martinstoeckli.ch

ColorBug is a freeware color picker offered on martinstoeckli.ch, and its stated purpose is simple: it lets you pick colors from anywhere on the screen. That makes it useful when you see a color you want to reuse — in a website, an image, another application, or anywhere else visible on your display — and need its exact value rather than a guess. The site lists ColorBug alongside SilentNotes and CopyPathMenu as part of the author's freeware tools, so it is one of several utilities rather than a standalone commercial product.

What ColorBug does

According to the site, "With ColorBug it is simple to pick colors from anywhere on the screen." The key word is anywhere: the tool is not limited to a single window or to colors defined inside one program. If a color is visible on your monitor, it is a candidate for picking.

That matters because the usual alternative is manual: open an image editor, paste a screenshot, and sample from it. A screen picker shortens that loop to a single action.

How picking a color typically works

The site describes the capability but not a step-by-step procedure, so the following reflects how screen color pickers generally operate. Treat it as a workflow to expect, not as a reproduction of ColorBug's exact menus.

1. Start the picker. Launch ColorBug and activate its picking mode. Many pickers stay resident in the system tray so you can trigger a pick without reopening the app.
2. Move the cursor over the target color. The color under the pointer is sampled continuously. Some tools show a magnified view so you can aim at a single pixel.
3. Click or press a key to capture. The color is recorded at that moment.
4. Read or copy the value. The result is usually given in a standard notation such as hex (for example #3A7BD5) or RGB, ready to paste into a stylesheet, design file, or settings field.

The expected result of each step is straightforward: after step 3 you should have one specific color value, and after step 4 you should be able to paste it somewhere without retyping it.

When a screen color picker is the right tool

• Matching an existing interface. You want a new element to match a color already on screen, and you do not have the original value.
• Sampling from a non-editable source. The color lives in a PDF, a video frame, a game, or a remote desktop session — places where you cannot open the source file to read the value.
• Building a palette from observation. You are collecting colors from several sources and want consistent, exact values rather than approximations.

If the color already exists in a file you control, reading the value from that file is usually more reliable than sampling pixels, because rendering, scaling, and color profiles can shift what appears on screen.

Practical points to keep in mind

• Screen rendering can alter the value. Anti-aliasing, transparency, display scaling, and monitor color profiles mean the sampled pixel may not equal the original color definition. Sampling the center of a solid area, not an edge, reduces this.
• The site does not state supported platforms or system requirements for ColorBug. The page describes SilentNotes as running on Android and Windows, but that detail is attached to SilentNotes, not to ColorBug, so it should not be transferred. Check the ColorBug page itself before assuming a platform.
• No pricing or licensing terms are given on the homepage. ColorBug is described as freeware, but the page does not include a license text or download terms, so confirm those where you obtain it.

Where it fits on martinstoeckli.ch

The homepage groups ColorBug with ExplorerGenie (an Explorer context-menu extension for copying file paths and opening a command line) and SilentNotes (a WYSIWYG note-taking app with privacy in mind, open-source, for Android and Windows). The site also hosts programming tips for PHP, Delphi, and C#, plus a tutorial on safely storing passwords. If your task is picking a color, ColorBug is the relevant entry; the rest of the site addresses different problems.

If you're new to Ahrefs and want to run your first SEO audit, the fastest path is: open Site Explorer, enter your target URL, review the Overview for a health snapshot, then dig into Organic Keywords, Top Pages, and Site Audit to find specific problems. From there, build a short prioritized to-do list instead of trying to fix everything at once.

This tutorial walks through that workflow using a realistic starting scenario, explains what the numbers mean, and shows how to turn findings into actions.

Before You Start: Pick a Narrow Scope

A common beginner mistake is auditing an entire large website on day one. The reports become overwhelming, and you can't tell which issues matter.

Instead, choose one of these starting points:

• A single important page (your homepage or a key product/service page)
• A small site (under ~50 pages, e.g., a personal blog or small business site)
• One section of a bigger site (e.g., /blog/)

For this tutorial, assume you're auditing a small business site with about 30 pages. The same steps scale up later.

