Inquisitor is a great little addon to Safari that adds an in-depth popup to the search box. It’s easily and quickly accessible with keyboard shortcuts, and now that I’ve finally tried it out, it’s proving to be much more than the gimmick I originally thought it to be.

It vaguely reminds me of CoverFlow (now a standard feature in iTunes, and soon to be on the iPod and iPhone), a fun little independantly-developed app that was scooped up by Apple and implemented into their products. I wonder if an Inquisitor-like feature would ever be included in Safari as standard…
When it comes to podcasts that focus on the topics of Web Design and Development, we aren’t exactly spoiled for choice. However, there are a couple of great little ‘casts that I really enjoy. They are as follows.
If anybody else knows of other good design podcasts, be sure to let me know.
Live from the 101
Initially hosted by Brian Veloso (of Avalonstar fame), Live From the 101 is an excellent podcast, covering topics ranging from Dance Dance Revolution to the latest issues in the world of Web (surprisingly). Dan Rubin (Superfluous Banter) and Brian are joined by such guests as Cameron Moll, Steve Smith, Jonathan Snook and many other e-lebrities. I just loved the drunken SXSW coverage 🙂
Boagworld
Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington of Headscape (a UK-based Web Design firm) have created what has now become quite a well known and downright hilarious (at times) podcast, that just oozes delightful British wit. “For those involved in designing, developing and maintaining websites on a daily basis”. Boagworld was the first design podcast I found, and it’s got a permanent place in my iTunes syndication list.
I just finished off this simple little PHP function that some of you may find useful.
It’s a quick way to determine whether a site is valid or not, returning a simple “true or false” result.
Requires the Snoopy class.
function w3Valid($url) {
require("Snoopy.class.php");
$snoopy = new Snoopy;
$snoopy->fetchtext("http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=" . $url . "&output=soap12");
$validator_output = $snoopy->results;
if(preg_match("/false/", $validator_output)) {
return false;
} else {
return true;
}
}
Hi there!
Well hello there! You’ve stumbled upon the inaugural post of my humble little web blog. This is hopefully the beginnings of a well-established and frequently-updated experience.
So, who am I?
My name is Matt, and I like to consider myself as many different things. Primarily, I’m a web designer, but lately I’ve been licking my lips at the premise of developing and managing my own *web 2.0* app, but more about that a bit later.
Why?
The aim of this blog isn’t going to be to generate ad revenue. It’s going to be a place for me to express my thoughts, to teach others some of the things that I’ve learned along my journeys, and a means of communication and networking. I’d love to make new friends, begin educated discussions and just have fun.
I’m about to embark on a project that I have been planning on for some time. Which I will be gradually releasing more information about over the next few weeks. I plan on using this blog to document the rollercoaster journey of single-handedly building a web application, and to share my successes and inevitable hardships with readers.
Well, that’s it. Enjoy.