Daily Bits

Firefox 3 Beta Available

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Firefox fans can already download and start playing with the Firefox 3 beta version 1. Here are some of the features that the new version should pack:

  • improved security and malware protection
  • improved password and download management
  • more personalization options with bookmarks and searches
  • improved HTML rendering and font architecture
  • performance improvements

I will probably start using Firefox 3 as soon as it comes out, but I need to second what Duncan Riley said on TechCrunch. The main issues with Firefox right now are the memory leaks and crashes, and according to him there is no evidence that this new version will solve these problems for good.

I found the memory leak issue especially harsh under Ubuntu Linux, which is my current operating system. Hopefully beta testers will report this problem.

Flock: Pretty, But Still Not Very Useful

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Version 1.0 of the much anticipated Flock browser was finally released earlier this month following more than two years of development. The release was met with much fanfare, but despite the amount of time and energy put into Flock, at this point it remains little more than a piece of eye candy.

Flock is a very good browser, being that it is basically Firefox in a shinier skin. But it falls somewhat short in the other areas of functionality it boasts.

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Flock’s blog editor, for instance, is woefully less powerful than the alternative browser-based tool Scribefire, and light years behind corresponding desktop tools like MarsEdit, Ecto and the newly-popular Windows Live Writer.

Similarly, Flock’s built-in RSS feed reader is polished and easy to use, but currently can’t hold a candle to the likes of NetNewswire, FeedDemon and Newsfire.

The bits of Flock that shine the brightest are the Facebook sidebar and the browser’s integration with online photo storing sites Flickr and Photobucket.

However, despite the Facebook sidebar’s impressive functionality, it still pales somewhat in comparison to simply leaving Facebook open in one of your browser tabs. And while the photo uploading and sharing tools are likewise well implemented, the millions who turn to Kodak, Google and various smaller providers for their online photo storing needs have been left out in the cold.

Some will argue that while Flock may not be the best of breed at any of the individual functions it performs, it does provide the benefit of being able to do all those things from within a single application. But at a time when many new computers are offered with at least 1GB of RAM, and additional memory can be purchased dirt cheap, is it really a problem to have a separate blog editor, feed reader and Internet browser open at the same time? Surely the added functionality of the more feature-rich individual applications trumps eliminating the need to switch windows, a task that the ctrl+tab (cmd+tab on Macs) keystroke makes negligible.

There are purists who insist that an Internet browser is for browsing only, and should not be made to accomplish tasks it was not originally intended for. At present I am inclined to side with those purists (using Safari with no add-ons is a blazingly fast and pleasant browsing experience), though I do hold out hope that Flock, or someone else, will eventually manage to create a browser/blog editor/feed reader that is better than the respective standalone applications without consuming the bulk of a computer’s available memory.

Flock is a positive step in what could be “the right direction,” but after two years of development some hoped for a little more solid functionality to go along with the spit-shined exterior.

17 Guerrilla Marketing Ideas for Your Website

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Guerrilla marketing is a term used to describe unconventional marketing tactics, particularly those of low-cost or no-cost.

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We’ve all heard the key tips for promoting a website, but this article is guaranteed to have some new ideas for you. Some are clever, some are crazy, a few are farcical (if you wonder whether I’m joking, I probably am!). I think these seventeen unconventional ideas should get you thinking differently about the way you promote your website.

Guerrilla marketing for Website Owners

1. T-shirt Marketing. Get a T-shirt made with your website’s logo and URL on it. Offer the T-shirt as a prize in a competition. If the T-shirt looks decent the winner will wear it and act as a walking billboard for your blog. (You can get a T-shirt made at CustomInk.com, though there are plenty of websites that do this).

2. Bumper stickers for all. Mail out bumper stickers for your website to readers who want one. The price of an envelope is not much to pay for some advertising on busy roads. (You can get custom stickers made up at Kinko’s or your local equivalent).

3. Post some bills. Stick a poster about your website on your work or school’s noticeboard. You probably want to wait until no-one is around before you try this one.

4. The browser trick. Go to your local library, internet cafe or computer room and set your website as the default browser homepage on all the computers you can easily access. I can’t help you when it comes to dealing with tetchy librarians, however.

5. Release a free eBook. Link back to your website throughout and encourage sharing. If the eBook is good it could go viral and drive traffic back to you.

6. Go to the beach and write your website’s address in the sand (preferably out of the way of the rising tide, and large enough to be seen by passing airplanes.)

7. Run a competition to win items you own and could do without. Instead of auctioning CDs, furniture, art, video games etc. on eBay, why not use them to build your website?

8. Carry around blank business cards with your website’s URL on them. You can hand out a card whenever your website comes up in conversation — or whenever you bring it up.

