The Initial Offering

We’ve launched with only a handful of beautiful choices; however, if you don’t find the one you need today, remember that we’ll be adding to this list on a daily basis (hint hint, authors).

Airmail

“Airmail is a professionally built and designed custom HTML email template! Perfect for just about anyone – usable for everything from newsletters to eFlyers to whitepapers.”

Atlantica

“Atlantica Mail is a professionally built and designed custom HTML email template; perfect for just about anyone – usable for everything from newsletters to eFlyers to whitepapers.”

CleanMail

“CleanMail is a simple yet sexy email template package with 5 different color schemes!”

TheClub

“theClub is a darker color two column template geared towards the nightlife! With this template, you get the original CSS as well as the ready-to-mail inline CSS .”

Quantum Email Newsletter

“A modern & clean HTML email template; comes in three colors: green, blue & pink.”

So if you Have a Moment…

Pay a visit to our newest category on ThemeForest, and considering picking up a new template. On the other hand, if you’re an author on ThemeForest – time to create some tables! There’s money to be made!

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Update: Winners Announced

Congratulations to the following users who were randomly selected as the winners of jQuery Enlightenment! You’ve all been contacted via Twitter and email with instructions.

• enatom
• Jacob
• D.
• Michael Espinosa
• Ryan

Not a Winner?

In that case, Cody has given me a special $5 off discount code, which is valid for the first 300 purchases and expires on November 18th. To use it, visit the jQuery Enlightenment site, click on the “Have a discount code” link, and use the following code: nettuts5bucksoff.

At a Glance

To prove how much I enjoyed reading this book: I received my review copy on a Wednesday, and finished it the next day. As I’m sure many of you are aware, tech books and front to back reads very rarely go well together. This is a testament to the “no fluff” aspect I referenced earlier. Over the course of a dozen chapters, Cody will teach you everything you need to know.

• Chapter 1 – Core jQuery
• Chapter 2 – Selecting
• Chapter 3 – Traversing
• Chapter 4 – Manipulation
• Chapter 5 – HTML Forms
• Chapter 6 – Events
• Chapter 7 – jQuery and the web browser
• Chapter 8 – Plugins
• Chapter 9 – Performance best practices
• Chapter 10 – Effects
• Chapter 11- AJAX
• Chaper 12 – Miscellaneous concepts

Who this Book is for?

While most books on jQuery are primarily focused on introducing the library to new users, jQuery Enlightenment instead assumes you’re at an intermediate level hoping to learn the more advanced tips and techniques. As such, I especially enjoyed the read more than I would have if it was just another crash course style book. Assuming that you’re a regular Nettuts+ reader, it’s more than probable that you have at least a basic understand of jQuery. If so, it’s time to take your skills to the next level; jQuery Enlightenment will take you there.

Though perhaps the most convincing reason to check out Cody’s new book is because he’s an official member of the jQuery team.

JSBin Snippets

Throughout the book, Cody supplies every single code snippet with a respective live preview from JSBin. This may not sound like much; however, it’s incredibly helpful when you can simply click on a link, and immediately be transported to a page which allows you to “toy” with the code. I can’t tell you how vital this is – and, frankly, it’s shocking that more web development e-books haven’t taken advantage of this yet.

About the Author

Cody Lindley is a Christian, husband, son, father, brother, outdoor enthusiast, and client-side engineer. Since 1997 he has been passionate about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, Interaction Design, Interface Design, and HCI. He is most well known in the jQuery community for the creation of Thickbox, a modal/dialog solution. In 2008 he officially joined the jQuery team as an evangelist. His current focus has been on client-side optimization techniques as well as speaking and writing about jQuery. As of late he is employeed by Ning.com

Free Copies!

Cody has been generous enough to offer a handful of copies to our readers! To enter, simply leave a comment, and check back on Monday (Tuesday for some of you) to see if you’re a winner! Otherwise, if you’d like to purchase the ebook and immediately read it, you can buy it here.

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for the best web development tutorials on the web.

1: Javascript: The Good Parts

• Length: 1 hour, 3 minutes
• Speaker: Douglas Crockford
• Slides (powerpoint)

Is JavaScript a hopeless mess, or a robust and flexible standard? In this presentation, Douglas Crockford, the world’s foremost authroity on JavaScript, will try and convince you that the language is worth your time. This is a great video, and everyone coming to JavaScript for the first time should watch it! You might also want to check out Crockford’s book by the same title. (Here’s another instance of the same talk.)

2: The JavaScript Programming Language

• Length: 1 hour, 51 minutes
• Speaker: Douglas Crockford
• Slides (zip)

This is the first session in Crockford’s JavaScript Trilogy. In this talk, he’ll walk you through many of the features in JavaScript, as well as discuss the language itself and some JS programming styles. Here’s another great watch for newcomers!

