Local Wisdom \\Share EP11:Web Development series-Measure it and Screengrab

Part 2 of our series where we look at tools used in-house to make web development easier and faster. Mike demonstrates Measure it which is a browser pixel measuring tool and Screengrab which takes print screening to a the next level. We show you how simple the tools are to use and the needs they fulfill. Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

Show Notes: Original Blog post with Measure It and Screengrab links

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Helpful resources on interface design patterns from Smashing Mag

Those rather helpful guys at

Smashing Magazine

have posted 40 useful resources for interface design patterns. I have some of these bookmarked and others where new.

They also just posted 10 design patterns to be paying attention to, talking about some of the recent patterns that are emerging and re-emerging in the websites that we know and love.

Good stuff to snack on and chew.

Ordering online from Domino's

I just ordered a pizza from Domino's and here it tells me exactly what the status of my pizza is in real time.

Testing DNS SRV Records with NSLookup

Related to the post just prior to this, I had to figure out how to test or "ping" the newly created SRV record and I found this blog post that showed me how:

" Office Communicator relies on Service Location (SRV) records in DNS for auto-configuration. Frequently you can't create the external DNS record yourself so you need to ask your ISP or DNS provider to do it for you.

So if the service provider is swearing black and blue that the records have been created correctly but your external client is not finding the server checking your DNS configuration is a great place to start."

Original Post here

Enables Outlook 2007 to use DNS Service Location (SRV) records to locate the Exchange Autodiscover service

Original Error:
Microsoft Exchange offline address book
Not downloading Offline address book files. A server (URL) could not be located.
0X8004010F


We just recently upgraded our DC to Win 2008 and also upgraded to Exchange 2007. With that, we've run into a small issue of the Offline Address Book (OAB) not being able to be found and it's giving a sync error every hour in outlook. We had to figure out a way to get the Autodiscover feature to work correctly and after about 3 hours of searching, here's the article that set us up correctly:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940881

It worked great for us as we couldn't use the standard DNS solution due to having only 1 IP and only being able to use 1 SSL certificate on that IP (I did try a wildcard SSL, but then the email sync broke while the Offline Address Book error went away), so setting up a SRV record worked great!

Here's a link that shows how to setup the SRV DNS entry in godaddy

Free your phone from AT&T shackles

"Take Action
Tell Washington: Free My Phone!

New "smart" phones have set the stage for the future of a mobile Internet. But companies like AT&T and Verizon are getting in the way by shackling open and innovative devices to closed networks. The FCC and Congress must step in to protect consumers and foster innovation. We demand:

1. The freedom to choose any phone or network.
2. The freedom to choose among many carriers in a competitive, low-cost marketplace.
3. The freedom to access any Web content, applications or services we want through our phones."

http://www.freepress.net/FreeMyPhone

Alternatives to paying for cable

Below is an interesting video I saw on CNET.com regarding not paying for cable. A solution is coming real soon to consumers.

Test to see if your website is optimized for speed

This site checks your site to see if GZIP Compression is turned on and shows you the results:

http://www.whatsmyip.org/http_compression/

From this to THIS

1984



2009

Browser ball, possibly more cool than you think

This is an experiment that I stumbled on. It breaks out preconceived barriers of the browser window.



Check out browser ball

Parallax scrolling and Jquery... salivating aren't we?

We've been talking in the office about producing environments as part of the user experience. People explore websites to reach their goal just like we explored worlds in video games to reach the end boss. We're realizing that people don't want to be online doing work, they want to be online having fun.

So lets start by making work fun.



Check out Jparallax, a clever parallax effects in Jquery.

SHORTCUTS TO SHUTDOWN & RESTART WINDOWS 2000 & XP Through Command Line

I've had to use this in the passed on remote desktops, thought people might find this useful, or at least I will when I forget and can just come back to this blog post :)


This command starts a 30-second countdown for a shutdown or restart, which permits you to abort it (with a shutdown -a command). It you want the command to execute, use the -t flag, which lets you set the time lapse in seconds. The examples below use a 1-second delay.

For a shortcut to RESTART Windows XP on the command line:
SHUTDOWN -r -t 01

For a shortcut to SHUT DOWN Windows XP on the command line:
SHUTDOWN -s -t 01

Source here

Local Wisdom \\Share EP9:Google Webmaster Central, XML-Sitemaps.com and you!

Eric walks you through how to use XML-Sitemaps.com to generate a sitemap.xml for your site and how to upload this to Google through Google Webmaster Central. This will help you inform Google of all the pages on your site to make sure they all get indexed properly. Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

Show Notes: Google Webmaster Central and XML-Sitemaps.com

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Local Wisdom \\Share EP8:How fast is Verizon Fios?

Off a \\share request, Mike runs his home Verizon FIOS not once, but twice through speakeasy.net's speed test. Is Fios the turtle or the hare, check it out in this episode of \\share! Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

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Local Wisdom \\Share EP7:Put Twitter updates onto your website

Melissa walks you through how to pull your twitter updates and show them on your website. She also reworks the javascript code to restylize the links to the updates. Bringing twitter updates to your website so people can follow you without going to twitter is what this episode is all about! Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

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Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

RNIB (supporting blind and partially sighted people) has a great culmination of Excel (and other program) keyboard shortcuts.

Excel Keyboard Shortcuts on RNIB

Introducing fit-PC2 - Mac Mini watch out!

Found this through a tweet from Leo Laporte. If you're into tech like I am, he's a great guy to follow and his podcasts are awesome. This machine is tiny and it can handle full 1080P video! Check out the image where they stick it on the back of a monitor, it's funny!

"CompuLab introduces fit-PC2 – the smallest, most power-efficient Intel Atom PC to date. fit-PC2 architecture is what sets it apart from other nettop PCs - fit-PC2 is designed around the Intel Atom Z530 1.6GHz and the ultra low power Intel US15W system controller hub, rather than the Atom N270 and 945G used in other nettop-PCs, thereby reducing power consumption by more than two thirds.
US15W incorporates hardware video acceleration. This allows fit-PC2 to run Windows XP or Ubuntu Linux at just 6W and to play full HD 1080p H.264 video using less than 7W."

Click here

Find better Windows, Mac, Linux and online applications

Pretty cool site that gives you alternatives to other software you use, found this originally on twitter and it's pretty interesting to see what alternatives there are to software we use everyday!

"AlternativeTo is a new approach to finding good software. Tell us what applicatio

Save Now

n you want to replace and we give you suggestions on great alternatives! Instead of listing thousands of more or less crappy applications in a category, we make each application into a category. Think of it like forever evolving blog posts about good alternatives to the software that you're not satisfied with. And the "blog posts" are generated by you through suggestions, comments and votes. "


http://alternativeto.net/

10 Transition Effects: The art of Showing/Hiding Content

"Delivering informative structure is the primary task an interactive user interface should be able to cope with. The more intuitive layout structure is designed, the better users can understand the content.

