WebTurd - Web Dumps Served Hot n' Fresh

Introducing the new Webturd Twitter Widget for WordPress.  A Clean, Simple and Minimal WordPress Twitter Widget. Displays your Tweets WITHOUT using the <ul> and <li> html codes that creates those ugly bullet points…hate those things.

Its very light weight and works how you want it to while adapting to your current theme css.  Use it how you want and let me know where you use it!

Some screenshots:

Download Link: http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/RB0IQBCN/webturd-twitter-widget.zip_links

These damn high gas prices remind me of a comic that I did 11 years ago.

I’ve been on an icon slash customizing binge and decided to do something about FileZilla today. The customizing turned out to be just about as easy as my little Ugly Google Chrome Extension Icon experiment went.

Taking note of a recent icon treasure find, I decided to go with Yusuke Kamiyamane’s icons.  He has a ton of awesome little icons to pick through and I just couldn’t resist.

Its clean. Its minimal. And its right here if you want the free FileZilla theme.

FileZilla Theme – WebTurd

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Assembled by Brow - webturd.com

Some Icons are Copyright © Yusuke Kamiyamane. All rights reserved. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

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Install Instructions

Unzip folder and put “webturd” folder and leds.png under the Program Files > FileZilla FTP Client > Resources directory

Launch FileZilla and choose Edit > Settings

In the Settings window, scroll down to Interface and then click Themes

Choose “WebTurd” theme and then click OK to apply.

Done!

Download the WebTurd FileZilla Theme: http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/1N3MBJZP/webturd_filezilla_theme.zip_links

*Note – This theme only changes the icons…don’t get mad if you were expecting more.

Have you ever found a good Google Chrome extension and the icon just sucks?  There are some good extensions out there but fail in the nice-looking-icon department to suit my tastes. A big ugly icon stuck up in the tool bar just ruins my day when the option to hide it just doesn’t cut it.

Today, I took some time out to see if I could actually change the icons that come installed with Google Chrome extensions.  It was actually much easier that I thought it would be.

Here is what you can do to change up a Google Chrome extension icon:

My target extension to change the icons was the Neat Bookmarks extension. I love the extension but just didn’t care too much for the big blue square icon.

The image on the right is what I ended up with by creating a custom chrome extension icon.

First, you will need to decide on what icons that you want.  In this case, I wanted something minimal that represented a bookmark and a folder icon to match.  Use .png files with transparent backgrounds so that if you change your theme, it will still look decent.  The icon that I wanted to replace was sized at 19px by 16px, but I replaced with 16px by 16px.  Chrome seemed to let it size perfectly and I didn’t notice much of a difference at all with the change.

Here are three good places to locate replacement icons for chrome extensions:
http://www.iconarchive.com/
http://www.iconspedia.com/
http://p.yusukekamiyamane.com/

Once you have located and saved the icons to your desktop, you will now have to find the directory where the chrome extensions are stored.  The Google Chrome extension file location for Windows 7 can be similar to what I have here:

C:\Users\*YOURUSERNAME*\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions

Now, that you have made it to that folder, the guessing game begins.  The chrome extension folders are not named with something easy.  Instead, they are marked with odd strings of letters.  The best thing to do is to open each folder and then open the options.htm file.  By doing this, it should provide you with a decent clue on what extension you are looking at.

The folder that I found the Neat Bookmarks extension in was called: nnancliccjabjjmipbpjkfbijifaainp\0.8.8_0

Now that you have found the correct extension folder, its time to copy over the newly found icons into this location. The icons should have the exact same file name of the icons that you are replacing to where you are overwriting and replacing.  Before you do this, its probably a good idea to make a quick back up of the old icons.

Once you have replaced the old icons with the new, open up Google Chrome or restart if you already had it open to check out your changes.

That’s it! Its that easy.  If you are using Neat Bookmarks and want to give it a try, here are the exact icons that I am using.  Save ‘em and give it a shot.

This morning started out really prefect when I got an email from Google stating that my account was disabled. Uh, what? I was only $6 away from cracking the $100 limit to receive a check and they cut me off!

