Development Blog archive for July 2004

Remembered a couple of others too:

• Luke Hutteman's SharpReader - Like many other tools around, it's an RSS aggregator
• The GIMP - Available on Windows too, the GNU Image Manipulation Program is getting more like Photoshop each day

Enjoy

Filed under: Tools

Another useful tool I thought I'd missed the boat on:

• Lookout Outlook Search
  • Lookout Software's dowload page

[Update 2004/07/26: they moved it...]

Filed under: Tools

So, I've just had the joy of going through all my old posts (only 53 of them at the last count), and adding in <br /> tags in all the line breaks - I don't like the way Blogger was adding paragraph tags everywhere, causing all sorts of havoc, so I turned off the feature in the formatting settings… which broke all the archive pages. This meant I had to go through each post, add the tags, and publish each one as I went, there's doesn't seem to be a way to edit them all, mark them all as ready to publish, but don't publish just yet, and then bulk publish them all. Slow. But can't really complain, it's not what you're supposed to do, go back and change history.

As I had to go through the all the old posts, I also removed the links with my email address (I was young and naive - so much spam now), and removed the target attributes from the links, attempting to make this all more XHTML1.1 compliant (it's not yet, but I'm working on that). Still need to work out what I'm going to do with the image tags though - I guess I need move the width and height attributes in to the styles.

Note to self: Must stop doing this stream of consciousness stuff - I keep leaving ellipsis everywhere - not good.

I don't know when, but I'll try and get the downloads and tutorials back up, but they are all horribly out of date - UT's on 2004 now Laters.

[Update 2011/05/13: Oh the irony, as I go back and tag these old posts, and also change the double <br />s back into paragraphs because I now understand about symantic mark-up .]

Filed under: Site Updates

A selection of handy tools that I use quite often:

• CreateShortcut util - Dead hand little app that enables you to quickly add a link to an application in your Start menu.
• The Regulator - Ok, so we all know RegEx, but this is a fine sandbox for quickly testing out your expressions and searching for handy snippets.
• Snippet Compiler - A bit like Ronseal™ this, it does exactly what it says on the tin, and compiles snippets of code, loads up a lot faster than VS, so quite handy when discussing stuff.

More to follow…

Filed under: Tools

Yes, there is finally another update on this site! Both in the physical sense of a new posting that's going to sit on this site and never get read, and also in the ethereal sense of a (slightly) new look and feel.

I've revamped the layout so that it's easier for me to extend and update, I've also tweaked the way the site works so that:

1. Memorable URIs work (allegedly, I may need to work on a few more).
2. Blogger Posts now link properly to their posts.
3. Because of (2) you can now add comments to almost all my posts this year…
4. Multiple stylesheets are supported - try them if you're using Firefox, there should be a funky style sheet button available in the bottom left corner of the browsers status bar labeled "Switch to an alternate stylesheet".
   This currently doesn't remember the different selections by default, so I'll work on that.

Things still left to do:

1. Link up old tutorials
2. Link up the Galleries - I had three different systems last time, I'm looking to put them all in to one, but in a more structured way.
3. Link up my old downloads.
4. Add more content over time.
5. Finish off the css, so it consistently uses em sizes rather than points.
6. Go to bed - look at the time now, and I've got a Performance Review at work tomorrow…

With (4) in mind, I've got a few bits and pieces linked to at work that I can add now that this is all working, that I'll over the coming few days.

Filed under: Site Updates

I've just added a set of search plugins for the Mozilla Firefox to zhaph, in the newly created Downloads Section

These enable you to perform quick searches on Street Map using London Street, Street Name and Postcode from the Firefox search box.

I've not posted them to Mycroft, as I've not tested them in Mozilla, and know there would be issues with the search sidebar (which isn't included in Firefox).

Let us know what you think .

Filed under: Plug-ins