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    <title>Pinboard (pesh2000)</title>
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    <description>recent bookmarks from pesh2000 (from google)</description>
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	<rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/12/the-history-of-darth-vader/"/>
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	<rdf:li rdf:resource="http://webdesignerwall.com/trends/mind-blowing-parallax-scrolling-sites"/>
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  </channel><item rdf:about="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/12/legend/">
    <title>Review: Legend by Marie Lu Is Believable YA Fiction</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-20T12:30:02+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/12/legend/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[

Legend by first-time novelist Marie Lu treads ground that has been covered by many other YA books in recent years. A young but gifted underclass teen nicknamed Day goes underground to try to save his family and his community from oppression by the elite who rule his repressive post-apocalyptic America. He is opposed, and later joined, by June, a girl who matches him in smarts, athletic ability, and good looks.

It’s one part Hunger Games, one part Little Brother, and a bit of City of Ember and Truancy – with a dash of Les Miz (which she caught on TV while thinking about how to build a story around the character of Day) thrown in for good measure. Yet even though Lu’s book is a variation on a by now well-worn theme, I was surprised at how well-written, fast-paced and enjoyable it was, with characters I came to like almost in spite of myself.

Legend is set in a crumbling Los Angeles, in a landscape reshaped by rising ocean levels. California is the center of the Republic of America, ruled by the glorious Elector and constantly at war with the surrounding Colonies in neighboring states. In the poor sectors of town, yearly plagues keep the population weak and helpless.

But both rich and poor must submit at age 10 to a Trial, in which their academic and athletic scores determine whether they get to go on to high school and college, are doomed to a life as an uneducated worker, or disappear altogether to mysterious work camps from which none have ever returned.

While Lu’s imagined world doesn’t have quite as many layers as Hunger Games, the care she takes to make it believable and consistent pays off. Anyone with the most basic understanding of the issues facing us today will be able to sympathize with the challenges Lu’s characters face. Her competent female characters help buoy the story and turn the damsel-in-distress cliché on its head. Day himself, who is only 15, has a Peter Pan appeal that teen girl readers will love. (I also wonder how much the popularity of these kind of stories is due to the independence of their protagonists, compared to the overprotected lives many teens lead today.) All in all, it is a dystopian tale that is not quite as bleak or scary as many YA novels, which makes it more appealing to me as an adult reader. I enjoyed Legend — in fact, my only disappointment came towards the end, when I realized the series of revelations about the true nature of the book’s world was a just a set-up for future sequels (the first is due next fall).

What is perhaps most exciting is that Lu is still young — she only graduated from the University of Southern California in 2006 — and her skill as a storyteller has many years to grow. She is the art director at Online Alchemy, a video game company; according to her website her plans to expand her fledgling franchise include a movie (CBS owns the rights) and a cartoon show for younger audiences following the earlier adventures of Day.

This book received an advance push so big (mailings to reviewers started last May, and included an entire package of material — and a refrigerator magnet) that it made me and other critics wary. However, as others have already pointed out, this is one “buzzy” book that seems to have been (almost) worth the hype. For lovers of Les Miz and Hunger Games, I highly recommend Legend.
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Armchair_Geek Legend Marie_Lu young_adult_fiction</dc:subject>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/12/the-history-of-darth-vader/">
    <title>The History of Darth Vader</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-19T12:30:37+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/12/the-history-of-darth-vader/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Ever need to explain the life and death of Darth Vader to a friend, but didn’t have time to sit through the 13 hours and 23 minutes of the Star Wars saga with them? Fortunately, some Italian designers have solved that problem with a pictogram that tells someone everything they need to know about the Dark Lord.

The History of Darth Vader (source: H-57)

“The History of Darth Vader” is part of a series of historical pictograms that explain and satirize the life arcs of iconic people in history (real or fictional). The posters — created by H-57, an advertising and design studio located in Milan, Italy — came from a collaboration with the blog-slash-studio First Floor Under.

For the H-57 principles — Matteo Civaschi, Gianmarco Milesi, and Sabrina Di Gregorio — this isn’t the first (nor probably the last) Star Wars themed project. According to the official Star Wars blog, the three are huge fans of the Saga. Last September, H-57 initiated a series of typographic posters to benefit children. Each poster depicts a key character, built exclusively from type fonts.

They printed some as gifts for customers to show H-57’s creativity. Then the images of Darth Vader, Yoda, and a Stormtrooper — using typefaces with names like Bodoni Bold and Helvetica Light Condensed — were posted online and within days went viral.

A pet cat gets credit for inspiring the designers, having knocked Civaschi’s Darth Vader mask to the floor and into little letter-shaped pieces.

Use Your Force To Help Children posters are raising money for Make-a-Wish (source: H-57)

With help from Lucasfilm, posters for the “Use Your Force to Help Children” campaign were available on eBay — through the end of this month — with proceeds going to Make-A-Wish Italy, part of the worldwide organization raising money to grant wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions. The poster for the November exhibit of these special canvas editions is also worth a look.

Star Wars is a popular subject for other artists at FFU. For some other Star Wars related work, check out the illustrations of different perspectives on famous Saga scenes using the signature dangling legs of FFU. That art is credited to designers at TBWA/Italy. Also, illustrator Liam Brazier has a series of abstract posters of Star Wars characters.

h/t: @panah
]]></description>
<dc:subject>The_Internet Art design First_Floor_Under Graphics H-57 History_of_Darth_Vader Italy make-a-wish posters Star_Wars typography</dc:subject>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/12/16/be-good-if-we-could-speed-this-up-a-little/">
    <title>Be good if we could speed this up a little</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-16T20:09:09+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/12/16/be-good-if-we-could-speed-this-up-a-little/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[2007:


The United States Supreme Court ruled yesterday against a home care aide from Queens and upheld federal regulations that exempt most home care workers from minimum-wage and overtime protections.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would seek to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to ensure that home aides were protected. He said the court decision highlighted “a significant gap in the protections of our laws,” and added that he would work with his colleagues “on a fair solution that treats these hardworking caregivers with the dignity and respect they deserve”. 


The home care aide’s name was Evelyn Coke, and she died in 2009: 


Year in and year out, Evelyn Coke left her Queens house early to go to the homes of elderly, sick, often dying people. She bathed them, cooked for them, helped them dress and monitored their medications. She sometimes worked three consecutive 24-hour shifts. She loved the work, but she earned only around $7 an hour and got no overtime pay. For years Ms. Coke, a single mother of five, quietly grumbled, and then, quite uncharacteristically, rebelled. In a case that reached the Supreme Court in 2007, Ms. Coke sued to reverse federal labor regulations that exempt home care agencies from having to pay overtime.




Yesterday:



The Obama administration proposed regulations on Thursday to give the nation’s nearly two million home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections. Those workers have long been exempted from coverage. Labor unions and advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for the changes, contending that the 37-year-old exemption improperly swept these workers, who care for many elderly and disabled Americans, into the same “companion” category as baby sitters. The administration’s move calls for home care aides to be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law.
The White House said 92 percent of these workers were women, nearly 30 percent were African-American and 12 percent Hispanic. Nearly 40 percent rely on public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. While industry experts say an overwhelming majority are paid at least the minimum wage, many do not receive a time-and-a-half premium when they work more than 40 hours a week. Twenty-two states do not include home health care workers under their wage and hour laws.
Noting that nearly 90 percent of the nation’s home care aides work for agencies, Labor Department officials said such aides would receive the new wage and hour protections. The department said some companions employed by individuals for activities like helping them take walks or engage in hobbies would still be exempt from minimum wage and overtime coverage.


Medicare and Medicaid cover 75% of the cost of home care aides, but nursing homes, the alternative to home care, are ruinously expensive for state and federal governments.  Home care aides are a good deal all around, so we should pay them, don’t you think?  We’ll hear the usual screeching from conservative politicians and lobbyists  but if this bloviating, useless gas bag can make $1.6 million for lobbying  members of Congress we can certainly afford time and a half for the women who care for the people who can’t work anymore. If we can’t, if we can’t pay these workers properly, when 40% of them are eligible for food stamps, then all that bullshit we’re always spouting about the inherent dignity of honest labor is about as meaningful as any of the 676 GOP debates on cable television.


Evelyn Coke lost her court case, and Kennedy didn’t get it done in the time he had, but I’m sure both Kennedy and  Ms. Coke would be pleased to know advocates kept pushing until they won.







 
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Domestic_Affairs Don't_Mourn_Organize</dc:subject>
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</item>
<item rdf:about="http://toolsandtoys.net/puerto-rico-board-game/">
    <title>Puerto Rico: The Board Game</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-15T22:00:14+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://toolsandtoys.net/puerto-rico-board-game/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[





This game is awesome. I’m a big fan of games where you sit down with a handful of friends or family, everyone has their beverage of choice (usually hot tea at our house), and you play a good-paced, interesting, strategy game. Settlers of Catan has been the long-time favorite in the Blanc household. Lately we’ve been having fun with Ticket to Ride and Power Grid.


A few weeks ago my sister and brother-in-law came over for game night and we all learned the game for the first time. We all loved it and picked up on it quickly. And so now, Puerto Rico is a contender for favorite board game. And that says a lot.


Two things I like about Puerto Rico: (1) there are no dice to roll and so it’s almost entirely a strategy based game with no good or bad luck injected to swing the game one way or the other; and (2) even though it has rounds and turns, everyone is playing all the time — it’s very involved and doesn’t get boring.



Get it from Amazon



]]></description>
<dc:subject>Entertainment Games awesome family fun</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:27dcfbc826c1/</dc:identifier>
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</item>
<item rdf:about="http://givemesomethingtoread.com/post/14165664872/2011-highlights">
    <title>→ 2011 highlights from Give Me Something To Read</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-13T23:35:54+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://givemesomethingtoread.com/post/14165664872/2011-highlights</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[To give your Instapaper account a boost for the holidays, here’s a hand-picked selection of great 2011 stories from the editor of Give Me Something To Read, Richard Dunlop-Walters.


(He’s British and may or may not own a monocle, so you know he has good taste in writing.)



∞ Permalink
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:a6c11820d392/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://d.pr/sy1S">
    <title>Amazon Item of the Week: The Best Screwdriver You Can Buy</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-13T21:55:31+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://d.pr/sy1S</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Most of you probably don’t know that for every summer in high school and college I worked for my father’s commercial construction company doing manual labor and carpentry. It was a great job that gave me a great skill set, but more importantly I learned about what tools were crap and what tools were great.
Most tools on a carpenters tool belt start at $20 and when you think about how many they carry it is easy to see how fast that all adds up — so carpenters are prone to buying the best they can afford so that it lasts a really long time.
One of the best tools I was every introduced to was this Klein screwdriver.
Usually I would say run away from these types of multi-bit screwdrivers, but not this time. I own four of them. Yes, four. I bought my first one back in 2003 and I still have it and use it.
I beat things in place with the back of it and have never had an issue. I keep one in my car, one at my desk, one in both of my tool bags. This is something that really everyone should own — it is truly fantastic.
∞
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Links amazon_item</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:1f9c3f64a1ce/</dc:identifier>
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</item>
<item rdf:about="http://line25.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-stylish-drop-cap-effect-with-css3">
    <title>How To Create a Stylish Drop Cap Effect with CSS3</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-12T07:00:07+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://line25.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-stylish-drop-cap-effect-with-css3</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Drop caps have been around for years in the print industry, but they are still pretty rare in the web world despite the :first-letter selector having been around for a fair few years. Let’s take a look at how we can create a cool drop cap for our web designs and spice it up with some stylish CSS3 text-shadow effects.


The design we’ll be creating features a large drop cap at the start of a block of text. The actual drop cap effect will be created with the :first-letter selector, while the extra effects are added with the help of CSS text-shadow.
View the CSS drop cap demo
The HTML structure
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>CSS Drop Shadow</title>

<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" />

</head>

<body>

<div>
<p>You either die a hero or You live long enough to see yourself become the villain.</p>
</div>

</body>
</html>
Every web project begins with the basic HTML structure. For this demo file the HTML page is made up of the usual Doctype and Head elements before the quote is laid out as a basic paragraph element. We’ll be using CSS selectors to create our drop cap so no special IDs or classes are required.
The CSS styling
body, div, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, ul, ol, li, dl, dt, dd, img, form, fieldset, input, textarea, blockquote {
margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0;
}

body {
font-family: "Chunk", Sans-Serif; color: #fff;
background: #566074 url(bg.png);
}

@font-face {
font-family: Chunk;
src: url("Chunk.ttf") format("truetype");
}

div {
width: 730px; margin: 150px auto;
}
The CSS demo file begins with a reset to remove any default browser styling, then the main font styling is added to the body. You’ll notice the use of the “Chunk” font; this custom font is being added with the help of @font-face.

p {
font-size: 50px; line-height: 80px;
text-transform: uppercase;
text-shadow: 10px 10px 0 rgba(255,255,255,0.07);
}
Now the slab-serif font is in place the size and line-height of the typography can be set. The text-transform property ensures all the text appears in caps despite how it is written in the HTML file, then the text-shadow property is used along with RGBa colour values to add a subtle ghost effect to the text.

p:first-child:first-letter {
font-size: 160px; float: left; margin: 20px 20px 0 0; line-height: 0.8;
}
Now the main text is in place we can finally get around to styling up the drop cap. The first letter is targeted with the handy :first-letter selector, but to avoid having drop caps on every paragraph on our page we also need to use the :first-child selector to target only the first letter of the first paragraph. Just four CSS declarations are needed to correctly style up the drop cap. First the letter is increased in size so it’s large enough to span across two lines of the paragraph, then it is floated left to allow it to break out of the paragraph’s flow. A touch of margin on the top and right help tweak the drop cap into place and add some space between this first letter and the remainder of the sentence. Everything looks fine in Firefox so far, but if we test it out in WebKit browsers (Safari & Chrome) they both seem to place the drop cap higher than Firefox. We can easily fix this with an extra line-height declaration. This makes no difference to the Firefox version while lining everything up in Safari and Chrome.

p:first-child:first-letter {
font-size: 160px; float: left; margin: 20px 20px 0 0; line-height: 0.8;;
text-shadow: 4px 4px 0 #566074, 7px 7px 0 #fff;
}
The basic drop cap is complete, but traditionally drop caps come along in all kinds of fancy styling. We can add some cool effects of our own with the help of the CSS3 text-shadow property. A duplicate of the text is created and offset by 4px, then a second duplicate is created at 7px. When the first duplicate is set to the same colour as the background it creates a cool retro style effect. For more drop cap effects check out my old text-shadow effects post.
The final drop cap effect
View the CSS drop cap demo
 
    
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Tutorials coding css css3 design interface techniques tips typography web_design</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:68e94f57959d/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Tutorials"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:coding"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:css"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:css3"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:design"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:interface"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:techniques"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:tips"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:typography"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:web_design"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://toolsandtoys.net/neu-year-2012-calendar/">
    <title>Neu Year 2012 Calendar</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-09T18:00:39+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://toolsandtoys.net/neu-year-2012-calendar/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[





The 2012 Neu Year productivity calendar shows you the whole year at once as one large poster. It’s broken up by week (rather than month) because most people plan and organize their live in week increments. It’s two-sided so you can hang it vertically or horizontally based on where you want to place it.



