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Posted by on 23rd August, 2014

What are your tools?

What are your tools?

Do the tools you use say much about you? It’s like clothing, right? You might wear a shirt because you simply like that particular shirt or you like the style… or the brand, color, fit, etc. The same can be said about the tools we use for our everyday tasks like email, calendaring, storage, etc. So, let’s see what these tools say about us. I’ll start; I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours… Email Gmail My default email client for many years. It is fast, robust, powerful and simple, yet highly customizable. Works across all my devices. Calendar Google Calendar A bit on the simple simple side, but very functional. Kind of like the search engine from the same company. Cloud Storage Google Drive Many contenders in this area, but its tight integration with Google docs, makes this an easy decision. It is fast, functional and with more tools and space than I will ever need. Storage Sync InSync Google drive comes with its default sync tool;...

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Posted by on 5th July, 2013

Javascript projects I should be looking into

Javascript projects I should be looking into

I give up. I just posted a list of jQuery plugin libraries that I need to look into and then find this site. JavascriptOO.com, brands itself as: “every javascript project you should be looking into”. That is ridiculous. I will never, ever have enough time to look into even a fraction of these libraries. Did you see how many libraries there are? In any case, I am adding another bookmark for a site that makes me feel very small: JavascriptOO.com The site is primarily focused on micro libraries, utilities, and other JS wizardry that can run in a browser. The site is not an automated directory. The site owner reads all the documentation and attempts to write an example that runs in the browser for every single library added to the site. This all takes time and is motivated by a deep and possibly unhealthy love of JavaScript. If you are looking for something about package managers, scaffolding software, etc. check out: www.packagemanager.org read more And…as if that wasn’t enough, a...

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Posted by on 5th July, 2013

jQuery plugin repository

jQuery plugin repository

Trying to follow and learn all the available, and quickly appearing jQuery plugins is a bit like drinking from a firehose. There are just so many libraries and so many effects and features to try. Some of them are good, some great… and some not so much. Unheap.com is a site that tries to be a showcase for all jQuery plugins. Going over 700 plugins strong, anyone can add a new library they stumbled upon on Github or elsewhere and user “thumbs up” points are used to weed out the good from the bad ones. Each plugins shows tags, views and there is even an option to save your own favourites. All in all, a decent site to find a neat feature or effect that you need for your next project. Bookmarked. read more Edit: of course, you should also keep the original jQuery plugin repository...

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Posted by on 19th June, 2013

Encrypt your Gmail, Live and Yahoo emails

Encrypt your Gmail, Live and Yahoo emails

With the current NSA affair and its PRISM program apparently listening to our conversations and reading our emails, some people may be looking to shield themselves a bit more from intrusive eavesdropping on their communications. Email as we know it, is obviously not entirely secure. Evasive tricks such as the ones used by General Petraeus to conceal his affair with Paula Broadwell didn’t work very well. [they created a fake email acount and communicated by saving drafts to that account, only communicating via drafts, so the emails couldn’t be traced as outgoing emails]. Wait, you say you use https or ssl? that’s great… however, that protects your message from being read while going over the wire to your email provider. Once it arrived at the email server in its encrypted form, it can, and usually is, decrypted and stored in its original format. The best possible way to keep your comms secure and private is to encrypt your message with unbreakable technology and store it as such on the...

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Posted by on 9th June, 2013

jQuery checkbox plugin

jQuery checkbox plugin

I found a fantastic checkbox replacement plugin by Igor Vaynberg. His open-source plugin, Select2 is a jQuery-based replacement for select boxes. It supports searching, remote data sets, and infinite scrolling of results. Some use case: Enhancing native selects with search. Enhancing native selects with a better multi-select interface. Loading data from JavaScript: easily load items via ajax and have them searchable. Nesting optgroups: native selects only support one level of nested. Select2 does not have this restriction. Tagging: ability to add new items on the fly. Working with large, remote datasets: ability to partially load a dataset based on the search term. Paging of large datasets: easy support for loading more pages when the results are scrolled to the end. Templating: support for custom rendering of results and selections. Instead of trying to understand what all these features do, head over to the samples and try each one of them out. I am sure you will find at least one that you will use in your next project. [button...

