When I upgraded from Firefox from version 3 to 4 and now Firefox 5, I lost ColorZilla – an essential tool I rely on everyday to do my job. That was beyond disappointing. It is something I just couldn’t function well without. That and a few others things initially forced me to downgrade back to Firefox 3. Months later, I bit the bullet and made the effort to switch hoping this time the developer would have fixed it already but no such luck. It’s a long story but it interfered with the way Firefox windows would open. In my desperate search for a replacement, I found Rainbow. At first, it didn’t seem like what I wanted – guess you just get so used to one tool you know but today I am so glad I stuck with it. I love how it shows you the color code as you hover your mouse over the color you want. This is really helpful when you’re trying to make sure the color you are using in your stylesheet is the same as the one you want to use. It’s also kinda cool to watch the color changes as you move your mouse. The

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This is embarrassing. As an early adopter of RSS both as a reader and a publisher, I lost interest in keeping up with my RSS subscriptions years ago. I still keep Google Reader ‘stocked’ and promise myself to read it regularly but the reality is, if I drop in there once every 6 months, I’m doing good. As a result, this is what I often see when logged in. When I got an Android phone, one of the first apps I installed was the Google Reader app. I thought it would solve my problem but alas it did not. I found myself opening the Kindle app more than any other. I’d almost given up hope of ever reading RSS feeds again until the day I decided to check out some Chrome Extensions and found Feedly. How can you possibly believe an app can change your reading preferences? I scolded myself. But try it I did. I can’t explain it, but I’m reading my feeds again! Not only am I reading I look forward to reading them every chance I get. At first I thought perhaps it’s the way Feedly displays the articles. In an attractive manner that I can quickly scan the

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When Backup Buddy released a coupon for 30% off a few months ago, I absolutely jumped at it. Partly because I had the Builder theme and was using it to build a clients’ site and I knew I needed something like it to easily move the site from development site to the final destination. Well the client is finally ready and we just did a backup and restore process. WOW. It rocks! One of the things I was most worried about was the images because the client has a ton of images. In the past, what I would do a direct copy of the database then go in the database to search and replace. While that worked, it’s easy to miss things. With Backup Buddy, the process was seamless it did everything and I was done in minutes. The process was simple. I did a full backup Clicked the Restore/Migrate button to download the importer script Downloaded the backup Uploaded both the backup and importer script to the new site Create a mySQL database on the new site Ran the importer script Then, simply followed the instructions through the 7 steps. Even though there were 7 steps they wasn’t really

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How we ended up with a Fivespot wireless mobile hotspot is a long story. It was not something we went shopping for when we left the house that day. More of a favor for my dad. He didn’t drag us into the deal kicking and screaming though. We had wanted a wireless mobile hotspot for quite some time. Before we brought the Fivespot home, the guys at Best Buy advised us to get a Geek Squad install pack with it because he claimed it is known to be rather tricky. Now me being the geek said no. Tricky? Pfft! That simply means a good challenge. Bring it on! When we finally had it fully charged and ready to go, I hooked it up and was soon rocking and rolling without much problems. We were pretty satisfied. Connected With No Internet Access Then, we went on a nearby short trip to a friend’s place, whose house we had never been to. We thought we’d try the Fivespot out on the road. And that was when we hit some snags. It was not the signal by the way. We just could not connect – at all. Actually, it would connect but Windows

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Want a bunch of those snazzy social media sharing buttons for your site? Great! You’ll be happy to know it is super easy to put them up too. If you’re using WordPress all you need to do is install a plugin and tell it to automatically append to your posts or pages. There are tons of plugins that do this. Here are a handful of popular ones that you might want to check out. SexyBookmarks Sociable AddThis If you’re not on WordPress you can try AddThis. There are a lot of other sites that do similar to what AddThis does but I like their buttons. They are highly customizable if you are the type you likes to dive into code easy copy/paste if not and you get stats if you sign up for an account. If you’d prefer something that uses your own short links. I recommend Pretty Link Pro. It does more than just add share buttons. Visit their site for a full list of features.

My husband often tells me I’ve got my computer set up in such a way I literally whiz through a task – leaving him in a fog. It is strange how you never quite see it that way when you’re in the middle of things but he’s right. Over the years, there are certain productivity tools and utilities I install immediately upon receiving a new computer. I do this even before I get my data transferred over. It is that important to me because if I do not have access to those tools, I know I wouldn’t be productive with the data/files. He’s often asked me to share a list of items I have so he can set his computer up that way too. And I so here it is. These tools allow me to jump from one spot to another, help keep my sanity, spend less time looking for stuff and overall – shave time off here and there. Ditto – this is a clipboard utility. It can save up to 500 of your last copied items. How this helps: When you’re writing emails, working on affiliate stuff, designing sites, or coding the last thing you want to do

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