Get it from Neu Year



]]></description>
<dc:subject>Office Tools calendar paper</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:74ee50673d6d/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Office"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Tools"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:calendar"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:paper"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://webdesignledger.com/freebies/best-free-ui-psds-of-2011">
    <title>Best Free UI PSDs of 2011</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-09T05:51:47+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://webdesignledger.com/freebies/best-free-ui-psds-of-2011</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Advertise here with BSA
So far in our Best of 2011 series, we’ve shown you our picks for the best free fonts and the best jQuery plugins. For this week, we’ve went back through all the UI PSDs that’s been released over the past year and picked our favorites. We saw plenty of these types of UI files being released in 2011, so it was very difficult to sift through them and find the ones that really stood out. 

Classic Grey Psd Web UI Set


A complete classic and light grey themed psd web user interface  to design any clean and modern website. Buttons, Slider, Input, Pagination and more.

Retro Web Ribbons Vintage Pack


A complete set of retro and vintage web menu ribbons, retro social icons, vintage web buttons. Ideal to create a vintage web design and make your project stands out.

Minimalist Dark Psd Web UI Set


A minimalist dark psd web ui with web elements to make your website design stands out in the crowd. It comes with a myriad of colors for the elements hover states. Web page elements include: Buttons, Search Box, Social Icons, Tabs, Pagination and more.

Cloudy UI Kit


A light and airy, but highly detailed UI kit. It includes loads of buttons, sliders, and more. 

Butterscotch UI Kit


A gorgeous UI kit with resizable shape layers in a clean, well organized PSD file.

Sleek UI Elements


This PSD contains a number of useful elements in a modern, sleek style.

Black UI Kit


A fully layered and very well organized PSD with all the elements you need for designing a web site or app in a dark style.

iTunes Inspired UI Kit


A full UI kit which was originally inspired by the iTunes UI. The kit includes all sorts of toggles, tabs, buttons, sliders and fields.

Vertical Navigation Menu


A sweet and simple vertical navigation menu with styles for sub menus thrown in for good measure. 

Moonify UI


Moonify UI is a detailed PSD containing over 60 elements, all well organized and easily editable.
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Freebies 2011</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:43d51c9ef989/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Freebies"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:2011"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/12/08/the-density-barbell/">
    <title>The density barbell</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-08T18:02:16+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/12/08/the-density-barbell/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Virtually everybody I know with Instapaper and/or Read It Later uses it all the time — the ability to read long articles in a clean format, at your leisure, on planes or subways or just when you have a few minutes to kill standing in line at the supermarket, is a great improvement to quality of life. And both of them are now popular enough that they can start extracting interesting patterns from their data.

Read It Later has a new post up about which authors are the most read on its platform, and the results are quite startling: the list of most-saved authors, and the list of authors with the highest return rate (the authors who people actually read, after they’ve saved an article) are both dominated by a lot of Gawker Media writers. “Nick Denton’s Gawker Media properties (Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Deadspin, Gawker),” write Coco Krumme and Mark Armstrong, “are among the most popular any way you cut it.”

This is partly because Gawker Media is a big and popular media company. But it’s also, I think, indicative of an important trend in the way that information is presented and consumed online.

There’s no doubt that our digital lives are becoming increasingly cluttered, and that we’re presented with more information per minute spent online than at any time in the past. There’s been a steady rise in the density of information that websites present to us, and the most successful websites (the Huffington Post and the Daily Mail are prime examples here) tend to fill their pages with enormous numbers of links and shiny things to click on.

One of the things that the Gawker redesign did was to make every Gawker Media webpage extremely dense, with lots of links to lots of stories. That’s a good thing. But it also makes it harder to give individual stories, especially long ones, the kind of space that readers like. And so those readers turn to tools like Read It Later when they come across a Gawker Media post they want to give real attention to.

Call it the density barbell: information is being presented in either a very dense form, or else in a very clean and sparse form. Both have their uses. And as tools like Instapaper and Read It Later become more widely used, websites can be even more aggressive in ramping up the density on their pages, safe in the knowledge readers can easily strip it away if they want to.

This kind of binary approach to information stands in stark contrast to what’s going on at Google, where a redesign of Google Reader, Gmail and other web apps has met with a vast outpouring of unhappiness. What’s happened there is that Google, in an attempt to make information easier to read, has massively decreased the density of its pages — even as the rest of the world is going in the opposite direction. For any one piece of information, that’s great — it’s easier to find and read. But for information consumption and navigation purposes, it’s dreadful: the redesigns slow down productivity, in a world where Reader and Gmail are key productivity tools.

What Google should have done, I think, is go in the other direction, and increase the density of the information in its apps — while adding some kind of simple tool allowing extraneous information to be eradicated at the touch of a button. People like simple and uncluttered in theory, but in practice we’re on an inexorable ride towards complex and cluttered — with tools then added on top for the purposes of filtering or reading. Give me everything, and then give me an easy way to find and read what I want. Don’t give me an unacceptable subset of everything and ask me to make do.
]]></description>
<dc:subject>media</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:b63b14da5986/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:media"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/13924193385">
    <title>The Hyperlist: A List of Desired Lists</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-08T16:25:00+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/13924193385</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Suggested Names for the Dogs I See in the Neighborhood All the Time
Elvis Costello Albums We Should Pretend Do Not Exist
Grievances Against America, Volume XII
Books We Should Collectively Opt Out of Believing We Should Read
Cheese Rank Index
Preferred Pirate Nicknames
List of People I Know Who Ball Their Socks
Lucky Ones
Crazy Ones
Unnecessary Flavors of Ice Cream
Things Believed to Be Said by Oscar Wilde That Weren’t
Good Ideas Had While Showering
Worthwhile Arguments
Suggested Names for Yoga Poses
Desired Animals for Domestication
Favorite Canadians
Imaginary Muppets for Your Consideration
Ways to Initiate a Mutiny
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:ead31dcf1b15/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://toolsandtoys.net/roll-up-travel-charger/">
    <title>Roll Up Travel Charger</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-08T14:00:27+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://toolsandtoys.net/roll-up-travel-charger/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[





Leave it to Restoration Hardware to find a way to wrap up our iPhone and USB charging cables in dark brown leather. This Roll Up Travel Charger is basically a charging port that includes chargers for iDevices, USB, mini USB, and Samsung mobiles. Everything wraps up nicely into a leather roll and is easy to toss into a bag, as opposed to fighting cable clutter. And if you travel a lot, having a companion like this as your dedicated traveling charger would be quite nice (and classy) indeed. (Via 52 Tiger.)



Get it from Restoration Hardware



]]></description>
<dc:subject>Gadgets Travel charging electronic ipad iphone ipod ipodtouch leather</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:73811d1c6ded/</dc:identifier>
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	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Travel"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:charging"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:electronic"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:ipad"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:iphone"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:ipod"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:ipodtouch"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:leather"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://shiftyjelly.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/standing-up-for-android/">
    <title>→ Standing Up For Android</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-08T04:03:27+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://shiftyjelly.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/standing-up-for-android/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Shifty Jelly’s counterargument to some of my Android opinions, which provides a concrete data point showing that money can be made on Android, concludes with this:



  Finally, we’d like to publicly challenge Marco Arment to bring Instapaper to Android and drop the negative attitude. We’ll bet you one large cup of our finest Australian Coffee that you’ll be pleasantly surprised by just how great the Google Market is. In many ways it’s a better place to be than iOS, since so many developers are ignoring it, and yet there is a massive install base waiting to give you their money.



I can’t afford to invest months of development time into learning the platform and making an Android app, then supporting and maintaining it in parallel with my iOS app indefinitely, with so many other data points telling me that it almost certainly won’t be worth the investment.


So I’ll make it more interesting. Instapaper has a public API. I’m not aware of any good, stable, feature-rich Android Instapaper clients that actually use it and aren’t just ripping off my iOS app’s private API.


If you make the first great Android Instapaper client that:



uses the official API
contains a significant portion of the iOS app’s features, the details of which we’d work out privately
runs on a wide variety of Android devices and OS versions including modern smartphones, the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, and whichever 10” tablet matters at the time of completion
is priced at $2.99 or higher in the U.S. with approximately equivalent pricing elsewhere, and satisfies requirements to be sold in the Google Marketplace, Amazon Appstore, and whatever B&N uses for the Nook Tablet


I’ll call it the official Instapaper app for Android, I’ll promote it on the Instapaper site, I’ll drop the subscription requirement for its API access, you’ll answer all support email that comes from it, and we’ll split the net revenue 50/50.


What do you say?


UPDATE: I don’t intend for multiple developers to compete for this with whoever gets it “first” winning, causing everyone else to have invested a lot of effort for nothing. That’s too close to spec work for my taste, and I wouldn’t ask anyone to do that.


I’m talking with Shifty Jelly and a small number of other developers to see if we should take this somewhere. If we proceed, I will choose one developer to proceed with before anyone else does any work.



∞ Permalink
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:47dbc1ce4659/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://toolsandtoys.net/storage-bag-and-play-mat-in-one/">
    <title>Storage Bag &amp; Play Mat-in-One</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-07T15:19:56+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://toolsandtoys.net/storage-bag-and-play-mat-in-one/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[





When I was a kid, not only did I have to walk to school in the snow (uphill both ways, mind you), but I also had to keep my Legos in a big, heavy, plastic bin. I spent half of my play time digging around in that 2-foot-deep bin looking for a particular Lego (until finally conceding, and just dumping the whole bin of Legos onto the floor). Then I would spend the other half of play time picking up all those Legos and putting them back into the bin. If only the Storage Bag and Play Mat-in-One had existed 20 years ago…



Get it from The Spoon Sisters



]]></description>
<dc:subject>Kids Toys legos</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:99d6ec418c0e/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Kids"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Toys"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:legos"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.marco.org/2011/12/02/kindle-touch-vs-nook-simple-touch-kobo-touch-kindle-4">
    <title>Kindle Touch compared to Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Touch, and Kindle 4</title>
    <dc:date>2011-12-02T20:56:20+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.marco.org/2011/12/02/kindle-touch-vs-nook-simple-touch-kobo-touch-kindle-4</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Amazon’s new Kindle Touch, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Simple Touch (my review), and the Kobo Touch are surprisingly similar.


Nook Simple Touch, Kindle Touch, and Kobo Touch


They all have the same E-Ink Pearl screen with the same contrast, the same resolution, and the same type of IR touch-screen sensor. (Any screen differences in the photos are the result of uneven lighting, not any real differences.)


They’re all available for $99, but the Kindle and Kobo both show ads (“special offers”) at that price — if you’re looking for an ad-free reader, the Nook is the least expensive at $99, with the ad-free Kobo at $129 and the ad-free Kindle at $139.


Content libraries and ecosystems

All of the major e-readers have similar content libraries these days.


The Nook is particularly good for magazine availability, even slightly exceeding the Kindle’s availability in my searches. But Barnes & Noble’s content store is very buggy for me: I often get errors claiming unspecified problems with purchases, downloads, or connectivity. (This also happens on the Nook Tablet.)


Kobo’s ecosystem is still a disadvantage. In my searches, while book availability was pretty good, it had the highest prices most often. And critically, its magazine and newspaper selection is abysmal — if you intend to read magazines or newspapers on your e-reader, you shouldn’t consider Kobo.


Hardware and bezels

They’re all similar sizes. The Nook is the thickest and chunkiest. The Kobo is the lightest, at 185g versus 211g for the Nook and Kindle.


The thick IR-touch bezels are all deeper than on non-touch readers. The Nook’s is deepest and the Kobo’s is the most shallow:


From the top of the stack: Nook, Kindle, Kobo bezels under diagonal lighting


As I emphasized with the lighting angle here, the deep IR bezels cast shadows onto the screen margins. This is especially noticeable with close, single-point light, like a lamp on an end table or night stand.


The shadows amplify the perceived depth of the bezels, and they can be particularly problematic when they cover text or interface elements too close to the screen margins. The deeper bezels also make it more awkward to hit touch targets near the screen edges.


The Kobo’s touch sensor seems to work as well as the others, so I’m curious why the Nook and Kindle needed such deep bezels.


The non-touch Kindle 4

The 2011 $79 Kindle with buttons, which people have settled on calling the Kindle 4 (therefore, so will I), remains a strong competitor here, too.


Kindle Touch (left) and Kindle 4


Compared to all three touch readers, it’s cheaper ($79 with ads, $109 without), thinner, and noticeably lighter (166g).


