Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Ten quick Calculator tricks on a Mac

Ten quick Calculator tricks

Here's how to get the most out of Apple's built-in tool

The lowly Calculator sits there in your Applications folder. It’s so unassuming you barely notice that it has menus and little interface details that make it not quite so lowly after all. These tips work for the Basic calculator. Many also work for the Scientific and Programmer versions available through the Calculator’s View menu.

1. Copy and paste numbers

Need to include a quick calculation in an e-mail message? Because you can’t select anything in the Calculator display, it’s easy to forget you can still use Copy and Paste commands with it. The Copy command (Command-C or Edit -> Copy) always grabs the currently displayed number and places it on the Clipboard so you can use it elsewhere. And, if you’ve copied a number from someplace else, just use Paste (Command-V or Edit -> Paste) when the Calculator’s open to insert the number in the Calculator field. (Many OS versions ago, you could paste in a calculation like 17*34, and it would appear in Calculator as if you had clicked those keys; now that calculation pastes in as the number 1734.)

2. Pick your precision

If kiwis are selling 3 for $5, does one of them cost $1.66667? When you don’t need 15-decimal place precision, use the View menu’s Decimal Places submenu to specify how many digits you want displayed. The displayed number is rounded, not truncated, so 1.66667 becomes 1.67. The actual number is stored internally, however, so you can continue with a calculation that uses the true number instead of the rounded one.

3. Convert units of measure

You may never have to convert hectares to acres, or inches of mercury to pounds per square inch, but the Convert menu provides more mundane changes, too. For example, use it to convert metric units to any of the stubbornly held standard measurements the U.S. uses. Enter a number (or work with the one already there from a calculation) and then choose a category from the menu—Length, for example. Use the pop-up menus in the sheet that appears to specify what you’re converting to and from. The Calculator displays the answer in the chosen units.

4. Repeat the last calculation

With the Calculator’s hidden “repeat the last operation” function, it’s a cinch to compute something like short-term compound interest. Start with 1200 dollars times 1.06 for the first year’s 6 percent return and you get 1272. Just hit Return again, and the number is multiplied by 1.06 again; another press of Return gives you the third-year total of 1429.22.

Alternatively, you can enter numbers in between the repeated operation. So, after the first calculation is done, you can enter 1500 and press Return to get that number multiplied by 1.06.

5. Use the paper tape

The paper tape window not only serves as a quick reference, it can also be printed or saved. This shows the result of the special “repeat last” function, which uses repeated clicks of the equal sign (=) key to perform the same operation—*1.06 was entered only once.

The Window -> Show Paper Tape command opens a small window that shows each of your calculations as soon as you press Return or click on the equal sign (=) key. This lets you check for incorrectly entered numbers. If you realize you want to see your history only after the fact, no problem: Any time you open the paper tape, you’ll see everything you’ve done since you opened the Calculator for the current number-crunching session. If you need a copy of the paper tape, choose File -> Save Tape As or File -> Print Tape. You can also select any part of its display and copy out the information.

6. Store a number

You’re figuring out the cost of tiling the kitchen, with and without the pantry closet, and maybe the back hallway, too. You don’t have to re-enter the $6.47-per-square-foot cost of the tile for the three different calculations.

Enter 6.47 and press M+ to put it into memory. Then, calculate the cost of each area’s tile by multiplying the square footage by the stored tile price, retrieved with a press of the Memory Recall (MR) button. Enter 14*16*MR for one cost, 6*7*MR for the next, and 2.5*3.5*MR for the last.

7. Delete a digit

If you type or click the wrong number, there’s no need to clear everything by clicking on Calculator’s C (for “clear”) key or pressing C on your keyboard. (If you have a full Apple keyboard, you can also use the key labeled Clear.) Press Delete on your keyboard to erase the last digit you entered; press it multiple times to continue erasing digits. (The Forward Delete key doesn’t work for this.)

8. Quickly switch calculators

Click on the Calculator’s Zoom button (the green one of the three buttons in the upper left of its window) to cycle through the three kinds of calculators—Basic, Scientific, and Programmer—instead of using the commands in the View menu.

Normal Calculator

9. Easily change a mistake

If you enter the wrong operator by mistake—pressing the plus sign (+), say, instead of the minus sign (-)—just press the correct one next. Calculator will ignore the first operator.

10. Specify a negative number

Normally, you can’t calculate 4 multiplied by negative 5, because 4*-5 is assumed to be a typo and is treated as 4-5. But you can reverse the “negativity” of a number you just entered by clicking on the Calculator’s plus-or-minus key. (It’s the key with a plus sign on top of a minus sign. You'll find it to the right of the C key.) So, press 4*5 and then, while the 5 is displayed, click on the plus-or-minus key to make it negative. Press Return to see the answer: -20.

Sharon Zardetto is a long-time Mac author who remembers keeping a calculator in her desk drawer until the Mac introduced the software-based version in 1984. She posted an interesting, though admittedly not very useful, Calculator tip on her MacTipster blog.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

How Google Chrome OS Could Beat Windows

Image via Wikipedia

How Google Chrome OS Could Beat Windows

Source: pcworld.com

If Google really wants to compete with Microsoft, it needs to join 'em to beat 'em.
Michael Scalisi, PC World

Google recently stated that it is developing a new Linux-based OS called Chrome to run on both netbooks and desktops. In order for Google to seriously challenge Microsoft’s dominance, it needs two things. First, it needs to be seriously awesome. Second, it needs to be compatible with Windows Apps.

