How To

Build what you see

 

I’m really digging this agile software development idea, which boils down to:

  1. Create the user interface.
  2. Build the code to power it.

Without a UI, you just have a bunch of developers and stakeholders, each having a vague notion of what the app will do and look like, and who it will serve. This leads to:

  • frustration for all parties when the finished product doesn’t match the stakeholders’ vision
  • wasted time on features that no-one will use
  • missed opportunities for features that would’ve been obvious with a UI in hand

Click2Zap Bookmarklet 1.1

 

Use Click2Zap to remove elements from the page for printing (remove text/images to save paper/ink) or reading comfort purposes.

Note: MyPage can do this and a lot more.

Get it

You must enable Javascript! (right-click, add to favorites or bookmarks)

Features

  • click2zap panel fixed to the top right of the window.
  • as you rollover elements, they are highlighted with a yellow background.
  • click the highlighted element to remove it.
  • click undo to replace elements (unlimited).
  • disable allows links to work (though you can always right-click a link)
  • use the print link on the click2zap panel to hide the panel and print.

Caveats:

  • The page author’s print CSS will still be used, so elements may already be removed for you (do a quick print-preview to find out what you still need to remove)
  • All element onclick handlers are overwritten, so you may need to reload the page to re-enable these.
  • Plug-ins/embedded media players can’t be removed, but you can try to remove elements containing them.
  • Undo sometimes shifts layout.

To Do:

  • Have a zap/keep toggle. When in “keep” mode, all surrounding elements are remove on click: potentially easy. (thanks Brian)
  • Activate print styles onscreen to see what will print by default: unknown difficulty
  • Record removed element ids in a cookie and allow one-click removal of all of them when you’re on the same site: easy-ish, but cookie code adds bloat and you could only record elements with ids.

Much thanks to Troels Jakobsen’s Bookmarklet Builder

Reorder WordPress Link Categories

 

Update 1/14/2011: According to Dustin Gurley, this still works in WP3 w/ minor modification. Thanks, Dustin.

Update 1/30/06: a plug-in now exists to handle this.

WordPress lacks the ability to specify the exact order that link categories appear in the sidebar. The get_links_list() function can only order categories by name or id, and this limitation becomes annoying when you create your categories out of order (you can no longer order by id) or want to rename your categories (“Junk” has to appear before “My Favorite Links”).

Here’s how to completely customize the order of your link categories:

  1. Open up your WP database with a database admin tool (eg. MySQL Query Browser or phpMyAdmin).
  2. Find the wp_linkcategories table and the row of the category you’d like to appear first.
  3. Update the cat_name field of that row, prefixing the existing name with the HTML comment: <!--01--> (eg. My Stuff becomes: <!--01-->My Stuff)
  4. Update the rest of the rows in the order you want those categories to appear, prefixing each name with <!--02-->, <!--03-->, et.al.

Now when get_links_list() orders categories by name, they’ll be in order by the numbers in the comments, which will be hidden by the browser.

Note that you can’t simply enter the comment within WP because it will escape the greater/less than characters, breaking the format of the comment. For the same reason you won’t be able to change the edited category names within WP without breaking the comments, though you can remove the comments and go back to ordering by name or id.

Maybe someone will make a plug-in to do this from within the WP interface.

Ctrling folders

 

OK, I’ve been annoyed for forever that, in Windows, you can either set your folders to always open in a new windows (good when I’m queuing up mp3s in very big folders where I don’t want to lose my place) or always reuse the current window (good for about everything else). Well, annoyances.org came through for me.

Ctrl + double click – open the folder in the opposite way of your default. (plus more goodies)

So now I don’t have to lose my place among the 795 artist folders to open up Lilys and queue up Better Can’t Make Your Life Better.

I forget

 

If I remember to do anything these days it’s thanks to gentle, but consistent, nagging. These help with that:

Ta-da Lists
Quick management of multiple to-do lists. I have my list page sitting in an Opera sidebar so there’s an ambient level of nagging at all times. It simply does one thing really well. I approve.
Time Cave
Schedule e-mail reminders to be sent to yourself. Again, simple and I approve.
Kathleen
I approve!

Also, 37Signals‘ new creation, BackPack, combines both of these and much more (add content to a page/list by e-mail!) but it’s completely unusable to me at the moment because Opera has a few bugs in its implementation of the recently fashionable XMLHttpRequest Javascript object, which BackPack uses for just about everything. Luckily Opera gets updated all the time so I’m patient and hopeful.

Get it together

 

Basically, 100 ways to get your s!@% together.

It makes good sense. Unresolved issues (physical, mental, financial, emotional) take energy to live with. They provide distraction, limitations, stress, uncomfortable situations, the list goes on… Of course, they want to sell you a book, but the list spells out what you need to do pretty well. Some of them are easy, you can get them resolved in a day or week, then there’s stuff like:

I am on a career / professional / business track which is or will soon be financially and personally rewarding.

Some of what I’ve yet to resolve:

  • I am putting aside enough money each month to reach financial independence.
  • I have nothing around the house or in storage that I do not need.
  • I use well-made sunglasses.
  • I have had a complete physical examination within the past 3 years.
  • My will is up-to-date and accurate.
  • I drink at least 2 liters of water a day.

What Pop-ups? (An Opera Story)

 

Advertising.com revealed that people click on annoying pop-up ads 13 times as often as they do passive banner ads. This will surely translate to even more sites using pop-ups for generating ad revenue, but I’ll still never see them because the software developers of the web browsers Opera, Netscape, Mozilla and Safari care about user experience. They’ve integrated intelligent pop-up blockers as part of their feature-rich browsers. What I mean by intelligent is that these browsers will still allow pop-ups when you request them (by clicking a link) rather than indiscriminately blocking all pop-up windows (like the 3rd-party, parasitic add-ons to IE do).

I Heart Opera

Speaking of user experience, Opera7.1 is the most user-centric web browser I’ve used.

  • It loads in a heartbeat and uses very little memory.
  • I search google by typing “g [terms]” (similarly for
    Amazon, E-bay, etc.)
  • While I read, I open links in the background so I can look at them after
    finishing an article without having to wait as they load. Meanwhile they
    sit in a convenient, tabbed interface instead of in individual windows.
  • When researching something, I can create simple text notes that automatically
    remember where I was when I took them.
  • To go back I just hold the right mouse button and click the left (and
    vice-versa to go forward again).
  • If text is too big or small, I can zoom a whole page in 10% increments
    with [+/-].
  • I can “skin” the browser when I feel like a new look. (see
    pink_bunny
    or Azurino)
  • I can toggle images, javascript, java applets, plug-ins (like Flash),
    cookies, animated GIFs, embedded sounds.
  • It’s the most
    compliant browser with regards to modern web standards    , letting me see
    sites as the designer fully intended.
  • If sloppy designers make broken web pages I can turn their style off with
    one click, giving me access to the unadulterated content of the site.
  • The latest version is only a 3MB download.

I could go on and on, but, basically, Opera innovates in ways that put me in control rather than leaving me at the mercy of the web. It’s all in their vision:

We believe in respect for our users.

Users have since the beginning shaped Opera’s features and spread the word to the uninitiated. Thanks to this interaction Opera Software exists today, both as an organization and as a technology leader. Opera Software will never forget that its main focus is the user.