It lacks the audio features of the Kindle Touch and previous Kindles, such as text-to-speech and MP3 playback, but I’ve never used those features or seen anyone else use them. (If you actually will use those features, the Kindle Touch is the only option for you.)


The Kindle 4 also has a shallower screen bezel than any of the touch readers:


From the top of the stack: Kindle Touch, Kindle 4 bezels under diagonal lighting


Again, this reduces shadows in the reading area and make it easier to read with light hitting the screen at an angle, which for me is almost always.


Page-turning and performance

The Kobo Touch is the slowest at page-turns, followed closely by the Kindle Touch. In fact, my old Kindle 2 turns pages slightly faster than the Kindle Touch. I’ll come back to that in a minute.


The Kindle 4 and Nook both turn pages at about the same speed (I can’t tell the difference, at least), and they’re much faster than the others. This is interesting: the Nook’s speed means that it is possible to make a touch-screen e-reader turn pages as quickly as one with buttons.


Of the touch readers, only the Nook has hardware page-turn buttons that you can optionally use, but they’re uncomfortable to use because they require too much pressure. On the Kindle and Kobo, you must turn pages by tapping the screen. I wish they all had good page-turn buttons — you’d think the hardware would be optimized for the most common action that people perform when using e-readers, but that’s unfortunately not the case.


With page-turn buttons, you can simply rest your finger on them while reading and push down slightly to advance to the next page. I miss this ability on the touch readers: you need to move your finger from wherever it’s resting (which can’t be the screen, of course) into the screen area and tap each time. My ideal e-reader would have a touch screen as responsive as the Nook’s and good hardware page-turn buttons, but that doesn’t exist today.


Don’t worry, fingerprints aren’t very noticeable on the touch readers. The matte e-ink screen surface minimizes their appearance, and they’re easily wiped off.


The mysteriously slow Kindle Touch

The entire Kindle Touch interface feels sluggish. Page turns, menus, and navigation all respond to touches only after lengthy delays. Its overall performance is similar to the Kindle 2.


Here’s a quick video of the Kindle Touch and Kindle 4, side by side, turning pages and then going to the home screen:


(Sorry, your browser does not support modern videos.)Page-flipping responsiveness of the Kindle Touch (left) and Kindle 4. Download.


E-ink is always sluggish compared to traditional LCDs, and the IR touch-screen could plausibly add latency to touch responses, but we know from the Nook that it’s possible to make a much faster touch-screen e-reader than the Kindle Touch.


It doesn’t seem like the touch input is at fault. Even pressing the home button on the Kindle Touch results in a long delay before the home screen appears. The Kindle 4 is much faster at that, and everything else. Presumably, the higher-end Touch doesn’t have a slower CPU, so this is likely a software problem.


The Nook Simple Touch wasn’t particularly fast when it launched nearly 6 months ago, but Barnes & Noble improved its performance with software updates, and it’s now just as responsive as the non-touch Kindle 4. I hope Amazon can achieve similar gains with a software fix for the Kindle Touch very soon, because its sluggish performance makes it difficult to recommend.


Text controls

Both Kindles’ text controls are mostly unchanged from the Kindle 3 (now renamed the “Kindle Keyboard”).


My impression of the Nook’s text controls still stands from the review: I can’t find a comfortable margin width or text size, since the increments available are too far apart. The margin is especially problematic: the smallest-margins setting, the only usable width in my opinion, puts the text too close to the deep bezel and its shadow.


The Kobo’s controls are very good, with very fine-grained increments for text size, margins, and line spacing. It’s also the only one to offer a toggle for text justification. Since it won’t hyphenate, its justification isn’t very good, but it’s nice to be able to turn justification off.


The Nook and Kindles often justify text with no option to disable it. The Kindles won’t hyphenate at all, and the Nook hyphenates too aggressively.


All of the readers except the Kobo use book-style indented paragraphs, while the Kobo uses web-style block paragraphs.


The Nook and Kindles offer the nice Caecilia font (the only Kindle font available before the Kindle 3), which I prefer to the other options available on those readers. The Kobo doesn’t, but its default Rockwell font is similar and is also highly readable on e-ink.


Touch versus non-touch controls

The biggest problems I keep running into with the touch readers are non-obvious tap zones and gestures.


When navigating lists and menus, I often find myself wondering where I’m supposed to tap, and whether I should tap, tap-and-hold, or swipe. This is exacerbated in magazines and newspapers, since reading them involves so much navigation.


The interfaces are more obvious on the non-touch Kindle 4, since hardware buttons and on-screen cursors and highlights make it more obvious what to do. But I also keep touching the screen and being disappointed that it “doesn’t work”.


I thought touch readers would be definitively better than non-touch models, but I was wrong: in reality, it’s a toss-up.


Magazines and newspapers

You’d think a touch e-reader would be a huge improvement for magazines and newspapers. Jumping between sections and articles can be faster on a touch screen, but it isn’t always.


Periodical navigation is most intuitive to me on the Kindle 4, followed by the Kindle Touch. I perform navigational errors more often on the Nook. (I didn’t test periodicals on the Kobo because the selection is so poor.)


This was a surprise: I expected the Kindle Touch to be the best for periodicals, but its poor performance hurts it, and navigating lists can be unintuitive.


Highlights, notes, and typing

The non-touch Kindle 4 is understandably awful at text input, requiring you to move a cursor around the on-screen keyboard with the directional buttons to select each letter (arranged alphabetically, not as a QWERTY keyboard), much like the painful process of entering text on a game console or an Apple TV. If you plan to do a lot of highlighting and note-taking, definitely don’t get the Kindle 4.


Highlighting and note-taking on a touch reader is much easier, but it’s still not as easy, responsive, or precise as on an iPhone or iPad.


Among the touch readers, the Kindle Touch has the worst text selection: you need to tap and hold on the first word, then drag to the last word and release. There’s no way to modify a selection if you want to expand or refine it, and it’s difficult to reliably get it right the first time. The Nook and Kobo both offer iOS-like “handles” on the sides of the selection that you can easily drag to refine it. The Nook is best here, beating the Kobo in responsiveness.


You really shouldn’t type on an e-ink device if you can help it. Like text selection, it’s nowhere near as fluid, accurate, and responsive as an iPhone’s virtual keyboard. Even a moderately fast iPhone typist will easily be able to outpace the e-ink refresh rate, leading to a lot of errors and delays to review what was typed.


If you must type a quick note, the Nook is again the best option, although it and the Kobo have an annoying grid keyboard layout. The Kindle Touch has a more traditional staggered-row layout, but its poor responsiveness interferes too much.


You could also consider the Kindle 3, which Amazon still sells as the “Kindle Keyboard”, since it still has a physical keyboard. Its tiny, clicky, grid-layout keyboard is pretty bad, though. The Kindle Touch’s on-screen keyboard might be faster for most people.


But all of these e-readers are very bad for text input. If you take notes while reading or otherwise intend to type a lot, an iPad running the Kindle, Nook, or Kobo app is probably a better choice than any e-ink reader.


3G and web browsing

All of these readers can connect via Wi-Fi for content downloads and web browsing (except the Nook, which lacks a browser).


Only the Kindle Touch and Kindle Keyboard offer optional 3G connectivity for an extra $50. It’s an unusual setup: there’s no monthly fee for data access, ever, for the life of the device. It just has connectivity as long as you’re in an area covered by AT&T. (It sometimes works internationally, but small fees are usually involved.)


On previous Kindles, you could use the 3G connection with the built-in web browser to have an effectively “free” cellular web browser indefinitely, but that party has mostly ended: the Kindle Touch can only use the connection to shop in the Kindle Store, receive new issues of periodicals (or Instapaper), or browse Wikipedia. Any other web browsing requires Wi-Fi. Only the Kindle Keyboard can still browse to any site over 3G.


This is mostly moot, since the web browsers are terrible. They’re all extremely slow and painful to navigate. Web navigation on the non-touch Kindle 4 and Kindle Keyboard are especially bad, since you need to move around a little mouse pointer with the directional buttons to click on anything, but I wouldn’t call the touch experience usable either.


E-ink web browsing is a novelty that you’ll probably try exactly once. But if you actually intend to do it a lot, and can’t or won’t buy an iPad, the Kindles have a better and more full-featured browser than the Kobo.


The value of the 3G Kindles, therefore, is primarily in their ability to download new periodicals and shop for new books away from home. If you travel a lot away from Wi-Fi, especially if you also subscribe to a daily newspaper or buy new books constantly, the 3G models might be worthwhile.


For most people, I don’t think the 3G is worthwhile. I thought I’d use it regularly on my Kindle 3, but in practice, I hardly ever did. I chose not to get 3G on my Kindle 4 and Kindle Touch, and I haven’t missed it yet.


Using Instapaper

If you’re trying to use my Instapaper service with your e-reader, the best choice is one of the Kindles. (Actually, the best Instapaper experience by far is on the iPad. But I’ll assume here that you’re interested in an e-ink reader.)


The only way to get Instapaper on the Nook or Kobo is to download an ePub file manually from the Instapaper website and transfer it over USB every time. This is tedious, and most people probably won’t make a habit of it.


If you have a Kindle (any Kindle), Instapaper can use Amazon’s document-delivery service to automatically send a new “issue” every day, every week, or on demand with a simple action on the website. This is much more convenient than manually transferring a file over USB whenever you want new content.


But Instapaper on Kindles isn’t perfect. I’ve been able to generate newspaper-style navigation that works on all non-touch Kindles, but the Kindle Touch and Kindle Fire use new periodical-navigation formats that I haven’t been able to successfully generate yet. I don’t know if Amazon will ever make this possible. And recent changes to Kindle “personal document” storage makes it difficult to delete old Instapaper articles from the Kindle Touch.


So, until (and unless) I can find ways around the Kindle Touch’s quirks, the best e-reader for Instapaper is the Kindle 4.


Ads?

You can save $30-40 on the Kindle 4, Kindle Touch, or Kobo by opting for “special offers”, a euphemism for ads. I haven’t seen Kobo’s ads, but on the Kindles, the ads replace the pictures of classic authors on the sleep screen (see my Kindle 4 review), and they also appear as a bottom banner on the home screen.


On the Kindles, the ads aren’t intrusive, and if you get an ad model and change your mind later, you can just pay the difference and get the ads removed. So it’s not much of a risk to just get the ads.


If you’re getting it as a gift, though, you should probably get the ad-free models. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d feel tacky giving an ad-filled Kindle or Kobo as a gift.


If you’re going ad-free, the Nook becomes the cheapest: it’s always $99 and always has no ads.


What about the Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, or iPad?

The $199 Kindle Fire and $249 Nook Tablet are also options. (So is the similar $199 Nook Color, but the Tablet is a much better product for $50 more.)


I reviewed the Kindle Fire and determined that it’s really not a good product, mostly due to very poor software and performance.


I haven’t written a review of the Nook Tablet yet, but after some light use, it seems like a much better product than the Kindle Fire. That said, it still shares many of the downsides if you primarily intend to use it for reading: these tablets are more expensive, bigger, thicker, heavier, and more complicated than e-ink readers, and they have less-readable LCD screens and much worse battery life. You can bring an e-ink reader on a week-long vacation and leave the charger at home, but tablets need to be charged almost as often as phones.


The iPad shares most of the other tablets’ downsides, but it does have the unique ability to run all of the e-reading apps: Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. (And iBooks, which only works on Apple’s devices, but doesn’t have noticeably different availability or pricing compared to Amazon or Barnes & Noble.) And it’s the best Instapaper reader.


A full-fledged tablet can be a better choice than an e-ink reader if you plan to watch videos or play games a lot, or if you need more general-purpose computer-like functionality such as email and web browsing. But these come at the expense of reading quality. For most people, the selection of videos and games is going to be much better on the iPad than on the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet.


Despite the color screens and much better touch responsiveness, I can’t recommend the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet for magazines or newspapers. The experience reading them is too poor due to sluggishness, bugs, poor navigation, and software complexity. The iPad is a much better tablet for periodicals.


If you’re primarily in the market for an e-reader, get an e-ink device. And if you’re looking for a tablet for apps, games, and videos in addition to reading, unless the iPad’s price is absolutely out of the question forever, I suggest getting the iPad.


So which e-ink reader?

All of these readers have exclusive features that I haven’t covered here, primarily because I haven’t needed to use them, and I bet most people won’t. In reality, what matters for e-readers most of the time is content availability, price, size, interaction (buttons or touch), and performance, roughly in that order.


The Kobo Touch is a decent product, and its hardware is quite good: it’s thinner and lighter, with a more shallow bezel, than the other touch readers. It’s almost as compact as the non-touch Kindle 4. But its advantages don’t outweigh its slow page-turns, often-higher book prices, and almost nonexistent periodical availability. So for now, I can’t recommend the Kobo.


The Nook Simple Touch’s fast performance and low ad-free pricing embarrasses the other touch readers, and its catalog is as good as Amazon’s. But it gets a lot of important details wrong, such as the poor granularity on text controls, the clunky swipe-to-unlock, and the buggy store. It’s also the thickest and widest, and its deep bezel casts the most shadows on the text. But it’s a good choice. If it was my only e-reader, and I didn’t want to use Instapaper, I’d be mostly satisfied.


The Kindle Touch is almost a very good product, but its poor responsiveness is distracting. The Nook shows that this probably could be fixed in a software update, but we’ll see if Amazon actually does: historically, Kindles have received very few software updates, and they usually don’t include major changes. The Kindle Touch is still a good choice, and it’s my favorite of the touch readers — but it just barely edges out the Nook. (And the Nook is six months old. I’m curious to see the next one.)


The low-end, non-touch Kindle 4 is actually my favorite e-reader today. It lacks the easier text selection and periodical navigation of the touch readers, and it’s effectively impossible to type on, but neither of those interfere with the most common actions when reading. It’s faster, thinner, and lighter than all of the touch readers, the interface makes the most sense and is the most responsive, and it works best with Instapaper.


