Welcome to

Hey blogfans! Hope everyone had a good 4th, I was busy enjoying a little [too much] sun down in Outer Banks, North Carolina. I’m on the clock right now so no time for long-winded descriptions and fanciful storytelling- but my buddy Spence shared this link with me and I just had to pass it on.

//STATiC - click it, you know you want to

This is for the web-developers out there. Ever need to test a design in IE7 AND IE6? Then you must know the pain of doing this with only one available machine. For the longest time the only way to do it was using either 2 machines, one with IE6 and one with IE7, OR, running VirtualPC and loading a whole secondary OS on the single machine solely for the purpose of testing in IE6. Sounds stupid right? It is.

I came across IETester the other day on my daily web-rounds and it is a LIFESAVER. It allows you to test in IE5.5 through IE8beta on one machine, with one application. A must have for any web developer big into CSS/XHTML. Best of all… it’s free!

You like free music? I sure do. The only thing I like more is free music anywhere I go. That is exactly what grooveshark provides, think of the popular “Pandora” but on steroids. Grooveshark is a streaming music player that is 100% free and allows users to listen to any song their heart desires at the click of a button.

I have never been a huge “Internet Music” guy but I kept forgetting to bring my iPod to the office @ work and this was my solution, and I must say it is awesome. It’s like a web-based iTunes that lets you play full songs. There is an immense collections of music- I have yet to find a  tune that Grooveshark didn’t have, from the major artists to the hole-in-the-wall garage bands. Because GS is user-powered your apt to find any music your heart desires there, and you can listen to the whole songs for free, even make and save your own play lists to share. How is this legal? I’m not exactly sure, and because Grooveshark is relatively new who knows what copyright/DRM issues they may encounter when they gain more enough attention.

For now its just a great service that allows you to get favorite jams wherever you have a computer with internet access and flash player installed (GS is built in Adobe Flex). Think I’m pullin you leg? Jam out with Grooveshark right now!

I’ve always written PHP code in programs like TextMate or Dreamweaver [code view] but recently after having a very good experience with an advanced Flash editor, I decided to look around for a PHP editor which offered similar benefits.

Zend Studio is great because it’s offered in many formats- as a standalone or as a plug-in for the ever-popular Eclipse platform (which I’m slowly warming up to). There are probably a load of features that make Zend an awesome editor, but I’ll just outline the points that make it appealing to me:

• OOP PHP support - The editor treats object like objects!
• Class Outline - Easily navigate large classes and find variables and functions in a snap.
• Code Hinting - I’m all for old school coding but when it comes to reality production speed is key, and with Zend it has real-time code hinting so it not only helps out with native php classes, but also hints on any custom classes you’ve built within your project.
• Real-time Compiling - discover syntax errors as you code instead of having to upload and run the code on a server every time
• Eclipse plugin - now i can edit Actionscript and PHP in the same editor!

If you havent seen it on some blog by now then you don’t read the right blogs. Disqus is a commenting system and blog plugin that supports all the popular blog platforms. I can sum up Disqus in 3 words: commenting made easy. It also adds accountability to commenting by showing what other blogs you have posted on using the Disqus system.

Disqus is very easy to setup, and walks you through every step. Although I am still unsure about this whole “clout” system the service uses, I think the other benefits of it far exceed its downfalls. Checkout Disqus today, even if your not a blogger yourself it makes commenting on a blog with the Disqus system (which many now have) incredibly easy- no more typing in your name, email and website every time!

Finally a judge uses the social media boom to bring justice to some punks…need i say more?

Judge orders teens to post apology on YouTube