I must confess that when I heard about the OS, my first thought was “Oh great, just what we need, another Linux distro.” Then I realized two things: Apple has already demonstrated that its possible to build an awesome and unique OS based on UNIX, and, this is Google we’re talking about.

I believe that the Chrome OS can be awesome. That it’s named Chrome is telling. For those who haven’t used the Chrome browser yet, it’s incredibly fast, extremely simple and intuitive, yet strangely powerful. It gives you what you need before you ask for it based on what you’ve done in the past. All within an attractive, simple interface.

The Google Chrome OS is likely to be just like that. I’d expect the file system to resemble Gmail, using labels instead of folders. I’d expect eye-candy to be at a minimum and for performance to be highly optimized. I’d expect bloat to be ripped out by its roots and hastily discarded. It will capitalize on the cloud-computing model and leverage Google’s existing Web services. Imagine turning your computer on, and within 10 seconds you’re browsing the Web. That would be awesome.

All this might be enough to make a dent in the netbook market. After all, people might be willing to sacrifice the ability to use their Windows apps on a computer that was never meant to be anything more than a cheap and small web appliance. Never mind that consumers have already rejected Linux on the netbook.

Even if Chrome OS is utterly mind-blowing, if it lacks Windows application compatibility, it will merely be competing for a share of the high single-digit to low double-digit market share that Apple and Linux currently battle over. I highly doubt this is Google’s intention.

Windows dominates because it has become the lowest common denominator for application compatibility. The vast majority of commercial desktop application developers write for Windows because that’s what 90 percent of all consumers use. Consumers choose it because they invariably need to use some application that runs only on Windows. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that needs something more than just a better competing OS to break.

As great of an idea cloud computing is, it isn’t going to eliminate the need for local apps anytime soon. If Google wants the Chrome OS to have any shot at desktop dominance, it needs be able to run Windows apps.

There are a couple of different ways to approach this. One possible alternative is to dump all sorts of resources into Wine development. This would be great since it would also give Linux and OS X a boost. Unfortunately, it will be nearly impossible to improve Wine to the point where it achieves anywhere near 100 percent Windows application compatibility.

The more likely alternative is to enable the Chrome OS to run Windows apps virtually like what is currently possible with VMware Fusion or Parallels. Of course the challenge here is that this will still require a Windows license.

The way I envision it, people will install the Chrome OS on their Windows PCs. Chrome will then repartition your drive, install its own boot loader, and set itself as the default OS. This is what most Linux distributions do already.
Users will then boot their computer into Google’s OS, and within seconds be able to use the Chrome browser and web-based apps. When the user needs a Windows app, they click on the icon for it and Chrome loads Windows in the background. The app might take a minute or so to load, but the process will be transparent otherwise. Just like VMware fusion or Parallels.

After Chrome OS finds its way onto a few million desktop computers, application developers will start porting Windows apps over to Chrome. Once Chrome is available on a majority of computers, developers will develop for Chrome first and Windows will quickly slip into obscurity. Give this process about a decade.

Michael Scalisi is an IT manager based in Alameda, California.

Beyond Article Marketing

Image by Tall Fool via Flickr

Article Marketing 102 - Article Marketing 101 Taken Beyond!

www.danielmolano.com

Concepts: article marketing, keyword, competition, keyword phrase, business, article directory, niche, internet marketers, keyword research, optimization, search engine, target, online, Daniel Molano, Google, Home Jobs, Business Consulting, writing, profit, USD, Legitimate Work, affiliate, rank, resource, SEO, grab, EzineArticles, demand, money, warrior forum.