If you’re ordering one of the Kindles from Amazon’s U.S. store, I’d appreciate if you’d use one of my affiliate links:



Kindle 4 (Amazon just calls it “Kindle”)
Kindle Touch


The others are available at their respective stores:



Nook Simple Touch
Kobo Touch


Special thanks to Kobo for supplying a no-strings-attached review unit.
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:42865e534d35/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.onextrapixel.com/2011/11/28/the-ultimate-showcase-of-convincing-call-to-action-buttons/">
    <title>The Ultimate Showcase of Convincing Call to Action Buttons</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-28T11:00:38+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.onextrapixel.com/2011/11/28/the-ultimate-showcase-of-convincing-call-to-action-buttons/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[

In the internet marketing arena, ‘call to action’ is a critical term that is commonly used in web design and user experience i.e. UX. This term refers to those components on a web page or website that ask for a desired action from the visitor or the potential customer. The most frequent manifestation of a call to action in web pages comes out in the form of clickable buttons. Such buttons are specially designed to perform the predefined action when they are clicked.




In this collection, we are revealing an assortment of websites that demonstrate extremely effective call to action buttons that perform their predefined actions quite smartly. Here is the full list after this jump, enjoy!

Showcase of Convincing Call to Action Buttons
Light CMS


Ronin App


Vision


Alan Power


Mozilla


GetShopped


Storeenvy


Commercial


Wufoo


Web App Heaven


Resume Baking


Concept Engine


Nowup


Reynolds Digital


Custom Bags HQ


Make It Bead


Geekletics


Dunnellon Depot


Remember The Milk


Dailymile


Plan


Skype


NCover


Basecamp


280 Slides


Live Resto


InstantLoop


Transmission Apps


Dashboard


FileShare


Mobile Web Book


Elegant Themes


The Highland Fling


Fresh Books


Xero


Play in Traffik


Manageme7


Boagworld


Volusion


Wijmo


Date My Mate


Concentrate


Launchlist


Capo


Bloomfire


Codecanyon


Conclusion
This collection is presented to give you some idea of distinctive and creative approaches to create your own calls to action buttons that actually work. Share with us what you feel about this collection and which call to action button pleases you the most and why? Also do let us know what is your approach to creating call to action buttons for your website?

Creating Slick, Stylish and Scalable CSS3 ButtonsA Discovery Into 30 Beautiful And Inspirational Korean Websites DesignThe Art Of Applying Rule Of Five Plus Or Minus Two For An Effective Wireframe10 Principles Of Navigation Design And Why Quality Navigation Is So Critical
Written by: Jameel Khan for Onextrapixel - Showcasing Web Treats Without A Hitch | 6 comments

Post Topic(s): Inspiration


     
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Inspiration button interface_design</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:f80bfa04eccd/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Inspiration"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:button"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:interface_design"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://line25.com/articles/25-free-handwriting-fonts-for-your-designer-toolbox">
    <title>25 Free Handwriting Fonts for your Designer Toolbox</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-28T07:00:42+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://line25.com/articles/25-free-handwriting-fonts-for-your-designer-toolbox</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[People always ask what font I use to create my annotated code examples in my web design tutorials here on Line25, so I figured a roundup of the best hand drawn fonts would prove quite handy. This post rounds up a range of free fonts based on various handwriting styles. If you’re in need of a font to add a human touch to your design in the form of a note or a personal message, you can be sure you’ll find the perfect font in this collection.

Jenna Sue
Hand of Sean
Daniel
GoodDog
Sweetly Broken
Lovely Eunike Hans
Max’s Handwritin
Angelina
Journal
Jinky
Throw My Hands Up in the Air
Christopher Hand
Rabiohead
Joy Like Sunshine Through My Windowpane
The Great Escape
Akbar
Talking to the Moon
Dear Joe
Gunny
Skinny
A Year Without Rain
Yank
Faraco Hand (As seen on Line25!)
 
    
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Articles design designer fonts links resources roundup typography web_design</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:30007c5969f8/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Articles"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:design"/>
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	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:fonts"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:links"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:resources"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:roundup"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:typography"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:web_design"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://brewmethods.com/406.shtml/">
    <title>Brew Methods</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-26T17:15:18+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://brewmethods.com/406.shtml/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Exactly what it says on the tin. Brew Methods is a collection of links to coffee brewing methods. Including Aeropress, french press, pour over, siphon, stove top, etc. If you’re feeling adventurous and want to deviate from the daily grind of how you normally brew your coffee, you’re sure to find a few new methods here.

✚ Permalink]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:b1f88c5c3b71/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHoukZpMhDE">
    <title>TellMe vs. Siri</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-25T18:58:58+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHoukZpMhDE</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Brutal.


Here’s what Microsoft executive Craig Mundie told Forbes about Siri:



  People are infatuated with Apple announcing it. It’s good
marketing, but at least as the technological capability you could
argue that Microsoft has had a similar capability in Windows
Phones for more than a year, since Windows Phone 7 was introduced.



“Good marketing.”



 ★ 
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:e5a2544cd270/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.elezea.com/2011/11/future-of-web-reading/">
    <title>The Bifurcation of Reading on the Web</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-24T22:09:40+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.elezea.com/2011/11/future-of-web-reading/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Rian van der Merwe:



  I’m worried that the wells of attention are being drilled to
depletion by linkbait headlines, ad-infested pages, “jumps”
and random pagination, and content that is engineered to be
“consumed” in 1 minute or less of quick scanning — just
enough time to capture those almighty eyeballs.


As advertising clickthrough rates continue to drop, the ads become
more desperate and invasive, and readers are starting to notice
and do something about it.




 ★ 
]]></description>
<dc:subject>advertising user_experience content reading</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:76ec0aad1851/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:advertising"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:user_experience"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:content"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:reading"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/11/24/34-stunning-infographics-to-understand-the-world-of-social-media.html">
    <title>34 Stunning Infographics To Understand The World Of Social Media</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-24T15:26:09+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/11/24/34-stunning-infographics-to-understand-the-world-of-social-media.html</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Infographics is a new way of showing information through graphical representation. We recently posted some interesting posts on infographics that you can also find on the net. Infographics not only show the information in a neat and clean manner but also is very easy to understand. Through inforgraphics, a large amount of information can be presented in a well summarized format.

At the moment, we are going to demonstrate you how infographics can increase your understanding of the interlinking world of social media and it’s impact on the global internet users.

You are welcome if you want to share more social media related infographic that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com, just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and follow us on Digg as well to get updated.

Social Media Brandsphere



Are Facebook Users More Trusting?



Social Media and College Admissions



Real Estate Professionals & Social Media Infographic



Visualizing 6 Years of Facebook



Building a Company With Social Media



Airlines: The Future of Loyalty is Social



Twitter Perceptions of Google Buzz Over Time



The Social Media Effect



Age Distribution Per Site



Google Facts and Figures



How The World Spends Its Time Online



Twitter Users Profile



Google Vs Facebook



10 Levels of Intimacy in Today’s Communication



Social Marketing Compass



Balance Your Media Diet



Twitter Territory



The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions



Word of Mouth Visualized



Social Web Reputation Management Cycles



The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, From Servers to Spiders to Suits



Facebook, Social Media Juggernaut



China’s Social Media Map



Conversation Prism



Inside the Political Twittersphere



Popular Site Demographics



Twitter’s Meteoric Rise Compared to Facebook 



The Boom of Social Sites



Web Trend Map



Most Viral Brand of 2010



The New Marketing Trifecta



Social Media : Facts and Figures for B2B Sales



The Revised Social Media Effect



 


Brought To You By


Do you want to advertise here? Click to get more info…


         

]]></description>
<dc:subject>Best_of_the_Web Infographics Inspiration Social_Media_Websites Blogosphere Social_Media_Infographics</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:28e1e1d913b2/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Best_of_the_Web"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Infographics"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Inspiration"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Social_Media_Websites"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Blogosphere"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Social_Media_Infographics"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://toolsandtoys.net/breville-one-touch-tea-maker/">
    <title>Breville One-Touch Tea Maker</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-23T20:00:47+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://toolsandtoys.net/breville-one-touch-tea-maker/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[





Not all teas are brewed the same way. Different types of tea (green, black, white, etc.) require different water temperatures and extraction times in order to brew just right. The Breville One-Touch Tea Maker takes all the guess work out of tea brewing. It is fully programmable for all types of tea, water temperatures, and steep times; it has a moving tea basket; and it has a timer so you can wake up to your tea already brewed for you. Moreover, the German-made Schott glass is not only durable, it’s also stain resistant.



Get it from Amazon



]]></description>
<dc:subject>Drinks Kitchen home tea</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:9ba7b27a267d/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Drinks"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Kitchen"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:home"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:tea"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://css-tricks.com/15135-simple-styles-for-horizontal-rules/">
    <title>Simple Styles for Horizontal Rules</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-23T05:50:02+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://css-tricks.com/15135-simple-styles-for-horizontal-rules/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[That is, the <hr> element. With the help of a few contributors, I put together this page of very simple styles for them. You could get a lot fancier with an element like a <div> that can hold content, but I like the semantics of a horizontal rule. It's an emphatic break between two sections [...]]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:d21f5e83a518/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/how-to-generate-a-complete-excel-spreadsheet-from-mysql/">
    <title>How to Generate a Complete Excel Spreadsheet From MySQL</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-22T18:15:11+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/how-to-generate-a-complete-excel-spreadsheet-from-mysql/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[A CSV (Comma Separated Value) file is usually sufficient for exporting MySQL data as an Excel Spreadsheet. These CSV files are data only though. A real Excel spreadsheet has formatting, formulas and perhaps even graphics —  the difference between a simple method of data transfer and a professional report. 
This tutorial shows how to [...]]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:5f4ace23d3cd/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://minimalmac.com/post/13042962906">
    <title>Replacement Therapy - Magazine - The Atlantic</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-20T03:09:20+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://minimalmac.com/post/13042962906</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Replacement Therapy - Magazine - The Atlantic: 
It’s not our devices that wear thin, it’s our patience with them.


Excellent article about planned obsolescence shifting from supply side, to demand side.
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:02650354e90d/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://webdesignerwall.com/trends/mind-blowing-parallax-scrolling-sites">
    <title>Mind Blowing Parallax Scrolling Sites</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-18T04:40:43+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://webdesignerwall.com/trends/mind-blowing-parallax-scrolling-sites</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Video games often use parallax scrolling technique to create an illusion of depth by moving multiple layers of images at different speed. This technique can also be applied in web design. This post consists a list of mind blowing parallax scrolling sites, design tips, and resource tutorials. If you are considering to start a parallax [...]Advertise here with BSA
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Design_Trends Featured inspiration</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:07e6aa976ac2/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Design_Trends"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Featured"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:inspiration"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://wtfmobileweb.com/">
    <title>WTF Mobile Web</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-17T22:55:13+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://wtfmobileweb.com/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Nice collection of shitty mobile web experiences, curated by Jen Simmons and Brad Frost.



 ★ 
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:18e3b51c88cc/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://speckyboy.com/2011/11/16/my-favorite-handwritten-fonts/">
    <title>My Favorite Handwritten Fonts</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-16T09:04:01+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://speckyboy.com/2011/11/16/my-favorite-handwritten-fonts/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[ 
Advertise here with BSA
Tons of new websites are being created everyday and it is noticable that if you want to be unique and stand out from the crowd you need to find creative ways of using type, pictures and other design elements in any kind of work you produce. For that reason I would suggest you give a try on handwritten fonts.
Handwritten type are the perfect choice if you want to add some charm and personal touch to your work. With appropriate and well thought-out use of white space, handwritten fonts do bring your designs style and elegance. Nevertheless, you should avoid excessive use of handwritten fonts in your work because it can at times be hard to read. I would not recommend you use them as the main or focal font, use them with a little bit of subtetly instead.
In this collection I would like to present you my favorite handwritten fonts. I’ve collected these 25 beautiful and free handwritten fonts over the years and would like to share them with you. I am sure you will love them.
You might also like: 50 Beautiful and Fresh Free Fonts → Useful and Free Pictogram Dingbat Fonts → 25 Completely Free Fonts Perfect for @fontface → Top 20 Free Fonts for Distinctive Headlines and Titles → 34 Free and Elegant TrueType Mini Pixel Fonts →Jellyka – Estrya’s Handwriting
License: Free for a personal use.
Jenna Sue
 License: Free for personal & commercial use.
Christopher Hand
License: Free for personal use.
Honey Script
License: Free.
Angelina
License: Free.
James Fajardo
License: Free.
Journal
License: Unknown.
Hand of Sean
License: Free for personal use.
Throw My Hands Up in the Air
 License: Free for personal use.
Rolina
License: Free.
Note this!
License: Free.
Post-it Penscript
License: Free.
Mawns Handwriting
 License: Free for personal use.
FFF Tusj
License: Free for personal and commercial use.
Jenny
License: Free for personal use.
Luna Bar
 License: Shareware.
Just Me Again Down Here
License: Free for personal use.
PopStar Autograph
License: Free for personal use.
Carefree
License: Free for personal use.
CAC Pinafore
License: Unknown.
Designer Notes
 License: Public domain / GNU GPL.
Pirmokas
License: Free for personal use.
Janda Romantic
License: Free for personal use.
Walt Disney Script
License: Freeware.
Kylie X
You might also like…50 Beautiful and Fresh Free Fonts → Useful and Free Pictogram Dingbat Fonts → 25 Completely Free Fonts Perfect for @fontface → 34 Free and Elegant TrueType Mini Pixel Fonts → Top 20 Free Fonts for Distinctive Headlines and Titles → Useful and Free Pictogram Dingbat Fonts →
  
Advertise here with BSA

     
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Fonts app design font web</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:b38adf5f7150/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Fonts"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:app"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:design"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:font"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:web"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://d.pr/enbp">
    <title>Amazon Item of the Week: Jawbone ERA Headset</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-15T18:15:20+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://d.pr/enbp</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[The best bluetooth headset I have ever owned. I love this thing. (Note: I have tested this and it has not survived the washing machine and dryer. Even with the standard rice treatment.)
Also comes in Midnight, Smokescreen, and Silverlining.
∞
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Links amazon item</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:ae22fccc0967/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Links"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:amazon"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:item"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://toolsandtoys.net/teastick-infuser-for-loose-leaf-tea/">
    <title>Teastick Infuser for Loose Leaf Tea</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-14T22:00:15+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://toolsandtoys.net/teastick-infuser-for-loose-leaf-tea/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[





After I posted the Tèo I received many emails about the no-nos of using teas that come in tea bags. One fine reader pointed out this Teastick Infuser that is great for brewing single cups of loose leaf tea with easy cleanup. The Teastick is made out of stainless steel and is designed so you can scoop the loose leaf tea, slide the filter grate down, and then brew your single cup of fresh and delicious hot tea.



