Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Apple Mail Setup Tutorial

Im going to write a tutorial soon on how to setup apple mail for IMAP/POP email accounts cause it takes freaking ages every time and the help menu isn't much help.

This is a good primer
http://superfluousbanter.org/archives/2007/04/setting-up-imap-in-apple-mail/

Ill also write a tutorial on the ins and outs of moving your hosting and what needs to be done to keep everything working as normal.

Heres a quick troubleshooting tip anyway till then (this is also covered in steps in link above)

If sent messages isnt being saved to sent folder in Apple Mail

1: Clicking and highlighting the IMAP "Sent" Folder
2: Clicking the "Mailbox" menu at the top
3: Choosing "Use This Mailbox For" -> "Sent

Read this
http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/230/Apple+Mail+%28Mail.app%29+not+saving+to+Sent+folder

Further to that, when you are starting to work on a new computer, eg setting up you new userspace, and you have mobileme / .mac account, you can setup the syncing to grab your email setup preferences etc and setup your mail by syncing the prefs.

I did this today and it worked, except that the Apple Mail sent, trash, and drafts folders weren't setup to show sub accounts at first.
The problem MAY have been because I didn't choose to sync keychains, was paranoid things would get all scrambled if I did that. but anyway, what seemed to fix it was syncig from my old computer to the cloud, and then to my new computer from the cloud (just clicking sync on the old, then the new)then i reopened mail, and after entering my mail account password, boom, out popped my sent and trash etc subaccount folders. i had ALREADY synced them both, but for some reason, doing it again, and entering the passswords for the account on the new computer made it show subfolder properly.

I do remember having this trouble last time i synced to a new computer with a new user space, and these links might help if double syncing dosnt work in the future...
this is what i think worked last time i setup a fresh user space... allocating the sent, trash etc folder, but cant remember how to specify for which account...



it best to check and test your new email is actually sending, and make sure its properly IMAPPING with your hosts webmail, by going online and checking what is in your apple mail is also appearing online and visa versa.


Monday, February 9, 2009

Typography Links

OMG - DETAIL
http://jontangerine.com/about/aside/

NICE OLDE WORLDY
http://o.rang.es/

http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/minimalistic-web-designs/

http://ilovetypography.com/

SIFR FONTS YOU CAN USE
http://sifrvault.com/

http://www.typetester.org/

AHA - THE MISSING LINK - THE LOOK I AM LIKING IS SMALLCAPS FONT VARIANT - GREAT DISSECTION HERE
http://www.3point7designs.com/blog/2008/06/02/10-examples-of-beautiful-css-typography-and-how-they-did-it/

COOL ZEBRA EFFECT COULD BE USED IN A SITE HEADING
http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/css-gradient-text-effect/

Thursday, January 29, 2009

SiteKreator -free wesite maker and hosting

This looks half decent - http://www.sitekreator.com
Has a free site option - with 10MB hosting - Has a banner to the sitekreator website but whatever its subtle.

Its a software hosting marriage again, so you can only host it with them. Can see this is a great option though for those 'No-budget' jobs, or a temporary solution to get things up and running until a business makes money.

To see whats possible - heres a great artist portfolio that uses an image gallery and youtube videos in the template. Also has customised the template it seems. http://www.timandrewart.com/ It dosnt seem that slow eithier - could just be my internet today.

also, they offer licensing schemes, if you want to resell the software to your clients, which could be interesting.

But yeah, best of all it is free site and free hosting. So it surpasses wordpress blog sites because you still need to host them. But then again - thye dont have a 'free site' ad on them.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

HTML Email mailto: link with auto-filled subject

Test Page

This below dosnt work (Apple Mail dosnt get the subject line)
info@yourdomain.com

This works using Apple mail, Safari, FF, also On PC - MS Outlook, from IE6, IE7, FF, Also Opera and Opera Mail and Netscape 8 with Outlook. Havnt tested Entourage.
info@yourdomain.com

info@yourdomain.com

Thursday, November 20, 2008

IE6 fixes

Double margin thingo

display: inline; /*IE fix -- http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/doubled-margin.html---*/

From Drupal - zen theme fixes

Horizontal navbar or menu

  • s floated next to each other - not sitting in line in IE6 

      ul.themenu li a,
      {
      _display: inline; /* Otherwise the blocks mistakenly get 100% width in IE5 */
      _di\splay: inline-block; /* Otherwise the blocks mistakenly get 100% width in IE6 */
      }

      ul.themenu
      {
      _width: 100%; /* Otherwise IE5 treats the ul as floated */
      _w\idth: auto; /* Reset to auto width for IE6 */
      }

