@altgate

Random Tips

Most of the posts on this blog have been about fund raising, so these tips are a bit off topic. Nonetheless, I wish someone had shared these with me so here goes:

  1. How to test browser compatibility. Anyone who’s developed a website knows that it is a pain in the butt to make sure the site plays well with various browsers.  There is a great tool at Browsershots that rocks.  You just type in the URL of the page you want to test and then select as many as 50 browser/OS combinations (that includes multiple versions of the same browser) and in a few minutes you get a screen shot of the page as well as a file you can download.  And it’s free to boot.Altgate_screenshot_5
  2. How to do screenshots the easy way. I hate the fact that sending someone a screenshot requires that I first capture the page and then open another program, paste the shot and send an email.  Well, if you have Windows Vista, there’s a crazy cool utility called “Snipping Tool” which allows you to grab the whole page, a rectangle or a random shape and then to copy it directly to a file.  To launch this program, click the Windows button and search for “Snipping Tool.”Altgate2
  3. How to register many accounts with one email address.  A lot of sites (like the one I’m developing!) require an email address for each user account and that email can only be used once.  So if you’re testing the site and want to have several users, how do you avoid creating a lot of email accounts?  Well, Gmail makes it easy.  Every Gmail account allows infinite aliases of the form: [email address]+[alias]@gmail.com.  All of these messages go to your existing Gmail account and most sites consider them an unique address.  For example, my Gmail account is fnazeeri@gmail.com and an alias that also goes to that account is fnazeeri+test100@gmail.com.

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Categorised as: Startups

  • Aneesh

    Great tips. I’m pretty sure number 3 on your list is supported by many email providers, not just Gmail. My work and university emails also support ‘plus’ addressing.

  • http://frost.biztos.com/ Frosty

    Something similar to #2 is built into Mac OS X.
    Most people know you use command-shift-3 to do a full screenshot. Much more useful to web developers is command-shift-4, which gives you a selection rectangle.
    As with the full screenshot, the selection is saved to your Desktop as “Picture N.png” — I sort of wish you could rename it as part of the same action, but for most purposes that doesn’t matter.
    Also, the e-mail infinite-alias trick goes back at least as far as qmail, and many systems support it. Still a great tip for registrations, both for testing your own stuff and for scoping out the competition.