Get it from Amazon]]></description>
<dc:subject>Drinks Kitchen home tea</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:587f3a073b56/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Drinks"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Kitchen"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:home"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:tea"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.webappers.com/2011/11/14/tutorial-html5-file-upload-with-progress-bar/">
    <title>Tutorial: HTML5 File Upload with Progress Bar</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-14T07:01:44+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.webappers.com/2011/11/14/tutorial-html5-file-upload-with-progress-bar/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Html5 finally solves an age old problem of being able to upload files while also showing the upload progress. Essentially, what you need to do is hook into the server’s byte stream while it is receiving a file so you know how many bytes you’ve received and somehow convey that information back to the client browser, while it is still in the process of uploading the file.
Matlus has written a really throughout tutorial on how to make a HTML5 File Upload with Progress, which is uploading of files using XMLHttpRequest and providing upload progress information to the end-user. This solution does not require any change to the server side, at least insofar as handling the multipart/form-data protocol. So existing server side logic should remain unchanged, which makes adapting this technology that much easier.

Requirements: HTML5 Supported Browsers Demo: http://exposureroom.biz/upload.aspx License: MIT License
SponsorsProfessional Web Icons for Your Websites and Applications

     
]]></description>
<dc:subject>MIT_License Upload</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:666fcec55618/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:MIT_License"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Upload"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://designshack.net/articles/inspiration/15-great-gadgets-and-gifts-for-designers/">
    <title>15 Great Gadgets and Gifts for Designers</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-09T17:07:33+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://designshack.net/articles/inspiration/15-great-gadgets-and-gifts-for-designers/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[The holidays are quickly approaching, which means it’s almost time for the annual awkward tradition of giving and getting gifts. Whether you’re shopping for a designer or you are a designer working on your wish list, these fifteen gadgets and gifts are so awesome that you won’t want anything else. 
Chopsticks, pens, gloves, these all [...]]]></description>
<dc:subject>Smashing_Network</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:91fad0c5e65f/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Smashing_Network"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.noupe.com/showcases/40-great-examples-of-facebook-fan-pages.html">
    <title>40+ Great Examples of Facebook Fan Pages</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-09T11:20:01+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.noupe.com/showcases/40-great-examples-of-facebook-fan-pages.html</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Facebook has become an essential part of promoting a website or service online. Small blogs, discussion forums and huge commercial companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds are all using Facebook to promote their brand and interact with fans and [...]]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:c8d714afaf1b/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://speckyboy.com/2011/11/09/designing-a-facebook-icon-for-the-iphone-with-photoshop/">
    <title>Designing a Facebook Icon for the iPhone with Photoshop</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-09T08:11:22+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://speckyboy.com/2011/11/09/designing-a-facebook-icon-for-the-iphone-with-photoshop/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[ 
Advertise here with BSA
Nowadays, the iPhone and the iPad play a big part in our life, from apps to social networking, we all make use of them…what I like at apps is that all of them has fancy and glossy icons which are populating our devices and therefore, In this  to show you how to design a Facebook icon following some easy steps.
This is what we`ll be creating…
Download the Source FilesFacebook Icon Source Files
Step 1First step, open Photoshop and create a new document of 600x400px:

Step 2Stylize the background by applying a blue gradient overlay (double click the first layer):

Step 3To draw the icon, select the Rounded Rectangle Tool(U) and with a radius of 20px, draw a rectangle of 115x115px:

Step 4Now we need to apply some layer styles…

…Pattern Overlay…

…Inner Shadow…

…Drop Shadow…

…Your button should now look like this:

Step 5Now you need to draw a vertical line on the left side of the button while still maintaing the rounded corners. Ctrl+Click on the button’s layer thumbnail to reveal the selection.
Create a new layer and select the Rectangular Marquee Tool(M). Choose Intersect With Selection mode and draw a rectangle:

Step 6Grab the Paint Bucket Tool(G) and paint the selection with a dark-blue color. Then, apply the next layer styles to the layer:
Gradient Overlay first…

…Pattern Overlay…

…The button should now look like this:

Step 7Now, with the Line Tool(U), draw 2 vertical lines just next to the shape just created. Make sure to make one lighter and the other one darker than the icon, to create a nice in-depth effect.


Step 8Now, we add the Facebook logo, which is the “f” letter using the Arial-Bold font sized at 80px.

Step 9Stylize the text by adding some small layer styles…
…Gradient Ovelay…

…Inner Shadow…

…Inner Shadow…

…The icon should now look like this:

Step 10Alomost done!
The last step is to give your icon the distinctive IOS glossiness.
OK, Ctrl+Click the icon main layer thumbnail in order to reveal the entire selection of the icon. Create a new layer above all of them (because all of the effects will be applied to all the elements).
Grab the Elliptical Marquee Tool(M) and in “Intersect with Selection” mode, try to create a selection like this:
Paint the selection white and reduce the layer’s opacity to 10%. You should now have a nice shiny effect which is applied to all of the elements.
Finished!The icon is now complete and ready to stand out on your Apple device. Following these simple steps, you can create any icon you want. If you have an app but don’t have an icon, simply open Photoshop and draw something…it is very easy and the result may just be outstanding!
I thank you for reading my tutorial and hope to hear your thoughts and feedback below.
Here is the finished Facebook icon:

You might also like…A Round-Up of 50 Fresh Photoshop Tutorials and Techniques → The Best 40 Photoshop Text Effects from 2009 → 49 Most Creative Photoshop Tutorials of 2009 → 50 Imaginative Fantasy Art Tutorials for Photoshop → 37 Cool Movie Poster and Text Effects Photoshop Tutorials → 29 Cool and Creative Text Effects Photoshop Tutorials → 28 Incredible Photoshop Image Manipulation Techniques and Tutorials → 33 Photoshop Tutorials for Designing Amazing Posters and Ads → 25 Beautiful & Fresh Photoshop Brush Sets for Brush Lovers → 50 Beautiful Light Effects Photoshop Brush Packs (740 Brushes) → 50 Photoshop Brush Collections – 1000s of Brushes → 40 Amazing Photoshop Brush Directories and Collections → 38 Watercolor Photoshop Brush Sets (950 Brushes) → 1000 Grunge Photoshop Brushes (40 Sets) →
  
Advertise here with BSA

     

]]></description>
<dc:subject>iPhone_&amp;_iPad_Dev Photoshop app book button design dev effects font icon icons iphone Logo text Tutorial</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:477fa67459cf/</dc:identifier>
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	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Photoshop"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:app"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:book"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:button"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:design"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:dev"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:effects"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:font"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:icon"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:icons"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:iphone"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Logo"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:text"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Tutorial"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://minimalmac.com/post/12516262021">
    <title>MonoPrice iPhone 4 Backup Battery Pack</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-08T17:00:00+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://minimalmac.com/post/12516262021</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[

Quite some time ago, I did a quick shout out for the MonoPrice iPhone Backup Battery for the iPhone 3G. I really liked that model and it was a permanent staple in my Bad Ass Bag for the whole time I owned an iPhone 3G.

With my acquisition  of an iPhone 4 last year (a gift from my wife), I knew I would eventually get the upgraded pack compatible with that model –  The 1500mAh Backup Battery Pack for iPhone / iPod (Designed for iPhone 4/4S) 

I’ve had it for a few weeks now and it is great. It  provides enough backup power to charge up the iPhone back to full from about 30%, more than enough to get a couple of hours more heavy usage. It charges over USB in about three and a half hours. Plus, it plays off of the iPhone 4 design with the same slimness so carrying this in a pocket is a non-issue. Great if you are going to be giving your iPhone some heavy use yet don’t want to have something else weighing you down too much. And, at under $18.00, the price is right.

I really like these and recommend them highly. Like all of the MonoPrice stuff I have tried (i.e. a whole lot), it is great quality at an almost unbelievable price. A square deal for all involved.

Now, my friends at MonoPrice were kind enough to give me an extra one to give to one lucky reader. Those in the know, know the deal. For those that don’t, here it is:


To enter, please send me a message to @minimalmac on Twitter with the phrase “I got your back!” before midnight (Central Standard Time) tonight. No entries will be considered afterwards. Also, no submissions to my personal Twitter account for those that know it will be considered (please read this last sentence twice).



One winner will be selected tomorrow at random and notified by reply to their Twitter message. In that reply, I will give instructions for emailing me shipping information.



Email me your shipping info and the iPhone Backup Battery Pack will be sent out via USPS by early next week so set your expectations accordingly.


Got it? Great. Now, I’ve got your back!
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:9d8295dc1d94/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://designshack.net/articles/layouts/how-to-design-a-tour-page-examples-and-best-practices/">
    <title>How to Design a Tour Page: Examples and Best Practices</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-08T16:50:24+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://designshack.net/articles/layouts/how-to-design-a-tour-page-examples-and-best-practices/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Tour pages are one of the most important components for websites advertising apps and/or services. The tour page is often where interested users will either make the firm decision to sign up or move on to something else.
Needless to say, there’s a lot of pressure as a designer to get this right! Fear not however, [...]]]></description>
<dc:subject>Smashing_Network</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:28b06adaf384/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Smashing_Network"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/create-set-beautiful-social-media-buttons">
    <title>Create a set of beautiful social media buttons</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-08T11:00:00+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/create-set-beautiful-social-media-buttons</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[With huge attention to the subtle details, Rob Hampson (lead designer at Slipstream) takes you through the stages of using Photoshop to create a set of beautiful social media buttons and their fellow rollovers, with plenty of tips along the way]]></description>
<dc:subject>Smashing_Network</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:85ba792acaea/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Smashing_Network"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://toolsandtoys.net/lacie-rikiki-usb-portable-hard-drive/">
    <title>LaCie Rikiki USB Portable Hard Drive</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-07T14:00:51+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://toolsandtoys.net/lacie-rikiki-usb-portable-hard-drive/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[





In this writer’s opinion, LaCie makes the finest and most reliable external hard drives you can buy. I have 2 of the 1TB LaCie Hard Disks that I use for my media storage and external backup redundancy, and I have a LaCie Quadra that I use for my nightly SuperDuper clones. When on the road for extended trips I always take a portable hard drive with me so I can continue to do nightly backups, and I have additional storage in case I need it for whatever reason.


Right now my portable hard drive is a Western Digital My Passport. I was in a rush to buy it and so I drove to the nearest Best Buy and this was all they had. When the WD bites the dust, you know I’ll be replacing it with a LaCie.



Get it from Amazon



]]></description>
<dc:subject>Gadgets Office Travel awesome computers hdd</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:032bd7e38912/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Gadgets"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Office"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Travel"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:awesome"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:computers"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:hdd"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/how-to-improve-your-site-using-stakeholder-interviews/">
    <title>How to improve your site using stakeholder interviews</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-07T12:05:37+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/how-to-improve-your-site-using-stakeholder-interviews/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[I recently wrote a post talking about the importance of thoroughly researching business objectives before starting your next web project. Although the post focused on expert reviews, heuristic evaluation, stats and competitive analysis, it did make passing reference to stakeholder interviews.
For Headscape, stakeholder interviews are a crucial tool in our web design arsenal. But what [...]]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:1d079ac92b96/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://toolsandtoys.net/geek-dad-book-of-projects-for-dads-and-kids/">
    <title>“Geek Dad” A Book of Projects for Dads and Kids</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-05T13:00:10+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://toolsandtoys.net/geek-dad-book-of-projects-for-dads-and-kids/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[





Geek Dad is written by engineer, father, nerd, and author of Wired.com’s GeekDad weblog, Ken Denmead. With a son of my own due early next year, this book is full of exactly the sort of projects I’m looking forward to doing. Of course, those days are still a few years down the road for me, but that doesn’t mean I’m very excited for those days to come.



Get it from Amazon



]]></description>
<dc:subject>Books Kids Men activities dad fun geek projects</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:c6237f0941db/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Books"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Kids"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Men"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:activities"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:dad"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:fun"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:geek"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:projects"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://blog.kissmetrics.com/transform-your-tweeting-experience/">
    <title>10 Great Twitter Tools To Transform Your Tweeting Experience</title>
    <dc:date>2011-11-04T16:38:17+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://blog.kissmetrics.com/transform-your-tweeting-experience/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Being on Twitter all day can be a huge time suck. Yet, at over 250 million Tweets posted each day, and over 460,000 people that are signing up daily, one has to find a way to make Twitter work. 

So how are the Guy Kawasaki’s and TweetSmarter’s of the world doing it? The answer I have found is to make use of Twitter tools. There exist a lot of them out there and they are the absolute key for me to make Twitter work. 

