Where to look for a little inspiration

When your mind goes blank, remember that even the greatest of designers will encounter a dry spell where they just can't come up with a fresh design. Or you may just want to see what other great designers are doing. Whatever the case, you can find several examples of the latest and greatest at www.webbyawards.com. There, you'll find great examples of well-designed Web sites broken down into several categories.

Avoid adding too much space between paragraphs (QuarkXPress)

When making paragraph styles in the Paragraph Attributes dialog box to separate paragraphs, you may be tempted to add unwanted space between your paragraphs and not even know it.

2 ways to immediately change your view (Illustrator CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

After zooming really close into your Illustrations with the Zoom tool, it's a pain to get back to 100% view. Here's a little trick to avoid repeatedly clicking the zoom tool to view your artwork at 100% again. From any view percentage, just double-click on the Zoom tool in the Tools panel, and without delay you are at 100%. Here's another timesaver: To quickly see your artboard fit in the Window, double-click on the Hand tool. Your work area is instantly centered in your Illustrator window.

Easily generate a new encryption key to replace one that’s been compromised (Microsoft Windows XP/Server 2003)

As you know, the Encrypting File System (EFS) can protect your data from unauthorized access by encrypting it at the file or folder level. You can easily encrypt your files or folders through the Microsoft Windows GUI. Under the hood, however, EFS is a bit more complicated. It’s based on encryption keys that are in turn based on digital certificates. The first time a user attempts to encrypt a file or folder, the system automatically issues an EFS certificate for that user.

Generating Website Thumbnails in PHP

In recent web browser developement, one of the new features is the generation of site thumbnail images displayed in a gallery. In Opera, it has a feature called Speed Dial Thumbnail, in Google Chrome, it has a page that displays thumbnail for Most Visited, Recent Bookmarks and Recently closed tabs, while in Internet Explorer 7, they call this feature as Quick Tabs. This promotes easier recall for users rather than remembering the exact URL address.

Reassign a task that's been declined (Outlook 2003)

Just because you assign a particular task to another person doesn't mean that person is going to accept the task. Maybe the person is leaving his current position, or perhaps he's no longer working on a particular project. In any case, you'll need to reassign the declined task. To do so, open the declined task by double-clicking on it in the Task list. Next, choose Actions | Assign Task from the form's menu bar. Enter the new assignee in the To field of the form, and then click Send. That's all there is to it!

Convert a document page into a master page (InDesign CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

Let’s say you just created an awesome layout. It’s so great, in fact, that your boss says he wants every publication to follow the same layout. If only you had set it up as a master page! Not to worry, you still can.

Programmatically determine which named instance you’re connected to (SQL Server 2000/2005)

If you’re using SQL Server named instances, you may wonder how to determine - from inside a stored procedure, for example - which instances you’re connected to at any given time. Actually, there are two ways, and both are quite simple.

Don't re-create the wheel: Utilize a PowerPoint slide in a Word document (Word 2007)

When using multiple Microsoft Office programs, you can easily share information between them. For instance, there's no reason to re-create the information on a Microsoft PowerPoint slide if you want to use it in an existing Word document to illustrate your point. Instead, just embed a copy of the entire slide in your Word document.

Find lost anchor points with the Stray Points command (Illustrator CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

As you create a complex drawing using Illustrator, it isn't unusual to have a single anchor point or two floating around on your artboard. This can happen because of an accidental click or if you deleted all but the last anchor point on a path. Most often you never notice stray anchor points until you open a converted, saved file and wonder why there's a lot of white space. Use the Stray Points command to remove these unwanted points. Once you've opened a file in Illustrator, choose Select > Object > Stray Points to display any stray points, which you can then delete.

Manipulate the DOCTYPE to validate subsets of XML documents

A common misconception, especially among some folks with little XML experience, is that once you specify a DOCTYPE for a data set, that is the one you must always use, even if you're working with a subset of the document. This often leads to extracting the subset you want, adding upper level wrappers to match the DOCTYPE, and finagling things to get it to parse. Others will write custom DTDs to handle the subset.

Enhance network security with an IDS/IPS

You have a firewall at the perimeter, so your network is safe, right? Well, not exactly. Firewalls do what they do very well, but what they do is block or allow traffic based on the rules that you configure. A firewall can block certain ports that you don't need to use, preventing hackers from using those ports to get into the network. Firewalls can also block traffic based on IP address or domain, helping to keep out messages from known spammers or preventing Web traffic from known dangerous sites. Application layer filtering firewalls can even examine the contents of packets and block them based on keywords or strings.

