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.

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

• 

  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!

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

Cgtuts+ – CG Tutorials

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

Audiotuts+ – Audio and Music

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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.

  Visit Article

• 

  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”?

  Visit Article

1. Homegroup

Homegroup is one of the most interesting new features in Windows 7. Setting up a home network has always been a rather tricky task, and Windows 7 is out to change that. Now, there’s no pain involved in setting up file and printer sharing between computers. Simply choose what you want to share from the PC, take the Homegroup password, and plug it into your other Windows 7 machines. You can choose which PCs get to use which files, give read-only access, and allows media streaming if you want (more on this below).

2. Taskbar

The taskbar has been part of Windows since Win95; but now, it better than ever. Hands up if you ever wanted to re-order the applications you have open; that’s what I thought. Now, you can pin applications to the taskbar as well; no it’s not quick launch. The quick launch toolbar has been retired because the whole taskbar is now quick-launch-like.

3. Aero

Aero was introduced in Windows Vista; you know, the transparent window borders. Windows 7 takes it all a step further. You can now hover over those taskbar thumbnail pop ups to get a view of that window only; that’s called Aero Peek. Then, you can drag individual windows to the top to maximize them, or left or right of to snap them to exactly half the screen: Aero Snap.

Aero Peek is also part of the “Show Desktop” button; forever, “Show Desktop” was part of the quick launch toolbar and could be removed if you didn’t want it. Now, it’s built into the toolbar, at the far right side.

At first you might think this was a bad move, but I would argue otherwise. Once you figure it out, you’ll know where to go for that button. And until you try, you don’t know how easy it is to throw your cursor into the corner; no eyes necessary. And you don’t even have to click it. If you just hover there, Aero Peek will show your desktop temporarily; once you slide off the button, you’re back to work.

4. Libraries

Libraries is one of my favorite features. How many people actually use the Documents folder (and only the Documents folder) to store your documents. Not me! Libraries lets you bring all your preferred folders together in one view; of course, you can choose which folder is the default save location. One of the sweetest parts is that you can add folder from other computers on the homegroup or network. Then, when you search the library, you get results from the other PCs as well. And it’s a cinch to share a library on the homegroup.

5. Jump Lists

I love jump lists too, because they’re all about saving you time. Right-clicking on a taskbar icon will bring up a small menu of options, recently / frequently used files (for that app) and tasks. To be honest, part of this has to be baked in by the program’s developer, but if you’re using the right pieces, you’ll at least get the recent / frequent files. And you can pin a file to any application, making it super easy to open regularly used files.

Bonus for Gmail users: check out Gmail Notifier Plus, a nice little app that lists your unread messages for you.

6. Enhanced Security

One of the biggest beefs with Vista was User Account Control. Yes, for the third time: I know I want to [insert action here]. Windows 7 makes this intrusive security feature much more friendly: you can choose your level of notification, from never to always.

For an extra layer of data security, Windows 7 offers BitLocker. Yes, it was there in Vista, but it’s now much improved and easier to use; simply right-click a drive to enable it. New to Windows 7 is BitLocker To Go, which allows you to easily encrypt portable devices like your easily lost USB keys; now you don’t have to worry about storing your sensitive data on a thumb drive.

For corporate situations, Windows 7 offers other security features like Domain Join, which easily connects you to your PC to your company network for easy working from home.

7. Media Streaming

This nifty feature turns your PC into a kind of media server. You can easily share media between computers on the network, deciding which computer gets to hear/see what. It’s simple to play your media on other devices, like a home stereo system, using the Play To feature. You can even play your media over the web. Simply enable internet access to to home media. You’ll need to install the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant, and you’ll need a Windows Live Account, but that’s not much. It took me less than 3 minutes from start to finish to set this up (that includes downloading and installing the Assistant). Then, you can access your media from any Windows 7 PC with streaming enabled.

8. Performance Increase

Overall, Windows 7 is a leaner, meaner operating system. Memory usage is much better than in Vista. Search is speedier. USB devices are available faster than you can say “Plug and Play.” Windows 7 wakes up from sleep mode much quicker than previous versions. I definitely noticed a huge jump in the time it takes to get back on the network; it’s now almost instantaneous. I just restarted my PC to see how long it took to start up: ~40 seconds to get to the desktop and ~48 seconds for the complete boot.

9. Touch

Yes, Windows had support for touch screens before Windows 7, but now it’s bigger and better. With a better built-in keyboard, great finger gesture support, and more, using a touchscreen computer is easier than even. One example of this is jump lists: to bring up a just list on a touchscreen, simply press an icon and drag upwards. (This works with a mouse too; and give it a try if you’ve got a laptop with a touchpad!)

10. Simplicity

Sometimes the test of an OS is just as much what it doesn’t come with as what it does. No longer does Windows come with things like Movie Maker or Outlook Express. No, Microsoft has decided (at least in this area) and the customer knows best. If you want their software, you can get the Windows Live Essentials pack, or you can go for your own favourites. Also, you can now uninstall Internet Explorer if that will give you a hint of satisfaction.

11. Federated Search

Search in Windows 7 is much improved, but now you’re no longer limited to your own PC’s (or network’s) content. A new feature called Federated Search allows you to search other websites and servers. Any search engine that returns in an RSS feed can be turned into a search provider. The Windows 7 Forum offers quite a few search providers and shows you how to make a search provider for any website.

12. Perks

Windows 7 comes with many other perks:

• Aero Shake
• Action Center
• Calculator (sounds lame, but it’s now pretty powerful)
• Snipping Tool
• Sticky Notes

Look them up and get excited!

That’s it for Now!

I hope this whirl-wind tour has excited you about Microsoft Windows 7 has revved you up! So what’s the verdict? Are you upgrading?

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.

Yet there are plenty of ways that we can reduce our carbon footprints even further and treat Mother Nature a bit better. After all, every little bit helps when it comes to becoming more environmentally responsible.

So here are the top twenty ways that web developers can reduce their carbon footprint each day. They’re simple changes, but in the end they make a huge difference.

This post is part of Blog Action Day 2009, a worldwide initiative started by Envato founders Collis and Cyan Ta’eed, now being run by Change.org. Blog Action Day exists to change the conversation on the web for one day by uniting thousands of bloggers around one important issue – this year, Climate Change. It’s not too late to register your blog and participate.

1. Turn Off the Computer

While this may be the most obvious solution, it has a huge impact. Many of us leave our computer running 24/7 because it’s convenient. Even if your computer is idle or “sleeping”, it still needs the battery. Consider completely shutting off the computer when you go to bed at night. While you’re at it, switch off the monitor and sound system if you’re using them as well.

2. Turn Off your External Hard Drives at Night

People run backups at night because they don’t want to use computing resources when they’re actually on the computer. However, backup systems have matured considerably in the past few years, and often times a backup can go unnoticed. I run Time Machine backups on my Mac at hourly intervals and hardly ever notice any real resource consumption.

If you’re backing up your hard drives at consistent intervals during the day, you probably don’t need to run backups when you’re asleep as well.

2. Use Eco-friendly Light Bulbs

Energy Star qualified CFL light bulbs use 75 percent less energy than the standard incandescent light bulb and last ten times longer. Start powering your home office (and rest of the house) with eco-friendly light bulbs. It’s estimated each light bulb can also save $30 per lightbulb.

