Maria’s Guides

Here’s a possible solution.

If you use the Bad Behavior plugin (which Miraz and I recommend), you may have found that you suddenly cannot post to your blog. In fact, you can’t make any changes at all.

Don’t panic. Download and install the updated Bad Behavior Plugin, version 2.0.11. You can get it here:
http://www.bad-behavior.ioerror.us/2007/12/06/bad-behavior-2011/.

The above URL also provides information on why this problem occurs.

A list of shortcut keys you can use with Spotlight.

Spotlight, Mac OS X’s search feature, can be accessed and used with a number of shortcut keys. Here’s a quick rundown for reference.

Opening Spotlight

Command-Spacebar activates the Spotlight menu on the far right end of the menu bar. You can then type your search word or phrase into the field at the top of the menu.

Command-
Option-
Spacebar opens the Spotlight search window. You can then type your search word or phrase into the search box at the top-right corner of the window.

Selecting Items in the Spotlight Menu of Search Results

Return opens a selected item.

Command-Return opens the window for the Top Hit item on the Spotlight menu or, if another item is highlighted, that item. This is the same as Command-clicking on a selected item. (Thanks to reader Tom for clarifying this.)

Command-Click displays the item you clicked in the Finder but does not open it.

Down Arrow or Up Arrow selects the next or previous item in the menu.

Home selects the Show All option at the top of the menu.

End selects the Spotlight Preferences option at the bottom of the menu.

Command-Down Arrow or Command-Up Arrow selects the first item in the next or previous category.

Option-Down Arrow or Option-Up Arrow moves the insertion point to the end or the beginning of the text in the Spotlight menu’s search box.

Note that Apple’s Help feature includes a few additional shortcuts. These don’t seem to work with Leopard, so I haven’t included them here.

Chapter References

Chapter 5 of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide covers Spotlight in detail. It explains how to use the Spotlight menu and the Spotlight Find window, as well as how to create, save, and reuse saved searches. Chapter 5 also explains how to set Spotlight preferences to set the order of search result categories, add or remove categories, and exclude folders from searching.

An offline blogging tool that makes my life so much easier.

I’ve been using ecto by Adriaan Tijsseling for composing blog entries for my WordPress-based blogs and Web sites for well over a year now. It enables me to keep my blog up-to-date without using the Web-based Write Post form.

Although I’ve written about ecto here and here and I’ve also written about it in our WordPress 2 book, I thought I’d take a moment to bring readers up to date. ecto 3.0 is now pretty far along in the beta process — I just downloaded beta 12 — and it’s shaping up to be a much improved, intuitive blogging tool.

Compatibility

I do need to mention a few things about compatibility here. ecto 3 is a Mac OS X application. Although ecto 2.3 is available for Windows users (ported by Alex Hung), I have not tried it. I’m not sure if the plan is to create a Windows version of ecto 3.0 or not. So for now, its an application primarily geared toward Mac OS users. You can learn more about the evolution of ecto in the article, “Evolution of code.”

ecto also works with more than just WordPress. In fact, it works with all the blogging platforms I’ve heard of — and more. So although I use it with my WordPress blogs, it’s not just a WordPress tool.

What It Does

ecto offers a complete offline editing environment. You can choose from composing/editing with a Rich Text Editor that shows WYSIWYG formatting of your entries or an HTML editor, which lets you code to your heart’s content. SInce I never really trust a Rich Text Editor to get the code the way I want it, I use the HTML editor — although I’m thinking about giving the other editor a try. (Soon. Maybe.)

ecto’s Rich Text Editor

ecto’s HTML Editor, which is my currently preferred view

Either way, the editing window works like most other text editors. It has spell-check as you type, find and replace, and word count features. You can save posts as you work on them to prevent data loss or work on a post over a long period of time. (I sometimes start a post when I have an idea for one, then save it as a draft in ecto and come back to complete it days or weeks later.)

ecto also has tools for inserting and uploading images — with a wide range of options for setting a position and size. I didn’t have much luck with this feature in ecto 2 — although I admit I didn’t try very hard — but it works very well in ecto 3. You can also use a Media window to insert audio, photos, or video into a blog post. ecto inserts or embeds the media properly.

One of my favorite tools is the Amazon Helper. This feature makes it very easy to insert links to items on Amazon.com with links, images, or both. You have complete control over how the link appears. Best of all, your Amazon Associates ID is automatically inserted in each link.

ecto has many customization features that enable you to fine-tune its operations so it works the way you want it to. For example, you can created custom HTML tags and assign shortcut keys and toolbar buttons to them. This makes it very easy to insert any code you like. You can also specify CSS styles and template settings so the preview of your post — or the editing view, if you’re using Rich Text Editing — looks more like an entry in your blog.

But what I think I like most about ecto is its ability to store copies of all of my blog’s entries — and there are over 2,000 of them these days — on my computer’s hard disk. This makes it extremely easy to link to past posts as I compose new ones. It also makes it possible to pull up an old entry, update it, and republish. And offline editing is extremely useful when I travel, since I don’t always have an Internet connection. I can compose a blog entry on a plane or in my hotel room with my little PowerBook and upload it to my blog when a connection is available.

Give It a Try

If you’re not 100% happy with the Web-based post editor of your blogging tool, I encourage you to give ecto a try. There’s a free 21-day trial period that should give you enough time to put it through its paces. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

And I don’t think the $17.95 price tag will put you in the poorhouse, either.

It’s as easy as clicking a button.

I use the Dictionary widget a lot. In fact, it made my list of “Ten Dashboard Widgets I can’t Live Without.” This little widget can not only define a word and provide synonyms, but it can also display a clickable list of related words.

Give it a try:

1. Display the Dictionary widget.
2. Enter a word and press Return. (In this example, I entered the word apple.) The word’s definition appears.
   
3. Click the letter in the half circle on the left side of the window. (In this example, it’s the letter A.) A list of related words appears.
   
4. To get more information about one of the words, click it.

This also works with the Thesaurus and Apple dictionary features of the Dictionary widget.

A few minor tweaks.

Just a quick note of some changes I made to this site today:

• Added a Subscribe by E-Mail option at the top of the right sidebar. Use this to get site content delivered to your in-box, one message per day (when there is new content). Guaranteed spam-free, you can opt out any time with a unsubscribe feature that really works. If you don’t follow this site with an RSS reader, this is the next best option to get it all.
• Added a visitor counter to the bottom of the right sidebar. It’s pretty sad right now with a single-digit number; hopefully, that will get pumped up as time goes on. I’m not particularly thrilled with it, but it’ll have to do for now.
• Added a Gravatar reminder to the bottom of the Comment form. This is a note with a link that reminds you that Gravatar images appear beside comments. If you don’t have a Gravatar, why not? They’re a great way to personalize your comments and you can get one for free.

It works but it’s not for everyone.

Tired of waiting for Word to optimize its font menu each time it launches? Tell it not to. This will speed up the launch process — especially if you have many fonts installed — but it will also stop Word from displaying font names in their typefaces.

Give it a try and see if it’s worthwhile for you:

1. With any Word document open, choose Microsoft Word > Preferences.
2. In the Preferences dialog that appears, click the General option in the list of categories on the left side of the window.
   
3. Turn off the WYSIWYG font and style menus option.
4. Click OK.

Try this for a while and see if missing out on the WYSIWYG menus bothers you. If it does, you can always turn this feature back on.