Create Image Map / Hotspot in Dreamweaver CS4

Last Updated by Michelle Sullivan

How to create a clickable image map in Dreamweaver CS4/CS5

Create image map in Dreamweaver

An image map or a clickable image map is a web image containing (sub-)areas that linked to different content or web pages. Each clickable area is often referred to as a hotspot. Image map is useful in presenting and organizing information where you let web visitors see the big picture and also give them the option to click around and explore the areas of interest. An example would be something like the image on the left with four distinctive areas constructed by the puzzle pieces. Each puzzle piece may represent one of your products or services or anything else.  Read more...


Create a Pull-Down List/Drop-down Menu

Last Updated by Michelle Sullivan

How to turn a pull-down or drop-down list into a drop-down menu (without and easier than using Dreamweaver)

Pulldown menu

I have another short and pretty popular post about how to Create a Drop-down Menu with Dreamweaver. The drop-down menu discussed in that post is different from the pull-down menu mentioned here although most of the times people use the terms “drop-down” and “pull-down” interchangeably. The menu we are talking about here is done by using the <select> and <option> tags and looks like the thumbnail on the left.  Read more...


MS Office 2010 Menu/Ribbon Reference

Last Updated by Michelle Sullivan

Cross-reference between MS Office 2003 and MS Office 2010

MS Office 2010 reference

As a long time MS Office 2003 user – since 2003, switching to MS Office 2010 was not an easy ride because almost all the 2003 menus are changed in the 2010 version. Even the term “menu” was changed to “ribbon” in 2010. The good thing is Microsoft understood the confusion and created a reference between Office 2003 to Office 2010. The reference can be viewed online as an interactive application [with Microsoft Silverlight] or downloaded for offline use as MS Excel spreadsheets. You can find the links to the reference library at the end of this post. However, before going there, there are some tips I want to share first. Hopefully, you’ll find them useful.  Read more...


MS Excel 2010 Custom Colors

Last Updated by Michelle Sullivan

Create custom colors and apply them to charts and everything else
with Excel 2010

Excel 2010 Custom Colors

My company has just switched from Microsoft Office 2003 to MS Office 2010, and to my surprise, almost everything in the main menu of MS Excel was changed in 2010 version. That makes everything seem harder and more importantly makes my other post MS Excel 2003 Custom Colors outdated although it’s still valid and useful for those who are still using MS Excel 2003.

Here’s the update for MS Excel 2010:
Excel 2010 provides a bunch of built-in color palettes, but you can also create a custom palette from scratch and then apply your new color scheme to charts, tables or whatever automatically. The process only take minutes but would save you lots of time later on, and it’s one of the things that possibly makes Excel 2010 more… bearable.  Read more...


MS Excel 2010 Drop-down

Last Updated by Michelle Sullivan

How to create a dropdown in Excel 2010

drop-down list in Excel 2010

I have a similar post about making drop-down with Excel 2003, which has apparently become obsolete with the introduction of ribbon menu in Excel 2007/2010. Regardless of the changes, the general concept of creating a drop-down list in Excel 2010 is still the same as 2003: using Excel Data Validation List. The drop-down list is very useful in that it presents a limited number of options for users to select, users can’t enter their own input, thus limit potential errors and create more consistent output.  Read more...


Website Maintenance Tools

Last Updated by Michelle Sullivan

Want to do the website maintenance yourself? Here are some basic tools you need

DIY - Website maintenance

There are a lot of good HTML tutorials online from beginning to intermediate and advanced levels. You can find almost everything about HTML and other web design coding languages at www.w3schools.com. This article and the followings, however, only aim to help you gain some fundamental knowledge of essential tools and HTML basics – not enough to build a whole website but perhaps enough and quickly enough to know what to use to look at an HTML page and know what’s what and to maintain the web pages by yourself.  Read more...