Simple-Talk.com came out with a great article titled SQL String User Function Workbench
It has some great sql functions that I’ve spent hours looking for in the past (or had to write myself):
Anyway, I bookmarked it to go back to in the future.
Sugarrae conducted asked a panel of SEO experts their ideas on link building.
None had a chance to see the others answers so they are all truly what each thinks - not just agreement.
Check it out:
http://www.sugarrae.com/11-experts-on-link-development-speak/
One the hardest tasks, at least I find, is picking a good color scheme for a website. There are a number of good color pickers out there, but they all generally work off of a set formula. A good example of them is ColorMixers.com.
Adobe came out with a great innovation when it comes to this task. It’s a new flash based color picker that emulates some of the features in the new CS3 suite and allows for social interaction.
It’s located at kuler.adobe.com
Check it out!
Scientology has come up in the media a lot recently as a source of controversy, and I’m often surprised at how many people are thus curious about it but don’t have anywhere to turn to.
I recently found a blog that is offering to answer people’s questions about it. The author is a Scientologist. I read through quite a bit of the site he seems to be doing a good job of accurately representing what the church is all about.
Take a look. Here’s the link: Answering Questions about Scientology
And of course, you can visit the official sites here:
Voicemail by Caller ID - GrandCentral, Youmail and Others
You may have seen GrandCentral or YouMail mentioned recently on other blogs. I know Mashable did a post or two on both of those in the last week or so. It’s a pretty nifty concept if you delve into it. Depending on who’s calling, you can set the service to ring to a different number, send them directly to voicemail, “ditch the call” or simply let it ring.
I did a little research into these services and I thought it would be useful to summarize the existing services out there.
Voicemail by Caller ID Apps
GrandCentral - Free
You are assigned a new phone number in your area - you get to pick which city the area code is, etc. This phone number can then be redirected to ring different phones depending on where you’re located or how your feeling. For instance, if you’re out of town for a little while, you could have it ring your cell phone instead of your home phone.
In addition to this, you can direct it to ring different phones depending on the Caller ID, or even send them to voicemail.
YouMail - Free
This service uses your existing cell phone number and redirects your voicemail to go through their service. You can log on their website and set it so certain callers are sent directly to voicemail, given a different message, or even hung up on - “ditched” as they say.
Voice to Text
GotVoice - $9.95/Month
“Converts your cell, home and work voicemail to text messages and sends them to your phone and email.”
SimulScribe - $9.95-$29.95/Month
“Utilizes cutting edge voice recognition technology to convert your voicemail
messages into text. We deliver your transcribed voicemail, along with the original audio, to your mobile phone,
PDA, and/or email account. “
SpinVox - No details on pricing - could be free.
“SpinVox is a service that can be accessed from any phone. Speak Freely and SpinVox will convert your words into text and send them wherever you decide: mobile, inbox, TV screen, blog and more.”
It appears you can blog with it as well. My guess is that you call a number and dictate to your blog and it posts it on the spot.
Jott - Beta, Free
“Blogging no longer requires being at computer. Use Jott Links, to blog
from your cell phone wherever you are. Call 866-JOTT-123, say the name
of your Jott Link, and start blogging with your voice.”
Create To Do Lists and Reminders, Send E-mail and Text Messages, Blog your thoughts from anywhere
CallWave - Different Pricing
Has VoiceMail to Text, Internet Answering Machine, Virtual Fax and more.
I was reading the blogosphere recently and found blogging tool I thought worth mentioning. ScribeFire is a Firefox plugin that simplifies the blog posting experience.
I recently wrote about a new smart image resizing method. I was hoping to see it come out in CS4, but it appears it beat it and is available as a Flash application on the web!
Here’s the video:
This is a little off topic, but I got this in my email today and had to pass it on. Apparently, there’s a bird in Scotland who figured out that he can just walk into the local store and snatch a bag of chips.
Folks think he’s a nice bird, though. It seems that when he tears open the bag, he lets all the gulls partake of his booty. (I, however, think he’s just not very skilled at keeping the chips to himself)
Update for Wordpress Permalinks on IIS
There has been quite a bit of comments going back and forth on the code that I wrote to enable permalinks for Wordpress on IIS since I put it up on the site. Just recently, Einar Egilsson posted an extremely helpful bit a code in the comments. It’s a much better and cleaner way of accomplishing the same thing.
I was always aware that my solution was a little odd in that it used ASP. WordPress is written in PHP and to use ASP requires odd work-arounds. Einar gave us a great simple solution that uses PHP. It too requires 404 redirects, though.
It’s requirements are:
To install, copy and paste this text into a file named wp-404-handler.php:
<?php
$qs = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = substr($qs, strpos($qs, ':80')+3);
$_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
include('index.php');
? >
Next set the 404 error page to /wp-404-handler.php. If it gives you a choice between file and url, choose url.
Lastly, make sure you enable permalinks in the Wordpress control panel under Options > Permalinks.
That should do it.
Thanks to Einar for posting this in the comments and thanks to CaptainN who first wrote about in the Wordpress support forums.
This is the smartest image resizing I’ve ever seen. Rumor has it that one of the inventors recently joined Adobe so hopefully we’ll see this in CS4.