3. Use a Green Web Host

There are plenty of interesting green initiatives happening in the hosting industry. Some hosts are planting a tree for each account, others use alternate energy sources to power their servers. Here’s a list of eco-friendly web hosts and how they’re doing their part to reduce carbon footprints.

4. Switch to Hibernate when Inactive

Allowing your computer to hibernate or sleep when it’s inactive helps save resources and energy. Sleep uses a small amount of power to maintain the memory. Hibernate completely powers down the system and saves your settings on the hard disk. Sleep doesn’t save as much energy, but it allows your computer to “wake” faster than hibernate. Either way, using a power-saving state can reduce usage of unneeded power.

Microsoft has a great article on the differences between sleep and hibernate, and which situations to use them.

5. Switch to Linux-powered Computers

Did you know that Linux computers can save e-waste levels by 50%? There was a study done in 2004 that reported definite green benefits to running Linux-powered computers. The main reason: Windows systems had to change hardware every 3-4 years, where Linux systems only needed hardware refreshes every 6-8 years. (source)

While the study is five years old (an eternity in technology years), it still leaves something to consider the next time you purchase a computer.

6. Use Blackle

Heap Media created Blackle, an eco-friendly Google search engine. Based on the theory that a black Google could save 750 Megawatt-hours a year, Blackle is just that. It’s identical to the real Google with an energy-saving black color scheme. The monitor uses more resources to display white or light screens as opposed to black or dark screens, so the makers of Blackle may be on to something.

7. Switch to LCD

If you’re still using that old, clunky CRT monitor, consider switching to a more environmentally-friendly LCD monitor. CRT monitors require more energy and create more heat than LCD. Besides, what web developer or designer needs an excuse to upgrade their monitor?

8. Work from Home

If you can swing it, working from home makes a considerable dent on your carbon footprint. Driving to work uses fossil fuels, and even the bus system uses fossil fuels as well (though not as much as a car). Plus, if you work in an office space, there’s another building that has to be heated (or cooled) and lighted.

9. Increase the Life of your Computer

The longer your computer lasts, the less resources you have to consume buying a new one. Routinely checkup and run maintenance to ensure a long and happy life for your computer.

10. Manage your Bills Online

Many web developers already receive their bills online, but if you don’t you definitely should. Think about your office trash can and what makes up the major part of the bulk: mail. Junk mail, bills and more junk mail. While the junk mail is kind of hard to stop, receiving bills online can save quite a bit of paper usage. Try to get all of your bills and newsletters in a digital format and save a few trees in the process.

11. Use an Eco-friendly Font

I had to blink a few times to believe it, but there is actually an eco-friendly font that saves on average 20% more ink than other fonts. The makers of Ecofont remove small parts of the letter in order save ink. The parts that are removed are hardly noticeable in print. Ingenious.

12. Rely on Natural Lighting

Natural lighting is better than a lightbulb any day, and can add some warmth to the room as well. Open up those blinds and turn off those overhead lights. You’ll have to be careful where you position your computer to make sure there isn’t a glare on the monitor, but nothing beats a soft, natural light to fill your workspace.

13. Don’t use a Screensaver

Screensavers were initially created to add life to the monitor by keeping phosphors from burning images into an idle monitor. But modern computers don’t have these problems, and screensavers are now just a way to personalize your computer. Screensavers still use power, and can even keep your computer from going into a fully-saving power mode.

14. Turn off the Coffee Maker

For those of us that drink coffee, there’s an easy way to save energy: turning off the coffee maker. Turn off the warmer when you’re done drinking coffee. Oftentimes laziness keeps us from actually switching off the pot when we’re finished, and the coffee maker needlessly heats the coffee for hours afterwards. Not only will you save energy, you’ll also save your nostrils from the smell of stale coffee burning on the warming plate. Gross.

15. Put on a Sweater

For each degree you lower your heat, you’ll save up to 5% in heating costs. So consider dropping the thermostat a couple degrees and putting on a sweater. You’ll save money on your heating bill and use less energy and resources in the process.

16. Cut Back on Phantom Power

Phantom power is energy that’s wasted by appliances plugged in and using small bits of power while they’re not being used. You can use a smart powerstrip that cuts the power when the appliance is off, unplug things when you’re done with them, and use devices like the Kill A Watt to monitor energy consumption.

Learn how to reduce phantom power at Treehugger.

17. Make your Sites Printer-friendly

While most of us web ninjas laugh at the prospect of printing a web site, many people still do. If you don’t have a printer-friendly version available on all pages, this means that everything on the page is printed, using needless ink on things like design colors and images.

Fortunately, it’s pretty simple to add printer-friendly versions of sites. Many modern designs have a separate print stylesheet for printer pages, like so:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="print.css" media="print" />

You’ll notice the media=”print” is where the magic happens. About.com has an excellent article on what a print-friendly stylesheet needs to have.

18. Say NO to Styrofoam

If you work in an office, bring your own cup for your coffee instead of using the styrofoam cups. Styrofoam is awful on the environment, mainly because it doesn’t decompose like other materials. Even if you recycle the styrofoam, the process takes a very long time and is difficult. Also, styrofoam contains chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) which hurts the ozone.

In short: styrofoam should be avoided as much as possible. Besides, doesn’t a real coffee mug feel so much better in your hands?

19. Add a Plant (or two)

Plants can make a huge difference in a home or office. Aside from the health benefits, plants can improve air quality considerably. A company in New Dehli did a study and added 3 different types of plants to their office building, and found that they could literally “grow their own air”. The plants reduced eye irritation, headaches, lung issues, and respiratory system incidents considerably over the course of 15 years. The company also saved energy costs by around 15% thanks to the plants.

20. Use the Library

Instead of buying copies of paper books, check them out at your local library. Most libraries are hooked into an inter-library loan system, so you can find almost any book from your library. How often do you reread all of your books? If you’re like me, not very often. Most books are only read once (if at all), and typically just sit on a shelf for show. Instead, show your intelligence by saving paper instead of a filling a bookcase.

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.

Read on for some of September’s highlights in web development.

• 

  FriendFeed Launches Tornado

  Friendfeed made an announcement last month that has a major impact on developers: they have open sourced the Tornado web server and accompanying framework that powers FriendFeed. The framework is non-blocking and blazing fast, and can handle thousands of simultaneous connections. Read the article to learn more about Tornado.

  Visit Article

• 

  If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers

  Frustrated with the lack of understanding of the web design and development field? Here’s an amusing look at what might happen if architects had the same interactions with web design clients.

  Visit Article

• 

  What Not To Do When Starting Out as a Freelancer

  Creating a freelance business is a quite a challenge, especially in this economic climate. Learn from other’s mistakes with this excellent resource for freelancers.

  Visit Article

• 

  50 Inspiring Web Application and Service Web Site Designs

  Simplicity has become the new hotness when creating a winning web app design. Last month Speckyboy reviewed some of the most effective site designs on the Net and clues us in as to why they’re so effective.

  Visit Article

• 

  How Google Taught Me to Cache and Cash-In

  A former Google employee shares what he learned on scaling large web applications. Some incredible advice in here that namely follows this core performancing principle: Cache everything you can.

