QA Graphic
December 1, 2018

WolframAlpha

Need unique data try WolframAlpha

WolframAlpha is the place to go when you need to calculate anything. It's a great knowledge base to explore all sorts of useful information. It's great as your taping into the power of computation intelligence.

The Pro version of WolframAlpha is $5.49 a month with step-by-step solutions, increased computation time and calculator Web Apps. The Pro version also has Image Input features - which is pretty cool if you work with images. This is where you can get a detailed analyst of any image. If you upload an image with text it will extract the text from the image.

If you do any data analyst, WolframAlpha is a great tool! Also useful for students in school, where they can learn a lot more about data.

Description from their site:

Compute expert-level answers using Wolfram's breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase and AI technology

Wolframalpha
https://www.wolframalpha.com/

Sample Query

Disney Distance_1

Not Always able to Get Data I Want

Interestingly it wasn't able to tell me what city was 2,174 miles from Boston. I found that it's Tegucigalpa, Honduras via timeanddate.com and Salt Lake City, Utah via distancetofromto.net.

Check out WolframAlpha

I would highly encourage you to check out the "Surprise Me" feature on WolframAlpha

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November 24, 2018

Squoosh

Google Squoosh is a quick hit image compression tool

Google is on a mission to get people to shrink their images so pages load faster on mobile devices. They recently launched a new website called Squoosh to make it even easier to compress images.

Squoosh Description

Make images smaller using best-in-class codecs, right in the browser.

Squoosh is an image compression web app that allows you to dive into the advanced options provided by various image compressors.

Google Squoosh
https://squoosh.app/

Four Differences Between Squoosh and ShortPixel

Back in Septemeber, I wrote about how ShortPixel is a great compression service. Here are some of the key differences between ShortPixel and Squoosh. Still a good option for many reasons.

  1. ShortPixel allows users to batch process lots of images, with Squoosh you can only do it one at a time.
  2. ShortPixel automatically sets the best compression, with Squoosh you have to figure out what compression doesn't ruin the image.
  3. ShortPixel also compresses PDF documents and animated Gif files.
  4. Squoosh allows you to play around with the settings to get the smallest possible size that works for that image, including settings for Reducing the color palette and image physical size.

Squoosh is great if you just need to compress an image for a blog or Slack. It's a quick fix tool. It would be nice if Google did offer several compression suggestions - such as "Best for Mobile" or "Image Optimized for Slack."

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November 17, 2018

Dynamic Drive

Dynamic Drive is a great resource for webmasters to get some effects for websites

Dynamic Drive has all sorts of useful tools for Web Developers, including Image Optimizer, Button Maker, Image to Base64 and lot more.

There is a section of the site where you can download script files, such as creating a dynamic calendar, snow or rain effect, the Matrix Text Effect, Mouse and Cursor effects and many more. It's a great place to get a code and some unique ideas to help spice up any webpage.

Description from the site

Welcome to Dynamic Drive, the #1 place on the net to obtain free, original DHTML & Javascript to enhance your web site!

Dynamic Drive
http://dynamicdrive.com/

Sample Content Listing

Check out some of these cool effects

It's Snowing - Decorate your webpage with this great animated document effect! Watch as snow gently trickles down the page, then disappear. Cool DHTML Tooltip - This is a practical, elegant DHTML tooltip script. Use it to display additional information about a link or any other element when the mouse moves over it. Tic-Tac-Toe - Entertain your visitors to a quick game of Tic-Tac-Toe. Comes with artificial intelligence and the ability to keep score. It's a good way to increase webpage time, which is a way to help SEO score. Online Image Optimizer - Image Optimizer lets you easily optimize your gifs, animated gifs, jpg, and png, so they load as fast as possible on your site. You get a preview of each quality and pick the image that works best for you.

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November 10, 2018

Cheatography

Good Library of Cheat Sheet Guides

Single page reference sheets - often called Cheat Sheets - are good reference guides to common tasks. Most developers have used them when researching the latest CSS styles or figuring out the proper regular expression.

A great online resource is the Cheatography website - they have a huge selection of cheat sheets in various topics. If you think you can do better than what they have, you can also create your very own cheat sheet.

Description from their site

Cheatography is a collection of 4,488 cheat sheets and quick references in 25 languages for everything from business to food!

Cheat Sheet
https://www.cheatography.com/

Cheatography Content

The five most popular Cheat Sheets:

  1. Regular Expressions Cheat Sheet
  2. Linux Command Line Cheat Sheet
  3. EQ tips Cheat Sheet
  4. JavaScript Cheat Sheet
  5. Python Cheat Sheet

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November 3, 2018

Snipplr

Great tool to find code to perform certain functionality

Wouldn't it be great if there was a resource to get awesome code snippets, so you don't have to re-invent the wheel for an HTML5 Starter Template or a PHP function to properly trim strings or any bit of code. Fortunately there is such a site it's Snipplr.

At Snipplr you can search for any code bits for just about every active programing language. There even a useful HTML Test Page so you can see how your style sheet works with all the active HTML elements.

Description from the Website

Snipplr was designed to solve a simple problem. We had too many random bits of code and HTML scattered all over our computers. We'd hunt and dig around for five minutes looking for the couple lines of code we wrote four projects ago just so we wouldn't have to retype them. We're lazy. We needed a way to keep all of our stuff organized. Snipplr is our solution. Now, all of our code snippets are stored in one place. Best of all, the other guys at work have access to each others' code library.

