I just had an unpleasant episode that really reminded me of the need to have some kind of encryption on your thumb drives.

I was leaving a friend’s house, got in my truck and drove home. I unloaded my pockets as usual and discovered–no thumb drive.

I did find the flash drive a few minutes later, by the curb outside my friend’s house. But the whole time I was looking, I was trying to do a mental inventory of what information was on that thumb drive.

Fortunately, I don’t store sensitive client information on my thumb drives. Yet, the idea of someone else finding the drive and being able to freely access the other info on the drive was not a pleasant one.

Lesson: Don’t put personal or client/work passwords or other sensitive data on a thumb drive. If for some reason you do have to have some of that information with you, make sure that information is encrypted.

To keep people from viewing your files if your thumb drive falls into the wrong hands, here are some tools, tutorials and products to help you encrypt your thumb drive.

TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt (Win XP+/Mac OS X/Linux) is a free, open-source software that can encrypt an entire partition or storage device (like a USB drive).

Once encryption is set for a volume and then the volume is mounted, file encryption/decryption is done on-the-fly–meaning it’s automatic and transparent (ie not a pain in the rear).

Note: TrueCrypt does not currently (as of Oct 11, 2009) support Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. View a full list of TrueCrypt’s limitations.

A Beginner’s Tutorial to TrueCrypt

Adding encryption to your entire USB thumb drive or just a portion (say a directory) is pretty simple.

TrueCrypt Security Precautions

Because of simplicity, the beginner’s tutorial skips some of the more in-depth security details, so it’s a good idea to take a look at the extra things you can do to keep your information even more safe.

What if the System You’re Using Your Thumb Drive With Doesn’t Have TrueCrypt Installed?

Since you’re going to most likely be using your USB with more than one computer, it doesn’t make since to install TrueCrypt on every system.

TrueCrypt fortunately lets you run in ‘portable mode‘–meaning you don’t have to have TrueCrypt installed on the system.

You can read more about portable mode and the various options you have on the TrueCrypt site.

Note: You will need to have admin privileges on the system (OS) you’re running under in order to run TrueCrypt in portable mode.

How to Create the Ultimate Encrypted Flash Drive

A New Morning has a great tutorial that walks you through how to use TrueCrypt specifically with a USB flash drive.

IronKey USB Drive

If you’re serious about security, IronKey is the USB thumb drive for you.

IronKey is a USB thumb drive with built-in 256-bit hardware encryption.

Since encryption is hardware-based, IronKey will also run on pretty much any operating system that will read a USB thumb drive–Windows 2000+, Mac OS 10.4 and Linux (2.6+ kernel).

Also, unlike software-based encryption solutions like TrueCrypt, you don’t have to have administrator rights on the system you’re using IronKey, and there’s no software to install.

It uses internet authentication as well to protect the information and site passwords you exchange when browsing the internet via a portable version of Firefox.

James Bond’s Thumb Drive

I could imagine James Bond using an IronKey–yes, it has self-destruct features built into it.

A stolen or lost drive can be remotely disabled, or a self-destruct can be initiated–erasing all information on the drive and/or physically destroying the drive.

IronKey Personal Demo Video

IronKey Enterprise Demo Video

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Thumb Drive Closer

Remember that if you put sensitive information on a thumb drive that it’s always possible that it’ll get lost or stolen. So make sure your thumb drive (or at least a directory within) is encrypted and secure.

Do you use anything else to secure your USB drives? Share in the comments.

Photo credits: USB Flash Drive by Stephen VanHorn, Abstract View of Data Storage and Abstract View of a Data Sequence by irabbiosi via Shutterstock.

Here’s a list of 30 cheat sheets (most of them printable) for popular graphic design programs, as well as printable photography-related sheets to help when shooting photos.

These cheat sheets contain reference cards for tools, keyboard shortcuts and other important commands to help speed up your work.

Note: Links with ‘(PDF)’ beside them indicate that the link goes directly to the PDF file itself.

Fireworks

• Fireworks CS3 For Mac OS X
• Fireworks CS3 For Windows
• Fireworks MX (Mac)
• Fireworks MX (Windows)

Photoshop

• Adobe Photoshop CS4 Help (PDF)
• Photoshop Secret Shortcuts (WebDesignerWall)
• General Photoshop Tool Shortcuts (With a video ‘manual’)
• Photoshop CS4 (Mac) (PDF)
• Photoshop CS4 (Windows) (PDF)
• Photoshop CS3 For Mac
• Photoshop CS3 For Windows
• Photoshop CS2 Keyboard Shortcuts For Mac
• Photoshop CS2 Keyboard Shortcuts For Windows

Illustrator

• Illustrator Shortcuts (WebDesignerWall)
• Illustrator CS4 Shortcuts (Mac)
• Illustrator CS4 Shortcuts (Windows)
• Illustrator CS

InDesign

• InDesign CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts (Mac)
• InDesign CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts (Windows)
• InDesign Cheat Sheet (PDF)
• InDesign CS

Photography

• Black and White Cheat Sheet For Photoshop (Helps you convert color photos to black and white)
• Portrait Lighting Cheat Sheet (Helps you set up lighting for portraits)
• Reflector Card Cheat Sheet (Shows color bounce and effects of different covers on a 5-in-1 reflector)
• Light Falloff Cheat Sheet (Shows the effects of a large light source will have on light fall off)

Fonts and Typography

• VisiBone Font Cards
• Periodic Table of Typefaces

Other Cheat Sheets

• GIMP Quick Reference Card (PDF)
• GIMP Keyboard Shortcuts (PDF)
• Color Hexagon (GIF)

What cheat sheets did I miss? Share your links in the comments below.