At over 1 million apps and one new one being registered every second, it is very hard to know which one to pick. So here are my top 10 tools to help you transform your Twitter experience into something a lot more efficient and powerful:

#1 TweetStats – Full analytics for all your Tweets 
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” said Peter Drucker a long time ago. With TweetStats, you have a powerful tool to measure all your Twitter behavior in one place. It shows you your Tweet timeline to understand how much you are Tweeting each day and each month. It also dives deep into analyzing your best times to Tweet via a Tweet Density report and follower comparisons.

Pro Tip: What I like best is the @reply and Retweet analysis. It gives you a clear picture if you hit the right balance of engagement and content Tweets.



#2 Nurph – The Ultimate Twitter Hashtag Tool
One of my most recent discoveries is Nurph. The App has received a revamp and is now more powerful than ever. It lets you invite friends into a private chat room via a simple Tweet. This is amazing if you want to take a brief connection to a new level and have a longer conversation. A great example for using Nurph is to keep your Twitter community engaged in longer talks. I also had great results using it for support purposes if you want to get feedback on your product or service. 

Pro Tip: What I like best is that the App offers featured channels as well as an archive for your chat conversation. 



#3 MarketMeSuite – Your powerful Tweeting dashboard
Although there are a ton of Social Media dashboards out there, MarketMeSuite is a great new solution that boasts a ton of additional features. You can connect multiple social networks and the App also supports PeerIndex and Klout support. On top scheduling and pulling in RSS, MarketMeSuite also allows you to white label your Tweets. 

Pro Tip: A great feature of MarketMeSuite is to create reply campaigns which allows you to geo-tag and target users a lot more specifically than normal Tweets. 



#4 ManageFlitter – Send tweet reminders for important events
Sometimes, finding those updates which are most useful on Twitter are buried somewhere amongst irrelevant Tweets. Whenever this happens, it is time for me to go ahead and sweep out all those Twitter accounts, which don’t add any value for me. With ManageFlitter this is super easy to do. The App displays all accounts which are inactive, don’t follow you back or are spamming your stream and you can unfollow them with just one click.

Pro Tip: What makes ManageFlitter most recommendable is that you don’t have to sign up for anything. You can sign in with Twitter, unfollow the people which don’t add value and off you go.



#5 StrawberryJ.am – Reading Tweets made simple
Seeing through the clutter on Twitter can be very hard sometimes. With StrawberryJ.am, there is no more searching through your stream for finding the good stuff. The app automatically finds the top mentioned Tweets and shows them in a new order beginning with most retweeted update at the start. You can also create lists and search terms that StrawberryJ.am filters for you with their goodness.

Pro Tip: If you really don’t want to sign into another new website each day, try StrawberryJ.am’s handy email feature. They will email you a summary every evening, which is super convenient. 



#6 SocialBro – Managing your Twitter community made easy
If you are looking for a tool that tightly focuses on managing your community, look no further than SocialBro. The app lets you manage your lists, see your community in a map and browse your community conveniently based on their engagement. On top of this the app allows you to bucket your followers according to time zones which is very useful to know when to best reach them. 

Pro Tip: What I like best here is that SocialBro shows you how fast your followers have been growing over the past and at which times you have lost most followers. 



#7 Tweriod – Find your most valuable Tweeting times
This is one of my favorite Apps particularly for its simplicity. All you have to do is sign in with Twitter on the landing page and the App crunches the numbers for you to find your best times to Tweet. It will then show you the results on a beautiful graph and with all your key results in one spot. You can also go ahead and export your results via .pdf very conveniently. 

Pro Tip: Tweriod also gives you some great additional analysis showing you different optimal timing for different days of the week. I found this very powerful. 



#8 Klout for Chrome – Find top influencers with one glance 
Despite some of the recent uproar for Klout’s changes in its algorithm, I believe it is a fantastic way to cut down on time spent looking for the right people on Twitter. With its Chrome extension, you will be see immediately who the best people are you should start engaging with right inside Twitter.com. Since it is often hard to decide which Tweets to pick up and reply to, this is very helpful. 

Pro Tip: What I like best is that you can click on each score and get to their Klout profile page to learn more about what they are up to. 



#9 Twylah – Beautiful Twitter brand pages
Twylah is an up and coming must have tool for anyone who wants to be serious about Twitter. The App turns all your Tweets into a new, self-branded landing page filtered by the top topics you are Tweeting about. I found this to give a much better overview about what the person is Tweeting about than only looking at ones stream. The rich media display and concise summary of topics turns your Tweets into a great visual experience.

Pro Tip: Twylah also boasts a great feature called Power Tweets. You can send special Tweets, which are surrounded by other relevant content and have proven to decrease bounce rate by over 4x.



#10 WhoTweetedMe – Find out who is Tweeting any article
Always wondered who those people actually are that make the count go up on the Tweet button? With WhoTweetedMe you have a powerful to answer exactly this question. You can drop in any URL and the app will display who Tweeted it, at what times and with what reach. It is a very powerful measure to understand the impact a Tweet can have across the Twitter universe.

Pro Tip: WhoTweetedMe also gives you a list of the top influencers that have retweeted that article. Via the “thank you” button you can thank them right from inside the app.



Making use of these tools has improved my Twitter experience significantly. Staying on top of Twitter, tweeting frequently and at the best times is what has been facilitated tremendously through these Apps for me. 

Over to you now. Do you think any of these tools can be of help for your Tweeting effort too?

About the Author: Leo Widrich is the Co-Founder of Buffer. Buffer is a smarter way to publish your Tweets and FB updates that has shown to increase clicks on links by 200%. He also writes a lot more Twitter tips on the Buffer blog.


    
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    <title>The Tèo – A Spoon for Tea Bags</title>
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How many years have we been forced to wrap the string of our Cellestial Season’s tea bag around our spoon and draw it tight to wring out the last of the tea? Or how many times have we used our fingers and suffered the heat of a tea bag just pulled out of steeping hot water? Well, my friends, no more. The Tèo from Alessi is here to solve our tea brewing woes. Made from stainless steel, this spoon was built and designed with one thing in mind: making it far easier and far more classy to wring out tea bags.



Get it from Amazon



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    <title>Getting The Best Out Of Eclipse For Android Development</title>
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Getting into Android development can be quite a challenge, particularly if you’re new to Java or Eclipse or both. Whatever your past experience, you might feel tempted to start working away without checking that you’re making the best use of the IDE. In this article, we’ll go over a few tips, tools and resources that can maximize Eclipse’s usefulness and hopefully save you a few headaches. You might of course already be familiar with some (or all) of them and even be aware of others that we haven’t covered. If so, please do feel free to mention them.

I’ve used Eclipse for Java development on and off for a few years, having recently started learning Android casually. I’m surprised at the lack of easily digestible material online about basic aspects of Android development, such as the topic of this article. I’ve found some useful information out there in disparate locations that are not particularly easy to come across. Most of the online content is still in the official Android Developer Guide, but it has to be said that it is pretty limited in practical material.

The aim here, then, is to provide a concise overview of Android development tools specifically in Eclipse. If you’ve already started developing for Android, you will almost certainly have come across some of them, but a few might be new to you, especially if you’re learning Android casually or part time. If you’re approaching Android as a Java developer and are already accustomed to Eclipse, you’ll likely grasp this material well.

Get To Know Eclipse
Going over some features of Eclipse itself that would be useful for developing Android projects would be worthwhile. If you already know your way around Eclipse, you can probably skip these first few sections, because they’re really aimed at people who are learning to use the IDE purely for Android development. Later sections include tips on using Eclipse specifically for Android, so you might find a bit or two in there that you haven’t explored yet.


The Eclipse IDE, with the “Hello Android” project open.

Eclipse has a huge amount of flexibility for creating a working environment for your development projects. Many display options, tools and shortcuts in Eclipse enable you to interact with your projects in a way that will make sense to you directly. Having been an Eclipse user for a reasonable amount of time now, I still discover features in it that I had no idea existed and that could have saved me a lot of hassle in past projects.

Explore Perspectives
The Eclipse user interface provides a variety of ways to view the elements in any project. When you open Eclipse, depending on which “perspective” is open, you will typically see the screen divided into a number of distinct sections. In addition to the code editing area, you should see various aspects of the project represented in particular “views.”

A perspective in Eclipse is a group of views arranged to present a project in a particular way. If you open the “Window” menu, then select “Open Perspective,” you will usually see at least two options: “Debug” and “Java.” The Java perspective will likely form the basis of your Android development process; but for debugging, there is an Android-specific perspective called DDMS. Once you have set a perspective, you can still make alterations to the visible views, as well as adjust the layout by dragging the view areas around to suit yourself.

In general, when developing Android projects, some variation of the Java perspective is likely to be open, with the option of a few additional views, such as “LogCat,” where you can send and read the runtime output of your app. The Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS) perspective will likely be useful when the time comes to debug your Android applications. The tools in this perspective come as part of the Android software development kit (SDK), with Eclipse integration courtesy of the Android Developer Tools (ADT) plugin. The DDMS perspective provides a wide range of debugging tools, which we’ll cover in brief later on.

Make Use Of Views
By default, the Java perspective contains the main area to edit code and a handful of views with varying levels of usefulness for Android projects:


Package Explorer
This provides a hierarchical way to explore your projects, allowing you to browse and control the various elements in them through a directory structure.
Outline
Displays an interactive representation of the file currently open in the editor, arranged as logical code units, which can be useful for quickly jumping to a particular point in a big file.
Problems
Lists errors and warnings generated at the system level during the development process.
Javadoc
Useful if you’re creating your own documentation using Javadoc or using other language resources that have this documentation.
Declaration
Particularly useful if your Android projects have a lot of classes and methods. You can click on a variable or method in your code to see its outline here, and then click within the view to jump to the point where the item is declared.

You can open new views in Eclipse by selecting “Show View” in the Window menu and clicking from there. Many of the available views won’t likely be of any use to your Android project, but it is worth experimenting with them. If you open a view and decide that you don’t want to display it after all, simply close it. Adjust or move open views to different locations in Eclipse by clicking and dragging their edges or the tabbed areas at the top.

Java Views Relevant to Android Development
The ADT plugin for Eclipse includes a variety of resources for Android development within the IDE, some of which we’ll cover in the sections below. Eclipse has additional views for general Java programming, some of which naturally have a greater potential for usefulness in Android development but don’t appear by default in the Java perspective. In my experience, views that are useful for Android development include “Call Hierarchy,” “Type Hierarchy” and “Tasks.”

The Call Hierarchy view displays an interactive list of the calls for any particular method, class or variable, so you can keep track of where your code excerpts are being called from. This is particularly useful if you’re altering existing code and need a sense of what will be affected.


The Call Hierarchy view for a method in one of my projects.

The Type Hierarchy view is relevant to Java projects that involve inheritance, which basically means that it’s relevant to all Android projects. Whenever you have a class that extends another class, this is inheritance and, thus, an instance when the Type Hierarchy view can be informative. If you’re not yet familiar with inheritance in Java, taking the time to at least read up on the basics is well worth it, because the technique is key to Android programming.


The Type Hierarchy for a user interface element in an Android project.

The Tasks view is one I personally find helpful, but it really depends on how you choose to organize your projects. Think of the Tasks view as an interactive to-do list. For example, to add a task when you haven’t quite finished a particular bit of implementation but need to address something else right away, write a code comment, then right-click in the border area just to the left of the editor section, choose “Add Task,” and set your options from there. Once tasks are in a project, you can read them in the Tasks view, jumping to an individual task in your code by selecting it here. Tasks are also highlighted in the right-hand border of the editor.


The Tasks view, with a random comment in the “Hello Android” project.

Android Debugging Views
The DDMS perspective contains several views for Android development and debugging. When you first open the perspective, you might feel a little overwhelmed, particularly because the views are all presented side by side in a rather convoluted arrangement. Chances are that once you learn the purpose of one, you’ll decide whether it’s relevant to your project; for a basic project, many of them will not be.

If you feel that closing some views would make the interface an easier environment to work in, then go ahead and close them; you can always open them again later. Starting simple is sometimes best, and then adding elements over time as they become relevant. In the early stages, your Android project is not likely to be complex anyway.

Let’s go through each DDMS view in Eclipse, with a brief note on its purpose and use. The information is tailored to each view and so is pretty varied, but includes device, memory and process management.

The Devices view provides an overview of your running AVD emulators together with processes in operation, and it is the starting point for exploring your projects for the purpose of debugging. This view presents shortcuts to some debugging operations, so you can select your app’s processes from here to see the other debugging operations in action. In most cases, you can view information in the other DDMS views by selecting a running process in the Devices view while your app is running in an emulator, then using the buttons at the top of the view to capture debugging information. When you do this, you’ll see some of the other views being populated with data.


The Devices view, with a process selected for debugging.

The Allocation Tracker view is particularly useful for apps that have significant demands on performance. This view provides insight into how the Dalvik Garbage Collector is managing memory for your app. If you’re not familiar with garbage collection in Java, you might want to read up on it, as well as familiarize yourself with basic principles of efficiency in Java programming, such as variable scope.


The Allocation Tracker view in the DDMS perspective.

The Emulator Control view enables you to emulate specific network contexts when testing your apps, allowing you to see how they function with varying constraints on speed, latency and network connectivity. A vital tool if your app depends on such external connections.


The Emulator Control view with telephony settings.

The File Explorer view enables you to access and control the device’s file system (not the file system in your application’s structure as with the Package Explorer view). Using this, you can copy files to and from the device’s storage system; for example, in the case of an app storing data on the user’s SD card.


Looking at the SD card directory on a virtual device using the File Explorer view.

The Heap view is another tool for analyzing and improving memory management in your app. You can manually control the Garbage Collector from this view. If you are unclear on how the constructs of your Java code relate to heap memory, this is another area you might want to read up on.


The Heap view for a running app.

The Threads view enables you to access information about the threads running in your application. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of threads, then this view won’t likely be of use to you. Typically, an Android application runs in a single process on a device, but if you implement a deeper level of control over your app’s processing at the level of threads, then this view will be relevant.


The Threads view for a particular running process.

