Ugh!!'s Greymatter Honeypot » tools http://www.u-g-h.com Distracting the Mind with Information Overload Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:39:10 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 6 Applications that made 2008 special http://www.u-g-h.com/2009/01/03/6-applications-that-made-2008-special/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2009/01/03/6-applications-that-made-2008-special/#comments Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:01:47 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/?p=2819 Jump!

I wanted to list a couple of applications that made a difference for me in 2008. Some of these have changed the way I work on my computer, some of them have been instrumental to my knowledge and online experiences. I thought I’d share them here for others to learn about.

  • Zemanta – Zemanta is a superb tool that has revolutionised my blogging experience. As you type your blog post it suggests images, hyperlinks, other posts and tags that are contextually relevant to what you’re posting about. A must-have for every blogger.
  • Digsby – part of my desktop now. It lets you combine multiple IM clients into one (I use it for GoogleTalk and MSN) and also keep an eye on various social networks (I use it for FaceBook and LinkedIn), as well as a widget for your blog so people can talk to you directly.
  • Twhirl – An awesome Twitter client that has also become part of my desktop selection. It makes Twitter a doodle to use, shows a stream of incoming Tweets and lets you retweet and interact with other Tweeters at the touch of a button. Couldn’t live without it.
  • WPAuctions – WP Auctions is a WordPress plugin I wrote with Hyder that lets bloggers auction items off their blog without paying any fees to Ebay or any other auction house. It was instrumental in my getting my hands dirty with AJAX and I learnt lots of CSS/Javascript/PHP through building it. So it makes my special list too.
  • OIO Publisher – Another WordPress plugin that has made things managing advertising content on my blogs a doddle. It lets you sell, manage and merchandise space on your blog any which way you like. A must for anyone who wants to monitise their blog.
  • Firebug – Firebug is a Firefox extension that is absolutely essential for anyone involved in web development. It lets you edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page and I just couldn’t live without it.

There you go, some applications that made 2008 great for me. Do you use any of them? What would you add to the list? What should I try for 2009?

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2009/01/03/6-applications-that-made-2008-special/feed/ 18 Adding a little sparkle http://www.u-g-h.com/2008/04/04/adding-a-little-sparkle/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2008/04/04/adding-a-little-sparkle/#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:40:30 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/2008/04/04/adding-a-little-sparkle/ Got a call yesterday to give our friends in Isle of Man Finance a hand with a presentation they were preparing on a memory stick. It wasn’t a difficult problem; they simply wanted the presentation to start up automatically when the USB stick was plugged into a computer. I played around with their autorun.inf for a bit to get it sorted and ended up using 1st AutoRun Express to get it done. I also created an icon for the USB stick using Easy Icon Maker, which added that little bit of colour to the whole thing.

Coming from a technology background, it’s easy to dismiss these little items as just being unnecessary detail. Do they really add that much to the presentation? Well, the answer is a resounding YES, they certainly do. At the end of the day, it’s all about the end-user’s experience, and any obstacles in the way they perceive your offering can be a barrier to their being receptive to your ideas.

How should you apply this idea to whatever you’re producing. Well, put yourself in your consumer’s shoes and answer these questions.? What frustrates you about the product/service on offer? How can it be made better? Better still, what would delight you and encourage you to share your experience with friend, family and colleagues? In the end, it’s the small things that make a difference.

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2008/04/04/adding-a-little-sparkle/feed/ 2 Giving Zemanta a spin http://www.u-g-h.com/2008/03/27/giving-zemanta-a-spin/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2008/03/27/giving-zemanta-a-spin/#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:22:23 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/2008/03/27/giving-zemanta-a-spin/ Sherrilynne sent me a link to a plugin for Firefox called Zemanta. It sits in your browser and waits for you to start typing out a new blog post. Once you have typed in a few sentences it’s supposed to come up with a collection of different links and photos that can be used to compliment your post. It’s an interesting idea that can help improve the quality of people’s postings and also help to make them more interactive. So, for example, if I were writing a post about fiberglass columns, then I should be getting other articles and pictures related to the subject … *poke*

Unfortunately, so far, I’ve installed it, am writing a blog post and nothing has come up, so I’m not quite sure what to be expecting. Still, I’ll leave it plugged in and see if anything kicks into life ;)

(p.s. I know I’m using a supported blog, currently the plugin only supports WordPress, Blogger and Typepad)

Update: it’s working now! .. Yippee!

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2008/03/27/giving-zemanta-a-spin/feed/ 2 Getting to grips with Twitter http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/11/21/getting-to-grips-with-twitter/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/11/21/getting-to-grips-with-twitter/#comments Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:27:15 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/2007/11/21/getting-to-grips-with-twitter/ I’ve finally managed to get Twitter ingrained into the way I do things. Have you tried it yet? If so, does it work for me? I originally found it interesting, but could never see myself leaving a browser open on Twitter, or going back to visit the website, so it didn’t really catch on.? Now I’m back in the game, and here are some tools that have made it possible.

  • TwitterFox: This was the one that made the difference. It’s a plugin for FireFox that sits in your system tray and pops up a message when one of the people you’re following sends a message. This means you can keep up to date with your mates without having to leave the page you’re on. It also lets you Tweet straight from the plugin. Indispensible!
  • Twitter Application for Facebook: The main thing this does is update your Facebook status with your last Tweet. It also has a page where you can see what your friends are doing, but I don’t use that. Great way to consolidate your status updates in one place.
  • Twessenger: The other place that has my status is MSN Messenger. This plugin for Messenger updates your status with you latest tweet. Again, striving towards unified status updates.

And there you have it, three utilities that have changed the way I interact on the web and taken me back to microblogging. If you’re on Twitter, follow me here. Do you have any related tools you use everyday?