Terragen 2 can create 3D renders of landscape, atmospherics (clouds and sky), lighting, plants and vegetation, as well as animations.

Terragen is not a new program, but has really come a long way over the years and is built on a mature rendering engine. I remember tinkering with it in high school (10+ years ago). It’s just gotten even more impressive.

Terragen 2 Features

Here are just a few of Terragen 2’s great features:

• Hybrid micropolygon renderer optimised for large displacements and very large landscapes.
• Render entire planets, sweeping vistas, tiny rock gardens, or anything in between.
• Export high resolution objects from displaced surfaces.
• Import 3D objects for rendering from third-party apps.
• Render millions of plants and other objects using instancing. Billions of virtual polygons are handled with ease.
• 3D painting of colors and masks that can control almost anything in the scene.
• Photorealistic atmosphere and sunlight.
• and more features…

Landscape Animation Demo

Renderfarm from RenderFarm on Vimeo.

Powerful 3D Renderer

Starting at $299 USD, Terragen 2 is a bit pricey for a hobbyist, but for a professional, this isn’t a bad price for such a powerful app.

In fact, Terragen is so powerful and realistic that it’s been used on the National Geographic Channel (422’s demo reel) and in movies like War of the Worlds, The Incredibles, Time Machine and The Polar Express.

Note: There is a free version (800×600 max image render size) available for download.

3D Landscape Examples

So, what is Terragen 2 capable of producing? Here are some examples of actual images created with Terragen 2.

Official Terragen 2 Gallery

For more examples of the power of Terragen 2, check out Luc Bianco’s Gallery.

Ever had to make a form for a site mockup from scratch? It’s a pain and eats up your time.

Never again! Here are some UI (user interface) elements for your next website mockup project.

OS and Website Elements

Designers Toolbox: OS Form Elements

Form, browser and OS elements for Windows Vista and XP (IE and Firefox) and Mac OS X (Firefox and Safari) in Photoshop format. Available in all major screen resolutions.

Design Stencils–Yahoo! Design Pattern Library

Ad units, calendar, charts, UI controls, form elements, menus and buttons, general and iPhone mobile UI, OS elements–you name it.

Available in OmniGraffle, Visio (XML), PDF, PNG and SVG formats.

Browser Screens and Website Elements (VectorTuts)

Browser windows, buttons and more for the Mac.

Browser Form Elements (teehan+lax)

PSD form elements for Firefox 3 on Mac OSX and IE7 on Windows Vista.

The Ultimate Web UI Kit (GraphicRiver)

A PSD containing mouse cursors, form elements (check boxes, radio buttons, next and previous buttons, form fields, drop downs, buttons) and more.

This one’s not free, but for $6, how can you go wrong?

iPhone GUI Elements

Designers Toolbox

Nice GUI elements for the iPhone in PSD format. Includes the phone, keyboard, buttons and other elements of the iPhone.

iPhone 3 GUI PSD (teehan+lax)

An updated version for the iPhone 3.0.

iPhone 2 GUI PSD (teehan+lax)

PSD containing UI elements for the previous Apple iPhone 2.

Other Elements

Web Safe Area

View web safe areas for Vista, XP and OSX for IE, Firefox and Safari browsers.

Ad and Web Banner Sizes

If you’re planning on incorporating ads on a site, these ad templates will help. Choose from all the standard (and some non-standard) sized ad banners in PNG format.

Cursors (Graffletopia)

A nice set of mouse cursors for use with OmniGraffle.

Here’s a list of 15 free or inexpensive programs / online services for freelancers.

The list is broken down into 5 main categories:

1. Backup and Syncing
2. Finances and Invoicing
3. Communication and Project Management
4. Programs and Working With Filetypes
5. Graphics Programs

Backup and Syncing

Freelancers many times need to be able to work in different locations and have access to their files wherever they are. Having a good backup and syncing plan can help.

1. Mozy (Online and Off-Site Backups)

Mozy is a great service that, through an application for Windows and Mac OSX, automatically backs up your files and uploads them to their secure site.

In the case of an emergency, you can simply log into your account and download the files. You can also request a DVD(s) be mailed to you with all your files.

The MozyHome version lets you backup 2GB for free. Use our special link to get an extra 256MB of storage free. You can also get unlimited storage for about $5/month.

You can read more about Mozy in our previous post.

2. Dropbox (Online Backup and File Syncing)

Drop your files into a folder in your My Documents folder (or equivalent for your OS) and all the files will be updated and synced to any computers linked to your free account.

The great thing about Dropbox is that it works on all major operating systems–Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Sync your files between your home, work, laptop and other computers and as soon as they are saved, the files are uploaded for all your computers–whether they’re turned on currently or not.

Dropbox gives you 2GB of free storage. Get an extra 256MB free.

3. Xmarks (Bookmark backup and syncing service/plugin for Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer)

This plugin and free service synchronizes your bookmarks (and site passwords if you want) between your browsers and computers. Xmarks (formerly FoxMarks) has plugins for Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.

You can even set it to only sync certain bookmarks to certain computers.

Finances and Invoicing

One of the least exciting and most dreaded parts of being a freelancer is managing finances. These next 2 services help you spend the least amount of time dealing with billing, invoicing and general finances.

4. CurdBee (Online billing and invoicing)

We already have written about CurdBee before, but it’s such a great service, it deserves another mention.

