David Ruppert

Several times over the years I’ve decided I need to move on from Homesite. Homesite had become an afterthought long before it was acquired by Acromedia . . or Macrodobe . . or whatever it is these days.

Every time I try to find something new, I’ll download one . . play around with the trial version and find something that’s a total deal-breaker for me. I tried Notepad++, but didn’t download the Explorer plug-in initially . . and subsequently spent an HOUR looking the safety blanket of my file browser docked to the left side of the window.

I also tried e Text Editor, meehh . . . not that impressed. It didn’t auto-complete tags. Again, deal-breaker for me. It just wasn’t as user-friendly as I’d hoped. I’d assumed that it was just a matter of me using Homesite exclusively over the past 10 years . . and really not wanting to learn anything new.

Another faaaaairly significant downside to e Text Editor was the fact that it crashed 4 times in the first 8 hours of use. I’ve got enough crap on my machine that crashes . . I don’t need to add the most commonly used application to that list.

One feature that was a must was being able to reassign keyboard shortcuts. Lets face it, that goes a long way in helping me with the transition. Five years ago I set up Ctrl+P as the shortcut for <p> [by the way, who's printing out code anyway?]. I need that back. If every time I hit Ctrl+P it brings up the print dialog box . . I’m frustrated.

Next, and seemingly obvious, I need a file explorer docked somewhere on my window. What I ended up finding . . and loving . . was HTMLPad 2008. HTMLPad 2008 not only has a built in file explorer . . but just about everything else . . and somehow it’s all easy to find.

HTMLPad 2008 must have been influenced by Homesite, because right off the bat, I don’t feel lost. In fact, it feels like Homesite, but with more helpful tools.

For example, there’s an Inspector [much like Visual Studio]. Not completely sold that I’ll use that much . . but I’m interested in its capabilities.

Next, much like Homesite’s Snippets, HTMLPadd 2008 has a Library. Short code snippets with the ability to edit or delete existing ones and create new ones.

Next, a multiple item clipboard. I remember the introduction of this feature in Office, but this one seems more usable. Can’t quite explain that one yet, but that’s the case.

One thing that Homesite never had . . and I ALWAYS wanted was block selection. In fact in certain scenarios I’d be willing to open up the resource hog known as Visual Studio just to be able to block select something.

Built in HTML Validator . . SVN integration . . built in preview in IE or Firefox. I could really go on. I’m really embarrassed that I’m sooo happy to find a capable, feature-rich, inexpensive text editor.

I’m able to change to an updated text editor without spending an inordinate amount of time relearning the way I’ve been writing code for the better part of the past decade.

I’ve only had this gem for a couple of days, so I’m apprehensive that the shine might wear off, but as of right now, I’m ecstatic to pay $35 for a top notch html editor.

At least visit the site. There’s plenty of information about features and what’s new, including more than enough screenshots to get the idea.

*Nerd alert: this post concerns only the slightest percentage of dorks out there. If your eyes start to glaze over at terms like charset, move along. There’s nothing for you to see here.  Heavy nerdery is about to ensue.

I was having the toughest time simply copy and pasting international characters from an existing live site to my new locally run site. No matter what I did, the characters would not display correctly . . in my text editor, or browser.

My charset for the page was already set to utf-8:

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

Finally, I came across a site that will convert those tricky characters in to their numerical values, solving my problem.

View original post on Pinyin.info

I’m saving it here for future use.

Shortly after we got the property, Chris bought an EZ-Go Workhorse gas golf cart to get around.  Cause, lets face it, walking blows and coolers are heavy.

A couple of months in to it, it became apparent that the little golf cart that could . . . couldn’t.  The ‘golf cart of lifted golf carts’ became a larger, more difficult-to-store Barbie Jeep.

So the search for a new mode of transportation began.  We wanted something that could carry the family around . . and that meant either two rows of seats, or two carts.  As luck would have it, two rows of seats is cheaper.

The Mule.  TA-DAAAA!

It’s a ‘07 Kawasaki Mule Camo 3010 Trans 4×4.  The ‘Trans’ is because it will convert from a two seater with a large bed to a four seater with a smaller . . cuter bed.  We opted for 4wd because it’s cool.  We opted out of the diesel because we’re cheap.

Sooo, we gassed it up, strapped on some Top Gun Ray Bans and headed out to show off what had to be the manliest of all glorified golf carts.

Within a few minutes we got stuck.  Damn.

Tires were in ruts, carts were on their sides, egos were sufficiently urinated on.

Within a day I was busy Googling things like “hell yeah utv” and “largest lift kit for girlie Mule”.

We started by some basic ‘pimping’ in the form of a gun case [to hold the bolt action 20ga snake charmer], hatchet and shovel.  All necessities should Red Dawn ever come to fruition.

We decided on a 2″ lift, the largest they . . . uhh . . make? I know, that’s what I said too.

Yeah, he’s reading instructions. Yeah . . . we’re in trouble.

We also decided on a Viper 4500lb winch.  We eyed up some nice Warns and the like, then saw the price, laughed and moved on.

The winch came with a mounted switch we put just under the steering wheel along with a remote that we mounted just off the front fender.

Lastly we opted to add a Hi-Lift to the front of this bad boy. Notice the crushed empty beer can. Everyone knows Mule altercation can’t happen without a nice can of go-go juice.

It required welding some bolts on to the front bumper for storage.

It took a couple of nights, but all in all things went fairly smoothly.

The result, a more expensive glorified golf cart.  Brilliant.