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/11/21/getting-to-grips-with-twitter/feed/ 2 101 Conversion Utilities http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/09/10/101-conversion-utilities/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/09/10/101-conversion-utilities/#comments Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:31:05 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/2007/09/10/468/ The other day I had a frustrating situation where someone sent me an email with a .r file attached. I had no idea what this was and none of the applications I had installed would recognise it. It turned out to be a “resource” file which was pretty specific, but it did raise the issue of how important it was to be able to convert files from one type to something you can actually do something with.

I came across an excellent resource today. 101 Tools to Convert Video, Music, Images, PDF and More is a collection of more than 100 utilities that do just what it says on the tin. The list is divided into the following sections:

  • Mega Tools (convert from a range of format to others)
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Images
  • PDF
  • Word Processing
  • Excel
  • Powerpoint
  • Drafting
  • Other Document Tools

The list also includes a number of tools around International Standards, Web Development and Mobile Tools. I’ve already bookmarked it, and I would recommend you do too.

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/09/10/101-conversion-utilities/feed/ 2 Using the tools at your disposal http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/07/02/using-the-tools-at-your-disposal/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/07/02/using-the-tools-at-your-disposal/#comments Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:00:53 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/2007/07/02/using-the-tools-at-your-disposal/ I’ve just realise that I’m less of a techie than I used to be last year. I’m on the committee for the local branch of the BCS and the one thing we do every year is send out a survey to measure people’s feedback on the past year and put together a calendar for the next one. Well, last year I built the survey in ASP, deployed it on my own webserver, coded it to email me the results and made some fancy graphs in Excel. This year, I found a free online tool that did it all! It’s called SurveyMonkey and the free version (max 10 questions, 100 responses) is just perfect for what we want to do. In the past I would have opted to spend hours hand-crafting it, but nowadays, my motto is: if there’s a tool that does it, just use it!

Seems like I’m not the only person. My mate Carlo had a similar experience reading an obfuscated webpage. He could have written a de-obfuscator, but instead took the easy option: just check out Google Cache and pull out a clean version of the page. How cool is that?

There’s technology on the web to do anything you want to. All you need to do is find it ;)

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/07/02/using-the-tools-at-your-disposal/feed/ 0 Built a website? Here’s some tools! http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/05/26/built-a-website-heres-some-tools/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/05/26/built-a-website-heres-some-tools/#comments Sat, 26 May 2007 09:15:40 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/2007/05/26/built-a-website-heres-some-tools/ Building a website gets easier and easier, as more tools make it to the market that make the design process smoother. However, once you have built your website it’s important to make sure it’s accessible to as many people as possible, that it looks good and that it performs well. There are a number of tools available on the web to do this, and there’s a great list of tools on this post entitled: Grade your website: 31 free online tests.

The tools are split into different categories including:

  • Code Validation
  • Accessibility
  • Speed
  • Browser Simulators
  • Search Engine Optimisation

There’s some great pointers in there, especially as there is a “Top Pick” in each category. So, if you’re looking at Accessibility tools for exampe, the post recommends the most excellent WatchFire WebXACT which is a pretty impressive tool, especially when you consider it’s free!

The post works well on a number of levels. If you want to try a range of tools, this page is great. And if you’re busy and just need to pick one based on someone’s recommendation, the page works well too. Check it out!

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/05/26/built-a-website-heres-some-tools/feed/ 0 System Recovery Tools http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/04/13/system-recovery-tools/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/04/13/system-recovery-tools/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:56:06 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/2007/04/13/system-recovery-tools/ LifeHacker has a great collection of Top free Computer System Recovery Tools. The post is actually about the top 10 tools, but there’s a wealth of other links in the comments that follow the post. Here’s what they recommend:

Worth keeping in mind in case your computer blow up!

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/04/13/system-recovery-tools/feed/ 2 Drive traffic with Email Marketing http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/02/14/drive-traffic-with-email-marketing/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/02/14/drive-traffic-with-email-marketing/#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 09:59:41 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/index.php/2007/02/14/drive-traffic-with-email-marketing/ If you run a blog or a website, then you’ll know that traffic to your site is the lifeblood that your project needs. Without visitors it’s a bit of a moot point building a site, and visitors help contribute material and ideas that improve your projects. However, driving traffic is also one of the hardest things to do. There are millions of websites out there, why sould people come and visit your. The answer, as always is the content you put on it.

But sometimes content just isn’t enough. It nice to let people know when new material is added to the site, when there’s something new to see. And this is where services like Zookoda come in. Zookoda is a blog email service that lets you set up a newsletter for your readers. Readers can subscribe to the service and get daily, weekly or even monthly alerts of new material that has been posted to your blog. It lets you manage your newsletters and also your subscribers (anyone who’s tried setting up a mailing list in the past knows just how hard it is to keep it clean and current). And the great thing: it’s FREE!

This is definitely a service I’ll be rolling out to all my blogs, so keep your eyes peeled for it. Soon you’ll be able to subscribe to any new posts and get them delivered straight to your mailbox!

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]]> http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/02/14/drive-traffic-with-email-marketing/feed/ 0 New software to play with http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/01/29/new-software-to-play-with/ http://www.u-g-h.com/2007/01/29/new-software-to-play-with/#comments Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:56:35 +0000 Owen http://www.u-g-h.com/?p=96 Came across a bunch of new free software today if you have some time to play:

  • Paint.Net v3.0 : Lots of improvements including tab-based MDI, better colour palette, better UI and new effects
  • DotNetNuke v4.4.1 : Lots of stability and performance impovements
  • VMWare Convertor v3.0 : Convert a physical machine into a VMWare virtual machine at the touch of a button

Lots to play with, so get downloading now!

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