MrQwest is the alias of Anthony, a London based web developer who enjoys building accessible & elegant websites.
Anthony on 2 January 2009
So Google released they’re on web browser to spice up the already rampant ‘browser war’. Google Chrome is still in its early stages but features the basics when it comes to browsers. It’s got Tabs, a fully featured address bar and “Incognito Mode” to name just a few.
I’ve been using Chrome since Google publically released it, and it has become my browser of choice for the most part on all my computers. Even my wife requested Chrome be installed on her new netbook!
However, there is a few little niggles with Chrome which keep me going back to Firefox for developing sites. Something I don’t particularly like doing as Firefox runs quite slow for me compared to Chrome.
So here is my list of things I wish Google Chrome does, but doesn’t!
- Chris Pederick’s Web Dev Toolbar – A no-brainer. This tool has saved me so much time in the past and I just can’t get on with Chrome’s “Element Inspector” tool, so this is the number one reason I keep going back to Firefox when developing.
- Adblock – Blatantly. I Had been using Firefox since about 1.3. That’s around 3 or 4 years. The first extension that was recommended to me was Adblock Plus. All of a sudden, 99% of adverts dissapeared, and my browsing experience was immediately better. Since then, I’ve had very minimal contact with net adverts. So when I used Chrome for the first time, it really made me realise just how many adverts have appeared on websites. I realise that online advertisers have had to place more adverts because people like me use Adblock, but please.
- Greasemonkey – What an excellent tool. Greasemonkey allows you to add functionality to various websites you visit by installing javascripts via Greasemonkey. I Seriously do not use this tool to its full potential with only a handful of scripts installed, but it has made my browsing experience better.
- Stylish – Similar to Greasemonkey, but instead of adding functionality, you can add your own styles to various websites using CSS. I use this generally for creating fixed width layouts on some forums I visit. I hate the fact that a forum will stretch across the whole screen. It makes it hard to read, so I used this tool to fix the width to make the posts more readable.
- Delicious Bookmarks – Last, but by no means least – the Delicious Bookmark buttons. I’m so used to just hitting the Delicious icon on the website I’m on to bookmark it. And yes, I am aware that Delicious offer javascript bookmarklet’s which allow you to bookmark easily on Chrome… However, i loved the fact that i can drag a link to the Delicious Bookmarks icon and it’ll bookmark the link which is really handy at work. If I see a link that I want to read, I just drag it to the icon, and it’s book marked for later reading.
I’m aware that all these wish list items are extensions to Firefox, and Google have announced that they are bringing extensions to Chrome, but I wish they’d hurry up about it!
Anthony on 21 October 2008
I recently married my beautiful new wife, and as a wedding gift, she gave me an iPod Touch. This is a fantastic peice of kit. I’ve always wanted to have access to my contacts, my email, my calendar etc etc wherever I was because i’m rather forgetful about everything.
Anyway, the iPod Touch comes with it’s own mail & calendar apps. The mail one is pretty sweet, and I immediatly wanted to set it up with my Gmail account.
After going through the settings, adding a Gmail account and trying to verify, it kept telling me it had failed on the SSL authentication.
Bugger.
So I hunted around the internet looking for a solution, and I found it!
Clear the captcha
I’ve got nooo idea what the hell this is for but it worked for me! As detailed in this Google help page, clearing the Captcha will help if you’re having trouble logging in. Head on over to this page to clear your captcha.
Once you’ve cleared your captcha, you’ll now want to set up your Gmail.
If you’ve unsuccessfully set up any other gmail accounts on your iPod and they don’t work – delete them. Then head into your settings / mail and add a new account. When you add a new account, don’t hit the “Gmail” button when it asks you what service to use. Tap Other and then enter the settings manually as described on the Google help pages.
Tap Other. (Note: If you’re running software update 1.1.3 or later, tapping the ‘Gmail’ icon will automatically configure IMAP. However, archiving and deleting messages will work differently. If you want your Gmail IMAP actions to operate as designed, please continue on to the next step.
Follow the instructions as found on this Google help page
Yes, it’s for the iPhone but the principles are the same!
Once you’ve entered all the details, you should hear a sound to signal that all is working and you should see ticks down the side of all the options!
If you then head back to your home screen and hit the mail icon, you should be presented with your Gmail account! Hurrah!
Anthony on 19 August 2008
Dan Cederholm recently posted an article regarding Ampersands, & how they can be used to spruce up some dull text. This was an astonishing read & well worth the read if you can spare 10 or 15 minutes!
I enjoyed reading Dan’s post and wanted to add that functionality to my site, but didn’t want to go through my existing site changing all the ampersands to include a SPAN tag and CLASS attribute.
Then I read an essay written by Patrick Haney. Dan’s post really struck a chord with Patrick, which spurred him onto writing the aforementioned essay. Patrick felt the same way, and didn’t fancy adding a SPAN tag or CLASS attribute to all his ampersands, so with the help of jQuery (and John Resig – creator of jQuery) wrote a nifty script which would replace all the ampersands on the page with an ampersand wrapped in a span tag!
Thanks to Dan for the original post and Patrick for his post including the how-to on writing the jQuery file to swap the ampersands on the fly!
I’ve followed the steps on Patricks page and implemented them here, and as you can see, here is my stylised ampersand!
&
Man, jQuery just keeps coming up trumps!
Anthony on 20 July 2008
Javascript frameworks have been around for a while now, and there are numerous libraries to choose from with mootools, scriptaculous and prototype to name a few. jQuery is another framework which is gaining popularity quickly due to it’s motto:
The write less, do more javascript library
Recently, whilst doing a bit of work on my site, i wanted a simple front page displaying my latest tweets. That’s all I wanted to show initially, but I also wanted my recent works to be there somewhere. I’ve seen various javascript-enabled websites on the internet, and really enjoyed the interactivity and the effects. The javascript would bring these sites to life, so I done a bit of research into Javascript.
After checking out jQuery, i’m wondering why I never looked at this before. It all seems so easy to implement and get working. I had more-or-less exactly what I wanted with about an hour’s work.
Since then, i’ve been delving into various jQuery tutorials, reading various websites and printing off cheat sheets to help me learn this excellent language, and i’m sure it’ll be a handy addition to my skills for the future.
I’ll also be adding some more jQuery touches to the site over the following months, all the while; learning more & more about javascript and it’s powers!
I’ll post any nifty tips I learn right here!
Anthony on 20 July 2008
Hello!
My name’s Anthony, and I like to call myself a designer. I’ve been designing websites for about 10 years now, and have enjoyed every minute.
Over the years, i’ve changed skills, programs and styles and at the moment, i’m using Photoshop for design and Notepad++ for my XHTML + CSS coding requirements. I’m also a big fan of Textpattern (CMS) and use that to power 90% of sites I build.
I love to create websites and relish in watching people use something i’ve built.
I also enjoy learning new things, so at the moment i’m researching and reading about jQuery, the popular javascript framework.