7 Totally Unique Flickr Search Tools

Sometimes it’s simply overwhelming how many gorgeous photos there are on Flickr () - sifting through them to find a picture to use on your blog or to just admire can be a chore. Luckily for us however, Flickr has an API, meaning that some creative developers have built alternative Flickr search engines.

Whether you’re just looking for a more feature-rich version of Flickr search or want to perform search in a completely different way, these seven Flickr search tools will serve you in finding that perfect photo.

Do you have a favorite Flickr search tool? Be sure to share it with us in the comments.

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1. Compfight

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Compfight is a visual Flickr search tool that displays searched photos based on tags or text. Beyond showing you pictures that match your search, the other cool thing about compfight is that it makes it dead simple to search for creative commons pictures that you can use for your blog. It’s a simple and fast-loading interface for Flickr searches.

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2. Flickr Color Selector

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Are you looking for cool pictures, but you really need them to match your website’s color scheme? Flickr Color Selectr searches through images on the popular photos site by differentiating by color. Just pick your color on the RGB chart.

Note: this search engine is partially in Japanese, but it doesn’t impede you from using this particular tool.

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3. FlickrBabel

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FlickrBabel is a mash-up of Flickr search and Google Translate. If you find a cool image but can’t understand the underlying text, FlickrBabel uses Google () translate to interpret the message. It also supports location-based searches. Heck, FlickrBabel even has its own Twitter account

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4. FlickrStorm

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The Flickr search engine is smart, but it isn’t perfect when you’re looking for photos related to a topic? FlickrStorm comes to the rescue. FlickrStorm divides search into multiple columns and suggests search refinements with additional related keywords.

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5. Picishare

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If you’re just looking for a straight-up alternative to Flickr search, then PiciShare may be one to look at. It has all of the meat - tag search, relevance, whether it’s “interesting”, and more. It also allows you to limit the number of photos that appear if you’re on a slow web connection.

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6. Flickrriver

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Flickrriver is a search tool that focuses on recent and interesting pictures - specifically ones uploaded in the last day or two.

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7. Tag Galaxy

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I can’t even explain to you how “out there” Tag Galaxy is as a Flickr search engine. It represents Flickr tags as the solar system. The keyword you use is the sun, related keywords are planets, clicking on any shows you a planet full of pictures. It is, by far, the most dynamic way to search Flickr.

10 ways to Supercharge Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer has been designed to make real-world web browsing easier, and it's packed with useful features such as easy web searching, one-click access to Windows Live services and Web Slices to keep on top of your favourite sites. But it's capable of even more.

There's a huge range of accelerators, add-ons and toolbars that make Internet Explorer 8 even more useful. From social networking to shopping, document handling to downloading, these ten add-ons mean much better browsing. They're all free, and you'll find all ten - and many more - at www.ieaddons.com.

1. Research and shop for products

You know that shopping online can save you a packet, but how do you find the best deals - and make sure the product you're looking at is worth the cash? The Research and Shop For Products accelerator enables you to highlight a product name and look it up on the shopping engine Ciao!, which features unbiased user reviews and a constantly updated list of the best online prices.

2. Access your bookmarks anywhere

Foxmarks was about to change its name to Xmarks as we went to press, but no matter what it's called it's still very handy. The add-on stores your Favorites on the Internet, which means you can access them from any internet-enabled computer that you install Foxmarks on. It's particularly useful if you tend to use shared computers, if you have multiple PCs at home or if you'd like to use the same Favorites at home and at work.

3. Login quicker

One of the more annoying things on the Internet is when sites demand you register just so you can read an article or forum post. If you'd rather not hand over your details, BugMeNot can provide usernames and passwords that should let you in.

4. Get Facebook on your toolbar

You can use Web Slices to stay up to date with your Facebook friends' status updates, but the OneRiot toolbar takes things a step further by adding notification buttons below the Address Bar. These enable you to visit the various bits of Facebook (Home, Profile, Friends and so on) but more usefully they also let you see when somebody's sent you a friend request, whether you've any new messages in your inbox or whether anybody's tagged you in a photo. A version for MySpace is also available.

5. Get connetced

If like us you're on loads of different social networks, Yoono can save you a great deal of time and effort. In much the same way that multi-chat software enables you to connect to different instant messaging services simultaneously, Yoono can connect you to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr and FriendFeed, as well as AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, MSN Messenger and Yahoo. You can also share content with other Yoono users, for example by tagging web pages with "like" or "hate".