System recovery made easy with Vista’s Pre-installation Environment

Recovering from a failed boot or needing to perform other system maintenance functions prior to loading Windows has always been a challenge. But there is good news. With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft now provides its Pre-installation Environment (PE) to all licensed users. Once available only to volume licensing customers, PE provides easy access to several critical tools. For example, you can repair the master boot record, restore Vista to a previous working state, restore the entire PC from a backup image, test memory, and gain access to the command line tools. To access system recovery option, follow these steps:

Show percentages with a little color (Excel 2007/2010)

Percentages interpret your data as smaller parts of a larger piece. This is why pie charts are often a popular way to demonstrate percentages. However, if you want to conserve space and still present an attractive, effective visual of your percentage data, Excel 2007 offers a great alternative.

Take a new direction with your tables (QuarkXPress)

Sometimes you need to convert a horizontal table to a vertical table or vice versa. Rather than deleting cells, adding cells, copying data, pasting data, and deleting the old data after you move it to the new location, there’s an easier way. QuarkXPress has options in the Convert Text To Table dialog box that make switching your table direction a snap.

Displaying all images in PHP

Ever wonder how to list all images in a directory? The following PHP code will generate a listing of all image files in the current directory as well as the Image MIME Type.

Connect two computers with a USB cable, but beware

You can connect two computers via a USB cable in order to share files, but you can’t use standard USB cables. Warning: If you use a standard USB cable, you might damage the USB ports on both systems, or even the respective system boards. Instead, you need to use a special USB cable, known as a USB Bridge cable. A USB Bridge cable reverses both the send and receive signals as well as the power voltage, so that you don’t create a short.

Print a blank calendar from Outlook (2003)

A blank Calendar is helpful in several situations. Perhaps you're attending a project planning meeting and need a Calendar to flush out important project milestones. You don't want to deface your own calendar with all the information, so print a blank Calendar from Outlook instead.

The hidden benefit to the Sample All Layers option (Photoshop CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

Many tools in the Tools panel such as the Smudge, Blur, Sharpen, Healing Brush, Spot healing Brush, Clone Stamp and Smudge tools provide you with an option in the tool Options bar, to Sample All Layers. This is useful if you’re retouching a photo that has multiple layers and you want to sample pixels from all the visible layers and not just your active layer.

Determine group membership quickly with whoami

When you're in the heat of the troubleshooting battle, you need a quick way to determine exactly the groups to which a user belongs. This is especially true if you're trying to troubleshoot problems with insufficient permissions. Yes, you can find that information in Active Directory Users And Computers—but what if you're currently working at a user's computer? In this scenario, Active Directory Users And Computers isn't available to you. The solution then is to use the whoami command line utility. To do so, open a Command Prompt window. To view a list of all groups to which the user belongs, enter the command whoami /groups. If you want to view all available information for a user, enter whoami /all.

Customize the Track Changes color options and create just the view you need (Word 2003/2007)

If you use Track Changes, you already know that Word uses a different color to track the changes made by each user. Although you can't assign a specific color to each individual user, you can assign the same color for all users and you can assign specific colors for specific types of changes. When the revision itself is more important than knowing who made it, this technique can make tracked changes much easier to read through.

Merge styles and hybridize your designs (Illustrator CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

Styles are terrific timesavers and help keep your designs consistent. However, most Illustrator users set up styles that are very specific for the task at hand, such as a pink drop shadow or a marble fill. But what if you want to create a pink drop shadow with a marble fill on the fly? It's easy when you merge styles together. To do so, select the two styles you want to merge from the Graphic Styles pane (hold down [command] on the Mac or [Ctrl] in Windows to select more than one style). Then, select Merge Graphic Styles from the Graphic Styles palette's pop-up menu, give your new style a name in the Graphic Style Options dialog box, and click OK. Your new merged style appears in the Graphic Styles panel, ready for your next great design.

Sort your month and day names chronologically — not alphabetically (Excel 2003/2007)

If you sort data based on a column of month or weekday names, Excel sorts the data alphabetically. Chances are you'd rather sort the information in chronological order. Fortunately, it's easy to do so.

Avoid file corruption: Don't work on Photoshop files across a network (CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

If you’re experiencing frequent file corruption, you may want to re-examine your workflow. If it consists of working on your Photoshop files directly from a network or removable media, such as a Zip disk or Jump drive, that could be to blame. Opening or saving files across a network or removable media can cause serious problems to your files, ranging from performance issues to data loss and file corruption.

Tighten security by customizing the software owner account

For new database installations, consider picking a user other than oracle to own the software. Making the switch for existing installations can be a major pain and probably isn’t worth the trouble if the rest of the security strategy is sound. Discourage routine use of the account that owns the Oracle software.

