July 27, 2009 by J.P.
Recently I started using Textmate for more things then just coding websites since thats bascially the tip of the iceburg then it comes to the most powerful editor on the mac.
If you interested in trying something new with Textmate here are basic instructions to use texmate to compose messages with OSX mail.
- Make sure you have installed the “Edit in Textmate” Bundle. This is found in “Bundles>Textmate>Install Edit in Textmate bundle.
- Once the bundle has been installed you will be able to edit your email message in text by hitting the following short cut keys “Control + Command +E” or optionally going to the edit menu in Mail and the very last option will be “Edit in Textmate”.
- Once you the command has been keyed a blank Textmate text file will be opened.
- Type your email message and then save. If your done editing the email you can close the Textmate window and you will see your message in message window of the Mail app.
Other Mail features you can with Mail
- Increase quote level “> or shift+.”
June 15, 2009 by J.P.
As an on again off again freelancer I’ve encountered a many different ways to run through QA (Quality Assurance). Each team has is own process… Excel docs getting emailed around left and right or a better method but not best, Google docs. None of these tools are ideally designed for the QA process. Since my last QA frustration, I decided to look around and see if there was a easy tool that I could use with a team working from different locations via extranet type login etc.
MantisBT is a free popular web-based bugtracking system (feature list). It is written in the PHP scripting language and works with MySQL, MS SQL, and PostgreSQL databases and a webserver.
Many agencies seem to be using Mantis and its been around for a while as well as a simple set up. I was instanly impressed with how easy it was to use. You can easily setup a new project and assign team members to bugs. Color code key helps clearly display what is going on for each bug aswell many other helpful details. If you have been trying to imrpove your QA and haven’t tried Mantis Bug Tracker I highly recommend checking it out.
June 1, 2009 by J.P.
Recently been reading alot about CSS frameworks that are working off a grid that are easy to use and work with… Sort of been mulling around with trying one for my next project. After reviewing a few of them from this post. I’ve decided to give BluePrint a shot.
BluePrint seems very easy to work with. It’s just the matter of how best to work with the framework while adding custom content around it. view the test pages here that come with the default install. Pretty nice grid working cross browser. (Update) Some great plugins for the framework can be found here.
Over the next week or so I’m going to remake this entire blog with BluePrint and updating this post with progress and thoughts on about the CCS framework. Stay Tuned…
Update
06/2/09
Today I have been playing around for a couple hours with the framework, so far so good… its been easy to align copy and set widths. Only issues have come across so far are using <ul/> for navigation and have divs floated to the right. Still TBD if the framework supports this type of functionality or not.
06/3/09
After playing around with framework for a couple hours I was able to get a decent understanding of things. Like many CSS designers I have had a self made framework that I used to approach projects. However BluePrint is definitely a nice tool to be using. After 3-4 hours of playing around I became comfortable using it… the only thing that is a little hard to predict is how it will act with my own styles that I’ve been adding.
More updates to come…
You can view progress of the updated design in real time by clicking here.
