The Trench Perspective » Code

Google Maps Envelopes

Sreedhar — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:21:34 +0000

Wikimapia, Google Maps, Google Earth, Nat Geo’s Map Machine, OpenStreet Maps are some of my favourite applications to explore the world. Mashups using these technologies and the purposes they serve have been a constant source of interest. Recently, while designing some envelopes, I wanted to incorporate some map shots.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Map Envelope by Beste Miray Doğan and Teevio . Useful and efficient. On further searching, I found the Google Maps Envelope concept project by designers Rahul Mahtani & Yofred Moik.

Their concept is to include both the “From” and “To” addresses in the map on the envelope and incorporate it right into the Gmail interface.

Resources to Learn Vim

Sreedhar — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:13:34 +0000

Vim Power

It is an enriching experience to tap into Vim, the venerable editor with more than three decades of history behind it. My Vimfu is nowhere near the levels of the masters out there. Vimfu Mastery is a process. There is a lot this editor has to offer. People tell me they find new features and uses even after years of using it.

Fortunately, much help is available and the requirements are only a keyboard and the right attitude. Here I have put together some of the resources I have bumped into. This is by no means comprehensive. It is just a small learning map of that I have been using. I will be updating it as I continue my quest to improve my Vimfu skills.

Vim Online
Story of Vim
Seven Habits
Color Schemes
Vimbook
A Byte of Vim
Wikibooks Learning the vi Editor/Vim
Vim Tips Wiki
The Vim Editor for Beginners
The Vi Lovers Home Page
Why oh WHY, do those…
The Vim Graphical Cheatsheet
Efficient Editing with Vim
Mailing Lists – vim@vim.org
IRC Channels – freenode , irc.freenode.net, #vim and IRCNET, #vim
Google archive
Vim Webring
Pixelbeat Vim Tips
Vim Like a Pro
Vim Basics
Learn vi/vim in 50 lines and 15 minutes
15 Best Vim Plugins
Vim Plugins you should know about
Comfortable PHP Editing in Vim
Coding Domain Vim
JSTAP Vim page
WebDesign10
HuYi’s Vim page
Daily Vim
Jano’s Vim Macro Page
vi Complete Key Binding List
Vi-Improved IRC Tutorial
Kent’s Vim Page
An Intro to Vim Video Tutorial
Vim Fu

20 Firefox Extensions for Web Development

Sreedhar — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:43:41 +0000

Firefox is the browser of choice for a huge number of web designers and developers because it is open source and extensible. It is possible to write extensions which enables the user to create features that are not available by default. For those who cannot write these extensions, there is a rich pool of free ready made extensions already available. Some of these extensions enable us to do a fair amount of web design and development without the use of IDEs, without leaving the browser.

Here, I present a simple checklist to help you configure Firefox for Web Development. I am sure that most web developers and designers out there use most of these extensions already. This serves a checklist for me to quickly configure a machine which is not set up the way I want it, when I have to work on it. I hope it will be useful to others as well.

Firefox extensions are available in abundance. A downside to this is that soon, these extensions start taking a toll on the performance of the browser. A way to counter this would be to use separate profiles for different tasks.

You can create separate profiles by running the profile manager. Exit Firefox. Start > Run > firefox.exe -ProfileManager

Create a suitable profile name (for example, webdev). You might want to enable the Don’t ask at startup checkbox. Note that you will have to import your bookmarks for the new profile. You will have to setup other customizations (start page, toolbars etc) also once you create the profile.

You can launch different profiles using the profile names in shortcuts. For Example
“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -P webdev -no-remote
The no-remote keyword here, enables you to run firefox with multiple profiles in the same instance.

The web development profile will use a certain number of extensions to enable you to work efficiently on your web pages.
Here is a checklist of extensions you can use in alphabetical order with their links. You can get more detailed information for these extensions and also the latest versions.

This is a very basic setup. Depending on what you wish to accomplish you can add more relevant extensions.Once you have setup your web development profile. You can use the FEBE extension to back up your configuration. A big thanks to all those talented and generous developers who have given us these extensions and of course, to the Firefox team for creating a superb browser.