  Visit Article

• 

  How to Create a Valid Non-Javascript Lightbox

  In response to a challenge, Carsonified’s Jenna Smith has created a non-javascript version of the lightbox, and has kindly shared the source code with the rest of us. You can see the lightbox in action here.

  Visit Article

• 

  HTML 5 Visual Cheat Sheet by Woork

  Here’s a simple cheat sheet to showcase what is the same and what’s changed since HTML 4.01. Available in JPEG or PDF quality.

  Visit Article

• 

  The Ultimate Guide to Version Control for Designers

  While programmers may have already been using version control, designers aren’t typically as quick to adopt the practice and instead use Photoshop history or some other solution. Here’s the one-stop guide for designers to adopt version control, complete with tools and other handy resources.

  Visit Article

• 

  7 Steps for Systematizing The Design & Build Process

  Developers are all about making systems more streamlined and effective in their programming. But what about streamlining the design side of development? Nuope shows us how the design and build process could be simplified and streamlined to make development much quicker.

  Visit Article

• 

  Psychologist: Facebook Makes You Smarter, Twitter Makes You Dumber

  Psychologists at the University of Stirling in Scotland released data showing that children between the ages of 11 and 14 had significant improvement in their memory by using Facebook, while using Twitter and YouTube actually hurt the children’s working memory.

  Visit Article

• 

  Parse XML using Ruby

  The Yahoo! Developer Network shared how to parse XML in Ruby with REXML.

  Visit Article

• 

  Why I’m Done Making Desktop Applications

  The founder of Bingo Card Creator gives us many good reasons why he’s stopped developing desktop applications. His main reason: Shareware gives many more opportunities for the developer to fail.

  Visit Article

• 

  VanadiumJS

  VanadiumJS is a simple javascript library that has powerful client-side validation for forms. It’s simple and easy to integrate, and a nice compliment to any web form.

  Visit Site

• 

  The 10 Most Important Skills for Future Programmers

  Venu Thomas breaks down what he thinks are the wave of the future (or the next five years) for aspiring programmers. What do you think?

  Visit Article

• 

  Flickr Finally Goes Native With An iPhone App

  Flickr announced last month that they had finally created a native iPhone app for their popular image sharing service. The application mirrors much of the flickr.com functionality, and allows for direct uploading of photos, as opposed to the previous method of emailing the photos via the phone.

  Visit Article

• 

  WordPress Just Made Millions of Blogs Real-Time With RSSCloud

  Early in September Wordpress.com rolled out a feature that turns on real-time updates to RSS feeds from Dave Winer’s RSSCloud. This is potentially huge for RSS and web developers, as half a million new blogs each month that are created at Wordpress.com.

  Visit Article

• 

  How Colour Communicates Meaning

  Did you know how much color makes a different in your site designs and layouts? There are many ways that color can communicate meaning, thanks to the many things different colors can represent. Political parties, religions and even moods are symbolized by certain colors. Carsonified has an excellent article on what each color represents to different people, and we’d all do well to take that into account the next time we determine a color scheme for a site.

  Visit Article

• 

  CAPTCHAs’ Effect on Conversion Rates

  The SEOMoz blog published an interesting study across 50 different sites showing the increase in sales when the writer turned captions off his 50 sites.

  Visit Article

• 

  7 Rules for Mixing Multiple Fonts in Good Web Design

  Creating layouts with multiple fonts can be tricky, as there’s no hard and fast rule as to how many fonts to use, how similar the different fonts should be, and many other variables. This article outlines some best practices for mixing multiple fonts.

  Visit Article

• 

  Programming in the Cloud: Some remarkable Online IDEs

  Jeez has an excellent roundup of online IDE’ for nearly all types of development: image editing, HTML and Javascript, Flash, PHP, and more.

  Visit Article

• 

  WidgetPad.com

  September saw the release of WidgetPad.com, a “collaborative development environment for developers to develop fully-interactive, stand-alone, downloadable SmartPhone applications in HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript”. Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?

  Visit Site

• 

  What’s Your BHAG? How to Create a Big Hairy Audacious Goal

  Sitepoint had an excellent article on finding your B.H.A.G., or “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”. No matter what your field, you should always have a giant goal to be working towards, and this article gives you a plan to create and execute a successful B.H.A.G.

  Visit Article

• 

  Google Acquires reCAPTCHA

  In acquisition news, Google acquired the innovative and popular CAPTCHA service reCAPTCHA last month. Who says spam isn’t profitable?

  Visit Article

• 

  How Ravelry Scales to 10 Million Requests Using Rails

  Rails is often the whipping boy for performance issues (read: Twitter), but more often than not performance issues reside in the database. Ravelry creator Casey Forbes gave an interview on how he created the site in 4 months of nights and weekends, and how he continues to scale it without any funding. An incredible and inspiring read for any programmer or entrepreneur.

  Visit Article

• 

  60 Resources for the Frugal Web Developer

  Needing a way to reduce costs while developing a project? Here are 60 resources (some common, some more rare) that any web developer could utilize instead of spending the unneeded coin on expensive software.

  Visit Article

• 

  Things to Ask Before you Redo your Website

  Marketing juggernaut Seth Godin has a lengthy list of questions to ask yourself (or have your client ask themselves) before they create a new design for their site.

  Visit Article

• 

  101 Things I Learned in Interaction Design School

  Here’s an interesting blog that’s centered around interaction design, with aspects of development that nearly all developers are familiar with. The blog is easily digestible, displayed in small nuggets of information. “Be wary of projects with ill-defined scope”, “People are good at recognizing shapes”, and “functionality is the enemy of usability” are some example nuggets found on the blog.

  Visit Site

• 

  Why You Should Switch from Subversion to Git

  Carsonified has a very in-depth article on the benefits that Git can provide over the other popular versioning system Subversion. For those who are thinking about switching things up with your version control systems, this is a very convincing piece.

  Visit Article

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.

1. Fixing PNGs in IE6 with DD_BelatedPNG

• Created by: Drew Diller
• License: MIT
• Usage: Fixes alpha-transparent PNGs in IE6
• Size: 6.86kb (compressed)
• Compatibility: IE6 only
• View Demo
• Download

DD_belatedPNG was created for the single purpose of allowing alpha-transparent PNGs to be used in IE6 without resorting to Microsoft’s proprietary AlphaImageLoader filter. As anyone who’s tried to use PNGs in IE6 before knows, although they can be made to work to a very basic degree, things like repeated background-images are out of the question.

Using the AlphaImageLoader filter only fixes half of the PNG problem in IE6 as it can only be used with background images. To make use of alpha-transparent PNGs on <img> elements, another fix is used, which is typically the HTC fix which relies on a transparent PNG and an HTC behavior file. Additionally, as Firebug and YSlow users will be aware of, Microsoft’s AlphaImageLoader is slow; one of YSlow’s guidelines is to avoid the filter at all costs.

DD_belatedPNG uses Microsoft’s implementation of VML to replace PNGs with VML elements, which do support alpha-transparency. It can be used with both full <img> elements and CSS background-images. When background-images are replaced, common features such as background-repeat and :hover states can also be used so this library solves all of the common PNG problems in IE6.

