Cavaliere designs

Updated HootSuite iPhone App

Colin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:35:56 +0000

I am a new user of HootSuite, and really have come to love the increased functionality that has been added on the web and on the iPhone.
The developers over at HootSuite have been hard at work developing an upgrade to the iPhone app, as well as making a “lite” free app for HootSuite. They were having so much fun they went on to develop a few Android apps, that is about all I can say about the Android.

Free is always good

We all love free apps. And HootSuite has gone ahead and made everyone happy by releasing a Lite version of their app. It is not short on functionality, it contains many great features. You can have up to three accounts, and reporting in “almost” real time.

Facebook Integration

Current HootSuite iPhone users can now integrate Facebook and even view Facebook in landscape view.

More Features

Now Apple iPhone users can enjoy increased functionality:

* Managing multiple identities and accounts
* Creating custom views for tags and searches
* Understanding reasons for trending topics
* Scheduling messages for the future
* Adding followers to lists and accounts
* Sharing photos and shortening URLs

I think that the functionality is perfect for an app. Being able to shorten a link on the iPhone is critical to tweeting on the device. The app also has a single import to get you going with the same functionality you tailored your web app to have.

You can read the full official HootSuite article Here.

Colin

Merging Multiple Mailboxes on Mac Mail (MMMoMM)

Colin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:58:03 +0000

If you are an Apple lover like myself, it was hard to resist buying a subscription to MobileMe for its array of features. The whole time, I had an account with gmail that most everyone knew was my address. It became cumbersome to have to check both accounts throughout the day to receive mail from each account. I then found out there is a way to merge both of the mail accounts into one on the mail feature on the Mac.
This is a quick and very easy process. First open up mail located in the icon tray at the bottom of the screen.

Next from the top tool bar in the upper left hand corner click on Mail–>Preferences (or command , ). This will open the system preferences click on Mail in the top icon bar. See below:

Next, Click on the “+” at the bottom of the window:

Fill in your email name and password:

Mail will then add your account to the left hand side of the Preferences window. Be sure to name the account correctly within the Preferences window so you are able to distinguish how the accounts appear:

Mail will automatically add all of your folders from each account. I found this to be very convenient as now you can have your work and personal mail accounts all in one place.
If you use a different client let me know which one, I would love to know which ones are most popular!

Colin

5 Twitter Tools to Find People

Colin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:13:10 +0000

To get the most out of Twitter you will at some point have to rely on an outside website (or web tool) to provide some help. As you grow in popularity and add new followers it becomes difficult to manage the growing amount of friends within the twitter application. Twitter no longer allows a “bulk” follow or “unfollow” so it may take using a website to find the friends that no longer use twitter or never follow you back. Check out these 5 necessary tools.

Friend or Follow

I have relied on this site for some time now, it will display friends, who is not following you back, user metrics, and charts. This site also does not ask for a Twitter ID and PW.

Local Follow

I find this site to be very useful and helpful when you want to find great tweeps in your area. You can search by location, name, tweets and even key words in a bio.

Refollow

This tool allows a user to search followers with a very robust set of categories. You can search users that have not tweeted in a specific amount of time to complete information about the user following you or not.

Untweeps

This site displays your followers that have not posted a tweet in some time, or stopped using Twitter.

Bit.ly

Finally, I am adding Bit.ly as I feel it is one of the most comprehensive URL shortener tools out. It gives the choice for a “Pro” service, charts, metrics, and clicks to a link from you and total from other users.

I know there are thousands of sites out there that can perform the same tasks above. I tried to only post the sites that have a secure login, and I have used for a period of time without any issues. If you have any sites that you use post a comment and let me know!

Colin

WordPress 2.9.2 released containing a security fix

Colin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:41:06 +0000

WordPress 2.9.2 was released addressing a security issue that was swirling around the “trash” feature. You should be concerned about this bug if you have users signed up and posts in your trash, but if you are the only Admin then it should not necessarily concern you. I would upgrade to the new version by clicking the link at the top of your dashboard and upgrading Automatically or by going to Tools–>Upgrade.

This is from Wordpress.org explaining the upgrade bug:

Thomas Mackenzie alerted us to a problem where logged in users can peek at trashed posts belonging to other authors. If you have untrusted users signed up on your blog and sensitive posts in the trash, you should upgrade to 2.9.2. As always, you can visit the Tools->Upgrade menu to upgrade.

From what I have been reading the end of August will be a good time for Wordpress bloggers. They are expecting to release Wordpress 3.0 which will add more options for your blog! You can read about the 3.0 upgrade here, but it is somewhat written in code to keep prying eyes at bay.

Colin

iPhone and iPod touch OS 3.1.3 released

Colin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:30:53 +0000

It seems that Apple has pushed out the iPhone OS 3.1.3 update. This update has a few behind the scenes performance related updates, aimed at 3GS battery life and 3rd party vendor apps. Third party apps were not launching and working intermittently from reports, and Apple has addressed that with this release.

To update your iPhone plug it in, and start iTunes (you know the drill). Click the “Check for updates” button and the upgrade will run. Its always a good idea to back up your phone in iTunes before upgrading.

Let me know if you notice something else in the comments.

Colin

Bookmark an iPhone Icon for your Web Page

Colin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:50:16 +0000

When saving a bookmark on the iPhone it sometimes saves it as cool icon or as a snapshot of the web page. Here I will list a few web sites that offer to help make your web page icon into an actual icon to match the iPhone icon standard.

1.You first want to have an icon designed and saved to your sites root folder and visit Quirco. This is where you can upload your icon that you designed and click make icon, don’t forget to make sure that the “Make Glossy” check box is checked.
Once you upload and click the button to make the icon it will display a set of icons with different color back grounds.

