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Archive for April, 2009

Shorten URLs, the easy way

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

Foxy URL is an easy web based application that allows you to shorten a long URL, into something more pallitable and easy for us humans to remember. Simple!

But there’s an establishing web application (TinyURL), that does that already I hear you ask! Well, what I like about Foxy URL is the fact that I can integrate by means of an addon into my preferred web browser, Firefox. It places a small button next to your web address bar, and with every click, it opens a new window with your new, shortened URL. Simple!

Source: Firefox Facts

Posted in Applications, Web Site News | No Comments »

IE8: Compatibility Mode

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

As you may be aware, Microsoft have released their most recent version of their web browser, Internet Explorer 8. The Internet Explorer team has been working hard to make IE8 the most standards compliant browser around. However, in doing so they’ve also invalidated a vast amount of “hacks” and “work-arounds” that us web developers have to employ to get web sites working with their older, less standards compliant (namely IE6) web browser!

If you need to force IE8 into IE7 compatibility mode, while you again search for another viable standards compliant method displays content across all their browsers gracefully, simply follow the below.

Here I’m assuming you just need to hold back one or two pages. Simply add the below meta tag to the header of the page, and IE8 will be forced into IE7 compatibility mode.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />

You can read more information about IE8 and IE7 compatibility over on MSDN.

Posted in Browsers, Web Site News | No Comments »

Google Analytics on Your Desktop

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Polaris is a free Adobe AIR application that brings Google Analytics (Google’s statistics tracking tool for web publishers) to your desktop with an attractive look and feel.
If you don’t have your own web site, this application (and Google Analytics in general) is useless to you. If you do have a web site, chances are you’re a little bit of a Google Analytics junkie. Rather than keeping a tab or window open dedicated to Analytics, Polaris Desktop Reporting pulls Analytics out of your browser and puts it into an attractive widget-style look at your web site’s visitor and traffic status. The application is fast, integrates many of the reports you likely look at regularly, and overall works like a charm.

Polaris is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux, requires Adobe AIR. If you’re planning to use the app for more than one web site, Polaris costs $15/year. If you’re new to Google Analytics but think it might be for you, head over to our guide to improving your web site with Google Analytics.

Source: Lifehacker

Posted in Applications, Web Site News | 1 Comment »

I’m getting married!

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

I have the pleasure and am very excited to announce that I am getting married to Clare Hamilton, on the 8th May.

What does this mean to you? From Friday 8th May – Monday 25th May I will not be available for work of any kind, as I will obviously be getting married, and then touring Canada. For those that are interested, I will be updating my personal blog (not classed as work!) while I’m away…….if Clare allows me.

If you have any urgent issues or enquiries while I am away, please send them to urgent@SwellDesigns.co.uk and they will get looked at. Please send all other enquiries, questions and general issues to my usual email address, listed above near the menu.

Posted in Personal | No Comments »

60 Open Source and Free Mac Apps

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Applications

Useful web pages like this one at AppStorm, need to be placed as bookmarks for anybody’s Mac!

I can safely say that I already have several of these apps on my system, some of which are absolutely indispensable.

Here a few to get your taste bugs going:

Posted in Applications | No Comments »

Apple near release of Mac OS X 10.5.7

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Apple as early as this week could announce the release of Mac OS X 10.5.7, a seventh maintenance and security update to its Leopard operating system scheduled to deliver over a 100 minor tweaks and bug fixes.

After providing developers with weekly betas of the software for nearly two months, the Mac maker in recent days cranked up the frequency of the pre-release distributions, which is more often than not a telltale sign of an imminent release.

In particular, developers on Friday received Mac OS X 10.5.7 build 9J47, which arrived just four days after build 9J44. Late Tuesday evening developers were informed that build 9J50 was available for download, again coming just four days after the previous distribution.

People familiar with the beta test say the former build added three code-corrections to a laundry list of bug fixes, including a fix for Ethernet performance on Mac Pro systems and a correction to Mac OS X’s handling of login item preferences. Meanwhile, the latter build arriving less than 24 hours ago reportedly addresses a single issue involving Bluetooth personal area networks.