With Snipplr you can keep all of your frequently used code snippets in one place that's accessible from any computer. You can share your code with other visitors and use what they post, too.

Snipplr
https://snipplr.com/

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October 27, 2018

glowtxt.com

Great site to get cool font styles

The awesome people that created Textcraft, created a cool sister site called glowtext.com. The site offers a lot of very cool glowing style font styles. These are perfect when you want to bring to life some otherwise boring text.

Description from the Website

Make your blog, website, or any other page come alive with our glowing text generator. Use our free font styles for graphic art, blog headings, school projects, Facebook posts, forum signatures, posters, YouTube thumbnails etc.

glowtext Preview
https://glowtxt.com/

Some Notes

  • GlowText.com doesn't offer any shared library style as is offered in Textcraft.
  • If you don't want to host the image, simply click on the 'Get Web Code' to get links from imgur.com.
  • You can preview the PNG transparent image against different backgrounds.
  • There are 147 fonts available - Only a small sub-set is visible on the page as preview.

Example Designs and Styles

Boston Back Bay

Migrator Night

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October 20, 2018

Filmora Meme Generator

Cool way to create Memes

Earlier this week Filmora announced a new free product called Meme-Maker. Do we really need another Meme-Maker? Yes, Filmora does a good job making it easy to create custom Memes. If your looking to make a Meme from standard images your still better off using Imgflip.

Website Description

Upload or drag your image, GIF and video - You can either upload an image, GIF, or video from your computer OR you can paste in a link! Maximum file size: 50MB.

Add your text caption - Enter the text that you want to use in your image, GIF, or video meme. You can easily edit the text font, color, size and position.

Export & Download - Export your meme as a PNG, JPG, GIF, or MP4 file and enjoy! Go forth and be happy!

Filmora Meme Maker
https://filmora.wondershare.com/meme-maker/

Example Meme Created in Filmora

Filmora Meme

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October 13, 2018

Undertale Text Box Generator

Creative way to display text in a graphic format

The Undertale TextBox Generator is a creative way to display text in a graphics format. You simply type the phrase you want, design the box, and presto a creative graphic is ready to share on social media, blog or Slack.

You can have a character, or logo in the text box to add a bit of humor to your text.

Description from Website

An accurate, yet highly customizable, Undertale Text Box Generator. Choose any character from Undertale or a large variety of Alternate Universes. You can even use your own sprites!

Demirramon Hideout
https://www.demirramon.com/en/generators/undertale_text_box_generator

The generated text box are in PNG format and are 576w x 152h.

Example Text Boxes

Demirramon Example

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October 6, 2018

Da Button Factory

Cool tool to generate HTML buttons

Da Button Factory is an easy way to make all sorts of website buttons. It's a good site for bloggers or anyone that maintains a website. Need some button ideas? They have a page of examples, which you can use as a starting point.

Description from Website

Da Button Factory lets you create appealing buttons for websites, in no time and for free. Start with the model displayed above, or use one of the other buttons presets. Tweak the style to fit your needs, changes are applied in real time. When you are done, use the "Download" link to get the button image to your computer, or click "Embed" to directly integrate the button on a website (hotlink or CSS).

Da Button
https://dabuttonfactory.com/

Some Example Buttons

button_now-what

button_qa-fails

button_qa-passes

button_time-to-act

button_boston-massachusetts

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September 29, 2018

Canva Meme Generator Tool

Powerful Meme generator tool

Most people know Canva as the easy place to create blog titles, posters, Social Media graphics, YouTube thumbnails and more. Did you know that their editor is perfect for creating MEMEs?

The webopedia describes the 'Internet Meme' as " a concept or idea that spreads "virally" from one person to another via the Internet."

Description from Canva's website:

Each day, millions of people laugh at Grumpy Cat's shenanigans, doge's superlatives and Sean Bean's warnings about walking into Mordor. Memes are usually jokes or statements with hidden meanings meant to be funny and, oftentimes, satirical. Culturally, they are an important way to keep your pulse on the current events and issues. Every successful meme is: easy to replicate, relatable, shareable, and funny, clever or witty.

With Canva, you can add your own twist to a meme or even create your own brand new one in minutes. It's as simple as dragging and dropping an image into the editor then adding your own witticisms. It's fast and easy and you can share your memes at once.

Canva Meme
https://www.canva.com/create/memes/

Four Things I learned using the Canvas Editor

  • Many sites like Imgflip have all the popular background images, such as the Waiting Skeleton, Think About it, Sponge Bob, Batman Slapping Robin, One Does Not Simply and more...
  • Canva does offer a lot of good images to help make your own creative Meme. Some images are extra, but there are plenty of free images.
  • You can create your own templates so you can reuse images/designs later.
  • The downloaded images are 1080 x 1080.

Example Meme

Now What Meme

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About

I will highlight a fun Internet site every Saturday. The basic premise is to highlight sites that I regularly visit for a variety of reasons. All site recommendations are mine and are unsponsored. By highlighting these websites, I hope to provide value to those who may not know of the sites or who might be interested in visiting the sites. I also want to share the sites that I find valuable in the hopes that others will find them just as beneficial.

Check out all the blog posts.

Schedule

WednesdayiPhone 14 Pro Max
ThursdayNew England
FridayMacintosh
SaturdayInternet Tools
SundayOpen Topic
MondayMedia Monday
TuesdayQA