Usage

Using DD_BelatedPNG is exceptionally easy; it only needs to be used with IE6, so the main script can be included in the page using a conditional comment:

<!--[if IE 6]>
<script src="DD_belatedPNG.js"></script>
<![endif]-->

The library has a single method, fix, which is used to supply simple CSS selectors that are targeted by the library, any <img> element that has a PNG src attribute, or any element using a PNG CSS background with the matching class name will be fixed. This part of the script can go into the conditional comment as well so that only IE6 will need to process these additional rules:

<script type="text/javascript">
  DD_belatedPNG.fix(".linkButton");
</script>

Fixed PNGs in IE6 will now appear as they should and can be background-positioned and repeated, and also work with :hover states, unlike Microsoft’s proprietary filter. The following image shows a before and after picture of an alpha-transparent background image:

2. Use any Font with Cufon

• Created by: Simo Kinnunen
• License: MIT
• Usage: Allows embedding of non-standard fonts without needing flash
• Size: 17.8kb (compressed)
• Compatibility: All (all common versions from all common vendors, including IE6)
• View Demo
• Download

Typography is one area of web development that has seen painfully little advancement when compared with other areas of the industry. Web developers have been forced to rely on a small set of ‘web safe’ fonts that are likely to be installed on the majority of their visitor’s computers. Image and flash-based solutions have arisen, both of which have downsides to using.

Cufon offers developers a robust and fast solution, which can be displayed in the browser without requiring third-party plugins using features built in to browsers. Cufon fonts can be used as VML for native IE implementation, or the <canvas> element for other more capable browsers. Awesomely, we can also set different styles of the replaced text, such as its color and size using pure CSS.

Usage

This library differs from the others in that a little bit of preparation is required before use; a new font file needs to be generated which can be done easily using the cufon website. The will generate an SVG font and save it in a JS file. This file needs to then be linked to any other <script> resource after the cufon core file:

<script type="text/javascript" src="cufon.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="Breip_500.font.js"></script>

Then it’s just a case of telling Cufon which elements to replace:

<script type="text/javascript">
  Cufon.replace('h1.replacedFont');
</script>

The API offers other solutions for using multiple fonts on the same page and for improving performance in IE. Although I’ve called this section, “Using any Font”… you should remember that only fonts that are licensed to be embedded should be used. The following screenshot shows a replaced heading:

3. Use Firebug in any Browser

• Created by: Mike Ratcliffe
• License: BSD-style
• Usage: All the power of Firebug in browsers other than Firefox
• Size: 76.9kb (compressed)
• Compatibility: All non-Firefox browsers
• View Demo
• Download

Firebug is without doubt one of the greatest assets to web development available; I certainly use it on a daily basis when developing for the web, and I know it’s the plugin of choice for many others too. An unfortunate side-effect of Firebug’s excellence is that other similar tools for other browsers pale in comparison and appear inferior. Trouble-shooting layout issues and CSS bugs in IE for example can be a lesson in futility.

This is where Firebug Lite steps in; this is a simple JavaScript library that recreates most of the key features of the Firebug interface, bringing our debugger of choice to all other platforms. Fixing layouts and troubleshooting cross-browser issues becomes easy once more.

One of the greatest things about Firebug Lite is that you don’t need to download it or install anything in order to start using it; when you want to debug a page you’re working on in browsers that aren’t Firefox you can just include a script file whose SRC points to the online version:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js"></script>

That’s it, when you run the page in any other browser, Firebug Lite will be present on the page. For off line use, the script file, as well as a CSS file, can be downloaded and should just be used like any other JS or CSS file. The following screenshot shows Firebug Lite in Safari:

4. Render Interactive 3d Shapes with Raphael JS

• Created by: Dmitry Baranovskiy
• License: MIT
• Usage: Draw SVG shapes on the page
• Size: 58.4kb (compressed)
• Compatibility: All (all common versions from all common vendors, including IE6)
• View Demo
• Download

Ok, so this library isn’t quite so small, but there’s a reason for that; the library does a huge range of things and adds complete SVG control to a web page. Frankly, its power is awesome. Imagine being able to draw smooth curves across a web page and create custom shapes on the fly – Raphael does that.

You can do rounded corners that are completely cross-browser with no images (other than those actually drawn by the library), you can create faded reflections for any images, rotate the images dynamically and much more. As all paths are drawn using SVG elements, you can attach JavaScript events to them so that people can interact with the images on mouseover or click (or any other JS events). The possibilities are endless and the API provides a wide range of different methods that make working with the library a pleasure.

Usage

The library must of course be linked to:

<script type="text/javascript" src="raphael.js"/>

This is it, there are no other dependencies. Now we can begin creating our SVG shape:

<script type="text/javascript">
  var canvas = Raphael(50, 50, 620, 100);
  var shape = canvas.rect(0, 0, 500, 100, 10);
  shape.attr("fill", "#fff");
  canvas.text(250, 50, "Using Raphael to create custom shapes\ndrawn on the fly is extremely easy").attr("font", "20px 'Arial'");
 </script>

The library is made to be easy to use and we’ve only used a tiny fraction of its capabilities in this example. The page that this is used on should appear like this:

5. Progressively Enhance Your Site into the Future with Modernizr

• Created by: Faruk Ateş and Paul Irish.
• License: MIT
• Usage: Detect HTML5 and CSS3 support
• Size: 7kb (compressed)
• Compatibility: All
• View Demo
• Download

It’s an exciting time for web development with CSS3 and HTML5 advancing by the day, but it’s also a frustrating time because we’ve got all these advanced new technologies coming out with very little support. We want to start using all the great new HTML5 and CSS3 features, but most of the new HTML5 elements for example are only supported in maybe a single browser.

Modernizr is a tiny little library which simply tests whether the current environment supports a series of advanced features, such as the new <audio> and <video> elements. A JavaScript object is then created by the library which contains Booleans indicating whether each feature is supported. So if the current browser does support the new <audio> element, Modernizr.audio will return true. It’s that simple.

The library also adds class names to the <html> element that we can target with CSS in order to hide certain elements to the page, so when the <audio> element is supported, <html> element will receive the class name .audio. When browsers that don’t support it view the page, the element will get the class .no-audio.

This is incredible because it means that we can safely add these new features to our pages for the browsers that do support them, without causing chaos in the browsers that don’t. In the nature of progressive enhancement, we can create an accessible and broadly support core of content, and then progressively add more and more features for browsers that support them.

Usage

Let’s see it in action to display some nice CSS3 effects; first we just link to the very tiny library using the standard <script> element:

<script type="text/javascript" src="modernizr-1.0.min.js"></script>

Then we can add the following CSS:

.no-audio #audioContainer { display:none; }

This will ensure that browsers which do not support the <audio> element do not see it. The element does provide a built-in fallback for browsers that don’t support it, but this way is better. The body of the page could then look something like this:

<div id="audioContainer">
      <audio id="audio" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/Jamiroquai_-_Snooze_You_Lose.ogg" controls"true"></audio>
 </div>
<a id="linkToAudio" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/Jamiroquai_-_Snooze_You_Lose.ogg">Link to the audio</a>

Once this is done we can detect whether the browser supports HTML5 audio and show or hide the link to the media (we could easily do this using just the CSS, but this way we get to see the Modernizr object in action):

if (Modernizr.audio) {
  var audioLink = document.getElementById("linkToAudio");
  audioLink.style.display = "none";
}

This is all we need; capable browsers will see the <audio> element but not the link, while less capable browsers will see the link and not the <audio>:

Conclusion

Each of these libraries caters to a very specific problem; they’re generally much smaller than more well known and general purpose libraries, but just as useful for their specialized purpose. Each of them can aid us in one way or another when developing web sites from either easing development in IE6, using non-standard fonts without cumbersome replacement techniques, to detecting support for the latest CSS3 and HTML5 technologies or generating complex and interactive images.

