Our online community

This web site would not be possible without the encouragement, support, information, shared coding, and direct input of our online friends — bloggers, coders, pundits, and the authors of the essential software, shareware and freeware we use everyday. Thank you.

Text
Our writers use just about every word processor you can imagine for their erudite contributions, and before working on them our editors have to strip them down to bare text. Our favourite tools for this are BBEdit and Tex-Edit. The stripping down is essential before we start coding.

Graphics
 Photographs and illustrations are prepared for the web in PhotoShop and Fireworks. All are indexed and catalogued in iView Media Pro, which we have found to be invaluable in many ways. We also use it to help generate our photographic portfolios.

Web design
It's all done with Dreamweaver MX 2004, skEdit and BBedit, and then tested online in Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. We use a number of shareware software tools in the design process, including the amazing xScope — seen in loupe mode below.

We used it to capture the hex codes of the natural beauty of Tasmania, and to help create the background colour themes used throughout the web site to identify our various sections.

Planning
Keeping a large project under control demands foolproof databases. Ours are disguised as DEVONthink [a phenomenal text and PDF cataloging tool] and VoodooPad, which besides being great for brainstorming and finding bits of information, is in constant daily use to track articles and progress. Both are indispensible.

Tickler
Besides all the software we use, there is a desktop system that is essential for keeping track of events, invites, bills, and someday/maybe items — our 43 folders tickler.

It consists of 43 plastic project folders numbered 1-31, and January-December, and is shown below so that the holder is revealed.

The current day of the month is the front folder. Its contents are checked first thing each morning and the empty folder is then moved to the next month's group.

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