Dreamweaver CS4 beta

The public beta of Dreamweaver released by Adobe delivers significant changes to the 10-year old Web design and development tool. Not only does Dreamweaver CS4 offer a complete overhaul of the user interface, it adds many new features aimed at the “professional” Web developer. In addition, the beta expands on the powerful (and easy-to-use) Spry toolset introduced in last year's Dreamweaver CS3 release.

Integration with the Creative Suite

The most obvious change to the program is Dreamweaver CS4’s new user interface. The old Macromedia look-and-feel has finally been replaced with an interface that matches the other applications in Adobe's Creative Suite. (Dreamweaver was among the Macromedia products absorbed by Adobe when it bought its one-time rival three years ago.)

While this change will take a while for long-time Dreamweaver users to get used to, the new interface significantly improves the usability of the program. Panels and windows mesh together well, are easier to organize, move and hide, and the new interface provides the flexibility to create a working environment that’s comfortable whether you’re working on a 17-inch monitor or a 30-inch Cinema Display.

In addition, the program has taken its first step toward supporting a feature that’s been in the other Creative Suite programs for years—SmartObjects. Dreamweaver CS4 now offers support for PhotoShop SmartObjects—you can drag a PSD file into a Web page within Dreamweaver, optimize the image for the Web, and even resize it. If you later update the original PSD file, a red arrow will appear on the image inside Dreamweaver indicating that the source file has changed. You can then click an “update from original” button in the Property inspector, and a new version of the image is created.

A professional Web developer tool

Dreamweaver has always been a powerful tool that has attracted both Web novices and Web veterans. This latest version offers a slew of new features aimed directly at those that feel at home working in raw HTML, CSS and JavaScript as much as they do working with Dreamweaver’s visual, dialog-driven tools. In fact, many of the new features promote a workflow that involves working in code view alongside the visual design view.

The new related files bar, which appears between the document toolbar and the document itself, lists all CSS and JavaScript files linked to the page. (If you’re using a server-side programming language like PHP, you’ll see included server-side files listed as well.) By clicking one of the related files in this bar, you immediately jump to the code in that file. In this way, you can open a single Web page and immediately have access to other files the page references: quickly jump to the page’s CSS file, make some changes and jump back to the Web page file to see the changes.

The related files bar really shines when combined with another new addition: vertical split view. Now you can see side-by-side, a page’s raw HTML code and its visual design. Make a change in the visual view and see the code immediately updated or vice-versa. When viewing a page that has related files (for example, an attached external style sheet), you can see the visual design of the page on one side, and a related file in the other. This lets you edit the CSS code and see the changes take place visually on the Web page.

A new “code navigator” (which is really more like a “CSS navigator”) lets you view a list of CSS styles that affect the current selection: you can view all of the properties set for that style and even jump directly to the CSS code for that style. While earlier versions of Dreamweaver provide similar tools through the CSS Styles Panel, this streamlined method makes for a more efficient workflow.

If you have ever been dismayed that Dreamweaver doesn’t provide a real WYSIWYG view of your Web pages, you’ll be happy with the new Live View option. The Dreamweaver CS4 beta embeds the WebKit rendering image (the same as used in Safari), so by clicking a live view button you can actually see the page as it's rendered in a Web browser: you can even interact with the page and view JavaScript effects like rollovers, drop-down menus and tooltip pop-ups without having to switch from Dreamweaver to a Web browser.

The complementary Live Code view shows the HTML—a useful addition for pages that use JavaScript to manipulate the appearance and content of a page, or for dynamic server-side pages that require additional information from a database to display correctly.

Within live view, you can “pause” any JavaScript effects—for example freeze a drop-down navigation menu—then use the code navigator to quickly identify the CSS styles that affect the menu.

 

More than just code

But not all of the new features in the beta are aimed at those Web professionals who know how to code with one hand tied behind their backs. Several features will be a boon to less-experienced Web designers as well.

The revamped Property inspector reduces the risk of making errors when adding HTML and CSS for text. In earlier versions of Dreamweaver, you would sometimes add HTML to the page and sometimes create CSS styles, depending on which buttons you clicked in the Property inspector. This frequently led to a messy mix of strangely named styles, like Style1, Style2, and so on. Now the two functions—adding HTML and creating styles—are separated into two different views of the Property inspector.

The Dreamweaver CS4 beta also expands on the JavaScript-based Spry Tools introduced in Dreamweaver CS3. Dreamweaver’s Spry features make it easy for non-programmers to add sophisticated JavaScript-based user interface elements like drop-down navigation bars, tabbed interfaces, and user-friendly form validation. The new Spry tooltip commands lets you add pop-up information bubbles to links.

