From the Big Guy, AutoHotkey is a (Windows only) scripting tool featuring a very rich language with which one can build anything from the trivial (launch some application with a hot key or mouse gesture, replace awkward key combinations) to the seriously complex (visual AutoHotKey GUI builders). A decent, growing user community is kicking in pre-built scripts and debugging each others’ work.
From my collection on RawSugar:
- Meazure is a (Windows only) program that measures, magnifies and captures the screen by providing a battery of features in a cohesive user interface. Handy utility to finding out the size and color (RBG values of specific pixels, no less) of any screen object and more that I’m too lazy to dig into yet.
- Tiny Tiny RSS is a nicely styled, GPL/open source, server-side RSS aggregator written in PHP and using the latest in Ajax to make the interface simpler than, say, Planet though with a ways to go to match features.
- PHONifier “is an application to make your mobile web life easier. More and more mobile phones have internet access, yet there are very few webdevelopers that really seem to care about the mobile surfer. PHONifier takes care of this by optimizing webpages for mobile phones… On the fly.” GPL open source, coded in PHP. For example, look at BillSaysThis.com through this lens.
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Regex Powertoy is Gordon Mohr’s open source project (requires Java 5 + Javascript in browser), which I saw demoed at BarCamp ’05. Powerful tool for developers who deal with string manipulation and processing in their apps.
Articles:
- A detailed, tested .htaccess script based on alternative strategy for dealing with hotlinking with extensive explanations from Tom Sherman, the script’s developer, as well as good Q&A in the comments giving advice on variations.
- Brad Neuberg’s tutorial Saving Session Across Page Loads Without Cookies, On The Client Side is a helpful alternative to server-side sessions and cookies. Brad just posted a new article explaining he’s uncovered a better way for Internet Explorer-specific (v5 and forward) that enables permanent, not just session, information storage using the Persistence behavior. Both are part of his Ajax Tutorials series.
Happy trails, Tech Explorers!
BillSaysThis 