Whatever content you have to present, you can present them in a more interactive & more responsive ways. In this article we’d like to present 10 smart javascript techniques for showing and hiding content using different JS libraries."

Whole post here

400th post! Microsoft wants you to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8

About time, Microsoft is going to push IE8 out to users. I wish they would force corporate users to a minimum of IE7. We have a few clients (and I'm not talking about the little ones either!) that still refuse to move onto IE7 and it makes website development so hectic due to taking IE6 into account. IE6 needs to go away at this point, it initially launched in 2001, and the last big update was 5 years ago in 2004! Micrsoft should never have allowed IE7 upgrades to be optional.

What kills me about corporate users that don't upgrade is they're all about security, but for some reason when it comes to upgrading to a more secure browser, they still refuse! IT department heads that allow IE6 to exist really need to be relieved of their duties at this point, its an 8 year old browser they're allowing their employees to use.

Here's the article:
"If you are running a supported operating system and are still not on the recently launched Internet Explorer 8 edition, Microsoft would soon start bothering you with messages to update.

Microsoft has revealed that they would start sending notifications to such users through the Automate Update service included in these OS.

The good news is that the company would not force upgrade the Internet Explorer installations. It would be an opt-in setting for the time being.

Users on older operating systems like Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 would be delivered this message as a high priority update. " Read whole story here

In Long Island, For $99 a Month, 100 Mbps Broadband Arrives

For those of us that have FIOS, we realize how important competition is between the cable companies and the phone companies. We don't want either of these greedy businesses end up with a monopoly again!

"Cablevision, the Bethpage, N.Y.-based cable and Internet service provider, has continued its tradition of being a cable industry innovator by introducing 100-megabits-per-second service in Long Island. The service, dubbed Optimum Online Ultra, utilizes DOCSIS 3.0 technology to deliver the ultra-broadband experience over cable’s wires and comes with ability to send data upstream at 15 Mbps. It starts at $99 a month, will be available starting May 11 and will be the fastest service from a cable provider anywhere in the U.S."

Read whole article here

Local Wisdom \\Share EP6:Time tracking through TSheets.com

Check out how to simplify your time tracking process with TSheets.com and save time that can be spent on more important business building objectives. We go through the signup process, employee setup, project setup, tracking time through various methods and finally reports. You'll learn about all the different ways you can submit your time into the website that ranges from the web to twitter to the IPhone! Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

Show Notes: TSheets.com. The BlackBaud labs article that shows how to implement the Windows based IPhone emulator here

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Brand Aid Author Praises Johnson & Johnson for Uniting Branding and Technology

ConsultingMag.com just did an interview with Allen Adamson, managing director of Landor Associates and author of Brand Aid.

His main theme focuses around uniting brand experts and technology experts. I whole heartedly agree and I'm looking forward to reading the book.

In his interview with consultingmag.com, he praises Johnson & Johnson and their baby care division:

Most marketers are finally getting up to speed. I think Johnson & Johnson is doing some of it very well, particularly for their baby division. They have known for years that moms talking to each other are a key vehicle to getting their brand message into that marketplace. They have the [YouTube] baby channel, and they really created a whole platform for new moms to talk to each other.

The First Apple Mac Virus Rears its Ugly Head

IBotnet Virus: Apple's First Worm

Researchers are reporting the first Macintosh-specific worm to be found "in the wild" on the Internet, the IBotnet Virus. The good news is that, as far as worms go, this one seems to be a weakling.

Symantec guesses that only a couple of thousand machines have been infected. That being the case, it likely won't be of any practical value to cyber criminals, which are known to use networks of millions of PCs to perpetrate denial service attacks or send huge volumes of spam, for example.

The IBotnet virus is a Mac-specific Trojan Horse program that infects a machine only by downloading a pirated copy of iWork, the Apple productivity suite or Adobe Photoshop CS4. It does not spread from peer-to-peer on its own.

The finger is being pointed at BitTorrent, a popular site that enables users to share large files, as the avenue by which pirated copies were downloaded onto Mac computers.

Experts say iBotNet infects only a few thousand computers at most and is not a danger to the average Mac user. Some people won't even notice the effect of it.

"Quite frankly there is no functionality in this 'bot' that we have not seen before," Dave Marcus, head of research and communications at McAfee Avert Labs, said in a blog post. "The only thing of concern is that it affects the Mac platform, which certainly is fresh territory."

In a statement, Apple said it is working to prevent security problems.

"Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing potential vulnerabilities before they can affect users," the statement says.

While the security experts probably won't come out and say it, this whole scare appears to be an elaborate to provide "conceptual truth" --ie: hackers attempting to put perceived snooty Mac users in their place by highlighting the fact that their (news flash) operating system of choice isn't so secure after all.

\\Share EP5:Loading XML through flash from another domain or website

We setup a flash swf on 2 websites and they both depend on a single XML feed. Learn why only the website that actually hosts the XML feed for the flash swf's actually works and how to get the other website's flash swf to be able to use the same XML feed. It's all about Adobe flash XML security and how to properly setup the XML feed. Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom
Show Notes: Original post that the screencast was based on here

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Vertically justify column heights through JQuery

The Problem

Unequal column heights make CSS layouts difficult to manage when the height of content cannot be known in advance, particularly in scenarios where absolute positioning is in use. There are a variety of strategies to deal with this issue — here's a jQuery based fix.

Read rest of the solution here, this is what we're using:

http://michael.futreal.com/jquery/vjustify

Setup iPhone with Microsoft online services aka BPOS

I needed this info today and it took me a while to find it, so I'm reposting it here to help it get indexed for the internets :)

Microsoft Online Services BPOS iPhone settings:

Simply goto Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars->Add Account->Microsoft Exchange.

Email: enter your email address
Domain:Leave blank
Username: enter your email address
Enter your password and description for the mailbox.
Click Next

Accept the verify certificate pop ups.

You will now see a new screen with an extra blank entry for Server. Enter the OWA address. In beta, this is "red001.mail.microsoftonline.com".

Select the information you want to synchronize, and click on Save.

\\Share EP4:SBS 2003 Remote Desktop to your network

We go through the process of logging into a network through the use of the SBS 2003 web interface. By using this built in website, we're able to connect to any desktop on the network as well as the server to get some work done remotely. The only things necessary are a web browser, the IP address of the network and a login. Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

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Angry British villagers stop Google maps car

LONDON (AFP) – Angry residents of an English village blocked the driver of a Google Street View car who was filming the neighbourhood, saying they feared he would encourage burglaries, a report said Friday.