CurdBee is an online service that lets you create and manage invoices and accept payments via PayPal, GoogleCheckout and 2CO (paid version).

When invoices are created, your clients get to choose which payment gateway to go through to pay your invoice.

Simply click Send and a link to the invoice is emailed to you and your client.

CurdBee is free (no limits on clients or how many invoices you can send).

With the CurdBee Pro version ($5/month), you get extra features like recurring billing, PDF invoices, accept 2CO payments and some other niceties.

5. Mint.com (Manage your finances and spending)

Mint is a free service that lets you track checking, savings and other financial accounts and assets for your business. It provides an easy way to keep track of your spending, and reports can be emailed to you weekly.

Communication and Project Management

Freelancers often need to communicate and manage projects easily and while on the go.

6. Drop.io (Project management / file and document sharing)

Drop.io is a free service that lets you upload and share files via your browser.

With Drop.io, you can add images, documents, audio and video files for others to view (up to 100MB per drop).

Comments for each file can be added, so this works well as an easy means of working remotely with clients and getting their feedback.

Drop.io even provides special phone numbers for conference calls, voicemail and faxes. There is also a live chat option for simple chatting through the browser, and a web presentation option.

Drop.io can send alerts via RSS, email, Twitter, etc when new files and comments are added, making it great for organizing projects.

There are also several apps as well as a Firefox plugin that use the Drop.io’s API to connect and interact with your drop.

7. Zenbe (Check multiple email accounts from anywhere)

Zenbe basically lets you check and manage emails from all your email accounts through your browser without going to several different sites.

Emails can be easily and automatically tagged so it’s simple to keep track of which messages came from which account.

Zenbe also has a collaboration tools (ZenPages/ShareFlow). You can also import existing address books, and integrates with Google Talk, Twitter and Facebook.

Though the free account option doesn’t seem to exist anymore (I got mine early on), paid accounts start at $5.99/month.

To learn more, you can read our earlier post about Zenbe.

8. Collabtive (Project management)

Collabtive is an open source, self-hosted project management system (cloud-based groupware).

Manage projects, tasks and milestones easily with a simple web-based interface.

Collabtive provides messaging and instant messaging, file management, time-tracking, iCal syncing, can import Basecamp files and is available in over 25 languages.

Programs and Working With Filetypes

9. OpenItOnline (Open and edit files online without having the program installed)

With OpenItOnline, you don’t have to have a bunch of proprietary programs and applications installed on the computer you’re using in order to view and edit files. No more having to have Microsoft Office installed just because a client sends you a .doc file.

Open and edit documents, spreadsheets, presentations and images within your browser with OpenItOnline.

There are even extensions for Firefox, Flock and Internet Explorer.

10. PortableApps (Carry all your programs with you on your thumbdrive)

PortableApps lets you install and run portable versions of programs from a thumbdrive—giving you access to your programs no matter what computer you’re using.

11. LOOP Apps (Online PDF creator)

LOOP Apps is a free online tool lets you upload and convert files into PDF format, or convert a webpage into PDF. Your files can be sent to others and electronically signed.

Also worth checking is Zamzar.

Online Graphics

Whether you’re a web designer or a graphic designer or some other type of freelancer, there’s a good chance you will need to do some, at least basic, adjustments to photos and images.

12. Picnik (Basic online graphics program)

Picnik is a simple to use web-based graphic editor. Picnik is perfect for resizing images, adjusting colors, tone, contrast and applying other effects to your images and photos.

Picnik works with Flickr, PhotoBucket, Picasa and many other image sites; letting you share your images with others, are well as save them to your computer.

Picnik is free and you don’t even have to sign up for an account to use it.

Our previous post has more details about Picnik.

13. Smush.it (Online image optimizer)

Smush.it is a free online tools for optimizing (shrinking file sizes) your images. Simply upload or provide the URLs of the images you want shrunk and Smush.it will take care of the rest.

This can even shrink images that have already been optimized in Photoshop and Fireworks–all without noticeable hits to image quality.

14. Sumo Paint (Online graphics manipulation / Photoshop alternative)

If you need more than just simple image resizing and color correction, Sumo Paint steps up to handle the job.

Sumo Paint 1.1 is almost like using Photoshop. The only differences: it’s free, and it runs in your web browser.

Sumo lets you import images from your computer or a URL, or you can create a whole new image from scratch.

You have all the basic tools found in Photoshop: you can create layers (with blending modes and layer effects), typography control (leading, tracking), and much, much more. In fact, if you’re familiar with Photoshop, you’ll be using Sumo like a pro in no time.

Your resulting work can be saved to your computer, emailed or saved to your Sumo account if you’ve signed up for one.

15. Pixlr (Graphics manipulation / Photoshop alternative)

In a similar vein as Sumo, Pixlr is a good alternative to Photoshop.

There are many things you can do with and to images, just like you can with Sumo, so we won’t go into much detail here. For more details about Pixlr, take a look at our previous post about Photoshop alternatives.

I’ve gathered together 5 of the top free and open source vector, raster and 3D graphics programs available.

Vector Graphics

Inkscape

Inkscape is a great vector graphics alternative to Illustrator. It has some great features and some things that aren’t found standard in Illustrator.

Inkscape running on Linux.

I use Inkscape for my logo design and vector work and have used it on several client projects. I very rarely open Illustrator these days.

Best yet, Inkscape is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Xara Xtreme For Linux

While the Windows version of Xara Xtreme is not open source/free, Xara has released Xtreme as an open source application to Linux users (Xara Xtreme for Linux). I thought this was an interesting move. If you have access to Linux, you should definitely give this program a shot.