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.

Hit the jump and learn to the max!

Phototuts+ – Photography Tutorials

• 

  7 Tips for Taking Travel Photos Like a Pro

  Travel photography seems so simple. What could be easier than traveling to an exotic location in a beautiful country with a camera and a handful of memory cards and taking some amazing photos? But, when you arrive at your location, you find that it’s a lot harder to take a decent travel photo than it looks. In this tutorial I’ll be sharing seven key tips for taking professional-looking travel photos you will appreciate for years to come.

  Day 1 Continue Reading

• 

  Create a Stunning High-Key Portrait Photo

  Creating weaponry effectively in a next-gen workflow requires detailed knowledge of a variety of very specific skills and tools. In this four part tutorial you will learn how to create a combat knife suitable for use in next-gen games.

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Shoot and Post-Process Professional HDR Photos in One Day

  In this tutorial you will learn the simple secrets of crafting a shoot sequence for HDR and creating professional quality HDR images in both Photomatix and Photoshop (depending on your weapon of choice). Not only will you learn an efficient workflow, but you’ll also learn the theory behind Dynamic Range. This lesson is taught by Peter Tellone, a professional photographer specializing in HDR landscapes.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Photography Kick-start Guide: How Your Camera Works

  Most photography tutorials, including most of the ones you’ll find here on the Tuts+ network of web sites, assume a certain base level of knowledge. But what if you’ve only just decided you want to make the leap into taking photos with manual settings?

  In this tutorial you’ll start to begin to learn the fundamentals of photography – fundamentals that will allow you to start reading and using more advanced tutorials, and manipulating the manual settings on your camera. Here we cover exposure, how the camera works, the shutter, focus, light, depth of field and ISO.

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Use Flash With a Slow Shutter to Create Motion and Ghosts

  Though the still photo is a beautiful thing, it does have its weaknesses – especially when it comes to portraying movement. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to faithfully capture movement by taking photos that use flash and a slow shutter speed. You’ll learn about recommended gear, how to choose appropriate subjects, setting up the shoot, dealing with lighting and choosing the best settings on your camera.

  Continue Reading

Cgtuts+ – 3D Tutorials

• 

  Model a Photorealistic Boss Tu-2 FX Pedal in Modo

  In this two-part tutorial you will learn how to model the Boss Tu-2 FX pedal using Luxology’s Modo 302. Taking advantage of Modo’s workflow enhancing toolset, the model will be highly detailed, and suitable for close up renders from any angle.

  Day 1 Day 2

• 

  Next-Gen Weapon Creation

  Creating weaponry effectively in a next-gen workflow requires detailed knowledge of a variety of very specific skills and tools. In this four part tutorial you will learn how to create a combat knife suitable for use in next-gen games.

  Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

• 

  How to Export 3D Camera Data from Cinema 4D Into After Effects

  When it comes to motion graphics, exporting camera data from a 3D program to a 2D compositing program is one of the most important techniques you could know. In this tutorial, you will learn the basics behind getting Cinema 4D and After Effects to talk to one another, including using exporting tags, using the camera data in After Effects within 3D layers and effects, and how to set up and tweak your render for the best results.

  Day 1

• 

  An Introduction to Fluid Simulations in Blender

  Learning to simulate realistic fluids in any 3d app is always a challenge, but Blender’s sophisticated solver allows for some very rewarding results.

  In this introduction to Blender fluid simulations, you will learn the basics of how to set up a fluid simulation in Blender with an obstacle, and a few fluid set ups to give you an idea of some of the other things that you can do with Blender fluids.

  Continue Reading

• 

  An Introduction to 3Ds Max: Polygonal Modeling

  In the first part of the series, professional video game artist, Kaleb Aylsworth, walked you through many of the key skills that you will need to get started modeling in 3ds Max. Now, in the second part, he will demonstrate how to apply the things that you have learned by using them to make a low-poly version of Guy van der Walt’s “Retro TV Set”. You can see some more examples of Guy’s work at his portfolio website, Plasticboy.

  Day 1 Day 2

Nettuts+ – Web Development Tutorials

• 

  8 Regular Expressions You Should Really Know

  Regular expressions are a language of their own. When you learn a new programming language, they’re this little sub-language that makes no sense at first glance. Many times you have to read another tutorial, article, or book just to understand the “simple” pattern described. Today, we’ll review eight regular expressions that you should know for your next coding project.

  Visit Article

• 

  Design and Code Your First Website in Easy to Understand Steps

  In this tutorial, we’re going to design and code our first website in simple, easy steps. This tutorial was written for the beginner with the hope that it will give you the tools to write your own standards-compliant websites! It’s a brand new week; maybe it’s time to learn a new skill!

  Visit Article

• 

  30+ PHP Best Practices for Beginners

  PHP is the most widely-used language for programming on the web. Here are thirty best practices for beginners wanting to gain a firmer grasp of the fundamentals.

  Editor’s Note: The “Best Practices” series has been my baby for three articles now. However, due to my focus on the CI video series, I’ve decided to hand off this next entry to Glen. Having said that, I’m not very good at keeping my mouth shut! I thought it might be fun to sporadically add a few rebuttals to his tips. I hope he doesn’t mind!

  Visit Article

• 

  6 Ways to Improve your Web Typography

  Typography on the web is anything but simple, and for many, it is a troubling mystery. Today, we’re going to review six ways that web designers and developers can improve the typography of the sites they create.

  Visit Article

• 

  A Crash-Course in Advanced CSS3 Effects

  Webkit is one of the few – if only – browser engines that really embraces advanced CSS3 effects. Unfortunately, this presents somewhat of a double-edged sword. We get to play with all of these amazing effects – such as CSS masks, reflections, transitions, animations, scaling, etc. – yet, we can’t truly implement them into our projects until more browsers provide support. With all of that said, it’s important to be on the cutting edge of what’s possible.

  In today’s video tutorial, we’ll review a bunch of different neat effects that can be used in Safari 4, Chrome, and for all iPhone development

  Visit Article

Audiotuts+ – Audio Tutorials

• 

  How to Use Multi-band Compression in Mixing and Mastering

  In some of my recent tutorials I have been breaking down the processors used in a typical mastering chain into individual subjects. So far we have looked at buss compression, M/S processing and stereo enhancement. In this tutorial we are going to look at multi-band compression.

  Visit Article

• 

  36 Audio Interfaces Under $1000

  Most computers come with a sound card with line and mic inputs, and many people use these when starting out with audio recording. But if you are serious about the quality of your work, you should avoid them. They have inferior audio to digital converters, and often produce a good deal of noise. You need to choose a professional audio interface that allows you to plug in your mics and instruments, and connects to your computer through a USB, Firewire, PCI or PCMCIA interface.