One resident, Paul Jacobs, told the BBC he had alerted his neighbours after spotting the car from his window in Broughton, Buckinghamshire, southern England, on Wednesday.

"I don't have a problem with Google wanting to promote villages. What I have a problem with is the invasion of privacy, taking pictures directly into the home," Jacobs said.

"We've already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it's an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police."

After his call, a police car arrived in Broughton to reports of a dispute between a crowd of people and a Google Street View contractor.

"They felt his presence was an intrusion of their privacy. When police arrived at the scene, the car had moved on," explained a spokeswoman for Thames Valley Police.

The Google Street View project, set up last month in Britain, aims to provide detailed 360-degree views online of streets all over Britain.

The project has already been strongly criticised by associations like Privacy International, a pressure group which has launched legal action against the IT company.

Google is confident their new mapping project is within the law.

"Before launching Street View we sought the guidance and approval of the Information Commissioner's Office. The ICO has repeatedly made clear that it believes that Street View includes the safeguards necessary to protect people's privacy," a Google spokesman said.

"The Metropolitan Police (in London) told us they saw no appreciable security risk, that burglars are opportunistic, and that mapping products can be useful in solving and mapping crime in an area."

He added: "Embarking on new projects, we sometimes encounter unexpected challenges, and Street View has been no exception."

\\Share EP3:Use Google Keyword Tool for your website

We go through the process of using the Google Keyword Tool to optimize the keywords used on a client site. You'll learn the proper way to use the tool and what it can do for your site from a SEO/ Keyword perspective. Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

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You Tube April fools joke, they got me!

I have to admit, they got me! I didn't know what was happening at first....
They're flipping about 90% of the content upside down, pretty cool, want to check out the CSS to see how :) At least the video wasn't played backwards!

Skype for iPhone - it's official

(CNET) -- Months after teasing us at CES with an announcement of Skype's native VoIP client for the iPhone, the free Skype for iPhone will finally be available to download from the iTunes App Store sometime on Tuesday.

We got a chance to sit down with the application's principal engineer before the announcement was made at CTIA 2009, to see Skype for iPhone do its thing.

While most of the features aren't too surprising--Skype does want to maintain some consistency across its mobile applications, after all--there are a few capabilities that are notably missing, and a few iPhone-only perks that are refreshing to see.

In terms of navigation, Skype's VoIP app for iPhone looks more like your traditional iPhone app than it does Skype 4.0 for Windows. For many who already prefer Apple's sleek interface archetype, that's a triumph, but those who enjoy Skype's branding may feel disappointed.

Skype's screens are well organized and use the iPhone's ability to add filters, for instance, to sort your contacts alphabetically, or by who's online. There's chatting as well, though Skype's flagship feature is its VoIP calling that's free to other Skype users and an inexpensive per-minute fee to landlines.

Calls on Skype for iPhone work only if you're in range of a Wi-Fi network, so your call quality will in part be at the mercy and strength of wireless networks nearby--calls will not work over the cell phone network on the iPhone (but chatting will). Assuming your connection is solid, you can dial a number or quickly call a contacts stored in your address book.

iPod Touch users will need earphones with an embedded mic to talk. During a call, you can mute the line, go on hold, or put the call on speakerphone. In the My Info window, you can follow a link to buy more SkypeOut credit online.

Taking a photo from within Skype to serve as your avatar image, or pulling a picture in from the camera roll are two iPhone-only features that makes use of the phone's hardware attributes.

Another imperfect, but still neat, feature is the ability to accept incoming conference calls. While you won't be able to initiate a call, we're told, you will be able to jump on one if a buddy invites you in. We hope the next version includes placing conference calls from the iPhone.

Skype left a few more skills out of its maiden iPhone voyage. SMS, setting up a conference calling group, purchasing SkypeOut credit directly, and being able to field a second incoming Skype call are a few. File transferring and getting Skype voicemail native on the phone are two more. We expect to see at least two of these added in the next version, but we'll hope for more.

Skype versus the competition

Here's the big question on our minds: will Skype's iPhone app replace competitors like Nimbuzz and Fring, which focus on cross-network IM but also include VoIP calls with Skype pals even though they've been available for the iPhone for months?

Kurt Thywissen, the principal engineer for Skype for iPhone, thinks so. He says what the other apps use is a workaround that requires them to channel calls through a server and transcode audio, resulting in poorer-quality calls than Skype can do in its own app.

He may be right, but those who IM more than they vocalize probably won't ditch the likes of Fring too soon. They might, however, let Skype handle the calls and let another app take care of the multinetwork chatting.

Did you Know Video

For all you data junkies like myself, this is a great fix.

Turn your computers off at night

Turning off your computer at night can save the planet alot of CO2's:

Read whole story here

Microsoft giving away software to teachers and students, dreamspark.com

Check this out, Microsoft is giving away design and development software to students and teachers for free. All you need is a Live login and here's a list of what they have:

Visual Studio 2008 Pro Edition
SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition
XNA Game Studio 3.0
CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008
Robotics Developer Studio 2008
Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
Expression Studio 2 (Dreamweaver competitor)
Windows Server 2003
Visual Studio 2005 Pro Edition
Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition
SQL Server 2008 Express Edition
Virtual PC (Great for testing on different OS's)

Besides all the software, they're also giving away free training and electronic books on the site here

\\Share EP2:Embed Google Maps using your address on your websites!

We go through the process of mapping your address on Google maps, creating the embed code for your website or blog and implementing the code on a web page. Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

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How to mount a Windows shared folder on your Mac

Looking to properly mount a windows share on a MAC, lifehacker to the rescue once again!

Click here for whole story

Windowshop.com, go window shopping at Amazon

windowshop.com let's you see Amazon.com's best selling products in a virtual window type interface. I know it's in flash, so I shouldn't be surprised by what they've setup, but it's still impressive at first look. Take a look, it might be a small peek into the future of shopping :)

Kodak Gallery, the end of free photo storage

Jason Fried spoke about not giving away your products anymore for free on the web, and here's the slow beginning of what I think we all fear, websites taking away their free services.

Kodak has sent me an email stating that if I don't pony up $4.99 of purchases through them each year, they'll remove the photo's I've uploaded to their site. I don't blame them, just scared of services I really use a lot going away from free....

\\Share EP1: Creating a slideshow from your Picasa web album

Our first episode of \\Share, please comment :)

We go through the process of using a current Picasa Web Album, creating the embed code for a slideshow and implementing the code on a web page. Send requests for screencasts to share@localwisdom.com and follow us at twitter.com/localwisdom

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devthought: The four stages of programming competence

Great blog post about the 4 stages of a programmer's competence and levels they can achieve. Take a look at the site too, it's really beautifully designed.

