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Archive for September, 2007
2007 Archives
Recent Links: September 23 to September 26
Here are the links that I’ve recently saved to Ma.gnolia.
GammaToggle X
“GammaToggle is a utility that allows you to view your screen in Macintosh or PC gamma settings. This is extremely helpful for designers that wish to view what their graphics will look like on a Windows PC.”
Tags: os x, software, web design, design, gamma
O’Reilly surprised “there was no difference” between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants
Yet another sad example of the ignorance, fear and hate spread by Bill O’Reilly’s, and others on the far-right politically: ‘Discussing his recent dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia’s, Bill O’Reilly reported that he “couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in
New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.” O’Reilly added: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’ “‘
Tags: politics, conservative, hate, racism
End Papers
“Old textbooks, Golden books and kid’s books in general all had end papers that could set the mind soaring with the knowledge and adventures that awaited you between the covers.”
Tags: design inspiration, design, inspiration, illustration, books, show sarah
The Histogram as the Image
“The idea for this project started with a question: Is it possible to create an image that depicts its own histogram? (A histogram, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a bar graph representing all the tones in an image — it typically looks something like a mountain range).”
Tags: design inspiration, design, inspiration, show sarah
The new layers of web development
“In short, I’m suggesting that the (X)HTML templates used for a website in today’s modern world are much more closely related to presentation than they are to content. Why? Because (X)HTML templates are only one of many ways the content of a modern website is presented.”
Tags: web development, web design, practices
Remote JavaScript includes without the performance penalty (part 1)
“Here’s how you can keep your Flickr badge (or any other JavaScript include) from slowing down page rendering with just a few lines of code.”
Tags: web development, javascript
Cookshow
A recipe site that allows you to upload your recipes and browse the recipes of others in a video format. “Create your own cooking show”
Tags: food, food and drink, recipes, videos, cooking, show sarah
Rock Your Presentation with the Right Tools and Apps
“Whether your demo’ing software or explicating Melville, a computer hooked up to a projector can either give an audience a great audio/visual experience, or a bullet-studded snoozer. Whether you’re using a Mac or Windows, PowerPoint or Keynote, or simply presenting straight from your web browser, there are a few power tips, apps, and tools that can make your slideshow or demonstration smooth, entertaining and memorable.”
Tags: presentations, speeches, tool
Posted in Quick Links
On Balance and Layers
Jeff Croft has posted a very interesting article, The new layers of web development, presenting a view of the Web development landscape that’s been simmering in the back of my head, but that I’ve never been able to articulate in any coherent manner. Ultimately, my view that balance is good, all the more so when developing in the real world of corporations large and small, is based on discussions such as the one that has formed in the comments of the article.
HTML isn’t built for purity. So we might as well stop saddling it with those expectations. When the “pure” structure is stored somewhere else, the markup is just a translation. Use the best-available language to capture the essence of the structure in a medium-appropriate presentation. And if some of the subtler semantic nuances get lost in translation, well that just comes with the territory.
Damn right!
Posted in Web Development & Tagged: database, presentation, programming, web design, Web Development
Links from Ma.gnolia for September 23 to September 26
Here are the links that I’ve recently saved to Ma.gnolia.
MindMeister - think together
“MindMeister supports all the standard features of a classic mind mapping tool - only online, and with as many simultaneous users as you like! “
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: web application, brainstorming, mind mapping, outlining, share
P’s and Q’s - The Art of Letter Arrangement by Sallie B. Tannahill - Part 1. - a photoset on Flickr
“A 1923 book on the art of letter arrangement, P’s and Q’s is a visual approach to typography putting great emphasis on rhythm, balance and tone between individual letters, their shapes and their relationship to the larger text.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: typography, design, photos, scan, book, show sarah
Graphicology
“Graphicology - the science and art of communication design. Through proprietary content, thoughtful articles and timely editorials, graphicology approaches all topics of the communcation arts from both sides of the brain. Analytic and aesthetic. Artful and strategic. As well as Academic and Visceral. Graphicology aims to be your ally in staying current and inspired while practicing graphic design in today’s ever channging marketplace.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: design, show sarah
IEContentLoaded
“An alternative for DOMContentLoaded on Internet Explorer”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: javascript, ie, web development
creamundo.com
Free true-type fonts. Thousands of fonts to download for free.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: fonts, design, web design, show sarah
LiveMocha
“The social way to learn a language.
