How to create a screenshot of your website/blog as seen in different browsers (also in different browser versions and screen resolutions) instantly!

WEBMASTERS know it only too well that no matter how well their blog/site is designed, there is a chance that it might look all screwed up in a certain browser of a certain version in a certain operating system. For examples, different browsers have different ways of rendering HTML tables and they can be fairly inconsistent in look! Same with CSS, you can’t hope to get a uniform look across different platforms.

To get over the problem, testing your site/blog at as many different platforms is the only way to play safe. And here is a site that makes the job easy for you!

Browsewrshots creates multiple screenshots of a site/blog as seen in different browsers of different versions in different operating systems!

Here is a list of browsers that they take into account.

Linux
Firefox 1.5
Konqueror 3.5
Opera 9.24

Windows
Firefox 1.5
Firefox 2.0
MSIE 5.0
MSIE 5.5

Mac OS
Firefox 2.0
Safari 2.0

Here is a snap of some of the screenshots of Netty Gritty

Screenshots of Netty Gritty by Browsershots

You can also control the following parameters

Screen resolution: (width in pixels: “Dont care”, 640, 800, 1024, 1280, 1400 and 1600),

Color depth: (per pixel: “Don’t care”, 8 bits, 16 bits, 24 bits and 32 bits),

Javascipt (“Don’t care”, Enabled, 1.3, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 and 2.0),

Java (“Don’t care” or Evabled) and

Flash (“Don’t care:, Enabled, 6 or 9).

I don’t know about you, but I’d say we are a bit spoilt for choice here!

EXTRAS
After your screenshots are ready, you can even see all the screenshots as a slideshow, view actual size and download the images!

CAUTION
Unless you guessed it already, it takes some time to create the screenshots. So, after entering a url, you can keep on reloading the page or simply bookmark it and reload it after some time.

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And oh, did I mention anywhere that all this is free and you don’t even have to sign up? You should know by now that no service is worthy enough for this precious blog of mine unless it is free!

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Tell a friend!

Email bits of a webpage instantly using shorttext!

WHAT would you do if you wanted to send a part of a webpage to a friend? If you paste the url, you will be sending the whole webpage – and the exact content will not be so obvious.

Well, worry no more!

Shorttext emails part of a webpage in an instant. First get the shorttext bookmarklet in your Firefox browser. Now, whenever you find something interesting in a webpage, all you have to do is select the text(within 30,000 words) and click “Create Url”! And a url will be created only for the specific text! Now you will be given the option to bookmark that url at del.icio.us or email it to friends.

You can also link to an online image or video to go with the text, specify where the image/video will be positioned, choose to allow comments (there’s even RSS feed for comments!) and set the url as private.

Please note that the procedure works just fine even if you don’t install the browser add-on, but it is more convenient to do it that way.

And also, you can write any text (rather than copy it from a webpage) and publish a url for it instantly! Hmmm, I wonder why the word micropublishing suddenly popped up in my head? Is it even a word at all?

Check out what I published using shorttext!
You will experience deja vu when you get at my shorttext!

A quiz for you now!
I know of at least one more web service that offers similar facilities. Can you name that service?

Also, if there is any other service waiting to be reviewed in my precious blog, don’t forget to tip me!

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Tell a friend!

An announcement!

Do you have

a GIF, JPEG or PNG
less than 30KB in filesize
exactly 270 x 165 pixels in size @ 72dpi

??? 

Get one ready! You can use it to promote your blog!

Hang on, I will spill the secret soon enough! 

Draw or write something online and reveal your personality!

CAN your drawing or writing reveal your personality?

Bored will let you draw a picture or write something and then when you are done it will ask you several questions regarding your drawing or writing. And then finally reveal your identity.

 

 

But ahem, don’t believe what they tell you! In their own words, “The personality analysis given on this site is based on tests that are meant to be administered and interpreted by a licensed psychologist, not by a computer, so please use our results for entertainment purposes only since there is no guarantee that they are accurate. “

And guess what kind of personality I have according to the way they analyzed my drawing? Think for a moment! And check if you are anywhere even close by selecting the text between the lines!

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Your personality analysis based on this drawing:You are a suspicious person and have some paranoid tendencies.You think you are very intelligent.You are sometimes an aggressive person.You have a willingness to engage.You have an agressive personality.

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By the way, don’t forget to check out drawings that others have made!

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Tell a friend!

 

Polls for wordpress.com – should WordPress offer bloggers a polling widget for the side bar?