3: An Inconvenient API: The Theory of the DOM

• Length: 1 hour, 18 minutes
• Speaker : Douglas Crockford
• Slides (zip)

While this video isn’t focused on JavaScript, it’s the second part of Douglas Crockford’s JavaScript Trilogy. You’ll hear about the browser, why it is the way it is, and a few of the key concepts behind it. Of course, it’s all very relevant to JavaScript Developers.

4: Advanced JavaScript

• Length: 1 hour, 7 minutes
• Speaker: Douglas Crockford
• Slides (zip)

This is the final installment to Crockford’s trilogy. Moving up to advanced concepts, this video will introduce you to topics such as inheritance, debugging, and efficiency.

5: Games, Performance, TestSwarm

• Length: 1 hour, 11 minutes
• Speaker: John Resig
• Slides (slideshare)

John Resig, the creator of jQuery, knows what he’s talking about. In this presentation, which he gave at JSConf 2009, he talked about measuring performance in JavaScript (including an intro to the pros and cons of benchmarking), as well as JavaScript games and distributed testing.

6: Speed Up Your JavaScript

• Length: 56 minutes
• Speaker: Nicholas C. Zakas
• Slides (slideshare)

Nicolas Zakas is the author of “Professional JavaScript for Developers” and co-author of “Professional Ajax.” This talk is all about performance, and you’ll hear the low down in the areas of scope, data access, loops, and the DOM.

7: Best Practices in JavaScript Library Design (or Building a JavaScript Library)

• Length: 1 hour, 1 minute
• Speaker: John Resig
• Slides (slideshare)

Ever wanted to build your own JavaScript Library? John Resig talks about the princples of doing so in this Google Tech Talk. He covers the whole spectrum from designing a good API to maintaining the library, with implementing, debugging, and testing (just to name a few!) in the middle.

8: Drop-In JavaScript Performance (or Perfomance Improvements in Browsers)

• Length: 1 hour, 2 minutes
• Speaker: John Resig
• Slides (slideshare)

In this video, John Resig goes through some of the latest and greatest in the world of JavaScript and DOM performance. Although this type of talk goes out of data somewhat quickly (the browser speed stats are pretty stale), there’s still a lot to look forward to here!

9: JavaScript Events

• Length: 55 Minutes
• Speaker: Peter-Paul Koch
• Slides (pdf)

Peter-Paul Koch is a professional front-end engineer from the Netherlands. He’s done an enormous ammount of CSS and JavaScipt browser testing and has published the charts on his website, Quirksmode. This talk is a JavaScript Events Theory Class given at Yahoo!.

10: Scalable JavaScript Application Architecture

• Length: 52 minutes
• Speaker: Nicolas C. Zakas
• Slides (slideshare)

This is a great theory presentation; Nicolas Zakas talks about JavaScript architecture. You’ll learn how to separate modules on a page, how to get them to interact with other modules that they don’t know exist, and more JS goodness.

11: ECMA Harmony and the Future of JavaScript

• Length: 1 hour, 6 minutes
• Speaker: Brendon Eich

You may not have heard of Brendon Eich before, but he’s the man who started it all: the creator of JavaScript. In this talk, he goes into a bit of language history, as well as talking about what’s coming in the ECMAScript 5 proposal.

12: The State and Future of JavaScript

• Length: 55 minutes
• Speaker: Douglas Crockford
• Slides (powerpoint)

JavaScript hasn’t changed in almost a decade; so what’s going on? In this talk, Douglas Crockford explains some of JavaScript’s history, the battles fought in the past years, and what the standard could look like in the (relatively) near future. Yes, this is quite similar to Brendan’s talk (which was actually given the evening before), but this one has that Crockford theoretical slant to it.

Others

There are many videos and presentations out there that aren’t just about JavaScript, but certainly involve it. Check these out:

The JSON Saga

• Length: 49 minutes
• Speaker: Douglas Crockford
• Slides

Server-Side JavaScript

• Length: 23 minutes
• Speakers: Isaac Schlueter and Matt Hackett

Advanced JavaScript with Libraries, and part 2

• Length: 56 minutes
• Speaker: John Resig

Ajax Security (mp3 link)

• Length: 51 minutes
• Speaker: Douglas Crockford
• Slides (slideshare) and (powerpoint)

The DOM is a Mess

• Length: 1 hour, 12 minutes
• Speaker: John Resig
• Slides (slideshare)

That’s It!

Well, that’s all I’ve got for you today, but I’ve probably missed your favourite; share it in the comments!

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for the best web development tutorials on the web.

