Thomas Brinegar joined the Beacon Team as a summer intern in the Software Development group. Thomas stayed on once the school year started to help with our many new projects. He comes to us from High Point University and works on content development.

Posts by Thomas Brinegar:

The Bitcoin

Thomas Brinegar | August 26th, 2011
in Internet Security, Web Development, Web Marketing

Bitcoins came up in a brief discussion during one of my CS courses this past week. Apparently, these have been around since 2009, but I hadn’t heard anything until now. Essentially, a bitcoin is a digital currency that can be used across the internet. The Bitcoin Client can be run from a linux box and can “mine” for coins on a network which are then saved into a digital wallet with electronic signatures. Major perks of the new currency include:

Transfers directly from sender to receiver (no clearing house).
Fees are much lower.
Useable in every country.
Lower fees
Accounts cannot be frozen.
Based on open-source software
No prerequesites or limits

Video

Getting Started

So what determines the value of a Bitcoin? According to “WeUseCoins.com”:

“The value of a commodity is determined by supply and demand. The supply side of Bitcoins is limited by design. The demand comes from people wanting Bitcoins to trade with.”

~Source

Exchange Rate

The exchange rate can be monitored online at MTGOX. Here is a diagram of the currency value over the last 24 hours at the time of writing this post:

More Information

Tags: bitcoins, internet security, Web Development
Posted in Internet Security, Web Development, Web Marketing | No Comments »

The Web in 60 Seconds

Thomas Brinegar | August 1st, 2011
in Not Really Computer Related, Other, Web Development

The internet is an ever-growing jungle of information. I found this graphic depicting some of the common activities on the web and the number of occurrences they appear every minute. Facebook, the social networking giant, has 695,000 status updates, almost 80,000 wall posts, and over half a million comments posted every minute. By the time you’ve read this post, Google will also have received just under 700,000 searches.

(Click image for full size)
Source: Go-Gulf

Tags: Google, Internet, social media
Posted in Not Really Computer Related, Other, Web Development | No Comments »

Javascript Mouseover Shenanigans

Thomas Brinegar | July 8th, 2011
in Other, Web Development

I ran into an issue with the JS mouseover event while scripting some extra functionality onto our homepage last week. I would expect the issue to be more commonly reported or documented, however I found few hints or online resources that discussed the matter after doing some thorough searching. The problem I faced was anytime I’d hover one of the child elements (the links) to the containing div, the mouseout event would trigger and fade out the box—and the links with it… And un-clickable links are no good. So, mouseover on child elements triggers a mouseout of the parent. The page requirement was to have a link that once hovered, faded in a box with links contained inside—and when you hovered off, the box would fade away. Naturally, I anticipated that the child elements of the div would still be considered “moused over” the div, however this isn’t the case and requires further DOM manipulation.

The instant the mouse cursor entered the box illustrated above in red, the entire box would fade out. The code looked similar to the following condensed markup:

<html>
<head>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.6.2.min.js"></script>
	<script>
		function showLinks(){ jQuery('#linklist').fadeIn(250); }
		function hideLinks(){ jQuery('#linklist').fadeOut(250); }
	</script>
</head>
<body>
	<a href="#" onmouseover="showLinks();">Hover Link</a>
	<div id="linklist" style="display:none;" onmouseout="hideLinks();">
		<a href="#">Link</a><br />
		<a href="#">Link</a><br />
		<a href="#">Link</a><br />
		<a href="#">Link</a>
	</div>
</body>
</html>

I did manage to find an article that discussed this, however, the provided solution was not cross-browser compliant—a concept we work pretty hard at Beacon to maintain. The article is available at QuirksMode.org. One consideration was to pick up the location of the box once the mouseover event was triggered (faded in) and then tracking the mouse coordinates in comparison to a region of pixels around the box, to fire the fade-out routine. Instead, I managed a way by conditionally allowing the mouseout event to fire. Here’s a solution:

<html>
<head>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.6.2.min.js"></script>
	<script>
		var isOverLink = false; var isOverDiv = false;
		function showLinks(){ jQuery('#linklist').fadeIn(250); }
		function hideLinks(){ if(!isOverLink && !isOverDiv) jQuery('#linklist').fadeOut(250); }
	</script>
</head>
<body>
	<a href="#" onmouseover="showLinks();">Hover Link</a>
	<div id="linklist" style="display:none;" onmouseover="isOverDiv = true;" onmouseout="isOverDiv = false; setTimeout('hideLinks()',250);">
		<a href="#" onmouseover="isOverLink = true;" onmouseout="isOverLink = false;">Link</a><br />
		<a href="#" onmouseover="isOverLink = true;" onmouseout="isOverLink = false;">Link</a><br />
		<a href="#" onmouseover="isOverLink = true;" onmouseout="isOverLink = false;">Link</a><br />
		<a href="#" onmouseover="isOverLink = true;" onmouseout="isOverLink = false;">Link</a>
	</div>
</body>
</html>

So, what changed? When the page loads, two boolean variables are defaulted to false–One for tracking when the Div is moused over, and one for all the links. The boolean values are switched to their respective state when mousing on and off the links or the Div box. Since the onmouseout is triggered each time we mouse over those links, we’ve put a 250-millisecond delay in calling the hideLinks function (only on the containing div’s onmouseout attribute) so that the variables have time to swap and under the condition that the user is neither hovered over the link or the div–and the box persists with clickable links!

Tags: hover, javascript, mouseover
Posted in Other, Web Development | No Comments »

WordPress Development: Plug-ins VS Functions

Thomas Brinegar | June 10th, 2011
in Managing Web Content, Other, Web Development

There are thousands of plugins available for WordPress, which is awesome for non-coders. The issue with many of these plugins is the bulk code it produces is highly unnecessary when you consider most functionality is already available for use in a fresh installation of WordPress. Plug-ins also have to be reconfigured across sites–integrating these functions into your template eases the portability of your site’s theme while maintaining functionality. On a recent project, we discussed this integration as a standard for blog development, which is a significant advantage when you consider the process of pushing out releases.

Consider the following 3 plug-ins:

Popular Posts
Recent Posts
Post-Plugin Library – Needed for other plug-ins to work. (See the bulk?)

These are pretty commonly used methods of displaying blog posts and content. Together, these 3 plug-ins only take up 500Kb of data–however, everything you need is already in WordPress if you know the lay of the land. The three functions below can do all the same things with just a copy+paste into your functions-file, usually located at:

/wp-content/themes/YOUR-THEME-NAME/functions.php

These are pretty simple to modify or tweak as needed, whether it be the code in PHP or the markup/styles. Oh, and these replacement functions only take up a tiny 1.64Kb!

Functions:

<?php
	function popularPosts($num) {
		global $wpdb;
		$posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count, ID, post_title, post_date FROM $wpdb->posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 , $num");
		foreach ($posts as $post) {
			$title = $post['post_title'];
			$count = $post['comment_count'];
			$date = $post['post_date'];
			if($count!=0) echo '<li><a href="' . get_permalink($id) . '" title="' . $title . '">' . $title . '</a><br /><div class="post-date">'.$date.'</div></li>';
		}
	}
	function recentPosts($num){
		$args = array('numberposts'=>$num);
		$recent_posts = wp_get_recent_posts($args);
		foreach($recent_posts as $post){
			$date = $post['post_date'];
			echo '<li><a href="' . get_permalink($post["ID"]) . '" title="Look '.$post["post_title"].'" >' .   $post["post_title"].'</a><div class="post-date">'.$date.'</div></li>';
		}
	}
	function recentComments($num){
		global $wpdb;
		$comments = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT DISTINCT ID, post_title, post_password, comment_ID, comment_post_ID, comment_author, comment_date_gmt, comment_approved, comment_type,comment_author_url, SUBSTRING(comment_content,1,30) AS com_excerpt FROM $wpdb->comments LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb->posts ON ($wpdb->comments.comment_post_ID = $wpdb->posts.ID) WHERE comment_approved = '1' AND comment_type = '' AND post_password = '' ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT ".$num);
		foreach ($comments as $comment)	echo '<li><strong>'.ucwords(strip_tags($comment->comment_author)) ."</strong> commented on " . "<a href="" . get_permalink($comment->ID)."#comment-" . $comment->comment_ID . "" title="on ".$comment->post_title . "">" . $comment->post_title ."</a></li>";
	}
?>

Once you have these in functions.php, it is easy to call the functions from the sidebar or other locations of the template files.

Notes:

The functions above would need to go inside of individual unordered list tags as they are currently marked up for the sidebar.
The function require to pass a numeric parameter representing the number of posts/comments to return.

