I think it was one […]
I’d read a rather glowing review of this film in The New Yorker a few months ago, and it was on pay-per-view this week, so I thought I’d give it a try. I don’t really like pay-per-view much, mostly because the programmers still haven’t grasped the fact that, even in North America, most movie watchers […]
This little piece of news at C|Net might not sound like much, but I find it significant, because it echoes stuff I have heard from other sources about Microsoft moving more and more towards automated testing instead of using actual human beings to test their software. Why is it significant? Because Microsoft’s software is already […]
Ah, the goodness of blogs… I only use StuffIt Expander every now and then these days, simply because there are fewer and fewer things that I download that are in .sit or .sitx. And I certainly have not kept up with the latest StuffIt updates, because of the atrocious upgrading procedure, the extremely ill-advised “improvements”, […]
One of the problems with using open source software such as WordPress is that documentation can be woefully inadequate and technical support difficult to obtain for specific issues. I was able to experience this first-hand this week, with a nagging problem that I have been experiencing with the WordPress-driven web site that I am currently […]
I have been working hard on finalizing the new web site that I am designing for my employer. It’s not a blog, but I am using blogging software — the open source WordPress — behind the scenes to handle the dynamic part of the site and enable other contributors to easily post new items on […]
For all standard Mac OS X windows, including regular “Aqua” windows and so-called brushed-metal windows, the behaviour is the same: When the window is not in the foreground, the drop shadow around it becomes much less pronounced, with less depth and a much more subtle look. It’s intended to give a sense of perspective, with […]