First of all, you’ll notice that this book is based on Zend Framework version 1.8, and as of writing this review, the latest stable release of Zend Framework is 1.9.4. This is not an issue, because 1.9, even though it brings new features such as PHP 5.3 compatibility and RESTful web services, does not change its structure or any part of the system that might have impact on your learning.

Flow of the Book

The flow of this book is heavily inspired by the famous Ruby on Rails book, Agile Web Development with Rails, where the author invites you to join the process of building a demo application, which in both cases is a shopping cart system. Judging by the feedback of the Rails book, most people feel quite comfortable learning a framework this way, some don’t. I guess if you are not a fan of following a defined learning structure, this book probably isn’t for you.

Short but Sweet

It is a relatively short book, with only around 350 pages. As a result, this book expects you to be comfortable with working with PHP 5 and have a solid grasp of Object-Oriented Programming. If you aren’t already familiar with PHP, or PHP 5’s OOP features, I highly recommend you to polish up the said skills.

MVC Still Rules

The first two chapters of the book focus on the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern. As the author mentions at the start of the book, Zend Framework is a loosely coupled framework; it does not enforce the MVC principle. However, given the popularity of MVC within the web development community, it is definitely worth while to learn how to write an application in MVC. Chapter one explains the basics of MVC whilst chapter two explains the request/route/dispatcher/response family. These two chapters will set up the foundation nicely for you and get you to understand the basic structure of a Zend Framework powered MVC application.

Adventure of the Store-Front App

Chapter three to nine contain the actual ‘adventure’ where you as the reader will be riding along with the author on the journey of creating a store-front/shopping-cart application. During the process, the author tells you not only what to do, but also why to do them. A good example is the ‘fat controller skinny model’ vs ’skinny controller vs fat model’ comparison, the book illustrates each and tells you why you should stick with the latter.

Chapter ten wraps up the store-front application with some more common tasks such as bootstrapping modules and sharing common application elements.

Code Optimization, Caching and Testing

Chapter eleven touches on a very practical topic: code optimization and caching. This is especially beneficial if you’re to run a large volume web application or if you have limited hardware resources. Pay special attention to the Zend_Cache section as the author tells you how to integrate it effectively in your application in order to achieve the best result.

The last chapter, chapter twelve, introduces you to Zend_Test, a testing framework that utilizes PHPUnit.

Verdict

To wrap the review up, I think this is an excellent book on Zend Framework provided you:

• already have a good understanding of PHP;
• already have a good understanding of OOP;
• can follow the rather forceful learning flow;
• know how to learn with initiative (e.g. do your own research!).

This book sits well in the market, as it aims primarily at web professionals who most likely are already experienced with PHP and perhaps some other PHP frameworks, and don’t have time to read books with 1000’s of pages.

You may purchase this book via Packt Publishing’s website.

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In this interview, we’ll dive into his work process, and hopefully steal some tips and inspiration!

How long have you been in the web design business?

About five years ago, I started the Multimedia and Web Design Course at SAE Vienna in my home country, Austria. Back then, I did mostly Flash stuff (almost every piece of work was REALLY horrible to tell the truth) and I also had some interest in html coding (I loved table design back then ). With every course I took, I lost a little interest in Flash and got more curious about HTML and CSS. When they handed me my Bachelor Degree a few years later, I was pretty decent with HTML and CSS whereas my Flash skills were lousy at best.

I did some small projects for an event agency during that time and as soon as I finished College, they offered me a full time Job as a Front-end Developer, which I gladly accepted. I’m still working at this Agency

When/How did you first come across the Envato marketplaces – specifically ThemeForest?

I was a regular reader of the TUTS-PLUS Websites and therefore was aware that there is a marketplace called ActiveDen, where people sell all this neat Flash stuff; but since I was only a Front-end Developer with HTML, CSS, and some PHP Skills at that time, I didn’t really bother.

When Envato announced the opening of ThemeForest, I thought I could give it a try, and uploaded my first WordPress theme. The theme flopped really hard and only earned me 30 Bucks during the first month. Out of pure boredom, I created a second theme.

The second one did a little better, really just a little, but it was enough that I became curious if I could do better with each theme. =)

You’ve been particularly successful when it comes to WordPress theme sales. When developing a new item, do you try to plan for PSD, Site Template, and WordPress submissions? Or do you prefer to focus only on one category per design?

When I started creating templates, I almost always only planned for the WordPress version. I was thinking that the HTML Templates are far to cheap to earn a good amount of money, which is actually not true.

I did this until I invested countless hours into a Wordpress theme which underperformed to a point where I had worked for about 3$/hour for a whole week. Since then, I usually create a HTML template as well, to test if customers like what I have designed.