Here's a sample of the post:

One of the basic pillars of the study of human psychology is the analysis of the subconscious and conscious mind. Sigmund Freud was one of the first to clearly identify and characterize the ‘areas’ where our psychic energy flows. During the first part of his notable life he stated that these were the ’subconscious’, ‘preconscious’ and ‘conscious’ mind.

If we wanted to get an idea of how each of them is involved in our ideas, feelings, thoughts, decisions and motivation (which are key in our daily and professional lives), we should picture ourselves as an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg, the only part we see from the surface, is the conscious mind. It’s logical, organized, and we can control it, but still small. The vast and voluminous underlying mass is the unconscious mind. It’s disorganized, illogical, irrational, but defining in how we act.

Modern psychology has attempted to classify how good we are at a certain skill by observing how deep it perforates that iceberg. It thus describes four stages of competence an individual can achieve. In this article I’ll try to apply this simple scheme to the skill we practice everyday: programming.

Read rest here

Top Global Macrotrends Impacting all Brands

Iphone 3.0 Beta OS Walkthrough

Take a look at the video of the new features in the new Iphone 3.0 OS. Many of the features that users wanted they will get with this upgrade.

Interesting model of having the Iphone Touch owners to pay $9.95

Unveiling the brand new Cappuccino IDE 'Atlas' at FOWA Miami 2009 by Francisco Tolmasky

I was there for this, was amazing!

Francisco Tolmasky - FOWA Maimi 2009 from Carsonified on Vimeo.

iPhone OS 3.0 is coming!

Apple just presented the blueprint for the iPhone OS 3.0, the next version of the best mobile platform to date. So there are some interesting features as well as an updated development kit for the iPhone Developer Program.

Some of the 100 new features include:

• Search everything on your iPhone using "spotlight"
  
• Cut, copy, and paste <--- whoa (its easy as double tap)
• Undo and Redo (by shaking)
• Send more than 1 photo at a time using copy and paste (yessss)
  
• Send photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS
• Read and compose email and text messages in landscape
• Login to your youtube accounts
• Notes sync
• Shake to shuffle
• Stereo bluetooth
• Languages
  

Some stats:

• iPhone is in over 80 countries
• 25000 apps in the store
• 800 million app downloads

Current Developers business deals

• Developers pick the price
• 70% of revenues goes straight to developers
• No credit card fees
• Developers are paid monthly

New additional features for developers

"In-App-Purchase"

• Subscriptions from within the app
• Additional game levels that can be bought within the app
• New types of content can be purchased within the app
  

"Peer-to-peer"

• Automatic discovery of apps in the area
• Bluetooth connection
• No pairing

"Accessories"

• Accessories developers can build customer apps to talk to the accessories (they want to use iPhones for medical devices "they present a blood pressure guage that connects with the iphone)
• iPhones can talk to the accessories over the dock connector and wirelessly over bluetooth
• Custom protocols can be created

"maps"

• Embed the iPhone google map controls into applications (maps API is open)
• Pan and zoom
• Custom annotations
• Current location
• Geocoding
• Turn by turn directions (3G, wi-fi, cell phone towers)

"push notification"

• Apple push notification server is always connected to the server so your app server can talk to the iphone at any time
• Update alerts
• Sound alerts
• Text alerts
• Preserves battery life
• Maintains performance
• Optimized for mobile networks
• Scaleable

"there are more than a 1000 APIs coming... here are some...

• In app emails
• Proximity sensor
• iPod library access
• Streaming audio
• Shake API
• In game/ voice chatting

Some apps in the works

• Meebo is coming
• Electronic Arts Sims3 is coming
• Oracles Mobile Sales assistant is coming
• ESPN alerts is coming (with streaming video)
• LifeScan diabeties management and glucous monitoring is coming (anita matthew)
• ngmoco:) a virtual pet with a build in social networking capability is coming
• ngmoco:) a first person shooter where you can play with friends and purchase weapons is coming
• Smule, leaft rumbone a game to teach you how to play a musical performance is coming

Check it out

Surge protectors that have remotes to conserve standby power

Found these at the Home Depot the other day and thought, damn another idea I had(only a few months ago though) that I didn't share with the company that makes these things!!!

I guess I should be happy my ideas are good ones, otherwise they wouldn't actually produce them :) They're about $40 retail.

Check them out here

Facebook's all over the place... that's a good thing

Dave Morin from Facebook just got everyone at SXSW all excited. Not only are over 6,000 websites already using Facebook connect. But its now available to the iPhone app developers and being used in desktop client form.

Facebook-ready apps include Playfish’s popular, Who Has the Biggest Brain? ($4.99 via iTunes), Tap Tap RevengeTap Tap Revenge reviews 2 (free via iTunes), Movies by Flixster (free via iTunes), SGN’s Agency Wars (lite version free via iTunes), and Urbanspoon (free via iTunes). Now users can play against their Facebook friends, get a constant stream of the movies friends are watching, and are pretty much only limited by how developers envision and tweak the integration to fit with their apps.

For everyone that's unclear, on Facebook Connect. It's Faceboooks way of letting other websites use Facebooks authentication to let people signin using Facebook's login. So not only can your website have an easy login, but it can then make it easy for users to interact between your website and their Facebook.

Facebook Connect is the next evolution of Facebook Platform - enabling you to integrate the power of Facebook Platform into your own site. Enable your users to...

• Seamlessly "connect" their Facebook account and information with your site
• Connect and find their friends who also use your site
• Share information and actions on your site with their friends on Facebook

The possibilities are outrageous.

Check out the full story on Mashable.

This is what we're going to get RJay for his birthday

Loading XML through flash from another domain

Ran into the need for this today to figure out why a flash piece couldn't access the XML on another site. Makes sense once you read it :)

Original source here

Allowing cross-domain data loading

When a Flash document attempts to access data from another domain, Flash Player automatically attempts to load a policy file from that domain. If the domain of the Flash document that is attempting to access the data is included in the policy file, the data is automatically accessible.

Policy files must be named crossdomain.xml, and can reside either at the root directory or in another directory on the server that is serving the data with some additional ActionScript (see About custom policy file locations). Policy files function only on servers that communicate over HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP. The policy file is specific to the port and protocol of the server where it resides.

For example, a policy file located at https://www.macromedia.com:8080/crossdomain.xml applies only to data loading calls made to www.macromedia.com over HTTPS at port 8080.

An exception to this rule is the use of an XMLSocket object to connect to a socket server in another domain. In that case, an HTTP server running on port 80 in the same domain as the socket server must provide the policy file for the method call.

