• THE TARRAGON TIMES
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• Dreamweaver

Click on the small photo to see how this page looked for many years. It was one of the first pages on this site and I made it with Dreamweaver about 20 years ago, before I'd heard of CSS.

27 July 2022

I found this video by chance tonight and it was only taken on the 14th July. What prompred me to postit here was the steam train to Dalesman and the names of its carriages and dining tables, and the kitchen car.

1 May 2022

A history made back in the days of tube television.

3 August 2021

A trip on the QM2 for old times sake. The meals look great to me.

June 2020 and 2021- Trooping the Colour

Because of the COVID restrictions in the UK, the Trooping of the Colour was a toned down event held at Windsor Castle on the Queen's official birthday in 2020 and 2021. I have posted videos of both on this page to celebrate the page working again. This year's event first.

The 2021 video might not start without your help, so go full screen to make it easy to move the start point with your cursor to a little bit later on the time bar your cursor.

15 June 2021 - It's an ill wind ...

The recent collapse of this page - the whole structure and text design - was a problem for me as I had no idea how to fix it. This html/css part of the site was designed using Dreamweaver over 15 years until about 3 years ago when I didn't renew my Dreamweaver subscription. Since then I've relied on using html editors and have only added to or replaced content using text related code within the established layout.

So I decided to study HTML and CSS from the ground up. I already had several books I bought at the time I ceased using Dreamweaver, but they didn't inspire me. HTML and CSS are living languages so this past week I bought a few books published later than 2018, and I found differing advice in each. Therefore, last night I bought a cheap book published in January this year and decided to use that as my primary source.

In the hours since I've had this book I've begun revising the code for this page and it suddenly changed into something that looks respectable. In fact I like it, but I still have work to do, to either return to 3 colums or otherwise deal with the sidebar material.

21 April 2021 - The Queen 95 today

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born 95 years ago on 21 April 1926, in Mayfair London. The above photo was released for her birthday.

The caption to the picture, shared on the royal family's Instagram accounts today, read:

The Queen was born at 2.40am on 21 April 1926 at 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair, London. She was the first child of The Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

This year Her Majesty remains at Windsor Castle, during a period of Royal Mourning following the death of The Duke of Edinburgh.

18 April 2021 - The Queen sits alone

The private funeral for Prince Philip was held yesterday at Windsor Castle and in St Georges Chapel. The above photo was the most common opening photo I saw in the press online today, with a write-up commenting about the Queen sitting alone. As you probably know, it was because of the pandemic social distancing, and one of her sons was just out of sight on the right.

I found the whole event was unusually moving.

20 March 2021

The landing at LaGuardia airport intrigued me for several reasons. At one point the wing tips up to show that the whole of the New York complex is next to the sea - The Atlantic Ocean. The video also shows that a tiny island in New York Harbor with a tiny needle on it is the Statue of Liberty. The most impressive view for me confirmed that Manhattan Island, known for its skyscrapers, is largely quite typical for a city and only has skyscrapers at the two ends. The video was posted in July 2016 so there have been some new much taller buildings since then, as seen in the second video above.

8 October 2020

Here is another train video. Be sure to view it full screen.

This is real. You can check out and scroll around HERE on Google maps, the corner at which the video was shot.

4 February 2020

Above is one of my dream airliners from my youth - a Lockheed Constellation. In this case it is a Super Constellation at Altenrhein - 08/07/2015. It has a normal tail on the body and two side tails. It also has 12 windows on the side. Previously I showed Air Force One for President Eisenhower but it was not a Super Constellation - it had only two rear side tails - no centre tail - and they were fairly rectangular in shape.

Here is a different video of the same Super Constellation. This video shows the plane from both sides during taxiing, takeoff and landing. This really intrigued me when I tried counting the number of passenger windows. I was intrigued to discover there is quite a different number on each side. Same as the other video, but I didn't notice it at the time.

2 October 2018

After a number of videos of things that takeoff and disappear into the distance skies, here is a video of something that doesn't. It stays very firmly on the ground.

I used to love my annual trips with Mum to Adelaide in the September school holidays. The old steam train left Mount Gambier in the early morning, and we had to change trains, at Bordertown (I think), to the broad gauge train (engine and carriages). Then at Tailem Bend (or Murray Bridge) there was a delay while the locomotives were changed (a bit of a jolt when the new one reversed into the train to connect) and we then had a big steam locomotive that could pull the train through the Adelaide Hills.

In those days you could open the carriage window in your compartment and stick your head out to smell the smoke, and maybe collect some soot on your face. But definitely not in the tunnels in the hills - that was a good time to close the window.

When the broad gauge eventually reached Mount Gambier it was great not to have to change trains along the way. When diesel locomotives replaced the steam trains, it was different and exciting; but when the Bluebird diesel rail-cars replaced the trains, it took all the romance out of the journey.

In the above video I was interested not only in the trains, but also the views of mid-USA and the people.

 

In the next video a train emerges from a tunnel and this shows very clearly why it's a good idea for passengers to keep their windows closed in tunnels.

20 August 2018

The following video is a look back at two events which took place when I was only 15 and still at school.

