Tekzilla: Word Search on a Webpage Tip

On Episode 155, Web Browsers: Word Search on a Webpage, Veronica Belmont has a great tip that allows you to quickly find a word or phrase on a webpage so you don’t have to read the entire page to find what you’re looking for. Although this tip is very helpful, I wanted to add to it.

In the video, she says you can press CTRL + F (or CMD + F on a Mac) whether you’re using Firefox, Safari, Opera or Internet Explorer and a search bar or window will appear and then you can enter in what you’re looking for and the word will be highlighted in the browser. Then, press the previous or next buttons to find more instances of that word. I find that to be a little slow and prefer another way (at least when using Firefox).

In Firefox, make sure Search for text when I start typing is enabled. To enable this feature:

1. Go to Tools > Options in the menu.
2. Then select Advanced.
3. In the General tab, select the checkbox next to Search for text when I start typing.
4. Click OK.

Now when you start typing a word, each part of it will automatically be selected on the webpage where ever the first instance appears. There is no need to press CTRL + F (or CMD + F on a Mac) to start searching.

If you want to find another instance of the word or phrase you’re searching for on the webpage, just press F3. F3 will go through every instance on the webpage as many times that you press it. Want to go back to a previous word or phrase? Press Shift + F3.

Large Collection of Beautiful Icons

Icons can be very useful for any kind of project, whether it’s for a website, application or even the desktop. Some generous people offer many high quality icons for free. I have collected a lot of icons myself and wanted to share some with you.

I’ve included previews of the icons. Keep in mind that some previews may not show every icon that is included in the set(s). To preview and download an icon set, click on the preview image and it will take you to the page. Please note that a lot of the links might also include more icon sets than what is previewed here.

1. Got It Icons by klepas
   
2. Blogging Icons by blogperfume
   
3. Function Icons by Function
   
4. eCommerce Icons by Starfish Web Consulting
   
5. Xiao Icons by Neversay
   
6. Web Development Icons by Icojoy
   
7. Web 2.0 RSS Icons by Icojoy
   
8. Arrow Icons by FreeIconsWeb
   
9. Office Tools by Beauticons
   
10. Web 2 Icons by Dirceu Veiga
    
11. Smashing Feed Icons by Dirceu Veiga
    
12. Sweet System Icons by Dirceu Veiga
    
13. Fast Icon Users by Dirceu Veiga
    
14. Milky Part 8 Icons by Min Tran
    
15. Bright! Icons by Min Tran
    
16. Aquaticus Social Icons by Quage9
    
17. Social Bookmark Icons by Vikiworks
    
18. Social Bookmark Icons Part II by Vikiworks
    
19. RSS Icon by blogeeks
    
20. Smashy The Alien Icons by Maja Bencic
    
21. Apollo Icons by marcelomarfil
    
22. Boxes Vista-Like Icons by tpdkdesign
    
23. Care Bears Icons by Yellow Icon
    
24. Vista Colorful Folders Pack by Mitchelaneous
    
25. Stickers Icons by DryIcons
    
26. Coquette Icons by DryIcons
    
27. Social Web Buttons by WebFruits
    
28. Social Web Buttons Set 2 by WebFruits
    
29. Black Vector Icons by GoSquared
    
30. RSS Icons Orb v2 by nam0
    
31. Glossy WordPress Logo Icon by AODdesign
    
32. Software & Web Applications Interface Icons by User Interface Icons
    
33. RTM Sidebar Icon Variations by greyham6
    

Some more places you can find icons at are:

• InterfaceLIFT
• Pixelgirl Presents
• IconDrawer
• iStockPhoto
• IconArchive
• IconBuffet
• DesignMagus
• Fasticon

If you know of some other places to find really good icons (preferably for free!), then please leave a comment. Don’t worry if you leave a link and your comment doesn’t appear right away. As long as it’s not spam, I will manually approve it.

Fluency Admin WordPress Theme

One of the most complained about features I’ve heard for the newer WordPress versions is the admin area. I actually liked that it looked different, because it was easier to look at. It just looks better.

I’ve checked out some WordPress admin themes before, but most of them seemed to be missing something, not working right, or just not that great looking. Just today I came across one that is just more appealing. Fluency Admin by Dean Robinson. It works with WordPress 2.6.

It’s not that I think the colors in the admin area are ugly, it’s that everything takes up so much space, when it all can fit into a smaller area.