Summary:
- Make a Six-Figure Online Income In Record Time, Without Spending a Dime!
- Due to the outstanding success of my Article Marketing 101 thread in the Warrior Forum (Article Marketing 101 - Everything You Need To Know About Article Marketing In One Place!) and to celebrate my internet marketing anniversary, I have decided to compile a more up to date version on the subject.
- I still see a lot of complaints, failures and some people still look down on this method of traffic generation, simply because they are ignorant about its true power.
- Therefore I'm going to make a step by step procedure, with a catch.
- If you complete this plan of action to the line, and you don't receive tens of thousands worth of targeted traffic, I'm going to pay you $500.00 USD.
- That's right, if after 1 month of the completion of this outline, you have not achieved tens of thousand of targeted visitors, you will receive $500.00 USD after showing me all of your work.
- This step is in fact quite simple, but it's also one of the steps most people have a wrong idea about.
- Usually, everyone tries to find that untapped holy grail, a niche with low competition.
- And although such niches do exist and you can profit from them, that's not where the real money is.
- You want to go for a niche with extremely high competition, where there are proven buyers and massive demand, otherwise there would not be such competition to begin with.
- Untapped niches normally have a low demand, and hence not much profit can be made there, at least not so easily.
- High competition is only a good thing, because there are several ways in which you can leverage, intercept and profit from that demand, without having to beat the titans at it.
- Anyone with decent writing skills can make great profit using this in a highly competitive niche.
- Here's another commonly misunderstood step, often skipped altogether.
- When in fact, this is the pillar of Article Marketing.
- Most beginners and even some advanced internet marketers believe that you can acquire massive amounts of targeted traffic by simply submitting hundreds or even thousands of articles.
- This concept comes from the idea that high traffic article directories, such as EzineArticles, will get your article more views and therefore you will receive more traffic.
- The articles will get more views, but you won't receive more traffic.
- All those views are coming from people surfing the article directory, so they are completely untargeted, they don't want what you have to offer.
- They will not click on your link and much less purchase whatever you're promoting.
- The true key to article marketing is not in how many articles you submit, but in the search engine rankings achieved with those articles.
- In fact, 10 articles can beat 1,000 articles if you know what you're doing.
- So I want you to grab your favourite keyword research tool.
- If you're on a low budget, I recommend using the Google Adwords Tool.
- Pick all countries and territories, english language and exact matches.
- Unless of course you are geotargeting a specific country and you wish to promote a local business.
- If you can actually make a small investment (which you should as soon as you have it), then I highly recommend Micro Niche Finder.
- You DO NOT have to target specific niches and directly related keyword phrases.
- For example: Someone interested in fitness, will also be interested in weight loss.
- Someone interested in self defense, will also be interested in pepper spray and tasers.
- A 25 year old bachelor will be interested in getting rock hard abs.
- After you're done, come back here in order to proceed.
- You must find 100 keyword phrases with less than 500,000 competing sites in Google and at least 3,000 monthly searches each.
- To find out the number of competing sites, simply Google the keyword phrase under quotes, i.e: "keyword phrase".
- A lot of people will say that there are several other factors when measuring the competition, and they're right.
- But under this scenario, and with what I'm about to show you, this is the only thing that you need to know.
- Once you have that 100 keyword phrase list with those parameters, we can continue.
- In my experience, there are only 3 article directories out there that work for this precise purpose.
- 1. ArticlesInAClick.com - The best article directory in terms of SEO, I personally contributed in the search engine optimization of this site.
- Not only is it based on Wordpress, it also has built in social bookmarking and the best part, it distributes your articles to the top 25 article directories out there, including GoArticle and EzineArticles.
- 2. GoArticles - The second best article directory in terms of SEO, but the design is horrible and it has way too many ads, which will only result in you losing traffic to them.
- 3. EzineArticles - The best positioned and highest traffic article directory out there.
- But it also has way too many ads which will result in you losing traffic to them.
- Since my favourite is ArticlesInAClick.com, I will use it here as the example.
- I suggest that you write you articles in Notepad, simply because it's clean.
- Microsoft Office might bring some weird html elements into it.
- Grab 1 of your keyword phrases from the list and do some research about it.
- The resource box is perhaps one of the most important things in the article, your traffic depends on it.
- If you are using article marketing for the backlinks, make sure your link is in anchor text with the keyword you want that page to rank for.
- 1. You can simply add an affiliate link or CPA link in the resource box and send them directly to the merchant's page.
- PPC on the internet, online marketing, advertising business and other innovative strategies to make your business boom!
- "Daniel Molano is an Information Marketer, Internet Business Consultant and bestselling author of "The Newbie Blueprint" system.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Mac Gems I’m thankful for

Image by insidetwit via Flickr

Mac Gems I’m thankful for

Here's an extract from an article on MacWorld I found very useful since I use mostly

Source: macworld.com

It’s Thanksgiving day here in the U.S., and I want to wish all our U.S. readers a happy holiday. Since Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, which is also a Mac Gems day on the Macworld calendar, I thought I’d mention a few Gems I’m thankful for—the inexpensive apps and utilities that I use every day to increase my productivity and generally make my Mac-using life a bit better.

This isn’t a list of our all-time favorite Gems; we published the most-recent version of that list back in June (although some of those products appear on this list, as well). Nor is it a list of my favorite Gems of 2009; you’ll see that one the week we publish our annual Eddy Awards. Rather, this is a list of Gems that I continue to use every day—Gems that have become such an integral part of my workflow that I often take them for granted.

To the developers of these programs, and of the many other great-but-inexpensive software titles out there, thank you. The Mac experience is better because of you.

