Archive for the ‘Resources’ Category
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
I’m sure many of you know about this site already,but I still am compelled to list it because of its vast resources. developerWorks is a huge resource created by IBM that should not be overlooked by new and seasoned web developers. Blogs, podcasts, live webcasts, and on location conferences are all listed and available through their site. It’s a fantastic resource chock full of great information. Check it out and check back often…you’ll learn something every time you visit their site.
Popularity: 2%
Posted in Design, Resources | No Comments »
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
Have you ever found yourself trying to remember lots of different things only to forget them later? I hate it when that happens. I’ve thought about carrying a mini voice recorder around to record thoughts, ideas, or a description of something that I saw, but it’s not practical. I often wonder how many things I ‘miss’ because I forget. As a web designer, it’s important to try and remember things that catch your eye or provide some sort of inspiration.
Evernote has come up with a clever way to assist people like me (and perhaps you too?). Evernote allows you to use your phone to record pictures, video or audio, it also allows you to capture information you have found on the Internet too. Once the information is captured, it makes this information accessible and searchable at anytime and from anywhere. Not bad!
So now, you can take a snapshot of a cool design, or record information you want to remember later on, and Evernote gives you the ability to retrieve it later on across multiple platforms. You can access the information from your desktop, phone, or Internet.
Check it out and let me know what you think of it. I’m going to give it a try.
**Also, I have to mention their logo as well. It’s a great, simple design. The elephant ties in perfectly with their tag line, “remember everything.” Elephants, excellent memories, they never forget…get it?! Anyhow, it’s a great logo. I hope Evermore catches on and finds itself useful to many, many people. It seems like a great idea.
Popularity: 4%
Posted in Internet, Logos, Resources, Tools | No Comments »
Friday, May 16th, 2008
A great list of novice web developer’s resources has been posted at WebhHostingUnleashed.com. Laura Milligan has collected and put together this list of 100+ open courseware collections for aspiring web developers. Here is the first 5, I recommend browsing through the rest of them on their website.
- Software Engineering for Web Applications: This MIT course gives intermediate to advanced instruction in Web security, accommodating user demands and more.
- Web Page Authoring: Get the basics of working with HTML coding so that you can start experimenting with colors, text, links and more.
- Ruby on Rails: Learn about plugins, Ruby tools, and style information from the Ruby wikibook.
- Visual Basic 6: When making websites that need to accommodate Internet explorer, turn to this collection of free tutorials.
- Server-Side Web Development Distributed Lectures: Learn all about server-side programming, Web servers, creating PHP programs and more from these lectures.
Go to WebHostingUnleashed.com to see the whole list.
Thanks to Fiona King of WebHostingUnleashed.com for the heads up on this.
Popularity: 4%
Posted in Developers, Resources, Schools, Tools, Tutorials | No Comments »
Thursday, May 15th, 2008
Yesterday Google announced that Doctype, an encyclopedia for web developers, written and maintained by web developers is now available. Take a moment to read their own announcement. I’m sure this will become a valuable resource and tool for all of us:
“The open web is the web built on open standards: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and more. The open web is a beautiful soup of barely compatible clients and servers. It comprises billions of pages, millions of users, and thousands of browser-based applications. You can access the open web with open source and proprietary browsers, on open source and proprietary operating systems, on open source and proprietary hardware.
Google has built its business here, on the open web, and we want to help you build here too. To that end, we are happy to announce the formation of an encyclopedia for web developers, by web developers: Google Doctype.
In its current (beta) form, Google Doctype contains dozens of articles written by top Googlers on topics important to all web developers: security, performance, caching, DOM manipulation, CSS styling, and more. It contains over 8,000 lines of JavaScript code: Google’s own battle-tested JavaScript library, released today under a liberal open source license. And it contains the beginnings of a test-driven reference of the open web: a reference of every element, every attribute, every DOM method, every CSS property, all backed up by test cases.
Well, not quite every property; at least, not yet. We’re still working on filling in a few of the details about the world’s largest development platform ever, and we need your help. And so we humbly offer this fledgling encyclopedia under a Creative Commons Attribution license, and we invite the web developers of the world to contribute to it. Sign in with your Google account and edit any page, any article, anywhere. Create new ones, update old ones, and help expand the world’s understanding of the open web.”
Popularity: 2%
Posted in Resources, Sandards, Tools | No Comments »
Monday, May 12th, 2008
As a web designer, it’s important to know the basics about how SEO works. It’s important to know what is effective so you can incorporate it into your design process. It’s also important to know the basic steps that will help your client with their website once it’s live and running for all the world to see.
WebmasterRadio.FM has put together a great 10 part series that covers SEO and marketing in general. Here are the 10 topics that they cover:
1. Keyword Research
2. Competitor Analysis
3. Site Structure
4. Content Optimization
5. Link Building
6. Social Media
7. PPC
8. Statistics Analysis
9. Conversion Optimization
10. Keeping It Up: Sustaining Search Rankings and Increasing Conversions
The nice thing about using WebmasterRadio is that you can listen to this series instead of reading it. This means you can work and listen at the same time! Multi-tasking made easy, haha. I would encourage you to listen to it. It may be a good refresher for some of you and for others, invaluable information that you have not yet considered. Check it out!
**I like their logo too! Bright, eyecatching, and it contains their full website url in it. Nice…
Popularity: 3%
Posted in Resources, Tools, Website Design Articles | No Comments »