Example Usage:

This is an example of how to setup your ‘sidebar.php’ file to make use of these functions, Plugin-free.

<div id="sidebar">
	<div class="search" align="center">
		<?php get_search_form() ?>
	</div>
	<?php
		echo '<div class="tabs">';
		//Popular
		echo '<div id="popular-posts">';
		echo '<h2>Popular</h2><ul>';
		popularPosts(5);
		echo '</ul></div>';
		//Recent
		echo '<div id="recent-posts">';
		echo '<h2>Recent</h2><ul>';
		recentPosts(5);
		echo '</ul></div>';
		//Comments
		echo '<div id="recent-comments">';
		echo '<h2>Comments</h2><ul>';
		recentComments(5);
		echo '</ul></div>';
		//Get dynamic toolbar managed in WordPress Dashboard
		if(!function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('tabs')){echo '</div>';}
		if(function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar('Sidebar Widgets')) : else : endif;
	?>
</div>

Tags: blogs, wordpress
Posted in Managing Web Content, Other, Web Development | No Comments »

Clipboard Managers

Thomas Brinegar | May 18th, 2011
in Web Development

When developing content, throwing XHTML tags around client text and data can be a slow process without the clipboard.
It hit me the other day that I should try to make use of multiple clipboards so in any text editor,
I can keep a copy of an opening tag on one clipboard and the closing in another. Microsoft Office has a clipboard manager
feature, but it doesn’t work across applications, nor did it have keyboard shortcuts to swap between the active clipboard.
There are plenty of search results for clipboard managers on the web, these being a few of the best I found:

Clipboards - Download
- Can be used with no need for an interface
- Includes a ‘Clipboard Viewer’ to view clipboard contents and make edits
- Allows active clipboard switching using ALT+1 through ALT+9
- Can swap between ALT/CTRL as hotkey for switching the active clipboard
- Individual clipboards can copy and contain text or images
- Makes repetitive development processes much less tedious.
- Run on startup
Clipboard Manager – Download
- Highly configurable with UI
- All copy instances sends copied data to UI
- Transparent-capable interface
- Clipboard selection identifies data types (text,images,html,etc.)
- Keyboard shortcuts are configurable
- Run on startup

Of the two listed, Clipboards works much more in my favor. Using CTRL+C, CTRL+V, and CTRL+1 through 9 allows me to quickly jump between clipboards without having to change windows, make a selection, or open a taskbar icon.

Tags: clipboard, tags, xhtml
Posted in Web Development | No Comments »

Cookie Scripting

Thomas Brinegar | April 13th, 2011
in Creative Design, Managing Web Content, Web Development

Cookies have a range of uses across the web. Cookies are used to identify a visitors (authentication), remembering settings or configuration, or even maintaining a shopping cart or wishlist. Cookies can store data locally on a visitor’s machine and can be called back as long as the cookie does not expire or get cleaned up by the browser’s Temporary File Cleanup. On a recent project, we built a ‘Bookmark’ utility as extra functionality into a client’s site. This functionality required the use of cookies, containing a URL as a reference to the bookmark locations. jQuery has greatly simplified the scripting for cookies. However, after this previous project I decided to write some re-useable functions to handle common cookie routines. Packaging multiple values into a cookie can be done through separating the values with a ‘separator’, usually a character the cookie values will not use. Common separators are the pipe (|) or tilde(~). Back to the bookmark example, we can store the URLs in a single cookie with pipe separators as opposed to dropping a new cookie for every bookmark.

Library Resources:

You will need to include the following scripting libraries/resources for methods in the function list below. You may include the libraries with three individual script tags or use the integrated one compiled below.

jQuery – Contains the backbone behind the jQuery library
jQuery Cookies – Additional jQuery library for cookies
jQuery Functions – Simplified functions for easy cookie project coding