6. Book a holiday

Booking a holiday? Save yourself a lot of time, money and heartbreak by using this accelerator to look up resort or hotel names on TripAdvisor, where holidaymakers and travellers tell the truth about the places they've stayed - good and bad.

7. Define anything

If you've ever encountered an acronym and wondered what on Earth it meant, the Define Acronym accelerator will make your online life much more comprehensible. Simply highlight the acronym, select the accelerator and see definitions from the fields of IT, government, science, business and even slang.

8. Make the web sexy

Ever wished the Internet looked more like it does in Hollywood movies? With Cooliris, it does. Once you've installed the browser add-on it's just a matter of carrying out a web search at www.cooliris.com - but instead of text links, you'll see a wall of images that you can sweep through, zoom in and generally muck about with. It's fascinating, gorgeous and makes us feel that we're living in the future.

9. Go Pro

Don't let the number seven fool you: most of IE7Pro's features already work in Internet Explorer 8, and the program's next incarnation will be called IEPro to reflect that. As we went to press you needed to manually Enable IE7Pro from Internet Explorer's Manage Add-ons screen, but that should be fixed by the time you read this. So is it worth it? Oh yes. IE7Pro blocks adverts, enables you to navigate the Web by waggling your mouse and provides handy features such as closing tabs by double-clicking on them.

10. Search visually

If you're a shopping addict on a tight budget, ASOS.com's search plugin will be right up your street. Simply use the arrow in the Search box to select ASOS, type in the kind of item you're looking for, and you'll see stacks of results including pictures and prices. It's a simple and very useful tool, so expect lots of other retailers to offer similar search tools for their own shops.

10 things to put on your web design to-do list

Web design is a competitive business and a good designer needs to stay on top of current trends.

So what do you need to be doing to stay ahead of the game over the next few months?

We asked designers from some of the top agencies what they reckon should be on every designer's to-do list.

Here are the 10 things you need to work on...

1. Understand the smaller screen
Tom Dougherty of Delete says: "Industry professionals must be aware of mobile technology and the integration capabilities offered. iPhone represents the future of mobile tech. The quicker we get to grips with designing for the smaller screen, the better."

2. Teach yourself new skills
Cennydd Bowles of Clearleft says: "If you can't already, learn to code – this is your last chance to avoid obsolescence!" Eric Meyer adds: "Continue to learn and diversify skills. Diversity doesn't assure your survival, but it's a safer bet than narrow specialisation."

3. Practice good typography
Simon Crab of Lateral says: "Type is one of the fundamentals of design, yet it's a factor that's often overlooked or marginalised in the online environment. Starting from a typographic point of view helps define a clear structure and purpose in a design."

4. Focus on what's important
Jeffrey Zeldman of Happy Cog says: "Standards will cause designers and agencies to focus on content, usability, user experience and design excellence. Those already focusing on these will work harder and rise to the top. Those who haven't will need to get in gear."

5. Investigate frameworks
Danny McClelland of DannyWeb says: "With the use of ready-made coding libraries, more time can be spent on other things and keeping your clients happy. For example, there's absolutely no sense in making a similar application to WordPress from scratch."

6. Continue innovating
Eric Jordan of 2Advanced says: "Stagnancy breeds mediocrity, and no one wants mediocrity. Re-invention enables designers to stay relevant, on the cutting-edge and fresh in the minds of the industry. Those who don't will fall behind."

7. Diversify your client base
Marcus Greenwood of Webjam.com says: "In the current climate, a company's web budget may be reduced or cut, leaving you in a spot of bother if this happens to your main client." Diversifying your capabilities means you can appeal to a wider client base.

8. Think 'refurb', not 'relaunch'
Marc Peter of on-IDLE says: "Support clients in their time of need with ideas for revamping existing designs rather than full-scale new designs that affect everything from corporate literature to signage. Keeping costs low could help you to grow."

9. Master JavaScript
Eric Meyer of Complex Spiral Consulting says: "JavaScript performance and capabilities, coupled with support, will be key to nearly everything, including pushing web standards' adoption rates forward. Everything else is just secondary."