The LogCat view is useful for most Android apps, regardless of their complexity. A variety of messages are automatically outputted here when you run your app, but you can optionally use the view as your own custom log. You can create log messages in various categories, including “Debug,” “Info,” “Warning,” “Error” and “Verbose,” which is typically used for low-priority information such as development trace statements. In the LogCat view, you can then filter the messages in order to quickly scroll to those you’re interested in. The messages are also color-coded, making them a little easier to absorb.


The LogCat view as a virtual Android device starts up.

A DDMS perspective view can optionally be added individually to the Java perspective if you find it useful for development as well as debugging. Eclipse is designed to enable you to interact with the project’s elements any way you like, so don’t be afraid to experiment with the interface.

Exploit The Design Tools
The design tools in the ADT have undergone major improvements in recent releases, so if you’ve been disappointed by them in the past and perhaps opted for other tools to design your Android apps, having another look at them now is well worth it.

In the Graphical Layout view, you can view your designs with various settings for device software, hardware as well as orientation. The current version generally gives a greatly improved level of control over widgets, views and rendering than most previous versions. You can manage user-interface elements here using the graphical interface, rather than having to implement every aspect of your design in XML code.


The graphical view of an app’s XML layout.

Design and Graphical Utilities
The ADT plugin update of June 2011 introduced a variety of visual refactoring utilities. While your XML layout files are open in the editor, you can browse the options in Eclipse’s Refactoring menu for Android, choosing from various labor-saving tools such as “Extract Style,” which provides a shorthand method of copying style attributes for reuse.

The Resource Explorer is a handy interactive way to explore your application’s resources without the hassle of searching the file structure in the “res” folder via the Package Explorer. Although not exclusively for design purposes, the tool is useful for checking what design resources are in your application’s structure. Depending on the app, your Resources directory might also contain menu, array, string and value items.


The Resources Explorer showing the Resources directory for an app.

On the subject of resources, the Resources interface for any XML files in your app enables you to manage such data graphically, if you prefer not to handle the XML code manually. This can be an effective way to manage both elements and attributes for your application’s XML data.


A graphical view of the XML file for arrays in an app.

Various visual interaction tools for XML resources have gradually been added and improved in the ADT plugin. For example, the Manifest file can also be viewed graphically when you want to control the tags in it, including “Permissions,” “Application” and “Instrumentation.”


An application’s Manifest file, presented graphically.

Set Your Android Preferences
The “Eclipse Window” menu provides access to the Preferences settings for the environment as a whole, with a dedicated section for Android. You may have used this when you first installed the SDK but might not have been in there since then. It’s worth having a look through the options and experimenting with them to create the environment you want.

In the Android section, the “Build” settings include your saved edits to the project’s files, and they also point Eclipse to your keystore for signing the application. The LogCat section lets you set properties for appearance and behavior in the LogCat view. Other options include choosing properties for the DDMS, the code editors and the launch process for the emulator.

Use The Android Run Configuration Options
When you launch your Android project using the Run Configurations menu, you can choose from a range of additional options to suit the functionality of your app. With your Android project selected, choose the “Target” tab to see these options. The first section covers the more general launch parameters for the emulator, including control over speed and latency on the device. This feature is useful if your app depends on a network connection and you want to see how it functions with limited connectivity.

Emulator Command-Line Options
The “Target” tab also allows you to enter command-line options for the emulator that launches your app. Using these, you can tailor the appearance, properties and behavior of the emulator as it launches your app. A lot of options are here for various aspects of the device, including the following properties:


UI
Includes scaling the display window and setting the DPI.
Disk image
Includes the device’s SD card and cache memory.
Media
Covers audio and radio properties.
Debugging
Enables and disables specific debug tags.
Network
In addition to network speed and latency, you can specify DNS and proxy servers.
System
Includes slowing down the device CPU and setting the time zone.

For a full list, see the Developer Guide.

Choose Useful AVD Configurations
When you create virtual devices in Eclipse using the Android SDK and AVD Manager, through the “Window” menu you can choose various settings, including API versions and hardware configurations, such as the size of the SD card and screen, plus optional hardware components. The sheer range of options can leave you wondering where to start, but the feature at least gives you some idea of how your apps will look and function on various devices.


Entering the details for a new AVD.

To create a virtual device, select “New,” enter a name and choose “Options.” You can edit your devices later if necessary. To start an AVD running, select it in the SDK and AVD Manager and click “Start.”


Choosing from a variety of AVDs to start running.

Some developers prefer configuration options that match the range of Android devices currently in use, which obviously vary widely, with multiple phone sizes and types, not to mention tablets. There is no dedicated resource for finding this data, but a number of websites list these configuration details periodically, so you can do a quick Web search when testing an app for release to find the most current information.

It must be said that there is a real limit in value to using actual device settings, because the emulator is merely a guide: it doesn’t replicate the look and feel of different devices with any authenticity. These limitations are especially pertinent when you consider the third parties involved, such as HTC’s Sense interface, which will substantially alter your application’s UI. This is why testing on actual devices is also important, but that’s another topic. The range of devices running Android will obviously continue to expand, so the feasibility of covering a significant chunk of them becomes more and more remote.

Rather than focusing on actual devices in use, another way to approach the AVD configuration settings while you’re in Eclipse (i.e. when you’re still developing rather than testing) is to simply try to cover a range of settings and to explore particular hardware and software configurations that could affect your app’s functionality. Visually speaking, it goes without saying that a relative rather than fixed design will cope better with various screen sizes.

Get And Keep Yourself Acquainted With Developer Resources
As you’re by now aware, if you weren’t already, the Android Developer Tools plugin is what allows you to develop, run, test and debug Android applications in Eclipse, together with the software development kit. Like Eclipse itself, both the SDK and ADT plugins offer many tools, many of which you could very easily remain unaware of and only a few of which we have touched on in this article.

The Android development resources undergo regular updates. You might be one of those people who are always on the ball, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll rarely find the time to keep abreast of these developments, especially if (like me) Android development is not your full-time job.

The Android Developer Guide lists the various tools in the SDK, many of which you will not need to access directly, because the ADT plugin and Eclipse will handle interaction with them. But it’s worth browsing the list fairly regularly, just to be aware of the tools available. Even if you’re only getting into Android casually, these utilities can make an enormous difference to how productive and enjoyable your app’s experience is. The Android Developers Blog is another good source to keep abreast of developments.

The ADT plugin itself comes with a wealth of features and is regularly updated. The Android SDK Guide also has a page on the plugin, outlining versions and features; again, well worth checking out regularly, because there may be significant updates. Checking for updates in Eclipse through the “Help” menu is another good habit.

Android apps are, of course, extremely varied, so the utility of any given development tool is necessarily relative. Keeping a eye on updates to resources needn’t take up much time, because in many cases the updates will be irrelevant to you. But discovering the ones that are relevant could seriously improve your Android development efforts.

Following Best Practices
If you’re interested in developing a best-practices approach to managing and documenting your apps, check out Apache Maven, which uses the project object model (POM). If you’ve already used Maven for Java development in Eclipse, the Android plugin and Integration tools will enable you to adopt the same development practices for your Android app. You can learn more about Maven on the Apache website, and you can learn about getting started with it for Android on the Sonatype website.

Other Resources

“Android Development Tutorial,” Lars Vogel
“SDK Tools,” Android Developer Guide
“Using DDMS,” Android Developer Guide
“ADT Plugin for Eclipse,” Android Developer Guide
“Introduction to Android Development Using Eclipse and Android Widgets,” IBM developerWorks
“Eclipse Shortcuts,” Lars Vogel
“Eclipse Documentation,” Eclipse Foundation
“Eclipse IDE Tutorial,” Lars Vogel
“Develop Android Applications With Eclipse,” IBM developerWorks
“Eclipse Tips and Customization,” University of Tennessee
“Ten Tips for Android Application Development,” Zigurd Mednieks

Related Articles

“Android GUI PSD Vector Kit,” Smashing Magazine
“Designing For Android,” Dan McKenzie
“Get Started Developing for Android with Eclipse,” Chris Blunt
“Get Started Developing For Android With Eclipse, Reloaded,” Chris Blunt

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© Sue Smith for Smashing Magazine, 2011.
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Homepage: http://www.html5admin.com/

    
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When I took my first steps into the WordPress theme arena, I didn’t know much about it. I wandered blindly into the business, not knowing whether I was doing things correctly. Over time, through trial and error and making rookie mistakes, I learned some valuable lessons and gained important insights. To save you from going down the same winding path, I’ll share some of the important takeaways that I’ve learned so far, like how to gain a solid user base, what to include in your themes and, most importantly, what to leave out.



Gaining a Solid User Base
You could build the best WordPress theme in the world, but it won’t matter unless people know about it and use it. One of the smartest things I did when starting my theme business was to release a free theme. It took a while for it to gain traction, but things took off once it got some attention from being featured on other websites. Consumers are willing to download a free theme from the new kid on the block and try it out because hardly any financial risk is involved.

The free theme was unique and easy to use, and people liked it so much that they began requesting a premium (i.e. commercial) version, with more features (the free version had the bare essentials). To this day, the premium version is still one of my best sellers. Consumers like to download the free version to try it out, and then they typically purchase the commercial version. Value is added to the commercial version with support, updates, easier customization and a bundle of exclusive features. Releasing a free theme enabled me to gain momentum and build on a solid user base as I began creating commercial themes, and I’ll return to that strategy in the future to increase sales.

My First Mistake
The first mistake I made when getting started, and one that I still kick myself over, is that I didn’t implement a newsletter opt-in method for users who downloaded my themes. This would have given me a long list of consumers to whom I could market my premium themes, and it would have been extremely valuable when I launched the commercial version of my theme a year later. I’ve now gotten my act together and have a booming mailing list that I email every time I release a new theme, thus generating sales that would otherwise have been lost.

You’ve Got ’Em, Now Keep ’Em
Once I had a solid user base, I found that in order to keep them as returning customers, I had to add value not only to my themes but to my services. When you start a theme business, you’re not just selling themes; you’re also providing support and updates. Some of the top brands make great products and provide excellent support. Think of Apple, MediaTemple and Zappos. Say what you want about these companies, but there’s no denying that their user base is loyal because of both their products and their support and services.

One way to provide great support is simply to be timely with your responses. A customer loves nothing more than being responded to the same day. If you don’t know the answer to their question, at least let them know that you received it and are looking into it. You would think this is common practice, but you’d be amazed at how long some companies take to respond. If you can provide killer support, you’re already one step ahead of a lot of the competition.

Another way to add value is to provide educational resources that teach customers how to get the most out of your products. Some users will be more advanced than others, and they are usually the ones who purchase themes regularly. If you can provide a resource that enables those users to derive extra value from your products, then they will be more likely to stay with you and purchase more of your themes.

Streamline Your Process
Streamline and standardize your development process as much as possible. One way to do this is to use a theme framework, whether your own or a third party’s. Using a framework to quickly develop a theme is important when an eager audience is waiting on you. Most importantly, when you use the same framework, updating all of your themes after they’ve been released is easier. For example, all of my themes display a notification in the administration panel when an update becomes available.

The code that enables this notification is in a file named framework-init.php. In this file is a bunch of other important blocks of code that add features, such as the theme options panel and custom post fields, as well as common functions used throughout all of my themes. When I need to update that code, I simply make the change to my framework’s file and then that file gets replaced in all of my themes. By knowing that the file is the same throughout all of my themes, I don’t have to bother going through each theme to find that block of code to update. You can see how this becomes valuable when your inventory starts to accumulate.


Hybrid is one of the more popular theme frameworks, thanks to its extensive list of features, including translations into 20+ languages and theme hooks.

Custom vs. Third-Party Frameworks
From the beginning, I decided to build my own framework, mainly because I would know it back to front, making it easier to maintain and build on (being a control freak might have contributed to the decision as well). A custom framework also meant that I wouldn’t have to rely on someone else, and the framework would have exactly what I needed and nothing else.

This is, of course, just personal preference, and many people prefer to use a third-party framework. By using a third party’s, you save the time it takes to develop a solid framework. It also means that you’re not solely responsible for maintaining the framework, and you will usually have a support system to turn to if you run into development issues. A lot of impressive frameworks offer useful functionality, such as theme hooks, extensible layout options, styling for popular plugins and much more. Lastly, there is a growing market for child themes of such frameworks as Genesis, StartBox and Hybrid.

Other popular frameworks are:


iThemes Builder
Carrington
Starkers
WP Framework
Elemental
Sandbox
Thematic
Thesis

What To Include In Your Theme
Depending on the type of theme you’re creating, the expectations of consumers will vary. But you should consider certain features and functionality for the majority of your themes. You needn’t implement all of these, but at least consider whether they would add value to your theme.

Internationalize the Theme for Other Languages
Internationalizing your theme enables users to translate the text displayed by your theme, and implementing it is fairly straightforward. This one is a must-have. I was amazed at how many non-English-speaking users downloaded my themes. Looking back, I should have internationalized my themes from the beginning, knowing that millions of people all over the world use WordPress. You would be silly not to internationalize your theme. Look at the “Translating WordPress” section of the Codex and this helpful tutorial by AppThemes for more information.

Support WordPress’ Coding Standards and Practices
Develop your themes in a way that supports WordPress’ latest coding standards and practices. In doing so, you ensure that the theme is compatible with future versions of WordPress, and you’ll avoid a flood of emails from customers who have run into conflicts. Also, avoid deprecated functions, which are functions that are “no longer supported and may be removed in future versions of WordPress.”

An easy way to check all of this is to install the Theme-Check plugin. This great little plugin runs the same tests as those that WordPress.org runs on submitted themes.


The Theme-Check plugin has saved me many times from leaving out important details and using deprecated functions.