- Integrated JS Library -

Function List Overview

function cookieSet(name,value,exp){
	//set cookie with value
	$.cookie(name,value,{expires:exp});
	return;
}
function cookieGet(name){
	//get value of single value cookie
	return $.cookie(name);
}
function cookiePrint(name){
 //print value of a single cookie
	document.write($.cookie(name));
	return;
}
function cookieGlue(name,values,seperator){
 //construct cookie with array of values
	var str = '';
	for(var i=0;i < values.length;i++)
            if(i!=values.length-1) str = str+values[i]+seperator; else str = str+values[i];
	$.cookie(name,str);
	return;
}
function cookieSplit(name,seperator){
 //return array of values in cookie
	var vals = $.cookie(name);
	return vals.split(seperator);
}
function cookiePrintArray(name,seperator){
 //print cookie array values
	var str = $.cookie(name);
	str = str.split(seperator);
	for(var i=0;i < str.length;i++) document.write(str[i]+' ');
        return;
}
function cookieKill(name){
  //Delete cookie value/array
	$.cookie(name,null);
	return;
}

Cookie Scripting Examples

cookieSet('Name','Thomas Brinegar',7);		//set cookie with 7 day expiration
var cookie = cookieGet('Name');			//assign cookie val into variable
cookiePrint('Name');				//print cookie value

var name = new Array();				//create an array for cookie storage
name[0] = 'Thomas';
name[1] = 'David';
name[2] = 'Brinegar';	

cookieGlue('Name_Array',name,'~');		//glue array values together as cookie
var vals = cookieSplit('Name_Array','~');	//assign cookie values into array
cookiePrintArray('Name_Array','~');		//print array contents

cookieKill('Name');				//remove cookie value
cookieKill('Name_Array');			//remove cookie array

Tags: cart, cookies, jquery, scripting
Posted in Creative Design, Managing Web Content, Web Development | No Comments »

WordPress Theme Development with Artisteer

Thomas Brinegar | March 17th, 2011
in Creative Design, Managing Web Content, Other, Web Development

We recently picked up a fantastic piece of software for designing WordPress themes called Artisteer. While this software doesn’t give you complete control over the content, its great for throwing a general layout which can be finely tuned after it is exported. Artisteer features an easy to use
‘Microsoft Office’-styled interface that generates your layout and scheme via point and click.

When developing for WordPress sites in this way, I religiously abide by the following development process:

Start with the Design/Theme in Artisteer.

Start a new project within Artisteer with the WordPress CMS.
Work left to right with along the menu tabs on the ribbon across the top. Within each tab, work left to right with the avaible options and settings.
On the far left tab, Ideas, click Suggest Design until a base design to work from is found or skip this and build the page using the Layour tab.
Each tab focus has a ‘Suggest’ button for the helplessly creative.
As you work to the last tabs, the design gets fine-tuned across page elements.
Once a design is ready for site integration, click the arrow on Export button at the top of the menu bar. Select Export Options…
On the properties option window, enter the author name, url, template version, template URL, any associated tags, and a brief description of the theme.
Once this is entered, export your theme as a WordPress Theme. Exporting the theme as standard markup is available too, but is of no use inside WordPress.

Integrate into WordPress.

Start up your FTP app of choice, FireFTP is convenient if your a FireFox user.
Navigate and transfer a copy of your theme folder to: /public_html/wp-content/themes/
Log into your WordPress Dashboard. http://YourSite.com/wp-admin
Under the appearance drop-down on the sidebar, select Themes.
Your theme once uploaded, should be listed among the themes avaialable to your site. Find yours and click ‘Activate’.

Add Non-Artisteer Elements and Styles to Template

Artisteer isn’t going to always have every part of your site. You can make these from the ‘editor’ in the WordPress Dashboard listed under Appearance, or use a text editor and FTP.
Making these modifications require knowing the WordPress Theme structure. Much of the code is in PHP, so background there also helps.
Inside of every Artisteer generated WordPress theme, you will have the following in your Export folder:

Open and add/change markup to THEME_NAME/header.php for changes to the header area, usually META, LINK, and SCRIPT tags and body elements that precede the menu bar.
Open and add/change markup to THEME_NAME/templates/page.php for changes to the pages Menu, Sidebar, down until the main content area is loaded.
Open and add/change markup to THEME_NAME/templates/post.php for changes to the content area of posts and pages across the site.
Open and add/change markup to THEME_NAME/footer.php for changes to the footer area, this is any markup that follows the pages main content area
(May be contained within outter-most DIV if designed so within the ‘Sheet’ in Artisteer).
Open and add/change markup to THEME_NAME/404.php for changes to text and verbage on the 404 page.
Open and add/change styles in THEME_NAME/style.css for changes to the stylesheet.