Community. Livemocha is the first-of-its-kind online language-learning community.
Lessons. Fun and interactive lessons that move at the right pace for you.
Motivation. Track your progress and reach your goals with Livemocha tools.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: education, community, social, learning, languages
Your Government: How To Write To Congress
“Writing to Congress is the single best way to express your view on public policy. The average consumer has a surprising ability to influence legislation by crafting a well written missive and avoiding several common mistakes.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: politics, congressional politics, congress, activism, united states, u.s., government
A CSS Sticky Footer
“We’ve all tried to use a sticky footer one time or another, but they never seem to come out right, do they? Well, the days of a hard to understand CSS-based sticky footer are thankfully over. In just a few simple CSS classes with minimal extra HTML markup, I’ve fashioned a sticky footer that even beginners can get a handle on. It’s been tested in IE 5 and up, Firefox, Safari and Opera.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: web design, web development, css, html
Five Wordpress “CMS Enabling” Plugins
A great post covering some helpful plug-ins handy for making WordPress into a near CMS.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: wordpress, plugins, web design, cms
The Button
“By the end of a couple of rounds of interviews, you’re going to know more about the health of the group you interviewed with than a lot of the people who interviewed you do. Freaky, isn’t it? Fact: all the different creatures you interview with are lost in the day to day of their respective jobs. The fresh perspective that you have after many hours of interviewing is unique and informative and while you still need Ninety Days to figure out what is really going on, you still have a lot of data.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: hiring, interviews
Google Analytics AIR beta
“The Google Analytics Reporting suite is an Adobe AIR application that brings Google Analytics to the desktop. It uses it’s own custom API to interact with Google and nearly implements all features of Analytics. See the feature list for more info.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Posted in Quick Links
Links from Ma.gnolia for September 20 to September 23
Here are the links that I’ve recently saved to Ma.gnolia.
What I Hate About Political Coverage
Paul Krugman discusses political reporting: “There are two big problems with this kind of reporting. The important problem is that it fails to inform the public about what matters. In 2004, very few people had any idea about the very real differences between the candidates on domestic policy. It remains to be seen whether 2008 is any better.
The other problem, which has become very apparent lately, is that this sort of coverage often fails even on its own terms, because the way things look to inside-the-Beltway pundits can be very different from the way they look to real people”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: politics, presedential politics, elections, united states, u.s., government, media
Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog
Paul Krugman writes about economics and policy.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: politics, economoics, media
ZigVersion
ZigVersion - Subversion Made Easy
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: os x, subversion
We Are Opening the Social Graph
“no one company should own everyone’s online identity. An open social graph is just as important as an open identity.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: openid, security, social
Website SEO Score Tool
Website Grader is a Free SEO Score Tool that evaluates your website on search engine optimization and marketing. Get your free report at www.websitegrader.com with custom advice for your website.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: web design, web development, seo
Amazon Widgets - Amazon.com Associates Central
‘“Amazon Widgets” are a series of small, easily configurable elements that can be used to feature Amazon.com products on blogs, websites and social networking pages. Users can easily build their own customized Amazon Widget in as little as one minute using a simple-to-use web interface’.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: amazon, affiliates, ecommerce, blogging
Praized
“Praized Media is a startup company working on a web-based application that will enable you to find and discover local places and merchants with help from people you can trust. It’s also a tool that will structure local conversations within blogs and a new platform for local search providers to generate leads from the untapped social media market.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Groups for Twitter; or A Proposal for Twitter Tag Channels
Chris proposes a methodology for making Twitter more convotextual.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: twitter, tags, channels, groups
The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Campaign
“A PB&J will slow global warming.
Next time you have one you’ll reduce your carbon footprint by saving the equivalent of 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over an average animal-based lunch like a hamburger, a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets.
That’s about forty percent of what you’d save driving around for the day in a hybrid instead of a standard sedan. “
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: food, food and drink, environment, sustainability
Bleach on fabric tutorial
A great tutorial that explains how to use bleach to “tattoo” a design onto a shirt rather than screenprinting it.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: design, clothing, show sarah
Posted in Quick Links
Where it Takes You
So I want to take this opportunity to offer some liberating words to those of you who claim you don’t have the attention span or the time or the interest to finish a book: Fuck finishing. Start and see where that takes you.
