A few handy apps for your toolbelt

I've run across several online tools recently that have been quite useful for things like quick prototyping and proof-of-concepts. Enjoy:

JavaScript Tools

jsconsole.com - great if you need to play with some JavaScript and don't want to bother cracking open FireBug or dev tools. Does some basic auto-completion, as well.

JS Bin - for more comprehensive testing. Also allows you to save your work and share with others, who can then fork your initial code.

jsFiddle - similar to JS Bin, only with a few more bells and whistles, including the ability to test AJAX requests.

jsPerf - a tool specifically for testing JS performance. Be sure to scroll all the way down and hit "Browse". Chances are someone may have already thought of what you're hoping to test.

CSS Tools

CSSDesk - similar to JS Bin or jsFiddle, only built specifically for CSS.

CSS3 Generator - a playground for many of the new CSS3 properties.

CSS3 Please! - another, somewhat more colorful, CSS playground.

CSS Border Radius - does one thing, and does it well: generates cross-browser border-radius styles slightly more quickly than you could type them out.

If you know of a similar tool, please add it in the comments!

You might not know this... Google Chrome: Drag Link to Create New Tab

Often while scanning the Twitter, I'll come across several links I'd like to follow up on later. I recently re-discovered a trick in Google Chrome that helps with this:

This will of course work with any link, but for I figured Twitter would work for illustration purposes. Click and drag the link you want to appear in a new tab.

Drag it over the tab bar of the same window or a different one (I have an extra monitor, so I tend to keep one window on each, one for teh feeds, and one for articles-to-be-read) and you'll see a wee plus sign appear with the cursor, and a little arrow pointing to where in the tab order the new tab will appear. Release, and enjoy.

Brilliant!

does a big pile of rocks that used to be a temple count?

Wikipedia says this temple was built around 480 BC. Honestly, I have no idea if this is the oldest thing I've seen, because I had the incredible experience of traveling around Europe when I was a Junior in college, and visited Rome, Naples, Florence, etc., etc., so there's a good chance I saw some older buildings. This is the one that sprung to mind, though, just because I remember being impressed with the age of the place when I was there. One of those times when you feel a bit like a speck of dust in a vast unknown universe, to be quite honest.

No exciting scars here, no sirree...

Posing by Atli Harðarson (Atli Harðarson)

The only scars I have are from when I got chicken pox. Apparently, playing with cute little kids in a mexican orphanage when you've never had chicken pox before, and the kids most definitely have chicken pox right freaking now, is not a wonderful idea. Little did I know, since all my fellow gringos were in the midst of it. Of course, they'd had chicken pox when they were five, or whatever. I was seventeen.



Oh, j/k. I do have another scar. From the time I was wounded by a real-live Braveheart-style sword. In hand-to-hand combat. For my life.



Alright, alright, not really. It's about an inch long on my finger. I'm sure the scenarios you come up with will be more interesting than what actually happened.

I named 50 HTML elements in 5 minutes

50

I saw this on Aaron's blog and couldn't resist. When I got the list of elements I'd neglected to name, it was interesting how many I'd never even heard of, much less used. Also interesting is that FONT is still on the list, even though it's definitely fallen out of favor. I scored a 50, but I'm guessing I really use only about 40 of those on a regular basis. Does that mean I'm a poor web developer? What do you think?

h'loooo?

does anyone... anyone at all... read this? ever?

just checking.

cuz i sure as hell never write anything, so i don't know why anyone would. :D

The Blues

just kinda how i'm feeling today:

Is this the New Year,
or just another night?
Is this the new fear,
or just another fright?
Is this the new tear,
or just another desperation?

Is this the finger,
or just another fist?
Is the kingdom,
or just a hit and miss?
I've missed direction,
most in all this desperation

Is this what they call freedom?
Is this what you call pain?
Is this what they call discontented fame?

It'll be a day like this one,
When the world caves in.

I'm singing this one, like a broken piece of glass,
For broken arms and broken noses in the back
Is this the new year, or just another desperation?

You push until you're shoving,
You bend until you break,
Do you stand on the broken fields where your fathers lay?

It'll be a day like this one,
When the world caves in.

There's nothing here worth saving,
There's no one here at all,
Is there any net left that could break our fall?

It'll be a day like this one,
When the sky falls down,
And the hungry and poor and deserted are found.

Are you discontented?
Have you been pushing hard?
Have you been throwing down this broken house of cards?

It'll be a day like this one,
When the world caves in.

Is there nothing left now?
Nothing left to sing?
Are there any left now, who haven't kissed The Enemy?

Is this the new year, or just another desperation?

Does justice ever find you?
Do the wicked ever lose?
Is there any other song, to sing beside these Blues?

And nothing is okay,
Until the world caves in.

- Jon Foreman and Switchfoot