After spending a full day working with Firefox 3 in conjunction with Firebug 1.2.0 Beta, I have formed some initial qualitative impressions. Overall, Firefox 3 feels like an upgrade over the previous version of the browser. It seems snappier and more responsive and in general I am getting used to the new skin fairly quickly. The new Firebug beta is definitely still a beta (more…)

A few days ago my brother turned me onto a really slick little freeware application for Mac OSX that I think is worth mentioning. It’s called iStat Menus from iSlayer. It’s a cool little tool that allows you to monitor the vital signs of your mac in real time (more…)

Something I’ve been meaning to post about forever is one of the podcasts that I most look forward to every week: The MacCast. As host Adam Christianson exclaims each and every week, it’s the “…show about all things Macintosh” – and it really is. (more…)

In the spirit passing along some of the web design and development tools that I just couldn’t live without, I wanted to mention another plugin that works great with Firefox that is created by Chris Pederick – The Web Developer Toolbar. This is another one of those amazing little gems that has been around for quite a while and has proven to be invaluable to me for both getting work done on a daily basis and learning from time to time. The toolbar has a ton of useful features that can be life savers during the design process. There are options which allow you to, among other things, very quickly enable or disable images, css, and javascript, precisely resize the browser window, quickly validate code (HTML and CSS), and even outline various elements right in the browser window to graphically see how a document is built. (more…)

Needless to say, Firebug is not new news these days. It’s been around, widely used, and in my opinion, very excellent for quite some time now. Occasionally, I have found Firebug to be a handy tool for deconstructing and understanding Web pages that have been mysterious to me in terms of their functionality or design. Historically, Firebug has not been a primary tool in my daily workflow, but rather a little gem that I employ every now and again when I need it (kinda like decaf coffee – admit it – you know what I mean). (more…)

A List Apart’s annual survey for web professionals is available. The survey is anonymous and painless (and beautifully designed I might add). I managed to get through it in just a few minutes. I really enjoyed looking over the results from last year’s survey and am eager to see what’s new or different or surprising or otherwise in this year’s results. If you’ve got a few minutes to spare I recommend participating in the survey.