Dreamweaver CS4 also includes three new form validation widgets. The password validation widget lets you enforce rules for passwords (such as “this password must be 10 characters long and contain at least 2 numbers”). The password confirm widget forces a user to confirm the password he already entered. The radio group validation widget lets you make sure that a radio button is checked before a form is submitted.

Finally, a new HTML dataset tool lets you treat a regular HTML file like a small database system. For example, you can create a HTML table full of rows and columns of data, and use Dreamweaver to import that table into another Web page (using JavaScript and Spry). There you can present that data in a variety of different ways such as a “Master/Detail” page that lets a user view a master summary of rows from the table, click an item in the list and instantly see all of the details for that table row.

See for yourself

The Dreamweaver CS4 beta is available now from Adobe Labs. It requires either a PowerPC G5- or Intel-based Mac and OS X 10.4.11 or 10.5. The beta expires after two days unless you have an Adobe CS3 serial number. With that serial number, the beta will remain unlocked until the next version of the beta becomes available.

Unfortunately you only use the trial version for only 48 hours. For longer period you must have License.

Microsoft Virtual PC

Microsoft Virtual PC is a virtualization suite for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and an emulation suite for Mac OS X on PowerPC-based systems. The software was originally written by Connectix, and was subsequently acquired by Microsoft. In July 2006 Microsoft released the Windows-hosted version as a free product. In August 2006 Microsoft announced the Macintosh-hosted version would not be ported to Intel-based Macintoshes, effectively discontinuing the product as PowerPC-based Macintoshes are no longer manufactured.

Virtual PC virtualizes/emulates a standard PC and its associated hardware. All Windows operating systems released to date (May, 2008) run on Virtual PC. Other OSes like Linux may run, but are not officialy supported.

Virtual PC emulates the following.
32-bit Intel Pentium II processor (but virtualizes the host processor on Windows versions) with an Intel 440BX chipset
standard SVGA VESA graphics card (S3 Trio 64 PCI with 4 MB Video RAM, adjustable in later versions up to 16 MB)
system BIOS from American Megatrends (AMI)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 ISA PnP (native Vista audio when Vista acts as host and guest)[clarify]
DEC 21041 (DEC 21140 in newer versions) Ethernet network card.

Not all programs are guaranteed to work because they can use undocumented features of hardware, exotic timings, or unsupported opcodes, although overall compatibility can be considered satisfactory.
The Macintosh version of Virtual PC uses dynamic recompilation to translate the x86 code used by a standard PC into equivalent PowerPC code used by a Mac.
The Windows version of Virtual PC also uses dynamic recompilation, but only to translate kernel mode and real mode x86 code into x86 user mode code, while original user mode and virtual 8086 mode code run natively.

It also uses some guest calls traps (especially when using the guest extensions) to accelerate emulation or offer additional features, such as integration with the host environment.

Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is the file format used by Virtual PC and Virtual Server, for which Microsoft has made available all documentation under the Open Specification Promise.

Supported Host and Guest Operating Systems

 

Host Operating Systems

Virtual PC 2007 supports the following as a host operating system (although some, such as Vista Home Premium, will display a warning and work regardless):

Windows Vista ( 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Ultimate, Enterprise, Business editions and European Business N only, not Vista Starter, Vista Home Basic or Vista Home Premium or European Vista Home N editions)
Windows XP ( XP Pro 32 bit and XP x64 64 bit only, not Home or Media Center editions )
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2008

Virtual PC 2004 was the last version to support Windows 2000 as the host OS.

Guest Operating Systems

Virtual PC 2007 can use the following as a guest operating system:
Windows Vista (All 32-bit editions)
Windows XP
Windows Server 2008 (Virtual PC 2007 SP1 onwards)
Windows 2000 Professional and Server
Windows 98 Second Edition
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
Windows NT 4.0 Server
Certain editions of IBM OS/2

Support for Windows 95, the Windows 98 original release, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and MS-DOS 6.22 as guest operating systems has been discontinued in VirtualPC 2007. [1]

Guest operating systems which are officially unsupported may be installable, however, they may or may not work properly and Virtual Machine Additions are not available.

