‘ tips ’ Category

Free Dreamweaver Alternatives

No response, Mar 07, 2009

When writing web code, wether in php, javascript, or classic html, people like to use code editor software to make sure their syntax is correct and be able to manipulate and preview their changes with ease. Personally I just notepad (win) or text editor (os x) usually for editing websites but if I need a code editor I turn to my copy of dreamweaver. In this economy however most enthusiasts don’t have the money throw away for an expense editor like Dreamweaver. As a result if you are looking for a free code editor try one of the following:

Nvu
Uses Mozilla Gecko as its rendering image and as a result displays the same it will look in Firefox. Nvu also includes cool features like a built in ftp editor, site editor, and awesome css editor.

License GPL, cost Free. Platforms Win | Mac | Linux

Amaya
A website editor released by w3c, you can expect it focus on web coding standards. This lacks ftp support unlike Nvu though but includes a web browser view option.

License: W3C, cost free. Platforms Win | Mac | Linux

Bluefish Editor
One of the only editors for linux, Bluefish editor is a fast stable editor and if your on linux you can’t go wrong with this choice. It sates on its site it can open up to 500+ simultaneous documents.

License: GPL, cost free. Platforms Mac | Linux | (Windows with CYGWIN)

Aptana Studio
A great robust editor for creating web application with support for JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, and PHP development. It also has great Ajax, DOM, HTML and CSS support and plug-ins for Adobe AIR and Apple iPhone development.

License: Closed Source Cost Free. Win | Mac OSX 10.4+ | Linux (with GTK)

Webserver Monitoring

No response, Oct 29, 2008

How do you keep tabs on your hoster for your website? Is your website down? Have you suddenly lost the chance to get that phone call because the person visiting your site got a blank screen and you didn’t know?

Well I along, with many other. have found a site called Basic State that checks to see if your web server (along with other types of servers) is up and notifies you if it suddenly goes down. It also in additions sends you a daily performance report of your website. I have been using it for some time now and it has notified me of a failure of my client’s web severs before I even knew and really saved me. As a result of knowing this failure I was able to provide less down time for the client and get that server back up and running faster because I knew there was a problem.  So try it out because you never know when your servers going to go down, whether its hosted by a small company out in no where or by some large enterprise, you better be safe then sorry.

Mac Tip: Force Eject a CD or DVD that is stuck in your Mac

1 response, Oct 23, 2008

Ever had a disc in your drive on your mac that won’t eject?  Will below are some tips on how to eject the disc if that happens:

“1) First, try iTunes. Sometimes the iTunes eject button will work, even if your Finder eject button, or keyboard eject button won’t.

2) Open Terminal.app and type “drutil tray eject” – this will eject the disk tray most of the time.

3) If you’re still having no luck, you can restart your Mac and hold down the mouse button. Keep your finger pressed down until the disk ejects, or the login screen appears.”  (Taken From MacTips)

If none of the above work then call up apple and see if they will help you get it out because that is one stuck cd or dvd.

My Favorite MAC OS X Terminal Commands

1 response, Oct 12, 2008

Since my purchase of my new mac book I have been using the thing like crazy. As a result of me also developing on the Mac I have used the terminal quite often for my developing. Some of the terminal commands I have found have been quite useful, others are just plain fun.  There’s one thing I am sure is that the developers of the Mac OS X operating system put a little fun into it and applaud them for that. I also would like to apologize because since my use of MAC I have been using it a lot for developing and not for some use that normal people might use it for, as a result this article is tailored for developers more. SO with out further wait heres some of my favorite terminal commands for Mac OS X leopard.

 

Mysterious Translucent Hidden Apps in Dock

defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES

This makes any application in the Dock that is hidden have a translucent icon. This is extremely helpful when you are developing and using hidden applications to do it. It allows me to quickly find the applications I am working with while developing. There is a down side though, their is NO WAY TO REVERSE this command so use at your own risk.

 

Widgets on the Desktop

 

This allows you to drag widgets out of Dashboard onto the desktop. Requires the dock to be relaunched to take effect, so type “killall Dock” and press enter. Now, if you click and hold onto a widget in the dashboard and press F12 to return to the desktop, the widget won’t disappear with the rest. Put NO at the end to reverse.

 

Now this has been an extremely helpful little trick. As a result I have been usign a lot of my apps sorta liek normal applications or like gadgets for Microsoft’s Vista operating system but its not all widget I put on the desktop are contained in one spot like on Vista and on mac I can move them around and keep some in the normal widgets display and some on the desktop.

 

System Stats at Login

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo SystemVersion 
Displays useful system stats in the login window. More details here. Replace “SystemVersion” with one of the following for different stats:
SystemBuild 
SerialNumber 
IPAddress 
DSStatus 
Time
HostName

 

This is a good terminal command to do especially if you are a developer and have a lot of mac or several and need to know which one you are working on.

 

Getting rid of Crash Notices

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none
Disables the unexpectedly quit dialog that normally appears when an application crashes. Replace “none” with “prompt” to enable again.

 

This is very helpful when you are testing out an application or fixing errors or bugs or are just trying out some alpha software.