9. Get your website URL tattooed on a visible part of your body. Warning: this might look a little dated if the no-www movement wins out in future. Scared of the needle? A temporary tattoo or permanent marker will do the trick. Better yet, draw the URL on someone else, preferably while they’re asleep.

10. Run a competition and make the prize a service you’ll perform. This could be marketing consulting, graphic design, a guest-post, or some other service which utilizes your own individual expertise.

11. Organize a meet-up for webmasters and bloggers in your area and use it as an opportunity to network.

12. Leave fliers for your website at niche hot-spots. For example: leave fliers for a personal finance website outside the economics faculty of your local university, or fliers for a book review website outside a library.

13. Participate in forums related to your niche. Drive traffic back to your website through your forum signature.

14. Run a competition to win advertising space on your site. This is yet another no-cost prize you can use to market your website: free for you but valuable for others.

15. Take out an ad in your local newspaper. They’re often pretty cheap and local papers can have a circulation of thousands.

16. Add your website’s URL to the signature of each email account you use. If appropriate add a funny comment or quote to draw people’s attention.

17. Wear your URL. Make a custom hat, T-shirt or hoodie with your URL on it. This is bound to be a conversation starter.

Guest blogging is also an excellent method of getting exposue for your site specifically within a certain niche. Usually this can be done yourself but it is immensely time consuming, in these case try a guest posting service. Have you used any unconventional strategies to promote your site?

Pidgin: Multi-Protocol IM Client

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Instant messaging (IM) has become a standard medium of communication for both young people and those in a professional working environment. With the prevalence of ads on the official IM clients of companies like Yahoo and AOL, people have started to turn to third-party clients for their IM needs.

Some of these third-parties charge for their clients, and while their programs are feature-rich, people don’t have to pay to get a quality, ad-free IM client. That’s because the open source community has been hard at work on developing IM clients for use on Windows and Linux desktops. One of the best – and oldest – IM clients is called Pidgin.

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Formerly known as Gaim, Pidgin has been around for several years, and boasts a clean interface, no ads, multi-platform compatibility and multi-protocol functionality. It eliminates the need for multiple IM programs for different IM protocols, so you can talk to your Yahoo, AIM, IRC and Jabber buddies (along with many others) all through the same program at the same time.

Pidgin is currently in version 2.2, and boasts many advanced features that you’d expect to find only in programs that cost money. The logging functionality of Pidgin is one example, keeping track of not only every conversation you have, but of every time a buddy in your list logs on, logs off or changes their status. Other features include a plethora of plugins, the ability to detect when other users start typing an IM to you before you even get it and a very small memory usage.

Pidgin’s usefulness is extraordinary, and cannot be overstated. For anyone who IMs, whether in a personal or corporate environment, Pidgin is the way to go. It’s available for download at www.pidgin.im.

Coming to Terms with Windows Vista

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It’s been almost a year since Windows Vista launched, and I think it’s about time to take a step back and look at its current situation. We have Vista Service Pack 1 on the horizon, and there’s been a sufficient amount of discussion around all of Vista’s quirks.

Why do we need to come to terms with Vista at all? While it would be a thoroughly easy suggestion for us all to go back to Windows XP, that honestly isn’t practical advice for the majority of users out there. Those who’ve bought new computers since the beginning of the year have had it forced upon them, and others will soon be using it at school and work. No matter how you feel about Vista, it is an inevitable upgrade for Windows users.

So as a Vista user, voluntary or otherwise, what exactly is there to like about it? Let’s face it, the response to Vista hasn’t been all that positive. While I don’t necessarily disagree with all of the criticism, I also think Vista does grow on you due to a few great usability and work flow improvements. Here are a few things I continue to like about Windows Vista despite its many flaws:

The Start Menu

The new start menu is a vast improvement over Windows XP’s. If you’re not using the Start menu search, then you’re missing out on one of Vista’s best features. The best way to invoke this is to simply hit the Windows key on your keyboard, and then immediately start typing. If you don’t have a Windows key, just click the Start menu and begin typing. By default it searches your personal files, internet history, and your All Programs folder. This can be tweaked to speed up search results by right-clicking on the Start menu, choosing Properties, and then clicking the Customize button under the Start Menu tab.

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Human Readable Options

In Windows past, configuring the operating system was to average users a skill akin to magic. The problem was multifold: options were generally confusing, overabundant, or both. It was the sort of unfriendly user experience that insured people like myself always had a paycheck. Vista makes significant strides towards remedying those esoteric options and making them clear to users from all skill levels.

For example, when you visit the Control Panel in Vista, you’re greeted with a selection of nine functional categories. By digging deeper into them, you discover even more functionality that logically follows from the parent category. I should also mention that all of the categories in the Control Panel also feature descriptive shortcuts to commonly used functions. Techies may despise this as a “dumbing down” of Windows, but I honestly can’t deny the value this move has for typical Windows users. Those who prefer the old Control Panel format can simply choose the “Classic View” option to revel in its familiar anarchy.

