Web development on the Mac was streamlined when Apple made the move UNIX when they released OSX (a few years ago). However, there are a few pesky problems which crop up again and again. One of which is the Apple line break.

The problem is that line breaks are inserted as "^M" in WIZYG editors like Dreamweaver. On Apple or Windows system users will see no difference because the character is rendered as line break. However when UNIX web servers render the hidden character, is is drawn as "^M". This can be annoying for UNIX developers viewing your code and can render interpretive languages like CGI, PHP, and Python useless. Hidden characters, or rather the problems they cause, have come up frequently lately as more people are developing with character sensitive languages like Python.

However, there is a fix! Adobe has published this TechNote showing how to change your line breaks from Mac (or Windows) to UNIX. This little setting makes your HTML (and CGI, PHP, and Python written in Dreamweaver) easily transferable across multiple platforms.

Summertime in the city is heating up quite nicely. Its gotten hot in New York over the past few days.

Over the past few weeks I've settled into my summer position at TODA. They've kept me busy working on web sites for photographers mostly. Working at an agency has been a great experience. The image based web sites have been a nice change from the web application interfaces I've come so accustomed to. Its a new challenge with new interaction design problems to solve. Overall, the experience has been a positive one. Last week Marty Umans went live. The web site rounded off his re-branding and promotional campaign.

In the off season Mike Bukhin and I have been working on WayMarker. We'll be presenting together at Conflux and are working towards a public beta for the show. More to come as that one progresses.