Entropy

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Firefox is without a doubt the future of the internet browser. This however doesn’t mean that IE will disappear completely - as much as most web developers wish it would. It has happened to most developers where you get your new app running peachy in Firefox, but the second you open it in IE you are using hacks and the like to get it to render and behave as you wanted it to.

Debugging in Firefox is easy with a vast number of extensions aiding you in tracking down the bugs in your code. Doing the same in IE can be very frustrating with one usually only having access to the mostly unhelpful js error icon in the bottom corner of the browser.

Luckily Six Revisions has put together a list of IE tools that can aid you in the development of your app.

For Web developers wanting to use Micosoft’s Internet Explorer as their primary browser, there’s some terrific IE extensions/add-ons that can aid you analyze, troubleshoot, debug, and speed up development of web pages.

Here, you’ll find the top 6 free IE extensions for web developers.

Where appropriate (and available), you’ll also find related resources, their download page, and documentation.

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Seeing as I haven’t posted anything for a couple of days, I thought I would make one post with all the things that have caught my eye.

• Maximize Firefox without extensions
• Gmail hacks for better spam protection
• 7 of the best designed sites on the web
• 60 AJAX/Javascript resources for professional coding
• 3 ways to test web input with CAPTCHA

Maximize Firefox without extensions

We have made a couple of posts relating to improving FireFox and getting the best out of your FireFox experience and plugins. There are plugins that could do what this article details, but with the release of Beta builds quite frequently over the past 2 months or so, not all plugins work the whole time.

If you type about:config in your address bar, Firefox opens the master directory of user-defined preferences and built-in settings. The ultimate arena for performance tampering, the about:config settings are the foundation for programming Firefox extensions.

We’ll show some simple about:config modifications below. Even if the word “Boolean” means nothing to you, we’ll try to make it easy to understand about:config settings

Gmail hacks for better spam protection

I happen to have a ‘.’ in my gmail address just by chance, and also use the + tip for signing up on certain sites to keep things more organized. But you could just as easily use them to help combat spam.

You can create alias emails for things like shopping sites, places you know will spam you, or anything you want to track to see who they are sharing your email with. To do this, simply put a “+” after your account name and add words.

Apparently, Gmail doesn’t really acknowledge dots in your account name. So I can use “mr.marky.mark@gmail.com” or “mr.markymark@gmail.com” or without any dots at all, “mrmarkymark@gmail.com”.

7 of the best designed sites on the web

Titles of this nature always grab my attention. I’m constantly trying to see how designers are innovating using the latest techniques. While I may not completely agree with this list, I do agree that the sites are visually appealing, even google.com, and that they have crisp layouts.

A sites design is its identity. It can make the biggest difference in attracting and keeping traffic, keeping visitors happy, promoting products and services and establishing an identity on the web.

Website design has come a long way. Previously, down-to-the-point, straightforward sites with minimum graphics and fastest loading and easy navigation were considered the “best” sites in terms of design.

60 AJAX/Javascript resources for professional coding

AJAX is one of the most commonly used techniques for creating seamless webapps these days. However, if you have ever tried to develop something using AJAX, you may have found that it can be frustrating sometimes trying to accomplish the crazy idea that you have set down as your goal. Infact, I was wrestling an AJAX idea in the office today that was partially solved with the scriptaculous javascript library.

When it comes to design of modern web-applications, Ajax is considered as a standard approach. Interactive solutions for lightboxes, form validation, navigation, search, tooltips and tables are developed using Ajax libraries and nifty Ajax scripts. Ajax is useful and powerful. However, when using Ajax, one should keep in mind its drawbacks in terms of usability and accessibility. With an extensive use of Ajax, you can easily confuse your visitors offering too much control and too many features.

3 ways to test web input with CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA is something that we are all used to by now, it’s those barely readable images we have to re-type to prove that we are human. Turns out that computers are becoming more and more human with spam bots being able to break CAPTCHA codes, in record time, to webmail sites bypassing the human requirement of owning an account. However, it is still seen as an important part of a website where differentiating a legitimate user from a spam bot is required and even though it is being beaten more and more these days it is still one of the best ways to help combat spam.

Many Web forms these days feature a Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) as an effort to stop people from setting up computers to automatically fill in Web forms. A typical CAPTCHA is an image with some numbers and letters in it with distortion and/or background noise, and a Web form input field where you are to enter the numbers and letters from the image. This article investigates three CAPTCHA applications that you can use on a PHP Web site.

• You Used JavaScript to Write WHAT? [via Zemanta]

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Every time I upgrade my Firefox 3 beta all my plugins stop working, and I’m almost always certain that there is no real reason aside from the version shift - there are no relevant changes etc.

The most critical of these is my new favourite blogging tool, Zemanta. As I’m sure you’ve noticed there have been no posts for 2 days because of this

So here’s how to force plugins to work on new versions.

Step 1: Nightly Tester Tools

Nightly Tester Tools is a plugin for Firefox (that will install) which allows you to do a few nifty things, one of which is force plugins to be compatible. Go download it now!

Step 2: Restart Firefox

This is a step on its own because it can be tricky. After installing Nightly Tester tools I had to use the Tools->Addons menu and tell it to update it and restart again to get it working. But, worry not, it is possible to use this on beta5. Do whatever it takes people.

Step 3: Use the Tool

Once you’ve got your nightly tester tools installed (you can tell as your titlebar will include a Build number), its time to enable Zemanta (or your other plugin).

Go into Tools -> Add-ons and select the extensions menu. Right click on Zemanta and choose to “Make Compatible“. Now restart Firefox; when you come back you’ll notice your Zemanta is running once again!

Step 4: Other Apps (Optional)

Note that you can do this for any plugin - be careful though because there are changes between versions. I can tell you that Zemanta runs fine on beta5; but other plugins might not - although to be honest its very unlikely in my opinion when we’re almost RC.