You'll need an Ahrefs account to follow along. Ahrefs offers paid plans, and pricing and feature limits change over time, so check the current Pricing page for what's included in each tier before committing.

Step 1: Enter Your Target in Site Explorer

Site Explorer is Ahrefs' core tool for analyzing any website or URL.

1. Open Site Explorer from the top navigation.
2. In the search box, paste your domain (e.g., example.com).
3. Choose the Exact URL or Domain mode depending on scope. For a full-site view, use Domain or Prefix; for a single page, use Exact URL.
4. Press Enter.

You'll land on the Overview report. Don't try to absorb everything — focus on four numbers first.

Reading the Overview Snapshot

Important caveat: Ahrefs' traffic and keyword numbers are estimates based on its own data. They won't match Google Search Console or your analytics exactly. Treat them as directional, not absolute.

Step 2: See What You Already Rank For

Go to Organic Keywords in the left sidebar. This shows queries where your site appears in search results.

Sort by Traffic (descending) to see which pages bring the most estimated visitors. Then look for:

• Keywords ranking in positions 4–15 — these are often the easiest wins. A small content or on-page improvement can push them onto page one.
• Keywords with high volume but low position — potential opportunities if the topic is relevant.
• Irrelevant keywords — if you rank for something off-topic, it may signal thin or mismatched content.

Write down 5–10 of the position 4–15 keywords. These become your first optimization targets.

Step 3: Find Your Best and Weakest Pages

Open Top Pages. This ranks your URLs by estimated organic traffic.

Look for two things:

1. Your top performers — understand what topics and formats work. Can you create more content like this?
2. Pages with traffic but poor rankings — these may need on-page fixes (title, headings, internal links).

If a page gets zero traffic and targets a topic you care about, it's a candidate for a rewrite or consolidation.

Step 4: Run a Technical Site Audit

Now move to Site Audit. This crawls your site and flags technical and on-page issues.

1. Click Site Audit → New project.
2. Enter your domain and set crawl settings (default is usually fine for a small site).
3. Start the crawl and wait for it to finish.

Once complete, you'll see a Health Score and a list of issues grouped by category.

Which Issues to Fix First

Not all issues are equal. Prioritize in this order:

Ignore low-impact warnings (like minor meta description length) until the big items are handled.

Step 5: Turn Findings Into a To-Do List

You now have raw data. Convert it into a short, actionable list. Example:

1. Fix 3 broken links found in Site Audit.
2. Rewrite title tags on 5 pages with duplicate titles.
3. Improve 4 pages ranking in positions 6–12 by adding missing subtopics and internal links.
4. Remove or update 2 thin pages with no traffic.

Keep the list to 5–10 items max for your first audit. Finishing a short list beats starting a long one.

Common Beginner Mistakes

• Chasing every red flag. Site Audit flags many minor issues. Fix what affects rankings and users first.
• Trusting estimates as exact numbers. Ahrefs data is modeled, not measured from your analytics.
• Auditing a huge site too early. Start small to learn the interface.
• Ignoring search intent. A page can be technically perfect but still fail if it doesn't match what searchers want.
• Forgetting to re-crawl. After fixes, run Site Audit again to confirm improvements.

Where to Go Next

Once your first audit is done:

• Compare with competitors using Site Explorer's Competing Domains and Content Gap reports.
• Track keyword rankings over time with Rank Tracker.
• Explore backlink opportunities in the Backlinks and Link Intersect reports.
• Set up recurring Site Audit crawls so new issues surface automatically.

Your first audit isn't about perfection — it's about building a repeatable habit: enter a target, read the key reports, pick the highest-impact fixes, and act. Do that once a month and your site's health compounds.

Martin Stoeckli's site includes a tutorial on safely storing passwords, aimed at developers and technically minded users who need to decide how to handle credentials in their own projects. The core message is that passwords should never be stored in a form that lets anyone — including the person running the system — read them back. Instead, they should be run through a one-way hashing process, and the tutorial's "Hashing passwords" section is the place to look for the specifics. If you just want to understand the principle and the common mistakes, the summary below covers what the site points to.