I still usually don‘t do a PSD version. Unlike other people, I only design to a certain point in Photoshop; many of the small improvements and details that customers see in the final HTML version are added while I code the HTML and CSS.

Though encouraged, we do not require that authors provide support for their items. Do you? Considering how well your items sell, how do you manage to provide quality support to so many different buyers? Any tricks/short-cuts?

It is indeed really hard sometimes to support all customers, especially those not familiar with WordPress, but I try to answer all questions. I think it’s crucial if you want customers to return and buy your themes again. The big problem I guess is providing “Quality Support”. I simply don‘t have the time to do more than 90 minutes of theme support each day, so if I see tons of requests on my Author Dashboard, answers usually (and unfortunately) get a little more generic :/

There are several “tricks” that worked out pretty good for me:

• I am trying to encourage all customers to use the item dashboard and not the mail contact form. That way, other customers benefit from the answers as well and I only have to check one place for requests.
• Updating the documentation file that comes with the download regularly helps a lot as well. I also save answers that I have given more than 2 or 3 times into a text document for copy/pasting on demand.
• Overall I can only suggest to find your own method of streamlining support; the best way to cut down support time of course is to create themes and documentation that are so easy to use, that support requests drop to a minimum.

Do you or have you considered selling on the different Envato marketplaces as well?

Yes. I have tried to upload a flash file once last Christmas, since I had a pretty neat Santa animation. Those who have checked my portfolio might have already guessed it… it seems it wasn’t that neat. ;D

Many successful authors have noted that the biggest advantage to selling their designs through us is that it takes the client completely out of the design process, and instead allows the author full control. Would you agree? Any other advantages?

I agree, it is indeed great to be in full control of all decisions. I have worked with too many clients over the past years who thought just because they can use MS Paint they are great designers But you should never underestimate the positive impact of a second opinion when creating your themes. Therefore I almost always ask some of my colleagues at the agency to make suggestions on my designs before I release them.

I also love the fact that I don’t have any deadlines here and can try new stuff with every theme I release

Do you take advantage of our referral program, or promote your items in any additional ways to increase sales?

Only a little; I promote my themes on my blog and on Twitter when I release them. But since I make postings rarely on my blog, the impact on my sales ain’t that big. ;D I will try to post more often in the future when my sites redesign is finally done, but to tell the truth I am not a very persistent writer.

Without giving away any of your key techniques, if you could only make one choice, what would be the most important thing to keep in mind when selling on ThemeForest?

Study and improve. There are very few authors here that did a great job from the beginning. Almost everyone who is selling a lot nowadays has heavily improved over previous months. I am no exception, I can’t believe how much I have learned about web design and coding during the last year, and I think that’s the best weapon we have. Learn from your mistakes, listen to reviewers and customers and improve with every file you release.

A new member signs up with ThemeForest and is hoping to upload his or her first item. Any advice?

Use the help of the community to get your items uploaded and to improve yourself. Authors, customers, reviewers, almost everyone here is very helpful; so don‘t hesitate and ask Don‘t give up if an item gets rejected several times, it happened to almost all of us!

Final question. What’s next for you? Any special items planned before the end of the year?

I will try to invest more time into my themes, which basically means more themes, hopefully better themes, more updates and better support. I am already in the process of designing the next two items, but it’s been a very busy month at the agency so I haven’t been able to release anything new for a while now.

Last but not least, I wanted to take the chance and thank everyone who purchased one of my themes! I appreciate it more than you probably can imagine. Earning money here is great of course, but its equally amazing to be part of such a great community!

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We’ve improved performance scores on Google Chrome by 30% since our current stable release, as measured by Mozilla’s Dromeao DOM Core Tests, and by 400% since our first stable release.” – Idan Avraham and Anton Muhin

Windows Only

Expectedly, Google Chome 4 is currently only available for the Windows platform. Reports have come in that it works just fine with the latest release of Windows, despite the fact that it only specifies XP/Vista as being currently supported.

Download Google Chrome 4 Beta

But I’m a Mac!

In that case, you can still download and install the developer preview of Google Chrome for Mac.

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for the best web development tutorials on the web.

Update: Winner Announced

Congratulations to Jason Wendell for being randomly chosen as the winner! Comments have now been closed.

“With Magic Mouse, Apple has brought Multi-Touch technology to the desktop mouse, giving you a new and more intuitive way to interact with your computer. Just as with iPhone, iPod touch, and MacBook Pro, the Bluetooth Magic Mouse adds gestures and swipes to the usual clicks to bring more functionality and help you get more done with less effort.” – via Amazon

How to Enter

Quite easily; simply make a tweet linking to your favorite tutorial on web development, whether it be from Nettuts+ or any other site. At the end of your link, add the #nettuts hash so that we can track it. Then, on Monday, November 2nd (US Central Time), I’ll sort through the tweets and select the winner! Anyone in the world, other than staff members, are eligible to enter!