DocumentPalette: I use DocumentPalette many times each day to create a new document in the current folder via a keyboard shortcut—I just choose the type of document from the palette that appears.
Dropbox: Over the years, I’ve tried many methods for keeping particular files in sync between my computers, and for sharing files with friends and family. Dropbox, with its Finder integration and automatic syncing, makes it easy.
FlexCal: Flexcal lets me create new iCal (or BusyCal) events without having to open my calendar program. I just press a keyboard shortcut and provide the event details.
Growl: More and more of my favorite programs take adantage of Growl to provide notifications and updates. Throw in HardwareGrower, a Growl add-on that informs me of hardware and network connections and disconnections, and my Mac feels lacking without this utility.
Jumpcut: As a writer, I consider a multiple-Clipboard utility to be a must, and Jumpcut remains my personal favorite for its ease of use and elegant interface.
LaunchBar: Jason Snell put it best: “If I could have only one Mac utility, a solitary piece of software that I could use to improve using my Mac and all its programs as I went about my daily business, it would be Objective Development’s LaunchBar. When I use a Mac that doesn’t have LaunchBar running, I simply feel naked.”
MagiCal: Snow Leopard finally lets you put the date in the menu bar, but I still prefer MagiCal, which instead uses a tiny calendar icon for the date; clicking on the icon displays a useful monthly calendar.
Mercury Mover: Among this add-on’s many features, the one I use the most is the capability to quickly restore windows to particular sizes and positions. For example, by pressing Mercury Mover’s keyboard shortcut followed by S, my Safari window is instantly placed in my favorite location with my favorite dimensions.
MondoMouse: I use MondoMouse dozens of times each day to move and resize windows without having to grab a thin title bar or a tiny resize box—heck, without even having to click a mouse button.
ScreenSharingMenulet: Using OS X’s Screen Sharing feature between my Macs has become a regular part of my daily routine, and ScreenSharingMenulet has made making those Screen Sharing connections simple.
Sharpshooter: Tech writers take screenshots—lots of screenshots. When I choose to use Mac OS X’s built-in screenshot features, Sharpshooter lets me choose, on the fly, the screenshot format, name, and save location.
Shimo: Mac OS X’s built-in VPN functionality doesn’t hold a candle to Shimo, which provides more features, more-reliable connections, and many automation options. It’s also a much-improved alternative to Cisco’s OS X VPN software. Did I mention it provides Growl notifications?
SuperDuper: I’m paranoid about data loss, so I have a rigorous backup routine. Part of that routine is to use SuperDuper to schedule six clone operations every day—two each of three different drives. If a drive dies, I can be back up and running without much delay.
TextExpander: In my line of work, a text-expansion utility—which automatically pastes frequently used text whenever I type a corresponding abbreviation—is up there with multiple Clipboards in terms of productivity gains. And TextExpander is my current favorite. According to the program’s own tally, I’ve expanded over 5500 snippets over the past couple years.
Today: Today shows me the day’s events and tasks in a space-saving window, even if iCal or BusyCal is closed.
Witch: OS X lets you switch between windows in the current program by pressing Command+`. Witch puts that feature to shame by displaying a list of every window in every application, letting you easily switch to—or act on—any of them.

There are plenty of other Gems that I use regularly, but these see daily action on my Mac and have worked their way into my routines. What are your most-used—and most overlooked—Mac Gems? Let us know in the comments. And if you're celebrating today, have a great Thanksgiving, and thanks for reading.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Jekyll: Sites Made Simple

Image via Wikipedia

Jekyll: Sites Made Simple:

Jekyll: Sites Made Simple

For the full text of this article go here

Just this last August, I decided to relaunch my web site; I chose to give WordPress the flick and try out Jekyll, a Ruby-based static site generator.

Jekyll at its core is a text transformation engine.

The concept behind the system is this: you give it text written in your favorite markup language, be that Markdown, Textile, or just plain HTML, and it churns that through a layout or series of layout files.

Throughout that process you can tweak how you want the site URLs to look, what data gets displayed on the layout, and more.

This is all done through strictly editing files, and the web interface is the final product.

Jekyll is a blog-aware, static site generator.

It uses a set of template or layout files, the associated CSS files, and plain text files for the posts.

The posts can use the Markdown format or another similar markup language.

There's no content management system, no database, and no specific language support on the web server required---your site is a collection of plain old static HTML files.

Switching back to static markup may at first seem like a reversion to the late 1990s.

Yet Jekyll is a simple and elegant system that mimics the characteristics of a dynamic site---drawing content from a database and inserting it into templates via a CMS---without all that complexity.

As a firm believer in the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid), I always try to find the right tool for the job, and Jekyll is a simple solution to a common problem: "I want my own customized blog."

It's also flexible enough that it can easily be used for other tasks.

For example, GitHub uses it to drive GitHub Pages.

This article describes using Jekyll to build a web site: from downloading it, setting up a development environment, and hacking up template files.

I'll conclude with a word on maintaining updates between your development instance (for example, new blog entries) and synchronizing them to your web server.

Note that I've written this piece from a designer's perspective.

Although I had a number of technical hurdles to hop over, Jekyll remains rather simple; for instance, using Jekyll's template system and Liquid tags is easier than hacking a design as a WordPress theme.

Never fear, I intend this article to be as designer-friendly as possible.

Setting up a Jekyll blog is relatively smooth-going and boils down to a few straightforward steps.

Jekyll is written in Ruby, so you'll need to install it.

It's as simple as downloading the latest Ruby version for your platform and following the installation instructions.

The Ruby installation also includes the RubyGems packaging system, and allows you to download and install other Ruby libraries and programs.

If you're using Windows, choose the one-click installer, and make sure you tick the Enable RubyGems option when running the installer.

We'll be fetching Jekyll from the Gemcutter RubyGem hosting repository, but we first need to install the Gemcutter program.

The tumble command will simply make the RubyGems installer query the Gemcutter repository first, when downloading RubyGem packages.

This ensures that Jekyll is downloaded from the Gemcutter repository.

If you're on Windows you'll be entering the commands at the Windows command prompt (Start> Run...

