Some Greasemonkey scripts can really improve the usability on specific websites. We have reviewed several popular scripts before including Greasemonkey scripts for IMDB, Twitter, 4Chan, Youtube or Google Search. Greasemonkey scripts require the Firefox Greasemonkey extension before they can be installed. Users who want to be notified about userscript updates need to install another userscript [...]
Convert various media formats to Vorbis in Linux
Over the past month I have made it my goal to stop using the proprietary MP3 format for audio in favor of the free, open standard Ogg Vorbis format. The primary reasons for doing this is 1) Modern Linux distributions do not ship with mp3 support built in (due to licensing constraints) and 2) My [...]
Google Docs Adds Document Translations
Offering computer translations of documents seems to be a one of the features that Google wants to introduce in many of their services. You might remember that they have added automatic translations of RSS feed items in Google Reader a while ago. A super useful feature for users who follow foreign blogs. A few days [...]
Monitor And Restart Crashed Windows Processes
Even solid well programmed applications crash from time to time. This might not be a huge problem most of the time but it can be one in specific situations. This is especially true in a server environment where some processes, like a mail server, ftp server or streaming media server, have to be running all [...]
Secure File Deletion and Data Shredding
One of the many misconceptions about file deletion is the fact that files can be recovered even if they are deleted on the computer system by the user. Deleting files normally moves them to the recycle bin from where they can be recovered easily. But even deleting them in there or pressing the Shift key [...]
XML Escape Tool
Webmasters have to make sure that the code of their website is excaping several characters correctly. Failure to do so can lead to all kinds of problems from display errors to functions that are not working correctly because of this (check out The XML Page Cannot Be Displayed article for an example of things that [...]
Cool uses of QR codes
In March, Martin discussed QR codes, a form of 2D barcode that phone cameras can rapidly decode, with appropiate software (which can be found easily on Google). The practical uses are for phone numbers to be quickly entered or websites to be quickly launched; QR codes can feature in magazines, websites or on packaging, for [...]
Save As Dead Simple File Sharing Without Size Limit
Hundreds, if not thousands of websites exist that let users share files. These file sharing sites differ in several parameters including the allowed upload file size, number of downloads and bandwidth, account requirements, additional limitations like time limits and several others. Most do not offer unlimited bandwidth and those that do usually last not very [...]
Creating forms to aid OpenOffice.org Base data entry
In the first entry to this “series” I worked through the process of creating a database with OpenOffice.org Base (“How to create a database with OpenOffice Base“.) Upon completion of that article you found yourself with a working database with no data. Fortunately OpenOffice Base includes tools to help you add data to your database. [...]