Xara Xtreme for Linux

Xara Xtreme is capable of some jaw-dropping vector graphics. And even though I had never used the program before, I found it to be very easy to learn and within 10 minutes, had already created some impressive work.

Note: The Xara Xtreme seems to not be under active development anymore, but is still downloadable from their website.

Raster Graphics and Paint Tools

The GIMP

When you hear open source and graphics software, GIMP is probably the first thing that pops into people’s minds.

The GIMP, running on KDE Linux

The GIMP has been around for years (since 1995) and is a nice alternative to Photoshop. It may not be quite as powerful, but there are people putting out some amazing work with GIMP.

The interface takes a bit of getting used to if you’re coming from Photoshop, but there are add-ons and versions that can resort and relabel GIMP’s tools to match Photoshop’s pretty closely.

GIMP is also available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux users.

Paint.NET

Strictly a Windows app, Paint.NET is a very good alternative to Adobe Photoshop. It has a modern, attractive interface that’s similar enough to Photoshop that people familiar using that can pick up on Paint.NET pretty quickly.

Paint.NET running on Windows XP (and showing how much of a nerd I am)

Paint.NET has an active community and a nice collection of plugins to extend it’s capabilities.

3D Graphics

Blender

Blender is the king of open source 3D graphics programs. It has an impressive and powerful array of tools and is capable of both rendered still images and movie-quality animation (using the YafRay ray tracer).

Several short films and games have been created exclusively with Blender, which showcase its power as a 3D modeling and animation tool.

Video reel of Blender-created still images and video.

Blender is cross-platform and available on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux flavors.

The Sum-Up

While you may not chuck all of your paid graphics programs out the window immediately for these open source offerings, it’s nice to know there are alternatives and some great programs to keep your eye on.

If I had to pick my favorites, I would choose Inkscape and Paint.NET. Having used Lightwave in the past, I’m also itching to spend some time with Blender as well.

What are your feelings about these open source graphics programs? Have you tried them? Do you use them on a regular basis? Drop us a comment.

Keyboard shortcuts are vital for navigating and performing various actions quickly, and are very helpful for designers when working on projects. Firefox has a keyboard shortcut for just about everything.

Unfortunately, finding and remembering them all can be difficult. Also, shortcuts differ slightly between Windows, Macs and Linux versions of Firefox.

Firefox Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts

Fortunately, AccessFirefox.org—a site dedicated to showcasing accessibility tools and features in Mozilla Firefox—has a great list of Firefox keyboard and mouse shortcuts. You can filter shortcuts by operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux) or view them all at once.

Accesskeys Keyboard Shortcuts

Some websites use accesskeys to allow people with disabilities to access site navigation links by keyboard. This is a requirement for most sites in the UK.

View our list of keyboard shortcuts for activating accesskeys in all major browsers and OS’s. This list contains the keyboard shortcuts to activate accesskeys in Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, Google Chrome, Konquerer and Epiphany in Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Ubuntu).

On the previous version of this site, I used accesskeys for the main site navigation. However, because of no clear standards and the chance of interference with browser shortcuts, I decided not to include them in the current version.

Leave us a comment and tell us what Firefox keyboard shortcuts you use the most.

Previously, I wrote a post about Mozy—a fantastic online backup service for Windows and Mac users. Currently, they’re running a promotion: Sign up for their free plan and start using Mozy before Dec 1, and get 2.5GB of storage—that’s an extra 512MB of space free.

If you haven’t already, you’ve only got about 5 days left (midnight Sunday) to get your extra 512MB. After Sunday, you can still use the link above to get extra storage space, but you’ll only get an extra 256MB.

Previously, I wrote a brief post about BlogDesk, a Windows desktop app that lets you publish to your site without setting foot inside your blog/CMS’s admin section. BlogDesk works for WordPress, ExpressionEngine, Drupal, Movable Type and Serendipity.

Over the next 2 weeks, I’ll be showing you how to use BlogDesk to publish to WordPress and ExpressionEngine.

This week, in part 1, we’re going to look at setting up BlogDesk and publishing a post to WordPress 2.7 (beta 3).

BlogDesk Installation & WordPress Blog

1. First, make sure you have a WordPress blog set up and configured. Even though this tutorial uses WordPress 2.7, any version of WordPress 2.3 and up will work the same way.
2. Although not required, it would be good to set up some categories on your blog if you haven’t already
3. Next, download BlogDesk and install it on your computer (Windows 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, Vista)

Set Up a Connection to Your Blog

1. Run BlogDesk and you will see the main application screen—this is where you will write, save and publish your posts. First, though, we have to set up the connection to your WordPress site.
   
2. Go to File>Manage Blogs
   
3. Click New to start the Blog Wizard. The Wizard will guide you through setting up the connection between BlogDesk and WordPress.
4. Enter the name of your blog on the next screen. Any name will do—it’s just to help you identify your site within BlogDesk.
   
5. On the next screen, you will enter the address of your blog. You don’t have to put http:// or a trailing /—BlogDesk will add them when you click Next if you leave them out.
   
6. Next, choose your blogging platform. In our case, we will choose the 1st WordPress option since the version is above 2.2.
   
7. BlogDesk will try to guess the location of your xmlrpc.php file. The default should be fine unless you’ve specifically changed your WordPress settings.
   
8. WordPress (2.6 and up) does not enable XML-RPC by default, so now is a good time to enable it if you have not already. You will need to log into your WordPress control panel and go to Settings>Writing. Under Remote Publishing, check the box next to Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols and save the settings.
   
