My daily work also involves taking numerous screenshots and annotating them for feedback and presentations. One of the challenges I faced was keeping the screenshots in sync between my machines. Mac OS X’s screen capture tool saves all my screenshots to the Desktop by default. I’d have to remember to copy my screenshots across to Dropbox before switching machines. And of course, I’d often forget to do so.

After experimenting with a few alternatives, I found the solution that I liked: changing the default location of the saved screenshots to sit in a Dropbox folder.  Here’s how you can do it.

Step 1: Create somewhere to store your screenshots
Create a folder in your Dropbox folder to store your screenshots in. I named mine “screenshots”.

A “screenshots” folder in Dropbox

Step 2: Open the Terminal app
Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal.app

Step 3: Change the default location for screen captures
In Terminal, enter the following command

$ defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /path/to/screenshots/folder

In my case, I have a “screenshots” folder in my Dropbox folder. So my defaults call looked like:

$ defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Dropbox/screenshots

Change the default location for screen captures

Step 4: Put the change into effect
Have the change take effect by killing SystemUIServer, which handles the screen capturing functionality.

$ killall SystemUIServer

The next time you take a screenshot, the new settings will automatically take effect.

Step 5: Apply the same changes on your other machines
Repeat steps 2 to 4 across all the other machines that you’d like to sync with. You can skip Step 1 because when you created the screenshots folder on the first machine, it should have automatically created that folder across all your other machines synced with that Dropbox account.

There you have it: a relatively simple method to capture screenshots across multiple Mac OS X machines and have them stored in a centrally accessible location.

The post Set the location of your screenshots on Mac OS X and keep them synchronized across machines with Dropbox appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

It’s pretty easy to launch the app and open files and projects from Sublime Text 2 itself. However, there are many occasions where you’ll be trawling through folders in Terminal, and would like to open the file in Sublime Text 2 from the command line.

Sublime Text 2 comes with a command line tool that you can use to quickly open files from your Terminal window. It’s a convoluted path to get to. For convenience you should create a symlink to an easy to remember command. The commonly suggested name is subl.

$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /bin/subl

Now, when you are traversing folders and files in a terminal, you can quickly open up a file in Sublime Text 2 with the command subl. Here’s how I would quickly open an interesting README file that I may come across:

$ cd projects/projectX
$ subl README.md

Looking through a folder in the command line and opening a file in Sublime Text 2

You can also open multiple files in Terminal by either listing the filenames or using wildcards. Here are a few exaples:

$ subl README.md Gemfile
$ subl .
$ subl *.rb

The post Accessing Sublime Text 2 from the command line in Mac OS X appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

Finding notes without tags
One search term that comes to the rescue is the below one to list all notes that are without tags:

-tag:*

That’s it! You should now have a list of notes that aren’t tagged. Now you can tag away to your heart’s content and have an organized set of notes.

One caveat – make sure you’ve selected “All Notebooks” in your Notebooks list to ensure that the search is run across all your notes, and not just the ones in the currently selected notebook.

Select All Notebooks in Evernote

Saving your search for later
If you find it useful, you can save the search for later use by navigating to Edit > Find > Save Search

Save searches in Evernote

You will then be able to see and use the saved search under the “Saved Searches” section in the left sidebar.

View saved searches in Evernote

The post Finding untagged notes in Evernote appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

Google Maps API

• Get started with the Google Maps API
• Read the API Getting Started guide and API reference documentation
• Watch Google Maps Presentations on basics and advanced topics
• Learn to create your first map, store locator, and other useful tutorials
• Participate in discussions and receive support at the Google Maps API Group
• There are a number of open-source utility libraries that make developing with Google Maps easy
• Play with some API examples to see what can be done
• Subscribe to the Google Geo Developers blog and Google LatLong blog to keep up to date with the latest tips and updates
• Subscribe to the Google Maps Mania blog and see what others are doing with the Maps API
• Use the Static Maps API to embed map images in your mobile and email content
• Use the Flash Maps API in your Flash applications

YouTube videos

View a full list of Maps API videos here

Google Street View API

The Street View API allows you to leverage Google’s unique Streetview imagery and controls within your mashups. Streetview is currently available for selected locations in the US, Australia, and Japan.

• Get started with the Google Street View API
• Read the API reference documentation
• Play with some API samples to see what can be done

Google Mapplets API

Mapplets are a combination of the Maps API and Gadgets API, and provide a great platform for making your maps mashups discoverable and permanent via the mapplets directory.