An XML policy file contains a single <cross-domain-policy> tag, which, in turn, contains zero or more <allow-access-from> tags. Each <allow-access-from> tag contains an attribute, domain, which specifies either an exact IP address, an exact domain, or a wildcard domain (any domain). Wildcard domains are indicated by either a single asterisk (*), which matches all domains and all IP addresses, or an asterisk followed by a suffix, which matches only those domains that end with the specified suffix. Suffixes must begin with a dot. However, wildcard domains with suffixes can match domains that consist of only the suffix without the leading dot. For example, foo.com is considered to be part of *.foo.com. Wildcards are not allowed in IP domain specifications.

If you specify an IP address, access is granted only to SWF files loaded from that IP address using IP syntax (for example, http://65.57.83.12/flashmovie.swf), not those loaded using domain-name syntax. Flash Player does not perform DNS resolution.

The following example shows a policy file that permits access to Flash documents that originate from foo.com, www.friendOfFoo.com, *.foo.com, and 105.216.0.40, from a Flash document on foo.com:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- http://www.foo.com/crossdomain.xml -->
<cross-domain-policy>
<allow-access-from domain="www.friendOfFoo.com" />
<allow-access-from domain="*.foo.com" />

<allow-access-from domain="105.216.0.40" />
</cross-domain-policy>

You can also permit access to documents originating from any domain, as shown in the following example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- http://www.foo.com/crossdomain.xml -->
<cross-domain-policy>
<allow-access-from domain="*" />

</cross-domain-policy>

Each <allow-access-from> tag also has the optional secure attribute. The secure attribute defaults to true. You can set the attribute to false if your policy file is on an HTTPS server, and you want to allow SWF files on an HTTP server to load data from the HTTPS server.

Setting the secure attribute to false could compromise the security offered by HTTPS.

If the SWF file you are downloading comes from an HTTPS server, but the SWF file loading it is on an HTTP server, you need to add the secure="false" attribute to the <allow-access-from> tag, as shown in the following code:

<allow-access-from domain="www.foo.com" secure="false" />

A policy file that contains no <allow-access-from> tags has the same effect as not having a policy on a server.

Caption contest: Cricket builds the world's largest cellphone

For those of you who always complain that the buttons are just too small on your cell phone, well here is a solution for you.


















Source Link: Engadget

City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away

(CNN) -- A floating city off the coast of San Francisco may sound like science fiction, but it could be reality in the not-too-distant future.

The Seasteading Institute already has drawn up plans for the construction of a homestead on the Pacific Ocean.

One project engineer described the prototype as similar to a cruise ship, but from a distance the cities might look like oil-drilling platforms.

According to the plans, the floating cities would not only look different from their land-based counterparts, but they might operate differently, too.

Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer who now works for the Seasteading Institute, said floating cities are the perfect places to experiment with new forms of government.

Some of the new political ideas the group is tossing around include legalizing marijuana and making intellectual property communal -- so that everyone would take ownership in art produced on the city at sea.

"The idea isn't just about getting away from rules or getting rid of rules. It's about a system that encourages experimentation with different political systems," he said.

Friedman said the floating city may be built in modular pieces so that city blocks and neighborhoods can be recombined to create new urban layouts.

The idea of building cities on the sea is not new, he said, but the Seasteading Institute has come closer to realizing the goal than others.

"A lot of people over the past hundred plus years have had this idea and even specifically building cities on the ocean to try out new forms of government," he said. "But they've pretty much been totally imagined and if they did try, they totally failed."

There are several unknowns about future attempts to create floating cities, said Christian Cermelli, an engineer and architect with Marine Innovation and Technology, based in San Francisco.

Cermelli, who is part of a team of designers creating a blueprint for the first seastead, said it's unclear if construction is possible -- or what it would cost.

Still, a prototype for the idea may be finished in as little as three years, he said.

Friedman said seasteads are loosely based on oil rigs, but with important modifications.

"We care more about sunlight and open space, so the specifications are different," he said. "Also, oil platforms are fixed in place. We think it's important to have more modular cities. So you would build a city out of buildings that can actually be separated and rearranged."

Cermelli said the ocean cities may use technology from suspension bridges "to expand the space at sea and basically get a roomier platform."

Friedman says the idea of seasteading has met a range of reactions.

"Some people think we're crazy. A lot of people think we're crazy," he said. "Some people think terrible things could happen, others think it would be great."

About 600 people have joined the Seasteading Institute.

Some of them, like Gayle Young, say the idea is exciting partly because it's so different.

"I love the idea because it's audacious. It's big," she said. "It's about pushing frontiers."

Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere?

Depending on which numbers you source or believe, all reports agree that the blogosphere continues to expand globally.

As the leading blog directory and search engine, Technorati maintains a coveted Authority Index which is considered amongst bloggers as the benchmark for measuring their rank and selling their position within the blogosphere. Authority is defined as the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the greater the level of Authority a blog earns.

However, a disruptive trend is already at play. While blogs are increasing in quantity, their authority—as currently measured by Technorati—is collectively losing influence.

In its annual State of the Blogosphere last year, Technorati revealed that it had indexed 133 million blog records since 2002. In March 2008, Universal McCann published a report that indicated 184 million blogs worldwide were created, with 346 million people reading blogs globally.



Indeed, consumers, businesses, content publishers, and media channels are embracing blogs as a way of engaging existing and reaching new readers to build an ecosystem around relevant conversations. It’s the convergence of dialog and journalism, creating a new generation of interconnectedness between publisher and community.

Blogging is entrenched in the mainstream. Continue Reading>>

Nielsen: Social Nets Overtake E-mail

As online paradigm shifts, advertisers must find a way to add value, rather than follow the 'push' model

NEW YORK Social networking has overtaken e-mail as the most popular Internet activity, according to a new study released by Nielsen.

Active reach in what Nielsen defines as "member communities" now exceeds e-mail participation by 67 percent to 65 percent. What's more, the reach of social networking and blogging venues is growing at twice the rate of other large drivers of Internet use such as portals, e-mail and search. Read More>>

The History of the Internet

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

Visual Task Tips provides thumbnail preview image for each task in the Windows Taskbar

Click here to get it!

Visual Task Tips is a lightweight shell enhancement utility. It provides thumbnail preview image for each task in the Windows Taskbar, as seen in the Microsoft Windows Vista.

Windows XP or Vista (Classic theme) is required to run Visual Task Tips.

Simple

Visual Task Tips is a simple utility. Just download and install it.

Useful

By using Visual Task Tips you can significantly increase your productivity.

Free

Visual Task Tips is free for non-commercial use.

