TRINIX

As every mature webdesigner and webdeveloper knows that are a lot of differences between all the different browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari,..) Each browser renders a webpage and lay-out a bit differently.

Being the good webdesigner and webdeveloper you want your website / application to look the same in all browser. For this you use CSS hacks and exceptions and so on…

But the problem was usually testing the lay-out in different browsers.
You can install usually different browsers a long each other but there was a problem with installing different versions of browsers.

Example: Internet Explorer 6 still is used a lot, but if you update your windows you get the Internet Explorer 7 (which renders pages very differently from the Internet Explorer 6). So once you upgraded to IE7 there was no real possibility to test or install IE6. This is a widely know problem for most of the webdesigners and webdevelopers.

Until recently you had 2 options:

Option 1: install a VMware OS with for each VMware a different OS with different browser version
This was not ideal because of all performance issues with VMWare and not practical for debugging

Option 2: use a portable version of the browser (as mentioned in my previous post “Portable Internet Explorer 7“)
This was working, but also not ideal since limited and not always stable.

The kind people from DebugBar (IE alternative for Firebug, like mentioned in a previous post “Firebug for IE“) created a new tool “IETester”.
This is 1 tool which has all the different interenet explorer browser engines build-in.

Official description:“IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8 beta 1, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.”

I tested it and this is what every webdesigner has been looking for, believe me!!!
No more messing around with VMWare and portable version. Just 1 tool for all versions of Internet Explorer, what more do you need.

Download it here: Download IE Tester
Or have a closer look at the official website: http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

PS: you find the DebugBar (IE alternative for Firebug) there as well, a most have IE add-on

Screenshot of IE Tester:

A couple of months ago, I saw some promissing screencast of Adobe MAX convention about the new tool Adobe was working on.

The RIA tool was called “Thermo” and allows non technical people to put together a complete prototype of an application by simply drag and drop elements. This will close the gap between the design and development of applications. Thermo will provide the functionality to simulate application behavior and making it easier to build complete mock-ups for demo’s or for providing to the IT development teams. I think that this tool will be a great improvement for all the project managers. Giving them a lot of freedom to put together applications and playing around without actually having to develop everything. This tool could replace the wireframe design and speed up application development. I’m anxious awaiting the release.

Official Adobe description: “Thermo is an upcoming Adobe product that makes it easy for designers to create rich Internet application UIs. Thermo allows designers to build on familiar workflows to visually create working applications that easily flow into production and development.”

More info can be found on the official Adobe Labs website: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Thermo

A couple of screenshots:

A couple of Youtube previews:

In a previous post (Calendar Sync tools (Google, Outlook, Rainlendar) I mentioned that I was looking for a good tool to sync my Google calendar with Outlook.
I only seemed to find paying software but today Google itself launched a free sync tool

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=89955

Really easy to install and configure. You can choose 1 way or 2 way sync. This is makes the sync process between Google calendar and Outlook child play.

I’m a big Dreamweaver user because of the nice and user-friendly interface, the good intellisense and … (too much reasons to enumerate them all). I was missing only one main functionality that was better Javascript support and javascript intellisense. Since we are in the Web 2.0 age, the usage of Javascript has risen exponentially. Now Dreamweaver supports Javascript (and their own Javascript framework “Spry”) but I was missing intellisense for the famous Javascript frameworks (Prototype, Script.aculo.us, jQuery, mootools, …).

But somebody started to build Dreamweaver extensions that will fix this.
At the website http://xtnd.us/ you can find the current available DW extensions that they already build and / or will build.

For now they have the following available in béta:

• jQuery API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3 :: download the beta
• Prototype API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3:: download the really early beta
• Ext API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3 :: Download from Spket

Possible planned releases:

• Mochikit API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3
• MooTools API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3
• YUI API for Dreamweaver MX-CS3

Perhaps it’s time that the guys at Adobe start to support this by providing the Javascript framework extesions.

Ajaxian posted also an article on this topic: http://ajaxian.com/archives/dreamweaver-users-rejoice-support-for-js-libs-now-available

I love Firefox as a browser but when surfing a lot and using it long time it becomes a memory sucker (using a lot of necessary memory).
I applied the following tweaks and my memory miss usage was much lower.

• Assign Memory Cache on Firefox
• Release Memory when Firefox is minimized

Assign Memory Cache on Firefox

Firefox doesn’t use memory cache and uses system memory by default, it is good to assign a fixed memory cache to reduce the usage of memory.

1. Open the Firefox browser.
2. Key in about:config in the address bar.
3. Key in browser.cache.memory.enable in the Filter field.
4. Ensure the value of the above item is set it true, if not, double-click on it to set it to true.
5. Right-click in the browser and select New -> Integer from the pop-up.
6. Key in, browser.cache.memory.capacity, click OK.
7. You need to enter a value here and that value depends upon the RAM your computer has.
8. if you have:
   1. 256MB RAM – Enter “4096“.
   2. 512MB RAM – Enter “8192“.
9. Note: If you have 128MB or less RAM then you need to upgrade your RAM. It is not very expensive.

Important: If you want to restore to default settings then change browser.cache.memory.capacity value to -1 (minus 1).

Release Memory when Firefox is minimized

1. Open the Firefox browser.
2. Key about:config in the address bar.
3. Right-click in the browser and select New -> Boolean from the pop-up.
   
4. In the popup box enter config.trim_on_minimize. Click OK.
   
5. Select True and then click OK.
   
6. Restart Firefox.

I found these tweak on Zolved.com, if you need more tips concerning Firefox Memory Optimizing visit Zolved.com

I recently discovered “Lovely Charts” (http://www.lovelycharts.com). It’s an online Rich Internet Application build in Flex (flash GUI) and a PHP / MySQL back-end. It’s developed in Belgium (my country by Jérôme Cordiez (active at http://www.thisislovely.com ) and it’s really a piece of art.

