Due to so many malicious attacks on MT's servers lately, I've been having to check lots of client sites for malicious code and in the process, I've found Google's Webmaster Tools and their Safe Browsing Diagnostic Page to be wonderfully helpful.

It is kinda of cumbersome having to keep the Safe Browsing URL around and prepend it to every site I wanted to check, so in an effort to ease the pain, I threw together a dashboard widget that allows you to enter a URL and check it against Google's service. I know, I know. Google actually has an API for safe browsing that allows for quite a bit more functionality than this ... but for now, this is all I needed. Maybe you'll find it useful too.

You can download the widget here (you'll need Mac OS X and Dashboard to use it), but remember that all of Google's logos and stuff are copyright of them.

SafeBrowse

The last couple of weeks I have been going back and forth between Firefox and Safari as my default web browser, trying to appreciate their full-featured nature over the fact that they are both so sluggish in comparison to the lovely Chrome Beta. Thankfully, Google announced support for two of the things that have really kept me from making it my preferred choice ... Extensions and Bookmark Management.

Extensions

Installing extensions through the browser is super-easy, doesn't require a restart and there are plenty to choose from. Here are just a few of the ones I am already finding essential:

• Delicious Tools - Not a direct match to its great Firefox equivalent, but it works nicely for what I need.
• Downloads - Easy access to Chrome's "Downloads" page from a toolbar button.
• Go Extensions - Same deal, but with the Extensions page.
• Google Mail Checker - For those of you still checking Gmail outside of the Mail.app, this extensions offers quick access to your mail and nicely sports notification badges.
• Google Voice - Not only quickly get to your Google Voice account, but you can also initiate a call or send a SMS right from the toolbar.
• Google Wave Notifier - It kinda seems likes some of these should be built right in, huh? Maybe that is what Chrome OS will bring.
• History Button - I'm actually thinking this is one of those extensions that will become obsolete once Chrome goes Release, but for now, it is handy.
• RSS Subscriptions with FEED: Handler Support - RSS feeds are really important to me and this lil' guy is exactly what I needed to get feeds from Chrome to the external aggregator I am partial to right now (Socialite). If all you want to do is add feeds to your iGoogle or Google Reader accounts, there are a few other options.
• Speed Dial - This one is the cherry-on-the-top for me. A start page thumbnail display that is better than the weak Firefox counterpart (Fast Dial), more versatile than the built-in 2-row setup that Chrome provides and it's even similar enough to Safari to appease my visual needs. Seriously ... it is simple, but I am really excited about this extension.
• StumbleUpon - I'm still not sold on the whole SU use case, but since a lot of sites are dropping Digg buttons, I need another easy way to keep track of articles I like.

*Extensions Organization Tip

As of right now, Chrome doesn't take advantage of the typical Command+drag UI convention for re-arranging the icons for extensions in the toolbar, but you can easily get around this by "Enabling" and "Disabling" the extensions in the order you want them to appear.

Bookmarks

Not only does the Bookmark manager work exactly as would you expect for being built on WebKit (including support for dragging bookmarks directly from Safari's 'Bookmarks' window), but Google has also added "Bookmark Syncing" support. This will make it really easy for those of you with multiple machines/devices that want to keep things in sync. I personally keep all but a few essential bookmarks on Delicious, but I still set up the syncing, since it was so easy.

Alright, that's enough talking of Chrome for a bit. We can all go back to eagerly awaiting anything new on Google's OS front. Until then ... if you find any more great extensions, be sure to post links below.

I have been working to understand more aspects of the Flash platform and how we are implementing it in our Full Sail curriculum and this XML basics article I just found was really helpful in explaining E4X syntax and how to traverse the XML node tree.

The article does mention implementing the Flash IDE for their code, but Flex Builder is a much nicer environment for building ActionScript projects. Plus, you can install a copy of the XML Buddy Eclipse plugin in FB and it just happens to be one of the few XML editors that auto-completes custom nodes (the only other one I've found is Espresso).

It has been a few days now since Ars Technica announced Google's Developer Preview for Chrome on the Mac and I have been loving every minute of it. While I do miss the robust plugin architecture of Firefox and the slickness of Safari 4's "Top Sites", Chrome's speed trumps all.

New tabs and windows are quick to respond and page loading is ever so snappy. And though I am not entirely won over by it yet, I now also have a chance to fully test Bing as a search engine alternative ... not just as a second-class citizen, but fully integrated into my normal search workflow.

There are several features I am sure Chrome will add in further releases, hopefully including the full "Develop" menu from Safari's WebKit, a more customizable "New Tab" screen (I want one more row of thumbnails), and AppleScript support (Chrome is not currently compatible with Little Snapper) ... but for being a developer preview, it is a really solid experience and is currently my default browser.

Oh and here is the direct link for the download. Enjoy!

All the unnecessary hatin' that has been happening lately toward the Flash platform has been getting out of hand and definitely on my nerves ... so I have decided to start animating small little nuggets of fun into some of my drawings here on the blog. If you are not among the misinformed and propaganda-gobbling masses, please enjoy! Of course, I am also adding a nice bit of accessibility for all the iPhone users, taking advantage of SWFObject's graceful degradation capabilities.