Note: Envato staff and those who have written more than two articles for Nettuts+ are ineligible to enter.

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for the best web development tutorials on the web.

On our sister blogs Web.AppStorm and Mac.AppStorm we’ve been running a series on apps and browser add-ons for web designers and developers. If that sounds like your cup of tea, be sure to head over and check out:

• 50 Air Apps and Browser Add-ons for Web Designers & Developers
• 51 Web Apps for Web Designers and Developers
• 50 iPhone Apps for Web Designers and Developers

And on the subject of over-apping, here’s a comic from Mac.AppStorm’s Mactastik strip:

Aetuts+ – After Effects Tutorials

• 

  Simulate a Realistic Sniper Scope Perspective – AE Plus

  My tutorial deals with a VFX shot that’s easy to attempt but hard to master: A convincing looking sniper scope view.
  I will outline the assets that I provide in Photoshop and the principles of accomplishing the intended outcome. In After Effects I’ll make use of pre-compositions, motion tracking and some easy expressions. For clarity’s purpose I’ll get into details about optical phenomena when necessary.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Form a Unique Transition

  In this tutorial we are going to reveal how to create a cool particle transition between 2 videos using Trapcode Form. We will cover the importance of layer maps while using this plugin as well as how to create a stylish displacement of the particles.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Making Your Color Scheme a Whole Lot Kuler!

  Adobe Kuler is a great resource for color themes that is perfectly integrated in all Adobe CS4 software – except for After Effects. But this has changed now.

  Continue Reading

• 

  The Best Sound You’ll Ever See!

  Satya is back with a new tutorial that will help you look as good as you sound. This technique has many options so sit back and learn how to create an attractive visual generated from your audio spectrum.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Terminate Your Footage With Expressions

  Sep 21st in VFX by Ben McEwan If you’re wanting to help to save Sarah Connor then maybe this tutorial will give you an insider’s perspective on what to do. Ben McEwan has created a 3 Day Series crammed full of useful expressions to create the UI found in the Terminator.

  Continue Reading

Nettuts+ – Web Development Tutorials

• 

  11 Classic CSS Techniques Made Simple with CSS

  We’ve all had to achieve some effect that required an extra handful of divs or PNGs. We shouldn’t be limited to these old techniques when there’s a new age coming. This new age includes the use of CSS3. In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you eleven different time-consuming effects that can be achieved quite easily with CSS3.

  Visit Article

• 

  20 HTML Forms Best Practices for Beginners

  Working with XHTML forms can be somewhat daunting; they not only use some niche HTML elements, but also blur the line between static content and user interaction. Let’s review some things to remember when creating your next form.

  Visit Article

• 

  Search Engine Optimization 101

  Your website may be top notch but what’s the use of an online presence if no one can find it? In this quick start guide to search engine optimization we’ll review an assortment of tactics to increase your page ranking.

  Visit Article

• 

  How to Design and Code a Flexible Website

  In this tutorial, we’re going to be designing and coding a simple blog-style web-page. We’ll pay special attention to making our design flexible and accessible by using clean and simple XHTML and CSS. This tutorial is aimed at beginners, and anyone looking to improve the accessibility of their web designs.

  Visit Article

• 

  Getting Clean with PHP

  Data security is important and often undervalued by designers, developers, and clients alike. Since PHP 5.2.0, data sanitization and validation has been made significantly easier with the introduction of data filtering. Today, we’re going to take a closer look at these filters, how to use them, and build a few custom functions.

  Visit Article

Psdtuts+ – Photoshop

• 

  Render a Cereal Box Cover from Scratch Using Photoshop’s 3D Tools

  Hi everyone! This time I’ve got for you a fun tutorial, we’ll create a cereal box design from scratch, using only Photoshop. We will render several fruit flavored cereal loops using the Photoshop’s CS4 Extended 3D tools, apply textures to the loops, bump the surfaces and mock-up them into a real 2D image. Are you ready?

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create a Big Air Event Poster with Photoshop and Illustrator – Psd Plus Tutorial

  We have another Psd Plus tutorial exclusively available to Plus members today. If you want to take your Photoshop and Illustrator integration skills to the next level, then we have an exciting poster design tutorial for you. Learn more at the jump!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create an Intense Movie Poster in Photoshop

  Designers love to be critical about movie posters, and while you may think you have better ideas about how to sell a movie to an audience, how many times have you actually tried doing it? In this tutorial, we’re going to create a poster for a fictional movie called “Fugitive.” The movie is meant to be a suspenseful thriller that features one’s escape under the cover of darkness, despite man’s attempt to capture the lone hero. Thin and cheesy plot? Check. Awesome opportunity to better your PSD skills? You got it!