Jekyll, like all good software, is modular and does one task very well, relying on other programs and libraries for additional functionality---after all, why reinvent the wheel?

This modularity also gives us choice: you can pick and choose from a variety of slightly different tools that perform similar tasks to extend Jekyll, depending on your preferences.

For example, if you'd rather write your blog posts in Textile instead of Markdown, you can.

For me, however, the default (Markdown) does the trick, and Gem only needs a small number of other dependencies, which are fetched automatically.

For a full list of available gems that extend Jekyll, see the list within the install instructions for Jekyll on GitHub.

Now with Jekyll installed let us set up the file system structure.

First, create a new directory---placing it within your user directory is fine.

That done we can execute Jekyll by issuing the jekyll command at the command prompt.

You'll notice that Jekyll creates a directory _site, which now holds an index.html file.

It's typically only a few lines long and allows you to avoid having to specify optional flags every time you run Jekyll from the command line; just stick them into _config.yml and Jekyll will use them every time it's run.

For more info on Jekyll configuration, see the configuration page on the Jekyll wiki.

When Jekyll is run, your posts are injected into the layouts using the Liquid tag: {{content}}.

Posts are plain text files that are named with the format $YEAR-$MONTH-$DATE-$TITLE.$FORMAT.

We'll create two templates for us to pick from: base.html, which is our base layout and post.html, which extends the base layout and is used for posts.

It was designed to allow designers and front-end developers to tweak their shopping interface without affecting the security on the server they're built on.

Apart from the specific directories and files mentioned above, all other directories and files are handled by Jekyll as expected and will be included in the generated site build in _sites/ when Jekyll is run.

Thus, a css/ and js/ directory and its contents, a favicon, and whatever else will all be added to the site build.

Jekyll comes with a simple web server that allows you to pop over to http://localhost:4000/ and view your site.

Even better, if you're actively updating and making changes, a useful flag to append to the jekyll command is --auto.

You can also add auto: true to the configuration file so that you can avoid having to type it in every time.

If you want to track your Jekyll files in a version control system, it's recommended to make an exception for the _site directory.

That's because the files in the _site directory are bound to change a lot, particularly during the development phase.

Deploying your generated static site is just a matter of copying the output in _site to your web server.

You could use FTP to upload your files, but there are a number of automated methods that make life easier, particularly when you just want to upload the new changes since the last upload.

My preferred current method is to use rsync, a little UNIX utility written by Canberra locals Andrew Tridgell and Paul Mackerras.

rsync synchronizes data from one location to another, and in doing so only sends changes rather than full files where possible.

There are a range of other, more complex automated methods, but they're beyond the scope of this article.

As a static site generator without any dynamic extensions means Jekyll has no comment support.

I've personally decided to avoid comments; besides avoiding having to deal with them at all (code-wise, styling-wise, spam-wise---yay!), the best feedback I've ever received were face-to-face or directly via email.

I also echo some of the sentiments raised by Alex Payne in his article, Why I Don't Allow Comments, and More on Everything Buckets in regards to fostering a higher quality discussion.

Despite blog CMSs as powerful as WordPress, Movable Type, and so on, I hope you can now see why it's worth reverting to a simplistic and rudimentary system like Jekyll: you use the right tool for the job.

Jekyll is a breeze to pick up; its learning curve is certainly less steep than say theme design or hacking for WordPress, in my experience.

With GitHub Pages using Jekyll, it's common to see many Jekyll users sharing their Jekyll blog sources openly via GitHub.

There's a listing of Jekyll-generated sites in the documentation, along with links to their respective GitHub repositories when available.

These are great to browse through for some knowledge on how other Jekyll users have built their web sites.

Learning curves aside, if you're after a simplistic blog tool construction-wise that does not require multiple users or a fully featured web publishing interface, then Jekyll could easily do the trick.

(Be assured, the sophistication of the final output for Jekyll can generate beautiful multi-layout blogs akin to WordPress.)

Ultimately, I changed to Jekyll because WordPress seemed like an overkill and I was up for learning a new platform.

I hope this article serves to help you if you're experiencing a similar predicament.

Feature image
by macaroni1945.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Google launches Chrome for Mac, Linux - with a caveat | Topics | Macworld

Google launches Chrome for Mac, Linux - with a caveat

Source: Macworld

by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Editor's Note: This story is excerpted from Computerworld. For more Mac coverage, visit Computerworld's Macintosh Knowledge Center.

Google late Thursday released developer-only versions of its Chrome browser for Mac and Linux, making good on a nine-month-old promise that it would eventually add those editions to the Windows version that debuted last September.

The Mac and Linux versions are rough and unstable, warned Google. "We have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux, but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM!" said Mike Smith and Karen Grunberg, a pair of Chrome product managers, in an entry to a Google blog. "Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."

The new versions lack important features and functionality, Smith and Grunberg warned, including compatibility with Adobe's Flash Player plug-in and printing. A current bug list catalogs other missing pieces, ranging from a working bookmark manager -- users can bookmark pages, but there's no way to retrieve a bookmark -- to a memory leak.

Google launched Chrome Sept. 2, 2008, as a Windows-only browser, but began taking names for a notification list for Mac users that same day, and for Linux users shortly after.

