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How can I use RSS?

At GetUSB.info we receive emails from time-to-time asking about the RSS feed feature we provide and how it can be used. Today we are taking a few minutes to cover what an RSS feed is, how you can use it, what you need and how to validate the ones you subscribe too.

Aardvark

As you glide the mouse over the page, you will see a red rectangle framing each element under the cursor. You will also see a little yellow caption showing the HTML element type and its class or id if they exist.

• Clean up unwanted banners and surrounding “fluff,” especially prior to printing a page
• See how the page is created, block by block
• View the source code of one or more elements

Amazing Media Browser

Amazing Media Browser automatically searches for all embed objects in a website and shows you a list of the source links. You can then conveniently browse through each link to see the content of the source file. These are usually Flash movies, Windows Media movies or mp3 file links.

It can grasp pretty much all the file extensions that can be opened with Flash Player, Shockwave Player, QuickTime Player, Real Player or Window Media Player. It even comes with a favorite links feature that lets you store unlimited links for later use.

Answers

1-Click Answers will save you even more time with AnswersTips that instantly deliver the information you are looking for. Just point at any word, hold the Alt key and click. Upon letting go, an AnswerTip in the form of a pop-up “information bubble” appears on the screen explaining the term.

CopyURL+

The CopyURL+ extension enables you to copy to the clipboard the current document’s address along with additional information such as the document’s title, the current selection or both.

del.icio.us post

Posts current page or link to del.icio.us. Adds an entry to the context menu and a button to the toolbar.

FoxyTunes

Do you listen to Music while surfing the Web? Now you can control your favorite media player without ever leaving the browser.

Supports WinAmp, iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine, Pandora, foobar2000, Windows Media Player, Xbox Media Center, Musicmatch, Quintessential, J. River, jetAudio, XMPlay, MediaMonkey, Media Player Classic, Sonique, wxMusik, Real Player, XMMS, Noatun, Juk, Amarok, Music Player Daemon, Rhythmbox and many other players.

FireFTP

FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

GreaseMonkey

Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.

Hundreds of scripts, for a wide variety of poular sites, are already available at http://userscripts.org.

You can write your own scripts, too. Mark Pilgrim’s definitive Greasemonkey guide, diveintogreasemonkey.org will show you how.

IE View

For all you web developers who work in FireFox, this extension lets you load pages in IE with a single right-click, or mark certain sites to *always* load in IE. Useful for incompatible pages, or cross-browser testing.

PDF Download

Allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it to your desktop.

ScrapBook

ScrapBook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and easily manage collections. Key features are lightness, speed, accuracy and multi-language support. Major features are:

• Save Web page
• Save snippet of Web page
• Save Web site
• Organize the collection in the same way as Bookmarks
• Full text search and quick filtering search of the collection
• Editing of the collected Web page
• Text/HTML edit feature resembling Opera’s Notes

Screen Grab

Screengrab saves entire webpages as images from a simple right-click.

You can save the entire page as an image (it scrolls around the page taking shots and stitches it together), or just the visible portion, or the browser window.

TabMixPlus

Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.

Tiny URL

Create a short URL from any website. TinyUrl brings the http://tinyurl.com functionality into your browser. It takes a long URL as input, and gives you a short URL to use in it’s place.

Are you annoyed with really long URLs like:

http://www.amazon.com/WordPress-2-Visual-QuickStart-Guide/dp/0321450191/sr=1-1/qid=1157483250/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-4806693-9709652?ie=UTF8&s=books

Now they can become

http://tinyurl.com/ep9nk

Then this tag is for you. Just right click on the page and click wapURL and you will be presented with a short URL. This is great if you need to send text messages or emails.

When you use the short URL the key passed is looked up against our database and the user in then redirected to your requested URL.

View Formatted Source

Displays formatted and color-coded source and optional CSS information for each element.

You can see exactly which CSS rules match for an element. The rules are displayed including file name and line number. The topmost element is that with the highest priority.

You can fold/unfold/hilite block elements (table, tr, td, div, span,…). Really cool feature: select a block level element of interest directly in the page and view it’s source! To help you to quickly analyze the source code you can view images directly from the source and add comments to folded block elements. The code view is based on the rendered document, so you will also see dynamically (by Javascript) created and modified html elements! Works also with frames and selected text.

