Xara Xtreme Introduction – overview of new features

Gary Priester has put together a wonderful tour of all the new features in XaraXtreme.
Go have a drool … If you have always believed that vector graphics and bitmap graphics software should be kept at arm’s length from each other, you might rethink that once you try out this new Xara version.

Filed under: Graphics, Xara

pLog has officially become LifeType

I must’ve just caught the site, literally, the minute they were switching over … one moment I still had the old pLogWorld website – a minute later I refresh and there is the LifeType page!
You can also reach the site via LifeType.org.
Talk about a historic moment.
Here’s the background to the switch: pLog now called LifeType

I’ve been following the pLog development with great interest for some months now. I am very impressed with the software, how the project is working, and also the community.
If you don’t know pLog/LifeType yet – you’re in for a treat. Do check it out.
I am thinking of setting up one of my community hosting projects/sites with it.

Filed under: Blog Tools, LifeType

Best Firefox Extensions

rambleschmack has compiled a definitive list (as far as anything is definitive … and what sort of name is rambleschmack anyway?).
I happen to agree with a lot on his list.

Filed under: FireFox

HTML Validator Plugin for FF 1.5

is now available (version 0.7.6) and works!
I hadn’t realised how much I relied on this one. Especially if you check code and templates a lot. It’s right at the top of my must-have extensions.

Filed under: FireFox, Web Development

Benchmarking Weblog Software

The results in a nutshell:
- Lightpress has the edge (without any caching plugins) and Textpattern comes in second, then Serendipity and finally WordPress.
- Textpattern comes in first with caching plugins enabled (although there is none for Lightpress).
- Textpattern also generally has a relatively low memory footprint (albeit not as low as Lightpress).
TextDrive Forum: Comparison of TP and WP

Sencer.de conducted WordPress vs. Textpattern – a quick performance benchmark in March 2005, with a follow-up in May.

He also discovered a security hole, back in July 2004, and what’s interesting about that is the way the two core developers reacted: WordPress, Textpattern and Security.
Hmmm.

Filed under: Blog Tools, WordPress

Open-source Software for Windows

Great: My Open Source – an organised listing for Windows-compatible OSS.

Filed under: Software

Google homepage – not cheesy

A personalized Google homepage?? How cheesy, I thought.
Remember all those portals a few years ago, all trying to get you to use them as your homepage. Netscape, from memory, was particularly gruesome.

But as soon as I looked at the Google version (you need an account, obviously, like a Gmail account) and started playing around with … well, once you’re in play mode, you’re hooked.

I’m actually finding this homepage quite useful. It helps that there’s the Google trademark ‘no clutter’ approach. I hate clutter, which is why I ran screaming from all the other portal homepages.
You can add all sorts of items (news, bookmarks, gmail watch); you click ‘Add’ and then you can drag the item into the position where you want it on the webpage. Cool stuff – I guess this is done via Ajax?
The best thing of all is the Add Content -> Create a Section: Here you can enter any web address which puts out some kind of feed and the news feed will appear instantly on your homepage.

Filed under: Google

The <!–more–> Quicktag is working! It’s working!

Shout it from the rooftops: Yippe-dee-doo-dah, the more tag is functioning!

Oh, man, am I a happy WP.com camper right now. I wish the person who fixed this bug would put his/her hand up, so I can kiss his/her feet! Just wondering whether my feedback of a couple of days ago (when I grizzled, politely of course, about the misbehaving more tag) had anything to do with this …? Whatever – the moral is clear : Use that Feedback box and good things will happen.

Update 2 November: Just noticed that there is now an icon for the More tag in the visual editor – yay! I’m sure that wasn’t there before … That was the one reason holding me back from using the Vis Editor, not having that More tag.

I seem to go on a lot about this More tag, don’t I?

Talking of tags/icons: Now I miss another one! The insert tag. Useful when you’re doing updates on posts – it inserts the date/time.  And off I send another Feedback report … hehe, they’ll be getting sick of me very soon.

Filed under: Wordpress.com

Update: SessionSaver for Firefox 1.5

New version: 0.2.1.030.2.5
For me, this link worked: sessionsaver-0.2.1.030.2.5
The latest discussion, tips etc. as always at the MozillaZine Forum.

Filed under: Wordpress.com

Flock so far …

No, I haven’t installed it.
I don’t need to – I’ve got my WP.com account.

OK, joking aside: I normally jump at anything that’s beta or, even better, alpha. But in this case … nah. It’s a case of protecting what you’ve got.
(This post was updated 29 October)

Filed under: Browsers

Successful test install of Typo

I can’t believe it really worked … I’m still chuffed

Typo is weblog software that runs under Ruby on Rails.
Dreamhost recently made this technology available to their account holders.
Since I happen to have an account (mainly for odd-job testing purposes) there, I thought I’d give it a try. Without spending much time on reading up etc., I dived in. And it worked – more or less out of the box.

I’ll write up the installation process and how it worked for me – plus first impressions of Typo – soon. The test blog is at Sardines on Toast.

Filed under: Blog Tools, Ruby on Rails

Web Designers: Embrace your bottoms!

It’s time we designers start thinking about page footers as part of the experience design of a complete site. The bottom of a page is the kiss at the end of the date – and we’re making sites that end without even a handshake.
Derek Powazek: Just a Thought

Filed under: QOTD, Web Development