2. Save this icon to your web sites root folder as it will be used on the iPhone or iPod Touch.
3. Next, within the “head” element of your web page add this code:

This is the code that will be executed when you save the web page on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
4. Visit the page on your device and save the web page as a bookmark to your home screen.

If you have any questions please send me an email or comment below. Try to save this blog on your iPhone and view the icon!

Colin

Apple Announcement Set for January 27

Colin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:12:46 +0000

The Apple event that has had rumors flying around the net have finally been confirmed. From what I have read it is on, and is going to be a major event.
At this event Apple is supposed to be all about the web and they are set to announce a new product to their line-up.
Apple has been tight lipped about the product to be released, and even the event as a whole. In true “Apple” fashion they usually play up these events very well.
More to come on this as details emerge…

Pimp your Mac OSX Dock

Colin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:52:12 +0000

If you are like me and like to keep your documents and projects neatly orgainzed then you will really like this application Dock Spaces. This app allows you to have up to 10 different docks and even tailor them for each Space you have arranged in Spaces. Going one step further, if your dock has too many icons close together it can be difficult to see. There is a way to group like icons making them easier to find.
The Dock Spaces application allows you to swap the dock for one that you have preset anytime you want from the menu bar. This will improve your productivity, and completely reinvent your user interface experience. Integrating this with Spaces will offer you a different dock depending on your Space selected.
It is also possible to seperate icons by creating a blank space between them. This will allow you to group like icons that are related to find faster. For example, you could group the iWork icons together then a space. You will have to run this commend below in Terminal (Applications > Utilities):

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add ‘{tile-data={}; tile-type=”spacer-tile”;}’

And to add spacers to the right side of the dock run this command:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{tile-data={}; tile-type=”spacer-tile”;}’

Each time that you run one of these commands by hitting Enter a new Space is added to the dock. In order to see the space that was added you will need to restart the dock with the “killall Dock” command, just type it without the quotes. In the future if you do not want the space on the dock anymore just drag them away or right click them and remove them from dock.

-Colin

Google Chrome for Mac now in Beta

Colin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:17:06 +0000

Google Chrome has finally reached the Beta status, thus being released for public use.I have become a true Safari fan since it was upgraded with Snow Leopard, but upon first use I can see that Chrome for Mac is performing very fast. I am finding that it is rendering sites comparable with Safari and Firefox. I do use Firefox for web development, and am excited to include Chrome for Mac in with the development phases now. Google does not support plug-ins for the Mac version of Chrome yet, but it will support Tell me what you think of the new browser release, and I am sure someone will mention the fact that the great bookmarking feature is not available for Mac just yet.

10 Coda Tips and Plugins

Colin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:31:01 +0000

When beginning with web design or development you will need some sort of code editor to write the website. From there, you will also need software to refine images, a web browser to test your design, tools to store code clips, and lastly an FTP client. I have in the past relied heavily on Adobe Dreamweaver, as I am a big fan of the entire web design Adobe Suite. But, when it comes to writing a blog I find it cumbersome to write PHP for some reason in Dreamweaver.

I turn to Coda as an application that is capable of performing each of the tasks I need to perform throughout a web project. Coda is strictly Mac software. This software has come a long way since it came out, and there are many articles out there with long lists of “useful plugins”. I want to just give a user a quick insight into what can make Coda faster, easier to use which will result in less headaches in the end.

1.Switching Through Tools
One thing that Coda makes easy is keyboard shortcuts. They allow a user to switch through different modes by pressing “Command and 1-6″. This would be used if you want to switch between your editor, preview or sites, etc. easily without using the mouse.

2.Toggle through documents
To indent a line of code press “Command, Shift, and the Left or Right Brackets.
Example: Command Shift { or }

3.Line Indent
When you begin coding in CSS or HTML you will find that Coda will indent lines for you on the fly. If you need to indent a line manually press “Command” and the left or right { } to indent any line the cursor is on.

4. HTML Validation
Coda will validate you HTML on the fly as you are working or you can validate it once you are finished. Coda will give you a hint as to what needs to be fixed, and take you to the beginning where the error is when clicked. You can find this at the bottom of the Coda window.

HTML Error Hints

5. Setting up Sites
You can set up your website project within Coda and store them as different “Sites”. They can be automatically imported using Trasmit, but you have to be a user, or you can manually input the data to sync the sites. The homepage of the site will become the icon hanging on the Sites wall.

The sites that are set up have a remote and local folder linked to it, along with terminal settings if you also set that up. This is very useful, so when you save the file it will then update and publish to both file destinations. This will save you time over using Firefox FTP to load the files to the server each time you need to update the code.

6. Using Preview
I am a strong believer in using Mac tools, since they have always made my life easier as compared to other “easier” OS’s out there. I still rely on using Firefox web dev tools, and firebug most of the time but this will come in handy. This Preview will allow you to edit source code and see the changes without doing any editing to the document window.

7. Code Navigator
When you get into a coding project the tags, or elements can begin to pile up. This code navigator window can help you jump to specific tags within your document without having to scroll through and manually find them.

8. Coding Clips
Coda has a feature that allows you to store snippets of code, and insert them into a project on the fly. You can save snippets to use in any document.

9. Coda Books
From time to time I find it useful to have reference information available within Coda. It will come with 2 books for you to use right away, but you will want to find more books here.

10. Split Window
Coda gives you the opportunity to split multiple windows to view code on either horizontally or vertically.

You can right click on the file you wish to open and select “Split View” or use the keyboard shortcut: Command, Control, L.

There are many plugins available for Coda developed by third party vendors that you can install to increase functionality. I am currently using a few of them, and will report on them at a later time.
I hope these tips will get you started, there are plenty more so feel free to comment on what works for you as you explore.
-Colin