Blog on Web2Generators

The New Web2Generators: Improved Tools and a New Home for WebAndSay

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the new Web2Generators! This release brings together our free web development tools, a redesigned interface, and the English blog archive previously published on WebAndSay. You can now move between a tool and the articles that explain how to use it, all on the same website.

The familiar generators are still here, with clearer controls, more useful options, and expanded instructions. There is also a new cURL command builder for preparing HTTP requests. All six tools are free to use without an account.

Htpasswd Generator Update: bcrypt, Adjustable Cost and Apache MD5

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Our htpasswd generator now gives you a choice of bcrypt with an adjustable cost or Apache MD5 / APR1. Bcrypt is selected by default, with cost 10; costs 11 and 12 are available in Options. APR1 remains available when an existing server requires the older format.

This makes the tool useful both for setting up a new password-protected Apache directory and for maintaining an installation with specific compatibility requirements. You can generate an entry in your browser, copy it into an existing password file, or download it for installation on your server.

Lorem Ipsum Generator Update: HTML Markup, Lists and Flexible Openings

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Need a few paragraphs for a page mockup, or a numbered list to check your CSS? Our improved free Lorem Ipsum generator now produces HTML markup as well as plain text, including ordered and unordered lists. You can also choose whether the text starts with the familiar “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” opening.

The result updates as you change the settings, so you can spend less time preparing placeholder content and more time working on your layout.

cURL Command Guide: Basic and Advanced Options with Examples

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

cURL lets you send requests from your terminal to test APIs, inspect responses, and transfer data. A simple request takes one line. Add query parameters, a JSON body, custom headers, and an apostrophe in your data, however, and assembling that line can become the hardest part of the job.

Our free cURL command line builder gives you fields for the request details and generates the command as you type. It is especially useful when you know what you want to send but do not want to spend your debugging time untangling shell quotes.

How to Check Website Network Requests in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

To see what a website sends and receives, open your browser’s developer tools, choose Network, reload the page, and then use the website while watching the request list. Select a request to inspect its destination and any data sent with it. You do not need to write code or install an extension.

This guide covers the desktop versions of Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari. It also explains how to check a tool that says it runs locally in your browser, including the tools on Web2Generators.

The answer as to why Firefox's release cycle is shortened: Mozilla love cakes

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Firefox 4 has finally been released after an amazing number of Beta versions and 2 Release Candidates. It’s about time! And while everyone has its idea on the number of Beta versions needed and how often a major version must be released - some find it reassuring that Firefox has had so many ones when others find it annoying and wish for a shorter release cycle - Mozilla said that Firefox 5 should be available in June 2011 after only 16 weeks of development. And we have been reminded why Mozilla has shortened its release cycle: they want more cakes from the Microsoft Internet Explorer team!

Introducing web2generators.com for your web development needs

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We are glad to announce the release of Web And Say’s sister web-site named Web 2.0 Generators. Web 2.0 generators’ aim is to provide free tools, helpers and ressources for all your web development needs. Currently, you can use the HTML Encoder and Decoder tool which converts the non-html, non-escaped input and converts it to HTML, highly useful in various cases, and generate a .htpasswd login and password key pair for your Apache hosted web sites. So head on to Web 2.0 Generators for free tools to speed up web development.

Windows 3.11 for the Web 2.0

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A few web based operating systems have emerged the last few years including Jolicloud and EyeOS with many more to come such as Google’s own Chrome OS but none of them have the “cool” factor of Michael Vincent’s Windows 3.11 browser edition. How cool is it to use the old calculator, play YouTube video on the 3.1 media player and even browse the web through the integrated Internet Browser or use the MS-DOS Prompt. I think a tear just fell down my face while seeing this oldie again, and for that, congrats Michael.

Microsoft is not ready to let Silverlight loose against Canvas

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft is honest in the recent blog post about using one platform to build another by saying that “some people have gone as far as to suggest HTML 5 could eliminate the need for Flash and Silverlight”. Yes, we do want to go that far and we don’t want Flash or Silverlight addons / plugins (call them however you like) in our fully capable, HTML 5 compliant web browser! I mean, why should we want them if Canvas is perfectly capable of achieving the same task ? Well, one of the answer is due to Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer: as of version 8, it still doesn’t support the Canvas element. And Microsoft’s solution is pretty funny: we don’t support the Canvas element but look, our own Silverlight can do it. There is no way you won’t install Silverlight now, right ? Wrong !

