.NETified

Someone recently led me on to these amazing tools: IE Developer Toolbar for IE, and FireBug for FireFox.

These are tools that allow you to look at the HTML, CSS, script, DOM, etc, of the page you’re viewing. They show the current view, which means any dynamic code created by JavaScript will show up. Another great feature is you can edit all aspects of the running page. This means if you’re trying to figure out some CSS/HTML/Script errors, that you can load the page and change them without having to recompile and run the project.

FireBug seems to be a lot more advanced and has more options than the IE counterpart. These tools immediately jumped to the top of my list of web development tools that I can’t live without.

I saw Rush live in concert on Sunday for the first time, and probably the last. Last because, I don’t know how long they’ll be around touring.

The show was amazing. They sound just as good live as they do on their albums. They had 3 very large video screens that most of the time had each of the members playing on them.

They also did many videos during songs, and skits before songs. One of the skits was a custom South Park clip of the boys pretending to be rush. Cartman was Geddy Lee and started singing Tom Sawyer, but sang about floating down the river on a raft with a black guy… You can watch it here. There were many other interesting things they like similar to this before songs.

There were several odd things all over the stage. On top of the amps were many dinosaur figures. In front of the guitar pedals were a row of Barbies, each holding it’s hand up with a post-it note on it. I’ve been told Alex doesn’t know what the notes say ’till he gets out there. Then there was the "Hen House". These were 3 large chicken rotisseries. Periodically a chef or someone else would come out a baste the chickens. I’ve been told the reason behind this is because Geddy Lee didn’t need to use an amp anymore. He replaced the amp with a microwave and mic’ed that. Then mic’ed a washing machine. Now there’s the Hen House. Apparently Alex came on stage and played a cord and waited for the others to come running out late. When Geddy Lee makes it out, he pulls off a stained chicken bib like he was late from eating chicken… I missed that part.

They played some old stuff at the beginning, then new stuff all throughout the middle, then old stuff at the end again. I got a little bored during the middle ’cause I don’t know much of their new stuff. Neal did one amazing drum solo that made any bit of boredom I may have had all worth while. He did quite an amazing solo and long solo, then the kit turned 180 degrees and he turned around to start his digital v-drum solo. I was in awe. He looks kind of old these days, but he hasn’t lost a beat (pun intended).

The show was about 3.5 hours long with no opening acts, just Rush playing the whole time. I honestly don’t know how they do it. I’d definitely go see them again. I was in an executive sweet this time and would like to be on the floor next time. Especially since the floor seats were actual seats.

I saw someone mention this took on a Digg post, so I thought I’d give it a try. It works with many different blogging sites, and makes writing a blog like writing a Word doc. I’m liking it.

http://writer.live.com