I’ve always had a problem with getting tables to center properly while creating valid code. The Site Wizard has come to the rescue! Here he shares an article on how to do it, with a workaround for Internet Explorer:

How To Centre a Table - from The Site Wizard

The title refers to Nvu and Komposer (two popular web page editing tools) but you should be able to follow along no matter what editor you’re using.

For all of you database nuts out there…

Exploits of a Mom

Thanks goes out to Bleys for this little tidbit.

Here’s a really neat site where you can load an image and get a color scheme from the colors in the image. Way cool!

colr.org

One of our clients has several Microsoft Access databases which we developed, and when I need to work on them, we email the files back and forth. Recently, his email program has started renaming the attached files!! For some reason, it comes through named as database.zlh instead of database.mdb. So I did a little digging and it looks like some program along the way is doing that for protection, to prevent viruses, trojans and such. Here’s an article which details the different extensions given to files when they’re being automatically renamed. I’m still not sure which program is doing this, but it’s good to know why it’s happening and to be assured that the contents are not being changed, just the name. The solution is to give the file the proper extension when saving the attachment.

One way to personalize your web site is to provide a favicon - the little icon that shows in the address bar of the browser when a visitor is on your page. You may have noticed ours… the blue diamond with a magnifying glass in it (a sign of our site to come!!). I made this by taking an image and running it through an online program which creates the required favicon.ico file. Then I uploaded it to our web site and presto! The favorite icon image appears. It’s one of those small details which can help make your site stand out from the crowd.

Here’s a great site which does a fantastic job of creating an icon from an image:

favicon.ico Generator

You can also draw one from scratch, if that’s your thing. Just make sure to click the “Download” link when you have something you like. Then upload it to your website (make sure it’s named favicon.ico) and you should be all set!

Recently I found this great article about easily selecting just a piece of an image, using the wonderful, free image editor called GIMP. Sometimes you want to use just part of a picture, so here’s a way to easily select an irregularly-shaped object:

Removing Backgrounds Quickly In The GIMP

Nice!

Recently I made a form for a client, and on her computer, one field in the form was showing up with a yellow background. I checked it on 4 different browsers on two different computers in our office, and could not duplicate the problem. Argh! So today, I finally hit upon the correct Google query and found the answer!!

Google toolbar highlights autofill fields

The link above will tell you how to turn that feature off. Personally, I don't use the Google toolbar because it seems an invasion of privacy and I don't think it's available for Linux, anyway. But it's a good thing to keep in mind how other internet programs can affect your browser.

If you're trying to figure out what software to use on your computer or web site, here's a site which may help you decide what to do:

ITerating.com

You can select the kind of software you're evaluating and compare different packages by features… just click on "Compare Products" on the left side when you arrive at the site. This is a work in progress - feel free to contribute if you have some information to share!

Yay! Thanks to LifeHacker, we now have a way to check your web site in a whole bunch of different browsers, including Safari on a Mac:

BrowserShots.org

This is a free service but be aware… it can take a bit of time and babying to get results. There's a 30 minute time limit for results, and sometimes it takes longer than that to process all of your choices. So you have to babysit the process and refresh the screen so you can extend the time allowed. The effort is SO worth it! I've been looking for a way to see stuff on a Mac browser, and here it is! Totally awesome. 

Recently I was tasked with creating a little ad rotation program, and part of it was providing a place for a page of content, where the user would go after clicking on one of the ads. Of course, you want to be able to make a page look pretty (especially since you're trying to sell something), so I went looking for a simple, user-friendly online web page editor, and I found a really nice one! It was extremely easy to add to the web page, and the code it produces is valid (a very important feature). So if you ever find you have a need for inserting HTML into something, give this editor a try:

http://www.wyzz.info/

Try it, you'll like it!