Links for Designers & Developers
I recently wrote an e-mail for a couple of guys that I know from Square Tab. It was a list of links that i have found usefull over the last few months, so I thought i would share these links to the rest of the internet. I’ve split the links into categories depending on the technologies they use.
CSS
The first link i sent over was about the user of media queries in CSS3. Basically media queries allow you to display different implementations of CSS depending on what device the page is being viewed on. E.g. you can say if your screen is 800px wide, display this otherwise display this. Its got some more advance stuff, but that was just a simple example. Anyway heres the link:
The second of my links I sent was about CSS Frameworks. These allow you to save time when creating CSS based templates. They also normally incorporate a grid based systems which can aesthetically make your site more pleasing to the eye. I have recommended two frameworks.
There are many many more frameworks, but these are the ones i suggested. A list of other frameworks can be found here.
After writing the e-mail I came across an article on sitepoint titled ‘Tomorrow’s CSS Today: 8 Techniques They Don’t Want You To Know‘. It contains some very cool techniques such as using regular expressions to check what a link links to e.g. a PDF document, word document. Depending on what the link links to, a little background graphic will display next to the link with a meaningful icon (e.g. a PDF icon for a link linking to a PDF document).
JavaScript
Although the link that I sent is not strictly for developers, it can server as a gentle introduction to JQuery.
“JQuery is a fast, concise, JavaScript Library that simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages.”
The link I sent was about introducing JQuery effects to web designers. It requires a basic knowledge of javascript & the DOM. It shows you how to apply JQuery to a page, and how to insert some rather cool effects. The tutorial walks you through the code, which is downloadable, and has live examples. So you can see the code in action! Anyway heres the link:
Flash
Ever wanted text have that cool font. But dont want to use an Image, because no-one else has that font? Well heres an accessible, SEO friendly approach sIFR. sIFR uses CSS, javascript & flash, to do text replacement or should i say font replacement. The link i sent is definately worth a read (in my honest opinion):
Ruby on Rails
I myself am exploring the world of ruby on rails. As a PHP developer it is a total different way of thinking. To be honest i’m not totally convinced yet. However i chucked in some links for the guys to introduce them into the world of ruby on rails.
With the advent of Rails 2.0 some of the tutorials will be out of date, however they still serve as good tutorails if you want to experiment with Rails
- http://www.peepcode.com
- http://www.railscasts.com
- http://media.rubyonrails.org/video/rails_take2_with_sound.mov
If you are a PHP Developer I highly highly recommend getting a copy of Rails for PHP Developers. It servers as an excellent guide to Ruby on Rails. Whilst Agile Web Development with Rails (the 3rd edition covers Rails 2.0)is for those who have little / no programming experience, and thus can be very waffly at times.
Web Server (Linux, Apache / Nginx, MySQL, PHP / Ruby on Rails)
If you ever want to create your own webserver, or if you have unmanaged hosting (VPS or Dedicated). I cant recommend the next link enough.
Slicehost provide low cost VPS hosting as all their ’slices’ are unmanaged, however they have brought out great articles for setting up different VPS setups . Their articles cover VPS setups for the following Linux distributions Ubuntu, Debian and CentOS. The articles provide advice and guides to using Apache and Nginx, as well as helping you setup several different frameworks (RoR, Django), and much more. I highly highly recommend them!
Anyway that brings me to the end of this post, I hope you have found the links useful. I will probably post some more in the near future. Keep me updated if you find anything interesting or useful.
Tags: apache, CSS, Design, developer, framework, frameworks, grid, hosting, jquery, linux, media queries, mysql, nginx, php, regular expressions, RoR, screen casts, sIFR, slicehost, tutorial, web, web design, web development