IT Screencasts for IT Pros and Home Users

For the IT Pros:

http://www.theacademypro.com/
Sample articles and screencasts:
Understanding CheckPoint fwstat/fwfetch

Scanning for Trojan ports with Languard

Modern Social Engineering Webcast

Penetration testing with Metasploit

To get your parents and any other family members to stop using you for their IT Support:

http://www.theacademyhome.com/
Sample articles and screencasts:
Scheduling defragmentation on Vista

Hiding your desktop icons in Windows XP

Installing Panda Security for Linux

Backing up your files in Windows XP

Applying custom styles to the Google AJAX API Search Control

How to grant a user DBA right in Oracle

You won’t believe how hard it was for me to find this line of code!!!

 

Oracle, your support needs a lot of work!!!

 

GRANT dba TO USERNAME with Admin option;

 

Websites and Books Mentioned at the Future of Web Apps

You know when you go to conferences there are many references to websites and books. Here is a list of websites and books from the Future of Web Apps that occured last week in Miami.

Websites

AListApart
“For people who make websites” - A List Apart Magazine (ISSN: 1534-0295) explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.

Atlas
Yea, you just gotta check this out, trust me you won't regret it.

BriteKite
Brightkite is a location-based social network. In real time you can see where your friends are and what they're up to. Depending on your privacy settings you can also meet others nearby.

CMSReview.com/Stages
Content Management is a complex business and is best understood by breaking it down into the major stages or phases involved in managing the content lifecycle.

Delivr
Interesting ways to share URLs

Domainr
Domainr helps you explore hundreds of domain names.

FaceBook Connect
Facebook Connect is the next evolution of Facebook Platform - enabling you to integrate the power of Facebook Platform into your own site.

Jott
Capture thoughts, create to-dos and set reminders with a simple phone call

Kallow
Kallow is a product recommendation site built specifically to give you the nerd-

stamp-of-approval on common electronics that are usually confusing.

Mashville
Maybe sometimes you took turns drawing something together with another person. This is the best way to explain how the work displayed here was made.

MindMeister
Free web-based collaborative mind mapping tool for brainstorming and project-managment.

Ning
Create your own social network for anything

OpenTable
Make restaurant reservations the easy way. Find a restaurant » Choose a table » Book online. Trusted by 10,000 restaurants & 90 million diners

PatternTap
A collection of interface design solutions from all over the web, where users can mark patterns they like, and learn from other's design solutions.

Picnik
Photo editing made fun

PipelineDeals
Simple CRM for big business: Organize your deals and prospects, Track the entire sales process, Report on your sales pipeline, and Close more deals, more efficiently. $15/ month.

Sifter
Sifter is designed to be a bug and issue tracker for non-technical people. We're passionate about making bug and issue tracking simple enough to get everyone involved and working together.

Truvay
I dunno yet. Sign up and find out with the rest of us.

TweetDeck
An application that aims to evolve existing functionality of Twitter by breaking down Twitter feeds into more manageable bite sized pieces.

Ubiquity
Ubiquity is a Mozilla Labs experiment into connecting the Web with language in an attempt to find new user interfaces that could make it possible for everyone to do common Web tasks more quickly and easily.



Books

Crossing the Chasm
Author Geoffrey Moore makes the case that high-tech products require marketing strategies that differ from those in other industries. His chasm theory describes how high-tech products initially sell well, mainly to a technically literate customer base, but then hit a lull as marketing professionals try to cross the chasm to mainstream buyers. This pattern, says Moore, is unique to the high-tech industry.

Getting Real
Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals — a developer of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses in 70 countries.

Letting Go of the Words
"Redish has done her homework and created a thorough overview of the issues in writing for the Web. Ironically, I must recommend that you read her every word so that you can find out why your customers won't read very many words on your website -- and what to do about it." -- Jakob Nielsen, Principal, Nielsen Norman Group

I know there were more so if I missed anything shoot me an email at pkathiari@localwisdom.com or add a comment.

Whoa, Skittles.com is aactually a Twitter Search

So we're not the only one trying to let other people update our homepage (ok, that's coming soon).

Check out Skittles.com, if you can get past the annoying age verification or the floating ad banner like navigation. It is an interesting experience.

Visions of 2019 Future by Microsoft

You gotta love the visions of the future. This is a very inspirational video by Microsoft. I'll be 41, Miya will be 19, and Lucas will be 10!

&amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&amp;amp;amp;amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&amp;amp;amp;amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;amp;amp;amp;from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage"&amp;amp;amp;gt;Video: Future Vision Montage&amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt;


This video was unveiled at Wharton Business Technology Conference on Febuary 29th. Microsoft’s Business Division president Stephen Elop unveiled the latest production from Microsoft Office Labs called “2019″, starring stock photo men, women and children playing with the next-generation of communication, collaboration and production technologies.

Ubiquity is BIG!

We met Aza Raskin from Mozilla the other day, this guy is amazing... he gave his first talk on user experience for SIGCHI at the age of 10.

A couple of months ago he launched Ubiquity, this is a game changer.


Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Start Up Businesses Metrics for Web App Companies

We're at the Future of Web Apps and Dave McClure gave a great presentation on the metrics you need to setup or think about when setting up your business metrics.

Startup Metrics for Pirates (FOWA/Miami, Feb 2009)

View more presentations from Dave Mcclure. (tags: revenue referral)

LW at Future of Web Apps

Derrick, Pinaki and Mike keeping abreast of the newest trends!

Distraction Free Writing

You might have heard of WriteRoom, a distraction free writing system. Its for people who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a full-screen writing environment for Mac. Unlike the cluttered word processors you're used to, WriteRoom is just about you and your text.

I became very intrigued by this program as writing requires focus on words while document editors add all these features that are great, but distract us from the words. I found myself being distracted by the font, the size, the decoration, orphan words, call caps, small caps, etc. I am a designer so yes, its inherent that documents are well designed. This leaves my brain exhausted. We all know that multitasking is great for computers, but sucky for humans.

Being that the screen is so minimal it might take a second or two longer to learn the software and the simple things like opening and saving files. But once you get the hang of it, its pretty nifty.

I do recommend WriteRoom for writers. With one caveat. It costs $25. I understand the brilliance of simplicity and whatnot, but $25 for a text editor? So I found JDarkRoom (thanks to robrohan.com). JDarkRoom is presty much the same application, build on Java and FREE.

This is probably part of a bigger topic of the trend of simple applications that have a price attached to them are being reprogrammed and offered for free. This makes your brand the only differentiator... but thats another post.

Enjoy.

Yahoo Briefcase closing!

Not that I ever used it, but take a look:

Dear Yahoo! Briefcase user,


We will be officially closing Yahoo! Briefcase on March 30, 2009. Until then, we are offering you the opportunity to download your files back to your computer. You will need to take action before we close, after which any files remaining on Yahoo! Briefcase will be deleted and no longer accessible.To access your Yahoo! Briefcase account, click the link below:

Apple trying to take control!

I found an interesting article on CNN and thought I would share it with all you iPhone users out there! The comments at the bottom are also entertaining. :)

Could Jailbreaking your iPhone land you in jail?