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop

  In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create an eroded metal text effect. Throughout this tutorial we’ll make use of various drawing techniques, channels, and patterns.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Add Fantastic Color to 3D Text – Part I

  This is the first part of a two part series. Part two will be released tomorrow. In this piece you will learn how to bring a simple text to life and place everything in fantastic, colored and glowing 3D space. Some neat techniques covered here will allow you to bring your art to the next level. Don’t miss it! There are two parts to this tutorial: Part I and Part II.

  Continue Reading

Vectortuts+ – Vector & Illustrator

• 

  How to Create a Golden, Vector Compass in Illustrator

  In this tutorial I will take you through the steps and techniques of creating a golden compass. For this tutorial I’ve used just Adobe Illustrator and a heavy dose of ingenuity.

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create a Yellow Submarine Icon with Gradient Meshes – Vector Plus Tutorial

  We have another great Vector Plus tutorial available exclusively for Plus members today. If you want to learn how to use gradient mesh, pattern brushes and other advanced Illustrator tools to create a shiny submarine, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. Learn more about this tutorial at the jump!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Build a Promotional iPhone App Website Wireframe in Fireworks

  Fireworks is a great tool for creating a wireframe and while it doesn’t work perfect with Photoshop, you can export over there and then build off your wireframe. We’ll cover the design process of creating a wireframe for an iPhone application website in Fireworks. For those of you not familiar with this program, it will be a good jumping off point for using it to wireframe your web design projects. This is a multi-part series and will be fun! Here is Part I of and Part II.

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create a Caramel Ripple Effect

  In this tutorial, we will create a hot chocolate caramel effect using some distort tools and the 3D revolve tool. This is a simple and effective technique to obtain a quality vector ripple effect quickly. Here we go!

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create an Energy Saving Bulb in Illustrator

  Here we’re showing how to create an energy saving bulb with the help of the Illustrator’s Mesh Tool. At the beginning it could be quiet hard to work with, but if you get used to it, it’s fairly simple.

  Continue Reading

Activetuts+ – Flash, Flex & ActionScript Tutorials

• 

  Create a Unit Converter Application for Flash Lite Enabled Devices

  Flash Lite is an implementation of the Flash runtime for mobile phones, consumer electronic devices, and Internet-connected digital home devices. According to Adobe, the number of Flash Lite shipped devices will reach 1 billion in 2009 and more than 2.5 billion by the end of 2010, so if you are a Flash Developer it is important to know how this technology works and how it differs from Flash Player for the desktop.

  In this tutorial I’ll guide you through the basics of Flash Lite using the 1.1 version; sacrificing features, but ensuring compatibility.

  Visit Article

• 

  Build a Mini Golf Game with ActionScript 3.0

  In this tutorial I´ll show you how to create nice Mini Golf Game with ActionScript 3.0. We´ll work with Event Handlers, Functions and also the Timer Object which is a really cool feature in AS3.

  Visit Article

• 

  AS3 101: Loops

  Welcome back to AS3 101, the fifth edition! At this point, you should be comfortable with the concepts of variables, functions, conditionals (branching), and Arrays. Not only should you be comfortable with the concepts, but you should also be fluent in how ActionScript 3 implements these concepts.

  For this fifth episode, we’ll be adding to that catalog of skills the various looping structures found in AS3. You’ll find some dependencies on the information learned in AS3 101 Part 4, on Arrays, so if you’ve skipped that one or need a refresher, please review that tutorial before continuing with this one.

  For our final project, we’ll combine loops and arrays, to make a simple shoot-em-up game.

  Visit Article

• 

  Improve Your Memory With an Away3D Game

  In this tutorial we’ll build a 3D memory game. Along the way we’ll look at adding variables and mouseEvents to Away3D objects. Let’s get started..

  Visit Article

• 

  Build a Photo Viewer Using Flex and the Flickr API

  In this tutorial you will learn how to use the as3flickrlib library to create a Flash Flickr photo viewer.

  Visit Article

Phototuts+ – Photography & Post-Processing Tutorials

• 

  Photography Kick-start Guide: Adjusting Your Camera’s Settings for the Photo You Want

  Cameras vary in terms of functions offered. There are differences from one brand to the next and even from one model to another of the same brand. By necessity, this tutorial will have to generalize but let’s try to de-mystify some of the more common settings found on cameras today, what they mean (to the camera) and how to use them.

  Visit Article

• 

  Mastering the Art of Black and White Photography

  In the early days of photography, photographers had no choice but to shoot in black and white, as it was the only available medium. Then, in 1936, the invention of kodachrome gave colour photography to the world. But black and white photography didn’t die off, instead it flourished. Modern black and white photography at it’s best is art, and many photographers regard it as the purest form of photography.