Site Structure and Content

After the above is said and done, all thats left is organizing the structure of the site and loading it with content.
Under 'Settings > General', change blog metadata and primary options.
Under 'Settings > Writing', set defaults and settings for publishing blog content.
Under 'Settings > Reading', set a static or blog listing homepage and set listing pages to show either summaries or full articles.
Under 'Settings > Discussion', configure comment restrictions and requirements.
Under 'Settings > Media', configure media (image and file) restrictions and requirements.
Under 'Settings > Privacy', configure whether the site is to be visible or not to Search Engines.
Under 'Settings > Permalinks', customize the URL structure. I generally stick to Month & Name or a Custom Structure using: /%category%/%postname%
Determine sidebar widgets and make active under 'Appearance > Widgets'.
Load posts and pages with content in their respective sections. Keep in mind to setup categories for posts if necessary.

Tags: blog, design, social media, wordpress
Posted in Creative Design, Managing Web Content, Other, Web Development | No Comments »

Vibe Trib GS Add-on & Template Design

Thomas Brinegar | February 24th, 2011
in Creative Design, eCommerce / ASPDNSF, Web Development

Vibe offers a variety of add-ons for ASPDotNetStorefront. However, its pretty common that a template design will get nuked or lose its style after the add-ons or functionality is included. One add-on. On a previous post, I explained how to integrate Vibe’s Product Compare Add-on with their Vibe Trib Add-on, both of which make use of the product listing and detail pages. I’ve run into a common template design problem with the Vibe Trib GS Add-on (includes filters, search, sort, and attributes) and on that can be easily resolved, given you know where to look. If you make use of a left navigation for products, you will unavoidably run into this issue. If you don’t this add-on will simply serve as your one and only left navigation pane for product filtering. (See Vibe’s example page.)

Notice in the previous post how the results filters are in the left navigation underneath other topic pages? The Vibe Trib plugin allows site visitors to filter results by different attributes of your store’s products. Getting these filters into the left navigation for the first time took quite some effort to resolve. The page content is rendered using “entity.vibe.trib.xml.config” and would obviously populate the right side, where the placeholder is positioned in the template. (See image below) Because this XML package is responsible for generating those filters, if the original template uses a left navigation area, the filters will be called too late by the XML package to be properly rendered. You could always use CSS to float the filters to the right, thats an easy solution, but recent projects have required using the left nav.

Steps

The first step is to carve out your leftNav from your template and save a copy of it in your ‘skins/skin_id’ directory.
Since these Vibe add-ons relate to products, I generally name it ‘products.ascx’.
In the admin screen, navigate to your product categories. Under ‘Extension Data’ for every category change the “Use Skin Template” field to match your new template name. (Include .ascx!)
With the leftNav on your clipboard, open the relevant XML Package to develop and simply build the leftNav as part of the XML Package in ‘skins/skin_id/XMLPackages’.
Remember to use a customized XML Package, you need to open the XML Packages directory in the root directory of your site.
Once the XML Package has been changed to include the leftNav
VibeTrib Add-on uses ‘entity.vibe.trib.xml.config’ for listing pages, but this will also need done for the search page (if you want filters on your search page–which of course you will).
In order to make the change on the search page, we need to develop the search content’s responsible XML Package as well. This can usually be a copy-paste job once its done for a prior package.
Once the search page has the modifications, they will not show without adding a custom AppConfig.
Again navigate to the admin screen, select the Configuration tab < Advanced < AppConfig Parameters.
On the left-hand side, we need to create a new AppConfig that directs the search page to use a different template.
The config name needs to start with : “Template” followed by the name of the ASPX page that will be called (no spaces). The Vibe Search included with the add-on is vsearch.aspx
The config value simply needs to be the name of the new template to use: products.ascx
Click add and the AppConfig should change the search pages template over to support the leftNav with filters all being produced by the calling XML Package.

Tags: aspdotnetstorefront, ecommerce, template
Posted in Creative Design, eCommerce / ASPDNSF, Web Development | 2 Comments »

Cascade Server Managed Calendar & Events

Thomas Brinegar | February 3rd, 2011
in Google Analytics

On a recent project, one of our clients requested we port over a calendar and event script built in PHP as part of their new CascadeServer site under development. The diagram below describes the flow of input (shown in yellow) and output (shown in blue) necessary for making the integration possible.

