I had some more ideas for the JAddTo plugin and so I just added them in now. This plugin is rapidly turning from a single-purpose plugin (put “Add To” links on a page) into something that may be of more general use and something that can be more customized.

This version adds custom CSS Classes (so more than one JAddTo item can be on the same page and can look different), adds the ability to hide the title text, and adds the ability to show the icon titles on the left or right of the icons (or keep them hidden).

Check it out at: http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/JAddTo/

This is my first JQuery plugin in awhile.  I needed to put up a series of “Add To Digg”-style links on the Shooting For A Cause website.  After collecting the images and links, I realized that this would make for a good JQuery plugin.  So I wrote it.

I hereby present JAddTo 0.1.  Enjoy!

And if you know of any links that should be added, let me know.  It would help if you included an example link and the URL of an image that could be included.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been hard at work with Shooting For A Cause. This is a project thought up by the fine folks at the Digital Imaging forum at BroadbandReports.com. They decided to pool their collective photographic talent and do something for charity.

The result is a series of four calendars with different themes: Earth and Sky, Flowers, Sunrise Sunset, and Wildlife. Each calendar costs $19.99. Of that money, $5 goes to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The rest goes to CafePress to cover production costs. Neither I, nor anyone else from Shooting For A Cause is making any money from this.

So please click on the image below to buy some calendars and help us support a worthy charity. Also, please check out the “Spread The Word” tab for information on how to let more people know about Shooting For A Cause.

By the way, I’m partial to the Flowers calendar as my photo was chosen for April.

This is too hilarious (yet at the same time, very sad).  Apparently, Dozier Internet Law believes that the copyright on their website allows them to forbid anyone from viewing the HTML code on their website.  They also forbid linking to their site without permission.

So, according to them, I’m breaking the law if I say that I went to http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/ and clicked View->Page Source.

How stupid can you get?

(Read All Criticism of This Website Is Hereby Forbidden for a more in-depth information on this.)

I reviewed the QT Tab Bar back in May.  Recently, I installed the QT Address Bar by the same author.  QT Address Bar adds an Address Bar onto Explorer windows.  Unlike the normal Explorer Address bar, however, the QT Address Bar displays your folder in a breadcrumb format.  Each directory level can be clicked to go up to that level.  Little arrows next to the name of each level can be clicked to browse the folder structure from that level on down.  This, combined with QT Tab Bar, has allowed me to hide the normal Explorer Address and Standard Buttons bars.  The only feature I’m missing with this arrangement is a Views button to allow me to toggle between Details and Thumbnails modes.  I can easily go to the View menu for this functionality, but it is taking a little getting used to.  Otherwise, QT Address Bar is a very good accompaniment to QT Tab Bar.

Three months ago, I wrote about AmieStreet.com.  Since then I’ve bought 70 songs and have only spent $5.55.  That’s less than 8 cents per song on average.  It’s also the equivalent of less than 6 songs from iTunes.  I’ve also been telling everyone I know about it (probably annoying them in the process).  Here are the songs that I’ve bought/am listening to.  (I’ll update it from time to time as I buy more songs.)

I had my choice for the June freeware review all set.  Then another program leapt to the top of the Must Review pile.  First some backstory:

At my day job for Northeast Health, we have a website for WebBabies.  The nurses in the maternity ward take photos of the new babies (provided the parents grant consent) and I upload the photos to the website.  Recently, the camera we use exhibited a glitch where it thought the card was empty when there were photos there.  Previously, I was able to retrieve the photos by using my USB card reader.  This time, however, my card reader insisted that the card needed to be formatted.  Disaster!  The photos of 4 babies were gone and all but one of them had already left the hospital.

I used two of my favorite freeware data retrieval tools, but they couldn’t see the drive unless I formatted it.  I did a Quick Format and searched with my usual tools.  No photos to retrieve.  I did some searching for new tools and came upon some for-pay utilities.  These could see the photos but wouldn’t let me retrieve them unless I paid for the full version.  I was about to give up when I stumbled upon MJM Free Photo Recovery.  Not only did this application see the photos on the formatted memory card, but it let me save them back to my computer.  In the end, I recovered every lost photo from the card.  A new camera is on order to prevent future mishaps, but MJM Free Photo Recovery will stay on my system as a good way to recover lost photos.

