It happens to everyone - and it happened to me last week. I use my MiniStack external 500gig drive for my iTunes music library…and to make room for a complete backup (using Time Machine) I accidentally deleted all my music. Did I have a backup of all my music? No. I recently cleaned up my backup files and deleted the backup that had all my music files.

I have since changed my backups to include music on a regular basis but to get back all the lost music - I used File Salvage. The process took a long time - but I expected that when combing through a 500 gig drive. If you ever need to recover files - check this application out!

I am a huge fan of all Despair.com items, but I had not been there for a few months so when I saw they are now selling shirts (DespairWear) I got really excited. Expect to see me sporting one of these in the near future!

There is a really cool web site out there that I stumbled across a few days ago: EveryBlock.com. This really cool web site lets you look at events and places on a “neighborhood” level. You can see all crimes, photos, Craigslist listings, businesses, film locations, etc by entering in a zip code or by choosing a neighborhood. This is a really cool tool - especially if you are thinking about moving into a new neighborhood. This was a great find because it has Chicago as one of it’s pilot cities! I look forward to watching this site grow.

If you ever need a gift for someone that is hard to buy for, check out Brookstone’s wireless home weather forecaster. This really cool instrument automatically locates itself geographically, then updates itself using radio signals so that you always have the latest weather report (thanks to accuweather.com). I recently bought one of these and it is really cool. It even has a great magnet back so it easy sticks on the refrigerator door.

After spending an hour on something that should have taken me 20 minutes - I wanted to pass on something I should have caught right away. The problem: you use CSS to lay something out and it looks great in Firefox and Safari - but not in IE. At this point I validate the CSS to make sure I did not forget a bracket or something stupid. Next step - validate the XHTML. This is where I would have solved my problem, but I failed to take this step. At that point I would have seen that the script I was working with did not have a doctype defined. Once I added in the doctype - everything loaded as expected and I could not believe I missed something so basic. Lesson learned - and hopefully you will know now as well to make sure a doctype is always set.

I recently posted about the bluetooth cordless phone I ordered. Yesterday I got everything set up and to my surprise - both my iPhone and Amy’s Sony Ericsson something or other phone both paired without any problems and everything works quite nicely! I would definitely recommend this phone (or type of phone) to anyone who gets a lot of calls on their cell and home phones. Not to mention, the UI of this Panasonic phone (KX-TH111) is great!

Start the year of right - set up a backup system! A few years ago, I documented how to backup your web sites, databases, email, etc when your host uses CPanel to a remote FTP server. Since then, there have been several CPanel updates and Perl updates that the script no longer works so I have been looking for another option and finally found it. The new script is called: CPsafe (if that does not work, check out the cached version. Within 5 minutes, you can have your home directory backup set up and ready to run. I think the hardest part of this process was figuring out where to turn on FTP access in my Mac OS X 10.5 new install. (System Prefs > Sharing > File Sharing > Options > FTP)

My company is working on one of the largest projects we have ever done and the entire project (a 153 field application form, admin, scoring admin, etc) has to be done in both English and Spanish. This has been a fun project all around. This is the first time I have worked with Ruby on Rails and with localization. Fortunately enough, I found a great tool which I had never used before: Babel Fish Translation. I can input all my form labels and text into the English to Spanish translator and viola! I should mention I started with the Google Translator (still in beta) and did not have the luck I have had with Babel Fish.

I recently finished up migrating a site for a client (WordPress MU) from one host to another. I got an email requesting the migration from someone that said “it was a simple blog with only a few plugins”. When I took my initial look, I counted 30 plugins, and a database with 2093 tables (WordPress MU standard install uses 7 tables). When I asked them about the database size, they were just as shocked. Come to find out - they had a ton of “spam blogs”. After a few hours of weeding out some of the spam blogs, they were able to get the database size down to 1390 tables - which made it slightly more easy to work with.

The lesson here is - if you are going to use WordPress MU - I would consider requiring approval before a blog is created, or at the very least, monitor the blogs on your site. Of course, I would also highly recommend using Akismet for comment spam as well which will also cut down on the general spam level per blog. Also something to note, before you move your site to … [more]

There have been some great HBO shows that almost everyone has at least heard about…Sopranos, Sex and the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, but not many people are aware of one of their best series (in my opinion) Carnivale. This is a great look at good v. evil in a great, yet mysterious time after the first World War. If you are looking for something interesting to watch during your upcoming holiday break - put this series on your Netflix list.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how you can legally watch almost all network shows on their web site. I wanted to follow up with some comments and afterthoughts. First, I feel it is necessary to say something about each network’s video player. (ABC, CBS, NBC)
Best Online Video Experience Rating

1. ABC. By far, ABC has the best player. There are plenty of shows available, the video is crisp, it loads fast (little to no waiting), the commercials interruptions are not too frequent, and the UI is great. Overall, it is well put together.
2. CBS. I have not watched many CBS shows online, but from what I have seen so far, I would rate their player only second to ABC. The show selection is pretty impressive (perhaps the most impressive - but I am partial…they have my soap available). The video loads fast, but is not as crisp as ABC. I think the commercials are done better then ABC (they are less disruptive and fewer). The UI is not as intuitive as ABC, but overall they did a great job
3. NBC. This is the last network I turn to … [more]
   

Usually when I get done with a web site and am ready to create a favicon (the little icon in your browser’s address bar to the left of the URL) I end up having to create the image in PhotoShop, then save it as an ico file using Graphic Converter. A quicker way to do this would just be to use the incredibly simple to use favikon web site. Nice work!