Calculate your email delivery time by delaying it (Outlook 2003)

Did you know that you can create an email and send it, but delay its delivery until a later date or time? By doing so, if you change your mind about what you'd like to include in an email, you can go back and retrieve it. It’s also quite useful if you simply need to delay the delivery of a message; for example, if you're going on vacation and don't want to send a message until the following week. To delay an individual message, create a message and click the Options button on the Standard toolbar of the Message form. Select the Do Not Deliver Before check box in the Delivery Options section. Then, enter a date and time from the accompanying dropdown menu(s). You can manually enter a date and time to deliver the message precisely when you want.

Join your endpoints with greater distance (QuarkXPress)

You can use the Join Endpoints Merge command to merge lines and text paths. To do this, select the two items and choose Item > Merge > Join Endpoints. This option is only active when you have two text paths or lines selected. It joins them at one point provided the endpoints are close together. The attributes of the backmost line are applied to the resulting line. You can change the Join Endpoints distance to create more versatility in your designs. For two endpoints to be affected by the Join Endpoints command, the distance between them can’t exceed whatever the current Snap Distance is set to (between 1-216). It’s specified in the Preferences to access this choose QuarkXPress (Edit in Windows) > Preferences. Then, click Print Layout in the left pane and then click General. Enter your desired distance in the Snap Distance text box.

Make security an integral part of your organization's business goals

Many business principals find the whole issue of organizational security rather esoteric and are generally reluctant to allocate resources to it unless they can see a return on their investment. At the same time, technical staff charged with managing organizational security often finds itself fighting an uphill battle because, without the appropriate resources, they can’t do their jobs. As a result, both parties fall into a reactive rather than a proactive role, responding to incidents only when they affect critical operations.

CISSP: Certified Information Systems Security Professional in Prague

CISSP represents a complete learning lifecycle. It focuses on knowledge transfer and knowledge retention to enable students to obtain skills needed to work effectively and apply the knowledge obtained during training in THE PRACTICAL ENVIRONMENT. CISSP learning approach is designed for the adult learner who learns best by combining visual, audio, and hands-on learning methods throughout the overall experience. The approach is simple and comprehensive.

Preserve your document’s flow — wrap text around your tables (Word 2003/2007)

When creating documents with tables, you may often find it necessary to wrap text around tables. You might expect that such a feat requires multiple steps, but actually Word’s text wrapping and positioning features allow you to easily format text around tables.

Enabling the [NumLock] key (Windows NT)

By default, Windows NT doesn't enablë the [NumLock] key when you first log on to a Windows NT-based computer. Even if you turn on [NumLock], Windows NT turns it off again whenever you log off, unless you're a member of Administrators. For users who aren't administrators, this can be an inconvenience. You can make the [NumLock] key stay on for non-administrative users by editing the Registry. Note that you must either log on as the user or have the user log on and edit their Registry remotely. To turn on the [NumLock] key, set the following Registry value to 2:

6 expert tips for creating HTML emails

Since most modern email clients have the ability to display emails as full HTML documents instead of plain text, there's no reason not to take advantage of this option. When you do create HTML emails, however, keep these following tips in mind:

Practical alternatives to storing BLOB data in the database (MSQL 7+)

Figuring out where to store images, PDFs, and other documents is a major architectural decision. While storing these BLOBs in your database may make it easier to search, secure, and manage them, it isn't always practical from a performance standpoint. Luckily, if you decide not to store BLOBs in the database, you have a number of different alternatives to choose from:

Keep your camera dry with a temporary rain cover

When you go out on a photo šhoot, be prepared. Even if rain isn’t in the forecast, sometimes sprinkles can pop up without warning. While you may be undeterred by a little liquid sunshine, there a few things you can do to keep your camera dry. If the rain is light or misty, a longbrimmed baseball cap may be all you need. It will shield your camera body as well as the lens from light moisture as you snap your shots.

Assign a shortcut key to your UserForm (Microsoft Excel 2003/2007)

Let’s set up a shortcut key alternative to quickly display the UserForm.

Don't leave your Mac OS X computer vulnerable

If you have your computer set up for multiple users, you might remember that by default they have access to potentially damaging applications stored in the Applications menu. For example, while the NetInfo Manager and Terminal applications require the administrator's password to do any irreparable harm, a user can still wreak havoc on the system. To protect yourself from this danger, create a folder named My Applications in your Users directory. Then move the programs from the main Applications folder into the Users' My Applications directory. This way, you'll be the only one who has accëss to the programs. Remember, however, to only move the programs that you want to limit access to.

Keep your customers happy by protecting their privacy (web)

With the concern for online privacy these days, it's important that your customers feel comfortable visiting your site. Without that comfortable feeling, they may only be one-time customers instead of repeat customers. When establishing a customer database, it's important to consider the following:

Reduce bandwidth for faster page load time

One of SEO ranking factors is the website page load time. If your site design has richer content, it is important to consider ways how to reduce bandwidth usage. This helps improve your site performance and better user experience.

