Using your Admin account, you can run all three maintenance scripts at once:

1. Open Terminal, located in the Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder.
2. At the Terminal prompt, type the following, exactly as written:

   sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

3. Press Return.
4. Type your Admin password when prompted, then press Return.

All three scripts will run in sequence. There is no visual feedback while the scripts execute. You will know they are completed when the Terminal prompt returns.

You can also run the scripts individually. For example, to run just the daily script, you would type the the following command in step 2:

• sudo periodic daily

Determining when the maintenance scripts last ran

You can run a Terminal command to quickly check the date and time stamps of the log files associated with each maintenance script. This indicates when the scripts’ logs were last updated, hence when the scripts were last executed.

1. Open Terminal, located in the Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder.
2. At the Terminal prompt, type the following, exactly as written:
   1. ls -al /var/log/*.out
3. Press Return.

You will see output similar to the following:

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 467984 8 May 10:40 /var/log/daily.out

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 1258 8 May 10:43 /var/log/monthly.out

-rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 198378 8 May 10:43 /var/log/weekly.out

In this example, the scripts last ran on 8 May of the current year, between 10:40 and 10:43 local time. The date and time stamps in the example are the result of running the scripts manually via Terminal. If the scripts were run automatically on their default schedule, their date stamps would vary and their time stamps would indicate executions between 03:15 and 05:30 hours.

The maintenance performed by the scripts

Each maintenance script — daily, weekly, and monthly — has a specific function. Their functions have varied over different versions of Mac OS X.

• The daily script removes old log files, “scratch” and “junk” files, backs-up the NetInfo database (Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger® and earlier), reports a variety of system and network statistics, and rotates the system.log file. Under Tiger, the daily script also cleans up scratch fax files and prunes asl.log, the log file for the then-new Apple System Logging facility. Under Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard®, the daily script also prunes the asl.db file that replaced the asl.log file for Apple System Logging.
• The output from the daily script is written to the /var/log/daily.out file, which can be viewed in Console.
• By default, the daily script is scheduled to run daily at 03:15 hours local time.
• The weekly script rebuilds the locate and whatis databases. Depending on the version of Mac OS X, it also rotates the following log files: ftp.log, lookupd.log, lpr.log, mail.log, netinfo.log, ipfw.log, ppp.log, and secure.log
• The output from the weekly script is written to the /var/log/weekly.out file, which can be viewed in Console.
• By default, the weekly script is scheduled to run every Saturday at a specific time. Under Tiger and later, it runs at 03:15 hours local time. Under Mac OS X 10.3 Panther® and Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar it runs at 04:30 hours local time.
• The monthly script reports per-user usage accounting and rotates — depending on the version of Mac OS X — the wtmp, install.log, and cu.modem.log files.
• The output from the monthly script is written to the /var/log/monthly.out file, which can be viewed in Console.
• By default, the monthly script is scheduled to run on the first of the month at 05:30 hours local time.

How the scripts are launched on a schedule

How the schedule for each script is specified depends on the version of Mac OS X.

Scheduling under Panther and Jaguar

Under Panther and Jaguar, the schedule is specified in the System crontab file. You can easily view or edit this file with the donationware utility Cronnix. The cron process launches the scripts based on the schedule specified in crontab.

Scheduling under later versions of Mac OS X

Introduced in Tiger, the launchd process invokes each script on a schedule specified in a script-specific property list (.plist file) in the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons directory. The specific property list for each script is as follows:

• daily script: com.apple.periodic-daily.plist
• weekly script: com.apple.periodic-weekly.plist
• monthly script: com.apple.periodic-monthly.plist

Additional information about launchd can be found in the Apple Developer Connection document System Startup Programming Topics.

How the timer used by launchd handles sleep time has led many to incorrectly believe that they no longer need to run the maintenance scripts and that the scripts are run automatically if the Mac was asleep or shutdown at the scheduled time.

While it may appear that launchd executes the maintenance scripts “on the fly” if the computer is asleep or shutdown at the appointed time, this is a side effect of how the timer treats the time the computer has spent in sleep mode. The timer used by launchd does not count sleep time. If your Mac is asleep at the scheduled time when a given script is supposed to run, the script may run later that day at a time shifted by the amount of time the Mac was asleep. However, if you restart your Mac before the time-shifted execution time, pending events are lost and the script will not run off-schedule: the next chance for the script to run will be at its regularly scheduled time.

