Chris: Geek Guy

I stumbled across the Code2000 font while typing up some revision notes which required “outline brackets” (Unicode characters 27E6 and 27E7). None of the the fonts on my computer seemed to include the symbols I needed.

If you’re ever in a similar position, you can download the font from James Kass. It includes most Unicode characters, so chances are that if a symbol exists, you’ll find it. It’s a TrueType font, which means it should work on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Code2000 is a shareware product, which means that if you like it, you should pay the registration fee (currently $5 which works out as around £2.90) – a bargain, methinks.

If you suffer from procrastination, also known as task aversion, then I recommend that you get around to reading this Wikibook… someday

I’m a diehard fan of Firefox, but I’m still interested in trying out the alternatives. Opera, once a commercial product, has been free since version 8.5, and the beta version of Opera 9 is now available for download. It promises the fastest, most secure browsing experience ever, and includes several new features including widgets (small Web applications, similar to Konfabulator, Windows Vista Sidebar and the Mac OS X Dock), a built-in BitTorrent client, customisable ad blocking and more. Compatibility-wise, I’ve had no problems viewing any of my usual sites, and it does seem fairly speedy. So far, my only complaint is that the interface isn’t as light as that of Firefox, but switching the skin to Windows Native has made things a little easier on the eyes.

You can download the beta from the Opera website.

The latest service to come out of Google’s labs is Google Page Creator, a basic web editor that runs through your browser. I’ve had a play with it here and I like what I see; it’s very simple at the moment but it’s very difficult to create a bad-looking web page, which is more than can be said for similar services.

Akismet is free plugin which provides intelligent spam-blocking for WordPress users. Since I installed it 15 days ago,  it has successfully blocked 60 spam comments.

It’s installed by default for users of WordPress.com but if, like me, you host your own blog, it’s easy to download and install the plugin, although you’ll need to sign up for a free WordPress.com account to receive the required API key.

Nvu is a great alternative to commercial web editors: not as full featured as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, but you can’t beat the price – free.

However, there is a bug in the Site Manager, which means that if you elect not to save the password for a site, you will receive a “Login incorrect” error message when you attempt to connect to the site, instead of a password prompt as expected.

Fortunately, the fix is simple – in the Site Manager, tick the “Save Password” box. Of course, this means that anyone with physical access to your machine (and user account) can edit the site, but it’s good general security practice to lock or log off your workstation when you’re away from it anyway.

(via forum.nvudev.org)