the blog of an aspiring intellectual and digital renaissance man
Playing with The GIMP a few days ago in a moment of relative idleness, I created this cool looking image which I might use as an avatar, or at least a “signature” on the forums I am known to frequent.
The evolution of the design is somewhat intriguing. I usually sign my emails “-Matt”, but screwed up once, and typed “_matt”. I thought this looks pretty cool (though I couldn’t tell you why), so I started using it. But then I thought of an abbreviation: “_m@”. Voilà. Idea + GIMP = avatar.
I recently happened upon a cool and little know digital oddity: alt codes. The basic idea is that you hold down the alt key while pressing a number (or several), and a henceforth un-typeable character is printed where your cursor is. Here are some of the more interesting ones (they are easier to see the larger you are rendering the text):
Alt+1 & 2: ☺ ☻
Alt+3 - 6: ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Alt+11 & 12: ♂ ♀
Alt+13 & 14: ♪ ♫
Alt+21: §
Alt+0165: ¥
Alt+0169: ©
Alt+235: δ
And many more. Go ahead, try it out. You know you want to.
Welcome to your monthly post from Matt Nichols, a man with very little free time. The topic of this post is a piece of software I have recently found, which is just too cool to be omitted from anyone’s technically oriented blog, especially mine.
This software of note is HTML Tidy (online version here). This software not only is capable of finding errors in your HTML code, but also extirpating excessive sloppiness in the code. While I may not make that many errors in my coding (I test extensively), I am rather sloppy with popularly accepted (W3, cough, cough) conventions (being doctype declarations, etc).
As I am starting to be commissioned as a web developer (I have gotten a few jobs building sites for people), I have decided that it might be a good idea to clean up my act, if you will. So, I could either go through the painful and tedious process of learning the aforementioned conventions and putting them to use in every single file, or I could try to find something to do it for me. Deus ex machina: HTML Tidy!
Anyway, this will save me an ample amount time and probably make someone happy (or at least the average web browser). I just thought you should know about it.
I tried to think of some sentimental and appropriate way to start this, properly honoring the amazing development of the Internet and all that, but it is more expedient to cut right to the chase. The Internet is awesome, and a ton of people use it. Some even have a computer specifically for the purpose of going online. So here I set out to identify and describe what I consider to be the best applications and services to use in conjunction with an internet connection. Oh, and yes, I was feeling octal today.
10. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon, also affectionately known as “Stumble”, is a Firefox extension used by recreational web surfers to “Stumble Upon” pages which they will most likely enjoy, according to their interests as identified to the service. It is a very, very fun way to waste time, but can also be used constructively (searching for popular pages relating to science, for instance).
7. vBulletin
vBulletin is online software that is used by many forums to manage, well, the whole thing. I don’t use it personally, but I might some day, and I frequent many forums that rely on it.
6. WordPress
Now, WordPress, I do use. You are actually looking at its results right now. WordPress is software, kind of similar to vBulletin, but for blogs. It makes it easy to post, administer, organize, etc, while still providing room for creative licence (you can mess with the themes, and stuff). It is easy to use and set up. And fun. You should try it.
5. SourceForge
SourceForge is the largest repository and host of open source software there is. I have two programs hosted there (Affinity and SiteDrive), and I am very pleased with their services. After you submit a request for hosting, they will provide you with space to put your software, publicity tools, a spot to put a site for your product, and many other great services.
4. Wikipedia
Almost everyone knows about Wikipedia, the user edited online encyclopedia. While many think that the fact that almost anyone can edit it makes it less accurate, I think it actually makes it more reliable, as more people have the option to correct and add to the articles there. Oh yeah, and there is lots and lots of information there, enclosed in over a million articles (in English; many can be found in other languages), on almost anything you can imagine. Amazingly cool and useful.
3. Gmail
Mentioned in several other posts, Gmail is the free web mail service offered by Google. It provides over two gigs of space for your mail, so you never have to delete (using the handy “archive” function instead). The interface is nice, smooth, easy to use, and unique from all others. The service is fast, innovative, and highly customizable. I highly suggest Gmail over any other email service.
2. Google
Well, everyone has heard of Google. It’s even a verb now. And rightly so: it is the best search engine on the web. Highly inclusive and easy to use, it almost always provides the results desired by the searcher. Google also has many other services for everyone from webmasters (Google Analytics) to those desiring 3D modeling easily done (SketchUp), all of which are free and immensely useful.
1. Firefox
The ultimate browser. Firefox is customizable, simple, reliable, cross-platform, open source, and tons of other great things. There are many extensions to add capabilities, fix problems, ease use, and more. If you use anything else, you are cheating yourself out of the best browsing experience you can have.
You know how your computer came with the little “Powered by Windows XP” sticker (or whatever) before you switched to Linux and peeled it off? Haven’t you always wished to have a similar sticker, though for your new, superior operating system? Well, if you use Ubuntu, you are in luck! System76, Inc., has an amazing offer (I thought) of free stickers that say “Powered by Ubuntu Linux”. Woot! Get yours here:
Browsing to my software website (call it my “company”, if you will) today, I noticed that my hit counter had reached 1,001! This means that over 1,000 people have visited Singularity Software! (check it out)
But you may ask, as did my mom, what does this mean to me? This is an important milestone only in that it shows the magnitude (paltry compared to some, but seemingly large to me) of my presence on the internet. Since the launch of Singularity Software, over 1,000 people have visited, over 1,000 people have seen who I am on my coding side, and over 1,000 people have had the option to put to use that which I spend so much time and thought upon: my software creations. I greatly value this part of my life, and it is of great importance to me that others have had the opportunity to appreciate that as well.
Upon visiting Singularity, one may notice that nothing has happened there in ages. It has remained fairly static for the last 5+ months. By way of reason and excuse, I present the fact that not only was I beginning to be greatly overwhelmed with school (a.k.a. AP classes) about five months ago, but that was also about when I switched to using Linux (upon which REALbasic, my old language, does not work that well). Thus, I have had neither time nor means to pursue my most prevalent hobby, but I will now alert you that the time when I have both is readily approaching. My self-education in Python is nearing a usable point, and I am building up a sea of coding project ideas. So stay alert and watchful: my code may soon again be appearing on the web!
Another token of Google’s power: it can easily be used to find music, ebooks, and other stuff that is lingering in the corners of the web, previously unaccessable. All you need is a simple search command:
intitle:”index.of” ([file type]) [keywords]
Like say you want to find AC/DC music:
intitle:”index.of” (mp3) AC/DC
Or an ebook on the Python programming language:
intitle:”index.of” (pdf) python
Why does it work? the “intitle” part looks at the the title of a page, and finds those that are an “index of” something, a fail safe way to identify a directory of files. People may not make their files visible via the pages on their site, but you can find them anyway! The dot instead of space in “index.of” is a bit of regular expressions, telling the search engine that it can find “index of”, “index_of”, “index+of”, or any other combination of “index”, one separating character, and “of”. The rest is pretty self explanatory. Enjoy!
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