If your like me you just can’t help playing with new technologies. Since I started working with the web it has been a whirlwind ride with so much happening that it can be mind blowing. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, some new buzz pops up. The web is a truly dynamic medium that is constantly evolving and trying to keep up with all the new technologies makes it that much more interesting.

Sydney FX started with web design back in 2004 but these days I spend more time studying new web technologies like ruby on rails, flex and the new AIR from Adobe and sometimes you need costly editors to assist you in speeding up your development time.

Well now there is an IDE that is multi platform so no matter if your working on Windows, Apple, or Linux, there is a release just for you.

Now I haven’t been using Aptana for very long but I have now installed it on both my Windows and Linux platforms mainly for Rails development because there are very few good editors that meet the needs of rails programmers straight out of the box. Most mac users including myself use the Textmate however Aptana is great if you can’t spare the money for a mac or need an alternative editor when you don’t have a mac handy or don’t want a mac altogether.

I’ve seen a number of custom setups for text editors on linux which look great however you’ll need to know how to get the editor to suit your needs. If you don’t have that knowledge then check out Aptana. It’s really cool, and can be used for all the latest web technology programming like Ajax, HTML, AIR, and even iPhone.

Aptana is an open source project founded by Paul Colton who has been involved in a number of successful technologies in previous ventures. Check out more of Aptana at the official website.

When you spend so much time on the web like me, you find that you are always trying to remember login details and passwords to the host of sites that you’ve registered to. I’m registered on so many sites these days that it is becoming a challenge to keep up.

To add fuel to the fire, I like to have unique passwords for all the sites I visit so coming up with new passwords, writing them down and all that becomes really, really tedious and sometimes you just can’t be bothered to come up with a new password so you end up using a common one alot of the time.

I have been trialling for a month or so now a password manager for Mac however I wasn’t really happy with it, as it was a bit clunky and the company didn’t reply to my email so off I went looking for alternatives.

I found 1passwd.com has written this cool mac password manager and form filler application that integrates into Firefox, and Safari on Mac as well as a range of other browsers. It automatically records your passwords when you enter them in your login forms so you don’t ever have to do it again and all you need to do is remember one password, hence the name.

Download a Trial Version

video from www.1passwd.com

With so many spammers and scammers out there trying to steal your information you need to have a tool that takes the headaches out of your password security and 1passwd does just that, and at only USD$29.95 it’s a steal.

I downloaded the free version and after using it for a few days I went back and bought it for myself. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

While I ventured into my Ruby on Rails experience, I found this great text editor called Textmate that is recommended by the Rails team for Mac users. Unfortunately there isn’t a version for Windows so you’ll have to convert to Mac if you want it.

Personally I’ve never really been a big fan of text editors for any serious work and this has mainly been because they have never had much functionality up until now. Textmate is a very cool editor having the ability to provide code structure, highlighting, code block collapsing and so much more.

You can code HTML, Applescript, Javascript, Ruby, XML and more. This is one texteditor that is full of surprises with plenty of options for even the most hardcore coding junkie.

Once you start using it you’ll find it very addictive thinking hey, I can use Textmate to code this, and I can use textmate to code that. So crunch time… how much is it? Well it only costs around AUS$70 which isn’t alot for such an extensive and well designed texteditor that is more than capable of handling all your coding duties and more. If your not sure you’ll like it, you can download the trial version for a limited time before you decide to hand over any cash.

Find out more about Textmate from www.macromates.com.