9. Back in BlogDesk, click the Next button and enter your WordPress login information
   
10. The next screen is for your Blog-ID. This establishes a connection to your blog. If you’ve enabled XML-RPC in WordPress, click Get Blog-ID. You should get a success message. Click OK and go to the next screen.
    
11. If you have categories set up in WordPress already, the Get Categories button will import the list into BlogDesk. If you have not created any categories yet, you can always import your categories later.
    
12. The next screen tests to make sure you can upload images through WordPress (as opposed to using FTP). Test Upload will upload a small badge image. If this doesn’t work, you may have to set up an FTP connection instead later.
    
13. Click Next and then Finish to finish and exit the wizard.
    

Now BlogDesk is mostly set up. There are a few more things, however, we can check before we write our first post.

Check Blog Properties

1. In the Manage Blogs window, you will see your newly added blog. With the blog selected, click Properties.
2. The Blog tab lets you see your blog’s details. Make sure your Encoding matches what’s used on your site. For us, we’re going to keep it at UTF-8.
3. If you could not upload files directly (step 12 above), the FTP & Upload tab lets you add an FTP account. If you had no issues uploading the test image, don’t worry about this.
4. In the Categories tab, Get Categories From the Server will update the list of categories if you’ve added or deleted any categories in WordPress. If you want new posts to belong to one or more categories by default, tick the appropriate boxes.
5. In the Publish tab, tick the boxes next to the fields that you want to check for content when publishing posts (think required fields in forms)
   
6. If you selected UTF-8 encoding, make sure Encode Special Characters in HTML is unchecked
7. Click OK to save your settings and exit the Properties window
8. Click Close to close the Manage Blogs window

Now you should see your blog’s name and a list of categories in the upper right panel on the main program screen. Now let’s write a post for our blog.

Write a Post

The rest is pretty self-explanatory, but here are some quick tips:

• Use the main window to write your post
  
• To switch to HTML code editing, go to View>Source
• The Extras menu lets you add/edit tags and custom fields, password posts and edit program settings
• The Save button saves a draft of your post to your harddrive for later editing
  
• By default, the Publish button will publish your post automatically. If you want to just upload the post as a draft to WordPress, untick the checkbox next to Publish after Upload, in the right sidebar.
  
• You can see your brand new post if you log into WordPress. You can edit the post from the WordPress control panel after you publish it, just like any other post.
  

Editing WordPress Posts in BlogDesk

In BlogDesk, you can also edit posts that have already been published, whether or not they were written originally in BlogDesk.

1. In BlogDesk, go to File>Edit Posts Already Published (logical enough)
2. In the Edit Posts window, select the blog you want to edit from the drop-down menu at the top
3. Choose how many posts you want displayed, then click Show
4. Select the post you want to edit and click Edit
5. Once you have made your changes, clicking the Publish button will save the edited post back onto your site

Useful Tool

BlogDesk looks like a solid program for Windows users or for those who have clients that use Windows. With BlogDesk, you don’t have to give your clients access to WordPress or any other blog/CMS’s control panel.

This could be great for times when you need to write a post, but don’t have access to an internet connection. It can also be used to keep local backup copies of your posts.

More BlogDesk Tutorials

Read Part 2—BlogDesk: Publishing to ExpressionEngine.

If you’ve enjoyed this post or any other post on this site, stay up-to-date by subscribing to our feed.

EEHowTo posted about Using BlogDesk With ExpressionEngine to add entries and edit existing entries without having to be logged into the control panel.

BlogDesk is a free, desktop app for Windows (sorry everyone else… if I get it working in Linux, I’ll post about it).

This would be great for clients who don’t want to log into the control panel (or for those clients YOU don’t want logging into the control panel).

Another benefit is that you can work on your posts offline if, say, you’re somewhere that doesn’t have an internet connection. Then you can upload the posts when you’re ready.

I plan to test it with WordPress and ExpressionEngine and see how it works. Look for a post soon about BlogDesk. Check out the BlogDesk tutorial series:

• BlogDesk Part 1: Publishing Posts to WordPress
• BlogDesk Part 2: Posting to ExpressionEngine

Every web or graphic designer needs a way to backup their files and keep them off-site in case of disaster. Last month I wrote a post about online incremental backups using Mozy. But if you’re like me, you may want to try doing this yourself.

Today we’re going to tackle a DIY project—making online, incremental backups and storing them on your website (or more accurately, on your web host’s server). For security reasons, we’ll be placing the backups outside of the browseable directory structure.

This tutorial is tailored to Windows users and is based on the tutorial found on ExaVault’s website. But instead of using their pay service, we’ll be using the extra storage space on your web host account.

The general principals are the same if you’re running Mac OS X or Linux, but the command syntax is different. For tutorials on how to set up Rsync on the Mac and Linux, take a gander at the following tutorials:

Mac OS X Rsync Tutorial

Linux/Unix/BSD Rsync Tutorial

Requirements

In order to complete this DIY project, you are going to need the following:

• The desire to get your hands dirty
• Windows (95 & up will do)
• cwRsync
• Web Host that allows you plenty of storage and transfer bandwidth
• Access to SSH (Secure Shell) – Note: You may have to specifically ask your host to enable SSH access. Most hosts have it turned off by default.

Still with me? Grab your safety glasses and let’s get to work.

For Windows users, you will need to get cwRsync (the download link is in the right sidebar on their site).

