A List Apart’s first publication, “HTML5 for Web Designers,” is both an easy one-sitting read and a warm introduction to HTML5. I dare you to try reading it and not geek out, even just a little bit, over what’s just around the corner.

I’ve been customizing Mark Huot’s Livesearch extension for ExpressionEngine, which combines the livesearch jQuery plugin with an ExpressionEngine plugin for returning formatted query results.

The livesearch JavaScript has a built-in caching mechanism that didn’t seem to be clearing in Firefox. In Safari, IE, and others, valid search results (weblog entries) were being returned as one would expect. In Firefox, old/deleted entries were being returned as search results. In Firefox 3.6.3 (both for myself and my client), the browser cache couldn’t be completely cleared.

The only way to fix the problem was to view the JavaScript file (jquery.livesearch.js) directly in the browser, then hold shift and click refresh.

I also updated the headers to prevent excessive caching in the first place.

I like SEO (search engine optimization) because there’s always something to tweak or improve. My latest quest has been to improve the overall speed of my sites and my clients’ sites. To do this, I’ve started using two tools:

1. Pingdom This is a web app that monitors your site(s) and gives you reports on uptime and latency, among other things. I use it to see when my site is fastest and slowest, and to get some idea of what the site’s response times are around the world.
2. YSlow An outrageously fun (geeky fun) Firefox plugin that will grade your site in various categories, and its companion website will help explain what you need to do in order to start speeding things up.

It finally dawned on me that using one subversion repository for all my projects was silly. If each project has its own repository, there are some benefits:

1. My revision comments make lots of sense and follow a logical path.
2. My revision numbers are more meaningful, and pertain to each project directly.
3. I can easily share access to one project with someone else if I need to, without exposing all of my work or potentially sensitive information.
4. I can join the rest of the world that’s using subversion properly.

So why wasn’t I doing this sooner? I learned to use subversion this way, and it actually helped when I decided to use Beanstalk. Beanstalk is awesome, provides lots of hooks and cool features, and is just lovely. The obstacle in my repository-for-every-project quest was Beanstalk’s limit on repositories. With the $15/month account, I could only have 10 repositories. I could pay more for additional repositories, but I’m cheap and ambitious and there seemed like there had to be a better way. And there was. Here’s how I set up stylish subversion hosting with unlimited repositories for $19.95 a month.

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I just caught a post over at BKWLD about using Webgrind with MAMP to debug PHP. I had to upgrade MAMP to 1.8.4 to take advantage of the newer Zend Optimizer, but once I did things went pretty smoothly. If you’re not already using Webgrind (a front-end for Xdebug), you should be.

I complained before that my beloved “Edit in TextMate” input manager wandered off into the woods when I upgraded to Snow Leopard and started using 64-bit apps. I work with lots of sites using ExpressionEngine, and “Edit in TextMate” made life quicker/easier when editing templates. (We can have a lively debate about saving templates as files later.)

Ricky at IF/THEN pointed me to QuickCursor, which is like a more grown-up “Edit in TextMate.” QuickCursor stays calm as I change Safari tabs, and never seems to lose the connection between the browser window’s textarea and the TextMate window. It lets me choose the keyboard shortcut, and you’ll never guess what I made it.

Bonus: you can add various “Edit In…” applications with shortcuts. What’s not to like? Get it for yourself!