Chrome’s Incognito Mode is Good for More Than Just Porn & Larceny!

I don’t know if it’s the latest version of Chrome or just a normal variation in experience, but over the last day or so I suddenly find that many .html & .js files I’ve changed aren’t rendering in browser. The old versions are getting stuck in Chrome’s cache and not updating.

I started with ‘Force Reload’, which didn’t do the trick. Then, I bounced my server a couple times, but that didn’t help at all. Finally, I just manually cleared the Chrome cache, which solved it. 

And then I did it again. 

And then I left the settings page open to make the next 5 cache clearances easier.

And then I finally noticed that little yellow message the next time I opened the ‘Clear Browsing Data’ window: 

 

Oh, right. A tool beloved by porn-hunters, freedom-fighters, cheating spouses, and anybody else who doesn’t want to leave a trail actually has a very straightforward and more abstract purpose I should have thought of sooner: allowing you to browse without caching anything. Which is exactly what this UI guy wanted.

How to Cross-Post to Google+ From Your WordPress Blog… sorta’

It’s surprising that Google *still* won’t make it easier for people to integrate Plus into the broader social ecosystem. That’s OK. You can work around this.

I’ve been looking for a good personal use-case for IFTTT since it launched, and thought I had one. Follow these instructions, and IFTTT will take any new posts from your WordPress blog and cross-post them to Google+, using some tomfoolery related to SMS and Google Voice. Only problem is… it doesn’t really work.

I mean, sure: if you want something on your G+ stream that  looks and feels like an SMS, with only a text version of your link, but no photo or capsule-text, it works great. In a  very 1999 kind of way. If you want it to resemble something that you posted in-person… you’ll want to do it manually. On the bright side, there’s no absolute need to cut-and-paste your whole post: just inserting the link will do a very nice job of picking up the basics.

Must-Use Features & Hotkeys for Sublime Text; Sweet Video Tutorial

I’m a bit ashamed. I started using Sublime Text more than a year ago, but never got around to learning many of its best features. This is my penance.

First, let’s be clear (and opinionated): if you develop for UI, you probably ought to be using Sublime. Sure, there are the folks who insist that terminal-based modal editors keep them closer to Jesus, or might allow them to someday squash bugs on the production server with their phone, from the top of Mt. Hood, in a blizzard, while making sweet love to an angel. But for more… uhhh… practical… folks, Sublime is the way to go. In particular, UI devs spend so much time working in desktop applications as the point of interaction with designers, product owners, clients, etc. that I don’t think it makes sense to “break your hands” with vim/emacs shortcuts when you can keep yourself comfortable with the Mac OS hotkey paradigm. (YMMV.)