Author Archives: jamietshaw

Unlinking text/Word documents from InDesign

Posted on 04/08/2012 by jamietshaw

Problem: you have a linked text document with the original source missing. InDesign (CS5) won’t allow you to unlink it, even though there’s usually a command to do so. If you try to relink to a different file, InDesign crashes. … Continue reading →

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CodeIgniter installation and setup

Posted on 12/02/2012 by jamietshaw

Check PHP is a new enough version: php –version Copy the unzipped download to the folder above the web root. This is to improve security so a user can’t get to the files by typing a URL. Move the index.php file … Continue reading →

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SASS, Compass, Foundation

Posted on 06/02/2012 by jamietshaw

DRAFT These frameworks make working with CSS easier and more flexible. Each adds an extra layer on functionality onto the last: SASS – adds useful syntax to standard CSS, e.g. allowing you to use variables. Files have to be converted to … Continue reading →

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Viewing print PDFs properly

Posted on 27/11/2011 by jamietshaw

To view a print-ready PDF properly, there are some settings to switch on in Acrobat or Adobe Reader. They’re off by default, for some reason. Show trim area Traditionally, PDFs (and before that, film) are output with crop marks embedded. … Continue reading →

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Reduce the amount of inactive memory to increase free memory

Posted on 19/11/2011 by jamietshaw

When memory is no longer needed by an application/program/process, Mac OS X may still keep the data so that if you need it again, it’s already there. This is the ‘inactive memory’ in Activity Monitor. If you do some new … Continue reading →

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Starting Mac applications with arguments

Posted on 19/11/2011 by jamietshaw

In most cases a program can be started from the icon and all is fine. Sometimes, the program offers extra functionality if you hold down Alt/Option when opening – iTunes, for example, lets you change your music library. Occasionally a … Continue reading →

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PDF printer in Mac OS X

Posted on 13/11/2011 by jamietshaw

.If a Mac application uses the standard Print dialog box, as virtually everything does, then a PDF can easily be made with the PDF menu button. If specific PDF settings are required, the document can be saved as PostScript then … Continue reading →

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Pass arguments to Automator or AppleScript workflows from the command line

Posted on 13/11/2011 by jamietshaw

AppleScript osascript test.scpt a=3 b where test.scpt is on run argv set a to item 1 of argv return “First argument (a=3) is ” & a end run Note that AppleScripts run by osascript send their output back to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Mac | 11 Comments

Working with SVG images on websites

Posted on 07/10/2011 by jamietshaw

To make SVG work, both the browser and the server need to support it: Browser support Firefox 3 does not natively support it IE9 does Server support Apache needs the following settings, either in httpd.conf or .htaccess: AddType image/svg+xml svg … Continue reading →

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Accessible links in PDFs

Posted on 31/07/2011 by jamietshaw

To the average user, URLs in a PDF are clickable in Acrobat or Adobe Reader only if: They begin with http:// and/or www. Something like bbc.co.uk won’t work (although it will in Preview, the PDF and image viewer built in … Continue reading →

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