The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret back from an overseas tour, welcomed by family. Great to see the de Havilland Comet in active service. I still think it's the most beautiful aircraft ever built.

Next comes the inspection - what a wonderful site to see those old cars - including one of my special favourites, a Humber Pullman.  The stars of the show are those RAF and RCAF planes which were so modern in 1953.

I was also interested to see the Duke of Gloucester there (brother of the late King George VI and uncle of the Queen), and he is seen wearing full military uniform.  I remember him like that from my childhood, when he was Governor General.  In those days the cost of a normal postage stamp was tuppence ha'penny - less than half the cost of the smallest coin in use today (5 cents = 6 pence).

A bit small to see clearly, I'll make it larger for you.

His Royal Highness Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, KG, KT, KP, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC

3 August 2018

Something different, a military cargo flight. These huge planes take off in much less distance than commercial flights.

The video below shows one of the planes carrying paratroopers.

7 April 2018

 

18 March 2018

I saw this on YouTube this morning and was impressed by how easy and simple it is to follow. You possibly listen this way anyway, in which case it's good to hear it from a great pianist and conductor.

 

24 February 2018

Still have more blood tests ahead, because my previous referral didn't cover cholesterol.  It doesn't matter because I needed to have a test for my GP who is watching something else.

And now for (pardon the pun) something I recorded in 2013 from an LP track:

It's from a Ronnie Aldrich And His Two Pianos and Orchestra LP and is a Decca Phase 4 stereo recording from the early years of stereo LPs when engineers liked to create a "stereo spectacular" effect.   These days those records are nostalgic listening. (If you can live with the screeching strings.)

 

30 December 2017

The song "I Drew a Ship" in the previous post is from an album called The Alehouse Sessions.   In this post I've included another song and as a corny lead-in, I like to pretend I've asked the guys in the alehouse whether I should renew Dreamweaver or leave it, and this song is their answer.  

28 December 2017

Today I tried to open Dreamweaver.

So much for the 30 days remaining. I think the free period must have applied to the Creative Cloud storage services, not to using Dreamweaver itself.

Accordingly, I have uninstalled Dreamweaver CC 2018. It's the end of an era for me, and the beginning of another.

27 December 2017

Tonight I received an email from Adobe advising:

Your membership has ended. To reactivate it, please contact Customer Support.

In the meantime, your account has reverted to a basic, free level of membership.

 

26 December 2017

My Dreamweaver subscription expired today.

Last August I cancelled the automatic renewal and also the subscription itself, but the above notice received today is treating it like an "issue" with my payment to renew, and is giving me 30 days to fix it.

 

26 November 2017

In 30 days time my Dreamweaver subscription expires, and unless I decide to renew it, I'll uninstall the software and save 1.59GB of valuable SSD space and A$343.07 annual fee prepaid.

About a week ago I did lose a bit of confidence in the alternate software and resorted to using Dreamweaver to fix the issues. With that in mind, tonight I bought a couple of cheap HTML5 Kindle books on Amazon, after reading sections of them online, and confirming they were published in 2017.

One of the books talked about Microsoft Expression Web as a useful editor, so I downloaded this free program and used it to write this post, up to this point.

It didn't take long to work out that the program was more trouble than it's worth, and I used my trusty Revo Uninstaller to remove all trace of it from my PC. I did a Google search and found that Microsoft Expression Web was last updated in December 2012 and is a discontinued product with no support, but can still be downloaded free.

By the way, Revo uses an application's own uninstaller to uninstall an application, then gives you the option to scan for what is left and select what you want to delete, then scan for folders left and select what to delete. In this case there was a mass of leftovers. Without Revo Uninstaller, all those redundant files and registry entries would be left to clutter my SSD. With really good software, the application uninstall leaves little or nothing. Revo can do a forced uninstall for programs that don't want to be uninstalled.

 

18 November 2017

A little trip down memory lane on my 80th birthday.

From left - Colin Pearce, young JTH, Andrew Miles, Karen Tregonning and Christian Sim - at Rosstown Hotel.

Taken by one of the hotel staff on 16th November 2017. There are still other diners in the background (above Karen).

The gaming area with the pokie machines was busy as usual.

 

11 November 2017

I've had the above CD of English pianist Benjamin Grosvenor for several years, but it's only this weekend that I became interested in the works of a composer of several tracks on this CD.

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (1871-1915) was a Russian composer and pianist, who was influenced early in his life by the works of Frederic Chopin. Many of Scriabin's later compositions are characterised by a highly tonal idiom. In other words, they can be difficult when first listening to them.

Fortunately, much of his work is simply beautiful. Here is one such piano piece, from the above CD.

Benjamin Grosvenor playing Valse in A-flat major, Op. 38

 

14 August 2017

 

Crunchy Solaris

Well, I just couldn't resist adding Crunchy Solaris to welcome the return of using Dreamweaver for this website. The music was recorded in Propellerhead Reason while I improvised playing on my computer keyboard, with a software synthesizer and other tracks in the sequencer including drums and guitar.

The following video was recorded using a Korg 3 octave USB mini keyboard (mini in this case means smaller keys than normal).