The basic principle: store a hash, not the password

A password hash is the output of a one-way function: you can turn a password into a hash, but you cannot turn the hash back into the password. When a user logs in, you hash what they typed and compare it to the stored hash. If they match, the password was correct.

This means a stolen database does not directly hand over anyone's password — as long as the hashing is done properly.

What the tutorial points to

The site's own description of the tutorial is brief: it is about "Safely storing passwords," and the related page is titled "Hashing passwords." The homepage lists it under "Utilities/Tutorials" alongside a character map and a note about the debugger mouse, so it sits in the same section as Stoeckli's practical reference material rather than in the freeware tool listings.

The tutorial is written in the context of the programming languages Stoeckli works with — the site has separate tips sections for PHP, Delphi, and C#. That matters for how you read it: the advice is aimed at someone implementing password storage in an application, not at an end user choosing a password manager.

Common mistakes to avoid

Even without reproducing the tutorial line by line, the failure modes it addresses are well established and worth checking your own code against:

• Storing the password in plain text. The most basic error. Anyone with read access to the database — or a backup, or a log file — has every password.
• Using a fast general-purpose hash. Functions designed for speed are also fast for an attacker guessing billions of candidates. Password hashing needs to be deliberately slow.
• Skipping the salt. Without a unique random value per password, identical passwords produce identical hashes, and precomputed tables (rainbow tables) become useful.
• Rolling your own scheme. Combining hashes in a clever homemade way usually removes the properties that made the underlying function safe.
• Encrypting instead of hashing. Encryption is reversible by design. If the key leaks, every password leaks. Hashing has no key to leak.

How to apply this

If you are implementing password storage, the practical sequence is:

1. Choose a password-hashing function intended for the job, not a general-purpose digest.
2. Generate a unique random salt for each password and store it alongside the hash.
3. Tune the work factor so hashing takes a noticeable but tolerable amount of time on your hardware.
4. Store the full result — algorithm identifier, parameters, salt, and hash — so you can verify later and upgrade the parameters over time.
5. Verify by re-hashing the submitted password with the stored salt and parameters, then comparing.

The verification step should use a constant-time comparison so that the time taken does not reveal how much of the hash matched.

Where this fits on the site

martinstoeckli.ch is Stoeckli's personal homepage, and the password tutorial is one of several reference pieces there. The same site hosts freeware tools — SilentNotes (a WYSIWYG note-taking app for Android and Windows), ExplorerGenie (an Explorer context-menu extension), ColorBug (an on-screen color picker), and CopyPathMenu — plus programming tips for PHP, Delphi, and C#. The password tutorial is not a product page; it is guidance for developers, and it is worth reading in full if you are the one writing the storage code.

ExplorerGenie is a freeware extension for the Windows Explorer context menu, offered on martinstoeckli.ch. It adds handy commands to the right-click menu, most notably the ability to copy a file's path to the clipboard or open a command line directly from Explorer. It is aimed at Windows users who frequently work with file paths or the command prompt and want to save a few clicks.

What ExplorerGenie Does

According to the site's own description, ExplorerGenie is "an extension to the Explorer context menu." Its stated purpose is practical: it is useful "if you often need to copy the path of a file to the clipboard, or have to open the command line."

So the core value is convenience. Instead of manually navigating folders in a terminal or typing out long paths, you right-click a file or folder and let ExplorerGenie handle it.

The two headline capabilities

• Copy a file path to the clipboard — grab the full path of a selected file or folder without opening its properties or typing it out.
• Open the command line — launch a command prompt in the relevant location directly from the context menu.

Both actions target the same kind of user: someone who moves between the graphical file manager and command-line or scripting work.