Google is actively pushing Chrome by providing a download link from the home page

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Up until now, the Google home page was meant to be as lite as possible. It only contained one image with the Google logo, some links to other Google tools, services and legal information. But that has changed recently as a new prominent image appeared to publicize the Google Chrome web browser. And this is quite huge as the overall advertisement’s size is almost the same as the biggest element on the Google’s home page: Google’s logo itself!

Monster: Javascript 3D Engine

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Chrome Experiments is “Not your mother’s JavaScript” as it was “created to showcase cool experiments for both JavaScript and web browsers”. And Dean McNamee proves it by providing Monster, “a demonstration of what can be done with browser web standards (without Flash). A square turns to a cube, a sphere, and a monster. Realtime procedural 3d in JavaScript”. Not happy to prove that Javascript can be a (fresh) contestant in the 3D world, Dean also provides a simpler, yet beautiful demo named Colorscube. A must see for all Javascript graphics coders out there! Thanks to Niko of Irrlicht3d for the heads up.

Useful JavaScript Tools

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Starting a blog post with a number seems to be today’s obligation and after posting 75 (Really) Useful JavaScript Techniques, 80+ AJAX-Solutions For Professional Coding or 53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without, the nonetheless excellent Smashing Magazine does it again by providing a list of 50 Useful JavaScript Tools. This list includes JavaScript/AJAX Authoring Tools, Documentation Tools, JavaScript Debugging Tools, JavaScript Testing and Validation Tools and Security Tools amongst other, well, useful tools.

Google: This site may harm your computer

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

If you were using Google this past Saturday between 6:27 a.m. and 7:25 a.m. PST, chances are that you have been warned by the search engine that your search result “may harm your computer”. Trying another request couldn’t help and you soon realized that the whole Internet might have harmed your computer. If that’s no news for some of us, this might be a different story for Internet novices who think that Google is the Internet.

Online Demoscene with the 25-Line ActionScript Contest

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

What can you do in 25 lines of ActionScript ? How about participating to the The 25-Line ActionScript Contest! January finalists include amazing entries, such as a real-time webcam video to ASCII art conversion, fire blending, 3D world exploring and Mandelbrot zooming amongst other. This really shows the power of Flash and Action Script as well as the gain of interest in the web-related demo scene. Now the question is when will we be able to see such advanced demos using only Javascript and Canvas ? My guess is pretty soon if the war for browser performance continues…

The Shortest Way to Detect Internet Explorer in Javascript

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Through Ajaxian, the following 12 characters code seems to be the shortest way to detect any version of Internet Explorer, including IE 8. This is the result that came from a comment in a post from the Web Reflection blog. Very interesting!

Biggest 10 Browser-Based Game Sites Ranked

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Gamasutra is running and interesting story about the biggest browser-based game sites where we can learn some pretty amazing numbers measured by ComScore such as “Total player time with browser-based online games increased 42 percent in 2008”… interesting!

“According to its latest study, the online game category has gathered 86 million total visitors as of year’s end, up 27 percent. Americans spent 4.9 percent of their total internet time in 2008 playing online games, says ComScore, who surveyed its large group of Internet users to extrapolate the data. This figure is up notably from 3.7 percent in 2007.”

Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Even though Microsoft promised the final version of Internet Explorer 8 for last year, it is only today that the first release candidate of Internet Explorer 8 is available for public download in 25 languages for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server customers. Changes between Beta 2 include platform completeness, reliability, performance, and compatibility improvements and security enhancements.

Google cuts out print ads

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

After shutting down six of its projects and letting go some of its employees, Google is now Turning the page on Print Ads. “In the last few months, we’ve been taking a long, hard look at all the things we are doing to ensure we are investing our resources in the projects that will have the biggest impact for our users and partners. While we hoped that Print Ads would create a new revenue stream for newspapers and produce more relevant advertising for consumers, the product has not created the impact that we — or our partners — wanted”.

TV and Flash animated cartoons about to be replaced by Javascript animation ?

