Battery conditioning not needed A common mistake is unplugging a laptop when using it, connecting it back to the AC only when the charge in the battery is running out. The thinking behind this move is to prevent overcharging. However, built-in protection against overcharging means that this move only serves to dramatically shorten the serviceable life [...]

Sysinternals Suite The Sysinternals Troubleshooting Utilities have been rolled up into a single Suite of tools. The dowload contains many troubleshooting tools and help files. Link HWiNFO32 HWiNFO32™ is a professional hardware information and diagnostic tools supporting latest components, industry technologies and standards. Both tools are designed to collect and present the maximum amount of information [...]

The best way to optimize Magento’s performance is to use its Compilation function. It has proven to be stable and reliable even though it is still in development. The performance increase is obvious. You can enable it from your Magento admin panel. There from the top menu choose System > Tools > Compilation. If you [...]

Print mailing envelopes lined with your Google Maps location. Using Map Envelope is a three step process: enter your address, print the map template using your home printer, and finally cut/fold and stamp for delivery. It’s ridiculously simple and very cute. http://www.mapenvelope.com/

The following are some very useful links to web site tools that can help you optimize your web site for the search engines. Site submission links are also listed for some of the more popular search engines. Keyword Selection Tool – Use this handy tool to help determine what keywords your customers are using and [...]

Find the following lines in your Magento .htaccess file Remove the comments as I have below (Comments are started on a line with a pound ( # ) sign ############################################ ## enable apache served files compression ## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#gzip # Insert filter SetOutputFilter DEFLATE # Netscape 4.x has some problems… BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html # Netscape 4.06-4.08 [...]

You should  remove index.php from the URL to maximize your SEO potential. Here is how you do it! From Magento’s admin go to System > Configuration > Web and change “Use Web Server Rewrites” to Yes Make sure both Base URLs for secure and unsecure don’t contain index.php It is that simple!  If you should [...]

Technically speaking, you can’t use *any* font, only ones you have license to use on the web, because of copyright reasons. Assuming you have said license, you can use both OpenType and TrueType fonts, which opens up a ton more options for typography. You can use any font you want on the web by using [...]

Once development is done you reach that all important milestone.. you switch caching on. Yeah, it’s a bit of an anticlimax really. Caching only works when the cache is primed. It can take time for your visitors to reach every nook and cranny of your site, so why not automate it? Login to your server [...]

Swipe it. Accept payment cards on any device with an audio input jack, including your mobile phone. With clients for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Android devices, they sending out their first production batch of free card readers. All represent just the beginning of what Square is striving to become: a simple payment utility [...]