Who It Is For

ExplorerGenie fits workflows where paths and terminals come up often. For example, if you need to run a script against a specific file, paste a path into a config, or open a terminal in a project folder, the extension removes the intermediate steps of copying paths by hand or cd-ing through directories.

It is less relevant if you rarely touch the command line or never need file paths outside Explorer — in that case the added menu entries offer little benefit.

Where It Fits in the Site's Toolset

martinstoeckli.ch hosts several freeware tools by Martin Stoeckli, and ExplorerGenie is one of them alongside:

The site also publishes programming tips (PHP, Delphi, C#) and a tutorial on safely storing passwords, which reflects the developer's broader focus on practical utilities and privacy-conscious software.

How to Get and Use It

The homepage presents ExplorerGenie as one of the site's freeware tools and links to more information about it. To use it:

1. Visit martinstoeckli.ch and open the ExplorerGenie page (linked from the freeware tools section).
2. Download and install the extension following the instructions provided there.
3. After installation, right-click a file or folder in Windows Explorer and look for the ExplorerGenie entries in the context menu.
4. Choose the action you need — copy the path or open the command line.

The exact menu labels and installation steps are described on the tool's own page, so check there for the current details.

A Note on Scope

The site describes ExplorerGenie at a summary level: it is a context-menu extension for copying paths and opening the command line. If you need specifics such as supported Windows versions, exact menu wording, or additional features, the dedicated ExplorerGenie page on martinstoeckli.ch is the authoritative source.

martinstoeckli.ch is the personal homepage of developer Martin Stoeckli. It is a small, single-author site that hosts his freeware tools, programming tips, and a few practical tutorials. If you are looking for a specific utility like SilentNotes or ExplorerGenie, or for short technical write-ups on PHP, Delphi, or C#, this site is the source. It is not a commercial product site, a blog with regular news, or a software marketplace.

What the site offers

The homepage groups its content into three broad areas:

• Freeware tools — downloadable utilities for Windows and Android.
• Programming tips — short notes on PHP, Delphi, and C#.
• Utilities and tutorials — practical guides, including one on safely storing passwords and a character map.

The site describes itself as "my small home in the world wide web," which sets the expectation: content is personal, focused, and updated at the author's discretion rather than on a publishing schedule.

The freeware tools

Two details are worth noting. SilentNotes is explicitly described as open-source and privacy-oriented, which matters if you want to inspect the code or avoid cloud-dependent note apps. ExplorerGenie targets a common Windows annoyance — getting a file's full path into the clipboard without navigating folder by folder.

The homepage excerpt does not list prices, download links, or license terms for these tools beyond calling them "freeware." If cost or licensing is a deciding factor for you, check the individual tool pages rather than assuming terms from the homepage.

Programming tips and tutorials

The site collects tips for three languages the author works with:

• PHP tips
• Delphi tips
• C# tips

There is also a dedicated tutorial on safely storing passwords, which the homepage singles out as worth a look if you are interested in passwords. For anyone building authentication into an application, this is the most directly applicable piece of content on the site.

A character map utility and a note about the debugger mouse round out the utilities section.

Who this site is for

• Windows users who want small, focused utilities rather than large suites — ExplorerGenie and ColorBug fit this.
• Android or Windows users who want a privacy-conscious, open-source note app — SilentNotes fits this.
• Developers working in PHP, Delphi, or C# who want short, practical tips rather than full courses.
• Anyone learning about password storage who wants a tutorial-level explanation.

It is less useful if you need actively maintained commercial software with support contracts, or a large community forum.

How to navigate it

The homepage is the entry point. From there, jump directly to the tool or topic you need:

1. Identify whether you want a tool (SilentNotes, ExplorerGenie, ColorBug, CopyPathMenu) or reference material (PHP/Delphi/C# tips, password tutorial).
2. Follow the corresponding section on the homepage.
3. For tools, look for the individual tool page to confirm platform, download, and any license details — the homepage only summarizes.

The site is in English. There is no indication of a login requirement or paid tier, but the homepage also does not state pricing, so treat "freeware" as the author's label and verify specifics on each tool's page.