  Visit Article

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  Freezing Time: 80 Inspiring Examples of High Speed Photography

  In our last roundup, we covered a selection of amazing HDR images. This time we move onto something completly different, with stunning high speed photography. These images freeze time, and allow us to observe scenes that the naked eye would struggle to capture. It’s definitely worth a look for some great inspiration!

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  8 Tips for Taking Sports Photos Like a Pro

  Are you looking to shoot better sports photos, and make an impact? Sports photography presents you with many opportunities to capture dramatic and vivid imagery that will last a lifetime. No other medium presents you with heart-pounding action, vivid color patterns and unique shooting opportunities.
  The steps and guidance featured in this tutorial cover a broad range of areas – from perfecting shutter speed, to making sure you don’t miss the action.

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  How to Photograph Waterfalls

  Waterfalls are some of the most beautiful natural features you will ever get the opportunity to photograph. But though they can look simply stunning, photographing waterfalls is not easy to do well. How do you avoid your photos being too dark? How do you deal with clipping in the water? How do you compose your photos to capture the authentic beauty of the scene?
  In this tutorial, nature photography expert Steve Berardi shares his best tips for photographing waterfalls.

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Cgtuts+ – CG Tutorials

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  Model and Texture a Posh Living Room Scene in Maya

  In this tutorial you will go through the process of modeling and rendering a Living Room in Autodesk Maya. You will also learn to use Mental Ray (along with the new architectural materials), create realistic fur, and implement studio lighting to create nice and soft shadows and highlights.

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  Using Splines to Add Detail to Your High-Poly Model in 3ds Max

  Splines are an often-overlooked aspect of 3ds max when it comes to game art. Most people know that you can use a spline for a wire – but you can also use it for things like grooves, whole objects like handles, and even text! In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at some of these advanced ways that splines can be used to save a lot of time on tasks that would otherwise have to be done by hand.

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  Create a Rocky Video Game Terrain in Blender

  In this series of tutorials you will learn how to create a finished environment for Blender’s Game Engine. The main focus of the series will be texturing and lighting, with the use of some custom 2d filters to enhance the result.

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  Model a Photorealistic Swiss Army Knife in Modo

  Subdivision modeling is an extremely powerful tool that can allow you to add high levels of detail to your models in a relatively short amount of time. In order to use it effectively, however, one must know when, and more importantly, when not to use it. In this three part, beginner to intermediate tutorial series, professional Modo artist, Matt Braeley, will demonstrate how to model a photorealistic Swiss Army knife, using polygonal and subdivision modeling in Luxology’s Modo 302.

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  Build an Advanced Drifting Car Rig in 3ds Max

  In this advanced level tutorial, you will learn all of the steps necessary to build a fully functioning car rig in 3D Studio Max. This rig features working suspension, steering and body roll, as well as some functionality for drifting and powerslides. You will learn how to set up internal functionality through links, constraints, expressions, and parameter wiring. The final result will be a robust rig with easy, and accessible controls.

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Audiotuts+ – Audio and Music

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  Introduction to Polyrhythms

  The usage of simple, common time (4/4 time signature, where there are four beats to a measure, and each quarter note gets one beat) is pervasive in Western popular music, including rock, blues, country, folk, pop, and various forms of electronic music including many sub-genres of house and trance music. The four-on-the-floor mindset can be difficult to escape, but every musician and composer can benefit from a study of rhythm that includes a wider variety of time signatures and rhythms.

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  How to Design Reeses and Hoovers

  Have you ever wondered how your favourite dance music producers create those amazing sounds that make you jump on the dance floor? Well, it usually takes a lot of experience and a huge amount of time spent on experimenting and processing sounds a ridiculously high number of times.

  But it’s quite hard to reach the stage of experimentation if you don’t even know the basics behind some kind of sounds often heard in dance tracks. This tutorial will teach you how to design from scratch a DnB trademark, the reese bass, and how to reproduce the infamous hoover sound, introducing you to the technique of resampling.

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  A Beginner’s Introduction to Home Recording

  Home recording technology seems to get better and cost less every year. It puts power in the hands of ordinary people. You’ve probably found this article because you want to get into home recording.

  Most of our tutorials here at Audiotuts are at the intermediate or advanced level. And that’s OK, because you won’t be a beginner forever. But we do have some more basic tutorials and articles aimed at the beginner. This article will refer to many of them, and hopefully give you an overview of what’s involved in getting into home recording.

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  A Basic Guide to Subtractive Synthesis (Part 1)

  This screencast is the first tutorial in a series on synthesis. This first installment shows a basic guided tour of Subtractor in Reason and covers oscillators, filters and envelopes.