Now in its seventh week of widespread testing, Mac OS X 10.5.7 includes 108 documented code corrections and is expected to arrive as an approximately 443 megabyte delta update for Mac users running Mac OS X 10.5.7. A separate distribution capable of updating earlier versions of the Leopard OS reportedly weighs in around 730 megabytes.

Further evidencing an imminent release are claims from some Apple Store customers who say Apple recently bumped up their orders for iMacs equipped with ATI’s Radeon HD 4850 graphics card for shipment this week. At least one of these customers was led to believe his order was previously being held up due to the graphics card’s requirement of 10.5.7, though that much is up for debate. Alternatively, Apple could include the necessary software drivers in a custom milestone of 10.5.6.

Nevertheless, it was revealed early in the beta test process that Mac OS X 10.5.7 would deliver a broad range of syncing improvements. It was later reported that the release, internally code-named Juno, would also include an updated speech dictionary.

In total, the update is expected to address issues with over 20 core system components including AirPort, graphics, iCal, iDisk Syncing, Mail, MobileMe syncing, networking, parental controls, printing, Safari, screen sharing, sound, and Time Machine. It should also improve compatibility with certain USB and Flash drives.

Soure: AppleInsider

Posted in Applications | 2 Comments »

AlternativeTo Beta

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

What a great idea!

Do you require some software that you can’t afford, need to use on a different operating system?? AlternativeTo is your first stop to finding the solution.

Find better Windows, Mac, Linux and online applications

AlternativeTo is a new approach to finding good software. Tell us what application you want to replace and we give you suggestions on great alternatives! Instead of listing thousands of more or less crappy applications in a category, we make each application into a category. Think of it like forever evolving blog posts about good alternatives to the software that you’re not satisfied with. And the “blog posts” are generated by you through suggestions, comments and votes.

Posted in Web Site News | No Comments »

Internet Explorer 8’s InPrivate

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Apart from loading web pages, there’s one thing that most of our readers want their browser to do: Block annoying advertisements. Web site Neowin points out that Internet Explorer 8’s InPrivate feature does just that.

Granted, if you’re a Firefox user, you’ve already got the beloved Adblock Plus. For Google Chrome or Opera, you can try the less feature-rich but still effective AdSweep. And if you’re using the latest and greatest Internet Explorer, it appears that the built-in InPrivate feature (essentially this is IE8’s porn mode) actually does a pretty good job of filtering ads, according to web site Neowin.

The InPrivate Filter (enabled by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+F) is intended to block content that may potentially share your information; thankfully advertisements are one such example of said content.
It should be noted that the InPrivate Filter is ’smart’ in the sense that it can and will (if enabled) automatically detect content which appears with a high frequency on websites that you visit. In this regard, the Filter learns as you use the web and can detect what is an advertisement or of similar content, and take action accordingly. By entering the ‘Manage Addons’ window, you can select how many websites a piece of content must show up on before it is flagged, at which point you can then determine whether you want to block or allow such content.

In a somewhat surprising turn of events, that means that Internet Explorer is the first popular browser that has some sort of built-in ad blocking. Not bad.

Source: Lifehacker

Posted in Browsers | No Comments »

Uninstall Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 8 some time ago and is starting to distribute it over their update services to users still running a previous version of the web browser. While the web browser does run fine on most computer systems it can – like any other software – cause problems on some. We covered ways to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 manually a while ago which allowed those users to restore a previous version of Internet Explorer on a computer system.

For most users this is an easy and straightforward process as Internet Explorer 8 can be removed from the programs list in the Windows Control Panel. Only Windows XP users who installed the third service pack before Internet Explorer 8 were not able to uninstall the web browser unless they would uninstall the service pack 3 before.

Microsoft has created a script to remove Internet Explorer 8 automatically from a computer system where it is installed. The script is available as part of Microsoft’s Fix It initiative which tries to provide one click solutions to common problems on the Windows platform. The file UninstallIE8.msi can be executed right from the Microsoft website or by downloading it to a local computers system and running it from there. Please note that it is generally not a good idea to remove Internet Explorer 8 unless it is causing troubles on a computer system.

Source: ghacks.net

Posted in Browsers | 1 Comment »