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Tools
BBEdit from Barebones Software is great for editing a variety of source codes, but I have also used it to set up bulletin board menus for Omnifest Community Network , recover text from damaged files, and clean up text files to import into databases. It has been a lifesaver for cleaning out nasty hidden characters useing the Zap Gremlins feature. BBEdit does grep search and replace plus it includes a web-safe color swatch from VisiBone. (Check out picking colors on-line by using Bob Stein's Webmaster's Color Laboratory.)
While you are at it, download and have fun with Perl! BBEdit has been MacPerl-friendly for some time, for System 9 and earlier. Perl is an interpreted language that has very powerful text processing capabilities and runs on almost any computer OS. I have built servers to relay large quantities of data entirely in Perl.
The standard Macintosh OS X install includes Perl and allows running scripts in the Terminal application. While Perl's online documentation is quite complete, take a look at Picking up Perl too. Next try installing MySQL relational database using the convenient package and directions that Marc Liyanage provides. The BBEdit SQL language module from Runtime Labs provides syntax coloring for Structured Query Language. Once you are familiar with setting up tables and administering them in MySQL, install the Perl DBI module which provides convenient database access. It is available on the MySQL site and from CPAN. To get started, read A Short Guide to DBI by Mark-Jason Dominus. By using a combination of Perl DBI and CGI modules, just turn on Apache Web server and you have a really sweet development system for generating dynamic web pages on your OS X Macintosh.
Recent Projects
RosenblattGallery.com
Early in 2002 I started working with Suzanne Rosenblatt, a long time client, on her family artsite. Her husband Adolph Rosenblatt, is an emeritus professor at UW-Milwaukee and a noted sculptor. Suzanne is a talented visual artist, writer, and performance artist and their children are also prolific artists.
As we added material, the site became multi-dimensional. For instance for Adolph's Neve Shalom We Are All Making Art sculpture, you can view photos of the finished work, click a link to learn more about school where it is on permanent display, read the story of how it was made in Suzanne's journals, and see photos Suzanne took of Adolph working with the models.
What started out as an on-line portfolio has become the story of the importance of art in a close-knit family.
FengShui-Design.com
During 2001 I began to work with Pam Kai Tollefson re-designing her web site. The goal was to make the site reflect her talent and philosophy of design while providing contact information and promoting her business, apprentice program, and workshops.
Manuscript Preparation
Preparing manuscripts for electronic publication can present challenges. When there are several contributers and/or typists, there may be more than one file format, often proprietary, so file translation capability is often needed. In addition, many people who graduated from using typewriters to word processing are accustomed to incorporating page layout formatting to look good on a particular printer but which causes problems when individual documents are merged for publication. For example: hard returns to wrap lines of paragraphs, runs of spaces or tabs to force a new line, use of underline instead of italics for titles of books, making pseudo tables instead of using the word processor's table utility.
The publishers will usually request a number of acceptable file formats, such as RTF, plain text, or certain well known proprietary formats. The goal is to produce a clean file that will flow easily into their page layout program. The instructions for authors, usually published annually in the journal itself or on the publisher's web site should be consulted. Even experienced word processing software users may not be aware of the distinction between binary, proprietary formats and plain text (ASCII).
Review: Critical appraisals of approaches for predictive designs in anticancer drugs, C. T. Gnewuch and G. Sosnovsky, Cell. Mol. Life. Sci. 59 (2002) 959-1023. (Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, CH) [view abstract]
Bio
I grew up in Western Pennsylvania. (If you did too and listened to Rege Cordic on KDKA almost every morning for Brick Throw, Bridge Leap, etc., check out the Olde Frothingslosh page.) I graduated with a BS degree in Chemistry from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1970, and graduated with an MS degree in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1972. I have been a resident of Wisconsin since 1984, first in Ozaukee County, then in Milwaukee. Although I am a scientist, I have been earning my living by programming and providing computer support for the past several years, from January 1998 through June 2001 at Extendicare Health Services in downtown Milwaukee and from September 2001 to August 2002 by UW Milwaukee at the WATER Institute .