10. Bring about catharsis
Paul Annett of Clearleft says: "Campaign for Adobe to align prices globally and stop ripping off customers. Prices outside the US are often doubled, even on downloads, an issue that's drawn fierce criticism on the Adobe forum at http://tr.im/adobe."

How to Manage Writing for Multiple Blogs

Many people who are attempting to either make a living online or simply just trying to enhance or add to their income online have turned to blogging. There is a lot of information out there on how to make money blogging. It is difficult to make significant money from running one blog, especially right after starting up. Whether the money that comes in is from paid blog posts, link sales, or any other source, one of the ways to make money online faster is to run multiple blogs. The problem with operating multiple blogs is, no matter how many you wish to run, coming up with quality content for each of them at a fast enough rate that they will also continue to be frequently updated.

A great writing strategy when you are writing for multiple blogs is to write ahead of time. While some people find it time consuming and difficult to switch from one topic to the next while writing for multiple blogs, a successful strategy might be to concentrate on just one blog each day. For example, start writing for blog number one on Monday. During the course of the day you can explore different aspects of the niche or subject you are writing about and hopefully come up with four or five good posts. When Tuesday comes, start writing for blog number two in virtually the same way. When Wednesday comes, follow the same process and do the same for Thursday and Friday depending on how many blogs you have.

While you are doing this, you are accumulating blog posts that can be published at future dates. Yours might be the type of blog that gets updated daily or maybe three or four days a week, if that is the case then you have your posts already written. Now you can either keep them saved in a file on your computer and copy and paste them in each day, or if you are using Wordpress there is another option. When using Wordpress, you can save the posts as you write them and change the post date and time so that it will just appear on the day and time you want it to. Using this method, you could write a months worth of posts, changing the posts dates so that they will come out naturally over the course of the next thirty days. You could essentially take a vacation and no one reading your blog would be any wiser.

Writing for multiple blogs is a sometimes daunting task. But using time delayed posts and pre-written content can make it a lot easier as well as more efficient. In doing so you can multiply the amount of money you make with each new blog you start and monetize. In the end whatever method works best for you will work best for your blogs.

e-Text Editor Useful Keyboard Shortcuts

Here is a list of e-text editor shortcuts. Hope it helps.

File Operations

Ctrl+N : New file
Double-Click tab bar : New file
Ctrl+O : Open file
Ctrl+S : Save file
Ctrl+Shift+S : Save as
Ctrl+W: Close file
Ctrl+Shift+T : Go To File dialog

Editing

Ctrl+K : Delete to end of line; if the caret already is at end-of-line it deletes the newline.
Ctrl+Shift+K : Delete the entire line
Ctrl+Backspace : Delete to start of word (same as Ctrl+H)
Ctrl+Delete : Delete to end of word
Ctrl+(Shift)+U : Change case on word/selection
Alt+G : Inverse case on word/selection
Ctrl+Alt+U : Title case
Ctrl+T : Transpose, for swapping words or chars.
Ctrl+Alt+R : Run current line/selection
Ctrl+C : Copy (or: Ctrl+Insert)
Ctrl+V : Paste (or: Shift+Insert)
Ctrl+X : Cut
Ctrl+Z : Undo
Ctrl+Y : Redo. If there aremultiple branches to choose fromundo history will be displayed.

Selection

Ctrl+A : Select all
Ctrl+Shift+arrow : Select entire word
Alt+Left-mouse : column selection
Ctrl+Left-mouse : Multi selection
Shift+Home : Selects to the first non-whitespace char on the line, second time the white spaces will be selected as well
Shift+Ctrl+Home : Selects to the beginning of the document
Shift+Ctrl+End : Selects to the end of the document
Shift+Ctrl+L : Selects current line
Shift+Ctrl+W: Selects current word
Shift+Ctrl+Space : Selects current scope. If you keep hitting it, it will cycle through the available scopes.