Chrome accounted for approximately 1.8 percent of those used last month, according to the most recent data from Web metric company Net Applications, a surge of 27 percent from the month before.

On Windows, Chrome comes in three flavors: Google's developer, beta and stable versions, in ascending order of fit and finish. Google releases more developer preview builds than betas, which in turn accumulate until the company's satisfied with their progress enough to roll out another stable build.

"[We're] trying to get Google Chrome on these platforms stable enough for a beta release as soon as possible!" added Smith and Grunberg.

Although the two program managers acknowledged that the developer preview crashes, Computerworld ran the Mac browser for several hours without a hitch.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Spice Up Your Blog - Choose From Thousands Of Gadgets

Image by ZedZap(Nick) via Flickr

Choose from thousands of gadgets

Watch this video on how to spice up your blog -
Choose from thousands of gadgets to add to your blog.

Google to provide update on Chrome OS

by Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service
Source: macworld.com

Google is getting ready to shed a little more light on its Chrome OS this week.

The search giant has arranged an event for journalists Thursday at its headquarters in Mountain View, California, just days after rumors circulated that the code might soon be released.

When Google announced it was building its own Linux-based operating system, it said it would release the open-source code at the end of this year. It has said Chrome will be designed initially for netbooks, with the first devices hitting the market in the second half of 2010.

Branching out into the operating-system market could ultimately help Google find new revenue streams, since it is almost entirely reliant on search advertising.

The Chrome OS could also pose a threat to Microsoft, which worked hard to gain its share of the netbook market, which was initially dominated by Linux.

Google has said it is building Chrome because the market needs an OS built specifically for the Web. Most of Google’s non-search activities are Web-based applications, such as Google Docs, Gmail and Maps.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Design your Web site using CSS content boxes

Image by B Tal via Flickr

Design your Web site using CSS content boxes

Design-your-Web-site-using-CSS-content-boxes

Coloured content boxes are a great technique for creating visually-pleasing CSS layouts and content. All it takes is assigning a background colour to a

element or setting an image as the background if you want a sleeker look.

To begin create a <div> element and assign it an ID.

<div id='contentBox'></div>

We then need to define the styles for the contentBox ID. Let's start by setting the font type, size and colour.

#contentBox
{
font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 80%;
color:# 2E2E2E;
}

Next we are going to add some filler text to the

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas feugiat neque sit amet ante tincidunt hendrerit. Vestibulum eleifend erat et enim. Cras nisi arcu, malesuada malesuada, accumsan non, venenatis eget, purus. Mauris pulvinar tincidunt turpis. Aliquam enim. Vestibulum tristique risus eget elit. Fusce urna arcu, dictum sit amet, luctus non, bibendum eu, leo. Vestibulum at diam. Nunc pretium. Maecenas dapibus laoreet leo. Mauris pretium quam. Nulla ultrices. Donec iaculis laoreet diam. Suspendisse a felis quis mauris porttitor mattis. Duis aliquet lacinia odio.

So far we have some text in a

. Let's make this look more like a content box, by adding a background colour and a border around it. Add the code below to #contentBox.

background-color:#FFFF99;
border-style: solid;
border-width:2px;
border-color:#FF9933;

Set the width and height attributes of the box, like this:

width:20%;
height:35%;

We're going to add some padding around the text to make it look better.

padding:1%;

Our text fits nicely within the box at the moment, but if we added another paragraph it would flow over the box. To prevent this we need to add a scrollbar.

overflow: scroll;

Alternatively, you can set the overflow property to auto to display a scrollbar only when needed.

We're going to position the box 10 pixels from the start of the page:

position:absolute;
left:10px;

You can position the box anywhere on the page where you see fit, by adjusting the position attribute.

And tying it all in:

Content Box

Nullam cursus erat id magna. Sed eget lectus. Phasellus dignissim. In purus. Duis scelerisque. Sed suscipit risus nec velit. Sed et neque. Maecenas eget nunc. Ut turpis tortor, varius ut, dapibus quis, lobortis
et, erat. Aliquam vitae odio vitae tellus ultricies adipiscing. In ut diam.

Free Search Term Suggestion Tool by KeywordDiscovery.com

Here is a great tool for keyword research and discovery:

www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

Free Search Term Suggestion Tool by KeywordDiscovery.com

Thursday, November 12, 2009

reBlog from Brightmark: Steps to Freedom

Image via Wikipedia

I found this fascinating quote today:

Your property investing success starts with your attitude to your investments. Look at each piece of real-estate you buy as a long term investment & it will turn into a new stream of income and work for you all the time making you wealthy.Brightmark, Steps to Freedom, Nov 2009

You should read the whole article.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Must Have Resources for the Web Developer's Toolbox

Fuel Your Creativity - Must Have Resources for the Web Developer's Toolbox

Must Have Resources for the Web Developer's Toolbox

If you are a web designer, especially if you are fairly new, you search around for the best and easiest tools to do the tasks you want to do. Here is a summary of this really helpful article.

Summary:

In every creative field, there are certain tools that one always keeps handy in order to get the job done.

As developers (who also design) the toolbox inventory needs to be broad to encompass all the necessary areas to keep you moving and productive.