Since I have absolutely been loving Illustrator's new "blob brush", I decided to spend some time today getting further acquainted with its pre-cursor, the Flash brush. The last minute eye tracking is a bit kludgy, but it will do for this bit of fun. Here's the preliminary attempt:

//TRACKING THE CURSOR, THANKS TO http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/144/tn_14417.html
stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, mouseMove);
function mouseMove(event:MouseEvent):void{
	monsterGuy.eyeLeft.rotation = parent.mouseX/2 -180;
	monsterGuy.eyeRight.rotation = parent.mouseX/2 -180;
}

Despite how much I love the new Safari 4 features, I have been experiencing some really poor performance as of late ... specifically, a 3-5 second stall at every new window launch, new tab or trying to scroll through a part of a page I had not been using previously. Though it may be due entirely to the upgrade to Snow Leopard, I don't have anything concrete to back up that theory and am forced to wait for an dot update from Apple.

In the interim, I have switched over to Firefox. Not my favorite by a long shot, but still a decent browser ... especially with the help of its mighty plug-in system. Besides the Chromifox theme, which is just for fun, there are plenty of extensions that make browsing pretty bearable in the Mozilla world.

Here are some of my favorites, though a few still need to be updated to work with 3.5 ...

• 1Password - Everyone's favorite pword manager
• Charles - A nifty, but not free, bandwidth throttling system
• CodeBurner - I haven't found a good workflow for this yet (I prefer my Coda Reference Books), but you might
• Cooliris - A great tool for finding photo references or just getting lost in some Flickr artwork
• Delicious - Direct deli.ico.us bookmark integration ... the only way to fly
• Download Statusbar - Keeping that pesky download window out of your hair
• Fangs - Seeing from the screen-reader's standpoint
• Fast Dial - A poor replacement for Safari's Top Sites, but it will have to do for now
• Firebug - An essential plugin for the HTML, CSS and Javascript developer
• Firefox PDF Plugin - In-browser PDF viewing
• Pronounce - A sweet lil' addition for all you English language and vocabulary lovers out there
• RetailMeNot - Great coupon site ... and a great auto-sensing plugin
• Searchbar Autosizer - Kinda silly that you need it, but so helpful once you have it
• Web Developer Toolbar - I still like Safari's Develop menu for some things, but this is the de facto standard for web development tools.

One of my favorite Action Script-ers to follow, Felix Turner of AirTight Interactive, recently posted about all of the applications, plugins and resources he uses for Flash development. It is definitely a list worth checking out (as are many of the lists compiled by the great Smashing Magazine) and if nothing else, it gave me a reason to draw this nerdy guy, marking out all of the languages and frameworks I am either working with or delving into.

I've been incrementally been posting about the tools I use for design and development (especially about my favorite leafy friend), so I won't do that here ... but if you've been missing out, definitely head back and check out some of the older posts.

And as much as this guy pales in comparison, I still thought it was worth mentioning ... in honor of Jake Parker's sweet Inktober project, I drew this straight to ink, using a dull Faber Castell brush pen. Oh and in case you missed it, Bob Flynn is also joining in on Inktober. Love his work, in Flash and out!

The last few days have been full of a lot o' work ... creating code and pre-pro examples for students, updating curriculum in the classroom, then keeping busy through the wee hours of the night and morning creating for some Illustrative clients.

Thanks to Norm reminding me about how easy it is to setup local databases with MAMP or XAMPP, I have been having an easier time working with WordPress:http://wordpress.org lately. I will eventually need to figure out how to create local MySQL DBs with Snow Leopard's built-in capabilities, but for now, this was plenty simple.

And thanks in part to all of the talk and hub-bub going around lately about the benefits of Fireworks and my missing its subtleties, tonight I came back around to putting some designs through it. While it still lacks a seamless integration into the CS4 UI, it really is a much stronger screen n' pixel editing environment than Photoshop at times.

Most of the Illustrative projects are still in progress, but I'll be sure to post some up on Flickr or the Portfolio when I get the chance.

It appears that the AIR 1.5.1 runtime has a minor issue with re-maximizing windows after miniziming them to the Snow Leopard dock. I have submitted a bug request, so hopefully it will be fixed soon.

I also should probably start recording some sound when I am taking these screencasts with the new Quicktime X ... it's like I have been making them for a deaf person.

There is an easy way have 10.6 load the 32-bit version of Perl, but unfortunately, even after doing so, it looks like Validator is still having some other issues.

There is no contact information on Robert Crews' website, so I went searching for some viable replacements. Apple has a Developer Connection article installing a local W3C HTML Validator and you can download nifty Stand-Alone HTML/XHTML Validator for the Mac (which Veerle made some nice icons for), but neither will validate against a custom DTD.

Enter XMLMate ... the open-source, robust TextMate plugin for "Checking XML and XHTML documents for Well-Formedness and Validity while editing them in TextMate with support for DTD, W3C XML Schema, RELAX NG, Schematron, XInclude, XML Catalog, and XPath 2.0 Visualizer". Yeah. Wow, indeed.

I still don't own a copy of the pricey TextMate (despite how much I like it), but this add-on is nice enough for me to click thru the license screen every launch. Enjoy.