Linux guests are officially unsupported in Virtual PC 2004 and 2007 although Virtual Machine Additions support for Linux was available in Connectix's version of Virtual PC before being acquired by Microsoft. Microsoft supports VM Additions for Linux only in their Virtual Server product. Both the OS/2 and Linux VM additions were developed by German company innotek GmbH for Connectix/Microsoft

EMS SQL Manager 2008

EMS SQL Manager 2008 for InterBase/Firebird is a powerful tool for InterBase/Firebird administration and development. It provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for maintaining databases and database objects, managing table data, building SQL queries, administering users and their privileges, extracting, printing, and searching metadata, etc. SQL Manager 2008 for InterBase/Firebird has a lot of unique features, such as: SP Debugger, Visual Query Builder, Export Data to 15 available formats and Import Data from most popular formats, BLOB Viewer/Editor, SQL Script processor and many more… SQL Manager 2008 for InterBase/Firebird has a new state-of-the-art graphical user interface with well-described wizard system, so clear in use that even a newbie will not be confused with it.

Visit this site for details: http://www.sqlmanager.net/

WYSIWYG Web Builder

If you're familiar with Microsoft Visual Studio, you can start create Web Site easily. WYSIWYG Web Builder user interface is much like MS Visual Studio.

WYSIWYG Web Builder 5.5 is a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) program used to create complete web sites. WYSIWYG means that the finished page will display exactly the way it was designed. The program generates HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) tags while you point and click on desired functions; you can create a web page without learning HTML. Just drag and drop objects to the page position them 'anywhere' you want and when you're finished publish it to your web server (using the build in Publish tool). Web Builder gives you full control over the content and layout of your web pages.  One Web Builder project file can hold multiple web pages, so you can easily manage all your page from within one file.

Features:

· Drag and drop of HTML objects: Text, Lines, Images, Marquees, Tables and much more!

· Site Management. Easily add, edit, clone and structure your web pages. 

· Customizable menus, toolbars, keyboard accelerators, dockable windows, tabs, auto hide unused windows.

· Form layout object to create forms, including actions, hidden fields etc. 

· Supports Form fields: Edit box, Text Area, Checkbox, Radio button, Combo box and Button.

· Rich text support: text object can contain different fonts, colors, links and sizes.

· Option to add custom HTML for each object (Before Tag, Inside Tag, After Tag).

· Shape object (Rectangle, Round rect, Ellipse, Diamond, Hexagon, Octagon, Parallelogram, Triangle, Trapezoid, Arrows, Flag, Flower, Heart, Signs, Stars and Talk Bubbles).

· Custom HTML object to insert your own HTML or Javascripts.

· ActiveX, JAVA, Flash, Windows Media player, Quicktime, Real Audio and other Plug-In support.

· Customize the scrollbar colors of your web page!

· Build-in banner creator.

· Rollover image.

· Picture gallery object.

· Ready-to-use Javascripts.

· Navigation bars.

· Menu bars.

· Image maps.

· Bulleted Lists (Circle, Disc, Square, Numeric, Alpha, Roman and custom images).

· Slide Show.

· Import existing HTML pages.

· Customize hyperlink colors/format using cascading style sheets.

· Support for 3rd party add-ons using the Web Builder Component Developers Kit (CDK).

· Template support.

· Publish your entire web site, a single page or a group of pages in one action (to local drive or a web server).

· Master page object. This allows you to re-use objects from other pages.

· Clipboard Copy/Cut/Paste.

· Meta tags.

· Aligning functions.

· Multi-Language support.

· Layer Object for advanced layout possibilities

· Support for folders in the Site manager!

· Find/Replace for text objects

· Validation tools for form components: EditBox, Combobox and TextArea

· Rotation for shapes and images

· Merge and split in tables and multi cell selection.

· Menubar now supports background images, transparency and sliding/fading effects.

· Table cell background image repeat properties, which allows you to put images inside cells without tiling.

· Quick Properties window for quick object manipulation.

· Ability to group/ungroup objects

· Image tools: Contrast, Brightness, Flip, Rotate and Resample.

· Image effects: Grayscale, Negative, Sepia, Blur, Soften, Sharpen, Pinch/Punch/Twirl, Noise, Emboss and More! 

· Drawing tools: Line, Line + Arrows, Scribble, Polygon, Curve and Closed Curve.

· Photo gallery border styles/ photo frames

· Images, shapes and form controls have a new Events Property Page, to easily add actions to object events!

· You can now add multiple preview browsers and call them using the preview drop down menu.

· PayPal eCommerce Tools. The PayPal eCommerce Tools are the quickest and easiest way to add eCommerce to your web site!

http://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com

http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com

How to track your blog visitors?