Basically, cwRsync creates a Linux environment on Windows so you can run Rsync (a program that comes with Linux and Mac OS X.

Step 1 – Install cwRsync

1. Download cwRsync from IteF!x
2. Unzip cwRsync_2.1.5_Installer.zip and run the installer (the default settings should be fine)

Step 2 – Create a Security Key (SSH)

We need to make a secure connection between the computer you want to backup and your web host, so we need to create an SSH key.

1. Open the Command Prompt

2. Add cwRsync to your Windows path so you can run it:

path = %PATH%;c:\program files\cwRsync\bin

3. Create a directory to put store your backup config files. Create a directory in your C drive and name it backup ( c:\backup )

4. Create the SSH key.

ssh-keygen -f /cygdrive/c/backup/ssh_key -t rsa -N ''

‘/cygdrive/c/backup/ssh_key’ is where cwRsync is going to save the SSH key. ‘/cygdrive/c/’ is basically your C: drive.

Step 3 – Upload Your Key To Your Web Host

In the following commands, substitute username@domain.com with your account username (usually your account name given you by your web host) and your domain name.

Type the following command; all on one line:

rsync -e ssh /cygdrive/c/backup/ssh_key.pub username@domain.com:ssh_keys/key1.pub

Since the host can’t be verified, it will ask you if you want to connect to the server. Type yes and type in your password (for your web host account) when asked. If it doesn’t say anything else, then it was a success.

If it gives you an error, check and make sure you substituted your username/domain name correctly in the above command.

Step 4 – Activate Your Key

Activate the key you created:

ssh username@domain.com addkeys

Enter your password when prompted.

This copies your public key (key1.pub) to the authorized_keys directory in your backup directory.

Note: If this step fails, you can simply make a copy of the key1.pub file and place it in the authorized_keys directory yourself and it should work.

That’s pretty much it for setting up the connection between your computer and your web host’s server. Now let’s run a test to make sure everything’s working.

Step 5 – Run a Test Backup

This is an important step to take before trying to backup your important files. We want to make sure it works properly.

In Command Prompt, type (again, substitute your details):

rsync -avz -e "ssh -i /cygdrive/c/backup/ssh_key" "Desktop" username@domain.com:backup-test

This tells Rsync to backup all the files on your Desktop and upload them to /backup-test on your web host.

Rsync should create the backup-test directory for you. But depending on your web host’s setup, you may have to create the directory yourself.

Note too, that we’re storing the backup in a directory outside the site structure. This is for security reasons—we obviously don’t want people to be able to reach your backup folders from their browser.

Step 6 – Check the Backup

Since we can’t browse to our directory from our browser, use either FTP or SFTP to view the /backup-test folder. Make sure the files from your desktop are there. If so, you’re good to go for making your first real backup.

You can go ahead and delete your backup-test directory if your test backup worked.

Step 7 – Back It Up Already

Decide what folders you want to backup. Note that cwRsync makes a Linux environment on your Windows system. That said, cwRsync wasn’t designed to backup Windows system files. I haven’t personally tested it, but there are probably permissions issue that won’t let you backup system files that are in use by Windows.

I have a main directory that holds all my clients’ project and production files in subdirectories (/Production Files). So this is the folder I’ll backup.

Make a Backup Script

We will need to make a backup script that can be run from the Command Prompt. This will feed the commands to Rsync so we don’t have to type it all by hand every time.

You can download a sample batch file from ExaVault’s website.

The very last line in the data-backup.bat file is what you will need to change.

Example:

rsync -avz --delete -e ssh "/cygdrive/c/My Documents/Production Files/" myusername@mywebsite:mainbackup

Data-backup.bat contains instructions to help you make edits. This file should go in your c:\backup directory.

Run the backup the first time to test it:

c:\backup\data-backup.bat

After typing your password in, it should start uploading files. If you have a lot of information, depending on your upload speed, this may take a while to complete.

The next time you run the batch file, it will be incremental and only upload the changed bits.

Multiple Directories

You can backup a directory and all it’s subdirectories will be backed up. However, there’s something to note when backing up more than one main directory that I discovered.

To backup more than one main directory, I recommend making a separate .bat file for each main directory you want backed up.

The reason is that if you add a second command to data-backup.bat, once the first backup command is finished, you will be prompted for your password again. If you’re not at your computer at the time, your host will timeout and you will have to run the whole command again.

I also recommend sending each main directory that you backup to it’s own separate folder on your web host.

For instance, say you want to back up the directories c:\production-files\ and also e:\studio-projects\. Backup production-files to backup-1/ and studio-projects to backup-2/.

If you backup both main directories to the same folder, the commands in each batch file will undo the other. Each batch file will look for the files it’s supposed to be backing up. When you run the next .bat file, it will see the files/folder from the other backup and ’sync’ (ie delete) them since they are not part of the current backup. I know this sounds confusing, but trust me, it’s annoying to see an hour’s worth of uploading be wiped out only to be redone the next time you run the other batch file.

Once you have everything working, you can create shortcuts to the .bat files on your Desktop so you only have to double-click each one to run them.

Conclusion

This is definitely not as easy as using Mozy for online incremental backups, but hey, it works and it’s nice to have it right on your own server. This technique can also be used to backup to another computer across a network. It’s also a great redundancy backup plan for just-in-case.

Are you currently using, or have you used cwRsync or Rsync in the past? Do you use something else I’d love to hear your thoughts on this—leave a comment.

