Dreamweaver's Page Load Time

on Wednesday, December 19, 2012

A good rule of thumb in web design is to design with dial-up internet access in mind, by keeping your page load time as short as possible.  This can be called the 25 second rule: that your page will load within 25 seconds on a 384kbs (kilobits per second) modem.

Dreamweaver has a page load time indicator in very small characters in the lower right corner of the document panel.  It's easy to miss (see screenshot below).  But it will tell you at any given time what your page load time is.

   
If you want to change the sped of the modem to see how fast your page will load under various conditions, go to the Edit menu, choose Preferences, choose Window Sizes. At the bottom of the dialogue box you will find a pulldown menu to change the speed of the modem (see below).


Password Protecting PDF Documents

on Wednesday, December 5, 2012

It is fairly easy to password protect PDF documents, online or offline. 

Go to the File menu, choose Properties, then go to the Securities tab. Choose Password Security.

Check the Require a Password... checkbox and enter a password.



Click OK, then re-enter the password when prompted.  You'll get a warning that security features won't be enabled until you resave the document.  Click OK to acknowledge the warning, and then OK one last time to close the dialogue box.

Then, resave the document to enable password security (preferably under a different document name so you can tell the two apart).

That's it.  If it's a PDF to be posted online, post it as you would normally.  Anyone trying to open the document,whether online or off, will encounter the dialogue box below.  Once they enter the correct password, they'll be able to access the document.