  Visit Article

• 

  Advanced Drum Editing in Kontakt

  I created this tutorial to serve two purposes. First off, I feel that there is a distinct lack of proper in-depth Kontakt tutorials. This tutorial teaches you everything you need to know to get started with Kontakt 3’s amazing Group editing. Second, I find that there are plenty of threads out there where someone will ask “How do I get my drums to sound like ____?” (Usually Squarepusher). I feel that group editing is the quickest, yet most hands-on way of creating incredible, glitchy beats without relying on VST effects as a crutch (and therefore avoiding sounding like anybody who else who uses Plug-in X).

  Visit Article

• 

  How to Configure Your Axiom Control Surface with Logic Pro 9

  MIDI controllers with control surfaces are quite common and affordable these days. They can control just about any aspect of your DAW, but their strength is in allowing you to control the DAW while at the keyboard as opposed to being used for a mixing session after tracking is finished. Since the Axiom doesn’t come with any Logic presets, let’s take a look at how to configure all those buttons, faders and knobs from withing Logic.

  Visit Article

• 

  How to Layer Hip Hop Drums in FL Studio

  Although it is often seen as a signature move of Hip Hop producers, customizing drums through layering is a technique used by artists in every genre, and it allows you to have fresh, new drum sounds that will energize your productions. Using simple tools and sounds you already have, you can expand your sound palette. In this tutorial, Sean Duncan gets us started.

  Visit Article

Psdtuts+ – Photoshop

• 

  Create a Mixed Media Masterpiece – Psd Plus Tutorial

  If you want to take your photo hand crafted textures into Photoshop and create a high-quality mixed media illustrations, then we have an exciting tutorial for you. Learn more at the jump!

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create a One-of-a-Kind Twitter Background in Photoshop

  If you’re on twitter and reading this blog, chances are you’ve already customized your profile with a cool twitter background. In this tutorial, we’ll create one of our own around a central mascot: a highly detailed twitter bird, that you’ll have to draw yourself! Get ready to do much more than clicking in this artistic tutorial!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Manipulate Smoke to Create Hyper-Real Images

  Learn to apply the Warp Tool effectively and a few other tricks to make smoke look like a skull. This technique has a variety of outcomes and works well with water, clouds and a whole bunch of other stuff. This is probably more for intermediate users, as I guide you through the process well, but not every Warp Grid point handle move. Let’s get started!

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create an Original Pin-Up Girl in Photoshop

  In this tutorial, I will be taking you through the steps that I do when creating a cartoon pin-up. I will start off with thumbnails and continue on to the final image. Along the way, I will be sharing with you my techniques and thought process when it comes to creating an original image with Photoshop. Let’s get started!

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create a Fallen Angel on Fire Photo Manipulation – Psd Plus Tutorial

  If you want to take your photo manipulation work to the next level, then we have an exciting tutorial for you. We’ll work with fire and other images to create this fantasy scene. Learn more at the jump!

  Continue Reading

Vectortuts+ – Vector & Illustrator

• 

  How to Create a Mesh Flower in Illustrator

  In this tutorial, we’ll explain how to create a flower with Illustrator’s mesh tools and opacity masks. With these tools you have a high-degree of control and can create realistic looking illustrations. Let’s get started!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create Illustrated Type from Sketch to Vector – Vector Plus Tutorial

  If you want to learn how to combine illustration and typography, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. Learn more about this tutorial at the jump!

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create a Rainy Window Vector Background

  Using the Symbolism Tools, plus a bit of Gradient Mesh, learn to make a realistic window covered with raindrops. This is an advanced tutorial that assumes a fair amount of Illustrator experience, but everyone should be able to follow along. It can be done with earlier versions of Illustrator, but takes full advantage of newer features in CS4. Let’s get started!

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Illustrate a Brain Icon for OSX and Vista

  In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a cartoon style illustration of a brain, then how to convert the image for use as an icon for OSX and Vista. I’ll discuss some points about detailing for icon design as well. Let’s get started!

  Continue Reading

• 

  How to Create a Radial Mesh in Illustrator and Make a Vector CD

  Ever wonder about creating Radial Mesh in Illustrator? Yes, now you can and it will reveal more possibilities to you in Illustrator. In the first part of this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a Radial Mesh in Illustrator (without using any 3rd party plugin), and in second part we’ll create a Vector CD using that radial mesh method. So let’s do it!

  Continue Reading

Flashtuts+ – Flash, Flex & ActionScript Tutorials

• 

  Create an Attractive Digital Clock in Flash

  ActionScript 3.0 is a very powerful language, capable of creating anything from simple and light utilities to full-featured desktop applications.

  In this tut, we’re going to create something simple, a basic and good looking digital clock in Flash.

  Visit Article

• 

  AS3 101: Arrays

  In this installment of AS3 101, we’ll spend the entire tutorial exploring a single type of data available to most programming languages: the Array.

  Arrays are ways to keep lists of values. Arrays are useful to keep an arbitrary number of related items grouped together, and can represent complex data structures though nesting. In ActionScript, Arrays have quite a bit of flexibility and functionality, as we’ll see. After the usual abstract introduction, we’ll apply what we’ve learned (whilst also learning some more along the way) by building a rather simple puzzle game.

  Visit Article

• 

  Make Your Flash Logo Bling with Alpha Gradient Masking

  In this tutorial we’ll look at how to create a logo which incorporates alpha gradient masking in its animation. I’ll explain some tips and tricks on how to get it working and avoiding some common problems.

  Visit Article

• 

  Using AMFPHP with AS3 and CodeIgniter

  It seems that the AMFPHP project has now been laid to rest, unfortunately it never made it past the 1.9 beta version and nor did the tutorials. However, Adobe didn’t give up on it that easily and with the new Flex compilers they’ve included the AMF3 object encoding!

  Good news for all you Flexers, but it’s a different story for all you AS3′ers. Flex allows you to quickly and simply build a service that will interact with your AMFPHP code, but you have to get your hands dirty with AS3. So, I’ve decided that it’s time there’s a decent set of classes out there that help Bob build a site with AS3 using the AMFPHP gateway.

  And to throw some more dirt into the mix, we’ll be integrating AMFPHP with CodeIgniter so that we have a fantastic PHP framework for the backend.

  Visit Article

• 

  Create Your Own Adobe AIR Application with Flash

  In this tutorial we’ll create a Twitter Reader application, fed from your own Twitter updates. We’ll look at some of the features of the nativeWindow class, how to sign it and make an install package.

  Visit Article

Aetuts+ – After Effects Tutorials

• 

  How to Create a Palmticular Tree

  In this tutorial, Vincent introduces a few of the new features in Particular 2 with the creation of a growing palm tree. Put on some sun screen and enjoy!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Creating a Tracked Head Wound

  In this tutorial Mathias shows that corner pin tracking can do much more than just replacing some pictures on a wall. We are going to compose a wound on a moving head and use the Mocha tracker in combination with his script MochaImport. Trust me, this is so much easier than creating a real head wound!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Create the “My Paper Mind” Effect

  This tutorial will teach you how to recreate the “My Paper Mind” effect done by Javan Ivey, but with the environment in mind, Nicolas has come up with a way to save some paper (as well as about 3 days worth of paper cuts!) It is all done in After Effects without any third party plug-ins. Enjoy!

