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15 Kubernetes Best Practices Every Developer Should Know

2022-10-12T10:24:00.002+05:30

In this post, I will run through some best practices to use when using Kubernetes (K8s).

As the most popular container orchestration system, K8s is the de-facto standard for the modern cloud engineer to get to grips with. K8s is a notoriously complex system to use and maintain, so getting a good grasp of what you should and should not be doing, and knowing what is possible will get your deployment off to a solid start.

These recommendations cover common issues within 3 broad categories, application development, governance, and cluster configuration.

Kubernetes Best Practices:

Use Namespaces

Namespaces in K8s are important to utilize in order to organize your objects, create logical partitions within your cluster, and for security purposes. By default, there are 3 namespaces in a K8s cluster, default, kube-public and kube-system.

RBAC can be used to control access to particular namespaces in order to limit the access of a group to control the blast-radius of any mistakes that might occur, for example, a group of developers may only have access to a namespace called dev , and have no access to the production namespace. The ability to limit different teams to different namespaces can be valuable to avoid duplicated work or resource conflict.

LimitRange objects can also be configured against namespaces to define the standard size for a container deployed in the namespace. ResourceQuotas can also be used to limit the total resource consumption of all containers inside a Namespace. Network policies can be used against namespaces to limit traffic between pods.

Use Readiness and Liveness Probes

Readiness and Liveness probes are essentially types of health checks. These are another very important concept to utilize in K8s.

Readiness probes ensure that requests to a pod are only directed to it when the pod is ready to serve requests. If it is not ready, then requests are directed elsewhere. It is important to define the readiness probe for each container, as there are no default values set for these in K8s. For example, if a pod takes 20 seconds to start and the readiness probe was missing, then any traffic directed to that pod during the startup time would cause a failure. Readiness probes should be independent and not take into account any dependencies on other services, such as a backend database or caching service.

Liveness probes test if the application is running in order to mark it as healthy. For example, a particular path of a web app could be tested to ensure it is responding. If not, the pod will not be marked as healthy and the probe failure will cause the kubeletto launch a new pod, which will then be tested again. This type of probe is used as a recovery mechanism in case the process becomes unresponsive.

Use Autoscaling

Where it is appropriate, autoscaling can be employed to dynamically adjust the number of pods (horizontal pod autoscaler), the amount of resources consumed by the pods (vertical autoscaler), or the number of nodes in the cluster (cluster autoscaler), depending on the demand for the resources.

The horizontal pod autoscaler can also scale a replication controller, replica set, or stateful set based on CPU demand.

Using scaling also brings some challenges, such as not storing persistent data in the container’s local filesystem, as this would prevent horizontal autoscaling. Instead, a PersistentVolume could be used.

The cluster autoscaler is useful when highly variable workloads exist on the cluster that may require different amounts of resources at different times based on demand. Removing unused nodes automatically is also a great way to save money!

Use Resource Requests and Limits

Resource requests and limits (minimum and maximum amount of resources that can be used in a container) should be set to avoid a container starting without the required resources assigned, or the cluster running out of available resources.

Without limits, pods can utilize more resources than required, causing the total available resources to be reduced which may cause a problem with other applications on the cluster. Nodes may crash, and new pods may not be able to be placed corrected by the scheduler.

Without requests, if the application cannot be assigned enough resources, it may fail when attempting to start or perform erratically.

Resource requests and limits define the amount of CPU and Memory available in millicores and mebibytes. Note that if your process goes over the memory limit, the process is terminated, so it may not always be appropriate to set this in all cases. If your container goes over the CPU limit, the process is throttled.

Deploy Your Pods as Part of a Deployment, DaemonSet, ReplicaSet, or StatefulSet Across Nodes.

A single pod should never be run individually. To improve fault tolerance, instead, they should always be part of a Deployment, DaemonSet, ReplicaSet or StatefulSet. The pods can then be deployed across nodes using anti-affinity rules in your deployments to avoid all pods being run on a single node, which may cause downtime if it was to go down.

Use Multiple Nodes

Running K8s on a single node is not a good idea if you want to build in fault tolerance. Multiple nodes should be employed in your cluster so workloads can be spread between them.

Use Role-based Access Control (RBAC)

Using RBAC in your K8s cluster is essential to properly secure your system. Users, Groups, and Service accounts can be assigned permissions to perform permitted actions on a particular namespace (a Role), or to the entire cluster (ClusterRole). Each role can have multiple permissions. To tie the defined roles to the users, groups, or service accounts, RoleBinding or ClusterRoleBinding objects are used.

RBAC roles should be set up to grant using the principle of least privilege, i.e. only permissions that are required are granted. For example, the admins group may have access to all resources, and your operators group may be able to deploy, but not be able to read secrets.

Host Your Kubernetes Cluster Externally (Use a Cloud Service)

Hosting a K8s cluster on your own hardware can be a complex undertaking. Cloud services offer K8s clusters as platform as a service (PaaS), such as AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) on Azure, or EKS (Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service) on Amazon Web Services. Taking advantage of this means the underlying infrastructure will be managed by your cloud provider, and tasks around scaling your cluster, such as adding and removing nodes can be much more easily achieved, leaving your engineers to the management of what is running on the K8s cluster itself.

Upgrade Your Kubernetes Version

As well as introducing new features, new K8s versions also include vulnerability and security fixes, which make it important to run an up-to-date version of K8s on your cluster. Support for older versions will likely not be as good as newer ones.

Migrating to a new version should be treated with caution however as certain features can be depreciated, as well as new ones added. Also, the apps running on your cluster should be checked that they are compatible with the newer targeted version before upgrading.

Monitor Your Cluster Resources and Audit Policy Logs

Monitoring the components in the K8s control plane is important to keep resource consumption under control. The control plane is the core of K8s, these components keep the system running and so are vital to correct K8s operations. Kubernetes API, kubelet, etcd, controller-manager, kube-proxy and kube-dns make up the control plane.

Control plane components can output metrics in a format that can be used by Prometheus, the most common K8s monitoring tool.

Automated monitoring tools should be used rather than manually managing alerts.

Audit logging in K8s can be turned on whilst starting the kube-apiserver to enable deeper investigation using the tools of your choice. The audit.log will detail all requests made to the K8s API and should be inspected regularly for any issues that might be a problem on the cluster. The Kubernetes cluster default policies are defined in the audit-policy.yaml file and can be amended as required.

A log aggregation tool such as Azure Monitor can be used to send logs to a log analytics workspace from AKS for future interrogation using Kusto queries. On AWS Cloudwatch can be used. Third-party tools also provide deeper monitoring functionality such as Dynatrace and Datadog.

Finally, a defined retention period should be in place for the logs, around 30–45 days is common.

Use a Version Control System

K8s configuration files should be controlled in a version control system (VCS). This enables a raft of benefits, including increased security, enabling an audit trail of changes, and will increase the stability of the cluster. Approval gates should be put in place for any changes made so the team can peer-review the changes before they are committed to the main branch.

Use a Git-based Workflow (GitOps)

Successful deployments of K8s require thought on the workflow processes used by your team. Using a git-based workflow enables automation through the use of CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery) pipelines, which will increase application deployment efficiency and speed. CI/CD will also provide an audit trail of deployments. Git should be the single source of truth for all automation and will enable unified management of the K8s cluster. You can also consider using a dedicated infrastructure delivery platform such as Spacelift, which recently introduced Kubernetes support.

Reduce the Size of Your Containers

Smaller image sizes will help speed up your builds and deployments and reduce the amount of resources the containers consumed on your K8s cluster. Uneccesery packages should be removed where possible, and small OS distribution images such as Alpine should be favored. Smaller images can be pulled faster than larger images, and consume less storage space.

Following this approach will also provide security benefits as there will be fewer potential vectors of attack for malicious actors.

Organize Your Objects with Labels

K8s labels are key-value pairs that are attached to objects in order to organize your cluster resources. Labels should be meaningful metadata that provide a mechanism to track how different components in the K8s system interact.

Recommended labels for pods in the official K8s documentation include name, instance, version, component, part-of, and managed-by.

Labels can also be used in a similar way to using tags in a cloud environment on resources in order to track things related to the business, such as object ownership, and the environmentan object should belong to.

Also recommended is to use labels to detail security requirements, including confidentiality and compliance.

Use Network Policies

Network policies should be employed to restrict traffic between objects in the K8s cluster. By default, all containers can talk to each other in the network, something that presents a security risk if malicious actors gain access to a container, allowing them to traverse objects in the cluster. Network policies can control traffic at the IP and port level, similar to the concept of security groups in cloud platforms to restrict access to resources. Typically, all traffic should be denied by default, then allow rules should be put in place to allow required traffic.

Use a Firewall

As well as using network policies to restrict internal traffic on your K8s cluster, you should also put a firewall in front of your K8s cluster in order to restrict requests to the API server from the outside world. IP addresses should be whitelisted and open ports restricted.

Key Points

Following the best practices listed in this article when designing, running, and maintaining your Kubernetes cluster will put you on the path to success on your modern application journey!

[DevOps] Create your first CI/CD pipeline!!

2022-02-15T16:07:00.002+05:30

[DevOps] Create your first CI/CD pipeline!!

What is CI/CD pipeline?

A CI/CD pipeline is a series of steps that must be performed in order to deliver a new version of software.A CI/CD pipeline introduces monitoring and automation to improve the process of application development, particularly at the integration and testing phases, as well as during delivery and deployment. Although it is possible to manually execute each of the steps of a CI/CD pipeline, the true value of CI/CD pipelines is realized through automation.