 

Find the Hidden treasure in OS X

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
Shows hidden files in the finder. Replace TRUE with FALSE to hide hidden files again

 

Now you might not actually find hidden treasure in the hidden folder you see after you reboot but you might find a lot of stuff you haven’t seen before and can prove quite interesting. Please note though you must reboot before this will take in to affect like some of these commands, also please note that changing hidden files and folders can damage your system so use at risk. 

 

THE VOICE OF THE MAC TERMINAL GHOST

say Hello

Replace hello with the word you want Mac OS X to say.

 

This is by far the most fun command I have found so far. This thing doesn’t just popup a little box saying hello, No it says it over your speakers and to a tune of a song to.  Then combined this terminal command with Mac’s Automator app and then set your script to start at startup and you can create awesome welcome voice overs the I will show in a later video.  This by far is the funniest terminal command ever, and is something that show truly how fun and awesome the MAC team is.

 

Now with the addition to the Mac to my computer I can say by far it is my most favorite system, as it might show in my future article too.

 

Got a question, comment, or a tip I missed, or would like to share some other tech stuff with me or ask a question contact me at anthony AT anthonykosednar DOT  com

You may also find me on twitter at twitter.com/gamers600

 

My source for this article on how to use the commands and more about them for this article is http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/terminal-commands-for-hidden-mac-os-x-settings.html 

 

Ways to speed up your pc

2 responses, Oct 12, 2008

Your computer slow? Takes hours for you to do want you want?  Then this article and some more following it are for you.

Now theses tips is for Windows XP because it is the operating system that most people have been coming to me about but I will also be posting about other versions of Windows including Vista and some server versions, in addition to MAC OS X. So look out for those and you will be crusing up to speed.  Also look out for my instructional videos I will also be posting for the more advance stuff.

Free up disk space:

  • Remove temporary Internet files.
  • Remove downloaded program files (such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets).
  • Empty the Recycle Bin.
  • Remove Windows temporary files.
  • Remove optional Windows components that you don’t use.
  • Remove installed programs that you no longer use.
Optimise Your Pagefile    

“If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating system from needing to resize the page file.

  • Right click on My Computer and select Properties
  • Select the Advanced tab
  • Under Performance choose the Settings button
  • Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
  • Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.”

(From: http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2005/12/03/10-simple-ways-to-speed-up-windows-xp/2/)

 

Detect and repair disk errors

 

“In addition to running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter to optimize the performance of your computer, you can check the integrity of the files stored on your hard disk by running the Error Checking utility.  

As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult, or even impossible. The Error Checking utility scans the hard drive for bad sectors, and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced.

If you use your computer daily, you should run this utility once a week to help prevent data loss.

To run the Error Checking utility:

1. Close all open files.
2. Click Start, and then click My Computer.
3. In the My Computer window, right-click the hard disk you want to search for bad sectors, and then click Properties.
4. In the Properties dialog box, click the Tools tab.
5. Click the Check Now button.
6. In the Check Disk dialog box, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box, and then click Start.  

Image of Check Disk dialog box
7. If bad sectors are found, choose to fix them.”  

(FROM: http://www.microsoft.com/AtWork/getstarted/speed.mspx)

 

Remove the Desktop Picture
Your desktop picuture uses a lot of memory on your pc. Removal of it will increase preformance.
  • Right click on Desktop and select Properties
  • Select the Desktop tab
  • In the Background window select None
  • Click OK
Remove Spyware and Viruses
Spyware and viruses can cause a big load on your pc too. Use a spyware and/or virus removal tool to get rid of any.
(I recommend AVG Free Addition and Super AntiSpyware)
Make sure you are Up to date
Normally people don’t bother to update their software but in some cases (especially with older programs) it may benefit the performance of your computer. This is because some updates to programs and software contain memory usage fixes which fix and improve upon the program’s usage of memory. With Microsoft updates though in most cases I recommend you turn off Automatic Updates and install all updates manual with cation because with Microsoft some updates might actually hurt your pc (which has been the case with them at times).  That is why it is always good to look up community feedback about updates from them. 

 

Some more advance things that I recommend doing and i will talk about soon in future articles this week include some of the following:

- Going in the registry and commenting out certain entries in the registry

- Disabling certain unnecessary services

- Optimizing your internet connectino

- Optimizing your router (wireless including to in addition to apple air port and time capsule)

and some more…so look out for those this week.

 

Got a question, comment, or a tip I missed, or would like to share some other tech stuff with me or ask a question contact me at anthony AT anthonykosednar DOT  com

 

You may also find me on twitter at twitter.com/gamers600

What make a good Blog?

2 responses, Sep 29, 2008

Since I made this blog for myself I have had to ask myself this question and here what I have come down too:

 

1. Original Content –  Most readers do not want to read the same thing across the net 50 times

2. Creativity – Its blog your blogging on so once in a while you should be creative so express your self on it some times

3. Regularly updated – Having constantly new engaging content excites the reader and makes them want to visit your site more.

4. Help – Sometimes a person only wants to know if they should buy for example something or the best way to do something so its good to get to the point sometimes.

 

And that pretty much my opinion on blogging for now so I’m gona try to improve my blog according to what I said here so I hope you enjoy.