Lovely charts allows you to create online charts – Diagrams – wireframes – …

This is like MS Visio but then really nice and easy and most important of all it’s ONLINE!!!
The interface is really intuitive and the functionality is almost complete (it’s still in Beta fase).

You can draw with lovely charts:

• Flowcharts
• Sitemaps
• Wireframes
• Organigram charts
• Network diagrams

The diagram symbols are vectorized and have a nice modern touch. The result are impressive charts and diagrams with a professional look. I tested already for personal use and now i’m even using it at my work as a Product Manager at StepStone Belgium. For my projects I have to create a lot of sitemaps, wireframes, diagrams, … and this tool just won over MS Visio. Creating complex sitemaps is no issue anymore. You can play around with all different arrows, colors, elements and symbols. Lovely charts allow you to create even the simplest or really complex diagrams without any problems, linking the different elements with one simple click. You can even specify the different types of arrow lines. When you are finished you can export your diagram / chart to a JPEG or PNG.

Everything is really straigtforward:

• drag-drop
• resize
• link elements
• adding text
• export

You can even select and manipulate multipe elements or use the keyboard to do actions.

I can’t say in words how much I like lovely Charts but just take a look at the impressive gallery and believe me afterwards you will signup. And the diagrams presented in the gallery are really created with lovely charts.

It’s a free service with the possibility to signup for a premium account.
With this premium account you can save your diagrams online.

Have a look at their gallery and watch the screencast at their nicely designed website
and Signup now for a free account

Are you looking for a fully MS Project alternative, please don’t search any longer.

OpenProj :: http://openproj.org/openproj

This tool has all the functionality like MS Project with a big diference namely that this is open source software.

I tested the tool through and believe me that this is a keeper.

Description of the website says it all.

“The OpenProj solution is ideal for desktop project management
and is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows. OpenProj is a complete
desktop replacement of Microsoft Project and even opens existing native
Project files. OpenProj shares the most advanced scheduling engine in
the industry with Project-ON-Demand. The OpenProj solution has Gantt
Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned
Value costing and more. “

So if you need an excellent alternative for MS Project just download OpenProj and you will be delighted.

The tool is used by all the big Linux CEO’s so that’s a good indication about the quality of OpenProj.

I was in serious need off a way to manage my tasks and agenda.

I found a really nice solution by using the following free tools:

• Rainlendar :: http://www.rainlendar.net/
• Google Calendar :: http://calendar.google.com
• Gcal Daemon :: http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net/

I started using Rainlendar (http://www.rainlendar.net/).It’s a desktop calendar that behaves like a small widget on your desktop. And it looks not only really nice, it also is really good software for managing events and todo’s. I even bought the PRO license because it provides the functionality to automatically read my outlook agenda and make them visible in Rainlendar. So no double importing.

Because I have a work laptop and a personal PC, I needed something to sync all my events online so that’s easy to manage. I noticed that Rainlendar supports google Calendar, so that was the way to go. And through google Calendar it’s possible to seperate my personal and work calendar because we can make as many calendars as we wont. And google calendar provides the possibility to share your calendar. So I had my desktop calender and I had an online calendar all in sync. But I noticed really quick that Rainlendar only allowed read access to google Calendar. So I needed a 2-way sync solution between Google Calendar and Rainlendar.

After some playing around I ended up with GCal Daemon (http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net/). This is an open source service which provides multiple functionality. GCALDaemon is primarily designed as a calendar synchronizer but it can also be used as a
Gmail notifier, Address Book importer, Gmail terminal and RSS feed converter. This tool runs like a service which every XX minutes syncs in a 2-way manner a specific online gcalendar to an iCal format (ICS file). The only thing I next needed to do was just set my Rainlendar to use the created ICS files and my desktop and online calendars were completely in sync. I can create an event online that will appear on my desktop and vice versa. PERFECT!!!

The only things i’m currently missing is:

• a tool to make my Outlook agenda sync with google Calendar
• a symilar manner to sync my Rainlendar todo’s with an online tool like Remember The Milk or if only google Calendar would provide an online todo functionality.

If anybody has found a way to sync his Rainlendar todo or export his Outlook Agendo to an RSS or iCal format, please let me know.

UPDATE: I found a really good Outlook <–> Google Calendar tool. SyncMyCal adds a toolbar to your Outlook which helps you perform one-click synchronization between your Outlook and Google Calendar calendaring system. You can choose which calendars you want to synchronize and if you want to perform one way or two way update.

SynMyCal :: http://syncmycal.com/outlook_google_calendar_sync.htm

It comes in 2 version:

• SyncMyCal Lite: the free version , it has no automatic sync so you have to push the button on regeluar times
• SyncMyCal Pro: which has all the functionality available

Today I installed a tool “Companion JS”, which is a javascript / HMTL tool that is based on Firebug for Firefox with the main difference that it works in IE.

This tool is absolutely a “must-have” for all the webdesign IE users.

You all know the yellow alert sign when a javascript error occurs in IE.

When you double click it, you will get an window telling you what whent wrong and where the error is located.

But the default error handlers is totally wrong and incorrect.

This is why the Companion JS is so easy.

It provides much more detailed Javascript debugging details and it works perfect with IE.

It gives you the correct error on the right line and you can even click the error to go to the code view of the code.

You can find all info here: http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/CompanionJS/HomePage

As a fan of open source, I can only agree what Vibhash (http://tech-tonic.net) is saying.

He made up a list of open source tools that replace expensive software tools.

The list is really rock solid:

http://tech-tonic.net/microsoft/25-essential-open-source-software-for-windows.html

So if you work on a Windows OS, you should consider using this software instead of buying all the expensive tools.