Now on to the bonus.  Before MJM Free Photo Recovery stole it’s thunder, I was going to review Taskbar Shuffle.  Since I already know what program(s) I’m going to review in July, I see no reason not to review Taskbar Shuffle now.

Taskbar Shuffle is a very simple program, yet very powerful.  It allows you to drag items on your Taskbar and System Tray to reorder them.  It can also automatically group similar items next to each other either with without combining them into a single button.  You don’t even need to install Taskbar Shuffle.  While there is an installer available, there is also a stand-alone version.  It’s one of those utilities that you look at and then wonder “Why didn’t they put this in Windows to begin with?”

Tabs have really taken off.  Whether it be in an web browser (e.g. Firefox) or in a web site itself, using tabs seems to be the wave of the future (even if the tabs UI has been around for awhile now).  A plugin I’ve recently found adds tabbing capabilities (plus a whole lot more) to Windows Explorer.  (Not to be confused with Internet Explorer, the browser from Microsoft that gained tabs in the recently released version 7.)  The program’s name is, appropriately, QT TabBar (419KB, requires Windows 2K/XP and .Net 2.0).

Primary among the features that it adds to Windows Explorer are tabs, of course.  Tabs appear as little buttons on a newly created toolbar.  As with any toolbar, you can customize the location by moving it anywhere you like.  You can combine it with another toolbar line or move it up or down to suit your tastes.  Personally, I like it on it’s own line.  A second toolbar adds some additional tab functionality like the ability to open closed tabs, open tab groups, open a new window, clone an existing tab, or close a set of tabs.  This alone makes the download worthwhile, but QT TabBar doesn’t stop there.

QT TabBar can also shade the lines in your Explorer window for you in the Details view (using your choice of colors).  This makes it much easier to see which file data matches up with which file name.  For example, was P1030147.JPG created on May 5th or May 6th.

QT TabBar can also filter your results for you.  Using a text area field in the “tab functions” toolbar, you enter some text and the files listed will automatically change.  It’s a simple file name search, but it can be very powerful.  This can be particularly useful when trying to find one DLL in the Windows/System32 folder or finding a single document in a folder with thousands of documents.

QT TabBar can also let you automatically drill down a folder structure.  When you hover over a folder, a blue down arrow will appear.  Clicking it gives a subfolder listing (with fly-out menus for folders beneath the subfolders).  This means you can quickly navigate to the folder you want without a lot of unnecessary clicking.

QT TabBar can also show you previews of images as you hover over them.

Finally, QT TabBar is very configurable.  Features can be turned on or off depending on the user’s preference.  (For example, I’ve turned off the image previews as I found them annoying, but another user might really like them.)  All in all, this plug-in is very good.  Well worth the download.  Apparently, Microsoft has improved the searching/filtering capabilities in Vista but as I don’t plan on upgrading my OS anytime soon, this is a welcome addition.

This post is about 6 days late, but things have been rather busy here. At 12:31pm on Monday May14th my wife gave birth to our second son, Jacob Solomon Levine. Jacob weighed in at 8lbs 15oz and was 20 inches long. Mother and new baby are fine and are home now. Noah (our first son) loves his new baby brother and wants to help out any way he can (even when it’s something that an energetic 3 1/2 year old shouldn’t do).

Here’s a photo of new Baby Jacob:

And here’s one of Noah and Jacob together:

By the way, I must apologize about any delayed comment postings. When I set up this blog, I set comments to auto-approve. Unfortunately, comment spammers invaded with links to XXX rated sites and other trash. Until I come up with a better way of stopping them, I have changed the setting to require me to approve each comment. It’s a pain, but it’s better than some scumbag using my site to promote his spammy way of life.