Category: Tools

Safari 4 Beta – Play with it Today!

The latest beta release for the Safari browser looks great and is fast. When you first try it out, the tabs (now above the title bar) seem a little out of place but once you play with it for a while I’ve come to the conclusion it is an improvement. So far I have not run into any problems on my routine daily sites, blogs and apps.

 As you type in a url or in the search area, a auto-drop down appears with choices which is a great time saver. There is also built in spell and grammar checking now. The new zoom in/out page view is nice implemented as well. The beta is available for both mac and windows. Full feature list at: http://www.apple.com/safari/features.html

 Learn more at http://www.apple.com/safari/

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TweetDeck – Application for Twitter & Tutorial Link

If you are looking for a desktop app for mac or windows, check out TweetDeck at http://www.tweetdeck.com/. Its an Adobe Air based application that lets you split your feeds into smaller bites to allow for easier management as well as posting tweets. Its currently in Beta and available for free.

 Also check out this great getting started video by Cali Lewis/Geekbrief.tv <a href="http://www.geekbrief.tv/gbtv-517-how-to-tweetdeck-like-a-pro.

http://www.geekbrief.tv/gbtv-517-how-to-tweetdeck-like-a-pro.<p>

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Mosso: Hosting and Deploying Web Servers Quickly

If you are a web developer or manage several sites, Mosso is a great hosted solution for $100 per month you can setup as many sites, urls and manage them independently. It allows for easy web-based management if you want to offer to your teams or clients and you can setup individual pricing or offer as part of your package.

 The service allows you to quickly deploy a new url and have a server setup within an hour. They offer dns, email and ftp support as well as configurations with MYSQL, Linux, or Windows and you can switch post launch with a couple clicks on the management site. The email service, offers pop3, smtp as well as a webmail service and spam filtering which you can control for each domain.

 They also offer a cloud service now, which we are in the process of testing, similar to Amazon’s service and they utilize Limelight’s network. If you are dealing with lots of video or large files it worth giving it a try to improve download speeds for your audience.

 We’ve been using them for about a year now and have deployed dozens of sites. Strongly recommend. They are also owned by Rackspace. Learn more at http://www.mosso.com/

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Silverbackapp.com – Usability Testing software for the Mac

Silverback is described as “guerilla usability tests” by its makers Clearleft, it allows you to use a mac and the app to record the user onscreen movements as well as their facial expressions using the built in camera on your mac. Its pretty incredible, for $49.95 and you can try it for 30 days for free. It auto highlights each click and allows you to review user activity and movements. I think its a great way to introduce to your team or clients to the ability during testing or focus group testing to also record inexpensively the movements and use the test data to help perfect your web site or product. Check it out at http://is.gd/12wf

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Quick overview of what it does and how it works.

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Posterous – amazing web app for blogging + sharing information.

Check out from an web 2.0 application stand point, this site is amazing. It takes the concept of blogging or maintaining a web site to a whole new level by allowing you to easily e-mail just about any type of content and it will auto build the page or entry for you. It could not get any easier. The design of the site is beautiful and clean. It the first major web site that has truly amazed me in the past couple of months and its a great new tool to use to share, blog or post content. The site will auto post the same info, if you want to twitter, flckr, as well as all major blogging tools. I highly recommend giving it a test drive and I’m sure you’ll jump on board. http://is.gd/eNfP

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