Elements of a CI/CD pipeline

Build — The stage where the application is compiled.
Test — The stage where code is tested. Automation here can save both time and effort.
Release — The stage where the application is delivered to the repository.
Deploy — In this stage code is deployed to production.
Validation and compliance — The steps to validate a build are determined by the needs of your organization. Image security scanning tools, like Clair, can ensure the quality of images by comparing them to known vulnerabilities (CVEs).

What is a CI/CD pipeline?

A CI/CD pipeline is a series of steps that must be performed in order to deliver a new version of software. Continuous…

www.redhat.com

Tools

Overview

This is what we will create in this article.

What we use?

Ec2 Ubuntu
Java, Jenkins, Maven
Tomcat
Docker, Jira
DefectDojo

Setup

1: prepare 2 Ubuntu server . Name one for “Jenkins”. one for “Tomcat” Recommend more than t2.small instance type.

2: make sure you can ssh into the both servers.

Setting up Jenkins server

1: update

sudo apt-get update -y

2: Install Java (Java Runtime Environment)

sudo apt search openjdk

3: Install the JDK

sudo apt-get install default-jdk -y

4: Check your version

ubuntu@jenkins:~$ javac -version
javac 11.0.13ubuntu@jenkins:~$ java -version
openjdk version "11.0.13" 2021-10-19
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.13+8-Ubuntu-0ubuntu1.20.04)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.13+8-Ubuntu-0ubuntu1.20.04, mixed mode, sharing)

5: Add the Jenkins Repository

curl -fsSL https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian/jenkins.io.key | sudo tee \
    /usr/share/keyrings/jenkins-keyring.asc > /dev/nullecho deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/jenkins-keyring.asc] \
    https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian binary/ | sudo tee \
    /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jenkins.list > /dev/null

6: install Jenkins

sudo apt updatesudo apt-get install jenkins

7: confirm it is running.

ubuntu@jenkins:~$ sudo systemctl status jenkins
● jenkins.service - LSB: Start Jenkins at boot time
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/jenkins; generated)
     Active: active (exited) since Fri 2021-12-31 23:28:46 UTC; 57s ago
       Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
      Tasks: 0 (limit: 2355)
     Memory: 0B
     CGroup: /system.slice/jenkins.serviceDec 31 23:28:45 jenkins systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Start Jenkins at boot time...
Dec 31 23:28:45 jenkins jenkins[4565]: Correct java version found
Dec 31 23:28:45 jenkins jenkins[4565]:  * Starting Jenkins Automation Server jenkins
Dec 31 23:28:45 jenkins su[4599]: (to jenkins) root on none
Dec 31 23:28:45 jenkins su[4599]: pam_unix(su-l:session): session opened for user jenkins by (uid=0)
Dec 31 23:28:45 jenkins su[4599]: pam_unix(su-l:session): session closed for user jenkins
Dec 31 23:28:46 jenkins jenkins[4565]:    ...done.
Dec 31 23:28:46 jenkins systemd[1]: Started LSB: Start Jenkins at boot time.

Also check the IP + port 8080 to see the console.

Please enter this command to check the password.

sudo cat /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword

8:install the suggested plugins

After the plugins installation, go to the console and choose “manage jenkins”

we need these ones. Start installing without restart

After completing that,

9:Install Docker

Update the apt package index and install packages to allow apt to use a repository over HTTPS:

sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install \
    ca-certificates \
    curl \
    gnupg \
    lsb-release

Add Docker’s official GPG key:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg

Use the following command to set up the stable repository. To add the nightly or test repository, add the word nightly or test (or both) after the word stable in the commands below.

echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

Install Docker Engine

Update the apt package index, and install the latest version of Docker Engine and containerd, or go to the next step to install a specific version:

sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

List the versions available in your repo:

apt-cache madison docker-ce

Install a specific version using the version string from the second column, for example,

sudo apt-get install docker-ce=5:20.10.12~3-0~ubuntu-focal docker-ce-cli=5:20.10.12~3-0~ubuntu-focal containerd.io

Verify that Docker Engine is installed correctly by running the hello-world image.

sudo docker run hello-worldUnable to find image 'hello-world:latest' locally
latest: Pulling from library/hello-world
2db29710123e: Pull complete 
Digest: sha256:2498fce14358aa50ead0cc6c19990fc6ff866ce72aeb5546e1d59caac3d0d60f
Status: Downloaded newer image for hello-world:latestHello from Docker!
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:
 1. The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.
 2. The Docker daemon pulled the "hello-world" image from the Docker Hub.
    (amd64)
 3. The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the
    executable that produces the output you are currently reading.
 4. The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it
    to your terminal.To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with:
 $ docker run -it ubuntu bashShare images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID:
 https://hub.docker.com/For more examples and ideas, visit:
 https://docs.docker.com/get-started/

check the status

ubuntu@jenkins:~$ sudo systemctl status docker
● docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2021-12-31 23:40:27 UTC; 4min 55s ago
TriggeredBy: ● docker.socket
       Docs: https://docs.docker.com
   Main PID: 6261 (dockerd)
      Tasks: 9
     Memory: 34.4M
     CGroup: /system.slice/docker.service
             └─6261 /usr/bin/docke

Lets add our username to the docker group

sudo usermod -aG docker jenkins

install maven

sudo apt updatesudo apt install mavenubuntu@jenkins:~$ mvn -version
Apache Maven 3.6.3
Maven home: /usr/share/maven
Java version: 11.0.13, vendor: Ubuntu, runtime: /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64
Default locale: en, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "linux", version: "5.11.0-1022-aws", arch: "amd64", family: "unix"

Setting up Tomcat server

1: install java (please see the previous steps)

ubuntu@tomcat:~$ java -version
openjdk version "11.0.13" 2021-10-19
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.13+8-Ubuntu-0ubuntu1.18.04)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.13+8-Ubuntu-0ubuntu1.18.04, mixed mode, sharing)

2: install tomcat

mkdir /prod
cd /prod
sudo wget https://dlcdn.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.56/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.56.zipsudo apt install unzipsudo unzip apache-tomcat-9.0.56.zip

3: start tomcat

cd apache-tomcat-9.0.56/binchmod +x catalina.shubuntu@tomcat:/prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56/bin$ sudo bash startup.sh
Using CATALINA_BASE:   /prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56
Using CATALINA_HOME:   /prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56/temp
Using JRE_HOME:        /usr
Using CLASSPATH:       /prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56/bin/bootstrap.jar:/prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Using CATALINA_OPTS:   
Tomcat started.

we can see it is running.

4: config settings (For tomcat 9)

sudo vi /prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56/webapps/manager/META-INF/context.xml

Please comment out

add <role rolename="manager-gui"/>
add <user username="tomcat" password="<yourpassword>" roles="manager-gui"/>

Also, we need to add the username

cd ../bin/ubuntu@tomcat:/prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56/bin$ sudo bash shutdown.shubuntu@tomcat:/prod/apache-tomcat-9.0.56/bin$ sudo bash startup.sh

Creating build pipeline in Jenkins

create a new item (pipeline)

Provide a name for your new item (e.g. Pipeline webapp) and select Multibranch Pipeline

Click the Add Source button, choose the type of repository you want to use and fill in the details.

put your GitHub repo address and click validate.

GitHub - meibutuoyaji/webapp: Tomcat test repo

You can't perform that action at this time. You signed in with another tab or window. You signed out in another tab or…

github.com

It shows ok if there is no credentials and click save.

After saving that, you can see it on the console.

Go to the GitHub repos you put in the preveious steps and create new file there.

Make a file called “jenkinsfile” and the inside

pipeline {
    agent { docker { image 'maven:3.8.4-openjdk-11-slim' } }
    stages {
        stage('build') {
            steps {
                sh 'mvn --version'
            }
        }
    }
}

40+ Motivational Quotes for Creatives

2019-09-26T17:09:00.002+05:30

Sometimes we all need a little motivation. The road to creating something great can be tough. There are many twists and turns, failures, trials and tribulations. We all grow a little weary.

The goal of this article is to reinvigorate your creativity with empowering quotes from creators, inventors, and entrepreneurs of all backgrounds.

These quotes vary in nature. Some apply to work ethic, some for inspiration and determination, and others are just great phrases to live by. Get inspired with these quotes for creators below and then get creating!

Be Inspired to Create

“…If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours…If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau

“To know your life purpose is to connect with a higher power.” – Shannon L. Alder

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” – Pablo Picasso

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer

“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” – George Eliot

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” – Napoleon Hill

“With the advent of spring and beginning of the new harvest season the creators of abundance, our peasants, come out to the fields to sow with good aspirations and hopes.” – Islom Karimov

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” – Soren Kierkegaard

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

“The other side of every fear is a freedom.” – Marilyn Ferguson

“Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison

“Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.” – Albert Einstein

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” – Ayn Rand

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” – John Lubbock

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.” – Henry Ford

“I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble.” – Rudyard Kipling

“You don’t need money to be creative. The ghetto builds champions every day.” – DJ Snake

“The most dangerous idea is silencing people.” – Naval Ravikant

“A busy calendar and a busy mind will destroy your ability to do great things in this world. If you want to be able to do great things, whether you’re a musician, or whether you’re an entrepreneur, or whether you’re an investor, you need free time and you need a free mind.” – Naval Ravikant

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Dorothy Parker

“Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

“So go on, get angry. But keep your mouth shut and go do your work.” – Austin Kleon

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” – Carl Sagan

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.” – Neil Gaiman

“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” – Bob Ross

“Many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are.” – J.K. Rowling

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.” – Charles Brower

“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.” – Roger Von Oech

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs

“Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.” – T. S. Eliot

“You can’t use up creativity the more you use the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

“There is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.” – Martha Graham

“Creative people are curious, flexible, persistent, and independent, with a tremendous spirit of adventure and a love of play.” – Henri Matisse

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” – Leo Burnett

“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” – Albert Einstein

“The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Edwin H. Land

“Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.” – Arthur Koestler

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.” – Ray Bradbury

“Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures.” – L. Drachman

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” – Shunryu Suzuki

Quotes That Will Make You Think…

For this last section, we’re featuring just a few more quotes for creators that are less motivational and moreso thought-provoking.

“We call ourselves creators and we just copy.” – Lauryn Hill

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” – Mary Oliver

“If you’re creating anything at all, it’s really dangerous to care about what people think.” – Kristen Wiig

“Great is the human who has not lost his childlike heart.” – Mencius (Meng-Tse)

“When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: “Only stand out of my light.” Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.” – John W. Gardner

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” – Howard Aiken

“Some men look at things the way they are and ask why? I dream of things that are not and ask why not?” – Robert Kennedy

Words of Wisdom

Which quote stood out the most to you? We hope you use these motivational and thought-provoking words to boost your creativity and make the world a more beautiful place. You can do it!

10 Free CSS & JavaScript Snippets for Creating Animated Loaders

2018-02-07T16:02:00.003+05:30

Custom loading bars offer a way for websites to update visitors using strong visuals. Sometimes a static “loading” message isn’t always enough!

And if you want to add a custom loading bar to your website then this collection is sure to have something that’ll suit your needs.

1. Loading Bar with Counter

Nicolas Slatiner created this incredible loading bar with a top tab displaying the loading percentage. It moves along with a custom animation that can be changed using JavaScript.
But the best part is the animated bar design and the clean style. This loading bar would fit on any website and it offers an incredible user experience.

2. Light Loader

If you prefer a simpler loading spinner with a twist, then this light loader might be just what you’re looking for. It uses the starburst shape coupled with pure CSS3 animations to create a loading effect that draws the eye.
You can adjust the animation style and loading time all in CSS which is pretty neat. And the shapes are all created using CSS too so you can adjust the size, speed, and structure of the starburst icon.

3. Multi-Animated Loader

Perhaps the most complex loading feature I’ve ever seen is this circle created by Glen Cheney. It does use a few lines of JavaScript to add a show/hide feature but this isn’t required for the circle animation to work.
So you can get this thing running on your site in pure CSS3 with options to change the color, size, and speed. My favorite part of this animation is the off-kilter look where the center rotates against the outside.
It offers a really cool effect that just grabs the eye.

4. Canvas Fractal Loader

This striped fractal canvas loading icon feels like an old-school Windows screensavers. This technique uses a lot of JavaScript to make the looping effect and to keep the color transition consistent.
Even though it’s called a canvas element it does not use a canvas element on the page. Instead it’s powered by Sketch.js which is a natural canvas library. Awesome design if you like the fractal style and don’t mind toying with JavaScript to get it running on your site.

5. OuroboroCSS Loaders

The OuroboroCSS loaders are a unique creation from developer Geoffrey Crofte. These loaders are powered by pure CSS and they operate on a repeating animation cycle that gives the illusion of disappearing into the shape.
I like this design more for internal loaders rather than a full-page loader. It’s quaint and easy to spot from a distance, but not so powerful as to take up the entire page.

6. Thermometer Loader

This custom thermometer-style loader feels more like an amazing proof of progress rather than a practical element for your website. But creator Hugo Giraudel really pushed the limits of CSS with this loader moving through a number of different colors from bottom to top.
It only has three HTML elements nested inside each other and the colors and animations are all pure CSS which is breaktaking.

7. Three.js Loader

I have to throw this into the collection just because it’s so darn cool. This Three.js loader by Lennart Hase uses the free Three.js 3D library to create a rotating cube on a small surface.
The animation is controlled through JavaScript and WebGL rendering. 3D design is much more prominent on the web these days and this code snippet is proof of how much you can accomplish.

8. Organic Circle

This crazy canvas circle loader reminds me of air traffic radars or the types of blips you’ll see on submarines. It’s built entire on the HTML canvas element using ctx and JavaScript calls to create this effect from scratch.
You may not find a great way to work this into your site, but you have to admit this thing is impressive.

9. Simple Circle Rotator

Short, sweet, and to the point best describes this canvas loader. It rotates the inner circle of a canvas element infinitely with some basic JavaScript controlling the animation.
I do think this rotator is simple enough to fit onto any site and it’s pretty easy to customize too. Everything runs through JS code so you won’t even need to copy the CSS at all.

10. Pure CSS Loader Dots

Another simple yet fun example is this pure CSS loader with alternating dots moving in & out of view. It’s one of the coolest loading effects that really gets the point across without being too blatant.
You can fit this onto any page and it’s simple to setup. The dot shapes and animations run through CSS and there’s no JavaScript required.

Wrapping Up

If you’re looking for a custom loader for your website then I guarantee you’ll find something here. These loaders are wildly diverse but they can all work well for different projects.
Take another look at this collection to see what you can find and feel free to customize these snippets for your own use.

10 Free Customizable CSS Snippets for Radio Toggles & Switches

2018-01-24T17:40:00.001+05:30

Radio buttons have only recently been open for deep customizations with CSS. The on/off switch design was lifted from Apple’s original iOS and moved onto the web using radios and checkboxes for toggle switches.

1. Accessible Toggles

Accessibility is a huge concern on the web and it’s something you have to consider when restyling an HTML element. These accessible toggles by Chris Hart show just how much you can change with a little CSS.

Each switch has its own unique style including custom animation effects. You can click either side of the switch to toggle the result which is perfect for usability on smaller screens.

Overall these switches are some of the best you can use and they’re really easy to customize. However they do rely on checkboxes so form submissions work a bit differently compared to radio buttons.

2. On/Off CSS Switches

If you like a minimalist approach to design then check out these radios created by Nick Bottomley. They’re as simple as can be and they work flawlessly.

The secondary styles even add custom animation effects to the switch where it expands out like a blob before animating. You can add optional labels that light up when switched on/off and you have plenty of room for adding colors and changing styles.

I’d say these switches make the sturdiest base for customizing on/off buttons without building them from scratch.

3. iOS7 Switches

When Apple released iOS 7 it came with many updates including a flatter design and new on/off switches. These iOS7 switches were recreated using checkboxes and CSS3 by skilled developer Bandar Raffah.

The backgrounds have an interesting animation effect where they slide in & out of view along with the switch button. It’s a really unique approach to the design and the fact that it’s all powered by CSS is even more impressive.

If you’re looking for an Apple-inspired design on your site then these checkbox switches take the cake.

4. Pure CSS Circles

For a slightly more customized solution take a look at these iOS switches by Jesse Couch. The labels are built primarily for Chrome and Firefox so they may not work in all browsers like Opera or Safari.

But they do support the “label” element for radios that can automatically switch between values when clicked. This way the user doesn’t even need to hit the radio, but just the label to get the on/off switch working.

5. Win10 Switches

Windows 10 users will know all about their latest changes for better or worse. The new Win10 settings include many custom on/off switches duplicated in this pen.

You can edit the size, color, and padding all through SCSS variables right in CodePen. These switches all use the HTML checkbox element which makes them superior for mobile users. They don’t have much animation but they look great and work well, two factors that always sell quality interface elements.

6. Clean On/Off Toggle

For accessibility you have to consider how checkboxes handle in older browsers and how attributes like aria-hidden operate. That’s the basis of this pen created by Felipe Fialho.

He takes this on/off switch to the highest level of support with an HTML label and custom styles that degrade gracefully. It’s also a nice looking switch and given the simple setup it works well on any website.

7. Switchboxes

These cleverly designed switchbox inputs were created by Victor Knust as a universally-supported solution. Every switch works in all major browsers including IE7 and above.

Because of this wide browser support you will have to work with JavaScript. It’s not much JavaScript, but it is a factor when deciding if these switches could work on your site.

But they look great and offer universal support which is more than most CSS-based switches.

8. Custom Square Toggles

If you’re really going for custom then check out these square toggles by Andrew Gehman. They completely restyle the checkbox design with square corners, a square switch, and custom text.

I can’t imagine this would blend nicely into many websites. However it shows how far you can go with pure CSS3 and this may be a nice codebase to start with if you wanna customize your own checkboxes.

9. Glowing Switch

An original design by Nick Vasile turned into a fully-functioning glowing CSS switch thanks to developer Valentin Galmand.

This interface almost exactly matches the original Dribbble shot which makes the switch even more impressive. It relies solely on CSS3 to recreate the shadow effects and icons in the center. It’s a shining example of how much you can do with pure CSS.

10. Sliding Radio Buttons

This example may be my favorite because it has such a delectable gradient attached to each button. These sliding radios created by Oguzhan Cansever use CSS3 gradients and custom labels attached to each side of the switch.

However these are pure radio buttons so you can only select one at a time. This means if you click the active side it will not switch over.

But if you like that style then this is more than applicable to any website. You can even customize the gradient colors and increase spacing in the switches all through CSS.

Wrapping Up

You can find dozens of amazing radios in CodePen with free code snippets to copy & edit.

If you like these examples be sure to save your favorites and feel free to browse the “switch” tag for more examples.

You should take a look at these code snippets for creating beautiful CSS buttons next or this collection of copy and paste responsive navigation snippets.

10 Best Free Monospaced Fonts For Code Snippets

2018-01-24T17:37:00.001+05:30

Webfonts are all the rage these days for practically every website. We often use them for page headings as well as body text. But you can also use them for code snippets.

Most designers never think about changing the default code text style, but it’s pretty simple with Google Fonts. Not to mention these fonts are free to download and use locally if you’d like to change the font in your IDE.

This is my list of the 10 best options for coding fonts – all available for free. Have a look and see what you think!

PT Mono

The free PT Mono font is an excellent place to start. It’s clean, sharp and very easily blends into any layout.

You may notice there is some odd spacing between certain letters – like the “L” and “E” characters. But this only appears when the text is larger and is not very noticeable at smaller sizes.

I’ve never seen this used for code snippets, but it’s definitely one of the sharpest fonts on the list. It would be excellent for code or even page headers, if you like the design.

Fira Mono

Here’s another example of a font that can work well in any format. Fira Mono has been designed for use as a monospaced code font, but the bold style looks nice with headings too.

When you resize this font down to around 12-16px, you’ll notice it actually makes a nice navigation link style, too. Specifically, it works well if you use the bold format and have all of your links in uppercase letters.

This is a great font choice for any site and can be useful for more than styling code snippets.

Cutive Mono

Cutive Mono is a much more traditional monospaced font. This is typically what I think of when looking for a typeface for code snippets.

This font’s thin letter forms with even-spaced glyphs are perfect for any site. You can organize your code properly with this font and it works very well under syntax highlighting.

The only caveat is that when you resize this font to smaller sizes (below 15px), it can be almost impossible to read. Not to mention the letter spacing looks a bit silly at that size. So you’ll probably want to adjust that using the CSS letter-spacing property.

Inconsolata

This is one heck of a font with one pretty cool name. Inconsolata was originally designed for print code listings but has since become a great choice for programmers and IDE fonts.

It works nicely on the screen and should work flawlessly on a website. No matter how large your code snippets or where you’re using them, Inconsolata is a great choice.

You can use the font in regular or bold format – they both look great at all sizes. I personally prefer the bold font when it’s smaller than 15px, but you can always adjust contrast to make it more readable.

Hack

One of the few listings that I didn’t track down through Google Fonts, Hack is a true programmer’s font family.

This is a typeface truly designed for code and can be used on any platform – web, mobile or in your desktop IDE.

You can grab a copy from the main GitHub repo, along with further details regarding the font’s development. The font is multilingual, with support for over 1,500 glyphs (and counting!)

This one is well worth testing, even if you only use Hack for a few projects.

Gohufont

The Gohufont typeface is an excellent pick for that “classic” monospaced look. This reminds me more of the old school Nintendo fonts or the typefaces you’d see within old Gameboy games.

If you look over the main page, you’ll find examples with an auto-resizer. You can test the font at 11px or 14px to compare the differences. This includes all-caps and lowercase letters, along with special symbols.

I actually don’t like this much for an IDE, but it can work well on a website. Or, you might also try using this in your terminal window. Gohufont works really well as a CLI typeface since it matches perfectly to all programs.

Source Code Pro

This is perhaps the most famous monospaced font in Google’s entire library. Source Code Pro comes in a bunch of different styles, ranging from super thin to ultra bold.

You can restyle this font family to suit your needs and to match your site’s code tags. If you have any syntax highlighting plugins, this font will work flawlessly.

Note that Source Code Pro was designed as a companion piece to the original Open Sans font. So it works really well on websites that use Open Sans or any of its variations.

Overpass Mono

I’ve tested the Overpass Mono in my code editor and it works really well. Granted, I’ve never tried using it in a website layout. But I imagine it can work just as well for that, too.

Overpass Mono is an excellent choice, in that it has a variety of styles without veering too far away from a traditional monospace font. It looks just like any other monospace typeface, except it really has its own “feeling” that grows on you over time.

Give it a shot on your website or try it side-by-side in two different IDE windows. You may find that you like this even more than your default font.

Oxygen Mono

With the Oxygen Mono typeface, you get a design very similar to Overpass. The biggest difference is the lack of stylization and fewer formatting options.

This font only comes in one format: normal. You can still bold or italicize the font, but it will be rendered through CSS – rather than through a font file. I recommend this for the web because it’s smaller and easier to blend with different color schemes.

Not to mention it can work just as well alongside any font stack you choose.

Anonymous Pro

I’ve saved the most unique font choice for last with Anonymous Pro. This is a pretty darn creative typeface and it’s one of the easiest fonts to recognize.

One minor complaint I have is the lack of “crispness” of the letters at smaller sizes. You can still recognize the letters and it works fantastic as a code font. But it’ll stand out from all the others in this list, especially anywhere below 12px.

On the plus side, this font straddles the line between monospaced, serif and sans-serif. It borrows ideas from all of them, so you can get this to fit in anywhere on your site.

how to use Angular CLI to create a new project and deploy it

2017-10-20T13:27:00.002+05:30

I want to show you how to use Angular CLI to create a new project and deploy it even if you've never used Angular before.

To install Angular CLI, just run the following command:








    $ npm install -g @angular/cli

Once it's installed you'll be able to run it from the command line using the ngcommand. When you do, you'll see a lot of output, but if you scroll back, you should be able to see the following:








    $ ng --version

If everything installed correctly, you should see the current version output to your terminal. Congratulations!

Now that we have Angular CLI and its dependencies installed, let's use this tool to create our first application.

Open up the terminal and run the ng new command to create a new project from scratch:








    $ ng new angular-hello-world

Once you run it, you'll see the following output:








    installing
      create .editorconfig
      create README.md
      create src/app/app.component.css
      create src/app/app.component.html
      create src/app/app.component.spec.ts
      create src/app/app.component.ts
      create src/app/app.module.ts
      create src/assets/.gitkeep
      create src/environments/environment.prod.ts
      create src/environments/environment.ts
      create src/favicon.ico
      create src/index.html
      create src/main.ts
      create src/polyfills.ts
      create src/styles.css
      create src/test.ts
      create src/tsconfig.json
      create .angular-cli.json
      create e2e/app.e2e-spec.ts
      create e2e/app.po.ts
      create e2e/tsconfig.json
      create .gitignore
      create karma.conf.js
      create package.json
      create protractor.conf.js
      create tslint.json
    Successfully initialized git.
    Installing packages for tooling via npm.
    Installed packages for tooling via npm.

Note: the exact files that your project generates may vary slightly depending on the version of @angular/cli that was installed.

This will run for a while while it's installing npm dependencies. Once it finishes we'll see a success message:








    Project 'angular-hello-world' successfully
created.

There are a lot of files generated! Don't worry about understanding all of them yet. We explain every file here throughout the book. Through the chapters there we'll walk through what each one means and what it's used for.

For now, let's just run the app and then deploy it

Running the App

To run the app, type the following:








  $ cd angular-hello-world
  $ ./node_modules/.bin/ng serve

Then wait a minute and you should see:








  ** NG Live Development Server is running on http://localhost:4200 **
  ...
  webpack: Compiled successfully.

This means your first Angular app is running! You can view it in your browser by opening http://localhost:4200.

Viewing our App on Localhost

What's happening here is that Angular CLI has compiled our code and started a development server on our machine. Now, let's take this code and put it on the internet where everyone can see.

Deploying the App

Deploying our app is the act of pushing our code to a server, where it can be accessed by others.

Broadly speaking, the idea is that we're going to:

compile all of our TypeScript code into JavaScript (which the browser can read)
bundle all of our JavaScript code files into one or two files
and then upload our JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and images to a server

Ultimately, this Angular app is an HTML file that loads JavaScript code. So we need to upload our code to a computer somewhere on the internet.

So first, we build our Angular app:








./node_modules/.bin/ng build --target=production --base-href '/'

This command tells the ng tool to build our application for a productionenvironment. We also set the --base-href to a single slash /.

This command will run for a little while and when it finishes you should have a distfolder on your disk.








$ ls dist/
favicon.ico
index.html
inline.95a6cb571dbc2cfcb6a0.bundle.js
main.91fb0238219cb9a1d089.bundle.js
polyfills.5aae015f16e5b66f61e9.bundle.js
styles.d41d8cd98f00b204e980.bundle.css
vendor.4efaf64fc64d0c1e3642.bundle.js

These files are the full compiled result of your app. Notice that there is a long string of characters in the middle of each file such as:








main.91fb0238219cb9a1d089.bundle.js

Those characters are a hash of the content (and may not match on your computer). If you look at each file, you can see that we have some icons, the index.html, a main.js, a polyfills.js, a vendor.js, and some styles.css.

Now all the need to do is upload these to our server.

Uploading to a Server

There are lots of ways to host your HTML and JavaScript. For this demo, we're going to use the easiest way possible: now.

If you don't want to use now, you're free to use whatever method you want. For instance, you can host sites on Heroku, AWS S3, upload files to your own server via FTP, etc.

The important thing is that the server exposes all of the files in our distfolder onto the internet.

Installing `now`

We can install now using npm:








npm install -g now

To deploy a site with now is very easy:








cd dist # change into the dist folder
now

The now command should ask you a couple of questions (such as your email address) and you'll need to check your email and click the link inside.

After you've confirmed your account (or if you had one already), now will upload your code and then give you a URL to view to see your application.

Visit that URL and view your app. If it works, try sending the URL to a friend!

Viewing our App on The Internet

Congratulations! You've built and deployed your first Angular app!

Of course, there is a lot more to learn, but at least now we know that whatever we build can be deployed live online!

Next time, we'll chat a bit more about how Angular uses components to structure apps.

Angular 4 – Tutorial from scratch

2017-10-16T17:35:00.004+05:30

Hello everyone, Angular, as you may already know is one of the powerful and popular JavaScript frameworks. There are currently 3 versions of Angular, in which Angular 4 is the latest. Angular 2, the second version, was completely rewritten to provide more flexibility and more ease in development, then AngularJS, the first version. Angular 4 is the update to the Angular 2 and has the backward compatibility support. Angular is used to create SPA which stands for Single Page Application. The SPA helps in smooth user experience as the page gets loaded at one time only and routing is also done on the same page removing the page to reload.

So, this is the quick brief about the Angular framework, as the Angular 4 is the latest, there are very few tutorials on the internet, most of them are not complete or paid. So, I thought of writing a complete tutorial for Angular 4 and will be trying to cover all the features of Angular 4. To start with Angular 4, knowledge of AngularJs or Angular 2 is not required at all. It will be helpful if you some experience with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Also though the Angular 4 uses TypeScript, it is not required to learn TypeScript, JavaScript knowledge will be enough.

Getting Started

With Angular 2, Angular CLI was introduced which stands for Angular Command Line Interface. Angular CLI runs on node JS and helps in the quick creation of the new Angular application. To start creating an application first we need to install Angular CLI and for that, we need to have Node js. To install Node js click on the link https://nodejs.org/en/download/current/ and install for your platform. After installing Node js open the command terminal, as I m using windows so I’ll open a command prompt. To install Angular CLI type
npm install -g @angular/cliwhere npm stands for Node Package Manager, -g for global to use it globally in the system. To check if Angular CLI is installed properly you can use command
ng –versionto check the version.

Creating Angular 4 Application

Now we can start creating our Angular 4 application. To create a new project, we will be using Angular CLI and will type the command
ng new new-angular-appThis command will create the default structure and files with needed for the development of the project. It will take some time to download the files. After it is completed you will have a configured Angular 4 project. Now let’s see the structure and files inside the folder. I ‘ll be using the Microsoft Visual Studio Code IDE for my development as its free and powerful. Let see the created directories and files for our new angular app.

Inside the root directory, you’ll see 3 folders, e2e which is an end to end testing which we ‘ll be using later. The second one is the node_modules folder which contains the angular files and other required classes for development. We don’t have to do anything in this folder. The last one is the src or the source folder which contains the development files and index.html.

We have some other files which we may not require as default configuration is sufficient for running the application. We ‘ll be doing our development inside the src folder only. In this app, the folder contains the components. Images and other media files can be stored in assets folder. Environment variables configurations are in the environment folder which as of now we don’t need to change. Out of the other files, we will be using, index.html (rarely) for few imports of style libraries, style.css for application level styling and favicon.ico to change the favicon. Others we can leave to default.

Inside the app folder except for app.module.ts all other files will be there for every new component we create. In Angular we can create different components for a different purpose and include it using the selector, we will get in detail later. Every component as app.component.css, which contains styling instructions, app.component.html, which contains the HTML code for that component, app.component.ts, which acts like and controller class and all the javascript code related to events and functionalities are written in this file. For component level unit testing app.component.ts, is there. During development, we will be using various dependencies for Angular libraries which need to imported and added to app.module.tsfile.

This was about the structure of Angular 4 files, now lets start and check the app is working or not. Angular CLI provides a server which we can start and check the output in the browser. To start that go inside the application folder in command prompt and type ng serve this will compile and deploy the app on the local server, which can be accessed through http://localhost:4200 (to change port number ng serve –port_no ). So let’s start the app and see if it is working fine.

Application compiled successfully. Let’s see the output.

As you can see the default page, means the app server is working fine. In the next tutorial, we will start development of a cool and reactive app using Angular 4 and Angular Material. Before that let’s understand some basics of Angular 4

Angular 4 new features and improvements

2017-10-16T17:22:00.000+05:30

The Angular team has just released Angular 4. This is a major release which has some breaking changes!

Angular 4 is backward compatible with Angular 2!

Here are some great features and improvements:

Faster and smaller

Angular 4 is now faster and smaller!

View engine now has less code

Angular team introduces a new view engine system, which can reduce the size of generated code for our components by around 60%!

Animation has been moved out to a separated package

Angular animation package will not be in your production code anymore. You can still import and use it whenever you want.

ngIf now has a new else statement

Now you can use else statement with ngIf.

<div *ngIf="activated; else hidden">

</div>
<ng-template #hidden>Your hidden code</ng-template>

Angular Universal

You can now render an Angular app on the server using Angular Universal.

Upgrading to Angular 4

If you're using Angular 2, upgrading to Angular 4 is very easy. You just need to run these commands:

For Mac users:

npm install @angular/{common,compiler,compiler-cli,core,forms,http,platform-browser,platform-browser-dynamic,platform-server,router,animations}@latest typescript@latest --save

For Windows users:

npm install @angular/common@latest @angular/compiler@latest @angular/compiler-cli@latest @angular/core@latest @angular/forms@latest @angular/http@latest @angular/platform-browser@latest @angular/platform-browser-dynamic@latest @angular/platform-server@latest @angular/router@latest @angular/animations@latest typescript@latest --save

You can view more features and the release note at:

https://angularjs.blogspot.com/2017/03/angular-400-now-available.html

Get the Angular 4 book for free!

Because Angular is using semantic versioning for Angular releases, Angular 4 is actually an improved version of Angular 2!

If you know Angular 2, you'll know how to use Angular 4!

9 Best Heatmap Tools and Plugins for Your WordPress Site

2017-09-07T10:51:00.001+05:30

Do you wish that you had better insights into how your users interact with your website? Heatmap tools and plugins can help you visualize where users click, how far they scroll, and how they really use your site. In this article, we will show 9 Best heatmap tools and plugins for your WordPress site.

What is Heatmap?

A Heatmap allows you to visualize how visitors use your website. Heatmap tools provide an overlay on top of your pages showing areas with more activity as hotter than the areas with low user activity.

Heatmap tools offer visual analytics about which areas your users click, look, and scroll. This information helps you understand usability issues with your website and optimize it for better conversions and user experience.

These tools are different than other analytics tools like Google Analytics. Traditional analytics tools provide you information like how users came to your site, what pages they view, and how they move from one page to another.

Heatmaps analytics tools tell you how users actually use and interact with your site design.

Having said that, here are the best heatmap tools and plugins for your WordPress site.

1. Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is probably the most popular heatmap tool available in the market today. It offers click heatmaps, mouse cursor heatmaps, and scroll heatmaps. It offers another useful feature called confetti heatmap.

Confetti heatmap by Crazy Egg allows you to divide the heatmap data into traffic sources. This means you can see how users from social networks, search, or other sources interact with your website.

Crazy Egg is extremely easy to add into a WordPress website. They even have a plugin that makes installation a breeze.

The pricing for Crazy Egg starts from $9/ month for 10,000 visitors and 10 active pages. Their most popular plan is called Plus, which offers 100,000 visits, 50 active pages, and hourly reports for $49/month. All plans come with one-month free trial.

Unlike other heatmap tools, Crazy Egg does not limit your usage to per site, this means you can use the same account on multiple websites.

2. Mouseflow

Mouseflow is another easy to use heatmap tool for WordPress users. Mouseflow offers click heatmaps, scroll heatmaps, movement heatmap, and attention heatmap.

It also offers recording of website visitor activity. This means you can look at a user interacting with your site. Another useful feature offered by Mouseflow is form analytics, which allows you to see why users are abandoning your forms.

Mouseflow also allows you to track funnels. You can also set custom funnels so that you can see how users from different traffic sources behave differently on your site.

Pricing for Mouseflow starts at $19/month for 1,000 recorded sessions limited to 1 website. Prices increase with more recorded sessions and websites you add to your plan. Mouseflow also offers a free plan limited to 100 recorded sessions for a single site.

3. Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange is another popular choice in heatmap analytics. They offer heatmap tracking for clicks, movement, and scroll depth. Apart from that, they also offer session recording and traffic segmentation.

It also comes with forms analytics, conversion funnels, visitor polls, and a live chat software that you can add to your website. The list of feature covers almost everything that you would want from a heatmap tool.

The pricing for Lucky Orange starts from $10 / month for 25,000 page views on single site.

4. Inspectlet

Inspectlet is a very powerful session recording and heatmap service. It covers all three types of heatmap tracking: clicks, cursor movement, and scrolling.

They also offer conversion funnel analytics with very powerful filtering feature. There is a robust tagging filter, which you can use to tag individual users. This way you can see how they interact on returning visits. Inspectlet also provides form analytics to understand and optimize your lead generation.

Pricing for Inspectlet starts from $39 per month with 5000 recorded sessions limited to 1 site. They also offer a free plan limited to 100 recorded sessions for a single site.

5. Heatmap.me

Heatmap.me claims to be one of the simplest to use heatmap analytics tool in the market. It is easy to install and comes with a very small JavaScript code that loads asynchronously without slowing down your website.

Unlike some tools in this list, Heatmap.me offers real time heatmaps. You can see how users are interacting with your site live. It also respects privacy of your users by not logging unnecessary data.

Heatmap.me offers a free plan limited to 5 pages on 1 site. Their paid plans start with $100 per month for unlimited pages on a single site.

6. Ptengine

Ptengine provides heatmap and web analytics tool packed into one. It offers click, conversion tracking, scroll and attention heatmaps. They also offer A/B testing between two heatmaps, which is a useful feature for designers testing different interfaces.

Their web analytics features include device segmentation, campaign performance, one click filters, and page analysis.

Pricing at Ptengine starts from $7 per month for 1 site, 5 heatmaps, and 25K pageviews. They also offer a free plan with 1 heatmap on a single site limited to 1000 pageviews.

7. Clicktale

Clicktale is another popular choice for heatmaps analytics. They offer a very powerful session recording technology and great in-depth heatmaps analysis features. But he biggest advantage is that they offer integrations with other analytics tools that you may already be using, like Google Analytics, Optimizely, Google Tag Manager, etc.

Clicktale has heatmaps, session recording, conversion analytics, advanced analytics, etc.

Clicktale does not have pricing information listed on their website. Instead, you will have to contact their sales teams to request a demo and then discuss the pricing.

8. SeeVolution

SeeVolution offers a very easy to use way to include heatmaps on a WordPress site. They have plugins for all popular CMS, including WordPress. Apart from easy installation, they also offer a very clean and nice dashboard that helps users understand the data they are seeing.

Heatmaps by SeeVolution include clicks, scrolling, mouse interactions and movement heatmaps. They also include site wide analytics to give you an overview of your site’s performance.

SeeVolution offers a free plan for 1000 visits limited to 1 site. Their paid plans start from $79 per month for 2 domains. They also offer 14 day free trial on all their plans.

9. Hotjar

Hotjar is powerful suite of apps bundled into one analytics and conversion optimization tool. It combines heatmaps, session recordings, funnels, form analytics, polls & surveys, and a recruiter tool to get testers.

They offer click, tap, scroll, and mouse movement heatmaps. With session recording and conversion funnels you can discover and fix usability issues on your site. Hotar’s reporting dashboard is intuitive and easy to use.

Their pricing plans start from $29 per month for 10,000 page views and snapshot size of 2,000 visits for heatmaps, forms and recordings. They also offer a limited free plan, which you can use to try it out.

21 (Mostly) Free Web Usability Tools You Can’t Do Without

2017-08-16T13:07:00.002+05:30

What’s web usability and as a marketer, why should you care?

Content marketing and social media ROI may be the foundation of your marketing practice, but if your site has usability errors, no one will ever get to find out how great you are.

When it comes to web usability the acknowledged guru—a term that’s probably justified in this case—is Jakob Neilsen, who has been writing about the topic since the early days of the web. His Neilsen Norman group has dozens of useful articles on web usability.

In a nutshell, usability is about the user experience (UX)—how easy it is for people to use your site and accomplish their goals while there.

According to Neilsen, usability includes learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors and satisfaction. (And check out another short introduction to the topic in section three of our article on website bounce rates.)

If you want your target customers to keep coming back for more, to see your site as a valuable resource and to share your content widely, then addressing usability is a no-brainer. Here’s a roundup of some free tools to help you identify usability issues so you can solve them.

Page Speed

One of the important aspects of usability is page load speed. According to KISSmetricsresearch, people can leave your site fast if a page takes more than 3 or 4 seconds to load.

1. GTMetrix is a free tool that assesses the causes of site slowdown. You can do an instant test, or create an account (you have to keep it active by using it once a month) and add a number of pages for regular monthly reports. This is a good way to drill down into what aspects of your site’s code aren’t working, as it easily identifies script, CSS and image errors.

2 & 3. Google’s Page Speed Tools allow you to analyze and optimize the speed of your website, and you can check out the site speed reports in Google Webmaster Tools for more insight.

4. Pingdom‘s online URL analyzer tests page load time and finds bottlenecks that you can eliminate to speed up your site.

Find more speed testing tools in this list from SixRevisions.

Design and Navigation

Site visitors will find it hard to find your excellent content unless the design and navigation help them. One way to test site navigation is with card sorting apps, which allow testers to play around with navigation menus and categories for a website, grouping these in a way that makes sense to them.

5. I’ll be honest; I’ve never used one, but if that’s what you need, check out the card sorting service from UXPunk. As long as you use it with only 10 participants the free trial is permanent.

6. UXPunk also has a similar service for testing web navigation and application menus, with 25 responses in the free plan.

7. Spur wraps up a number of ways of testing your design into one neat web app. Enter your URL in the box, wait a while and you get a snapshot of your page with a number of buttons so you can check out whether your design still works in greyscale, high contrast, if it’s blurred and at different zoom levels.

User Interaction

How are site visitors interacting with your site? Where do they look and click? Understand this and you will know how to change your site and improve the user experience. There are a number of tools that help with this.

8. Want to know what areas of your web page are getting most attention? That’s our specialty here at Crazy Egg (get your 30-day free trial here), but if you want a free version, then check out ClickHeat from Labs Media. You’ll need to be technically inclined as you have to download and install it to the server yourself.

9. For click tracking, check out Clickdensity. This tool has been around for a while and offers three ways of visualizing visitor interaction through click maps, heat maps and hover maps. You can use the free trial version for ever as long as you only want to track one page on a single site.

UPDATE 8/13/14 – Clickdensity has been retired. Contact Box UK with any inquiries.

Error Testing

10. Don’t you just hate it when you visit a web page and something goes wrong? Random errors drive users away. A new tool, Phostir, uses a traffic light system to identify errors on high-, medium- and low-use pages. It divides mobile and desktop users at a glance too. Click on any section and you can get a report on what the errors are and how to fix them. It makes it easy to focus your attention on the pages people are visiting most to troubleshoot errors in real time.

UPDATE 8/13/14 – Phostir is no longer available. Contact parent company Active Standards if this functionality is something you’re interested in.

Landing Page Testing

Many marketers already use A/B testing to see which version of a campaign they should run with, but this also works for usability. A couple of web tools help you to make tweaks to headings, layout and more so you can check how your site works for visitors.

11. Google Content Experiments help you set up testing on your Analytics enabled website, using up to five different versions.

12. Optimizely isn’t free, but you can use its 30-day free trial to load a page and change content. It’s included here because it is amazingly easy to use—just a few button clicks give you a whole new version of your page.

Surveying Users

One way to enhance the user experience and improve usability is to ask site visitors about their experience and provide support when they experience errors. Here are just a couple of the many tools that help you to do that.

13. UserEcho allows you to survey customers and provide support, making it a useful way to collect data on, for example, the features that users want to see on your website. It offers a limited free service.

14. iPerceptions lets you survey web visitors by inviting them at the start of their visit to take a survey at the end. You get almost immediate feedback that way. It’s a free plan, though, if you want advanced text mining and campaign assessment tools, you will need to upgrade.

15. Another site providing usability testing is IntuitionHQ, whose free plan allows you to conduct 10 live tests with unlimited questions and up to 350 participants—a big enough sample to get some useful data.

Accessibility

What stops people from interacting normally with your site? This is not just about disability but could also be about technology. Those who are using an old version of Internet Explorer probably won’t have the best experience on a modern website. Here are some tools to help with this issue.

16. BrowserShots tests how your site looks in an impressive array of browsers (and various versions of each browser). It can take a while, so it’s probably best to concentrate on only a few browsers at a time. Plug in your URL and eventually you get a series of screenshots of the page. Who knows? You might get a surprise.

17. The W3C Markup Validation Service has been testing web pages for standards compatibility since 1994. Type in the web address and you get a report showing errors in your HTML and XHTML markup.

18. Does your color scheme work for all users? Find out with CheckMyColors. It checks for brightness, contrast and lumosity errors, and shows sample text so you can see where the problem lies.

Multiple Tool Providers

Some providers offer a range of tools that test different aspects of the user experience. Here are three worth checking out.

19. Usability Hub has a number of tools. They aren’t free, but you can earn free tests by helping test other sites. Their tools include Five Second Test (for design), Click Test (for testing clicks on landing pages) and Nav Flow (for tracking conversion funnels).

20. Zurb offers a number of free tools to check aspects of usability. In addition to Spur, mentioned above, there’s Clue to see what people remember when they visit your site and Axe for weeding out poor web design .

21. OptimalWorkshop offers three tools for different aspects of usability and all of them have a free-for-life plan. While the freebies have some limitations, using them could help you decide whether it’s worth springing for a paid test. The tools are Chalkmark for first click testing for your web design, Optimal Sort for card sorting, and Treejack, to see how people interact with your site structure.

Use any of these tools, or a combination of them, and you’ll be well on the way to improving the usability of your site and making sure your visitors have a positive and rewarding experience. And if you get hooked on web usability and need something more than free tools, check out the premium apps listed in Smashing Magazine’s roundup of user experience testing tools.

25 Design Freebies Websites Every Designer Should Know

2016-11-24T16:54:00.000+05:30

One of the most clever shortcuts I’ve found as a creative entrepreneur is to use freebies. Whether you’re prototyping a new website or designing a package for your product, you can find high-quality resources to help you speed up the process and get things done in a professional manner.

There are tons of communities sharing free design resources such as mockups, icons, fonts, textures, photos and much more.

To save you time researching design freebies, here’s a list of 25 best websites to find free design resources.

Fribbble

Fribbble is a website for curated design freebies from the biggest online design community called Dribbble.

Freebiesbug

Freebiesbug is a web design blog showcasing free and high-quality design resources. You can download Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch files and more.

GraphicBurger

GraphicBurger is another large website for design freebies. You can download mockups, UI kits, icons, text effects, backgrounds and more.

Premium Pixels

Premium Pixels has an extensive collection of free design resources from mockups to icons and various templates.

Pixeden

Pixeden provided free and premium web design resources. The focus is on prints, icons, vectors and graphics resources.

Sketchapp TV

Sketchapp TV provides all kind of Sketch 3 design resources for designers. You can choose from free and premium UI and UX resources.

Sketch App Sources

Another useful website for designers using Sketch 3. You can find free and premium Sketch resources for mobile, web, UI, and UX projects.

Pixel Buddha

Pixel Buddha has a huge collection of free and premium design resources. Everything is in one place for your next design project.

Free Design Resources

Free Design Resources is a valuable website with a vast collection of free design resources with over 5 million downloads.

Brusheezy

Brusheezy is a home of free Photoshop brushes, patterns and textures. Also, you will find other resources like fonts, print mockups and much more.

Blugraphic

Free icons, templates, logos, flags and maps. All of these freebies you will find at Blugraphic.

PixelsMarket

Every week PixelsMarket shares a new freebie. You can find free and premium resources including cover photos for you Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

365PSD

365PSD was launched in 2010 and has an extensive freebie collection including UI kits, mockups, icons, buttons and other design elements.

Icon Deposit

Every icon on Icon Deposit is submitted by the best designers from around the world. It’s a huge community of icon lovers.

UI Space

UI Space is a perfect place for UI design enthusiasts. It has an enormous collection of graphic design freebies.

ZippyPixels

ZippyPixels has a countless number of premium content, but freebie section is very active too.

GraphicsFuel

GraphicsFuel is a mix of a blog and freebies website. Freebies content include a broad range of design resources.

DB Freebies

DB Freebies is a curated collection of the best design freebies from some of the biggest design communities online.

Dribbble

Dribbble is one of the greatest freebie archives on the web. You can find everything you need from design freebies to inspiration.

PSD Repo

PSD Repo is a straightforward and well-designed website for free design resources.

Designer Mill

Designer Mill is a bakery website for designers sharing new freebies on a daily basis. Everything from sweet fonts to melting mockups.

PSDgraphics

If you’re looking for high-resolution backgrounds, textures or PSD icons, then PSDgraphics is the right place to start searching.

Sketch Repo

Sketch Repo is a freebies website for all designers using Sketch 3.

Subtle Patterns

Subtle Patterns is a website of design patterns and textures. With their massive archive, you will find the right pattern for your next project.

PSDFreebies

PSDFreebies is a huge collection of free design resources. You will find everything you need from free graphic, print, web templates to mockups.

WeTransfer reveals new brand identify and UI

2016-11-24T15:52:00.000+05:30

WeTransfer is one of the mostly widely admired start-ups of the last decade. In many ways it embodies what we tell our clients to aspire to: a simple idea, solving a common problem, well executed. What really makes WeTransfer standout is the high-value it places on design; since its launch in 2009, WeTransfer has used design to add interest to what is typically a mundane process: transferring files from one computer to another. WeTransfer has just further refined that use of design to retain interest, with a full brand and user interface refresh.

Designed in-house, in collaboration with Bold Monday, the new logo is friendlier—it almost smiles at you—and more refined, retaining its character at very small sizes.

Brand colors and typography have also been refreshed. And to match the brand overhaul, the site’s UI has been simplified, with a more usable upload form—the main interface users spend time with.

The company has also dropped the word “transfer” from its branding, suggesting that it may branch out into expanded services in the near future.

WeTransfer’s use of design was already very successful, this excellent refinement acknowledges the brand’s heritage, without being beholden to it.

10 jQuery Security Plugins

2016-10-07T11:50:00.001+05:30

How secure is your password? If you are confident enough that no hacker can break your pass codes then you might have to think again. Below are some tutorials that you might want to learn to secure you passwords. Be safe!

1. Password Strength Indicator and Generator

This plugin lets you set the class of an element so that you can do a graphical representation of the strength.

Source

2. jQuery AlphaNumeric

It is a JavaScript control plugin that allows you to limit what characters a user can enter on textboxes or textareas.

Source

3. jCryption

t is a JavaScript HTML-Form encryption plugin, which encrypts the POST/GET data submitted by forms.

Source

4. Password Validation Plugin

This plugin offers a function that rates passwords for factors like mixed upper/lower case, mix of characters (digits, special characters), length and similarity to a username (optional) and gives a custom method for the validation plugin that uses the rating function to display a password strength meter, requiring the field to have a “good” rating.

Source

5. Password Strength – Estimates brute force time

This plugin tries to calculate how many possibilities the hacker needs to try to guess your password. It makes the assumption that it is possible to test 2800 million passwords per second.

Source

6. Password Strength Meter v2

This plugin works by presenting a global variable score and at the end of the algorithm the plugin will decide the passwords strength according to the score value.

Source

7. jQuery-Encoder

It is a jQuery plugin whose goal is to provide jQuery developers with a means to do contextual output encoding on untrusted data. As applications become more and more reliant on rich client technologies the need for client-side code to have the ability to properly escape untrusted data becomes exponentially more important.

Source

8. ChronoStrength

It is a password strength checking plugin. However, rather than just saying “Too Weak” or “Strong”, which don’t really mean much, ChronoStrength displays how long it would take a regular desktop PC to crack the password using a brute-force attack. Seeing that their password would only take 30 seconds to crack might convince people to choose a more secure one!

Source

9. jqCrypt

A simple jQuery plugin to encrypt form data client-side and pass it (with an obfuscated key) to the processor via the POST method.

Source

10. RC4 Symmetric Encryption/Decryption

Extends RC4 symmetric encryption/decryption to JQuery. Less than 3KB.

Source

31 Best Websites for Scoring Freebies

2016-09-07T15:56:00.002+05:30

As the world becomes even more commercialized, an increasing amount of free stuff can be had through discount offers, recycling efforts and Internet loss leaders. Learning where to look for these deals and free samples can save you a significant amount of money on a variety of stuff. Below are the 31 best websites to check out for free stuff, although not in any particular order:

1. Craigslist

While Craigslist has a mixed reputation -- users need to use caution and common sense when interacting with total strangers -- it is also a great source of free stuff. As the phenomenon known as freecycling becomes increasingly popular, Craigslist can be a great resource for finding these offers. Freecycling is based on the idea that many people have used items that have remaining useful life but they are replacing those items anyway. Rather than throwing these items away, the owners offer them to the general public for free.

2. FreeStuff.com

FreeStuff.com gives you access to free samples of common household items ranging from coffee to moisturizer. You can use this site to save money on many items you use or to try out new brands for free.

3. Yerdle

Yerdle describes itself as the "people-powered store." The idea of the site is that the more stuff you give away, the more credits you earn with which to buy other things you might want on Yerdle without having to use cash. While this might seem like it takes more effort than throwing things out, you can get something instead of nothing for items you were going to put in the trash. Using a service like this could be a good option for items that you feel are too valuable to simply give away or throw away but that you're not having success selling.

4. FreeSamples.org

FreeSamples.org is a portal that gives you access to a variety of free product offers for things like household products as well as coupons for products and local restaurants. The offers are updated every day.

5. The Freecycle Network

The Freecycle Network is made up of nearly nine million members worldwide. It is dedicated to enabling members to get and give stuff for free in order to put goods to their most efficient use -- and keep usable items out of landfills. This nonprofit describes itself as a "grassroots movement," and local volunteer moderators help handle network activity to keep exchanges safe and posts accurate. Membership is free.

6. Woman Freebies

Offering people the chance to try before they buy, Woman Freebies supplies free samples, coupons and giveaways of products geared toward women, from candles and shoes to vacations. This site is a good place to look for fun stuff you need or even a cheap gift for your mom, sister, wife or girlfriend.

7. Drugs.com

Drugs.com is an online resource that offers a drug discount program. The free membership card can save you as much as 80% at major pharmacies, according to the website.

8. The ReUseIt Network

The ReUseIt Network serves as a portal to give you access and information on hundreds of freecycling groups worldwide. The site focuses on directing you to freecycling groups and resources in your local area.

9. Free Stuff Finder

Free Stuff Finder shares deals, giveaways and discounts offered both online and at popular retailers. The site shows you both the original price of an item and the price after coupons and discounts to break down your savings for you.

10. Target

Target has a free sample portal that allows you to try products for free. Furthermore, by signing for the store's Red Card, you can save 5 percent on every purchase. Know what you're signing up for before committing. Loyalty cards can come with perks but also typically track your purchases, which some consumer advocacy groups consider an invasion of privacy.

11. SweetFreeStuff.com

SweetFreeStuff.com offers an e-newsletter that includes regular access to great deals online and free samples. The website also lists giveaways and sweepstakes you can sign up for online.

12. Cardpool

Cardpoolis an online marketplace that allows you to purchase gift cards at a discount to use at your favorite stores. While the discount levels vary, there are some attractive deals to be found. You also can sell your gift cards for cash.

13. All You

Lifestyle website All You lists 59 birthday freebies. The site also provides coupons for groceries and household items as well as other exclusive deals.

14. The Penny Hoarder

In addition to listing 100 places that have free birthday offers, the Penny Hoarder offers advice on saving and earning money in unconventional ways.

15. HeyItsFree.com

Another site with a long list of birthday freebies, Hey It's Free also is a good source for free offers throughout the year. Find coupons for everything from free food and moisturizer to free comic books and codes for free rewards points.

16. Freaky Freddie's

In addition to deals on products for grown-ups, Freaky Freddie's has long list of free kids' stuff. Check out offers for books, T-shirts, coloring books and activities like roller skating.

17. Totally Free Stuff

Totally Free Stuff< offers dozens of categories of free stuff as well as daily updates. Search for things in categories for type of person or interest -- such as men, women, business, religious, wedding -- or by product type, such as kitchen, pet products, toys, sports and automotive.

18. I Love Free Things

I Love Free Things is another site with a diverse collection of free stuff for kids, from books to deals on fun activities like bowling. The site has dozens of other categories of free stuff for all ages as well.

19. Freeflys.com

Freeflys.com provides lists of free samples, coupons and coupon codes. You can search the site or look for items sorted by category or brand name.

20. Raise

Raise is an online marketplace that allows you to buy gift cards for products and services from over 1000 stores and restaurants at a discount. The site also gives you the option of selling unwanted or unused gift cards for cash.

21. Recycle the World

Recycle the World is another freecycling website that allows you to post and find free stuff. Whether you are looking to get rid of unwanted items or are looking for something specific, the site lets you target your local area. It also provides a search tool to help you find recycling centers near you.

22. Coupons.com

Couponing has grown from a trend into a lifestyle for many people, and the number of websites dedicated to providing access to coupons has exploded in recent years. As a leader in the industry showcasing more than 2,000 brands, Coupons.com offers multiple ways to get coupons online. You can use the site to print coupons, find coupon codes and find discounts to specific retailers that you can add to your credit or debit card.

23. SmartSource.com

Another great source of free coupons, SmartSource.com can help you save money on everything from beauty products and groceries to weight loss products and sanding sheets for your DIY projects.

24. The Krazy Coupon Lady

Extreme couponing website The Krazy Coupon Lady< is a great source for coupons from some of your favorite retailers, from discount stores like Walmart and Dollar Tree to high-end brands like Sephora. The site also features deals for stores like Home Depot as well as online retailers such as Amazon.

25. Freebie-Depot

Freebie-Depot has "hot lists" for everything from everyday offers to birthday giveaways across a range of products and services from various brands and retailers. Among its many categories, the site features a wedding freebies section with deals for people who are getting married or are recently married.

26. Lifehacker

While Lifehacker is known for unconventional solutions to everyday problems, the website often publishes articles on how and where to save money, such as a feature on the best retail and restaurant birthday freebies.

27. Freebies.org

In addition to providing access to a variety of offers, Freebies.org offers tips and tricks on how to save money as well as its Complete Guide to Freebie Hunting.

28. I Crave Freebies

Similar to other online sources of free samples, I Crave Freebies offers links to coupons for discounts and free product samples. It also provides links to sites that pay you to take surveys.

29. GetItFree

Updated daily, GetItFree finds free offers for everything from food to household products. As you browse the site, you can add coupons, deals, freebies and sweepstakes offers to your basket just like you would when shopping online.

30. Freebies.com

Freebies.com started as a print magazine more than 30 years ago. As a digital resource, it continues to provide a blend of both products and services that are offered at no charge from major national retailers.

31. Shop4Freebies

Shop4Freebies catalogs offers for everything from free home care product samples and bargains to free cookbooks. Its list of printable coupons and other offers is updated daily.

Hundreds of sites offer consumers great ways to save. This list narrows down the options so that you can more easily find providers of freebies and deals that suit your needs. By checking out the features of these different sites, you can find the online resources that work best for you, whether you want birthday freebies, discounted items, coupon codes or free stuff year-round.

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 31 Best Websites for Free Stuff

Beautiful Samantha Script Font

2016-08-22T13:02:00.001+05:30

Add a touch of beauty and luxury to your designs with the classy and ever-popular Samantha Script, by hand-lettering expert Laura Worthington, in this MightyDeals.com deal.

The classic curves of the typeface create a high-end feel, but the essential skeleton of the face is clear, legible, and upright. Unlike so many scripts, Samantha Script is incredibly legible.

Great for web, print, wedding stationery, or any occasion when vintage glamor is essential.

Winning font family for the 2012 Communication Arts Award, there are four styles: Samantha Upright Pro, Samantha Italic Pro, Samantha Bold Upright Pro, and Samantha Bold Italic Pro. Swash sets, ligatures, catchwords, and old-style numerals are all included.

You can purchase Upright or Italic styles for $17 instead of the usual price of $75. But for better value consider grabbing the entire family for $37 instead of the usual $300, that’s 87% off! If that’s not enough for you, you can buy the Desktop and Webfonts together for just $55.

Head over to MightyDeals to download this elegant script face today.

10 Professional-Looking and High Quality Fonts for Web Designers

2013-11-22T14:53:00.001+05:30

The importance of fonts to designers has always been emphasized. Many design blogs also agree that as designers, choosing high quality fonts is like choosing your clothes. People will think of you differently if you sport the wrong one.

That is why we collected ten beautiful fonts for you that you will never hesitate using. They are fonts that will both compliment your body texts and titles. They are very flexible and trendy, so you will have no problem using them in your designs!

I will not make you wait any longer, so here they are:

Myriad Pro

Ubuntu

Lobster

League Gothic

Roboto Slab

Oswald

Stalemate

Josefin Slab

Lato

Pt Serif

Every designer has their own say on things, and we would love to hear what you think about this collection! And if you have a favorite font that you regularly use and recommend to people, feel free to post it below!

10 Beautiful Home Office Setups

2013-11-22T14:51:00.001+05:30

Working at home can be extremely fun when you can design and play with your workplace. You can transform a quiet sleeping space, a boring corner or a even a hallway into an efficient work area with a few key pieces.

Creating a corner that suits your personality is very important when you are working at home. Because your house is full of distractions you need to choose the right corner where you can feel productive working any hour of the day. Of course you need a work space which will Motivate Yourself More!

To help you assemble a workspace where you won’t mind getting work done with, here is a list of inspirational home spaces transformed into workspaces by creative designers.

1. Dualist Home Office System

2. Luxury Home Office in a Private House

3. Home Office + Dressing

4. Home Office Interior Design

5. Custom Home Office

6. Fap Cave: Desk-Lights Off

7. Home Work Space

8. New Work Space

9. Home Work Space

10. Work Space

Now that you are inspired to move things up and create or re-create your home office,

45 High-Quality Free HTML/CSS Templates from 2011 and 2012

2013-09-18T16:55:00.002+05:30

Looking for free HTML/CSS templates that you can use to practice your skills or to convert a WordPress theme? You came to the right place! In this roundup, we have gathered 45 CSS templates from 2011 to present. We know that not everyone has the time to design and code, but there is definitely a growing need for visually appealing templates. How about we expedite the process?

Visually appealing designs? Check!

Free and fresh templates? Check!

What are you waiting for? Read on!

Affordable and Reliable Hosting? We got you covered! 1stwebdesigner.com offers anexclusive 20% discount for our readers on every BlueHost package! We highly recommend them! Original price is $4.95 for a 36-month subscription, but with our discount you only get to pay $3.95 per month!

What Can HTML/CSS Templates Do?

For starters, CSS templates are a thing of beauty, especially when they’re free, since developers can actually make use of them without having the need to find a designer, or design one. There are a lot of developers out there who do not have the time to design, which applies to designers as well who do not have the time to code their Photoshop files.

It goes like this:

Design is made using Photoshop (or other Photoshop Alternatives)
File is converted to HTML/CSS
Developer converts HTML/CSS template into a fully-functional and feature-loaded website

If you are in a hurry and you don’t want to spend a lot of time on the design or code, then you’re in great luck with these CSS templates from 2011 and 2012!

In the market, things like these cost several hundreds of dollars, so we’re not only helping you save time researching, we’re also actually helping you save money!

Want to Learn How to Build One?

There are a lot of free PSD templates on the web that you can download and try to convert, here is an in-depth PSD template tutorial with its follow-up HTML/CSS conversion.

Click the image above for the demo.

Making things Responsive

All of the items listed below aren’t responsive, they’re free, so we can’t expect too much. But you know what? It is more fun this way because you can try to convert one or two into a responsive website.

We have a guide that is applicable for everything below, all you need to have is patience and passion!

Media Queries Tutorial – Convert Burnstudio into a Responsive Website

Just apply what you have learned from the linked tutorial above and you’ll soon be on the road to becoming a web rockstar!

So, are you ready?

Know About Web Designing

15 Kubernetes Best Practices Every Developer Should Know

Kubernetes Best Practices:

Use Namespaces

Use Readiness and Liveness Probes

Use Autoscaling

Use Resource Requests and Limits

Deploy Your Pods as Part of a Deployment, DaemonSet, ReplicaSet, or StatefulSet Across Nodes.

Use Multiple Nodes

Use Role-based Access Control (RBAC)

Host Your Kubernetes Cluster Externally (Use a Cloud Service)

Upgrade Your Kubernetes Version

Monitor Your Cluster Resources and Audit Policy Logs

Use a Version Control System

Use a Git-based Workflow (GitOps)

Reduce the Size of Your Containers

Organize Your Objects with Labels

Use Network Policies

Use a Firewall

Key Points

[DevOps] Create your first CI/CD pipeline!!

[DevOps] Create your first CI/CD pipeline!!

What is CI/CD pipeline?

Elements of a CI/CD pipeline

What is a CI/CD pipeline?

A CI/CD pipeline is a series of steps that must be performed in order to deliver a new version of software. Continuous…

Tools

Overview

What we use?

Setup

Setting up Jenkins server

Install Docker Engine

install maven

Setting up Tomcat server

Creating build pipeline in Jenkins

GitHub - meibutuoyaji/webapp: Tomcat test repo

You can't perform that action at this time. You signed in with another tab or window. You signed out in another tab or…

40+ Motivational Quotes for Creatives

Be Inspired to Create

Quotes That Will Make You Think…

Words of Wisdom

10 Free CSS & JavaScript Snippets for Creating Animated Loaders

Custom loading bars offer a way for websites to update visitors using strong visuals. Sometimes a static “loading” message isn’t always enough! And if you want to add a custom loading bar to your website then this collection is sure to have something that’ll suit your needs.

1. Loading Bar with Counter

2. Light Loader

3. Multi-Animated Loader

4. Canvas Fractal Loader

5. OuroboroCSS Loaders

6. Thermometer Loader

7. Three.js Loader

8. Organic Circle

9. Simple Circle Rotator

10. Pure CSS Loader Dots

Wrapping Up

10 Free Customizable CSS Snippets for Radio Toggles & Switches

2. On/Off CSS Switches

3. iOS7 Switches

4. Pure CSS Circles

5. Win10 Switches

6. Clean On/Off Toggle

7. Switchboxes

8. Custom Square Toggles

9. Glowing Switch

10. Sliding Radio Buttons

Wrapping Up

10 Best Free Monospaced Fonts For Code Snippets

PT Mono

Fira Mono

Cutive Mono

Inconsolata

Hack

Gohufont

Source Code Pro

Overpass Mono

Oxygen Mono

Anonymous Pro

how to use Angular CLI to create a new project and deploy it

Running the App

Deploying the App

Uploading to a Server

Custom loading bars offer a way for websites to update visitors using strong visuals. Sometimes a static “loading” message isn’t always enough!

And if you want to add a custom loading bar to your website then this collection is sure to have something that’ll suit your needs.

Installing `now`