Archive for April, 2006

Tools That Make This Site Work And More

Sunday, April 30th, 2006

There are an incredible selection of tools, software, add-ins and utilities that make the internet easier to manage and my life easy. The following are a few that I use for this site and at home/work use.

Internet:

  • WordPress Blog system that does blogs and more.
  • Firefox Incredible web browser that re-ignited the need to expect more out of the internet experience. Also kicks IE’s ass.
  • Thunderbird Email program for offline and multiple account management.
  • Gmail Web-based email service, great for when I’m all over the place but at my computer. Also capable of importing email from various accounts. (It’s great to have both online/offline access to my emails especially when it comes to work.)
  • Google Analytics Not just another stat collector. An amazing tool for any site to help focus your site marketing campaigns, improve your site design and content. I figure, I’ll start this now and as I develop the site I’ll have a pretty good guide.
  • SmartFTP Full featured, free FTP Program for Windows. Sooo easy to use.

Desktop Security: At this point it is always wise to set up your security in layers where one programs fails to detect a threat, another one will surely catch it. In the past I’ve only been aware of Norton and McAfee but I have come to understand that there so many programs out there that are available and free that offer equal to and sometimes substantially better protection.

  • Ad-Aware SE Personal Scans your system, identifies and removes spyware programs.
  • Spybot Search & Destroy Detect and remove adware from your system and registry.
  • Zone Alarm Firewall Application-level personal firewall, blocks hackers, spyware and trojans from accessing the internet.
  • AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition An easy to use anti-virus program with low system resource requirements, includes automatic update functionality and real-time protection.

WordPress Plugins:

  • Akismet Spam prevention for comments.
  • Google Analyticator Include your Google Analytics UID which is an in-depth and sexy tracking system for your site.
  • Sidebar Widgets Easily configure your sidebar and adds del.icio.us. bookmarks and Google Search to the sidebar.
  • Adhesive Designate a post as a sticky.
  • Votio Lets readers vote and shows results at the bottom of the post.
  • WP-Stats Display your WordPress Statistics
  • WP-PostViews Shows your Post Views
  • WP-ContactForm A Simple way to include a contact form in any page.
  • Sidebar Editor

Firefox Extensions:

  • Web Developer Adds a menu/toolbar to the browser with various developer tools.
  • FlashGot Handle single to massive download manager.
  • PDF Download Allows you the freedom to choose whether to open a PDF or save it.
  • Bookmarks Synchronizer 3 Upload/download bookmarks using FTP in order to synchronize my home/work bookmarks.
  • Greasemonkey Lets you control how you experience websites from blocking scripts to improving a particular site’s usability.
  • MinimizeToTray Keeps your toolbar free.
  • BlueFrog SRT Allows you to report sites as spam/phishers.
  • IE Tab Open IE only sites
  • Tab Mix Plus Adds that extra bit of functionality to tabs, I especially like the Undo Close Tab.

Thunderbird Extensions:

The great thing about this is that these are all free. Some have options to upgrade to paid professional versions and most appreciate donations to continue to update and develop further improvements. Enjoy.

Posted in Design, Resources, Reviews, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »

Review: WinXP’s SyncToy v1.2

Sunday, April 30th, 2006

I’ve done my spring cleaning today and managed to finally set up my external hard drive. My big brother put together an awesome combination of Maxtor’s 200 GB hard drive with an inexpensive case. So now I have this great space to finally backup my great collection of music, photos, videos, work files and whatever else is mulling around in this machine. Besides manually copying files from my desktop to the external drive, I still want a great backup utility.

My first application to test is Window XP’s SyncToy v1.2 which is a free download from Microsoft. I’m already familiar with their TweakUI, Alt+Tab Replacement and ClearType Tuner.

SyncToy’s features that interested me:

Very simple UI

Easy to set up folder pairs

Ability to copy, move and syncronize files

I wasn’t looking for much really, just something to backup what I needed. Installation was a breeze, it didn’t even need to reboot so I can get right into backing up. SyncToy works by creating folder pairs and syncronizing them from the “Left” location to the “Right” location. Clear enough. After I’ve got all my pairs set up and I ran them all once to get it all started. Once completed, I had a brief moment of satisfaction. It didn’t last long because I was already thinking of the next time and I certainly didn’t want to have to run this all again manually.

Though SyncToy didn’t have a built-in autosync, there was a way to schedule the SyncToy to run all pairs or individual pairs. That little bit is actually available within the program’s help menu. However, after following the tutorial I couldn’t make it work for me. I was running the scheduled task and it just opened SyncToy without actually running the backup pairs.

Another con is that I can not change the location of the folder pairs. I will have to create new pairs which seems time consuming if I wanted to back up files to a new location.

Altogether, SyncToy ran smoothly and easy to use but it didn’t have the automatic feature I wanted. It’d be great if I could set it and forget it.

Posted in Resources, Reviews | No Comments »

Happy Easter Weekend to all!

Saturday, April 15th, 2006

Ah, I’ve finally switched over to WordPress. I’ve been meaning to switch over to this for quite some time and now, here I am. I’ve read through many reviews and comparisons to help sway my decision into switching. I suggest reading Rachel’s 5 little things I like about WordPress 2.0 to wet your whistle.

Even though I’m excited about finally getting this up and running, thanks to my friend Mike, I’m a little peeved about the trouble I am having to import my Blogger posts/comments. WordPress does provide some help in importing content from various other blog systems but I found that importing from Blogger has become such a hassle. The resources/tuturials look outdated especially since I’ve updated the latest version.

I’ve gone to Import > Blogger and I get this error:

“Howdy! This importer allows you to import posts and comments from your Blogger account into your WordPress blog.
This feature requires iframe support.

Reset this importer”

I’d expected a form to input my username/password for the Blogger but there was nothing to click on but “Reset this importer”. Honestly, there’s nothing to reset! I’ve given enough time for now, in the meantime you can still visit the previous blog here minus the styling. I probably lost that at some point while I was following the suggested shenanigans of importing.

I would also appreciate any help on the matter and other than that, I’ll just keep my eyes out for a more helpful import tool.

Posted in Personal | No Comments »