Folding

F1 : Toggle current fold
Alt+F1 : Open current fold and closes all others
Ctrl+F1 : Fold all
Ctrl+Alt+F1 : Unfold all
Shift+F1 : Select current fold
Left-mouse : Fold end or fold indicator: Select fold, twice to fold
Mouseover : Fold end: Show fold preview Fold indicator: Highlight fold (useful for nested folds)
Navigation
Ctrl-Tab : Go to last active tab (or next tab if used repeatedly)
Ctrl-Shift-Tab : Go to previous tab
Alt+Ctrl+R/L-arrow : Next/previous tab
Alt+Ctrl+Up-arrow : Go to header/source
Ctrl+L : Go to Symbol
Ctrl+G : Go to line
Ctrl+F : Find
Ctrl+G : Find next
Ctrl+R : Replace
Home : Move cursor to the beginning of the line
End : Move cursor to the end of the line
Ctrl+Home : Move cursor to the beginning of the document
Ctrl+End : Move cursor to the end of the document
Ctrl+Up/Down-arrow : Scroll up/down, withoutmoving the caret
Ctrl+1-8 : Go to tab
Ctrl+9 : Go to last tab
Ctrl+0 : List open tabs

View

F3 : Show/hide revision history
F4 : Show/hide visual undo
Ctrl+Alt+P : Show/hide web preview
Alt+Shift+T : Show TODO list

Document

Ctrl+M:Makemilestone
Bundle
Ctrl+Shift+B : Show bundle editor
Ctrl+Alt+T : Select bundle
Esc : Kill current running bundle command

Projects

Ctrl+P : Show/hide project pane
Ctrl+Shift+P : Switch focus between editor and project pane (opening it if needed).
Arrow keys : Up/down and expand/close folder
Enter : Open file in editor
F2 : Rename
F5 : Refresh project view
Shift-F10 : Show contextmenu

Mouse Shortcuts

Double-click : Select word
Triple-click : Select line
Alt-doubleclick : Select scope

Top 10 Reasons to Join a Startup

Joining a startup company is a no-brainer. The pros far outweigh the cons. Whether you’re just graduating, or you’ve done your time “working for the man” now is the perfect time to make the jump.

Go work for a startup company.

Here are 10 reasons why:

1. More influence. With a smaller team, each person at a startup has more say. You should have more opportunity to voice your opinion and influence key decisions. And you want that, right?
2. More ownership. You might not be the founder, but you’re darn close. You should have some equity (or stock options.) Both a sense of ownership, and actual ownership are wonderful things; they’ll give you one more reason to work better and harder.
3. More meaning. The best startups are built on top of a strong purpose and vision; a raison d’etre that truly resonates. It’s a startup’s rallying cry and it provides other likeminded people with true meaning in their work.
4. More comraderie. Startup teams have to gel beautifully to succeed. Doesn’t mean you’ll always get along, but a little Saving Private Ryan never hurt anyone.
5. More diversity. There shouldn’t be much pigeonholing at a startup; you’re going to do and see a lot of different things. You will be thrown out of your comfort zone. You will get a chance to expand your horizons.
6. More learning. Startup environments are crash courses in business and life. You’ll learn more in 6 months at a startup than you will in 4 years at university.
7. More connectivity. With less (or zero) levels of bureaucracy, everyone is closer to one another. You should be well connected to your CEO as well as the network of customers, vendors, VCs, friends, etc. that surround the startup.
8. More emotion. Working at a startup isn’t a constant high. Far from it. But it is intense, and the emotional charge you’ll get on a regular basis is a worthwhile learning experience.
9. More future success. I don’t have any statistics to prove this, but I bet you that startup employees go on to bigger and better things. Whether it’s higher paying / more interesting jobs or starting their own companies, your resume and personal story benefit considerably from living the startup experience.
10. More fun. Startup employees have more fun. It’s just the way it is…

The job market for startup and early-stage companies is very strong. There’s no shortage of opportunity. Top talent can pick and choose amongst a slew of startups eager to hire. The risk is low.

Granted, not all startups are created equally. Not all startups may give you the benefits described above. You can’t dive in eyes closed and expect to find the perfect fit. Make sure you ask the right questions before joining a startup. Plenty of smart people have suggestions on the questions you should ask before joining a startup, so you shouldn’t have a problem being prepared.

But make the leap. Join a startup. It’s worth it.

Firefox Recommended Add-ons

Thriving ecosystem

Since its inception, Firefox has been a great platform on which web developers can build on top of. Recognizing that the core browser must be lean, the Mozilla team put together the infrastructure for creating add-ons. In this single decision, Mozilla created not just a fine browser - but a thriving community and a free marketplace, which links add-on developers directly to browser users. The developers are free to be creative and the users are free to choose the add-ons that they like. Such an ecosystem gives rise to innovation.

