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Selectively print link URLs in your wordpress blog

Today I was trying to improve the print-view styles of this blog. This is useful not only to actually print on paper, but also when you print to PDF to keep a digital copy of the content.

So besides the obvious hiding of sections not relevant on a printed media, like the sidebar, comments form, etc., I started to look at what other improvements could be made for a printed version of a web page. I readily searched for and turned to an article I recall having read some time ago in A List Apart about exactly this matter: Going to Print.

Following the article’s suggestions I started customizing margins, backgrounds, font type and size, etc. Then I stumbled upon a very tricky issue they mention: what to do with links? They are clearly of no direct use in printed media since users can’t click on a paper, but on the other hand it’s a pity that the extra information conveyed in a link (namely the referenced URL) gets lost. Continued…

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Categories: Internet, Software, Web programming.

By ernesto
— 2010/09/08 at 1:52 pm

Easily arrange your windows with ShiftIt

Yesterday I learned via TheAppleBlog about a nifty little software called Divvy, which allows you to quickly arrange and position windows in your Mac desktop with a menu and configurable shortcuts. The application sits away in the menu bar and you can click on it or invoke via a global shortcut key. You can then tell it to re-position the frontmost window according to what you specify in a grid-like representation of the screen.

Since I don’t have $14 to spare on this app, and I also do not really think it’s worth it, I went on to find some alternative softwares for this. This wonderful website alternativeto.net allows you to look for software applications on certain platforms and find out about some other softwares that could serve as alternatives or equivalents, either in the same platform but free, or perhaps because you are looking for an alternative to switch or use in another platform.

In this case I wanted to find an alternative to Divvy also for the Mac, but free as in beer. I didn’t really care that much if it was open source, although it would be a plus. Thankfully I found ShiftIt, wich is not only free and open source, but also even better than Divvy in my opinion. Continued…

8 Comments

Categories: Software.

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By ernesto
— 2010/08/25 at 5:26 pm

Gnapse.com goes mobile!

It’s a tiny change, but I wanted to say it out loud. I recently updated this website to be mobile-friendly when visited from a handheld device such as an iPhone and other smart-phones. Go and see it for yourself and you’ll know what it’s like.

Actually it was very simple and required almost no work. There’s a wordpress plugin for that already, which along with a custom mobile-friendly theme gets the job done. Both the plugin and the theme are developed by Crowd Favorite, a web development company specializing in WordPress customization and enhancement. They also provide two great standard themes, including the one used in the blog’s standard interface.

Do you know any other plugins or tools to make a WordPress blog friendly to handheld mobile devices?

2 Comments

Categories: Internet, Software, Web programming.

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By ernesto
— 2010/08/09 at 3:15 pm

Open multiple Gmail accounts at once

Yesterday Google unveiled a great new feature for Gmail and other Google services, which allows you to sign into more than one Google Account at the same time, with no need to use separate browsers, or constantly signing in and out of one or the other.

Gmail multi-login menu

The drop-down menu used to switch accounts when multi-login is enabled.

Once you enable multiple accounts, the account name that appears on the top-right area of the window now features a drop-down menu that allows you to switch accounts. You may be thinking that you cannot use two accounts really at once, but that you would only be able to easily switch. But this is not the case. You can actually keep two or more different tabs or windows in your browser open at the same time with different Gmail accounts.

A word of caution

Google is not shy about warning you of the drawbacks of this new setting and the care you need to take when using the different available Google services from each account you are logged into. First of all, not all services currently support the multiple accounts setup, so they will default to the primary account, which is the one you logged into first, and the one from which you setup the login for the extra accounts. Also, offline Gmail and Calendar are not supported if you enable this new feature.

Clearly, you need to be specially aware of what you are doing and what it means during your workflow. This is particularly true while using the Gmail service, because you could end up sending an email from the wrong account! This is where Gmail themes come very handy. You can apply different themes to different Gmail accounts, to visually and instantly distinguish where you are standing at.

Anyway, surely this new quirk is very welcome. I wonder why Google is always hitting the nail in the head, and I certainly hope they keep performing that way.

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Categories: Internet, Software.

