Paris Polyzos' Blog

Minification is the process of  eliminating  white  space,  comments,  and  other nonessential parts of the JavaScript code to decrease the size of the JavaScript files that need to be transferred from the server to the browser. This may help you decrease the load time of your web page and there are a lot of tools to help you in this process, called Minifiers.

One thing to remember is that in order to achieve best results, a good practice is to use local variables in your code whenever possible, because Minifiers also rename variables to shorter names… but only when it’s safe to do so. Global variables are not minized as this may break the code. Shorter names will also speed up the lookups when resolving a variable name, and so the code will be faster during runtime.

Yahoo! YUICompressor

It is written in Java and provides a small .jar file that can be used to minify your javascript and css files doing the following steps:

• Analyze the source JavaScript file to understand how it is structured
• Then prints out the token stream, omitting as many white space characters as possible and replace all local symbols by a 1 (or 2, or 3) letter symbol wherever such a substitution is appropriate
• Outputs result in a *.min.js file

The CSS compression algorithm uses a set of finely tuned regular expressions to compress the source CSS file

Usage

java -jar yuicompressor-x.y.z.jar [options] [input file]

Example

java -jar yuicompressor-2.4.6.jar -o hello.min.js hello.min.js
Minify file "hello.js" and output the result in "hello.min.js" file.

Download it here

Google’s Closure Compiler

The Closure Compiler is a tool for making JavaScript download and run faster. It is a true compiler for JavaScript. Instead of compiling from a source language to machine code, it compiles from JavaScript to better JavaScript. It parses your JavaScript, analyzes it, removes dead code and rewrites and minimizes what’s left. It also checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about common JavaScript pitfalls.

Usage Example

java -jar compiler.jar --js hello.js --js_output_file hello-compiled.min.js
Minify "hello.js" to hello-compiled.min.js

Download it here

MinifyJS.com

MinifyJS.com provides some advanced features to give you even further control over how you compress your Javascript in a minimalistic UI.

• Simply Copy and paste your Javascript code into the top box
• Select any advanced options like, compression method, packing/compressing speed, special chartacters
• Press “Compress Javascript” button.

Are you bored to download and setup each of your favorite applications after formatting your PC?

Would you like to install multiple applications at once without toolbars and clicking Next?

Ninite is the answer

This is a great tool that allows you to install common applications at once without having to separately download and setup each software.

All you have to do is:

• Go to ninite.com
• Select applications you want to install
• Get the installer and go for a walk

When you return the latest version of each application will be installed and ready to use

One of the greatest tool I daily use for sql is the SQL Prompt V4.0.

Key features of the tool is:

• Code Completion: Really fast and way better that SQL Management studio 2008 built in intellisence
• SQL Formatting based on your preferences
• Access to your database schema from within the editor
• Snippets in order to faster create Insert/Update/Delete statements, functions, stored procedures…

Some screenshots I took from their site:

Also this tool, compared to previous version, is very very fast and when make any modification to your original Schema, you just type Ctrl+Shift+D and all the context is being updated.

Give it a try!

Mindmeister is an application that brings the concept of mind mapping to the web. Mind mapping is a technique that allows you to organize your ideas very fast.

Mind maps are, by definition, a graphical method of taking notes. The visual basis of them helps one to distinguish words or ideas, often with colors and symbols. They generally take a hierarchical or tree branch format, with ideas branching into their subsections. Mind maps allow for greater creativity when recording ideas and information, as well as allowing the note-taker to associate words with visual representations. Mind maps and concept maps are different in that mind maps focus on only one word or idea, whereas concept maps connect multiple words or ideas.

You can have a look at what it looks like to create a mindmap using mindmeister with the following sample map:

With MindMeister you can also collaboratively work in mind maps, share your work and one of the coolest features is the history view where you can revert your map in anytime in the past.