As a tech enthusiast, I’m always looking for cool new technology. As a web developer, I keep my ear to the ground for new ways to develop, mash up, or just diagnose issues. Hackasaurus fits the bill nicely for all of the above.
What Is Hackasaurus?
Hackasaurus is a tool from Mozilla that enables you to see what’s going on in the HTML of a web page in just about the easiest way possible. When activated, you mouse over parts of the page until the item you want to view is highlighted. When highlighted, it shows you what kind of element it is. If you click on the item, you get to the real fun. An editing and preview panel appears, showing what the HTML looks like and a preview of the rendered result. The cool part is the editor that allows you to make changes to the HTML in-line and preview the results real time. After making changes, you can commit them to the page to see them live.
Changes made are only temporary, but it’s a great way to make a site more readable or see how your own site might look without making changes public or having a development copy of the site in a specialized environment. If the page you’re viewing is on your local drive, however, you’re able to actually save the changes made right to the original file.
The easiest way to use Hackasaurus is to drag the orange “X-Ray Goggles” button (found here) to your bookmarks bar. Then you can click on the bookmarklet while on any page to view it with Hackasaurus goggles on.
What’s Next?
As we continue to see younger and younger developers learning to sculpt the web in fresh ways, we’ll likely see many more tools like this that not only put the creativity in more hands, but just make it more engaging, to boot. As for this tool in particular, I’d love to see a way to save changes made on a remote site so that when I visit again, my styles are present. For example, if you require a minimum font size on the web for readability, you might be able to set that with Hackasaurus on a site like Wired.com and your larger font would be there every time you visit.
As a reader of JoeTech.com, what would you change to make it easier to read or look at?
From fully loaded multi-device charging stations to simple iPhone stands, there’s a sea of options when you shop for a way to prop up your iPhone and charge it. The one on my desk today wasn’t sent in a box. It showed up in my email… as a PDF. A reader named Fabio sent me a link to his site where he offers instructions on how to create your own iPhone stand like the one below.
What you see above is the result of me printing this thing out on regular paper, cutting it out the best I could with just scissors, and slapping it together. I’m betting you can do better without much work. In fact, the only reason mine works at all, most likely, is that the design is pretty well done. I’m guessing Fabio has some background in engineering.
How To Make One
This ecological homemade iPhone stand isn’t hard to put together without instructions (yeah, I live on the edge) and with the instructions, it’s a bit easier. I think the instructions that come with it could be just a little more clear, but like I said, they are barely needed at all. The real value is the design. While there’s no actual set price for the design and instructions, the author does require a small donation in any amount you choose which is still a bargain. Once you’ve supported creativity financially, you simply print out the supplied design PDF, cut it out, fold in strategic places and tape it up a few times.
Tips
I got by with paper and scissors alone, but here’s some tips for those of you planning on trying it out:
• Use scissors or an Exacto knife for precision
• Any tape should be OK, but Fabio suggests duct tape
• Use something stronger than paper – card stock should be fine
• Add a business card like I did or better still, print a separate pattern design first and then print the Eco Stand design over it
• Make a couple – home, office, etc.
What would you buy if you had an iTunes gift card with $10,000 on it? Apple wants to give just such a card to one lucky app downloader. They are fast approaching another App Store milestone with the 25 billionth download looming. Whoever initiates that 25 billionth download may be the lucky recipient of $10,000 in the form of an iTunes gift card.
Don’t have an iPhone? Apple will also let you enter via this form without having to download or purchase at all. They’ll let you enter a total of 25 times per day, too.
We’ve seen many uses of bottles and other devices not originally intended for music implemented to produce popular theme music, but today something new came across my desk. In the video below, MrSolidSnake745 delivers a flawless Tetris theme using an array of hard drives and floppy drives (you remember those, right?).
After watching the video, be sure to check out everything else he’s gotten his drives to play. Well done, MrSolidSnake745, and thanks to Fail Blog for linking us to the video.
This ecological homemade iPhone stand isn’t hard to put together without instructions (yeah, I live on the edge) and with the instructions, it’s a bit easier. I think the instructions that come with it could be just a little more clear, but like I said, they are barely needed at all. The real value is the design. While there’s no actual set price for the design and instructions, the author does require a small donation in any amount you choose which is still a bargain. Once you’ve supported creativity financially, you simply print out the supplied design PDF, cut it out, fold in strategic places and tape it up a few times.