Dreamweaver. I’ve been using you since you were in closed beta. I’ve watched you grow and expand. It’s been a long, wonderful trip these last 8 or 10 years, but it’s finally time to bid farewell to you and move on to a more modern, capable editor—Aptana Studio.

What moved me to make the switch from Dreamweaver to Aptana? Well, a number of things really.

Note: This is based on Dreamweaver CS3. I don’t have CS4 yet, and I probably won’t.

Price

The first reason is price. I’ve certainly gotten my money out of CS3. However, with Adobe’s release of Dreamweaver CS4, I’m not looking forward to shelling out $200 for the upgrade ($400 for those who don’t already have CS3).

While there is a paid version of Aptana which adds some extra functionality, Aptana Studio is a great piece of software, and it’s free and open source.

Works on Windows, Macs and Linux

Another big plus is that Aptana plays well on whatever operating system you use: Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

While Dreamweaver works on Windows and Macs, there’s really no support for Linux. Since I work on Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 8.04 currently), Aptana’s support for both of these OS’s makes it easy to switch over from one computer to the other and still code without a hassle.

Features and Productivity

The biggest reason for giving Dreamweaver the boot was that it just wasn’t relevant for me and the way I code anymore.

In the days when I built table-based designs, it was great. However, as I switched to XHTML and CSS, it was suddenly much less helpful. The previews it showed where never accurate enough to use for anything but a very rough estimate.

Now I know Dreamweaver CS3 has a lot of features—probably more that the average code-jockey uses, but there are still some important things missing. I also know CS4 has added some features.

Aptana has many of the same basic features that I used with Dreamweaver, plus a few additional ones:

• Better code completion/code assist for HTML, CSS and javascript
• View accurate previews in FireFox and IE without leaving Aptana
• View your HTML as an outline for easy organization
• Customizable code snippets for HTML, CSS, javascript, XML, jQuery and others
• Support for AJAX libraries—jQuery, Prototype, script.aculo.us, Dojo, Ext, YUI, mochikit, MooTools, Spry, Aflax and more—letting you add code easily
• Adobe Air support
• iPhone support with tabbed preview
• Ruby on Rails (RoR) app engine / code assist
• Toolset for working with PHP and database (local and live)
• PHP/MySQL app engine / code assist
• Python toolset / code assist

Code Assist

Some of the biggest time-savers are the code assist options. Since you’re mostly working with code in Aptana, having code assist is a great help. This works for pretty much any web language out there. Dreamweaver has code completion, but it wasn’t nearly as robust as Aptana. Plus, Aptana allows you to adjust how much help it gives you.

I really love that when I add classes and IDs in an external CSS file, the classes are available to the code assist in my HTML. Same thing with images in CSS. I just start typing and it brings a nice little dropdown of the images in the folder I’ve started to type—no more trying to remember exact filenames.

jQuery Made Easy

Adding jQuery to a document is a breeze. I can add the jQuery framework to a project and it inserts and links to jQuery from my webpages. I can also use jQuery code assist to relieve the amount of typing needed.

Instant Tabbed Previews

Not having to have several browsers open while testing is handy. I can test in Firefox and IE right from Aptana by simply clicking the tabs at the bottom of the code window.

I don’t own an iPhone (where I live I can’t even get service for one), so testing wasn’t really an option. But with Aptana, now I can view a preview of what my pages will look like on the iPhone. It even lets me toggle between portrait and landscape view.

Outline Your Code

Keep track of what’s nested where is easy in Aptana. Aptana allows you to view your HTML code as an outline by element. You can expand and collapse the outline tree without in the Outline panel, while keeping all your code visible.

Custom Code Snippets and Scripts

Customizable code snippets let you add commonly used bits of code to your projects, and scripts allow you to perform common activities with a click.

Stay NSync

You can browse individual files or stay organized by project in the file view panel. This also doubles as an FTP/SFTP browser; letting you upload and synchronize your local and remote files.

I haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s possible in Aptana.

Expand With Plugins

If all the features that come with Aptana aren’t enough, you can add capabilities with a nice collection of free plugins.

Since Aptana is built off Eclipse IDE, most of the plugins that work in Eclipse will work in Aptana. You have a huge arsenal of plugins (over 1,000) to help you work even better.

Conclusion

Aptana has come a long way from when I first tried it out over a year ago when it was touted as the Dreamweaver-killer. At the time it wasn’t quite there, but now I feel it’s matured into an excellent alternative for those who need powerful features and are building modern websites.

Learn More

Read more about Aptana and download it to try yourself at: http://www.aptana.com/studio

To learn more about the powerful features of Aptana Studio, you can watch feature video screencasts at www.aptana.tv.

You can also read Aptana tutorials that show you how to do things like create a new AJAX project and work with various frameworks like jQuery and Prototype.

Backups. We love and hate them. We love having backups when something goes terribly wrong—a harddrive fails, you spill a drink on your notebook, fire, flood, tornado, etc. But many of us, myself included, hate the hassle of making regular backups.

In comes Mozy. Mozy is a remote, online backup system that helps Windows and Mac users make automatic backups. It’s so automatic, once you get it set up, you may just forget you’re even doing backups. No, really.

Note: This isn’t a paid post. I just really find Mozy useful and I want to share this great service with you. If you sign up at Mozy and use my referral code – MPED5A , I do get an extra 512MB of storage free, but then again, so do you, so win-win. That means you get 2.5GB of storage free.

Why Use Mozy?

Making backups to another computer via a network, backing up by tape/disc/DVD/external harddrives all work—unless you have a natural disaster or a fire. Whatever you stored your backed up files to may be gone as well.