This is what WordPress 2.6 Dashboard looks like:

Here is the Dashboard after:

A much needed improvement is the Other WordPress News box on the dashboard. It’s now a smaller list instead of these huge boxes for each post. Way too much space was wasted. In order to cut back on the space, I had to limit the boxes to showing only five, otherwise they got out of hand.

Write Post screen after:

Manage Posts screen after:

Sidebar after:

My favorite feature of Fluency Admin is that the sidebar stays put even while you scroll down the page. That was one annoyance about the menu that I had before. I’d have to scroll back up just to go to another screen.

You can check out more screenshots at Dean Robinson’s flickr page. If you want this awesome WordPress Admin theme, go download it!

Desktop Thursday Wallpaper Choices

I sometimes have a hard time deciding which wallpaper to use on my desktop, unless I know I want a specific color, then it’s pretty easy from there. Here is what my current desktop looks like now:

This wallpaper comes from Larissa Meek. [Get it here] She’s created some really nice wallpapers.

When looking for new wallpaper, I check out the following websites because they have really good wallpaper.

• WallpaperStock
• DeviantArt

I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re interested in customizing your own wallpaper, you can use WallpaperMaker. It doesn’t have a lot of choices, but it’s a good start!

Here’s a few wallpapers that I like from the sources above (clicking on them will take you to their page):

You may notice from most of the wallpapers I like, there is a lot of brown and green. I like my desktop more when either of those two colors are present. I have no idea why though!

Managing Time With FruitfulTime TaskManager

As a lot of you may have noticed, I haven’t written a post in about a month. This is because I’ve been so busy! I apologize and will try to stay on top of things, if I can! (One way to help me out would be if you have a suggestion for a topic, please contact me and let me know.)

I was recently notified about FruitfulTime TaskManager at a perfect time and decided to give it a try because of how many tasks I needed to get done (on time). I figured this would be a great way to share my experience and opinions of this software with all of you and get a new post out at the same time!

FruitfulTime TaskManager actually looks better than a lot of other task management applications and allows you to easily see what your progress is for any tasks. It’s also small in size and performs very quickly. Another feature that has been tempting me to buy a new thumb drive is that it is portable as well. This means it can be installed on a thumb drive so you can take it wherever!

Being that I work on projects that also involve other people, it’s helpful to see who is assigned to what, so if you have a task that is dependent on another task which is assigned to someone else, you’ll know by viewing who it is assigned to and be able to contact that person regarding the status because of the Contact Manager built-in.

I do have a few annoyances/suggestions that I want to point out, that I hope could be considered in a future version:

1. Subtasks not grouped with tasks. Instead of separating the subtasks below the task listing, I would rather see a tree listing with the subtasks below each task, so I don’t have to click on a task just to see the subtask. This would save me time.
2. Deleting subtasks. Several times I have made the mistake of clicking on a subtask to delete, only to end up clicking on ‘Delete Task’, which shouldn’t appear when a subtask is selected. If the parent task was selected, then ‘Delete Task’ should appear. I just become confused when I’m so busy and not paying attention.
3. Setting task options, like Priority, Status, Progress, etc. When changing them, I have to triple-click! I wish I only had to single-click like I do for editing the name of the task, but would even settle for double-click. But triple-clicking is going a little too far and wastes time.
4. Setting the progress of a subtask does not automatically update its task. For example, if I set a subtask to 50% (say there is only one subtask), shouldn’t the task’s progress become 50%? I don’t really want to manually set it to 50%, because again, it takes time.

Features I really like:

• Adding notes to tasks.
• Adding references to any relevant websites or files. Very useful option for me especially since the company I work for has MANY websites that I need to be able to login for QA. A lot of the time, I also need to be able to review a document, so this can save me time from having to go back through lots of files to find the document I need.
• Adding reminders. Reminders can be set to go off before the Start Date or the Due Date. For me, setting reminders before a Start Date is helpful, because sometimes I like to start projects early, rather than waiting until I actually need to start it.

Overall, I do like FruitfulTime TaskManager and will probably continue using it since I’m tired of Outlook 2007 running so slow on Vista because I have a lot of e-mails and tasks to add. I like how Outlook manages tasks, but when I have to wait forever for Outlook to load, it’s not worth my time.

If you would like to see a demo of FruitfulTime TaskManager in action, there is video on the website. Interested in trying out this wonderful (very affordable) application? Go download it!

I would really like to hear if anyone else has given FruitfulTime TaskManager a try, and what you think of it. Please leave a comment below.