Amazing timetracking tool

TSheets is an online time and labor management service that saves you time and money while providing an easy and effective time tracking solution.

This is the tool used at LW for our time tracking needs. It can be used from your iPhone, regular mobile, Jott, SMS text and of course from a web browser. Great tool and recommended to all. Here is their newest commercial, try it out for free

Create Picasa slideshow to use on your website

Put this together for a client of ours, figured I should share it with the world:

Capture your screen in seconds

Fan Made Special Effects ... some of the outtakes of Star Wars

Online YouTube video conversion service

YouTube is the power of user generated videos online. The users maketh and the users taketh.


Vixey.net is a free utility that will allow you to download the video or audio from any YouTube video to your computer. Its an online video conversion service.

The Vixey application can be downloaded to your computer, but you can also use the website to download the videos by entering the url of the YouTube video... yes, its that easy.

Solution for Feedburner Error getting URL: 502 - Source feed is too large ... maximum size is 512K

We got this error today on our feedburner feed for our blog (as shown above):

HTTP Error Code: 502

Detail: There was a problem retrieving the feed: Error getting URL: 502 - Source feed is too large ... maximum size is 512K

There are a couple of things to look at:
1. Log into feedburner, and edit the details of your feed and find the settings for "Original Feed" (shown in image below). At the end of the URL we had "max-result=500", which means that it will limit the feed to 500 posts (we had just over 300 posts total, so we were showing all our posts in the feed). By changing the number to 100, we're limiting it to 1/3 of our total posts, but that helps to keep the RSS feed size down.

2. Another thing to look at is the how much of the post you are pushing through on the feed itself. Our blog is on blogger.com, so log into blogger, and go to "Settings" then "Site Feed". There you will see a setting called "Allow Blog Feeds". If you change it from "Full" to "Short", it will remove the links to the images and shorten the posts in the feed to 255 characters. This will help to reduce the size of the feed in general.

3. After making either or both of the changes above, ping the feedburner here to refresh the feed. Now check the feed again and it should have fixed the error.

Whiteboarding online tool

Web-based meeting playground for white boarding over images and websites. check it out here

DimDim.com, free presenation tool

dimdim allows presentations through flash so there's nothing to install for the client. Free for up to 20 attendees, so great as presentation tool. Doesn't have Remote control capabilities yet, but its on their roadmap.

Check it out here

Google sites

What is left for them to do??? Maps, email, word docs, excel sheets, blogs, app development platforms.... and now sites themselves!!!

Check it out, maybe the new LW site will launch here: http://sites.google.com/

Behind the Scenes of Multiplex. An Interview With David Martorana.

An LW Family friend is launching his product, check it out:

"When I first saw the Multiplex demo back in September, I was totally wow’ed. The Indyhall team had shown us just a sneak peak of a user interface so fluid, so animated, that it made your movie catalog come to life. Now my mom has told me repeatedly not to make attempts at poetry, so I will stop now. Instead, I give you, David Martorana, one of the brains behind this whole screenplay."

Read the rest here

Free Screencasting Tool

Check out this new free tool that allows you to create screencasts and has the following functionality:

• Register & use it anywhere anytime
  Make screencasts / tutorials / demos / high-scores show-offs...
  
  
• Record your screen in one click
  No download. Compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux.
  
  
• Share videos on the Internet in Flash
  Embed them on blogs/webpages or send them by email.

Stream your media from your mac to the PS3 or Xbox360

Having all your media at your command on your computer is awesome. How would you like streaming all that media from your computer to the tv in the next room? All you need is a mac, router, and a PS3 or Xbox 360.

My home setup uses my Mac to stream all my movies, music and photos to my Xbox360 using Rivet. Using this setup I've created my own personal video on-demand service. All your DVDs can now be ripped to you computer using handbrake and streamed to your tv via your mac. Its great to be able to box up all those DVDs into storage, and have a more streamlined living room.

PS3 users click here for Medialink

Xbox360 users click here for Rivet

Web Statistic Charts

Here are some charts taken from data from W3Schools.com, the charts tell an interesting story of trends of the past and a look into whats to come. The data has been collected from W3Schools' log-files over a period of five years. You can find this data on the W3School website.

Click on the chart to see larger.

Browser Statistics


Monitor Display Resolution

Operating Systems

Monitor Color Depth


Download the Excel Document I used to create these charts.
W3School_Stats.xlsx

Predictions on the future of mobile

The Trend Spotting Blog has posted several presentations on the future.

Here is the influencers on mobile 2009-2020 predictions.

Influencers On Mobile 2009 2020 Predictions By Trendsspotting

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: trendsspotting spotting)

Script: Create IIS Website and DNS record

Looking to Automate creating sites on IIS, here’s a solution:

http://www.winscripter.com/WSH/ADSI/272.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816568

ELS American Eduation Center (ELS-AEC.com) is Live!

Today we officially launched ELS American Education Centers Website (ELS-AEC.com).

The ELS American Education Centers support international students in pursuing their higher education studies in the USA. We programmed page transitions onto the site so pages don't have to reload and site visitors are wooed by transitions of content adding to the site's memorability and experience. Portions of the website are also being fed by the AEC blog making the frequently updated portions of the site a breeze.

Big congratulations to the project team.

Michael Alfaro – Account Manager
Christine Robinson – Project Manager
Barry Jabloner – Developer
Pinaki Kathiari – Web Designer

Front end MAME

Looking to build an arcade box based on MAME, take a look below

Thanks to RJay for this link:
Hey here is a link to the front end software http://www.gameex.net/

It has a ton of features and can manage all your emulators in one interface.

How to fix some YSlow items on IIS for Windows servers

This goes along with the YSlow Firefox extension I put in the previous blog post:

http://www.melrosesolutions.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/5/26/How-to-tweak-IIS-to-improve-your-coldfusion-sites-performance

http://blog.grushin.com/2008/04/21/iis6-compression-including-js-css-etc/

http://turtle.net.nz/blog/post/YSlowUsingIIS/comments

Firefox Web Developer tools

Here's some tools we use in house for development:

ScreenGrab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1146
Screengrab saves entire webpages as images.
It will save what you can see in the window, the entire page, just a selection, a particular frame... basically it saves webpages as images.
The following little keywords are at the request of those who can't remember the name ScreenGrab! and want searches to work. It takes screen shots, screenshots - that is, shots, of web pages.

MeasureIt: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/539
Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.

Inline Code Finder for Firebug: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9641
Inline Code Finder is an add-on to Firebug, to be able to find HTML elements with any of the below issues:
* Inline JavaScript events
* Inline style
* javascript: links
Detailed description can be found at http://www.robertnyman.com/inline-code-finder/

YSlow: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5369
YSlow analyzes web pages and tells you why they're slow based on Yahoo's rules for high performance web sites.