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The Shiny

Vista is unequivocally a good looking operating system. While it may lack the polish of Mac OSX and some modern Linux distributions, it’s a vast improvement over Windows XP. Part of this definitely has to do with Vista’s new Aero interface, which takes advantage of 3D hardware in your system to render transparent Windows and other graphical niceties, but it certainly shouldn’t receive all the credit. After all, Aero’s main function, the pretty but useless Flip 3D feature, still pales in comparison to Expose in OSX.

Rather, much of the joy in using Vista stems from seemingly minor additions. Everything from the new screen friendly system fonts, to the themes, color schemes, and icons, all work together to create the best Windows user experience yet. Even the included wallpapers show a commitment to a higher quality user experience by Microsoft.

The Shape of Things to Come

We all know Vista isn’t perfect, but hopefully as I’ve shown there are at least a few things to like about it. As with pretty much every Microsoft product, it will certainly get better over time. We have Service Pack 1 to look forward to early next year, and I anticipate that we’ll begin to see more significant upgrades throughout 2008. There are a slew of promised features that Microsoft had to drop from Vista to release on time, and as those get plugged back in I believe Vista will shape up significantly.

Update

I guess with the Vista SP1 Release Candidate out, this article has been seeing a bit of Digg traffic. With that in mind, I think it’s worth mentioning a few other benefits of Vista that I’ve come across:

Improved Windows Update

Windows Update is now an actual application in Vista, rather than a website that you have to visit. In fact, if you try to visit WindowsUpdate.com in Vista, you get redirected to the application instead. I’ve found that because it’s an application, Vista’s Windows Update performs much faster than any previous version of Windows. I’ve also noticed that it does a much better job than XP ever did of finding drivers updated or missing drivers.

Introducing the Resource Monitor

Vista finally adds built-in functionality to monitor your system performance. The resource monitor allows you to track an obscene level of information on the CPU, memory, hard drive, and network performance of your system. While this functionality has existed in third party applications for some time, there’s always a benefit to having it built-in. It’s great for supporting other people’s computers, for example. Also, it’s one of the best examples in Vista that shows Microsoft isn’t necessarily “dumbing down” the OS. This program is a power user’s dream!

Getting Started With PHP – Part 1: Hello World!

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PHP has become one of the most popular languages for programming on the web. Many popular software packages such as WordPress, Gallery, and ZenCart are built using PHP. If you are planning on using any of these, or doing any sort of web programming, it is useful to at least be familiar with PHP.

This is the first in a series of articles on getting started with PHP. I will first explain the basics of what you need to write and run programs in PHP, and then I will walk you through writing your first PHP program.

The PHP Runtime

The first thing you need to start writing PHP programs is the PHP runtime. The PHP runtime is what will interpret your script when a page is requested, and output the results as HTML to the web browser. Most hosting companies already have PHP installed, so you can probably skip this step.

However, if you are hosting the site on your own web server, you will need to download the PHP runtime here. Depending on the type of web server you have (Apache, IIS, OS X Server), the installation instructions can vary pretty widely, so I will just direct you to the official installation instructions.

The Basic Elements of a PHP Script

Now that you’re ready to start writing your first PHP script, let’s go over the basic elements that are involved:

  • There are a number of specialized PHP editors available, including Komodo, PHPDesigner, and Zend Studio, although I prefer to use a simple text editor like TextPad.
  • PHP pages should have a .php file extension.
  • Inside of your page, PHP script blocks must be enclosed in <?php ?> tags.
  • Regular HTML can be embedded inside of your PHP page, but must be located outside of any PHP script blocks.

Writing Your First Program

Now that we are familiar with the basic elements of a PHP script, we are ready to write our first PHP program. The Hello World! program has long been the standard first program when learning a new programming language, as it performs the most basic of tasks (it displays “Hello World!” on the screen). Let’s take a look at what the Hello World! program looks like in PHP:

<?php
echo "Hello World!";
?>

Pretty simple, huh? Let’s take a closer look at exactly what’s going on here:

  • The echo function simply displays to the screen whatever follows it. There is also a print function that behaves similarly, but echo is actually a little bit faster, so I usually like to use it instead.
  • Since “Hello World!” is a literal string of characters, it must be enclosed in quotes. If I wanted to display the number 1, I could have done this instead: echo 1;
  • The line ends with a semicolon. Every line in a PHP script must end in a semicolon. This is what tells the PHP runtime that the current command is complete. Otherwise, the PHP runtime will try to combine it with the command on the next line, and you will likely get a runtime error.

For Next Time

After reading this article, you should be able to write a basic PHP program that displays “Hello World!” in the browser. The next article in this series will focus on one of the major building blocks needed for writing more interesting programs: variables.

You can already read Getting Started with PHP: Part 2 – Variables