Below is a list of the resources that we felt should be included in any developer's toolbox.

We have broken it down into different categories to help you keep your tools organized a little bit better.

We hope that the list proves useful.

GIMP is a close second whose price you can't beat (free), especially for web designers who don't need all of the features of Photoshop.

Graybit is an online accessibility testing tool designed to visually convert a full-color web page into a grayscale rendition for the purpose of visually testing the pageâ¬(TM)s perceived contrast.

It returns a set of hue, saturation and tint/shade variations of your color, and suggests color schemets based on your color's complementary color, split complementary colors, and other variations.

FavIcon Generator allows you to easily create a favicon from an image.

The Grid System is an ever-growing resource where graphic designers can learn about grid systems, the golden ratio and baseline grids.

The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels.

jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development.

The jQuery Visual Cheat Sheet is an useful and practical 6 page reference to jQuery 1.3 for web designers and developers containing the full jQuery API reference with detailed descriptions and some sample code.

jQuery Plugins contains plugins, extensions and tutorials developed by jQuery contributors for the jQuery JavaScript Library.

Code Beautifier is a free online CSS formatter, optimiser, and parser.

Notepad++ is an open source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.

TextWrangler is a powerful and richly featured tool for composing, modifying, and transforming text stored in plain-text files for Mac.

The WordPress Codex is the place to go if you have any WordPress related questions.

The Spoon Browser Sandbox allows you to run any browser directly from the web.

IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.

Web Developer's Tools for Firefox is a collection of firefox plugins to speed up the development process.

WampServer is a Windows web development environment which allows you to create web applications with Apache, PHP and the MySQL database.

CSS Tricks Code Snippets is a large repository of useful code snippets in the areas of HTML, CSS, JavaScript (raw), JavaScript (jQuery), PHP, and WordPress.

Angies list includes 26 items in all make sure you check it out at: Must Have Resources for the Web Developer's Toolbox

Angie is a freelance web and graphic designer who brings her love of community to the online design collective as co-editor of Fuel Your Creativity.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Google Sitemap Generator, Editor + Keyword Analyzer - XML Sitemaps Online

For those of you building websites and trying to get listed here is something that may be useful:

Google Sitemap Generator, Editor + Keyword Analyzer - XML Sitemaps Online

Friday, September 18, 2009

From Amazon.com: Life After Film School: Seth McFarlane

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Amazon.com: Life After Film School: Seth McFarlane

'Life After Film School: Seth McFarlane'
Select Results from All Departments

* Video On Demand (2)

1. Product Details: Family Guy Season 8 by Fox (Video On Demand - Sep 9, 2009); Watch It Now: $0.00 per episode

In Stock
Video On Demand: See all 2 items
2. Product Details: American Dad Season 5 by Fox (Video On Demand - Sep 9, 2009); Watch It Now: $0.00 per episode

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

See more fields in Finder Spotlight search results

Image via Wikipedia

Source: macworld.com

As detailed in my article on Snow Leopard’s old and new annoyances, my main complaint is that I can’t add the Size column to my Finder Spotlight search results, as I could in OS X 10.4. This feature broke in 10.5, and more than three years later, I’m still waiting for it to be fixed.

Now, thanks to Mac OS X Hints reader vl_tone, my wait is over. Please note that the following is an experimental solution there may be very good reasons Apple hasn’t enabled this fix in the OS as of yet. If you follow this hint, there’s a chance you may cause yourself some grief in the future—I don’t think your system will stop functioning, but maybe the Finder will start behaving oddly. My persona experience, though, is that I’ve had no issues with this tip under either 10.6 or the just-released 10.6.1 update. That’s not a guarantee, of course, so proceed at your own risk.

Implementing this tip requires that you’ve installed the Xcode Developer Tools, as the hint requires editing a preferences file with Property List Editor. Alternatively, you can use PlistEdit Pro, TextWrangler, or any other text editor that can open binary preference files. These instructions, however, assume you’re using one of the propery list editors, as they make things much simpler.

Before you start editing, though, you need to make certain that the Finder’s preferences file has a certain section. To do that, run a Spotlight search in the Finder for whatever—it doesn’t matter what you search on. When you see the results of your search, switch to list view mode (Command-2), then press Command-J (View -> Show View Options), and then choose any one of the additional available columns—Date Created, for instance. You can then close the View Options dialog.

In your editor of choice, select File -> Open, navigate to your user’s Library -> Preferences folder, then open com.apple.finder.plist. (You may want to make a backup first, or insure that you have one on your Time Machine disk.)When the file opens, click the triangle next to Root to open all the preferences values, if they’re not already visible. Search for SearchViewSettings (in Property List Editor, just start typing that word to search on the fly), and then click the disclosure triangle for that section.

The Size column is shown here Inside of SearchViewSettings, you want to then drill down into ListViewSettings -> columns.

Here you’ll see a list of the various Finder columns.Click the disclosure triangle next to a column name of interest—size, for instance, and you’ll see various options, as seen in the image at right. To make this column show up in the Finder’s Spotlight results view, check the box on the visible row.