Pixel Perfect: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7943
Pixel Perfect is a Firefox/Firebug extension that allows web developers and designers to easily overlay a web composition over top of the developed HTML.
* Requires Firebug

ColorZilla 2.0: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/271
With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. You can Zoom the page you are viewing and measure distances between any two points on the page. The built-in palette browser allows choosing colors from pre-defined color sets and saving the most used colors in custom palettes. DOM spying features allow getting various information about DOM elements quickly and easily. And there's more...

IE Tab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419
This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your web page displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.

PageDiff 1.3.0: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4274
Pagediff is a simple page compare application. It helps web developers and designers to see HTML-code(text) differences between web pages.
It doesn't take original page source. It takes browser generated DOM compliant view source. It omits Doctype declaration and HTML tags.
After installation, to use this, one has to
1. Right click on a page & select 'Start DIFF' (this action saves the current page to memory),
2. Go to the page which one wants to compare (with the saved one) and
3. Right click on the page & select 'Show DIFF'.


Html Validator: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/249
HTML Validator is a Mozilla extension that adds HTML validation inside Firefox and Mozilla. The number of errors of a HTML page is seen on the form of an icon in the status bar when browsing.
The extension can validate the HTML sent by the server or the HTML in the memory (after Ajax execution).
The details of the errors are seen when looking the HTML source of the page.
The extension is based on Tidy and OpenSP (SGML Parser). Both algorithms were originally developed by the Web Consortium W3C. And now extended and improved by a lot of persons. Both algorithms are embedded inside Mozilla/Firefox and makes the validation locally on your machine, without sending HTML to a third party server.
Each algorithm has advantages and inconvenients. The program will give you the choice at startup. But mostly,
- The SGML parser is the same program than the one running behind validator.w3.org.
- Tidy has accessibility check for the 3 levels defined in WAI

Console²: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1815
As of Firefox 1.5, the JavaScript Console is used not only for JavaScript errors, but for CSS errors as well. This extension takes this into account by providing a simple possibility to display errors by type.
Console² let's you display errors filtered by type (Errors, Warnings, Messages), language (JavaScript, CSS, XML) and context (Chrome, Content). Furthermore it provides a simple search box (as seen in the History and Bookmarks sidebars), hiding of duplicates, sidebar optimizations, a customizable toolbar and some more accessibility improvements.

CSS hacks!

Us developers always have problems making websites look consistent in multiple browsers. This article will help you out in your quest.

http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/css-fixes-tools-hacks-cross-browser-solutions/

Install multiple versions of IE on your PC

Tired of running into the next room to check your code on that old computer? This software makes it possible to run Internet Explorer in standalone mode without having to over-write previous versions.


Click here to check it out

Check out Papervision

While surfing the web this morning I came across the Papervision website its truely a unique experience. Very interesting to see the types of content that we'll be able to serve up over the Internet very soon.

Papervision3D.org


For more information check out:
the Papervision blog

Papervision is open source 3D flash components.

Exploring media in interactive 3D spaces

We do love discovering media in its many shapes and forms. There are several websites that are enabling some very cool ways to explore media.

Here are 3:

CoolIris

A FireFox plugin (and iPhone app) that lets you discover images, videos and more. This is my fav by the way.





3D Spiral
Flash gallery component that displays images on an interactive 3D rotating spiral using the Papervision3D engine.







TagGalaxy
Is an ok implementation (needs some work) but the concept is pretty cool. It uses Papervision3D to explore Flickr photos through a solar system-like interface.

Will the real IA please stand up

I came across a very interesting and entertaining presentation from Gail Lejia, UX expert. Learn about Information Architecture through some entertainment.

Will the Real Information Architect Please Stand Up?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design interaction)

There has been a lot of discussion over the years about what exactly information architecture is. These "Defining The Damned Thing (DTDT)" conversations have been primarily around the What, rather than the Who. But who are these people? Where do they come from? And why?

Intranets are the latest rage

So whats the difference between talking with our customers and talking with our employees and collegues. Nothing really. Well, there shouldn't be, we are all humans. This is something talked about in the Clue Train Manifesto.

I digress, the point of this post is that there is a shift in the way we've been thinking about Intranet sites. Teams need to collaborate, communicate, and connect in ways that were never really needed. This year along we've seen a drastic increase in Intranet sites. From sites that organize information, to sites that allow community discusions, to sites that are highly interactive and motivational.

We're not the only ones who see this. Jakob Neilson talks about it in his latest alertbox titled, 10 Best Intranets of 2009.

Intranets are getting more strategic, with increased collaboration support. Team size is growing by 12% per year, and platforms are becoming integrated, with a strong showing for SharePoint. Improving usability increased use by 106% on average.

The winners of the award for 10 best-designed intranets for 2009 are:

• Altran, a large engineering and innovation consultancy (France)
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a developer of computer and graphics processors (USA)
• BASF SE, the world's leading chemical manufacturing company (Germany)
• COWI Group A/S, a consulting group focusing on engineering, environmental science, and economics (Denmark)
• Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), a global professional services network providing audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services (a Global member organization)
• Environmental Resource Management (ERM), one of the world's leading providers of environmental consulting services (Global)
• HSBC Bank Brazil (Brazil)
• Kaupthing Bank (Iceland)
• L.L.Bean, a vendor of apparel and outdoor equipment (USA)
• McKesson Corporation, a large provider of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and health care information technologies (USA)

Read the full article

For you Wii Fans

If you have a Wii online, open up the browser and take it over to wiiarcade.com for some fun that is built to use the we remote :)

How To Rip and Encode DVDs

Now that you have a media center, here's how to put some of your content on there:

Build Yourself A 'Segway'

Built by a kid in high school! Man if I had high school like time...

Build The Perfect Windows Media Center PC

Now build one with windows as the platform!

MythTV: Free Media Center From a Junk PC!

Free Tivo like software on an old PC, gotta love it!!!

Upgrading your laptops harddrive

Easier then you think and you can ghost it for free so you don't even have to reinstall from scratch, Yes even those dreaded Mac users can join in :)

Anchor Links with Fitt's Law in Mind

In a blog post, 10 Useful Techniques to Improve Your Interface, Smashing Magazine talks about using padding on anchor links to increase the size of the clickable area. The idea is that a link or button will get more clicks the closer it is to the mouse arrow and the bigger it is.



The code looks like this:

a {
display: block;
padding: 6px;
}


See this and other useful techniques at Smashing Magazine

Open Source Mac Apps...

Click Here and Njoy

Can you run this new game???

Cool way to see if that new game in the store will run on your PC:

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest