Step 1: Open Terminal

If you don’t know where it’s located, just clicked on the spotlight magnifying glass in the top right corner of your screen, and search for “Terminal.”

Step 2: Paste in the Snippet

Next, don’t worry too much about the code below if you aren’t interested. Basically, it just tells Mac to access the dock and insert a single spacer tile. Copy the line below, paste it into the Terminal window, and press enter.

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'

Finally, we want to restart the dock. You can do this manually, or just type “killall Dock” into the terminal, which will force a restart. I forgot to mention this in the quickie screencast.

When you open your dock again, you’ll notice a single new space, that you can then click and drag to your desired location. Repeat Step 2 X number of times until you have as many spaces as you need.

That’s it! Super simple. So stop asking me how!!

What is It

If you’ve ever seen those neat little bars that stick to the bottom of a website – like the one at Envato.com – this mimics that functionality.

Sticky Nav Menu is a super helpful script and navigation menu that has support for:

1. Sub-menus
2. Color fading
3. Always locked to the bottom of the window – even when the user scrolls!
4. Utilizes cookies to remember if a visitor to your website has chosen to hide the bar. This way, it won’t pop up every time they visit a new page within your site!

$3 on CodeCanyon

Now, I’m not by any means a world-class writer. I’m sure I make plenty of mistakes; in fact, I guarantee as much. Having said that, I do think I have a relatively firm grasp of the language. If I could force my writers to adhere to these following six steps, my days would be much easier!

1. Proofread!

This one should go without saying; yet still, I repeatedly find myself proofing articles which contain numerous errors that anyone could spot. For example, we offer a base tutorial template on Nettuts+ for our writers. For the intro paragraph of this template, we placed a few generic sentences as an example.

Then we write a short introductory paragraph. Not more than a few lines, this appears on the blog index page next to the preview image.

You wouldn’t believe how many submissions we receive each week which contain this exact text. Mindless omissions like this can easily be avoided. Needless to say, if authors won’t take the time to even read the opening paragraph, I can’t trust that the entire tutorial is Nettuts+ worthy.

2. Using the Same Line Over and Over

In defense of our authors, tech tutorials are difficult to write – for anyone. They’re mostly boring, and leave little room for creativity. With that said, I often look over tutorial submissions, where, quite literally, every new paragraph begins with something along the lines of “As you can see…”

But wait – the same is true for the opposite! Just because you’re about to paste in a block of code doesn’t mean that you must preceed said code block with “Let’s do that now…” Occasionally = not a problem. Dozens of times per tutorial = no thanks!

3. Using Commas Incorrectly

As a tech editor, I’m much more forgiving in this area. The rules differ from country to country, and, let’s face it, who really cares whether the comma should be placed inside or outside of the quotation mark. It’s a tech tutorial, not a novel! Furthermore, it’s highly unlikely that a talented developer will also have comparable writing skills. Having said that, there are simple guidelines which only take a few moments to memorize. Most notably: learn when and where to place your commas and periods. For example:

Incorrect

In response, the dog said, “thank you for the treat”.

The line above is grammatically incorrect. Can you spot where? … The error comes from that period at the very end. Instead, it should be placed within the quote.

Correct

In response, the dog said, “Thank you for the treat.”

Also, note how we’ve correctly capitalized the first letter of the quote. Now for another example:

Incorrect

“Shall we go shopping”, the girl asked?

There are a few mistakes above.

1. As the quoted girl is asking a question, we should conclude the quote with a question mark.
2. Commas generally go before the closing quotation, however, when the quote ends with a question mark, we omit the comma entirely.
3. Although the quoted sentence is a question, we’re still making a statement. The final question mark should be replaced with a period.

Correct

“Shall we go shopping?” the girl asked.

4. Writing 2 Instead of Two

Unless the number is used in a title that is meant to grab the reader’s attention – much like the title of this particular posting – always replace the number with the full written word. 5 becomes five. 8 becomes eight.

Incorrect

Nothing signals an amateur writer more than sentences such as, “I’ll show you 2 ways to fix that error.”

Correct

I’ll show you two ways to fix that error.

5. Look for the Red Underlines

Sometimes, late at night, when I find myself scrolling through a tutorial submission, searching for red underlines – signaling a misspelled word – I secretly punish the author with words that he or she will never hear. How difficult is it to perform a quick spell-check? To not do so is lazy, and inconsiderate.

6. Anchors are your Friends

This one is absolutely a pet peeve of mine. Never take for granted that the reader knows more than he or she actually does. While a framework, such as CodeIgniter, might be an every-day word for you, the same may not necessarily be true for the reader. Additionally, it’s a common courtesy to provide links to the tools/articles/services that you reference. Why force the reader to perform a Google search?

It’s time consuming, and might take the writer out of his flow, but take the extra moment and wrap the word within anchor tags. Don’t make me do it for you!

Incorrect

Recommended Tools

1. Skitch
2. 1Password
3. Echofon
4. Coda
5. The Hit List

Correct

Recommended Tools

1. Skitch
2. 1Password
3. Echofon
4. Coda
5. The Hit List

Conclusion

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, I’m in no way a flawless writer; I’m sure I make numerous mistakes. But the simple errors listed above occur far too often. Which ones did I miss?

Step 1: Settings

First, on your iPhone, go into Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and delete your current Gmail account; we’ll be creating a new one.

Step 2: Microsoft Exchange

Next, while still in “Mail, Contacts, Calendars,” click “Add Account.” This time, rather than “Gmail,” choose “Microsoft Exchange.”

1. Email field : Your full Gmail email address
2. Domain field : Leave blank
3. Username field : Your full Gmail email address
4. Password field : Duh…enter your password!

When you’ve filled out those fields, click “Next.” You might receive an alert that says, “Unable to Verify Certificate.” Just click Okay.

Step 3: New Server Field

Now, the page will reload, and you’ll see a new Server textbox. Type m.google.com, and click “Next” again. Within the next screen, just make sure that “Mail” is selected, and you’re done! Super easy!

Keep in Mind

1. You might notice a decrease in battery life.
2. You can only use one Exchange account at a time on the iPhone.
3. Is immediate notification necessarily a good thing? I’m not sure about you, but I feel split a second wave of anxiety every time I hear that beep!

I’ve always been intrigued with the idea of being a writer. Give me a subject that I’m not interested in, and I crash and burn. But if I enjoy the subject matter, and can have a bit of fun with it, I love writing. The act of sitting in a coffee shop – overpriced chocolately beverage in hand – and being creative is far too appealing to me. A couple years ago, I approached a site called Freelance Folder about possibly writing for them. They didn’t offer much compensation – only about $60 per article; but I enjoyed it, and was hoping to get my name out there. As with most blogs like this, I was only able to submit a couple of articles each month.

Because I was eager to write more and more, I contacted the founder of FreelanceFolder, Jon Phillips, often about a full-time writing position with his site. Unfortunately, at the time, no positions were currently available. Politely, I would always speak up and respond with something along the lines of, “Well, please do keep me in mind if something opens up.”

The Dude

One day, to my huge fortune, Jon emailed me. As I understood it, some dude named Cyan was in need of a weekly writer for a new web development blog called Nettuts. Jon is an accomplished developer/writer/musician himself, and was unfortunately unable to take the position. But thanks to my constant – and probably irritating pestering – he must have remembered that I was looking for a steady writing gig, and forwarded the email to me!

The Woman

Well as it turns out, this “Cyan” turned out to be a “she,” and a high-level contact at that (she and Collis founded Envato)! After a couple of polite emails, I was on my way to writing a weekly article for Nettuts+.

My First Three Articles for Nettuts+

1. 15 Resources to get you started with jQuery from Scratch
2. Solving 5 Common CSS Headaches
3. Learn PHP from Scratch: A Training Regimen

Long Story Short

To make a long story short, I just so happened to be in the right place at the right time, and was offered the Editor position of the site a few weeks later, ThemeForest a few months after that, and finally CodeCanyon – which is scheduled to launch sometime late this year.

Now What About Sylvester Stallone

I’ve been a fan of the Rocky series ever since I was a kid. Being the nerd that I am, this meant that it was only appropriate to watch the commentary to Rocky 1. At one point during the muted movie, he made reference to how his script was finally sold. He was actually auditioning for an acting role for a movie. After meeting with the producer/director/whomever, it was decided that he wasn’t really the right fit. As he made his way to the door and was just about to exit the room, he turned around and said, “I don’t know if this means anything…but I do a bit of writing too.” In response to that, the producer said something along the lines of, “Oh really? Let’s schedule a meeting to discuss it.”

As a result of that scheduled meeting, he sold the project, became as buff as I am, the movie was a huge success, and he obviously went on to be a superstar …all because of one last effort. If he had instead chosen to keep his mouth shut as he walked towards the door, it’s quite possible that his career may never have taken off. He says that, to this day, he encourages students to always speak up – because who knows, they might just say, “Come on back!”

Looking back: if I had never come across FreelanceFolder, probably in bed during some sleepless night… If I had never pestered Jon about my desire to write more… who knows what I’d be doing right now. So the moral of this story boys and girls is: speak up! The “squeaky wheel gets the oil” idiom might be a bit cheesy, and undesirable even; but it’s 100% true, nevertheless. How can they say “come on back” if you never speak up?

I’m a bit obsessive — okay, quite obsessive. While a better man may have the ability to simply turn off the push feature on his phone, I can’t. This means that, other than the 5-6 hours a night I sleep, I am always available…always. If Mr. X sends an email to me, I will have received it, and at least glanced at the email within a few moments of him pressing the send button. On one hand, this is fantastic. If my boss emails me with important information, I’ll have it instantly. I’m still undecided as to whether they’re impressed by my quick responses, or disturbed. This also means that I’m continuously updated on life-changing important 140 characters ramblings from my Twitter buddies. On the other hand, I can’t shut down.

Especially in the last month, I’ve begun to ask myself, “Is this a good thing?” More and more, I find myself glancing at my phone during dinner, or quietly reaching into my pocket after my leg starts buzzing in a movie theater. No no… I can’t turn the thing off. Two hours without availability? How could I deal with that? On more than one occasion, my fiancée has given me “the look” – which means, turn – it – off. I suspect that many of the male readers of this blog are quite familiar with this “look.”

I find myself glancing at my phone during dinner, or quietly reaching into my pocket after my leg starts buzzing in a movie theater. No no…I can’t turn the thing off. Two hours without availability? How could I deal with that?

Not Just the Phone

But don’t forget, there’s more than just the iPhone. For some reason, I’ve found it necessary to have a Twitter client on my desktop computer, laptop, and phone. This means that beeps are heard around my entire home at sporadic intervals. Beep…beep…beep. It’s irritating – yet I won’t fix the problem!

I suppose the reason I’m writing this is because I’m beginning to feel the toll from my constant availability disorder. My eyes strain, and more importantly, it’s difficult to turn my brain off. This results in far less sleep than I require. It doesn’t help that I don’t have a specific 9-5 job either. Forum chatter, Twitter, Facebook, Yammer, new project ideas…it all adds up quickly.

My question to you is: do you suffer from this as well? If so, how do you shutdown?

Features

1. Option to fade between slides
2. Option to auto-switch between tabs
3. Super light-weight – about 1000 bytes, packed.
4. Has everything you’d actually use…and nothing more.
5. No need to specifiy the number of tabs. This is done automatically for you.

As many of you may know, I run the Nettuts+ Twitter account, as well as edit the site. For a web development blog with 50,000 RSS subscribers, a Twitter follow-count of 20,000 is actually quite impressive.

Working for Envato, I’ve had the pleasure of learning from so many different brilliant minds, especially when it comes to things like social marketing. There’s no denying that, at the end of the day, my job is to create a following for Nettuts+. As such, it’s very interesting to analyze how each site editor runs his or her own Twitter account. Each of us have our own style.

1. Using it primarily for important site news.
2. Retweeting applicable articles/news items.
3. A bit more of a personal outlet.

Pros and Cons

There are advantages and disadvantages to each method; and I’m perfectly willing to admit that I don’t know enough to make any kind of “this is the way to gain followers” declaration. With that said, I do feel that I’ve learned a thing or two.

1. It is Okay to use the Word, “I”

This might seem obvious; however, I’m fairly certain that many companies discourage the use of any personal chatter what-so-ever. Yet once again, they’re missing the point of Twitter. If it was originally created as a way to tell the world “what you’re doing,” how did it turn in to a maze of links?

If I’m following @microsoft – which I don’t – I want to feel as if I have the “inside scoop” on what they’re working on. Surely, they can’t reveal any exclusive information, due to the fact that the tweet would be immediately “articalized” by blogs across the web within hours. Having said that, I would have loved to read tweets along the lines of “Windows 7 is coming along really well! We’re all getting excited.” from Microsoft. It’s personal without being “took my dog for a walk” boring.

Now it’s one thing with enormous companies like Microsoft – perhaps a bit more understandable – but it’s quite another with smaller blogs and sites like Nettuts+. If my only job was to post link after link on Twitter, what would be the benefit? Can’t you visit Smashing Magazine’s site and find the majority of them anyhow? Sure you can.

Maybe it’s just because I work from home, but I truly do have a desire to connect with our readers – on both a professional and a personal level (at least as personal as Twitter can get).

2. Do Not Follow Everyone

This is one that I might not be smart enough to understand. What is the advantage to following everybody, from a business point of view? Does that make us look more friendly? Because, to my eyes, it seems a bit spammy. Don’t ruin your Twitter feed by befriending 10,000 people. Just as it’s my job to run the Twitter account, I also take advantage and learn from the thoughts and ideas of those I follow. If I followed 10,000 users, I would lose that ability.

Some might argue that the advantage comes from immediately knowing when a user has a gripe with your company. This is incorrect for two reasons:

1. Following 10k people, you won’t notice.
2. Why not, using a program like Echofont (my Twitter Mac client of choice), create a saved search for your company? Presto. Mission accomplished without following everybody.

Secondly, how many of you have found yourself looking over who your favorite designer on Twitter follows?

There’s a huge benefit to reviewing who those you follow…follow!

3. Be Silly

Let’s be frank: as we become increasingly solitary, the desire to “connect” increases exponentially. I don’t follow people or businesses who spam me with links all day. I need to feel like I “know” them, at least in some small fashion. Don’t get me wrong – links are great (I post them often, even), but they must represent only a portion of your tweets.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with referencing a funny Youtube video or article, as long as it isn’t offensive in nature. All business and no play is never a good thing. For example, I, just yesterday, linked to a funny video of an Ewok moonwalking on The Today Show. Is it related to web development? Not at all. Does it promote my site/company? Not a chance. But it adds a bit of personal flair, and opens a dialog between yourself and your followers. This helps to build a larger, and more personal, link between your company and the consumer. And of course, the convenient plus side is that the more tweets with @yourbusiness in them… the more retweets… the more followers.

4. Once They Know You…

They’ll help you! Whether it comes in the form of a retweet, or a Digg, or even a helpful job reference, it’s common sense that we’re much more apt to help those we know over those we don’t.

Twitter is a simple tool. We’ve just complicated the hell out of it.

The Twitter Recipe

If you want more followers for your company, be a human being and tweet like one.

1. Only provide links to articles you’ve READ and ENDORSE
2. Add a dash of meaningless personal chatter.
3. Reply to those who ask you questions. Remember, replies don’t show up in everybody’s feed. You’re not spamming your followers if you respond to ten people in a few minutes.
4. Two cups of promoting your business. That’s the point, isn’t it?
5. One tablespoon of hilarious Youtube video a few times per week. Laughing is good.
6. Be creative. For example, Envato’s support staff has a Twitter account to expedite quick and easy questions.
7. A quart of “don’t complicate it!”

In Conclusion

I want to clarify that these are the things that have worked for me personally. Do I have it all figured out? No way. Does anyone else, for that matter? No way. What works for your business?

1. Ask JW: Building the jwAnnounce jQuery Plugin
2. Build a Simple Content Slider jQuery Plugin
3. Ultimate Guide to Creating a Design and Converting it to HTML and CSS
4. CSS: The Very First Steps (Subscription Tutorial)
5. TypeKit: Removing the Wrapping Paper

Components

I’ve also released a couple helpful jQuery plugins this week; nothing too life shattering, but helpful none the less.

filterJSON

Imagine that you have a JSON file, and need an easy way to filter through and display its contents on the page. If you’re using a helpful JavaScript library like jQuery, you could use .getJSON() to load and parse the file; however, you’re then left with a huge clump of data to sort through.

Wouldn’t it be easier if there was a way to, in a sense, allow for pagination through these objects? Wouldn’t it be easier if we could set the number of items to display on the page at any given time? That’s exactly what this plugin does.

jwAnnounce

I was recently asked on Twitter if I was aware of a simple announcement plugin for jQuery – where a little bar is posted at the top of a website informing the user that some important news/update is taking place. I’m sure you’ve seen them plenty of times. With jQuery, we can create a wrapper for this effect easily and quickly.

On the Horizon

Coming up this Friday is a pretty nifty screencast called “ajaxComments.” It’ll teach how to take a simple PHP comment form and AJAXify it with the jQuery post() method and some pretty animations.

P.S. Don’t forget to bookmark this page to stay up to date on the latest Twitter video quick tips from Nettuts+! If you’re unfamiliar, they’re five minute or less web development tips.

Hit the download link below to view examples, download the source, and watch a screencast to learn how to build it yourself!