  Continue Reading

• 

  Recreate Mac OSX Intro Video with C4D

  As the penultimate nugget of goodness in our Mac Lover’s Week, Satya created a 2 day tutorial that everybody will enjoy! In day 1, he will walk us through Cinema 4D and how to create the 3d text in this effect.

  Continue Reading

• 

  Make a Glitchy Interface Animation

  This tutorial will teach you how to recreate a stylized Glitch Interface Animation that resembles a high tech control system, with an analog monitor startup. Anthony Errisuriz provides his step by step process for creating this amazing effect with design from Illustrator and animating in After Effects.

  Continue Reading

Form Validation

jQuery Validate

A plugin that allows you to build client-side validation and Ajax forms.

JQuery Validate

MooTools Validate

A MooTools form validation plugin (similar to jQuery Validate).

MooTools Validate

JSValidate

JSValidate is a form validator that utilizes aspects of the Prototype and Scriptaculous library to bring you a simple to execute, non-intrusive JavaScript form validator. With minimal setup, your forms can be processing clean data in no time at all.

JSValidate

Form Styling

FancyForm – MooTools

A MooTools plugin that replaces the browser default checkboxes and radio buttons with custom styles.

FancyForm – MooTools

PrettyCheckboxes – jQuery

Same as FancyForm, but using jQuery library.

PrettyCheckboxes – jQuery

jQuery Selectbox Plugin

A simple plugin that allows you to replace the form select list with custom styles.

jQuery Selectbox Plugin

Unobtrusive Slider Control V2

This script lets you create custom slider controls associated with input fields.

Unobtrusive Slider Control V2

Custom Checkboxes, Radio Buttons, Select Lists

Give your form a complete makeover.

Custom Checkboxes

Images

Lightbox

Youíre probably very familiar with Lightbox. If not, this is used to display overlay images on the current page.

Lightbox

jQuery lightBox Plugin

This is exactly the same as Lightbox JS, but written on top of jQuery library.

jQuery lightBox Plugin

Thickbox

Thickbox is a jQuery plugin that is very similar to Lightbox, but comes with more features. It allows you to display: single images, multiple images, inline content, iframed content, or content served through AJAX in a hybrid modal.

Thickbox

Highslide JS

Highslide JS serves the same purposes as Thickbox, but it has the zoom effect and allows you to drag the overlay window.

Highslide JS

FancyBox

FancyBox is a jQuery plugin that is designed to replace the overused Lightbox. It has similar features, but better transition effects (the design is Mac-like).

FancyBox

jQZoom

jQZoom allows you to show a magnified image of the thumbnail. This technique is commonly used in eCommerce websites.

jQZoom

Gallery and Slideshow

Slideshow 2! for MooTools

Slideshow 2! is a JavaScript class for MooTools 1.2 to stream and animate the presentation of images on your website.

Slideshow 2! for MooTools

SmoothGallery

Using MooTools v1.11, this JavaScript gallery and slideshow system allows you to have simple and smooth (cross-fading) image galleries, slideshows, showcases and other cool stuff on your website.

SmoothGallery

jQuery Galleria

Galleria is a JavaScript image gallery written in jQuery. It loads the images one by one from an unordered list and displays thumbnails when each image is loaded. It will create thumbnails for you if you choose so, scaled or unscaled, centered and cropped inside a fixed thumbnail box defined by CSS.

jQuery Galleria

Noobslide

NoobSlide is a MooTools class that lets you create timed slideshows and sliding panels.

Noobslide

Product Slider

This shows a demonstration of a slider widget from the jQuery UI library used to create the product slider.

Product Slider

Panel Slider

Coda Slider Plugin

Coda Slider is a jQuery plugin that imitates the panel sliding effects as seen on Slideshow 2! for MooTools coda website.

Coda Slider Plugin

jQuery Coda Slide Tutorial

This is a tutorial from jQuery For Designers to show you how to create the Coda panel slider.

Sliding Tabs

Sliding Tabs is a MooTools 1.11 plugin which adds a pretty neat effect. It’s a clone of something seen on Panic Software’s Coda site, which in turn was very similar to a widget used in the iTunes Music Store.

Sliding Tabs

Carousel

jCarousel

jCarousel is a jQuery plugin for controlling a list of items in horizontal or vertical order. The items, which can be static HTML content or loaded with (or without) AJAX, and can be scrolled back and forth (with or without animation).

jCarousel

YUI Carousel Component

The carousel component manages a list of content (HTML LI elements within a UL) that can be displayed horizontally or vertically. The content can be scrolled back and forth with or without animation. It can reference static HTML content or the list items can be created dynamically on-the-fly (with or without Ajax).

YUI Carousel Component

DynamicDrive – Carousel Slideshow

Carousel Slideshow is a fabulous DHTML script for showcasing of images on your site. It displays images in a 3D, carousel fashion.

DynamicDrive – Carousel Slideshow

iCarousel – MooTools

iCarousel is an open source (free) JavaScript tool for creating carousel like widgets. You can use iCarousel as news ticker/scroller or image gallery slider.

iCarousel – MooTools

Tabs

jQuery UI Tabs

jQuery Tabs is a powerful and flexible jQuery plugin that lets you create customizable tab navigation (highly recommended).

jQuery UI Tabs

jQuery Tabs Tutorial

Another awesome tutorial from jQueryForDesigners.com that shows you how to create a basic tab navigation with jQuery.

jQuery Tabs Tutorial

MooTabs

MooTabs is a tiny(3kb) class for MooTools. As the name suggests, its primary purpose is to help out with the creation of simple tab navigation.

MooTabs

Scroll to Anchor

jQuery ScrollTo

A very flexible jQuery plugin that lets you create scrolling animation to any position of a web page with customizable erasing and speed options.

jQuery ScrollTo

SmoothScroll

A simple MooTools script that creates smooth scrolling to anchors on a web page.

SmoothScroll

Tooltips

jTips

A customizable jQuery plugin that displays tooltip popups with either static text or Ajax content.

jTips

jQuery Tooltip Plugin

Another nice Tooltip plugin.

jQuery Tooltip Plugin

Tooltip and Image Preview

A very simple jQuery script that displays tooltips and image previews.

Tooltip and Image Preview

Accordions

jQuery Accordion

This plugin creates an accordion menu. It works with nested lists, definition lists, or just nested divs.

jQuery Accordion

MooTools Accordion

The Accordion gives you a fancy way to show only the content you really need.

MooTools Accordion

MooTools Image Menu

Image Menu is a MooTools plugin that creates the horizontal accordion image menu.

MooTools Image Menu

Flash and Image Text Replacement

sIFR 3

sIFR is meant to replace short passages of plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems. It accomplishes this by using a combination of JavaScript, CSS, and Flash.

sIFR 3

jQuery sIFR

A jQuery plugin that does the sIFR for you.

jQuery sIFR

FLIR

Facelift Image Replacement is an image replacement script that dynamically generates image representations of text on your web page in fonts that otherwise might not be visible to your visitors. The generated image will be automatically inserted into your web page via JavaScript and visible to all modern browsers.

FLIR

CSS Stylesheet Switcher

Switch Stylesheets with jQuery

Stylesheet switcher with jQuery.

Switch Stylesheets with jQuery

MooTools Styleswitcher

CSS stylesheet switcher with MooTools.

MooTools Styleswitcher

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.

All these and more in August’s edition of Best of the Web.

• 

  The Definitive Guide to htaccess Techniques: Do’s and Don’ts

  Noupe has an excellent guide on how to do various functions with htaccess. Learn how to use htaccess to redirect to a secure https connection, restrict file uploads, disguise your file types, and many more.

  Visit Article

• 

  The Secret of Success: Suck Less

  Max Kanat-Alexander was a developer at Bugzilla when he learned a very valuable lesson on product releases. In fact, it’s a simple maxim that all types of developers should embrace:

  All you have to do to succeed in software is to consistently suck less with every release.”

  Read the rest of Max’s excellent breakdown of why he believes that solid releases are what keep retain current users and create new users.

  Visit Article

• 

  Yahoo Recommends Firefox Users To Switch To The “New, Safer IE8″

  Yahoo! angered many in the development community by telling Firefox users to switch to the new IE8, because the browser was “safer”. TechCrunch writer Michael Arrington believes that it’s not because Yahoo! is endorsing the “better” browser, but the browser company that is paying them the most.

  Visit Article

• 

  Mastering CSS, Part 2: Advanced Techniques and Tools

  Smashing Magazine has a roundup on some advanced CSS techniques around. Learn how to create timeles, calendars, iPhone application UIs and more, with CSS.

  Visit Article

• 

  Funny (creative) programming comments

  The Web Dev Bros have stumbled upon some interesting code comments in Google Code projects. Warning, there be dragons here…

  Visit Article

• 

  Really Useful Tools For PHP Developers

  W3 Avenue has a nice roundup of useful PHP tools for web developers.

  Visit Article

• 

  Grails: The Search Really Is Over (For Now)

  It seems that Grails is becoming quite popular in Java programming circles, as it’s a Java framework for web development. Read this one programmer’s thoughts on why Grails beats out other Java frameworks.

  Visit Article

• 

  Dirty Coding Tricks

  While web developers might not normally dive into game development practices, we sure can appreciate deadlines and pushing some less than perfect code. Here are some of the dirtiest hacks ever put into games in the 11th hour to ship the game on time.

  Visit Article

• 

  30 Tutorials Combining Both Wordpress and jQuery

  An excellent roundup of tutorials that combine Wordpress and jQuery. Sliding content, news tickers, multi-level drop down menus and more.

  Visit Article

• 

  Google Caffeine: A Detailed Test of the New Google

  It appears that Google has been testing some major advancements in their search engine, and they released Google “Caffeine” to the world early in August (test Caffeine here). The new search engine promises to be faster, more comprehensive and more relative.

  Visit Article

• 

  5 Ways to Make Ajax Calls with jQuery

  We released an article on 5 different ways to make Ajax calls with jQuery earlier last month. The article came complete with source code and a nifty working demo of all the calls.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  The Longest Poem in the World

  Andrei Gheorghe decided to create an interesting web app that pulls tweets that rhyme together, making the “longest poem in the world”. At the time of this writing the poem has almost 400,000 verses, growing by about 4,000 daily.

  We’ve labeled this application under the categories “Cool” and “Huh?”.

  Visit Article

• 

  What is OpenID and how can I use it?

  Many major sites have embraced OpenID as a user login platform, and the initiative is building steam every day. If you haven’t checked out what OpenID could do for your site, this is a great primer on what OpenID does, how it works and tools and resources that could help you get started.

  Visit Tutorial

• 

  Staying Current: A Software Developer’s Responsibility

  Jay Fields has an excellent article on why web developers have to constantly learn new technologies, or find lower paying jobs.

  Visit Article

• 

  Digg moves to Git

  Nearly everyone has their own take on the best version tracking, and it’s created a bit of controversy on the web among developers. Git has recently gathered lots of attention, and now that Digg has moved over to Git from SVN, the debate will become even more intense. Check out a Digg engineer’s take on why Git has the edge over SVN in their work environment.

  Visit Article

• 

  What is your best programmer joke?

  An simple question at Stackoverflow turned into a meme of sorts for programmers, each putting in their favorite programming jokes. At the time of this writing, there are 471 responses with more jokes, and the number has been growing steadily.

  Visit Article

• 

  For God’s sake! Keep it simple!

  The Making Good Software blog has an excellent reminder for those of us writing software: Keep it simple! The article outlines why you should continually strive to keep your code svelte, and only add complexity when making things easier.

  Visit Article

• 

  40 Years of Unix

  The Unix operating system turned 40 last month, and BBC has a fantastic article on the history of the system and its significance in the web world.

  Visit Article

• 

  20 of the Worst Designed Websites In the World

  Manolith took the time to document some of the most hideous web designs in the world. Try not to look directly at them…

  Visit Article

• 

  Why You NEED APIs to Foster Innovation: A Case Study

  An article over why new web technologies have to let users innovate with their product, and the majority of the time this means releasing an API. The article contrasts between services who didn’t open up API’s with those that did, and compares their successes.

  Visit Article

• 

  How Popular Website Designs Looked Like In Late 90’s

  Smashing Apps compared sites like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and other giants of the late 90’s. It’s an interesting look at how design has evolved in the last 10 years.

  Visit Article

• 

  Programmer Competency Matrix

  A comprehensive matrix that shows how competent a programmer is by testing between the types of programming knowledge or skills. Try rating yourself… how competent are you?

  Visit Article

• 

  If Famous Graphic Artists Were Web Designers…

  Ever wonder what creations Andy Warhol or Monet might have designed in our modern world? Smashing Magazine has an excellent article showing the inspiration these designers have on our current design.

  Visit Article

• 

  PHPanywhere.net

  If you’re looking for a more portable programming IDE, PHPanywhere might just be the ticket. PHPanywhere is a real-time syntax editor that can manage multiple projects and upload files to the server via FTP.

  Visit Site

• 

  Five Things That Will Kill Your Site

  Jonathan Howell had a fantastic piece on the five major things that can bring your site to its knees: Change, unexpected load, slow death, time related issues, hardware failure.

  Visit Article

• 

  JavaScript: Bad Practices

  A collection of Don’ts when it comes to Javascript. A handy refresher for Javascript beginners.

  Visit Article

• 

  50 Useful New jQuery Techniques and Tutorials

  A fantastic collection of all things jQuery. Graphs, sliders, polls, carousels, Retweet buttons and more.

  Visit Article

• 

  Signs that you’re a bad programmer

  A clever article that points out some warning signs that you might not be the world’s best programmer. This is either a reaffirming pat on the back or a cold splash of water to the face

  Visit Article

• 

  Software Developers Should Never Have Dress Codes

  Kirk Wylie has a smart rant on his reasonings why software developers should never have a dress code. Any developer will find himself nodding vigorously and exclaiming “Amen!” to many of Kirk’s points. (I’m writing this in my regular programming uniform: T-Shirt and jeans.)

  Visit Article

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.