If you regularly restart your Mac and the computer regularly sleeps or is shut down at the scheduled times, it’s possible that the scripts will never run, hence one should still run them manually, such as on a weekly basis.

The sleep time shift is also cumulative. For example, if you don’t restart your Mac for weeks or months at a time, but let it sleep when not in use, this can result in:

• The daily script running once every few days or never.
• The weekly script running once every few weeks or never.
• The monthly script running once every few months or never.

The time shift in each case is the total amount of time the Mac has spent in sleep since its last restart. If you have a process that writes heavily to the logs, you can end up devoting good hard disk space to the log files.

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If you haven’t heard about this, the story goes like this:

Motrin releases a humorous (at least to their marketing dept) video that shows how Motrin can help moms who carry their babies in slings. The video was not meant to be a negative commentary on a mother’s choice to ‘wear’ their baby, but that didn’t stop the large amount of mother’s (the motrin moms) from complaining … loudly … that Motrin was making fun or them and making the world think that baby slings/baby wearing was painful (at least to your back).

Twitter, in particular, ERUPTED in a sea of tweets with the ultimate result being that Motrin apologized and pulled the ad. WOW, now THAT is a lot of power!

If you want to take a look at the MotrinMoms profile on Twitter, here’s the link:

http://twitter.com/motrinmoms

The question I raise is this: SHOULD a social network/media group, such as Twitter, have so much ultimate power? Understanding that I don’t think Motrin Moms are going to try to take over the world, but does this group, although very loud in their protesting, really represent mothers and motherhood? Because I can see a potential outcome in that companies because courting the online moms, rather than the non-online ones (there are still quite a few out there, I’m certain).

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1. What is your market?

Businesses such as finance, law and such would want to portray a more professional image that would be strictly necessary in other businesses. Someone who is in the creative fields could be a bit more adventurous in the look of their logo.

2. What are you selling?

A logo should reflect, in some way, what your business does or sells. A logo that is too different from the product/service is going to cause what I call ‘purchase dissonance’…a fancy way of saying that it just doesn’t feel right to the customer. For example, someone in the dog care business should consider what type of dog to use as a logo image. Some dogs, unfortunately, bring about certain responses visually, such as a pit bull. If you were to use a pit bull, you’d need to take a fun spin on it, to make it more appealing.

3. Color matters!

As in all design, color does matter. Take a look at this detailed article on color in designing.

4. Look to the future.

When you’re just starting out, it’s hard to look to the future, but it’s something you should do. The business logo is the foundation piece in an overall branding strategy. Yes, small businesses should consider branding, too. You don’t have to have a huge budget to make a strong, cohesive impression in the mind of your customers.

Moving on from those considerations, there are basically 3 types of logos:

1. Text only.

At it’s simplest, text IS design. You can say alot using only text for your logo. In fact, if text is used properly and combined with excellent color, fonts that ’say’ what your business does and a nice layout, text is really all you need.

2. Picture only.

This can work but it’s difficult and it typically works only with huge businesses with a ton of marketing money behind them. An example is the Nike swoosh. That picture is Nike - nothing more is needed. However, it took a lot of branding to make that a reality.

3. Picture and text combination.

This is my preferred, as I feel that it is the most flexible and the most easily understood visually. The picture doesn’t necessarily have to represent the business in terms of the service or product offered, but it should be noted that random swooshes, lines and other shapes are overused (in this designer’s opinion) and should be avoided. If you use random shapes, they should be worked into the overall text of the logo, or be used as a highlight or a way to bring more focus to the logo design.

One thing to note, if you take a look at the logos of some of the big social networking sites (twitter, facebook, myspace) you’ll see that text can really say it all - it’s all in how you present it.

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In production work (doing the same thing repeatedly for different images or designs), the key is to speed up the process. In Photoshop, you have the ability to really streamline things…if you know the shortcuts. Here is a simply tutorial on how to speed up applying a layer effect (drop shadow, stroke, etc.)

First, take your image and apply the layer effect to it:

After you’ve done the effects and you’re happy with them, place your cursor on the layer that HAS the effects on it and Right-CLICK (PC) or CNT CLICK (MAC). You should see a sub menu pop up:

From the menu, choose COPY LAYER STYLE.