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  Is the Public Capable of Recognizing Quality Music?

  Can the average music listener recognize quality? Can they distinguish a virtuoso from a mediocre musician? Can they recognize a “hit” that will still be esteemed a masterpiece in a hundred years? Does “popular” mean the same as “quality”?

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1. Homesteading

One of the first things that everyone thinks about when they hear “Geocities” is the long and memorable (albeit annoying) site paths, known as homesteading. When Geocities first started, there were a mere 6 neighborhoods, which included “Colosseum,” “Hollywood,” “RodeoDrive,” “SunsetStrip,” “WallStreet,” and “WestHollywood”. They were great, allowing newcomers of personal homepages to fantasize about the new cyber world they were about to enter. Within a year, 23 more neighborhoods popped up along with the terrible headache of explaining what neighborhood, suburb, and 4-digit number your webpage was located at. Luckily by 1999, Yahoo had taken over and switched the homestead URL scheme to the more modernly used vanity URLs. But even though the lengthy URLs have been long gone for 10 years, their association with Geocities remains remnant enough to be the first reason why the closing of Geocities is long overdue.

2. 15 Megabytes

Back in the 90’s, 15 megabytes was more than enough to store your 5 page website; not to mention the ten 640*480 JPEG pictures from your digital camera. It was even enough to host MP3s for your friends to check out before deciding to download this thing called Napster for themselves. It was a much simpler time back then, when data exchange would still often occur on 3.5″ floppy disks. But in this day and age of broadband and Hi-Def streaming, running a website off of 15 megabytes of webspace is barely enough to host a decent Wordpress blog for a month. I mean, let’s face it, even emails have had larger space limits for years now. 15 megabytes just doesn’t cut it anymore.

3. SPAM

I haven’t actually experienced much Geocities spam sites personally, as Gmail filters my spam mail pretty robustly. But many users have complained about a large number of Geocities webpages hosted purely to bypass spam mail filters which block out dangerous links. These Geocities pages would redirect users to a target URL, by using cleverly encrypted javascript. (source: Spamtrackers.eu)

4. Color Choice

While nobody really got the hang of webpage design in the 90’s, Geocities site owners seemed to master the art of amateur design. One of the requirements for starting a page that I must have missed was having no sense of color coordination. For some reason the use of multicolored neon text on busy tiled background images were a popular choice. This usually turned out to be better, letting you know that the content wasn’t worth reading anyway.

5. Abandoned Webpages

I’ll admit that I was part of the cause for this reason, but Geocities became infamous for abandoned webpages in the early 00’s. People such as myself, would create accounts and build webpages just to host pictures and MP3s for friends to download (as mentioned in Reason 2: 15 Megabytes). This type of abuse led to thousands of empty webpages and parked sites that lead to much wasted google indexing and disappointing clickthroughs.

6. Under Construction

This one sort of relates to Reason 5: Abandoned Webpages. Chances were, if you didn’t stumble upon an abandoned webpage, you probably came across a webpage forever under construction. Many users new to website building only made it far enough to make a new site with the obligatory “This is my site.” text. Soon after, that website would be long forgotten while the owner moved on to LiveJournal or Xanga.

7. Splash Pages

Sometime toward the end of the century, people discovered the ease of Flash, allowing simple animations of images and text. Then *BOOM*, you suddently could no longer visit a webpage without having to sit through 15 seconds of bouncing images and scrolling text. Fortunately, this trend only stuck around for a few years.

8. Homepage Banners

Webpages of the 90’s really only had two main layouts: navigation on the top, and navigation on the left. But the one thing that both layouts would share was a big rectangular homepage banner placed at the top.

9. MIDIs

Though this is probably more of a Xanga “thing” these days, Geocities was one of the first to start the use of using MIDIs as background music for homepages. Before the popularity and accessibility of MP3s, MIDIs were the popular file format for music due to their small file sizes. However the tones of synthesized horns and keyboards got old and annoying very quickly. There’s nothing that opitomizes Web 1.0 for me than a happy birthday midi playing.

10. Animated GIFs

If there was only one reason the closing of Geocities is long overdue, it’d definitely have to be the animated GIFs most associated with the Geocities name. Love them or hate them, you can’t help but remember the once trendy craze of pixelated animations. They’d slow down your browsing to a crawl, and really test your patience. From the rotating 3D text to the dancing clipart images, Geocities was flooded beyond belief with these lagging monstrocities.

Farewell

Without further ado, we bid you farewell, Geocities. As we push your cardboard box into the sea, let’s take a look at some especially awful Geocities sites. (Be sure to leave a comment with yours, and I’ll update the posting!) – Jeffrey

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