For Updating Pro Websites, SmartFTP Can’t be Beat

The professional website that I work on (yes, I do have a day job) just underwent a major upgrade. New hosting, new domain name, the whole nine yards. This new site comes with FTP support. At first, I didn’t see the problem with a built-in HTML editor. But now, with this much larger site, I needed the powerful capabilities of a standalone FTP client. The first one I came across was SmartFTP. Once installed, I was logged in to the website and transferring files in minutes. I mainly use it for simple purposes, but I hear that you can make it as advanced as you want. If you are just starting out with FTP but still want room to expand, I definitely recommend SmartFTP.

Best… Extension… Ever!

I am a big fan of video podcasts. Alas, my portable media player does not have video functionality, so I mainly watch them on my PC. Downloading all of those large files through Firefox’s built-in interface can be slow and clunky, so I installed the DownThemAll extension. This is, in my opinion, the best Firefox extension currently available. There are just too many good things to name, so I will just say this: Download it, install it, and prepare for a downloading experience 1,000 times better than before.

A Simpler Twist on Todo.txt

I was perusing Slacker Manager the other day when I came across their “Best Of” section. There are many interesting posts featured there, but one caught my eye. It is called “Append to text file v.4” Using the free program AutoHotkey as a base, this post gives you a script that allows you to append text to a text file with a timestamp. This could have many uses: research, a worklog, etc., but I chose to use it for a to-do list. Keyboard shortcuts allow you to easily append text, dump the clipboard into the file or call up the file itself. With some simple editing of the script file, you can set the path of the text file to be anywhere on your computer. I will try this out for a few weeks , but at the moment it seems like a much simpler alternative to the previously-discussed Cygwin method of Todo.txt.

Problem Solved!

I have recently been having the most annoying problem with Firefox. To make it more understandable, let me put it into context. I use a wonderful PDF reader called Foxit Reader. It loads much faster than the competition from Adobe. So, when I come across a PDF file in Firefox, I want it to open in Foxit. But, when I visit Tools>Options>Content>File Types> Manage, I am met with a puzzling sight: no file types listed! I have done research on this problem but only found references to it occuring in Firefox 1.5 (I am using 2.0). But, finally, I found the solution. There must have been a corrupt something-or-other in my Firefox profile. See, uninstalling Firefox through Add/Remove Programs only removes the essential program files, not your stored extensions, bookmarks, config files, etc. But, when I uninstalled Firefox and deleted my Mozilla folder (Located in C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\), and then reinstalled Firefox, the problem was solved. Now, I am happily viewing PDF files in Foxit Reader.

Remember the Milk: A Worthy Alternative to Todo.txt

If you’re not much into the Cygwin, Unix bash-script menagerie that is the Todo.txt organization system, you should try the web-based task manager Remember the Milk. It’s a whole lot simpler than Todo.txt, and has a lot of great features unique to itself. For example, you can view a Google Maps/RTM mashup of your tasks by the locations that they are based upon (for example, you would pre-configure the address for Kroger, and when you typed “buy milk” as a task, you’d select Kroger as the location). If you have a lot of tasks sprawled out in different areas, this can really help you plan your day. RTM also allows you to add different “lists” (more like contexts to those GTD folks) to which you can append tasks so that they are not all floating around in one big task bowl. And with sharing and publishing capabilities as well as a spiffy Web 2.0 interface, RTM is a viable contender to other methods of organization. In fact, in comparison to Todo.txt, I am starting to favor RTM. So, give it a try- it’s free!

Search Opening Windows From Firefox

If you want to search Opening Windows directly from Firefox, no matter what URL you are at, I have the code for you (There is a tutorial for you to do this on your own site, but it uses Google. I had to do some tweaking to use the built-in WordPress search).

1. Paste the following code into Notepad:

<search
name=”Opening Windows”
method=”GET”
action=”http://openingwindows.wordpress.com/”
queryCharset=”utf-8″
>

<input name=”s” user>
</search>

2. Save the file as “ow.src” in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins (and be sure to select All Files from the drop-down, or else it will be saved as ow.src.txt).

3. Also in that folder, save this .GIF file.

That’s it! Now, when you restart Firefox and access your search bar in the upper-right of the window, you will see an “Opening Windows” option, complete with the Windows logo.

Google Reader Shared Items

This is a link to the Google Reader page that contains my favorite posts from all of the RSS feeds I read.

Google Reader -  shared items