TedCurran.net » Web browser

Take Dramatic 3D Screenshots of Websites with Firefox's Tilt Plugin

Ted Curran — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:40:27 +0000

If you do a lot of presentations or tutorials about technology, you probably have to take screenshots of websites to illustrate your ideas. I really like to add a “wow” factor to my presentations whenever I can do it gracefully, and I’m already seeing the possibilities with Mozilla Hacks’ new project, Tilt. It uses the very latest in HTML5 WebGL technology to render web pages in 3D, showing its internal structure (the DOM) visually. While that’s all cool and geeky, it also means that you can take dramatic-looking screenshots of websites to show in your presentations.

How do you do it?

Go download the Tilt plugin for Firefox.
Navigate to the website you want to screenshot
Pull down Firefox’s Tools menu and invoke Tilt
Position your website in the most awesome way possible
Shoot and edit your screenshot with your favorite screen capture software like Jing, Skitch, or good ol’ Grab in OSX
Drop that screenshot into your presentation, document, or whatever creative piece you’re working on!

It’s really that simple! I’d love to see what you do with this tool– please leave links to your 3D presentations in the comments!

See Web Pages in 3D with Tilt, a Firefox Extension (labnol.org)
Tilt: Visualize your Web page in 3D (hacks.mozilla.org)
Quick-Tip An Awesome Browser Plug-in – Awesome Screenshot (compete.com)
Review: Firefox 5 Web browser (macworld.com)
Firefox Joy…stick that is (geektyrant.com)
The Most Important Parts of HTML5 (n01se.net)
Firefox Gets A Massive Speed Boost; I’m Still Sticking With Chrome. (thechromesource.com)
Firefox To Get Better Third Party Add-On Security (ghacks.net)

The Best of Both Worlds– Web Apps with Desktop Clients

Ted Curran — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:11:29 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

The recent explosion of great tools that simply run in a web browser has been amazing. From tools like Google Docs, Evernote, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Prezi, and Rememberthemilk and the venerable Gmail– you can access powerful tools for free wherever you are. However, sometimes a web browser is not the best interface for the kind of work you want to do. This is where desktop clients for webapps really shine. Here is a great article from Mac.AppStorm.net about 60 great Web apps with strong desktop clients. Am I missing any? Let me know in the comments.

Milkify – Desktop application for Remember The Milk (milkify.com)
Get Instant Desktop Notifications From Your Web Apps With Notify.io (makeuseof.com)
Google Brings Bug Bounty To Web Apps (informationweek.com)
Coming Soon in Google Docs: Third Party Apps, Cloud Printing and Sync (googlesystem.blogspot.com)
5 Great Reasons To Use Seesmic Desktop 2 As Your Twitter Client (makeuseof.com)
Twitter Client For Your Browser – TicknTalk (mindjumpers.com)
Ditch Desktop Apps for Webapps, Free Up RAM, and Enjoy the Best of Both Worlds [Webapps] (lifehacker.com)

Opera Unite: A Web/Chat/FileSharing/etc. server IN YOUR BROWSER!

Ted Curran — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:01:32 +0000

: Image by Glztt via Flickr

Opera Unite is an amazing service that allows you to run a web server right out of your own browser! What does that mean? It means that you can share photos, music, and files without uploading them to some external service. You can even set up a private chat room for your friends at a moment’s notice.

This has obvious awesome implications for people who have something to hide– or who just don’t want to share their information with a big corporation. However, I’ve found it to be very useful as a designer– when I finish a large graphic design job for someone I can just put the (huge) image files up on my new webserver, send the URL as an IM or an email, and let my client download it directly. Security-minded companies find this much more desirable than sending sensitive files out over the open intertubes.

You can even stream your iTunes music folder by adding it to the “Media Player” window in Opera Unite. Then you can log into your iTunes from anywhere in the world and listen to your favorite songs off your own computer. Of course, like any good server, your computer has to be ON with Opera Unite running for this to work. That’s what makes it a great option for your old computer that’s just sitting around collecting dust. Turn it into a media server, add Opera Unite, and leave it on, connected to your network.

As anyone who has ever operated their own home server will tell you, it’s sort of a hassle to keep it on and running (especially when you need it most). At least with this, there is no messy configuring.

What do you think? Do you use it? Is there a way you can see it being more practical than using Web 2.0 tools? Talk about it in the comments!

Opera Releases 10.10 RC, Almost Ready to Unite (lockergnome.com)
Opera addresses security concerns with Unite beta (infoworld.com)
Opera 10.10 beta puts Unite front and center (downloadsquad.com)
Opera Unite gets bumped to beta, works better with other browsers (downloadsquad.com)
Opera takes Unite for spin with browser beta release (theregister.co.uk)
Opera Unite Puts a Web Server in Your Web Browser (webmonkey.com)
Recent Cloud Outages May Give Opera Unite a Second Chance (readwriteweb.com)
Opera stretches vocal cords with v.10 release (theregister.co.uk)
SPDY: The Web, Only Faster (nofluffjuststuff.com)