Maurice Bakker
You can now read what I read, when I read it or later if you want to read it
I added a new page here and it’s not about cats. I now have a button in my browser that allows me to drop internet pages I read or have read and that you might want to read or already read.
You can find that page by clicking this link.
Cheerio.
Linux wallpapers (handpicked? Yes. Handpicked)
I definitely like a good wallpaper and I know a good one when I see it, but never judge a book by its cover.
Who doesn’t like a bag of goodies?
The power of 301 – moved permanently
When using a web-browser to visit a website your browser uses HTTP headers to request information from a server by using http REQUEST headers.
Upon REQUEST a server responds to the request with a http RESPONSE.
The definition of HTTP header fields is: HTTP header fields are components of the header section of request and response messages in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). They define the operating parameters of an HTTP transaction. This basically means that a browser requests information from a server (Request headers) and gets a response upon that request (Response headers).
Your browser can make a wide variety of requests to a server. As you are able to see on this Wikipedia page about HTTP header fields. There are a lot of REQUESTS a browser can make from a server, it is important (in order to know the internet) to memorise all possible requests a browser can make. (nah.. just take a look at them once and you will be ok.)
Server RESPONSES on the other hand, can tell you much more about what is going on in the background when you open up a page. There are only 5 types of server responses and they are easily remembered. The server responses use values in the 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 range as follows:
- 1xx Informational
- 2xx Successful
- 3xx Redirection
- 4xx Client Error
- 5xx Server Error
The response header 301 Moved Permanently is pretty powerful. I will show you one basic – yet powerful – application of it.
Sending targeted e-mails to your site users containing third party tracking links
Email servers do not like it when you add links to your emails that are referring to third party sites or affiliate marketing tracking system in order for you to measure the effectiveness and reach of your outgoing e-mails. In order to avoid your emails to get rejected by the recipients mail-server you are able to host a click-out file on your server. This allows you to add third-party measurement logic to the file and link to that location, instead of linking directly to a statistics system (with the risk of your emails not being received).
Check out Colrd.com
MindJet MindManager for project planning and more
For project planning, documentation and work breakdown purposes I started using MindManager from MindJet back in 2009. I really like it’s overall features and the connection to Office software. When starting a project I always start with a general layout of the main topics and project highlevel goals or milestones that need to be achieved in order to complete the project and it’s documentation. The software allows me to add all project topics and elements in a structured manner and it’s easy to add or modify things within the project map.
A feature I really use a lot is the “notes feature”. This allows you to describe a topic in detail and together with the topic duration input field I can generate a full Word document that contains the topic’s estimated time of completion, it’s progess, stakeholders and a full description or report about it, it generates the Word document headings based on the map’s structure. Great stuff and pretty usefull! And it mostly looks similar to this:
By entering startdates, expected duration and relations between topics you are able to generate a Ghantt chart overview of the project, which can be very useful to determine project bottlenecks and other potential risks. Besides using it for project management, control and documentation you can also use it for Getting Things Done and all sorts of other purposes as you can find on the Maps for that! site.
Another great option is to implement MindManager in a business environment in order for people to share maps and collaborate within a map, by adding documents, ideas their own personal maps. Especially suited for Microsoft business environments to use in combination with the Office suite.
Markdown HTML tool for writers
If you are familiar with formatting HTML pages and articles and sometimes have the feeling a general notepad editor just doesn’t meet your formatting needs, Markdown might be for you. Markdown is a markup language with plain text formatting syntax designed so that it can be converted to HTML and many other formats using a tool by the same name, it is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). The goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to be as readable as possible. A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. In short, you can create beautiful HTML documents without knowing any HTML because of the simplified syntax (I know. Little contradicting statement there, but just use it and you’re on you way to be an HTML master in no time). For example the Markdown syntax allows you to do thing like:
**Strong** → Strong
*Emphasis* → Emphasis
[Link to this article](http://www.mauricebakker.nl/all/markdown/) → Link to this article
Here is the full syntax reference provided and maintained by packetlife.net
For more information about the Markdown initiative see Daring Fireball
Markdown software programs
MarkdownPad for Windows
Remarkable for Linux
From our Linux department
I know that Linux is around for quite some time now. I tried it in the past, multiple times. But the issue is that you intrinsically prefer to stick to what you know and it used to look like not much you’ve wanted to touch for miles. That’s changed recently with pretty great looking alternatives to Windows (and not only XP). This is how I got one of my systems rigged up (pretty basic).
You see the Counter-Strike icon up there? Classic, now on a Linux system near you (an old XP machine that don’t like the taste of Windows 7 maybe!?).
Stay tuned for tips and tricks. More information about Linux mint