Click for full-size image

Porting the Calendar and Event application included making the input manageable from within the CMS. Using XSL formats, we were able to enforce the old XML structure used by the original PHP script. This format would transform the output of the XML generated by the data definitions used on Event pages to match the XML format the PHP script required. Users can then log into Cascade and directly add calendar events in the same way they would a standard content page. The WYSIWIG we provided is shown below. Each event is visible on the calling page in both calendar (grid) and event (list) views. When selected from either view, event information populates the page without a need to navigate from the calling page due to the the mechanics of the script. The events’ HTML configuration type is not actually used, but are still present for internal use.

On top of porting the script into Cascade, we configured the script to work with multiple websites and allow users to filter events and data by “audiences”, meaning events only relevant to that site shared from a single location. Event data was also made to include: Event title, start and end dates and times (represented also on the Calendar/grid view), locations, and descriptions. We ran into an issue of where the calendar view was taking up to a minute to load on the page. Originally, the script would loop on the days of the month to build the grid, and for each day it would check each event’s XML file to determine whether or not to output the event on that day. This was the source of the slow running time. With only 10 events across a 31 day month, the loop would need to cycle 310 times. This was sped up by doing the following:

Loop through each XML file once and determine if the event is in the month and year currently on display.
If the month and year were a match, push XML file data into 2 arrays—one containing the XHTML to output (such as link to the event) and the other containing the event date for later comparison as we loop through the current month displayed. This causes the script to only need to read through all the events only once.
Then change the output procedure to work by popping data off the array as the script iterated through the month by comparing the current day with that of the event array’s top element. When an event is used, it is simply popped off the array until the array is empty or the end of the month reached.

Tags: cascade, hannon hill, Web Development
Posted in Google Analytics | 2 Comments »

Configuring an Efficient Workstation

Thomas Brinegar | January 17th, 2011
in Other, Web Development

As a developer, I demand good response time from the workstation I am using. Back in the days of dial-up internet connections and the average machine possessing less than a quarter-gig of RAM, when your system stalled–you pretty much just dealt with it and sat patiently. Today, this isn’t so much the case, or at least it shouldn’t be. I still sit down on occasion to a desktop computer that seems to drag before pulling up a browser or explorer window. I’m really not into deep modifications of the OS or registry tweaks, however, there are a few routine tasks I always go through when I optimize my machine. There are two sides to the speed and efficiency of the computer, the user and the machine itself. Both of which can have changes made for improvement. The user, dynamic in its demand towards the machine, ought to carry the mentality that the computer is a tool—and that sharp tools cut better than dull ones. The following tips and modifications are discussed with relevance to the Windows OS environment, however there are Unix and Mac equivalents for most.

THE COMPUTER:

1.) Disable uncommonly used programs at startup to maximize system resources and response time. It drives me nuts when I get on a machine that has a billion icons in the taskbar beside the system clock and it is very unlikely that even half of them are used in a single session. AIM, Skype, Yahoo and other messengers, anti-virus applications and scanners (NOT firewalls), desktop and user enhancement applications, application and driver managers… These are all pulling on your memory and your CPU usage at some level or degree and in excess can rob you of speed.

How To:
a. Click Start, Run, and type: MSCONFIG

b. Remove services from starting up by clicking the Services tab on the System Configuration window. Clicking on the checkbox to hide Windows services really narrows down the list and will list services that aren’t so crucial to your OS. If there are components you can do without in the Windows Services list, the option is there to disable them.

Note: There is potential to remove functionality from your PC if you go disabling the wrong features–so it is important to know exactly what your working with before you go clicking (May Google guide you…). For example, Synaptic is a common listing in the Startup list for laptops that use a touchpad. You probably wouldn’t want this disabled.

c. On the startup tab, there is a list of all the applications that windows initializes for you when you boot up and log on. My general rule of thumb, unless I use it EVERY time I turn the computer on–keep it off.

Note: When using an out of the box Dell or HP, you are likely running all kinds of background bulkware and services that the manufacturer loads onto the machine. Whether you use it or not may take personal consideration with relevance to your needs. I almost always have to go through this after buying a new system.

2.) Combine related software with more integrated software. Rather than running 3 different messengers within three different processes you can find a variety of different multi-client applications to handle all your messaging needs.