A POLL is a unique way to gather and display public opinion. And a blog is a unique interactive platform between publishers and readers. When integrated within a blog, a poll adds to the interactivity of the blog. Unfortunately, wordpress does not offer a polling widget for the side bar.

Polls for wordpress.com (this is a review of free polling services compatible with wordpress.com blogs) although a much needed feature for many wordpress.com bloggers, can be accessed only by linking to an external site via an image, a button or a text link in a post/page or in the side bar. Although it gets the job done, many bloggers resent the idea of having to send the voter away from their blogs in order to participate.

The reason why we ourselves can’t paste a poll in our side bar is because wordpress strips all the needed codes (javascript, frames and form tags) for security reasons, without which the viewer can’t submit the vote.

Do you think it is time wordpress offered bloggers a polling widget in the side bar? Or should we rather continue to take advantage of external polling sites?

Please vote in the poll to voice your own opinion on this.

 

Although the poll is not designed to allow extra opinions, I would greatly appreciate it if you took some time to explain the reason behind your choice using the comment box for this post. This will help the partakers and blog readers access varied views on the matter.

Also please considering letting more people know about the poll. You can email a friend or bookmark the post in social bookmarking sites to help it gain better accessibility. When it comes to polls, size does matter.

Many thanks in advance for your time and kind co-operation.

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Tell a friend!

Create a graph of any website!

YES! It’s true! You can do it! Almost in an instant!

Aharef creates a graph of any website. Just paste the url and wait a while.

I have never been so amazed like this. The graph they generate is not rigid. It looks like a living organism. And after you paste a url, don’t go anywhere even if it takes a while. The way the image moves as it is created – it looks almost as if a strange organism is breathing and swimming in cyberspace.

Remember this picture from yesterday? This is what I got when I entered Google’s url!

And what do all those colours mean? Well let’s see how they explain it.

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

Caution
All websites don’t look so presentable. For exemple, when I entered my blog url, I was awarded only with a big black dot.

Appreciation time!
Thanks to you all, who took part in the guessing game.
And it was only Judyb12 who got the answer right!

Instructions time!
Judy!
Next time you know the answer, please don’t spill it out like that! Cos it’s so much fun looking at the effects of a huge brainstorm! You can give a hint, enough to make me realize that you do know the answer!

Everybody else!
If you know the right answer, the above instructions are valid for you too!

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Tell a friend!

What does this image represent?

ANY idea? I will give you a hint. It has something to do with Google!

 

 

Unless you really know, the answer won’t pop up easily in your head. So relax! I will post the answer soon enough, like, tomorrow!

But um, let me know your guesses though!

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Tell a friend!

Big Miss Muffet calling out to search engine spiders

SEARCH ENGINE SPIDERS love to visit blogs that are updated regularly, right? I mean, they don’t really care what you are going through, you just have to feed them with fresh fodder everyday.

 

 

So, hello Spider, nice to meet you. Do visit. I am serving fresh food to you, no problem! And don’t forget to ask me for second helpings. Make yourself at home!

Disclaimer
This is a got-to-keep-those-search-engine-spiders-happy kind of post. My blog is doing reasonably well. And I don’t want to fall out of favour of search engines. Cos that would mean, more readers like you who might have had a chance to visit my blog by searching say, Google, will not find my blog easily.

As stated earlier, my computer problem is hindering my search activities, without which I can’t write my brilliant posts.

Psst: My posts ARE brilliant, aren’t they?

Computer problems

I am having serious computer problems

It is highly unlikely that I will be able to post an entry before it is fixed. And it might take me a few days to get it fixed due to some offline activities.

Irony is, I knew this was coming. It’s all my fault. If you want to know, just poke me and I will let it all out of my system. Once my computer is fixed that is.

It’s a real pain simply moving the cursor around. Slow motion mouse activity is just not for me. So if you excuse me, I will go sulk over a stupid computer mistake i made instead.

My post vanished!

Sorry, no proper post today. This is an apology post. I did write a post, but something happened with the server and my post is gone!

Usually when there is suddenly no connection wordpress saves at least part of the post. But not today! You know, there’s a reason Murphy happened. Or wait a minute, maybe if Murphy didn’t happen, then what can go wrong would NOT go wrong. Oh well, whatever the situation is, the fact is, if your post is gone it’s gone.

And since I have an offline schedule right now, I must buzz off.

But learn from my experience. Always save your blog post’s whole code in a Notepad file at least, before hitting that “Publish” button.

The next victim could be you.