Written by kranthi on Saturday, January 26, 2008

As a new blogger(webmaster),it is always interesting to know how many people are visiting your blog/site,pageviews,where they are coming from,which sites are referring,how many are coming via Search Engines(google,yahoo,etc) and what they are typing in the search engines to visit your site.
These stastistics are very handy interms of improving your blog and it is for FREE

If you search the google,you will find hundreds of sites which will track the visitors of your blog/site.But,some sites will provide more information about your visitors than the others.
So,how to do this?
Here are the best tracking sources interms of the feautures they provide.

Note:One thing is common for all the tracking sites.First you need to register,and provide the necessary information about your blog/website.Next,they will give you a html code and you have to embed it in your blog.
How to do that in blogger?
1.Sign in to your blogger dashboard.
2.Click on the 'layout' link next to your blog name.
3.Click on the "Add a Page element"
4.Select "html/javascript" and past the code they provide and SAVE THE CHANGES.

From then,your blog will be tracked and you can check your blog stats from time to time after logging in to your registrate's website.

So,here are the good ones:-

Sitemeter.com:This one is one of the Most Popular tracking source.This is as simple as 123. Just create an account,copy the code from your account and paste it in your blog as suggested above.
You have also the option to keep your blog stats PRIVATE.
They will give you the stats on how many pageviews(hits) per day,unique visitors,geolocation of the visitors,how many users online,and much more...As it is simple(not much animation),you site will load as fast as it is before.Stats are updated hourly.
You can setup a Free Account here

Histats.com:Unlike the Sitemeter which is very simple, this site will have very cool and animated counters.

Tracking is updated every 5 minutes.I personally using this site for my blogs.Like Sitemeter,
this is also have the option to keep your site stats PRIVATE.
They will provide Animated graphs about your site visitors and fully animative.
You can register with them here

Statcounter.com:Same here!As in the name,it is a stats counter.It is fast,free,and quick loading.
Invisible tracking is available and no ads on your site.All the stats are in real time and super fast.It is not much animated as histats.com.They will provide pageviews,unique vistors,visitors activity,search engine wars,keyword analysis,and many more..
Register a free counter for your blog here

6 FREE ways to DOUBLE your blog traffic in less than a week

from bloggertricks.com

Everyone want's traffic.You set up a blog with great content but,no one is visiting your blog,so what's the use of it.So, you need atleast a decent amount of traffic and what's great than getting that traffic for FREE?
So,here is the good list of 6 Free ways to get traffic to your blog.

1.SEARCH ENGINE:Yea! it brings lots of traffic to your blog.There are millions of people search in the search engines like Google,Yahoo,msn everyday.So,if your blog has so many good posts and is well indexed by google,etc..you will get a good amount of traffic via search engines.There are a few steps to look at if you want a decent amount of traffic from the search engines like "submitting your blog sitemap to google",yahoo to index you blog pages very quickly.And the other important one is adding meta tags to your blog.If you follow these two simple steps,then you will get a decent traffic(massive traffic if your content is good).

2.Submitting your blog to Blog Directories:You may know this before,submitting your blog to blog directories will bring you a good traffic.
Here is a good list of blog directories(there are so many directories,but the below one's will bring you a good traffic).Most of these blog directories ask you to register before you submit your blog.My suggestion is,create a new email address solely for this purpose so,your personal emails are not flooded with the emails sent by the blog administrators,etc.
You can find the Blog directories list here.

3.Participate in forums,groups,etc:Just go to google and enter your [major keyword + fourm] or [keyword+groups] and search.Suppose,your blog is about blogging,then search 'Blogging forum'.You will find some forums,groups related to your site.Register in the forums and post articles,etc with a link back to your blog(as a signature).Answer questions,clarify doubts and provide a link to your blog.But,Dont' SPAM.

4.Social Bookmarking:Social Bookmarking is another way to build good traffic to your website/blog.If you don't know what Social Bookmarking is
"Social Bookmarking is a practise of saving Bookmarks,tagging the posts with keywords in a website".Bookmarking means saving a specific website url(address) in your browser that you wish to visit later.There are so many Social Bookmarking sites like del.icio.us,digg,furl,technorati.
One good thing about these Social bookmarking sites is,you will get instant traffic.Just register with them,store your bookmarks,tags,.. and you are done,See your site meter blasting with traffic.

5.Submit Articles to Article Directories:Submitting articles to article directories is another effective way to build more traffic.By submitting to them,your articles get massive exposure and gain you more traffic.
Some of the popular article directories are goarticles.com,ezinearticles.com,articlecity.com,etc.
There are hundreds of article directories,just google it.

6.Leaving Comments on other blogs:Leaving comments with a link back to your blog is another good thing to do.Leaving comments in the related blogs is more useful and it also increases your pagerank.Always leave good comments and don't Spam(by placing links like'click here' like that).