Now, go on to your next image. When you’re ready, RIGHT-CLICK (PC) or CNT-CLICK (MAC). You’ll see this submenu pop up:

That does it! Now, if you have very simple effects, this isn’t much of a time-saver. But if you’ve taken a while to tweak the settings, this ensures that you get the exact same effects across the design.

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< a href=”javascript:void(0)” onclick=”window.open(’http://www.cimmeronstudios.com/’,'LinkName’,'height=400, width=400,scrollbars=no’)”>LinkName

In this piece of code you can change the variables:

• height - must be a number - determines the height, in pixels, of the new window
• width - must be a number - determins the width, in pixels, of the new window
• linkname - must be text - name of the link
• scrollbars - yes or no - controls placement of horizontal or vertical scrollbars

That’s it! Use that code and you will make a window open in a smaller window - not a pop up!  So you should have no problem with pop up blockers.

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Many webpage designers choose to use Dreamweaver for the actual HTML coding of their web sites and some do all of their coding by hand. Most tend to use a combination of both, because why spend extra time hand coding when you can use some of the excellent features that Dreamweaver has to offer.

Not a clunky coding monster like FrontPage (reborn, but still cumbersome, as ExpressionWeb), Dreamweaver offers a lot of great building shortcuts. The first we’re going to go over is the integration of Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop, the preferred design tool of the best website designers.

Let’s say you’re in Dreamweaver and you realize that you want to make changes to the image you placed in the design.  Here’s a quick way to do that:

1. Click on the image you want to change.

   

2. Now, take a look at your PROPERTIES (WINDOW - PROPERTIES).  You should see the Photoshop icon (see red circle below).  NOTE: you must have Dreamweaver set up to indicate that Photoshop is your default program to use for editing graphics.
   
   

3. The image you wanted to edit will open in Photoshop, allowing you to do your editing quickly.

   

4. Save your image using the SAME file name and in the same location.  Let’s say we wanted to make the image smaller.  Using Photoshop, change the image size to 300×200 and save the image.
5. Go back to Dreamweaver and select the image you just edited.  The image will look pixelated due to the recent resizing.  Take a look at your PROPERTIES and click on the ADJUSTMENT icon by the image dimensions:

   

6. Dreamweaver resized the image to it’s new size.  Same your file and upload.

Now, it is possible to make these changes without the shortcuts listed above, but this does assist in speeding up the process and shows just how nicely Dreamweaver and Photoshop can integrate with one another.

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Some versions of Wordpress have been open to a big security issue - SQL injection. Apparently, this particular attach targets Wordpress Blogs with high PR. A vulnerability in the Wordpress application causes several things to occur:

• A SQL injection occurs. This causes a line of code to be added to your blog posts. This line typically looks like this
  
• This line of code is inserted into the posts it infects. Inside of the wp-stats.php code, which keep in mind is AUTOMATICALLY displayed in the post due to the <iframe> code, contains a malicious Javascript file.
• This Javascript file attemtps to upload the virus, Downloader, to your computer. You can read more about Downloader here. Basically, Downloader attempts to connect to the internet and download various other viruses to your computer.

Now, here’s something that I found interesting. Another exploit is found for Wordpress. It is unclear if these two exploits, however, I believe that they are. This exploit causes the following:

• A new folder is created on your Blog. http://yourblog.com/wp-content/1 is created, along with numerous junk HTML files and a Javascript file.
• All of the junk HTML files link to the Javascript file, which is encoded. After looking through it, it appears that this JS file attempts to redirect the visitor to another site, typically a spammy site, such as those related to Poker, Casinos, Viagara and the like.

As stated earlier, the latest version of Wordpress (2.6) is supposed to fix these bugs, among others. How do you fix your blog if you’re infected?

If you discover the added lines of code shown above, or a variation, you will need to clean your database of all instances of this line of code. If you know MYSQL, you can do this using a QUERY, as well as various other methods. It is possible to clean the entries via the Dashboard of your blog. I would strongly recommend upgrading to Wordpress 2.6 first, however.

After upgrading, you can go to MANAGE - POSTS and search for various strings of text contained in the bad code, such as:

• <iframe>
• <!– Traffic Statistics –>
• wp-stats.php

You get the idea. Any/all instances of this code MUST be removed from EACH AND EVERY POST.