Web Developer

The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools.

• Disable – The disable features allow the disabling of various features including the cache, JavaScript and page colors.
• Cookies – The cookies features provide various cookie related tools including disabling, adding and viewing cookies.
• CSS – The CSS features provide various tools related to the CSS on the page including displaying the styles applied to the selected element and live editing of the CSS.
• Forms – The forms features provide the ability to manipulate the forms on the page including display the form details and populating form fields.
• Images – The images features provide various image related tools including finding broken images and outlining images.
• Information – The information features provide various informational tools including displaying element information and viewing the document size.
• Miscellaneous – The miscellaneous features provide various tools including displaying a ruler and live editing of the HTML.
• Outline – The outline features allow the outlining of various elements including block level and positioned elements.
• Resize – The resize features provide the ability to resize the window to pre-defined or custom sizes and to display the current window size.
• Tools – The tools features allow an unlimited number of configurable tools including validating the CSS and the HTML.
• View Source – There view source features provide the ability to view the page source including viewing the generated source and viewing the source in an external application.

XML Developer Toolbar

A toolbar modeled after the WebDeveloper toolbar that allows XML Developer’s use of standard tools all from your browser!

Features include:

• Schema Generation
• DTD Generation
• Schema Validation
• XML -> Schema Validation
• Style Manipulation
• XSL Transformations on-the-fly
• DOM Inspector incorporated views
• Document statistics for future Semantic Web purposes

This software makes it easy to install, manage and buy fonts. It supports auto font activation without taxing your system withg large RAM requirements like other font management programs, and has built in tools for:

• Detecting Fonts in Documents
• Cleaning System Fonts Folders
• Cleaning the Manage Folder
• Cleaning Application Font Caches
• Cleaning Font Caches
• Configurations
• Optimizing the Database
• Installing Additional Font Request Plug-Ins

Two bonus features are the Smart Sets that will automatically create font sets based upon user defined criteria, and the editable Comment field for easier searching.

And to top it off, the software is FREE. Free of cost and free of nag screens.

When you open the application you will see three columns. In the first column you will find your standard color mixing pallette where you can select your base color. In the main column you will see a tabbed color wheel that is created from your selected base color. And the third column is where you store your preferred colors.

This application is so intuitive there is really no need for a manual.

See a color you like on the color wheel? Drag it to the column on the right.
Need help selecting colors? Let Color Schemer make suggestions, in the bottom of the main window you have three selections:

1. Color Wheel
2. Harmonies
3. Suggested Colors

Switch to Harmonies and you can select from Compliments, Split-Compliments, Triads, Tetrads, Analogous,and Monochromatic color systems based upon your preferred color in the first column.

Still not sure? Switch to Suggested Colors and Color Schemer will show you a standard Inverted L web layout with text so you can see how the colors work together. Again you have color options: Complimentary, Analogous, Monochromatic Light, Monochromatic Dark, Monochromatic Muted, Vibrant, Muted, Complex, Minimalistic, and Gray.
But the fun does not stop there. The PhotoSchemer will build unique color schemes based on any picture, image or photograph. There is a built-in Color Mixer to create a single mixed color or a gradient path between two colors. The Color Scheme Analyzer tool will the best text & background color combinations from among your Favorite Colors. Select a background color and the Color Scheme Analyzer will automatically tell you which text colors would provide sufficient contrast and readability. Drag and drop colors onto the elements in the Quick Preview to test color combinations in a web page setting.