The video is best seen full screen, and at 1080p (at which it was recorded) which can be selected in Settings in the video bottom.

 

27 December 2016

Dreamweaver is back, as of this morning.

After using Serif WebPlus Pro for the past 6 months, all the project files suddenly disappeared without a trace. Literally!

I searched the whole computer using Directory Opus, by name and by file extension, and nothing was to be found, except a couple of files I created in the first few days of using WebPlus Pro.

The application itself could not import the existing file from the internet, because it has no facility to do so. Unfortunately, the program cannot import, use or show HTML files because it's really a variation for the web of Serif PagePlus X9, a WYSIWYG desktop publishing program.

I tried using HTMLPad and BlueGiffon to reconstruct the home page (index.html) after importing the code into those programs, but found it too difficult, because of the unconventional way that WebPlus Pro deals with content and converts it to HTML only during the publishing stage.

After several weeks of frustration, I decided life was too short (especially at my age), to spend my time and energies on such silly problems, when there was a simple solution available - good old Dreamweaver CC, now in a new 2017 version.

Yes, it still annoys me that I have to rent Dreamweaver, now $304 a year, with GST - about four times the price of each of the other programs mentioned - but what price sanity and the pure enjoyment I get from using it. It's like therapy to me.

However, I must point out here, that HTMLPad is an outstanding program, and it's cheap. But I'm more comfortable using my old workhorse with which I have 18 years experience and have read several books explaining how to use it.

 

1 September 2016

Alas, poor Dreamweaver! I knew it.

 

21 July 2016

Today I updated Dreamweaver CC to Release 2015.3 which is a little bit sad because in about 6 weeks my subscription will expire and I will uninstall Dreamweaver.

The new up-to date release confirms that nothing of any interest or use to me has been added or improved. It tends to confirm my thoughts that Adobe are no longer able to issue new releases each year with features that users will need or want enough to pay for an upgrade.

Adobe has made it so that users have to subscribe each year to be able to use the product otherwise it will cease to operate. The $000's of dollars that loyal customers like me have spent over two decades buying the software and updates will amount to nothing.

Maybe one day Adobe will be taken over by a progressive company that is more interested in service to users and their needs.

 

21 April 2016

I have moved the main contents of JTHonline to the WordPress site. If you are a newcomer here, there is a link at the top of the navigation bar to the left of this column.

The main reason for doing this is to avoid the monthly and annual subscription rates that Adobe has introduced for Dreamweaver - the program I used from version 1 onwards to create this site.

Apart from that it now seems like a good idea to keep all my new online work in the one place and focus on the posts and pages in that place.

By the way, 90th Happy Birthday to you today, Your Majesty, if you happen to be reading this page.

 

Lucia

This is very similar staging to when I saw Dame Joan Sutherland performing in the Lucia di Lammermoor when in was performed in Adelaide in the 1970's. This is the Mad Scene ('Eccola!'), after she has just come downstairs after killing her bridegroom in the bridal bed upstairs.

 

There's nothing like a Dame

I enjoy this short video clip I made from the first five minutes of a YouTube recording of the Royal Variety Performance in 2013.

It has the narrator voice of Mr Carson from Downton Abbey, and Jessie J, a judge in The Voice (Australia) this year, in the line-up of artists greeting Prince Charles and Camilla before the show commenced. I think the video is a real gem.

 

The photo below shows Prince Charles meeting Jessica Cornish (Jessie J).

 

Elders IXL/Foster's Art Collection

The slideshow I made some years ago is still available and the link to it is at the bottom of the sidebar on the left.

 

18 August 2015

While looking through my old files today I came across this video which I had downloaded in 2013.

The quality of the video is quite good, so click the 4 direction icon in the controls to go full screen.

 

16 January 2013

Until this month the last time I wrote on this web page was on 23 April 2011 with an update on 25 September.

It's so long ago that I'd forgotten how the CSS code works, and every time I hit Return it drew a green line across the page.

The thing I like about Dreamweaver CS5 is that when confusing things happens I can go into Code View (or Split View) and can sort it out and see the result at the same time.

I've had a second website for over two years that is dedicated to WordPress and photo galleries. But it had never been developed until I made my first real post on 23 December 2012 to show a video slideshow I had made and published on YouTube.

Since then I've changed the theme for one designed by Felix Rich who also designed the theme for my WordPress Blog site. With the new theme, the site is now starting to go ahead.

(Update: I closed the Pics site in early 2016.)

YouTube is a great way to share videos. But I also like Flash slideshows, and I used Flash for the Art Collection Slideshow in the left sidebar of this page (the link is at the bottom). But it was created years ago and I've forgotten how to do it.

 

5 January 2013

Sir Robert Menzies once famously quoted as a function attended by the Queen at Parliament House, Canberra, in 1963, "I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die".

It was from the Elizabethan poet Thomas Ford. Here is the poem in full:

There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind

11 August 2010

For the past six weeks the home page of my blog has looked the following screen grab, which I've reduced in size to fit this column width.

As of today the WordPress blog now looks a bit of a mess and is a work in progress, or ";under construction"; as they like to say.

So please bear with me for the time it takes to develop my new WordPress theme from the newly released RichWP Framework.