Move an entire row or column without displacing your data (Word 2003/2007/2010)

When you’re shuffling around rows or columns of data, you probably do a lot of copying and pasting. This method is fine in many cases, but here’s a quicker alternative. You can move an entire row or column of data to a new position without replacing the existing data. Just select the row or column by clicking on its header, hold down the [Shift] key, and then hover your cursor over the row or column border until it becomes a four-headed arrow. Click and drag up or down to move the row or column. You’ll see a placeholder to help guide your movements.

Eliminate bounding box interference by snapping directly to your pointer (Illustrator CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

Many designers find precision alignment frustrating in Illustrator because they try to use an object's bounding box to snap to a particular guide or edge. However, this doesn't work because even though an object's bounding box snaps, the bounding box handles don't correspond to the edges of the object.

Easily reset the default domain group policies

Imagine this scenario: You've inherited a network with a multitude of changes to the default domain group policies. You don't know what your predecessor enabled or disabled in these GPOs. All you want to do is get your domain back to the default domain and default domain controllers policies included with Windows Server 2003--and fast. You can then begin the process of creating or modifying group policies to suit your needs.

Let web pages load before accessing JavaScript DOM objects

When you use JavaScript in a web page, you’ll often want it to perform some action or gather property values from web page elements, without the user having to take any action at all. Normally, this means writing code that will execute as the page loads. Typically, to execute JavaScript as the page loads, you simply place the code in the section without encapsulating it in a function, like so:

Create evenly sliced slices in Photoshop (CS/CS2)

If you’re a Photoshop slicer and dicer, there may come a time when you’ll want all of your slices in an image to be equal. For our example, we’ll slice an entire image into 25 equal slices.

Complete a Send/Receive from anywhere in Outlook (Outlook 2003)

By default, the Send/Receive button is located only on the Standard toolbar when a Mail folder is active. Therefore, when you want to check for new mail or send an item immediately, you probably switch to a Mail folder and click the button. Not necessary! Just press [F9] to run a Send/Receive.

Use Free Transform to resize an image with specific dimensions (Photoshop CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

You can resize your selections to an exact measurement using the Free Transform command. Just select the area you want resized. Then, press [command]T ([Ctrl]T in Windows) to access the Free Transform tool. Next, go to the tool Options bar and enter the appropriate measurements in the W (width) and H (height) text boxes, making sure to follow up the value with inches, pixels, etc. Then, press [enter] to apply your changes.

Fine-tune VPD to your liking in Oracle Database 10g

Oracle Database 10g offers some useful enhancements to VPD, enabling more fine-grained security and better performance optimization:

Use query strings to give users the convenience of bookmarking

You may have heard some developers say "Don't use query strings." Certainly, posting confidential data to a query string is usually a bad idea. However, when used properly, query strings are quite helpful. To see a perfect example of just how useful they are, just point your browser to a major search engine such as www.google.com. Because Google stores a user's search criteria in the query string, a user can conveniently store the search by bookmarking the page (e.g., adding to Favorites in Microsoft Internet Explorer or Bookmarks in Mozilla Firefox). When the user relaunches the page from the bookmark, she gets the latest search results based on her original search criteria.

Remind an email recipient with a message flag (Outlook 2003)

If you send an important email, you can easily remind the recipient to review it with an email flag. To do so, launch a new Message form. Then, choose Actions | Follow Up | Add Reminder. If you have Microsoft Word set as your email editor, click the Message Flag button on the form's toolbar instead. Make a selection from both the Flag To and Due By dropdown lists in the Flag For Follow Up dialog box. Then, click OK. Complete your message, and click Send. The recipient receives a reminder about reviewing the email you sent at the date and time you've specified.

Why use an effect over a filter? (Illustrator CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

There are a few advantages to using an effect over a filter. For one, an effect doesn't change the original vector object at all, allowing you to quickly edit the effect. In contrast, filters permanently change objects. Also, you can target and adjust effects directly from the Appearance panel, making them even easier to edit. Finally, you can save effects as Graphic Styles, which makes it easy to apply consistent styles in your designs.

Troubleshoot file replication through proper monitoring

If you're experiencing trouble with file replication, we've found just the tool for you—File Replication Service (FRS) Status Viewer. This utility enables you to determine exactly what's going on during file replication. More specifically, you can use the FRS Status Viewer to determine information such as the amount of traffic generated by file replication. You can also use it to identify any file replication backlogs, as well as problems due to insufficient disk space. You can download FRS from Microsoft’s download service at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/.