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

That’s what I thought when I saw Anthony Calzadilla’s article “Building an Animated Cartoon Robot with jQuery” article through WebAppers. Just check the demo to see how nice this is! “This project was created by layering several empty divs over each other with transparent PNGs as background images. The backgrounds were animated at different speeds using a jQuery plug-in by Alexander Farkas. This effect simulates a faux 3-D animated background dubbed the “parallax effect” originating from old-school side scrolling video games. The robot is comprised similarly to the background animation scene by layering several DIVs together to create the different robot pieces. The final step, was animating the robot with some jQuery.”

Microsoft releases Silverlight 2

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A little more than a year after its first release, Microsoft today announces the immediate availability of the second version of its Silverlight plugin. Silverlight 2 is a programmable web browser and mobile phone plugin whose main goal is to compete with Adobe’s Flash in vector graphics, animation, online video streaming… and many other “rich” user-experience tasks. And it seems to be working as Silverlight is now available for a quarter of the consumers worldwide, according to Yahoo’s article.

Congratulation WebKit for being the first to pass the Acid3 Test

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Not happy to have the fastest JavaScript engine of any web browser thanks to SquirrelFish Extreme, Safari just hit the 100/100 bar of the Acid3 test. “Acid3 is a test page from the Web Standards Project that checks how well a web browser follows certain web standards, especially relating to the DOM and JavaScript”. Congratulations!

“Today we would like to announce that WebKit is the first browser engine to fully pass Acid3. A while back, we posted that we scored 100/100 and matched the reference rendering. Now, thanks to recent speedups in JavaScript, DOM and rendering, we have passed the third condition, smooth animation on reference hardware”.

The (very funny) history of the browser user-agent string

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

If you haven’t read it yet, here is the very funny history of browser user-agent string as narrated by Aaron Andersen of WebAIM. “In the beginning there was NCSA Mosaic, and Mosaic called itself NCSA_Mosaic/2.0 (Windows 3.1), and Mosaic displayed pictures along with text, and there was much rejoicing. And behold, then came a new web browser known as “Mozilla”, being short for “Mosaic Killer”, but Mosaic was not amused, so the public name was changed to Netscape, and Netscape called itself Mozilla/1.0 (Win3.1), and there was more rejoicing. And Netscape supported frames, and frames became popular among the people, but Mosaic did not support frames, and so came “user agent sniffing” and to “Mozilla” webmasters sent frames, but to other browsers they sent not frames.”

Google Chrome browser: a step further to the Google Operating System ?

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Google just cleverly announced the imminent release of their first web browser named Google Chrome through a very well done comic book presenting its philosophy and major features. Based on the Webkit rendering engine (KHTML, Safari, Adobe Air…), the upcoming browser clearly focuses on speed and security with isolated browsing tabs and a virtual machine executing the JavaScript, amongst other interesting features which can be discovered in the comic book.

Sensational story or threatening Vista security hole ?

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

In what seems to be a sensational / tabloid article inspirationally named Vista’s Security Rendered Completely Useless by New Exploit, Neowin reports that “this week at the Black Hat Security Conference two security researchers will discuss their findings which could completely bring Windows Vista to its knees. Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov, of VMware Inc. have discovered a technique that can be used to bypass all memory protection safeguards that Microsoft built into Windows Vista. These new methods have been used to get around Vista’s Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and other protections by loading malicious content through an active web browser. The researchers were able to load whatever content they wanted into any location they wished on a user’s machine using a variety of scripting languages, such as Java, ActiveX and even .NET objects. This feat was achieved by taking advantage of the way that Internet Explorer (and other browsers) handle active scripting in the Operating System.”

Design Showcase Of Creative Online-Shops

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

So you are building an online shop, and you’d like your visitors to find the ordering process as enjoyable as possible. Smashing Magazine is helping you getting inspired in their latest article showcasing 45 creative online-shops. “Being creative doesn’t necessarily mean that the designs are successful as well since unconventional approaches often increase the time users need to climb the learning curve and figure out how they can achieve their goals. Still, how can you present your products in a distinctive way and how to design a truly unique online-store? Let’s find out.”.

The survery for people who make websites

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

As they did last year, the popular A List Apart publishes a survey for people who make websites. “Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.”