• Get started with the Google Mapplets API
• Read the API Getting Started guide and API reference documentation
• Discover, install, and play with others’ mapplets in the Mapplets Directory

Google Earth API

• Get started with the Google Earth API
• Read the API Getting Started guide and API reference documentation
• Learn about KML files
• Learn how to create 3D models using Google Sketchup
• Participate in discussions and receive support at the Google SketchUp Help Group and subscribe to the SketchUp Blog
• Play with some Earth API samples to see what can be done
• Subscribe to the Google Geo Developers blog and Google LatLong blog to keep up to date with the latest tips and updates
• Subscribe to the Google Maps Mania blog and see what others are doing with the Earth API

Google Earth

• Download Google Earth
• Learn about using Google Earth
• Learn about KML files and how to develop content for Google Earth
• Participate in discussions and receive support at the Google Earth Community
• Learn how to create 3D models using Google Sketchup
• Discover, install, and play with others’ Earth content in the Google Earth KML Gallery
• Subscribe to the Google Geo Developers blog and Google LatLong blog to keep up to date with the latest tips and updates
• Subscribe to the Google Maps Mania blog and see what others are doing with Google Earth

The post Getting started with Google Geo (Maps, Mapplets & Earth) APIs appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

The post User-friendly 404 pages appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

1. Sign up for a Google Maps API key
2. Use the Google Static Map Wizard to create your first static map
3. Read the Google Maps Static API documentation

This method is great for also providing map content in other mediums that don’t support JavaScript – such as mobile content.

The post Using the Google Static Maps API to include maps in your emails appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

I needed to take a sequence of 4 digits (eg 1145) and modify it to look like clock-time (eg “11:45″). After a bit of online (what else?) research I decided to take the approach of converting the integer to a string and then to a list (of characters). I then insert the extra character (ie the “:”) into the list at the right position. Finally, join the list elements together to form a new string.


time_int = 1145
time_str = str(time_int)
time_list = list(time_str)
time_list.insert(2, ':') #insert the ':' character into the list before position 2
time_str = "".join(time_list)


The post Python: Inserting characters into a string appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

Are those variable names confusing? Let’s look at that example again:

[code]
fruits = ['apple', 'bananas', 'cantaloupes', 'apple', 'apple', 'durian', 'bananas']
#convert the list into a set. An element can only exist once within a set
fruits_unique = set(fruits)
#convert the set back into a list type
fruits = list(fruits_unique)
print fruits
[/code]

The post Python: removing repeated values in a list appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

1. Take your destination URL (eg http://www.yoursite.com/landing_page.html) and paste it into your browser’s location bar (where you usually type in a web address)
2. Add a test parameter on to the end of the URL.  If your URL does not already have parameters in it, append ?gclid=test.  If there are already parameters, append &gclid=test on to the end.  (For example, http://www.yoursite.com/landing_page.html becomes http://www.yoursite.com/landing_page.html?gclid=test; and http://www.yoursite.com/landing_page.html?myval=1 becomes http://www.yoursite.com/landing_page.html?myval=1&gclid=test)
3. Press enter
4. Your browser will take you to your landing page.  Be mindful of redirects, especially if you are tracking with Doubleclick, Atlas, etc tags.
5. Is the gclid=test parameter still visible in your browser’s location bar?

YES? Auto-tagging plays nice with your destination URLs.  You can stop reading now!

NO? Oh-oh.  There is most likely an intermediate redirect that is stripping out the gclid parameter. There are two options to remedy this:

1. First (and easiest) – change your destination URL to the ultimate page that the visitor lands on, thus bypassing any redirects
2. Configure your server so that the gclid parameter is passed along in the redirect

(Two other common culprits are users are landing on a 404 error page or the Google Analytics tracking code missing altogether on the landing page!)

There you have it – how to test if your destination URLs play nice with auto-tagging.  For more information, read Google’s help center article on auto-tagging.

The post Google Analytics and Troubleshooting AdWords Auto-Tagging appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

It got me thinking: is there a way to have the source code in front of them in one click? A few Google searches later, and the answer was yes!

Using JavaScript you can open a new window to display the source code view of the current window:

[javascript]
window.open(‘view-source:’ + window.location.href, ‘mysource’);
[/javascript]

Voila! How easy was that? Now it’s your turn.

The post Triggering the Source Code view of the current page using JavaScript appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

Page Analysis & SEO

About This Site Bookmarks – right-click on a page, select “About This Site Bookmarks” and you will see a list of handy links pointing off to informational sites such as Alexa, Compete, Netcraft, del.icio.us, etc.

