HACKING & SNACKING MY WAY THROUGH LIFE.

Here are some things I've learned.

[hackingandsnacking]

Mac OS X : Installing p7zip with homebrew and creating protected zip archive files

Recently I had to submit something in protected zip format using 7zip, which isn't compatible with Mac OS X. It was way too hard to figure out how to do this...so here is step-by-step directions using homebrew in terminal for anyone else out there looking for a solution.

1. Make sure your homebrew is up to date:

2. Install p7zip using homebrew:

3. Enter the "7z" command to see the p7zip welcome and command options: 

4. All I wanted to do was zip up some local files with a password. As you can see, there is a whole lot more functionality than that....but here is the command to archive local files.

A whole lot easier than some of the outdated software options or using a virtual machine.

[hackingandsnacking]

Wordpress challenge: Standardizing client images of varying dimensions

You can't always insure that clients will upload the optimized dimensions  for a photo. A handy trick is to create a div around each photo to "crop" it to the desired size, with no stretching or squashing of any sort. 

HTML:

CSS:

And voila! Photo dimensions will remain in tact but the image will be cropped to the desired size.

[hackingandsnacking]

Creating a border with a negative offset

The outline CSS property is a great solution if you want to a) have a border with a negative offset (but don't want to deal with divs within divs) or b) have a responsive site that doesn't continuously break due to percentage-width divs and pixel-width borders. 

It is basically a version of a border that does not contribute to the width of the element; it is actually included "on top" of the element rather than just outside of it, as a border is. When using outline, outline-offset is a handy add-on property that allows negative values for an effect like the following:

Drawbacks: Not as flexible as the border property, as it is all or nothing; no assigning outlines to just one side of an element.