Here are some tools I’ve found to work well…

• Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress – This is just what I was looking for. It can automatically post tweets from WordPress posts, or vice versa. It can also list recent tweets on my sidebar and allows me to post to Twitter from my blog’s sidebar.
• Tweet This plugin for WordPress – If you want to make it easier for people to retweet your blog posts, then this is the way to do it. This plugin will add a “Tweet This Post” link below every post, so Twitter users can easily pass it on.
• Twitterbar Add-on for FireFox – This enables FireFox users to post to Twitter via the browser’s address bar. I thought I would need this, but as long as I can access my site, I can post from the sidebar. But without the Twitter Tools plugin, this would probably be very useful.
• TweetDeck Desktop Client – If you’re behind a firewall, like me, and can’t access Twitter.com, or many of the other related sites, this is the solution. It gives me full access to Twitter without having to go to the site. There’s also Seesmic, which is quite popular as well.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a Twitter client that is compact enough to run off of a flash drive… There was one on PortableApps.com, but it no longer works. I’ve also looked into Mitter, provided by Google, but there are several other files required for it to run on Windows. Any suggestions?

If you’re a Firefox user, like me, there’s an add-on that you can install that you can use instead of, or in addition to, I Like Your Colors. ColorZilla provides you with an eyedropper, color chooser, page zoomer, etc. Without these tools, I would be left with my previous method of doing a screen capture, pasting into Photoshop and extracting the colors. That’s still easy to do, if you’re already in Photoshop working on a project. But, for a quick update to a stylesheet, these tools will make life easier.

Click here to check out I Like Your Colors.

1. Google Search – I have the Google bar installed, which not only provides an easy way to search, but also displays Page Rank. I can also type an address directly into the search and quickly locate an address on Google Maps. Another feature I use often is “define:” – put that before a word to get definitions from several sources, or to check spelling.
2. Google Calendar – My wife and I were having a hard time getting our schedules in order and since I only use web-based email accounts I can access from anywhere, Outlook was out of the question. Google Calendar lets us add our appointments and repeating events like birthdays, and then sync our calendars together.
3. Digg / Reddit – They’re essentially the same thing being news aggregators. I use each to get the latest news and, while I’ve used Digg longer, I tend to open both at the same time and peruse each equally. One thing I don’t like about Reddit is how the news on the front page can be stagnant throughout a day.
4. Woot – While I think most of the crap on Woot is… well… crap, I try to check it daily. I have gotten some good deals on some mp3 players and a Roomba. And, I got a DVD player that turned out to be a complete piece of junk, but they took it back. I have yet to get a Bag of Crap…
5. Snopes – With the amount of junk that spreads quickly around the Internet, everyone should have this bookmarked or on their start page. Most recently I used it to learn that Mr. Rogers was, in fact, not an ex-Navy Seal, nor are his arms covered with tattoos.
6. NetFlix / RedBox – Together, these two resources make a great combination. I never thought we got our money’s worth out of the 3-DVD package on NetFlix, so we dropped it down to one-at-a-time. And if we ever need a movie quickly while waiting for NetFlix to deliver, we can dash over to a RedBox and rent it for $1.00 per 24hrs.
7. NewEgg – Whenever I need, say, a new flash drive, the first place I turn to is NewEgg. The reviews are usually accurate and well written. Even if I read reviews elsewhere, I’ll return to NewEgg for low prices and because I’ve always had a great experience.
8. Facebook / MySpace – I started, reluctantly on MySpace and never did much with it except keep in touch with some family members. Unfortunately, it seemed like most of the people I went to school with missed the social networking bandwagon. It turns out many of them were on Facebook. I prefer Facebook’s clean GUI and faster speeds, but keep both accounts open.
9. Consumerist – This is, by far, one of my favorite blogs. It’s a great blog that deals with poor customer service and shady business practices, and it’s not rare that something can stir up something in my emotions. I recently linked to two of their articles involving McDonald’s.
10. SlipperyBrick – I’m sure there are a zillion gadget blogs out there, but this one stood out and made it to my bookmarks first. I think I originally found it on Digg or Reddit with a link to a “Lego safe.” From then on, I’ve been hooked. I even posted about a cool tool I found on that site.
11. ABestWeb – This is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in, or involved with, affiliate marketing. There are also sections devoted to other forms of revenue generating and general design and promtion discussion. The owner, Haiko, is a real stand up guy who doesn’t take crap from anyone.
12. Firefox – I’ll admit that I haven’t tried Opera, or Chrome, but I don’t think I need to, other than for cross browser compatibility testing. Firefox does everything I need it to and then some. I’m always finding something new and great about it. Best of all, it’s not Internet Explorer.
13. WordPress – With this blog, I’ve become quite interested in new plugins, widgets and themes. There are many resources related to WordPress. Too many to list. It amazes me, to this day, that it provides so much for free, yet is so well supported.
14. Picasa – We recently moved most of our family photos over to Picasa from being hosted on our own site. Picasa offers numerous options to users and visitors, including allowing people to print your photos. There are also several WordPress plugins to display your Picasa albums in your own blog’s photo gallery.
15. CPSC Recall List – I strongly suggest that people sign up for the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) subscription lists for recall notifications. Through this list, I found that our son’s crib was being recalled. These lists also provided information regarding recalls for pet food and toys made in China. Don’t wait for this stuff to show up on the news!
16. My Start Page – There are so many resources I utilize, not to mention links to my sites, admin panels, stats, etc., that I have a fully loaded custom start page with everything I use on a regular basis. I’ve also added feeds for some other sites I track, as well as having the Google Calendar embedded.

Other blogs have created similar lists as you can see here, here, here, here, here and here.

What’s on your list? Do you see anything I use that has a better alternative?

Mozilla has a newer feature included that appends the URL of the site onto the Favicon (along with the green background) to show that it has a valid SSL certificate. Clicking on a Favicon in Firefox brings up a dropdown with some information as you can see below.

Clicking on the More Information… button brings up the Page Info window. You can view PayPal’s below.

You can see that on sites with SSL Certificates there is additional information on the Security tab of their Page Info windows. Compare these to your site’s to see how they differ.

Another use of the Favicon in Firefox is the ability to drag it to your Bookmarks or History menu items or sidebars to easily save your favorite sites. You can even drag and drop it onto your computer’s desktop.

Click here to download Firefox 3

UPDATE:

I should point out that just by having a SSL Certificate Firefox will not automatically display a green “secure” Favicon… Click here for an example of various packages offered by one provider, one of which includes the green address bar.

]]> http://drivelocity.com/on-the-web/large-green-favicon-in-firefox/feed/ 25 http://drivelocity.com/blogging/creating-a-favicon/ http://drivelocity.com/blogging/creating-a-favicon/#comments Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:12:32 +0000 drivelocity http://drivelocity.com/?p=455 There are probably still many of you who do not know what that icon is next to the URL in the address bar of your browser for many popular sites, and like the one we have here on drivelocity.com.

Follow these simple instructions to create one for your web site:

1. Create a 16×16 pixel image
2. Save it as “favicon.gif”
3. Upload it to your site’s root directory
4. Rename it “favicon.ico”
5. Add the following code to your site’s header (before </head>)

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” ></link>

Please note that Internet Explorer is not as reliable about displaying the Favicon as Firefox is… If using IE, you may need to save your site to your Favorites for it to show up.

Here are some resources that can help you create your own Favicon and test to see if it is valid.

• http://www.favicon.cc/
• http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/
• http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/
• http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/validator/