SearchStatus

ShowIP

Minimising Nuisance

Adblock Plus

Adblock Filterset.G Updater

Bookmark Management

Add Bookmark Here

Bookmark Duplicate Detector

del.icio.us

Download Management

Download Statusbar – manage your downloads via the Firefox status bar.

DownThemAll – conveniently download all link targets on a page.

FlashGot – allows for single and multiple downloads utilising an external download manager of your choice (I prefer FlashGet).

Productivity

Auto Copy – highlight a piece of text and the selection is automatically copied to your clipboard.

FoxClocks – displays local times around the world in the statusbar or toolbar. Great for if you are dealing with friends and colleagues across multiple timezones.

FoxyTunes – operate your currently running media player from your Firefox statusbar.

Google Notebook – conveniently clip text and links to your Google Notebook.

Linkification – Converts text links (including e-mail addresses) into clickable links.

PDF Download

Web Development & Design

ColorZilla – eye-dropper tool that allows you to pick the HEX & RGB values of colours of elements on the page.

Firebug – the quintessential Javascript debugger. It also allows for excellent DOM and CSS debugging and manipulation.

HTML Validator

IE View – open the current page in an IE window.

Live HTTP Headers – view HTTP request and response headers in realtime.

User Agent Switcher – allows you to spoof the User-Agent string and have Firefox masquerade as the Googlebot, etc, to see how your site reacts to different user-agents.

View Source Chart – renders page source HTML in an easy-to-read manner.

Web Developer – a must for the serious web developer.

YSlow – an addon to the Firebug debugger. It allows you to profile a page and identify bottlenecks. Provided by Yahoo. Also see Yahoo’s articles on improving page load performance.

Security

CookieSafe

Edit Cookies

McAfee SiteAdvisor – lets you know if the currently viewed site is considered “safe” or not.

Functionality Extensions

CustomizeGoogle – customize your Google search and application experiences.

ErrorZilla – extends the standard page not found error screen with convenient links such as access to the page’s Google cached copy.

Secure Login

View Cookies

Tab Management

Faviconize Tab – minimize a tab’s width to the width of the favicon.

Tab Mix Plus

Add-Ons Management

Google Browser Sync

FEBE – a convenient extensions & settings backup tool. Allows you to also run scheduled backups. The backups can be used to transport your extensions and their settings to another machine or Firefox profile.

MR Tech Local Install – install power tools for add-ons

The post Recommended Mozilla Firefox add-ons (aka extensions, aka plugins) appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

To copy from a remote host to your current host

[perl]
scp -r user@remotehost:path/to/remotefiles localtarget

#-r recursive copy
#you will be prompted for user’s password @ remotehost
[/perl]

To copy files from your current host across to the remote host

[perl]
scp -r localfiles user@remotehost:path/to/remotetarget
[/perl]

The post scp Usage appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

To retrieve a random row in MySQL, use the ORDER BY RAND() statement to randomly order the rows of a table. Then use LIMIT x to retrieve the first x rows from the randomised representation of the table.

For example:

[sql]
/* Retrieve 5 random special offers to display in your e-commerce store’s sidebar */
SELECT offer_id
FROM special_offers
ORDER BY RAND()
LIMIT 5
[/sql]

Of course, we can make our query as complex as needed, and then randomly order the resultset.

[sql]
SELECT so.offer_id, i.title
FROM special_offers so
LEFT JOIN items i ON (so.item_id = i.item_id)
LEFT JOIN item_categories ic ON (i.item_id = ic.item_id)
WHERE ic.category_id = 2344
ORDER BY RAND()
LIMIT 5
[/sql]

The post Selecting a random row using MySQL appeared first on Vinny's Corner.

[php]
function moveItem ($n_steps) {
if ($n_steps == 0) {
return;
}

$cur_pos = $this->pos;
$new_pos = $cur_pos + $n_steps;

if ($n_steps < 0) {
$min_pos = $cur_pos + $n_steps;
$max_pos = $cur_pos – 1;
$shift_sign = ‘+’;
} elseif ($n_steps > 0) {
$min_pos = $cur_pos + 1;
$max_pos = $cur_pos + $n_steps;
$shift_sign = ‘-’;
} else {
return;
}

$id = $this->id;

//Reorder existing items that will be existed by moving this item
$sql = “UPDATE positions
SET order_num = order_num $shift_sign 1
WHERE id = $id
AND position >= $min_pos
AND position <= $max_pos”;

$this->db->query($sql);

//Now set new position for this item
$sql = “UPDATE postions SET position = $new_pos WHERE id = $id”;
$this->db->query($sql);
}
[/php]

The post PHP code snippet – Reorder items in a table appeared first on Vinny's Corner.