“Remove the web, and billions in trade disappear. Websites enable people who can’t walk to run to the store. They bring knowledge and freedom of thought to places where such things are scarce; make every person with a connection a citizen of the world; and allow every citizen to be heard. Yet nobody bothered to conduct a serious inquiry into the working conditions of people who make websites until A List Apart launched its first survey in 2007.

Rails-like ActiveRecord in Aptana Jaxer to come

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We can read some interesting things about the future of Aptana Jaxer in a blog post from Paul Colton (CEO of Aptana) announcing the hiring of Ajax gurus Greg Murray and Ryan Johnson. Apart from the fact that the Jaxer 1.0 release candidate will be available in a matter of days, we also learn that Jaxer will support “ActiveRecord-like JavaScript ORM for Jaxer that promises to make working with JavaScript data a pleasure”.

Microsoft confirms IE 8 will ship this year

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

According to ZDNet, Microsoft Senior Vice President of Online Services and Windows (what a mouthful), Bill Veghte, just told attendees of the Microsoft’s Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) that Microsoft will release the final version of Internet Explorer (IE) 8 to the Web “later this year”.

“Microsoft has tried its best not to provide a ship target for IE 8 — like most of its Windows client family of products. Company officials did acknowledge last month that a second public beta of IE 8 is due out in August. Microsoft has been warning Web developers to prep for IE 8, which will be more standards-compliant, to prepare now for IE 8 by adding a new tag to their sites to keep them from breaking when viewed with IE 8.”

Best CSS based Navigation Menus and Techniques

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Back on the 2nd of July, Social CMS Buzz posted a list of 20 Of The Best CSS Navigation Menu Techniques, which contained an extensive list of CSS Menus. “One of the most important features of your website will be the navigation menu, not only do you want the menu to look good but it must be functional and instinctive to use. If your visitors cannot navigate your site easily and instinctively traffic and return visits will suffer, it can be a fine balance between usability and good navigation menu design”. If that wasn’t enough, they are now providing 20 More CSS based Navigation Menus For Your Projects.

Please wait till I finish my Favicon game

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The web is an immense source of information. You can learn, read, listen or watch just about anything. But let’s not forget what we, humans, tend to do on our free time: we love to play! We just play with everything: gazillions of games have been created, both material or immaterial such as computer games. Many devices have been exploited and engineered for the sole purpose of entertaining people. And just when you thought this should be enough, someone had the idea of putting a game in your Favicon. Brilliant!

Integrate your PHP application with Google Calendar

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Vikram Vaswani writes a very nice article on how to use PHP to process and integrate data from Google Calendar into a custom application. “This article will introduce you to the Google Calendar Data API, showing you how to integrate and use calendar data with a custom PHP application. It includes examples of how to: Retrieve events from a user’s public notebooks; Add new events; Modify and delete events; Search for events by keyword or date range”.

Google Code Jam 08 starts in a Week with $80,000 Prizes !

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

7 Days and 11 Hours is all that remains before the start of Google Code Jam 2008. Code Jam is a competition with a fair amount of money: $10,000 for the winner isn’t bad, is it ? And if that is not enough, the first 100 contestants will win at least $250.

“Do you enjoy solving tough problems and grappling with technical challenges? Then enter Google Code Jam! Google Code Jam is a coding competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The contest is all-inclusive: Google Code Jam lets you program in the coding language and development environment of your choice.”

Rails-Doc.org - A First Look

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Fabio Cevasco is taking us on a tour of Rails-Doc.org which focuses on providing a better interface to Rails documentation by offering two key features : a powerful, fast and useful document search and the possibility to add notes to Rails documentation.

Rails is extremely powerful and I share Fabio’s view when he says “When you decided to learn Ruby on Rails (if you did, that is), chances are that you bought a book. I did, too, actually: there are a lot of very interesting and fairly comprehensive books out there after all. I actually never bought a book to learn PHP, in the past though. Why’s that? Well, for two simple reasons: the PHP manual can easily be searched and provides enough documentation, in most cases and when the documentation is not enough, there’s always plenty of comments by experienced developers to save your day.”

Add some DHTML to your OpenLaszlo exports

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ajaxian, Antun Karlovac and Raju Bitter report that the 4.1 version of OpenLaszlo has finally been released and can now generate DHTML in addition to the already existing SWF output format. The project started in March 2006 and took the team behind this free Adobe Flex competitor more than two years of development… but the wait was worth it !

