Whenever I design a new site I like to have a look at in all kinds of different browsers to see how it looks. Now days I usually have a look at it with my phone as well.
One of the most popular ones has always been Internet Explorer and as I have written about before Microsoft tends to make up their own “standards” and you can never be sure how your site is going to look in IE. Firefox has a cool little plug in called IE Tab that lets you switch between Firefox and whatever version of IE that you have installed in your computer.
The problem becomes when you want to see it in older versions of IE. I don’t worry too much about version 5.5 any more, but I still see quite a few visitors stopping by with IE6 and once you have upgraded to IE7 it’s pretty hard to go back.
I used to dig my old computer out of the drawer, fire it up and go to the new site, but now I’ve found IETester. It’s a free program that lets you view pages in IE 5.5, 6, 7 and even IE8 beta 1. It’s a really useful tool for web designers and it’s free.
I recently bought a Blackberry Curve smart phone and so far I really like it. It allows me to have up to ten email accounts which is probably the most important thing for me in a phone, but I love that it has so many built in features and many more that I can download. The WiFi can be very useful as well.
One of the things that it didn’t have was some kind of GPS to use it for directions when I’m on the road. Now I have discovered another great free tool called Google Maps For Mobile. This downloadable application puts local information, directions and maps right in your phone.
You can download Google Maps to your own phone and it’s much more than maps.
- Where’s the nearest (anything you want)
- Is there traffic up ahead?
- How do I get there from where I am?
- How do I get there using public transportation?
I’m just getting started with this so I’m sure that there’s much more and even more coming. If you have a smart phone I encourage you to
Here’s a list of some really great free open source software to replace many of the Windows programs that cost big bucks to buy.
This list appeared recently on makeuseof.com. I have written about some of these tools and others before, but there are cool new ones here. It’s also nice to have a list like this with all of these great free tools in one place.
I replied to a Craigslist ad the other day for someone looking to update their website. They replied that they wanted several things:
- google ads
- mailing list where people can sign up for promotions, news etc
- take questions from people and compile into a newsletter to be sent out
- do surveys
- do podcasts
- sell ebooks
When I saw that they were using WordPress for their site I realized that everything that they wanted and much, much more was readily available as a WordPress plug-in. If you haven’t been there before I would like to invite you to
I originally heard about Zazzle when I read that they partnered with MySpace to provide the ability for members to sell items with their own original artwork imprinted on them.
I have been watching them for a while now and they seem to be growing by leaps and bounds. Their technology seems to be very easy to use even for a beginner and they have hundreds of items that you can personalize to sell on your site.
If you have been thinking about selling almost anything with your artwork on them from your site you should
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I have been using a tool called Google Alerts. Once you sign up for this tool Google will notify you whenever the search keyword term that you choose is found by the search engine on the web. It still says beta, but it seems ready for prime time to me.
Whenever Google finds a page that says Lillicotch they send me an email with the page location and a small snippet of the text around my keyword. Usually my email notification only contains new page(s) that I have posted, but it also helps me to find when others have mentioned me or my site or if someone has published one of my articles. I don’t have a very popular last name so I don’t see much else, but I also see mentions of a few relatives and just a few other non-related people.
Today I got an email that showed me a page that I didn’t recognize. When I looked into it I found a picture of my grandparents wedding. It was posted by a descendant of one of their close friends. They were in the wedding which is probably why they had the picture.
Most of our old family photos had not survived for me to see and so seeing this photo for the first time was a wonderful surprise. I dropped a note to my sisters and they were just as delighted. They were also able to fill in some details on who the other people were. It’s just something that I never thought I would see and something I never expected when I signed up for my alerts.
So I recommend that you check out Google Alerts. If you have a common name there may be too much information offered to sort through so you may want to use multiple keywords to filter your alerts, but the Internet is an amazing thing and Google Alerts is a good tool that I am very glad I signed up for.
We went to my brother-in-law’s cabin for a day and a half. It’s up in the mountains by 7Springs.
It’s “rustic” to say the least (no running water), but it has a cool stream to float down.
It’s pretty cool, but the water is always very cold.
Cook over an open fire. S’mores! Watch the fire burn out instead of TV.
Nice!
I love movies. Since I started my own business I don’t get as much time as I would like to watch them, but since I signed up for Blockbuster’s mail order deal I get to see more. So every weekend I will recommend a movie or two. Do with it what you will.
This weekend I watched “Stranger than Fiction” with Will Farrell. He stars as an IRS agent who starts hearing a voice narrating his life.
This is a cute romantic comedy that is much lighter than Will’s usual stuff. I usually enjoy a movie that is unbelievable, but can make me suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the film. This in one of those and I recommend it.
I love movies. Since I started my own business I don’t get as much time as I would like to watch them, but since I signed up for Blockbuster’s mail order deal I get to see more. So every weekend I will recommend a movie or two. Do with it what you will.
Steven Spielberg’ version of Peter Pan. A wonderful version of the tale. Robin Williams plays Peter and there could never be a more perfect Hook than Dustin Hoffman. We would watch this movie every year on our beach vacation.
One of my all time favorites.
I love movies. Since I started my own business I don’t get as much time as I would like to watch them, but since I signed up for Blockbuster’s mail order deal I get to see more. So every weekend I will recommend a movie or two. Do with it what you will.
Night Shift is the first big screen movie that Ron Howard directed and Michael Keaton’s first movie. There aren’t many movies that I’ll watch more than once or twice, but this is a movie that I can watch over and over most anytime. A very good comedy.