I was hoping that it was just a very delayed April Fools joke but after trying to log into my account, I got another denied message. Damn, this really just happened.

After looking into the situation a little further, it appears that I was causing some click fraud by clicking on the ads that were on my sites.

Now, I’m not going to lie…I have clicked on them before just out of pure curiosity on where they go and what a user would experience when they click on something. I am a web designer so I think that its only fair that I know how the ads will operate and treat my visitors. Do the ads take me to a scam site? Do they open up in a new window? Things like that caused me to lose my Adsense account?

I can understand if that’s all I did was click on the ads and purposely try to generate revenue but I knew from the get go that it is against the terms of service.

Knowing that it probably wont help, I attempted to appeal it with a form that they let me fill out. Its not that I made millions off of Google Adsense but it was nice to get a small check every few months or more.

Now, its time to find an alternative and I am open to suggestions. I am looking for something similar for content with decent rates.

So I’ve been hooked on this song with a bad case of the ear worm for a few weeks. Now, there’s a remix out featuring Krayzie Bone and I kinda dig it. Check it out:

I am a freelancer that works on anything from web sites to photography, product package design and custom cartoon mascots. Because of this, I have many different clients and different projects to keep track of. Learning the hard way, sleepless nights taught me that there are way too many tasks to try to keep in my head and I need better organization.

I’ve tried many different online task managers and complicated to-do list sites, but there is just something about keeping my stuff online that bugged me. Because of this, I’ve always resorted to Outlook and using the dry and boring built-in task list feature. Outlook allowed me to list my tasks, but I’ve always had that feeling that there was something missing. I’ve always yearned for to-do list software that would take the fear factor out of my tasks lists and just have an overall inviting aspect to it with endless organization features and flawless function.

After days of trying out different task manager programs, I recently tried the Swift To-Do List demo and was hooked at first install. I strongly feel that I have finally found probably the best task list manager ever. A very friendly company called Dextronet provides task management software called Swift To-Do List that has finally set me at ease.

Here are the reasons why I have chosen to use Swift To-Do List and forget about the rest.

Appearance
I like to consider myself a minimalist and Swift To-Do List is squeaky clean. It’s crisp look makes it very inviting to look at your lists and not get scared away by a big mess of info. It allows me to choose from many different icons for the organized tree menu and best of all, the software allows me to color code many different aspects such as due dates and priorities.

The notes area of each task allows for just about any kind of formatting that I need. I simply enjoy using the date stamp and highlighting important items with a couple of quick keyboard shortcuts. All of this still presents a very nice, clean and organized look. Because of this, a quick glance is all that is needed to get things done.

Custom Reminders
With so much going on in my work life, I need to be reminded to do things from time to time. Setting a custom reminder allows my mind to relax a little and not have to worry about trying to cram more into it. There is also an option to set email reminders which are really helpful if I can’t be at my computer at the time and also allows me to forward to a client if needed.

Customizing
This was a huge factor for me as most other task manager software seems to fail horribly in this area. If there is something about Swift To-Do List that wasn’t appealing to me, there is the ability to add tweak things until I am satisfied. Not only does the software allow custom colors but it also allows the creation or renaming of task types, priorities and statuses. Overall, Swift To-Do List seems very flexible which is one of my favorite aspects of the software. I can drag and drop tasks where I want them to go and even move columns around for a more customized layout.

Results
Not only does this software set my mind at ease with the many organization features, it also allows me to get things done. Using the date stamp, I know exactly when I emailed an important document to a client and lets me know exactly what I am doing without reading through numerous emails and attempting to travel back into time. I am able to quickly view due dates and rely on the reminders for each project. I can honestly say that my stress levels have lowered since using Swift To-Do List!

The Future
After trying out the software, I thought that the only thing missing is the ability to sync online. Low and behold, Dextronet is currently working on this feature! By reading the Swift To-Do List blog, it seems like Dextronet has plenty more in store to add to this already amazing piece of software. This is a huge plus in my book when I already have the perfect task managing software and still get more.

If you are looking to organize your life and reduce stress levels of projects, I highly suggest that you give Swift To-Do List a try and see what it can do for you.