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Posted by on 21st May, 2013

What tools are the big startups using?

What tools are the big startups using?

Startup services: you have yours. Great. But with so many new services appearing every day, you might wonder whether you are missing out on a service that offers more than the one you are using. Then you might also start to wonder what the big start ups are using for tools. They have been doing it right, so they must be using the latest and best of all the available tools and services, right? Sure, you have your own preferred cloud storage, project management and CRM services. But what if yours aren’t the same as the services the big startups are using…. with features that you were not aware of? Aren’t you curious? Now you can find out: Learn all the available and newest services and also learn what the big startups, like Pinterest, Twilio and StackOverflow user for their sites. Cool, huh? read...

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Posted by on 10th May, 2013

Chrome Extension code inspection

Chrome Extension code inspection

I was about to install an extension for Chrome and it was asking me for some permissions that I wasn’t ready to give up. I am sure it was ok, but I wanted to take a closer look, just in case. So, I know that Chrome extensions are just Javascript and some other files, right? I’d like to have a look. Where do I look, where are these files? You’ll find them here: The exact path is: clock.js C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\<User or Default>\Extensions\ Now, you need to find the Extension ID to find out which folder you need to look into. You find that here: Click on Chrome Settings here: When the menu opens, follow Tools > Extensions That will open the Extensions page. Here, look for your extension and lookup the ID. Find the folder with that ID and open it up and inspect the files. That’s...

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Posted by on 6th May, 2013

Running WordPress on Azure

Running WordPress on Azure

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. Today it power about 18.9% of all websites in the world. WordPress is a CMS [Content Management System] based on a PHP/MySQL framework that is very useful for many and most cases, especially if you need a website quick up and running with minimum effort. Now, can you run WordPress in on Azure? Azure is Microsoft and this thing is PHP and MySQL….and they don’t mix, right? Well, yes, you can….and much easier than you thought. Go to: https://manage.windowsazure.com to access your Azure portal Here you have access to everything you’ll need to tinker with your site: FTP, connectionstrings, IP, etc. That is it. It could not be simpler than...

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Posted by on 7th December, 2011

Composite C1 content management system

Composite C1 content management system

I have been recently busy with a couple of projects and had to decide on a new CMS framework to build them on. I had tried Umbraco in the past and found I had some issues with the installation and just never couldn’t quite “get” it right away. I looked at Orchard after seeing it at MIX in Las Vegas and finally also tried Composite C1 from Denmark. I was quite impressed with the last one. It is not so much the features that come with the framework, but more the freedom it gives you to write your code whichever way you want. You can use the provided XSLT extension or provide your own and use them as controls. If you prefer to write your controls in C# code, you can do that to and call them exactly the same as you would the built-in XSLT functions. You can use it with existing MasterPages, MVC or old-school ASP.NET. It is free and comes with a bucket of ready to go plug-ins. Some of these components...

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Posted by on 2nd August, 2011

Screen capture software…

Screen capture software…

I find myself taking screenshots often at mostly portions of the screen; whether it is to show work in progress to others or something else. For those instance, I have been using SnagIt from TechSmith for years. This is a relatively cheap solution for performing these tasks. I loved having the ability to add arrows to the screenshot or a shadowed border that can then be immediately copied and pasted in an email or anywhere else. It is the reason I pay $49 for it. Now, if you just need to take screenshots, without any heavy editing, I have found two alternatives that come quite close. First one is Zscreen, an open-source screen capture program for Microsoft Windows. I find this app powerful and has more option than I have use for. Including automatic uploading to ftp servers, emailing, naming conventions, silent operations and performing custom actions on any images captured. Another, and possibly better one, is GreenShot. Very easy to use, very configurable and...

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