Somewhere between “Once upon…” and “…ever after.” - Present Imperfect
The first two sentences in that post ring quite true. I’ve done that. On more than one occasion.
Links from Ma.gnolia for September 17 to September 20
Here are the links that I’ve recently saved to Ma.gnolia.
Official Google Blog: Our feature presentation
“The new presentations feature of Google Docs helps you to easily organize, share, present, and collaborate on presentations, using only a web browser.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: google, online, web application, powerpoint
Plugins/Plugin Compatibility/2.3
A list of plugins compatible with WordPress 2.3, which includes some major changes, including to the database schema likely to break existing plugins.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The Free Mac Classroom
A large list of free apps for OS X.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: os x, software, applications, utilities, games
BuiltWith.com - Web Technology Profiler
“BuiltWith is a web site profiler tool. Upon looking up a page, BuiltWith returns all the technologies it can find on the page. BuiltWith’s goal is to help developers, researchers and designers find out what technologies pages are using which may help them to decide what technologies to implement themselves.
BuiltWith technology tracking includes widgets (snap preview), analytics (Google, Nielsen), frameworks (.NET, Java), publishing (WordPress, Blogger), advertising (DoubleClick, AdSense), CDNs (Amazon S3, Limelight), standards (XHTML,RSS), hosting software (Apache, IIS, CentOS, Debian) .”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: hosting, host, server, web development, admin
Manually Compressing PNGs
With the advent of some very clean hacks to make PNGs work in IE I’ve found myself working them into my designs more. Using them has allowed me to achieve some effects that were next to impossible with JPEGs and GIFs. The biggest hurdle in using PNGs is their file size. The export tools in Photoshop tie your hands behind your back, not allowing you to tweak anything that may lead to a more compact file. Until Photoshop adds some functionality I think I may have a handy solution.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: web design, png
PNG8 - The Clear Winner
An interesting alternative to the PNG hacks used to enable transparency on IE 5 & 6 - Use Fireworks to alter the alpha channel “chunk” of 8 bit PNGs.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: web design, png, fireworks
CakePHP : The PHP Rapid Development Framework
“Cake is a rapid development framework for PHP which uses commonly known design patterns like ActiveRecord, Association Data Mapping, Front Controller and MVC. Our primary goal is to provide a structured framework that enables PHP users at all levels to rapidly develop robust web applications, without any loss to flexibility.” - I just may use this for my next site.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: php, mvc, oop, web development, framework
Pirate Monkeyness
An English to Pirate translator in honor of International Talk Like a Pirate day, Sept 19th.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: pirates, talk like a pirate day, translator, widget, os x
LastGraph
A wavegraph generator for music that uses stats from any Last.fm account.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: last.fm, graph, music, stats
Brian Dettmer: Book Autopsies
“Brian Dettmer carves into books revealing the artwork inside, creating complex layered three-dimensional sculptures.” These are absolutely amazing!
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: books, art, design inspiration, show sarah
10 Easy Arithmetic Tricks
“Math can be terrifying for many people. This list will hopefully improve your general knowledge of mathematical tricks and your speed when you need to do math in your head.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A Gallery of Archetypes
A comprehensive list of Jungian archetypes with descriptions
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: mythology, jung, psychology, archetypes, philosophy, magick
Election ‘08: Seeking a ‘Tech President’
Technology companies have much at stake in 2008. Here’s where the candidates stand on the issues of crucial importance to Silicon Valley.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: politics, presedential politics, elections, united states, u.s., government, 2008 election, technology
What I Hate About Political Coverage
Paul Krugman discusses political reporting: “There are two big problems with this kind of reporting. The important problem is that it fails to inform the public about what matters. In 2004, very few people had any idea about the very real differences between the candidates on domestic policy. It remains to be seen whether 2008 is any better.
The other problem, which has become very apparent lately, is that this sort of coverage often fails even on its own terms, because the way things look to inside-the-Beltway pundits can be very different from the way they look to real people”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: politics, presedential politics, elections, united states, u.s., government, media
Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog
Paul Krugman writes about economics and policy.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: politics, economoics, media
ZigVersion
ZigVersion - Subversion Made Easy
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: os x, subversion
We Are Opening the Social Graph
“no one company should own everyone’s online identity. An open social graph is just as important as an open identity.”