An off-site backup needs to be done regularly. Mozy gives you an automatic, secure way of doing remote backups.

• 2GB free storage with MozyHome (get 2.5GB storage space free)
• Secure/encrypted transfer
• Automatic/scheduled backups
• Incremental backups
• Backs up open/locked files

Secure

Mozy encrypts your files before it even starts to transfer them. Mozy encrypts your files using 448-bit Blowfish encryption, then transfers them to their servers using 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. You can even use your own private key for encryption.

Easily Restore Lost Files

The great thing is that Mozy lets you retrieve a copy of your lost/corrupted files in 3 ways:

1. Their client software lets you browse/restore your backed up files like a virtual harddrive through Windows Explorer
2. Restore online from your browser through your account on Mozy.com
3. Request a DVD be mailed to you

Storage Space

MozyHome offers 2GB of free storage for personal backup. If you want to backup more than 2GB, you can buy unlimited storage space for just $4.95/month. If you sign up for MozyHome and make your first backup before Oct 31 Nov 30 using the referral code MPED5A during registration, you get an extra 512MB of storage free (if you sign up after Oct 31 Nov 30, it’s only 256MB). You can also sign up using this link to get the extra storage.

Mozy also provides Pro and Enterprise packages for businesses and organizations at low monthly rates. MozyPro is currently $3.95/month + $.50 per GB and provides a few more features than MozyHome. This is a very small price to pay for not having to worry about losing files for that project you’ve been working on for the last month.

Automatic Remote Backup

With the free 2GB account (MozyHome), you get their program that installs on Windows (Vista, XP, 2000)/Mac OS X. With this you can:

• Choose your backup based on type of file, directories, or individual files
• Schedule when to run your backup
• Set how much of your bandwidth you want to devote to the backup when it runs
• Restore your files—1 at a time, as directories, or the entire backup set

Incremental Backups

The idea of uploading 2GB worth of files every night is not appealing. Mozy’s backups are incremental, so it monitors which files you used since the last backup, then only uploads the changed files. In fact, it only backs up the parts of the files that have changed.

Running my backup the first time took a while to complete, especially my upload speed stinks. However, once Mozy did its initial backup, even when I make big changes to the files in my backup set, it takes no more than an hour or 2 to upload each night.

Open Files

Mozy will even backup files without you having to close them off first. You may have a file open in an editor, but Mozy will back it up anyway when it runs its backup.

Caveats

There are a few things that MozyHome and Mozy in general can’t do.

• Only 2GB of storage for MozyHome users (but for $4.95/month you get unlimited space).
• Bare metal backups—full system backups/restores are not recommended or supported. This would include operating system files and program settings. Mozy does allow for certain settings to be backed up, such as Firefox bookmarks/profiles.
• MozyHome doesn’t allow network drives to be backed up. Only fixed drives will be backed up, so external drives will be removed from the backup set if unplugged. MozyPro/Enterprise allows network drives to be backed up.
• No filesharing with other people—you can access your own files from anywhere, but you can’t provide links to others.

Special Offer

If you sign up with Mozy before Oct 31 Nov 30 using the following link, you’ll get an extra 512MB of storage space (256MB if you sign up after Oct 31 Nov 30):

Get MozyHome + extra storage

You can also get the extra storage by going to Mozy.com and entering the following code during registration:

MPED5A

What Do You Use?

Do you use any other online backup solutions? Leave us a comment and tell us about them.

Using It’s All Text in Firefox 3 on Ubuntu

How do you keep your code properly indented when you’re coding in a textarea?

Spaces are no good, Tab just jumps you out of the textarea. Even good old copy and paste doesn’t work—even from Notepad without having to copy and paste the entire textarea back and forth.

When writing posts in WordPress, you’re not really dealing with a ton of actual raw code that needs formatting. But what about when using the theme editor or editing code in ExpressionEngine?

How can you keep your code from being all jumbled and akimbo when editing in a textarea?

Plugins To the Rescue!

2 browser plugins—Saft for Mac/Safari users and It’s All Text for Windows and Linux Firefox users.

Both plugins do the same thing: Edit the text in any textarea in an external editor of your choice and then save the text back to the textarea.

It even gives you a nice AJAX-like update glow in your textarea to let you know it made the update.

Macs

Saft is a useful developer plugin for Safari. One of its many features is that it can link your textareas to an external editor like TextMate or Coda.

Windows and Linux

For Windows and Linux, there’s It’s All Text, a plugin/add-on for Firefox, which does the same thing. You get to pick virtually any program as the external editor. In Windows, I have mine set to use Notepad++, and in Linux (Ubuntu), gEdit.

To edit the contents of a textarea, just hover your mouse over the textarea and a small purple button will appear. Click it and it launches your external editor with the content from your textarea loaded.

The only slight weirdness with setting up the plugin is that after installing the add-on the first time and restarting Firefox, you will need to choose which editor you want to use. Then, you must restart Firefox again before it will save your changes. Once that’s sorted, it works just fine.

If you’re a Mac user who doesn’t want to shell out for Saft, you should be able to use It’s All Text with Firefox on Mac, but it takes a little extra work to get it set up.

The great thing about these plugins is that they work with just about any regular textarea on a page, so you can use them in ExpressionEngine, WordPress or any other CMS or website that allows editing or posting via textareas.

They’re also useful when posting long-winded comments on blogs or forums.

Other Useful Plugins?

Are there other browser plugins that you use when developing in ExpressionEngine or WordPress? Leave a comment and tells us about it.