Yummy Wakame

If you’re a web designer or even a blogger who likes to tinker with html, I’d strongly suggest getting this tiny little plugin for Firefox. I use it all the time to ensure all my sites adhere to the strictest web standards.

HTML Validator plugin (download)

It’s a clever extension that adds HTML validation inside Firefox and Mozilla that displays the number of errors on a page in the form of an icon in your status bar while browsing.

By viewing the HTML source of the page in your browser you can see not only details of the errors, but explanations on why and how to fix them. It can even automatically fix your page for you.

The extension is based on Tidy - originally developed by the Web Consortium W3C and now extended and improved by a lot of persons. Tidy is embedded inside Mozilla/Firefox and makes the validation locally on your machine, without sending HTML to a third party server.

It finds HTML errors and classifies them in 3 categories:

• errors: HTML errors that Tidy cannot fix or understand.
• warnings: HTML errors that Tidy can fix automatically
• (optional) accessibility warnings: HTML warnings for the 3 priority levels defined in W3c WAI

The extension is available on Windows, MacOsX and Linux.

WorldNetDaily: Could the Roman Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis be tied to embedded Satanic and occultic imagery in its artwork – some of it hundreds of years old?

That is the seemingly incredible thesis of a new documentary, “Rape of the Soul” made not by anti-Catholic bigots, but by devout followers of the Church. “Rape of the Soul” is in theatrical release in major cities, including New York and Los Angeles. more…

Critical Internet Explorer flaw is Patched by a third party
While Microsoft works on a patch for a critical Internet Explorer 6 script vulnerability that can allow a hacker to take control of a Windows PC, another firm has beaten Microsoft to the punch, releasing its own fix for the problem.

The new patch from eEye Digital Security is not meant to replace the forthcoming Microsoft patch, but it does provide immediate protection in lieu of an available fix. It is designed to remove itself automatically when Microsoft’s official patch becomes available.

Microsoft’s official update might not be released until next month, according to a blog posting on the company’s security site.

A Year in Japan

“Experience Japan’s many unique sights, sounds, tastes and more w/ this lovely, inspiring book from Kate T. Williamson. Filled with illustrations and handwritten thoughts, you’re sure to get lost in the beauty and wonder of the East!!!”

Jill Bliss mix ‘n match stationery

D.I.Y. Design It Yourself

rainbow heart necklace

Julie spotted this hilarious clip from The Daily Show:

Quail hunting Dick Cheney Style

I’ve had custom error pages for ages and never realised until today that custom error pages need to be set up correctly in order to work according to web standards, and to keep search engines crawling your site happily.

Basically my custom-created 404 File Not Found page (and all the others) returned a status of 200 (OK) in the header. A status of 200 means that the server was able to return content for the URL you requested. Usually a normal web page returns 200, saying all is ok - as is the case with my custom 404 page. I didnt realise I also need to return the correct status of 404 in the header of that page by using PHP.

GSiteCrawler explain the whole thing in detail with instructions on how to adapt your custom pages — whether they be in PHP, ASP or ASP.NET — to return the correct status in the header.

I love this! Great for small business that cant afford expensive ad campaign tracking -

URLsDB: Free URL Hosting

“Are you running an ad campaign or simply trying to monitor number of clicks on special link? Use URLsDB to monitor hits each link gets!

Long URL’s can be a problem. They are hard to remember and type in. When you try to send a long URL in an e-mail, most of the time the URL is chopped up, forcing the recipient to cut-and-paste the parts back together. We can help solve this problem by creating simple, easy to remember URL’s for any URL, regardless of length… and you will be able to use it forever!”

Tristan (age 4 in case you were wondering) is pushing his scooter along the pavement until we get to an untarred area. Nathan tells him to pick up his scooter and walk with it, while T insists that he can push his scooter across the loose gravel. Bickering ensues. Nathan and I continue walking ahead while T struggles over the gravel lifting a shiny scooter the size of his body up high.

Tristan: Boy that was hard but–ole… (inaudible due to loud traffic)
Me: What did you just say?
Tristan: — (inaudible) —
Nathan: Tristan, seriously I never want to hear you call either one of us a butthole again!
Tristan: No! Not butthole! I said, BOY that was hard but COOL!

Dell purchased Alienware this week and I had no idea!

Dell has officially announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Alienware. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Alienware will keep all of its employees and continue to focus on gamer PCs as its own company. It also will continue to sell machines with AMD chips eventhough, Dell offers Intel only machines.

And blogging like a badass. Here are some tasty morsels I just found there:

Black and white twins!

A little girl who started using photoshop at age 3 1/2 and the Photoshop for Kids Page

Google on Google

Thanks Pieter!

Circadiana: “If so, you may want to track the infant’s sleep patterns, feeding, diaper-changes, etc. Now made easy with Trixie Tracker.

The patterns will make your life more predictable, will let you notice when something goes wrong before it becomes too apparent, and will make childrearing even more fun.

Of course, you can use the software for tracking an adult, yourself included. You can replace baby formula with beer and track your drinking habit. It is quite flexible. Go take a look.”

Russian Girls

The poor man in this video… I don’t think he will ever get over the trauma. He’ll probably carry this experience around for the rest of his life.

Thanks La Petite Claudine and Le Flea

OhGizmo: “It seems that the vase makers used long sticks to carve decorations on the clay vases as they were being made on rotating stones. These sticks picked up the minute vibrations in the air (caused by, say, conversations) and transformed these into grooves and bumps, much like what happens when you make a vinyl record. The Belgian scientists then analysed these patterns and extracted what is believed to be the world’s oldest known recordings.”

Pottery Recording Video (5MB mp4) - “about two-thirds of the way through, you get to hear about ten seconds of the recordings in question. It’s a man, speaking in Latin, and laughing. It’s kind of eerie. Think about it. This was recorded, what, 3,000 years before JC was even born!”