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: openid, security, social
Website SEO Score Tool
Website Grader is a Free SEO Score Tool that evaluates your website on search engine optimization and marketing. Get your free report at www.websitegrader.com with custom advice for your website.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Tags: web design, web development, seo
Posted in Quick Links
Talk Like A Pirate Day
Avast, ’tis that glorious time o’ year again me hearties - Talk Like A Pirate Day. So put down yer coffee ‘n raise th’ bottle o’ rum as ye find some ships t’ raid ‘n villages t’ plunder, damn yer cursed eyes!
Links from Ma.gnolia for Sep 13 to Sep 16
Some new widgets for the WordPress MyDashboard plugin.
Tags: wordpress, plugin, mydashboard, widgets
The Elements of JavaScript Style
“I have been at Yahoo for two years. One of the first things I did when I got there was to do a View Source of the front page. That gave me a lot of visibility into how things were done. I also saw some things to improve. That inspired me to write the first two chapters of The Elements of JavaScript Style.”
Tags: web development, javascript
Matchbook Museum
“I’ve selected the best for their graphic design, historical value, or the sad tale you can infer by holding them between thumb and finger and listening closely.”
Tags: design inspiration, design, inspiration, show sarah
Vinyl junkies, show us your records!
A wonderful photo pool on Flickr.
Tags: covers, record covers, lp, ep, vinyl, disc, design, show sarah
Posted in Quick Links
A Reminder - QuickSilver Style
So, I ran across a little QuickSilver tip which may be old news for the QS power users, but was new to me: QuickSilver is a a great timer for reminders. So, say you need to call someone in 30 minutes, but you don’t want to have to keep monitoring the clock as you are working on a project, writing e-mails etc. You could use a dashboard widget, or a kitchen timer, but why not use QuickSilver? It’s pretty damned easy:
- Open QuickSilver (cmd-space) and type a period (.) to open the QS text box
- Type your message (Call the restaurant to confirm tonight’s reservation) and hit the tab key to move to the commands pane
- The first option is to display as large text, make sure its highlighted and hit ctrl-enterto save that command to be used in conjunction with the next command:
- Choose ‘Run after Delay’ or ‘Run at Time’
- To have your message appear on screen in half an hour, type ‘30m’ (30 minutes) in the box and hit enter.
It take about five seconds to do, and in half an hour, you’ll see a large box reminding you to “Call the restaurant to confirm tonight’s reservation”. Give it a shot, it’s a very useful feature! You can of course use other time options, seconds, hours etc.
Thanks to David Hayes for publishing the tip on his site, where I stumbled across it.
Posted in OS X & Tagged: OS X, productivity, quicksilver, tip
Links from Ma.gnolia for Sep 10 to Sep 13
“Acorn is a new image editor built with one goal in mind - simplicity. Fast, easy, and fluid, Acorn provides the options you’ll need without any overhead. Acorn feels right, and won’t drain your bank account.”
Tags: web design, design, os x, aplication
Comparison of web application frameworks
A large table comparing the features in different Web app frameworks.
Tags: web development, php, ruby on rails, ror, java, python, django, cake
Photoshop Secret Shortcuts
“30 secret Photoshop shortcuts that I’ve learned from years of experience. Well, what I mean by “secret” is that these shortcuts are not documented in the menus.”
Tags: photoshop, design, web design, show sarah
bubbl.us
“Bubbl.us is a simple and free web application that lets you brainstorm online.”
Tags: web application, brainstorming, mind mapping, outlining, share
Processing
“Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.”
Tags: programming, design
Styling File Inputs with CSS and the DOM
“File inputs () are the bane of beautiful form design. No rendering engine provides the granular control over their presentation designers desire. This simple, three-part progressive enhancement provides the markup, CSS, and JavaScript to address the long-standing irritation.”
Tags: web design, forms, html, javascript, css
Technorati Topics: Politics
Technorati’s constantly updating stream of political stories from the blogosphere.
Tags: politics, presedential politics, elections, united states, u.s., government
Beef Satay with Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce
“Food on a stick = happiness.”
Tags: recipes, cooking, food and wine, beef
Green Chili with Pork (Chili Verde)
“My version started out as a stew/soup, which was great, but when simmered slowly for a few more hours it became an outrageously good burrito filling or topping for a burrito, or whatever else you want it to be. Perhaps a filling for enchiladas?”
Tags: recipes, cooking, food and wine, pork