For all you Firefox lovers out there here is a list of too many firefox extensions. They are all neatly categorized. Fortunately.

Every once in a while I run into a really cool website through a random link on the web. If the site is good enough I usually bookmark the site and try to check it out later when I need whatever it has to offer. Iconfinder.net is a site I just found out about while reading my google reader subscriptions, and it is certainly one I bookmarked right away. It is more or less an icon searching website on steroids. Not only can you search through icons, but you can also easily browse through the tags for icons, making them incredibly easy to find, unlike on some other icon sites. Once you have found an icon you want to use, it is very simple to check out the license agreement for the icon and download it. Finally, the whole experience is rapped up in an easy to use and visually appealing web 2.0-ish looking design. On the whole I would definitely recommend you check out iconfinder.net. You might even decided to bookmark it; you never know when it could come in handy for a project later on down the road!

I just heard about a great little Safari plugin on the great MacBreak Weekly podcast that brings a clever Spotlight-like functionality to Safari. The free plugin is called Inquisitor, and makes the Safari search-box act like the Mac OS Spotlight search box by showing live search results. Start typing something in, and results will instantly start to appear in the drop down menu. If none of them match, simply hit enter and you’ll be taken to Google just like a regular search box. But if a result does match, use the arrow keys or your mouse to select the result and you’re on your way. Certainly not for everybody, but I’ve enjoyed having it in my short (10 minute) trial period.

I got home today at around 6p.m., and uploaded this new template for the site. It’s is still a work in progress, so expect more updates in the future.

The reason the site looks so bad right now is because I am in the middle of moving to new servers. I’m on vacation right now though, so it won’t be done till next week. It should have an awesome new design once it’s done.

First this from John Dvorak:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20070625/tc_zd/210353

And then my response:

Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland.

This is probably because RCA was in the middle of a media blitzleading up to the release of their brand new ground-breaking product, something called “Television” (a name which invoked warm memories of pastoral scenes from Grandma’s farm). This “Television” was acompletely new deceive, which RCA described as “a revolutionary wayto view pictures and the scenes of life without traveling to thelocal art museum.” Overnight entire series of signs along Route 66 were replaced with signs saying “iSee,” “It on,” “TV” “Coming” “June29.” The entire second page of the New York Times was a massive ad. Three days later details about how the new “TV” worked were released, just in time for 10,000 people in NYC to decide to get electric service before Friday. Lines formed at Sears beginning Monday night! Over 2,000 people crowded the sidewalks in front of the Marshall-Fields in Chicago just to see demonstrations on the launch date. Yes, the TV was truly a revolutionizing device. And in other news….look! An iPhone!Only two more days…..

This is just weird.

As any Mac-lover [should] know, today was the beginning of Apple’s WWDC [World Wide Developer Conference]. There was lots of discussion about the upcoming Leopard operating system (OSX 10.5), all it’s new cool features; the iPhone and how it would run mini-apps (through a web browser-based environment); and, a little tidbit about the next version of Safari, Safari 3. The interesting thing about this? Apple is releasing a version of Safari the runs on Windows. A beta is available now.

And I’m running it right now. It is…different. It looks and feels like Safari, except for the Windows font differences. The key combos are different (although Apple persist in using “Quit” instead of “Exit”), the menu bar is at the top of the window, instead of the top of the screen, and the window control buttons are on the right instead of the left. But other wise it looks and feels just like Safari on the Mac. And it is almost just as fast. It will be interesting to see what Apple does with this. As Steve Jobs pointed out, Apple already knows how to program Windows from their experience with iTunes (which even my Windows-loving Mac-hating friend runs). Apple currently has about 4% of the browser market, well below Firefox’s 15% (the leading contender to IE). If Apple can even get 2% of the Windows market it will be huge. Perhaps Apple is using this as a subversive way to show Windows users how wonderful Macs are. Only time will tell.

&In the last few days I have been hearing some hype about Mac browsers. Since I have tested some of these I though I would post a quick review/recap of some for your convenience.