3.) Windows does not necessarily provide the best developer environment. There are however, plenty of applications and software out there to compensate. Below are a few that I have made repeated use of and are the only programs I have running when I log in (aside from driver-related programs).

a. RocketDock : This is an application launcher which replicates that of the Mac. The auto-hide and many other features make it a good way to organize and manage programs and shortcuts.   This program can be configured to use lower memory and beats the heck out of fumbling through the start menu.
Link: http://rocketdock.com

b. Sizer : This taskbar tool helps you quickly resize windows and provides a tooltip box on windows when resizing. I had to switch my monitor resolution back and forth in the past for smaller resolutions when debugging web pages. This got rid of that hassle.
Link: www.brianapps.net/sizer

c. Stick : This application has a variety of uses. Its core function is to allow the user to add tabs to the sides of the desktop screen for easy access. There are many different tab types and tab uses that you can integrate with this:

i.   Text editor or Clipboard
ii.   News Feed
iii.   Interactive Calendar
iv.   Web browser tabs
v.   In-tab Explorer Window
Link: http://www.iwonderdesigns.com/stick/

THE USER:

1.) Close programs when they are not in use. This not only stops the program from taking system resources, but reduces window tabbing and searching. Even with the introduction of the window preview on the taskbar in Windows 7, a hundred explorer or browser windows is still unmanageable in my book.

2.) Reserve the desktop for current projects, materials, and resources. Again, this reduces the need to search and find things you’ve already started on. Its easiest to clear off the desktop as projects become completed and then I keep an archive in my user directory.

3.) Remember to maintain structure with your directories and files. Navigating, searching and finding already archived files takes less time if the directory setup is well-organized and sensible.

4.) Learn to use the task manager and resource monitor. This will allow you to easily identify what programs are misbehaving and to diagnose and fix the issue yourself. Accessing the task manager and ending an erratic application is much faster than letting the machine lock up and allowing it to attempt to resolve the issue itself.

5.) Learn system shortcuts that apply to the way you use the computer. I try to keep my hand off the mouse as much as possible. I feel that GUIs and navigating around windows and interfaces are slower than simply instructing the machine what to do with the flick of a few keys.

Change between windows : ALT+TAB (Visual: WINDOWS+TAB in Windows 7)

Minimize All / Show Desktop: WINDOWS KEY + M

Position window left/right (Windows 7) : WINDOWS KEY + LEFT ARROW or RIGHT ARROW

Minimize Window (Windows 7) : WINDOWS KEY + DOWN

Maximize Window (Windows 7) : WINDOWS KEY + UP

Tabbing : Most windows have something called a “tab index”. Rather than clicking around, you can quickly get to text boxes, links, and buttons by tapping the Tab key until you get a highlight over the object you want to interact with.

Close Window : ALT+F4

Wide-Spread Program Shortcuts:

Copy : CTRL+C

Cut : CTRL+X

Paste : CTRL+V

Print : CTRL+P

Select All : CTRL+A

Save : CTRL+S

New : CTRL+N

Refresh : CTRL+R or F5

UNDO : CTRL+Z

REDO : CTRL+Y

Select address/location bar:

Explorer: F4

Browser: F6

6.) Learn to use the Run box. Here are a few keywords that I have embedded into my brain as a result of repeated use.

cmd : This will launch the windows command line.

msconfig : This will bring up your System Configuration window

sysdm.cpl : This is the System Properties window.

services.msc : Get to the services window to enable, disable, and set services up on startup

appwiz.cpl : The add/remove programs window.

mstsc : Launches a remote desktop session.

\\domain-name : Quickly launch an explorer window targeted at a location on the network.

C:/D:/E:/etc You can type a drive letter followed by a colon to quickly get to portable media, network drives, or hard disks.

Type in Windows Username : Will open ‘C:\Users\YourUserName’ which contains Documents, Music, Pictures, and other folders.

Documents/Music/Pictures/Downloads/Videos : These will launch an explorer window opening the respective folder in your User directory.

firefox/chrome/iexplore/opera/safari : Launch keywords for different browsers.

7.) Create your own custom launch commands. Simply make a shortcut of a file, executable, folder, webpage, or other object then cut and paste the shortcut into:

C:\Windows\system\system32

You will then be able to just press WINDOWS KEY+R and type whatever you named the shortcut to launch. Using this technique with Batch Scripting opens up a whole world of task automation.

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