Add-ons point to the future of the web browser

Looking at the add-ons that were selected for the Firefox 2 showcase, in some ways they show us what the browser of the future may look like. Indeed that is something that Chris Beard himself alluded to - they view add-ons as a kind of test bed, pulling ideas from the best of them into the core product over time.

The majority of add-ons are focused on integrating web services into the browser, to boost user productivity. In a nutshell, add-ons are about shaving off clicks - but to be fair they do so much more. They create an enhanced, smarter, better browsing experience and ultimately save users' time.

Music, Weather and Maps

The FoxyTunes add-on integrates with your favorite music player and allows you to control the music you are listening to, right from within the Firefox status bar. There are a lot of handy features, my favorite being the ability to change the language and encoding - so that if you are listening to music in a language other than English, the title and the artist are displayed correctly.

Forecastfox brings the weather channel right into Firefox. On the install you select the zip code or city and the add-on does the rest. It relies on AccuWeather.com to bring you the latest current weather conditions, as well as a forecast of the upcoming weather. It is highly customizable and just perfect for the status bar.

Maps+ uses the Yahoo! Maps API to help the user look up addresses. To see it working, highlight any address - we tried a restaurant on this page - then right click and select View map from the context menu. The layered popup with the map appears right next to the address. You can control the zoom level of the map and customize the add-on in various ways.

Bookmarks 2.0

Storing and sharing web content is one of the most fundamental online activities. del.icio.us started the web 2.0 revolution by introducing tagging and social bookmarking. Since then del.icio.us itself and many other companies have enhanced bookmarks in many different ways. Let's look at the latest add-on advancements featured in the top twenty add-ons - and note there are a lot of bookmarking services amongst the add-ons.

Yahoo! released an updated version of the del.icio.us plugin, which replaces browser bookmarks with a view of del.icio.us posts. The StumbleUpon add-on is essential for fans of this service - it features a handy toolbar that lets the users rate and discover web sites. The Clipmarks add-on lets you clip pieces of the page, instead of bookmarking them. This is useful when you are not interested in the entire page but just want to store a paragraph or an image.

The Foxmarks add-on is seemingly simple - it synchronizes your bookmarks between all your Firefox browsers. What's great is that it works in the backround and does not require any input from the user, beyond creating an account. The JetEye addon in some ways is similar to Clipmarks, because it allows the user to collect clips. But it also enables arranging these clips by topic. Yoono is a social recommendation engine for discovering interesting or related sites. The BlueOrganizer add-on, developed by my company AdaptiveBlue, helps users to interact with books, music, movies, restaurants and other everyday things.

The developer add-ons

The showcase also contains three add-ons that help Firefox developers.

GreaseMonkey is an add-on that lets technically savvy users customize the look and feel of web pages. It has been very popular with the community, as it brings impressive possibilities for creativity.

FireBug is an essential debugger which supports JavaScript, CSS, HTML and much more. The Web Developer add-on contains an entire toolset, which is a must have for anyone who is doing web and add-on development for Firefox.

Blogging and RSS

Performancing add-on is a fully fledged blog editor built right into Firefox, which integrates with TypePad, Blogger, WordPress and LiveJournal (amongst others). Sage is a powerful feed reader - with the ability to subscribe to feeds, manage them and import/export via OPML.

Utilities

There are some very nifty utilities that can be integrated into Firefox:

• FireFTP integrates FTP into Firefox
• ChatZilla integrates IRC into Firefox
• Download Statusbar helps you manage downloads right in the status bar
• FlashGot is another download productivity add-on
• Adblock Plus lets you do away with advertisements

Other add-ons in the showcase

• Pronto is comparison shopping add-on which alerts you to potential price savings
• Jaja wires telephony right into the browser
• LinkedIn integrates the popular professional social network into the browser
• Cooliris lets the user preview a page by hovering over links
• Answers is a time saver add-on that lets you lookup information on Answers.com

Fun, useful and exciting

This Firefox showcase is full of interesting and useful add-ons that focus on helping users save time, by integrating web services into the browser. These add-ons point to a future of smarter, better browsers - that will be more aware of the patterns and use cases of interacting with information online.

So that's our take - let us know which of these and other add-ons you use and recommend!