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By ernesto
— 2010/08/06 at 10:37 am

Railscasts on text

Every Rails programmer out there should have heard about Railscasts. It’s a great blog that every monday posts a new short screencast about some topic related to Ruby on Rails programming. It can be about features of the upcoming or just released new version of Rails, about how to integrate other services and softwares with Rails, about hot plugins and gems that can be really useful, or anything related that you can think of. It’s been running for over three years and keeps its content amazingly up to date. The credits go for Ryan Bates.

But you probably haven’t heard of ASCIIcasts, which is a text version of the original blog, including a transcript of Ryan’s voice from the original video, along with key code samples and screenshots of the main features explained. Think of it as a textual equivalent of the screencast. It can serve various purposes, including being search friendly (you can make a full text search on Ryan’s spoken words), but also for people like me with a slow connection, it can help me have a glimpse of any episode before actually downloading it, maybe even sparing me the effort and bandwidth. If any of these or other reasons are good for you, or even for the sake of it, take a look as ASCIIcasts. You’ll love it almost as much as the original.

2 Comments

Categories: Web programming.

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By ernesto
— 2010/07/28 at 2:50 pm

Changing habits

I desperately need a change of habits in my life. I need to better manage my time and be able to make the most out of it for all the projects that I have been undertaking in the last few months. Currently it’s a mess.

I’ve been flirting around with this idea for a while without actually taking some action, and a recent set of blog posts about these subjects have prompted me to start doing something about it. These and other posts, mostly from a couple of blogs I started reading not so long ago, are giving me ideas on how to break the inertia and start doing instead of just thinking and planning. They’ve shown me some of the obstacles in my way, mostly related to things you can change, instead of things that are out of our control. I spend a lot of time blaming my stagnation on external conditions, when there are lots of things under my own control that I can start changing to be more productive, things like the Internet and e-mail habits, lack of time scheduling, etc. Continued…

2 Comments

Categories: Whatever.

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By ernesto
— 2010/07/21 at 10:53 am

Five Chrome extensions that can make your life easier

Google Chrome is a great browser, and with extensions it gets even better. Here are five extensions I love, and that might be helpful for others too.

Readability Redux

This one takes an article or blog post page and presents it in a reading-friendly format, leaving out all the clutter (sidebars, navigation menus, etc.) and also with a customized font and text styling that makes it more suitable for reading and printing.

A blog post shown in readability mode

I was envy when Safari 5 went out with this as a core feature, so much that I actually considered switching now that Safari has got extensions too. I detest to read articles and blog posts with all the clutter of the page. Particularly when you intend to print the article for further reading, not always web sites provide a good printed alternative, if they provide one at all. Continued…

2 Comments

Categories: Internet, Software.

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By ernesto
— 2010/07/16 at 10:36 am

The Godfather theme by Slash

Two great icons of cinema and music get merged in this wonderful interpretation of The Godfather theme by Slash, the emblematic guitar of the original Guns n’ Roses. I just enjoyed every piece of it, and I wanted to share it with you.

2 Comments

Categories: Whatever.

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By ernesto
— 2010/07/13 at 12:03 pm

Easy Rails API

There’s this great tool for browsing and searching the Rails API. Give it a try at http://railsapi.com

It allows you to select what version of Rails (and Ruby) to browse, and the most awesome part is that you can download a compressed package to browse it offline locally in your own computer. It includes Rails 3 beta and Ruby 1.9.x as well.

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Categories: Whatever.

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By ernesto
— 2010/04/29 at 10:09 am

My new iPad nano (aka iPhone)

Most people are going crazy these days talking about the most recent gadget announced by Apple. They’ve seen the video, they went to the announcement conference, they are wondering when will they get one in their hands. They simply can’t wait.

Meanwhile I am enjoying a similar experience. Somebody noticed out there that there are many of us with an iPad already (kind of). The iPad nano has been around for a couple of years now but with another name. And I recently got one and I am delighted with it. Why going crazy about the new one when you can have the nano version which fits in your pocket, has a camera and makes phone calls too!

iPad nano

iPad nano

Now seriously, after using the iPhone for some days I understand why people are crazy to experiment with its big but younger brother. Touch screens are seriously redefining how we interact with computers and from a developer standpoint it’s amazing the whole new set of possibilities that arise. And it’s not only touch screens and multi-touch, but also the ability to make a program adapt to different orientations of the device, to be able to access hardware services like a compass, accelerometer, GPS, etc.

1 Comment

Categories: Programming, Whatever.

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By ernesto
— 2010/02/03 at 12:54 pm