Flock is a new browser with a focus on social-networking. Built on the same core as Firefox (Mozilla), Flock includes features for quick photo sharing via sites like Flickr, easy blogging to places like MySpace or Facebook, and easy access to other “social” sites. It also includes a good newsreader. Tests show it to be about on-par with Firefox in terms of speed. Flock is free and available for Mac, PC and Linux.

Shiira is a young and beautiful new Mac browser. A small, opensource project based in Japan, Shiira is built using Webkit, the same engine that powers Safari, and is fast. It features a nice “page dock” instead of the regular tabs, and a beautiful, skinnable interface. Now in it’s 2.0, Shiira has reached the point where it can easily become one’s default browser. Shiira is Mac-only, and worth every [free] penny you spend on it ;).

A more established Mac alternative browser, Camino, just released a major upgrade to 1.5. This open-source browser is known for it’s speed and simplicity. While it lacks many of the advanced features of other browsers, the new edition includes features like Keychain sharing with Safari, spell checking and session saving (something Safari doesn’t have). Camino also includes an excellent ad blocker, making it another worthy contented for your default browser setting.

And one final contestant in this evening’s run down: Netscape. Yes, they are still around, and they just release version 9.0 of their Netscape Browser. While I have not tested it yet in person, the reviews I have heard so far indicated that this is a significant new presence in the browser market. Like Flock, Netscape is focusing on social-networking and sharing, and includes several plugins to the Netscape.com community site. Netscape Browser will run on Mac, Linux and Windows.

Mac users have a lot of options when it comes to browsers, and they are almost universally good options. Personally I still use Safari, although Camino is my backup browser when Safari won’t cooperate with a website (like, oh, Gtalk. :-P). I have used both Camino and Shiira regularly in the past, and found them both enjoyable. This week I intend to try out Flock in more depth, although since I don’t really do social networking I don’t know if I will find it’s special features appealing. I’ll also be giving the Netscape Browser a try—who knows, Netscape may have revived itself. In the meantime, happy surfing!

I found this awesome widget for MacOSX Dashboard via a post on 43folders this morning when I popped up Newsfire. It is basically a widget that can generate corporate filler text. Of course the text generated by it doesn’t have to be filler text, one could use it for the “about us” page one his or her corporate site. Personally, I’m planning on using it to make millions. I’ll set up as a consultant to write “about us” pages for corporations and then just use this fancy widget. All my corporate clients will love the text, and I will hardly spend any time generating it. Retiring rich and traveling to some far off tropical island has never seemed a closer goal!

Before I dream too much about my vacation hut in the Caribbean, here is an example of 3 paragraphs of generated text, totaling sixty words:

Interactively generate standards compliant methods of empowerment rather than go forward niches. Proactively supply extensible deliverables whereas professional synergy. Authoritatively promote technically sound information through cost effective interfaces.

Authoritatively procrastinate low-risk high-yield services for resource-leveling outsourcing. Rapidiously supply innovative collaboration and idea-sharing without fully researched potentialities. Collaboratively communicate cooperative markets after dynamic innovation.

Uniquely orchestrate plug-and-play technology with tactical scenarios.

Pretty awesome, no? Go ahead and grab your copy of the widget here.

If your into any sort of web design, you probably know the joy of hex colors. Or the agony, depending on how you look at it. Your beautiful design in Photoshop doesn’t transfer well to background hex colors in many cases, or won’t display properly in such and such browser on such and such system at such and such resolution. It is a pain to be sure. Especially when you can’t remember what that color was in the first place!

If you don’t have fancy programs like Photoshop, and can’t afford to have them, do not fear. HexColorPicker is here for the rescue. HexColorPicker is a free download that adds an extra button to MacOS’s built-in color picker (commonly accessed through the font panel (Apple-T in many applications) or Apple-Shift-C). The panel allows you to create and define HEX colors using the common color-wheel, the Apple color-picker, among several other options. I like it’s small foot print and versatility in selecting colors, and recommend it as an add on to any web designers color palette (make it do something useful!).

HexColorEditor is a free download.