There have been two great menu and navigation techniques I have used over the last few years:

1. Sliding Doors of CSS
2. Sons of Suckerfish (for drop down menus)

I have used both of these techniques on several web sites, but crazily not together…until a week ago when a client decided they wanted to move away from their antiquated menus that relied on hundreds of lines of javascript, HTML tables, and over 40 image files (for seven tabs). This technique works in IE 6, IE 7, Firefox, and Safari.

After I had put the code into place I thought it might be helpful for others to see exactly how it is done. These techniques give you a lot of flexibility with very lightweight code.

Code/Files Needed

1. Two tab images (left and right, with both an active and hover (highligted) option
2. Sub-menu arrow (not required)
3. Sons of Suckerfish javascript
4. CSS for both the drop downs and the sliding doors techniques
5. Menu list code (your menu items)

Two tab images
The sliding door technique is great because you do not need to make tab specific images, nor do you need to worry about the tab length - it is all taken care of by two images and some CSS. For … [more]

I recently picked out and bought a desk for my office from Room and Board. The desk was delivered to my house yesterday and I could not be any happier with the experience. Since I am in the service business myself, I am always appreciative of great customer service and wanted to share my experience.

After the delivery, I got an email from a Room and Board employee:
Checking in with you to make sure that you are pleased with your purchase.
If there is anything that I can assist you with, please let me know.
Thank you for shopping at Room and Board.

Since I have been extremely satisfied, I decided to let them know by replying back to the email:

Hello. Thanks for checking in. I have been a Room and Board fan since the day I walked in your showroom in Wilmette. I have been extremely happy with your company’s service throughout the entire process. Your web site is easy to use, the people I spoke with at the warehouse were nice and the delivery men were very courteous and on time. I love the desk and look forward to complimenting it … [more]

I have a lot of hosting companies - thanks to my clients who come in with all kinds of hosting companies. I have found that some hosting companies are better than others in terms of support and I just found another horrible support company that I wanted to mention: iPowerWeb. I was on hold multiple times today for over 30 minutes and I waited to “Live Chat” with someone for over 20 minutes. When someone actually got on and tried to help, after 1 hour, they told me they could not help me and had to escalate the issue. Yikes. (other hosting posts)

If there is one thing I absolutely love about McDonalds (besides their superior Coke mixture) I love their Monopoly game. I even dreamt about the game a few nights ago that I pulled off Park Place and Boardwalk from the same Coke…and won $246. With that said - the excitement of pulling off the little game pieces from my medium Coke and putting them onto the board is usually enough to make me smile. I happened to have a pile of pieces at my house (maybe 6) and decided to go online and check out their “online Monopoly game“. When I first got to the page - I was instantly frustrated. My #21 pet peeve in life happens to be sites that resize my browser window. However, after I resize it back to how I wanted it - I was blown away with the coolness of the site. I entered in my name and information, and then started to play. It was cool, intense, and well done (and my #12 pet peeve in life is overdone flash). I look forward to playing soon! If you have not checked this out … [more]

I have needed a good solution for a “cool” image gallery/slideshow for a few clients and have been very happy with Smooth Gallery. Why do I like this over something else from YUI or jQuery? I think this is by far the most easy to use and customize gallery/slide show. The documentation is clear and easy to read, and adding or changing parameters is extremely easy and clear. The other libraries have similar gallery/slideshow code, but if you are not a javascript fan - this is the one for you.

After having a kid recalls became more important to me, but I felt overwhelmed with trying to stay on top of all the recalls. Do I go to the toy store and spend a few minutes in front of their recall board and try to decipher what big had lead in it? Did I get that bib? My son has a ton of bibs! Yikes!! Luckily, I stumbled upon the U.S. Product Safety Commission Web Site which has a few recall RSS feeds that you can subscribe to. When a new notice is out - it automatically shows up for me. It blows my mind that more people do not use RSS!

I have always been a fan of Room & Board furniture. Clean lines, quality materials, and a great showroom and web site. I am at a point where my current desk has seen better days so I decided to finally look at new desks. I wanted something simple, good looking, and well built. I looked at several stores but kept coming back to Room & Board and finally chose: The Lasalle desk. Funny - my favorite desk of all times was located in an office I worked at on LaSalle street (see photo). What is going on in that picture? We were so cramped in our office, I decided that we could make desks out of old boxes for new employees, and I decided to model them. If you like clean lines and great furniture - check out Room & Board.

What do you do when you have thousands of lines of CSS and probably have hundreds of lines within the thousands that are no longer used…but you have no idea because multiple people have contributed? You use the CSS Redundancy Checker.