  • Monday, November 17, 2008

    Checklist for launching a new website

    This is good!
    First 2 points are GOLD

    Order domain name

    If it’s a redevelopment of an existing site find out as much about the domain as possible including what needs to be done to change it. Domains names are notoriously difficult to work with because they are usually ordered by 2 types of people:

    1. Your new client who doesn’t know anything about domains. They won’t know how to change it nor remember the login details. Your client will want you to deal with the registrar but the registrar will only deal with the client.
    2. A previous web developer. This person will be pissed off that there portfolio piece will soon cease to exist and will usually not be cooperative.
    ... read more here http://imgiseverything.co.uk/2007/11/15/an-essential-checklist-for-launching-a-new-website/

    Wednesday, November 5, 2008

    Roundup of colour management / calibration / cs3 profile etc etc info

    Links to info about this... assumed colour management was only important for dealing with print, but its not. Especially with CS3 - and save for web from illustrator / psd on a mac...

    This looks like a good primer from apple about colourspaces, profiles, calibration etc...
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2026?viewlocale=en_US

    Looks like good explainations of various colour issues in these pages
    http://www.gballard.net/psd/saveforwebshift.html

    dont embed ICC profiles in your save for web dialogue if you want to match graphics and coded hex colours seamlessly. see...
    http://www.gballard.net/psd/save_for_web_embed_ICC_profile.html

    that post basically has screenshots of how to have settings in save for web.

    so finally this is solving why when you save for web, photos get dimmer and washed out, they actually only are on my monitor not everyones elses because my gamma is set to 1.8

    but really still in 2 minds about whether to have embedded profiles when saving for web or not. i tick convert to sRGB in save for web drop down.

    1/ ticking embed icc profiles makes a less washed out image when viewing in safari. for some images it actually looks too saturated, maybe because they are incorrect to begin with. note that in firefox the image wont be any different and neihier will it in vista (vista displays it sRGB regardless. so is it worth the xtra 4k.

    i was just about to think yes definately, then i viewed the images on an imac and there wasnt as much difference. and actually the untagged (more washed out) image actually looked better i think because the pic is too saturated to begin with.

    2/ usually you wouldnt tick embed profiles, for web type things, because in safari or colour managed browsers you will get a mismatch between a jpg and a hex coded colour background. (because the hex coded background cant possibly have an embeded profile.

    3/ so i dont know what is the answer. should i embed the profile so that in mac on safari the images look more saturated and similiar to the original image or have consistency between firefox and safari and hex colours and go for the washed out version which actually looks better on some images. and saves 4k per image. and also, on my screen it looks washed out but it wont on every mac screen.

    4/ but mainly the concern was that what if my screen is very similiar to other mac users, and all of them using safari are seeing non punchy desaturated colours on the web when they dont need to be. see calibrating the monitor is actually NOT normal, so if you calibrate your monitor you will see punchy colours but the users still wont so whats the point. id rather leave my monitor to be like theirs, as a reminder that this is what it is going to look like for them and remember then to make the choice of embedding profiles or not.

    also this is the reason why save for web images (without embedded ICC profiles) look different in a Preview or a browser and photoshop. photoshop views them in whatever is the working colour space eg. SRGB whereas Preview's colourspace is 'monitor rgb' which is the washed out one. but if you view a tagged (icc embedded srgb profiled) image in preview, it will look the same as in photoshop.

    im gravitating more now towards tagging (embedding icc profiles) in save for web images, just because it is more correct in general to have a tagged image than an untagged. The tagged image will preview correctly and consistently in the finder, preview, safari and photoshop (but look washed out in firefox or any non colour managed browser but theres nothing to do about that anyway, at least safari users are seeing something closer to correct).

    And especially to embed the profile when 50% of site visitors for the type of site your working on will be creative types on a mac OSX, using safari probably. the ones that count for commercial sites (customers with money to buy the products) will have fast bandwith so no caring about extra 4k, AND if someone has supplied a SRGB image that they have been viewing in photoshop with srgb working space, then i go and untag it and they view it on safari, it will look different and washed out compared to what they gave me. this = not happy.

    just workeed out why the untagged profiles look different on the imac and the laptop. laptops 'generic rgb profile' and 'colour LCD' profile is used in the finder and in preview. the imac uses 'imac' profile to view things ie its own 'generic rgb profile'

    so best thing to do is in your photoshop edit > color settings, you have ticked all those boxes that say profile mismatches etc etcwhen you open and paste files and so on. its a good reminder. it also helps you know what your working with, and you can convert images destined for the web away from adobe rgb to srgb when you open. its really important to be aware of which colour space the things your using were designed in and so on and you can sort of guess what it looked like on their screen.

    whatever work now.