Next, check your USERS. There has been some documentation suggesting some relationship between a user and the issue. Delete any/all users that you do not recognize.

Now, check on your server for the added folder (http://yoursite.com/wp-content/1). Delete that entire folder and it’s contents from your server. If you cannot access your server, you may need to contact your hosting provider to assist you.

This is a nasty Wordpress exploit to be sure, but it has not changed my belief in the Wordpress application. It is still the best blog program out there, in my opinion, and the quick response to this issue proves that the team is on top of things.

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However, sometimes you have information coming from another location, usually outside of your URL, and you want that information to be ‘captured’ within your site. This is useful if you want to display dynamic content that comes from another location, while keeping the design of your site intact. It also keeps the visitor on your web site, instead of sending them away .. hoping they will come back. That’s when this information can be extremely useful.

An example I’m going to use is something I did for a client recently - adding a survey. Instead of sending the visitor to another location for the survey, I wanted the visitor to stay ‘in’ the site. Now, it is a fact that not all browsers will view the ‘framed information’ correctly, so this little extra bit of information is very useful:

Give it a try; you’ll find that this is a handy way to display outside information on your web site.

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The thing to remember, I think, is to think of it as a complete coding language in and of itself, rather than just something to embellish the HTML pages.  While it’s true that CSS cannot really do anything by itself, it is an extremely powerful tool and you have to really dig into it to make it work FOR you, instead of well…against you.

To begin, you have to know this:

SELECTOR { PROPERTY: VALUE }

That is the standard layout of a CSS statement.  You can have multiple property:value statements within this single statement.

Let’s start at a very basic level and define the LARGE elements in our web page, such as the body, paragraphs and links.

Body: This defines, well, the body of the page.  You can define many properties within this selector, such as the background color or image, margins, etc. etc.  An example would be:

body {
background-color:#ffffff
}

That defines the body background as WHITE.

Paragraphs: This defines the larger sections of text within your web page.  Here you can define the text size, color, weight, and more all in one location - MUCH easier than trying to code that information into HTML.  An example:

p {
font-family:Tahoma;
font-size:12px;
}

That one is pretty self explanatory, I think.

Finally, LINKS: If you want your links to be anything except that BLUE, you’ll need to master this selector. NOTE: don’t go crazy here.  Please like to know what they are getting into and that said, links really should be underlined unless there’s a super good reason not to.

a {

font-color:#ff0000;
font-decoration:underline;
font-weight:bold;
}

Now, this will give you links that are red, underlined and bold.  NOTE: This only covers 1 STATE of links, the resting or regular state.  We need to go one step further and define the HOVER state and the VISITED state.

a.hover
{
font-color:#ff6600;
font-decoration:underline;
font-weight:bold;
}

When on hover, the link will turn ORANGE.

a.visited
{
font-color:#000000;
font-decoration:underline;
font-weight:bold;
}

After the URL has been visited, it will turn BLACK.

That is a very basic beginning to CSS.  Sign up for our UPDATES and we’ll notify you when we post more on the CSS tutorial series.

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First off, the code will look like this:

As you can see, the TEXT for your link is ‘Click here to open this popup window’.

Now, the javascript is telling the link that when someone clicks (onclick) the window opens (window.open) and then the stuff after that is describing it. Please note that all the the attributes are separated by commas and no spaces!

Now, keep in mind that there are a BUNCH of things you can do to this link. These are called ‘attributes’. Here is a list of the most popular:

Window Attributes

Below is a list of the attributes you can use:

Width=300
Defines the width of the new window.

Height=200
Defines the height of the new window.

Resizable=yes or no
Can the user resize the window.

Scrollbars=yes or no
Scrollbars on the window.

Toolbar=yes or no
Whether or not the new window should have the browser nav bar at the top (The back, foward, stop buttons..etc.).

Location=yes or no
Whether or not you wish to show the location box (the box where you type in the www…)

Directories=yes or no
Whether or not the window should show the extra buttons. (what’s cool, personal buttons, etc…).

Status=yes or no
Window status bar at the bottom of the window.

Menubar=yes or no
Menus at the top of the window (File, Edit, etc…).

Copyhistory=yes or no
Copy the old browser window’s history list to the new window.

Ok, that’s it. Keep in mind that if you do not define (list) an attribute, it will typically default to NO.

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