Use the built-in Print Utility to print your color schemes and their color values. Great for making hard-copy reference sheets or showing to clients.
Use the Import Wizard to import colors into Color Schemer from a number of different sources, including:

• Any web site or style sheet
• GIF images
• Photoshop Color Palettes (.aco)
• Color Table files (.act)

Use the Export Wizard to export your color schemes to a number of popular applications and formats:

• HTML color chart
• CSS style sheet
• GIF image
• Photoshop Color Palette (.aco)
• Illustrator Color Palette (.ai)
• Macromedia FreeHand/Adobe FrameMaker
• Corel Painter Color Set
• Color Table file (.act)

Here’s a small sample of some other cool features found in Color Schemer Studio OSX:

• Color Blindness Simulation
  See what your color schemes will look like to users with any one of 8 different types of color deficient vision.
• Convert to nearest WebSafe or WebSmart color
  Convert colors to their nearest WebSafe or WebSmart palette match at the click of a button.
• Screen Color Picker
  Grab colors from anywhere on your screen with the built-in screen color picker.
• Randomize!
  Stuck on inspiration for a new color scheme? Just click the “Randomize!” button to flip through random color schemes you might not have even thought of before!
• Drag & drop functionality to make building color schemes quick and easy
• Build a library of your own custom color schemes

One thing I like to do when looking at a new application is look in the preferences. This will usually tell me how much the application has to offer outside of its facial features, and also lets you know how deep the programmers when into allowing customization. Color Schemer has two preference settings, Favorites and Websafe. In Favorites you can set your favorite color, and in Websaf you can tell it to samp to either the 216 or 4096 Websafe pallette.

Not ready to purchase the application? Aside from downloading and using the demo, most of these features can be done online. You will also find a Color Scheme Gallery where other users have posted their favorite color schemes and a Color Scheme Forum to discuss on their website.

Panic is one of my favorite independent developers. They have a slew of excellent products, but topping the list is Transmit. An FTP software packge for Mac OS X. Did I say FTP? That would be like saying the Macintosh is a computer.

This app does so much more. Aside from supporting SFTP, WebDAV (for all you .mac users), even TLS/SSL, it also has tabbed viewing for multiple connection, batch downloading, search capabilities, dashboard widget, you can even create droplets (similar to alias’) so you can just drag and drop files to the server of your choice.

But the fun does not stop there. They have built in .mac synchronization, column browsing,  tabbed window browsing, dock status/send, a safari like favorites list, and the list of features goes on and on.
You get all this for the modest price of $29.95. I use this program so often it has become a permanent fixture in my doc!

Today XHTML/CSS compliance is becoming mandatory for all websites. IE6 and below has so many issues with displaying what most other browsers have long since corrected. Yet I digress, this article is not meant to be a Microsoft bashing event, instead I am here to sing the praises of FireFox (FF).

The first and foremost reason people should use FireFox is its security. Aside from having less attacks from hackers trying to send spyware and other malicious code, FireFox also has built in phishing recognition. Sure, it cannot stop all phishing schemes, but it can greatly reduce your succeptability vs. IE.

Built-in features:

• Searching: FF comes You can easily add the search engine of you choice to the handy built-in search field in the top right corner of the browser window. Also, you can add multiple search engins and quick select the engine-du-jour via a drop menu.
• Pop-Up Blocker: Hate pop-up windows? FF comes with a built in pop-up blocker.
• Tabbed Browsing: Hate trying to juggle multiple open browser windows? Built-in tabbed browsing means you only need one browser window open and you can quick select the window of choice from the tabs in the navigation area.
• RSS Support: Read a lot of blogs? Want to read the content without downloading all the graphics? Combine FF’s RSS support with tabbed browsing and you will be in heaven.

And if these features weren’t enough there are a ton of second party extensions and plug-ins (add-ons) that offer extended help with blogging, bookmarking, contacts, downloading, image browsing, navigation, privacy/security, searching, tabbed browsing and web development. There are also a large variety of themes to choose from if you want to customize the look of the interface. In future entries I will be reviewing some of my favorite add-ons.

And best of all, the cost: $FREE.

Still not convinced? Lets look at some google results:

I hate IE: 27,600,000 results
I hate FireFox: 7,830,000 results
(hint: less is better)

I love IE: 20,800,000
I love FireFox: 28,200,000 results
(hint: more is better)

I guess it all comes down to this:

If you love spyware, vulnerability, and pop-up windows, and feel the comfort in stating “I’m not tech saavy.” Then hooray, no need to change browsers.

On the other hand, if you like to control what gets downloaded and installed on you computer, you like to customize your environment to best suit your needs, and consider your self an early-adapter, you better check out Firefox now.