Good article: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
BTW…
I thought I was a maker, but I guess I’m really a manager?
Color Hound
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I’ve got a project I’ve been working on that I’m calling Color Hound. The purpose of this utility is to extract textual color information from any text source.
Currently, it extracts only 6 digit hex codes, but I’m planning to add 3 digit hex (#1A3), color words (blue, red, yellow, etc), and possibly RGB at some point.
This tool does two things that I really like, first, it provides a colorized chart showing all colors found from the input text. This is similar to the Hex Extractor tool I discussed earlier.
My favorite feature though is that it colorizes the input text itself. This is useful for matching up the definition of a color with where it is used. For instance to more easily identify a color definition in a CSS file.
Color Hound - by Zak Anderson
Ruby on Rails, TextMate and UltraEdit
Friday, April 10, 2009
Use a Single Editor Well
The editor should be an extension of your hand; make sure your editor is configurable, extensible, and programmable.
I’m starting a project in Ruby on Rails and I’ve found that most documentation, books, and webcasts use the TextMate editor available only for Macintosh computers. As a longtime user of IDM’s UltraEdit software I’ve configured this editor to work with highlighting similar to style of the themes for TextMate. Specifically, the idleFingers theme. I haven’t created an exact match, but it’s pretty close. I like this theme since it’s easy to see the different syntax elements, while remaining on the soft/natural side in terms of intensity.
(Continued)
View Source Chart
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Another wonderful tool for you today.
View Source Chart/View Rendered Source is a FireFox plugin, and I’ve used it extensively in the past. This plugin allows you to get a much better view of the source html of a webpage than most standard browser offerings. The html is reformatted into blocks that reflect the html nesting of the source, which is often a chore to pick out. The individual blocks of code are colored and outlined to be easier to distinguish, and you can click on a block of code to minimize or restore it so that you can focus on just what you want to see.
This plugin became a paid download awhile back, but it looks like the current version, 2.7, is free again.
I checked today 4/15 and it appears that 2.7 is now $10 for 9 copies, but v2.5.0503 which works with FireFox 3.08 is available for free.
The author’s page (With the current version available for download)
View Source Chart (The FireFox extensions site, hosting an old version of the plugin)
- View Source Chart by Jennifer Madden
Hexadecimal CSS Color Extractor
Monday, February 9, 2009
Color Hound
Update (4/27/2009): I’ve built my own twist on an extractor with some similar features and some different. Check it out!
Here’s a nice tool that will extract color information from a stylesheet. In my case, I had a 500 line CSS file and I needed to get a good idea of what colors I had available to use in a new stylesheet based on the existing one. Using the following utility, I was able to create a user friendly palette to work with.
- Hextractor by Kenn Wilson
Curvy Corners
Thursday, February 5, 2009
One more Web-CSS tool for today. This one is nice as you can apply a rounded corner to any div element. It uses Javascript and CSS.
Define your corner style in the CSS document for a class, then apply that style to the html element. The JavaScript will do the rest. It uses built-in corner rendering for browsers that support it, and uses the JavaScript for other browsers.
- Curvy Corners by Cameron Cooke
Web-CSS Category and “Sexy Buttons”
Thursday, February 5, 2009
I’m adding a new post category today, Web-CSS. I’ll use this category to provide some quick notes on tricks and tips that I find useful for building websites.
Today, Sexy Buttons, a handy tutorial with examples of how to implement HTML form submit buttons with better support for customized style using images.
- Sexy Buttons by Alex Griffioen
Welcome to Z&R Computer Services’ New Website
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Z&R Computer Services has provided technical support, maintenance, upgrades, and consulting for Cedar Rapids area businesses since 2006. We provide friendly, personal service at competitive rates.
Some examples of the services that our customers have requested include include:
- Wireless network provisioning and configuration for a small business office
- Spyware/Virus removal
- Anti-Virus software installation and configuration
- Computer hardware replacement
- Network printer installation
- Website hosting
Email me today to get started on your project!