richarddavies.us » Web & Technology

Sexy Buttons

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:55:20 -0800

I've just launched an HTML/CSS-based framework called Sexy Buttons that makes it super easy to add stylish, skinnable buttons to your web site. This makes it possible to turn any button or link into a beautiful call-to-action button.

Web Developer position at the City of Portland

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:27:44 -0800

My team at the City of Portland is hiring another web guru. We're looking for someone more on the front end (graphic design / HTML / simple scripting / media creation) than back end programmer. We're getting ready to overhaul our online presence and this person will play an important role in this project.

See the job posting for more details or to apply. (And don't let the "Web 0.5" feel of the job posting web site scare you away...)

Run IE6, IE7, and IE8 on the same PC!

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:32:21 -0800

Web designers and developers rejoice---browser compatibility testing just got a whole lot easier! For years we've been complaining to Microsoft about the fact that you can't have more than one version of Internet Explorer installed on a computer at the same time. So the only way to test a web site in multiple versions of IE was to use multiple computers, virtual machines, or resort to various hacks. None of these methods was ideal and all left us wishing for a better way.

FireScope: Add HTML & CSS reference to Firebug

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:54:21 -0800

SitePoint has just released a Firefox add-on named FireScope. It's actually a plugin for the Firebug add-on. (Ya, I know—we've got plugins for plugins now... crazy world, isn't it?) FireScope integrates SitePoint's HTML and CSS reference web site with Firebug.

Download ZoneAlarm Pro for free

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:37:24 -0800

Today only CheckPoint is giving away their ZoneAlarm Pro firewall software for free.

Take the A List Apart survey for people who make websites

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:19:07 -0800

Please take a moment and take A List Apart's 2008 survery. This annual survery of "people who make websites" is very informative and helpful for identifying trends in our industry. And best of all, they publish the results so you can take a look at them.

10 Dropbox invites up for grabs

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:45:05 -0800

Following Scott Pinkston's lead, I've got 10 Dropbox invites to give away. Leave a comment if you'd like one.

Google Maps API for Flash

Thu, 15 May 2008 08:33:05 -0800

Google has announced that you can now use their Google Maps API inside Flash components. Previously Google Maps was only available through a JavaScript API. Judging from the demo included with the announcement, this API opens up the door to exciting new possibilities.

Official Google Maps API Blog: Introducing the Google Maps API for Flash

Free PDF book: The Photoshop Anthology

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:47:16 -0800

For a limited time, SitePoint is giving away free PDF copies of their book The PhotoShop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques. [Download link]

ColdFusion spellchecker plugin for TinyMCE 3.0

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:33:40 -0800

We use TinyMCE as a WYSIWYG editor for our CMS at work. Version 3.0 of TinyMCE was recently released in which most of the application has been rewritten. Because of this rewrite, any plugins written for version 2.x have to be updated to be compatible with version 3.

Don't break the web?

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:55:22 -0800

Since Microsoft's announcement that Internet Explorer 8 would use something called "version targeting" everyone has been chiming in with their thoughts and opinions on the issue. Many people are for it and many are opposed to the idea. I find myself increasingly annoyed at this whole situation and at Microsoft's recently proposed solution.

Automatically stretch Webshots backgrounds redux

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:41:22 -0800

As I mentioned in a previous entry, a while back I created a little script to automatically stretch my Webshots wallpaper images to fill my widescreen monitor. However, after upgrading to Windows Vista this script didn't work correctly since it is basically just a macro that simulates the keystrokes a user would type to open up Display Properties and change the wallpaper mode to stretch.

YikeSite is the perfect lighweight CMS

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:39:11 -0800

I'm creating a web site for my mother-in-law as a Christmas gift this year (who luckily doesn't read my blog...). She runs a childcare business in her home during the day and teaches dancing lessons to the community a couple of nights per week. She's told me a couple of times that she would really like a web site to advertise her services. So I finally decided to create one for her this Christmas.

I wanted it to be as quick and easy as possible to create and ideally it would use a simple content management system so that she could edit the site as necessary. Lately, a whole bunch of easy to use online web site creators have been emerging. I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to use one of these new tools to create her web site. I looked at Weebly, YikeSite, DoodleKit, Synthasite, Jimdo, Google Pages, and SiteKreator. They all pretty much follow the same general idea: sign up for an account, use their online tools to create and edit pages, choose a theme or design for your site, and then it gets hosted on a subdomain of their site.

In the end, I chose to use YikeSite because I found it to be the most flexible and easy to use. Their free plan offers an unlimited number of pages and 5 MB of storage for graphics and documents, etc. Although they don't currently have as large of a selection of themes as the other sites do, they do have an awesome templating system. It's way more flexible than any of the other sites (at least among the free accounts) and basically allows you to create your own theme very easily, as long as you know basic HTML and CSS. In addition, their page creation and maintenance tools are quite possibly the easiest to use of the bunch.

Using their templating system, or "theme API" as they call it, I was able to easily create a customized theme for the site. Creating pages and editing content is so easy that I have confidence that my mother-in-law, who is not very computer savvy, will have no trouble maintaining her site. I was very impressed with the flexibility that YikeSite offers, especially given the fact that I'm only using their free plan.

For anyone who knows basic HTML and CSS and has to create a simple web site for someone, I would recommend taking a look at YikeSite. Although I'm still tweaking a few things, if you're curious to see how it turned out, you can take a peek at Hannele LaFrance's web site.

Mozilla Prism to compete with Adobe AIR in the race to the desktop

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:51:41 -0800

Mozilla recently announced Prism, a new product to compete with Adobe AIR in the race to integrate web applications into the desktop. Granted, Prism is currently not much more than a glorified shortcut, although AIR offers some more advanced "integration" capabilities such as desktop alerts, etc… But I expect the Prism team will work hard to close the gap soon.

It will be interesting to see what happens as the line between the desktop and the web continues to blur.

Automatically stretch Webshots backgrounds

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 19:18:40 -0800

I recently upgraded from an old 19" CRT monitor to a 19" widescreen LCD monitor. While the widescreen is great for watching movies, my Webshots desktop backgrounds don't fit the new aspect ratio very well.