Repeat this with any other columns you’d like to see in your search results. When done, save the file.The last step is to restart the Finder, which can be done in any number of ways. Hold Option and then click-and-hold on the Finder icon in the Dock, for instance, and you’ll see a Relaunch item in the pop-up menu; this is probably the easiest way to do it.

After the Finder restarts, run a Spotlight search, and enjoy your newly-added columns in the search result listing.

These columns can be used just as they can in the “normal” Finder, so click on the Size column to sort the results by size. (Note that you won’t be able to toggle these columns off and on in the View Options dialog; they’ll always be on.)As noted up front, there may be a good reason why Apple hasn’t fixed this problem as of yet, so proceed at your own risk.

Personally, though, I’ve taken the risk and I’m living on the edge, thrilled with the ability to again (finally!) be able to sort my Spotlight search results by size.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Apple’s Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard means business

Image by calu777 via Flickr

Source: iPodDailyNews

Tim Beyers reports for The Motley Fool, 'The iEmpire launched its latest rebellion with the release of Snow Leopard on Friday, the newest edition of Mac OS X, which: At $29, costs about what you'd pay for a fast-food dinner for a family of four; Frees up to 7 gigabytes space on your Mac by eliminating digital clutter; Offers built-in support for Microsoft's Exchange network services, making Macs a whole lot more business-friendly.'

MacDailyNews Take: Anyone with even a cursory understanding of Apple, Microsoft, and Star Wars would never use the term 'iEmpire' to describe Apple or their 'latest rebellion.' For the sake of the value of continuing on, let's pretend that Beyers has never seen Star Wars.

Beyers continues, 'Technology buyers may finally be coming back. To get them to come back to the Mac, Apple needs an OS that does better business. Snow Leopard is that OS... The Mac is back, growling and hungry for market share.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Apple iPhone boosts profit

Image via CrunchBase

Source: City AM

APPLE’S profits jumped by 15 per cent in its third quarter, the firm said yesterday, thanks to sales of its iPhone, which topped five million in the period.

The firm, which recently welcomed chief executive Steve Jobs back to work following liver transplant surgery, said profits rose to $1.23bn (£747m), or $1.35 a share, in its third quarter, compared to $1.07bn, or $1.19 a share a year ago. Revenues increased 12 per cent to $8.33bn.

Sales of its blockbuster smartphone, the iPhone, increased more than sevenfold to 5.2m while the company sold four per cent more Mac computers. But sales of its iPod MP3 player were down seven per cent in the period.

Meanwhile, Yahoo reported an eight per cent increase in its second quarter profit, up to $141m from $131m during the same period last year.

The internet firm beat Wall Street expectations but analysts pointed out that lower revenues had been offset by some $150m in cost-cutting measures implemented by new chief executive Carol Bartz.

Yahoo’s second quarter revenue was down 13 per cent to $1.6bn after it continued to struggle to sell search advertising.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Bloggers: Mac OS X Snow Leopard could arrive in two weeks | Mac OS X

Image by Dekuwa via Flickr

Source: Macworld

Apple’s upcoming operating system, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, could arrive earlier than the expected September launch date. Multiple sources are reporting that Snow Leopard has now been designated “Gold Master” status, which means the OS is ready to ship to users.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard could be on sale as early as Friday, August 28 according to reports from Daring Fireball's John Gruber. Apple also released on Wednesday a final update for OS X Leopard (10.5.8), which could indicate that the next version of the OS is on its way.

Now with a “Golden Master” status, Snow Leopard is reportedly already on its way to manufacturing, where it will be recorded onto DVDs, according to a report from AppleInsider. The site also reports this final build is on its way to Apple technicians and support staff.

Amazon is already taking pre-orders for Snow Leopard and on the sales pages mentions that an “official release date has not been announced by Apple, though they have indicated this product will be released sometime in September.” Back in June, Apple said that Snow Leopard will arrive in September, but they haven’t mentioned any specific launch date.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard’s pricing is set at $29.99 for a single-user license and a 5-user license (Family Pack) will cost $49. A Mac Box Set, which includes Snow Leopard, iLife and iWork (productivity suite), is priced at $169 for a single-user license and at $229 for a 5-user license.

For more information about what's new in OS X 10.6, my colleague Nick Mediati has a list of 5 things you should know about Snow Leopard.

by Daniel Ionescu, PC World

Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the Today @ PC World blog at PCWorld.com.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Ten quick Calculator tricks

Here's how to get the most out of Apple's built-in tool

1. Copy and paste numbers

2. Pick your precision

3. Convert units of measure

4. Repeat the last calculation

5. Use the paper tape

6. Store a number

7. Delete a digit

8. Quickly switch calculators

9. Easily change a mistake

10. Specify a negative number

Thursday, December 3, 2009

How Google Chrome OS Could Beat Windows

Article Marketing 102 - Article Marketing 101 Taken Beyond!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Mac Gems I’m thankful for

Monday, November 30, 2009

Jekyll: Sites Made Simple

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Google launches Chrome for Mac, Linux - with a caveat

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Choose from thousands of gadgets

Google to provide update on Chrome OS

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Design your Web site using CSS content boxes

Free Search Term Suggestion Tool by KeywordDiscovery.com

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Friday, September 18, 2009

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Friday, August 28, 2009

Thursday, August 27, 2009

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