What's In Your Coffee Cup?

Last week we met J. Cornelius from Coffee Cup Software. I have to believe having a job in a tech savvy company like that could be fun. It is clear that there are a lot of knowledgeable people employed in their group and they actively work to keep their products at the forefront. Also from their website, it appears that they are a little laid back and don't take themselves too seriously. How refreshing for me coming from a bit more stuffed shirt business background. Just because you aren't wearing a suit doesn't mean that you cant get the business done!

What interested me most were their products. I don't think that I will be pursuing a career that involves software development as the coder, although I could easily see myself as a project manager acting as the conductor. While some programming items and even html is simple for others in the group, for me it is always labor intensive. I know my Microsoft Office Applications to a point of expert level. However, I had yet to find a tool that could assist me with creating the HTML or CSS files. Sure, I know I want to buy Dreamweaver but it is not in the budget now. When I downloaded the 30 day trial, forget it - too many tools to try to absorb before the time was up. So I have been relegated to using Text Wrangler on the Mac or Notepad on my Sony. Neither give me the predictive labels/text that I am hoping for to double check my skills. I have to sometimes hand write out long hand to make sure I am not forgetting. Then use Firebug and view, edit, save, review again...etc.

Enter Coffee Cup, they have a good product that might help me meet both needs. I truly believe that I will some day be an Adobe Dreamweaver aficionado but until then, I have Coffee Cup's Free HTML Editor. It works on my Sony (which yes, I still use about 80 % of the time). When I finally can get a few bucks to upgrade to Office 2011 for Mac, then I will probably switch to 80% Mac. I am still too codependent on my Office 2010 having had it since beta for over a year now. The thing I liked about HTML Editor is that it offers me an interface that is more user friendly than a simple text editor. Also, I am not committed yet. I can road test and then choose to buy a better version at a later time. I don't need all the bells and whistles yet - just some while learning and perfecting. The best thing for me is that it is also able to support HTML 5 and CSS3. Over the coming weeks, I will be using it more to help develop my other projects.

Check it out for yourself! According to the Coffee Cup Website:

The CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor is a full-featured web design system. With built-in FTP uploading, wizards for tables, frames, fonts, and more, support for HTML5 and CSS3, and 100% valid code output, it's a great tool for anyone who wants to design their own website.

The Free HTML Editor is a trimmed-down version of the CoffeeCup HTML Editor, and does not contain the Visual Editor, CSS Menu Designer, Image Mapper, and Website Color Schemer. If you're interested in getting your hands on these great features, download the free, fully functional trial version of the HTML Editor.

More Later,

CLH