55 Free high quality Icon Sets

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

When the amazing Smashing Magazine won the Webinale Award 2008 with a price of 5000 €, they made a poll asking their loyal readers how they should spend this money. It turns out that we wanted more free stuff (who wouldn’t ?) and free icons in particular. And they heard us by starting to provide more Icon related articles. Today they are providing a list of 55 Free High Quality Icon Sets and the least we can say is “great stuff guys”!

Top 10 apps worth installing Adobe AIR for

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

You’ve obviously heard about Adobe AIR. But have you installed it yet or did you wait for some amazing application to require the AIR framework before installing it ? Well, that time might come thanks to the Lifehacker blog who have put up a list of the top 10 apps worth installing Adobe AIR for.

“Adobe AIR, a downloadable platform for running web-friendly apps on any operating system, is still pretty fresh on the market, but it already has a healthy number of applications in development or near completion. While many of them are simply desktop translations of web interfaces that were easy to use already, a handful of AIR apps truly make work and play easier, or just more interesting. Let’s take a look at 10 applications that make it worth the effort of downloading and installing Adobe AIR.”

Adobe teams up with Google and Yahoo to index more flash content for search

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Silicon Alley Insider reports that Adobe (ADBE) will make it easier for search engines to index more content in applications built with its Flash software. Previously, Google and Yahoo could index text and links in Flash animations and applications. Now, with some “optimized Adobe Flash Player technology,” they’ll be able to “uncover information” in Flash files “that is currently undiscoverable by search engines.”

This is a small revolution in the search engine’s world as Flash was, up to now, almost hermetic to search engines and a Flash developer had to create an alternative, plain HTML, web site just to add content to the search engines.

JSON Diff Released

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The never ending source of information which is Ajaxian is reporting the release of JSON Diff, a very handy tool to compare your JSON data. Just look at the following result screen shot to see the visual differences:

Changed portions are displayed in yellow. Additions are displayed in green. Deletions are displayed in red.

75 Insane High Res Photoshop Brushes

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to PSDTUTS’s Best of the Web - June article, you photoshop fans will be thrilled by the 75 Insane High Res Photoshop Brushes gathered by Elite By Design.

“Ah, the beautiful world of Photoshop brushes. With thousands of incredible sets floating around the web, and thousands more being made all the time, it can become quite a daunting task to find the perfect ones for your projects. Let me show you 75 insane high resolution Photoshop brushes that will be perfect for any project you may happen to be working on. Enjoy!”

JavaScript language advanced tips and tricks

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The guys behind the jslibs project have created a nice wiki with great JavaScript tips and tricks. Just see for yourself through the following samples. Some of them might not be available to all browsers but are worth a closer look…

Check if an object is not empty:

function isNotEmpty(obj) {
for ( var tmp in obj )
 return true
}

Transform the arguments object into an array:

How to get Cross Browser Compatibility Every Time

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Through WebAppers, here is a nice article on cross browser compatibility from Anthony Short.

“Cross-browser compatibility is one of the most time consuming tasks for any web designer. We’ve seen many different articles over the net describing common problems and fixes. I’ve collated all the information I could find to create some coding conventions for ensuring that your site will work first time in every browser. There are some things you should consider for Safari and Firefox also, and IE isn’t always the culprit for your CSS woes.”

Give little names to your pet SQL queries with Rails 2.1

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know about you but every time some news come out about Ruby on Rails, I’m saying to myself: “there is no way this can be any better that it already is”. And every time, they manage to find a way to impress me.

This time around, Ryan Daigle talks about the new named_scope feature in his “What’s New in Edge Rails: Has Finder Functionality” article.

Code documentation is all there is to happiness

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

You might be tempted to think like I did when I coded older web sites: “why would I want to spend my time documenting some pretty easy lines of code instead of developing tons of greater and funnier features ? That’s pure nonsense and a huge waste of time for a simple web site!”

I couldn’t be more wrong as there are a lot of benefits to documenting your code. It doesn’t take that long and it might even be fun if you use the right tools.

Welcome !

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Web And Say: All we have to say about the Web!

This web site will be about the web and all there is around it. The technologies behind the web, the news and people surrounding it, well… anything even remotely related to the web will have a part in webandsay.com