Documentation and Readable Code
Write thorough and helpful documentation for your themes. This will not only help users, but also cut down on the number of support requests you get from aggravated users. And trust me: the less support requests you get, the happier you will be. Document everything that’s unique about your theme that WordPress users might be unfamiliar with, as well as any built-in features such as custom backgrounds and headers, menus, and post formats. Also provide instructions on how to update the theme and on the proper way to customize the code (in case a user wants to create a child theme).


The Twenty Eleven theme is a good example of a theme with well-documented code.

Another important aspect of documentation is to make the code easy to read and understand. Some advanced users will want to customize the code, so it should be commented in a way that helps them understand what you’ve done under the hood. For a good example of well-documented code, check out the functions.php file in the default Twenty Eleven theme.

Child Themeable
As noted, many users will want to customize the code. The trick is that, when you release an update, the developer has to avoid overwriting the files that they’ve customized. The solution is for them to make their customizations in a child theme. So, make sure to support this functionality by allowing child themes to be easily created.

If you don’t want users to have to worry about including a particular script when creating a child theme, then use the get_template_directory_uri(); function to reference the parent theme’s folder. To allow the developer to overwrite this file, use get_stylesheet_directory_uri(); instead, which references the folder in the child theme, if one is being used.

Page Templates
Your theme should support the various page templates that a WordPress website can have. Because you don’t know how each developer will use the theme, you have to prepare for all possibilities. This is where testing comes in. For a typical WordPress theme, you should at the very least support these templates: page.php, archive.php, 404.php, search.php, single.php, attachment.php and, of course, index.php, which is the ultimate fallback. For a full list of templates, check out the “Template Hierarchy” section of the WordPress Codex.


WordPress’ “Template Hierarchy“ is a great reference to have on hand.

You can also provide users with custom page templates. The two most common that I include with my themes is one with a widgetized sidebar (the default page.php) and one with a full-width page. You’ll likely be able to come up with other templates that users would benefit from once you’ve designed the theme.

Some theme developers use custom fields for this functionality, instead of page templates. This seems counterintuitive because the functionality is built into WordPress and is so simple to use. Creating your own page template is as easy as creating a new PHP file in the theme’s folder and adding the following PHP comment at the top (replacing “Full Width” with the template name of your choice):


<?php
/*
Template Name: Full Width
*/
?>

Of course, the code that follows the line above is up to you and will determine what the template does.

A Note on Theme Options
There seems to be a misunderstanding about what users of premium themes expect. The common belief is that they expect an options panel that looks like the control panel of a Boeing 747, where they can tweak the smallest detail of the theme. Sure, users want to be able to control certain aspects of their website, but simplicity and ease of use trump bloat and complexity.


Your options panel shouldn’t be this complicated. (Image: Fly For Fun)

When deciding whether to include an option in your theme, consider whether it’s really necessary and whether that functionality is already built into WordPress. The more options you add, the more complicated the code becomes and the steeper the learning curve for users. I keep the options for my themes to the bare essentials, and a goal of mine is to create a theme for which an options panel isn’t even necessary. I challenge you to do the same.

You can build your theme’s options on top of any one of the several great options frameworks. These are the ones I’ve come across:


Options Framework
UpThemes-Framework
OptionTree

Appearance Options
One reason to include an options panel is to enable the user to tweak the appearance of the theme without having to mess with the code. The option demanded by most users is surely to be able to upload a logo. Adding a logo is the easiest way for a user to personalize their theme. I enable it in all of my themes.


A snapshot of the options page in my latest commercial theme (based on the Options Framework).

Most theme buyers aren’t designers. They might not have an eye for color or be able to make informed design decisions. So, in addition to providing options to customize the theme’s main elements (like the color of text, the color of the call-to-action button, etc.), I include a selection of “skins,” which are basically just pre-defined palettes that a user can select from. This way, if the user doesn’t have an eye for color, they at least have options and aren’t restricted to one scheme. I usually provide several styles that cater to a variety of audiences.

Social Network Options
Most individuals and businesses have some type of presence on social networks, whether on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or whatever the next big thing is. Because the design and placement of these social-network links vary from theme to theme, you can provide an option that allows users to customize the links.

Aside (and a little plug): I used to recommend including social-network options in the theme’s panel, but having given it more thought, I now feel it’s better suited to a plugin. New social networks pop up every day, and anticipating which ones your theme’s users will be on is hard. You will never be able to cover all bases, which is why I recently built a plugin that I’ll soon be supporting in all of my themes, and I suggest you do the same if you plan on including this feature. The plugin adds a new settings page where the user can create a list of social-network links. Users can select from the range of icons built into the plugin or built into the theme (if present) or upload their own. If this interests you, the plugin is called Social Bartender and is in the WordPress repository.

Advertising Options
You could also enable users to add advertisements, either through a widget or through an option that positions the ads in certain spots (like following the top blog post). Many people want to monetize their website and so advertising options would be important to them. Being able to select the locations of ads to suit the design is a selling point.

What To Leave Out
Almost as important as what to include in the theme is what to leave out. Many themes have options and functionality that are better done as plugins or that are already built into WordPress. Use the functionality that WordPress already supports, such as custom backgrounds, headers, post thumbnails and post formats. This is easier to implement because WordPress does all of the heavy lifting, and many users are already familiar with it. That being said, if your theme doesn’t need this functionality, then don’t include it in the first place!


Shortcodes should not replace standard HTML tags. Many of the shortcodes shown above are unnecessary.

Shortcodes
Shortcodes are great for executing a set of functions, but they’re unnecessary simply to embed a link or add a class to an element. Use standard HTML tags for this. For example, don’t create a [quote] shortcode when the HTML <blockquote> tag does a perfectly good job. I’ve seen themes that have shortcodes for quotes, citations and headers but no support for the same styling with HTML tags. This is a big no-no. Many users will switch from theme to theme and will already have content on their website when they activate yours. HTML tags will stay the same, but shortcodes vary from theme to theme. Don’t force the user to go back through all of their content just to add your custom shortcodes. Use shortcodes only to execute functions, not to apply styling. There may be a few exceptions, such as to wrap a message in complicated HTML, but if you’re simply adding a class, then adding it to the “Format” menu in the post editor’s kitchen sink makes more sense.

A great tutorial was recently published by Luke McDonald that details how to add your own styles to the drop-down menu in the visual editor, giving you one more reason not to use shortcodes to style elements.

Plugin Territory
Don’t include options for things that should really be added with existing plugins; for example, Google Analytics and favicons. I hear someone in the back asking, “Why not include such things?” Well, person in the back, what if the user decides to switch themes, even to another of yours? They would lose all of that information and have to figure out how to get it back. The option is unnecessary, would make the code overly complicated, and would cause trouble when the user switches themes. Include only options that alter functionality that is unique to your theme; otherwise it’s better suited to a plugin.

Further Resources

“Theming for the Masses,” Michael Fields
Michael’s talk from WordCamp Seattle 2011.
“Right To Left Language Support,” WordPress Codex
Options Framework Plugin, Devin Price
A great framework for quickly putting together an options page for your theme.
“An Alternative to the Shortcode Madness, Part 1,” Luke McDonald
Learn how to add your own styles to the drop-down menu in the visual editor.
“Translating WordPress,” WordPress Codex
“WordPress 3.0 Theme Tip: Custom Backgrounds,” Otto on WordPress
“Custom Headers,” WordPress Codex

(al)


© Sawyer Hollenshead for Smashing Magazine, 2011.
]]></description>
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    <link>http://www.noupe.com/wordpress/50-great-free-wordpress-themes-from-2011.html</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[There are probably a good amount of Noupe readers who would think little to nothing of paying money for a high quality WordPress theme if it was exactly what they were looking for. When compared to spending thousands of [...]]]></description>
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    <title>Sliders in Web Design : 45 Creative Examples</title>
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    <link>http://speckyboy.com/2011/10/26/sliders-in-web-design-45-creative-examples/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[ 
Advertise here with BSA
Using slideshows or sliders within a web design is an effective method of highlighting your portfolio, projects, ecommerce products or even key site related messages and information. As the current slider trend dictates, they are typically found above the fold on the homepage.
For this article, we have found some high quality, beautifully designed and inspirational examples of sliders. Enjoy :)
You might also like… Showcase Of Effective and Creative Pricing Page Designs → 30 Login Forms with Creative Design → Showcase of Beautifully Designed Charts & Graphs → 20 Effective Examples of Web and Mobile Wireframe Sketches →Backyard BurgersFeeling hungry? Take a look at this website and choose the menu you would like to satisfy your appetite with.

ConverseA very attractive and dynamic website with loads of creatively designed and interactive slides.

Hm AndreiFour beautiful and visually appealing slides that change automatically or you can also change the slide by clicking the small button to view the individual slides.

Marcs DesignThe slides have been incorporated well in this design, giving the impression that they are being browsed with a laptop.

Marco Rotoli
Boerdam
Tea Round App
These Are Things
Studio XLA vertically moving slide show with a very catchy and appealing effect. You can click the number or the arrow to view the next slide.

Themefuse
Josh Smith DesignThis websites main page consists of full size slides with the navigation options presented at the bottom of the page.

Utah travelLovely slideshow that is presented as a stack of photographs.

Doopsuiker PoppiesTwo simple yet beautifully designed sliders at the front of this webpage.

VisitphillyHere you will see that a realistic view is presented by each individual slide that look simply amazing and attention grabbing.

Sven PrimA horizontal website with 42 slides that you can browse from left to right. The slide quality is truly first class.

TravelBuzzFive different and classic slides of some of the World’s most beautiful places. Click on a small thumbnail to view its enlarged view.

WearesignalsA dark themed website with four different and unique slides that highlights the key points about this website.

Espressoa PartmentsThe slides of the apartments change dynamically and gives a great overview of how each apartment looks.

Malcolm ReadingHere the slides change vertically one by one. They specialize in the arts, museums and public realm.

RottefellaA very interactive website that presents the slides in a totally different manner and allows you to browse further.

Jax Vineyards
Relogik
Full Fat Studios
NealiteA French website showcasing the key points through different well designed slides.

SlidedeckNew to the website? Simply check out the slides and you will get the idea what the website is all about and what it offers.

Design Royale
Purple Rock Scissors
La Masa MimattaVery colorful and beautifully designed slides that integrate with the website very well.

Fox ClassicsThe things that set this website apart are its high quality graphics and collection of images for the slides.

Charlie GentleHere the slides are divided in two section with arrows placed at the centre to navigate. When you click the arrow, both the slides move simultaneously.

Team Viget
Galan Design
Yozenn
Studio Break FastAn extremely interactive website that demonstrates the slides in a completely different mode and allow you to browse further.

Household Design
Print MornycThe website of Print Mor NYC highlights their printing excellence in their slides. Simply click the arrow to move to the next slide.

Hwo ArchitectsThe slides move vertically giving you an idea of what you can expect from the website.

Grunnarbeid
Glitz PhotographyExceptionally colorful slides that incorporate with the website incredibly well.

DFANYThis is what the slide show of a mobile development website should be.

Style and Conscience
Bohemia Design
Edit Studios
Threadless
Dconvulsions
You might also like…50 Examples of Large Photography Backgrounds within Web Design → 50 Examples of Creative 404 – Page Not Found Pages → A Showcase of 50 Amazing Personal Blog Web Designs → 50 Creative Examples of Illustrations in Web Design → 50 Professional Web Design Agency Web Sites → 50 Bright and Vibrant Web Designs – Color Inspiration → 50 Impressive Magazine and Newspaper Styled Web Designs → 50 Inspirational and Fresh Minimally Designed Web Sites → 50 Creative and Inspirational Personal Portfolio Websites → 50 Inspiring Web Application and Service Web Site Designs →
  
Advertise here with BSA

     
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    <title>21 Resources for Effective Facebook Fan Pages</title>
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    <link>http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/social-media/facebook-pages/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Most businesses now recognize Facebook as an excellent platform for connecting and communicating with their customers and/or users. As businesses have become more active on Facebook the number of resources available for fan pages has increased as well.
Setting up an effective Facebook fan page isn’t always that easy, but there are plenty of resources out [...]]]></description>
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    <link>http://blog.kissmetrics.com/seo-for-ceos/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[We see it all the time. Your business is picking up steam, you’ve got traffic and customers, but your website search engine optimization (SEO) stinks. You never even gave it a college try — higher priorities always trumped optimizing for organic search and hiring a pricy agency to perform wizardry didn’t appeal to you.

In this post, I want to:


Take some of the confusion out of SEO.
Provide a C-level recap of the basic building blocks of SEO.
Give you, Mr. CEO, a basic framework you can use to mobilize your team to get your site optimized at a basic level, using minimal resources.
Publish a scripted email template business owners can use to break down basic SEO into bite-size tasks.

This post is a kind of “SEO starter kit.” Use the tools and template herein to delegate the important tasks to your team. All you need to do is plug in the names of your team members and hit “send.” Empower each team member to project manage their assigned chunk of the SEO effort.

Invest If You Can
Look: I’m not saying you can compete with the big dogs of SEO by sending a templatized email to your non-SEO-expert team members, nor am I saying this is a comprehensive SEO task list.

There are components I’ve chosen not to address. My goal is to help business owners prioritize basic SEO initiatives.

If you have the bandwidth and budget to hire an expert, you absolutely should.

But if you’re one of the many business owners whose page titles are your brand name and nothing more, this framework will give you a decent and necessary start.

Building Blocks of SEO

Do your homework. You’re going to enlist the help of your team to do some basic research and make an educated guess at the best keyword phrase(s) around which to focus your SEO effort. You’ll choose keywords that have the best balance of strong search volume and relatively low competition.
Write tags & content. You’re going to have someone write content centered around the keywords that follow from your research.
Implement HTML changes. You’ll have a developer make changes to your site, starting with the most critical pages.
Start building links. Finally, you’ll put infrastructure in place to begin your link building campaign. This campaign will never really end.

High-Level SEO Lesson: What Matters Most
1. Your site content & the HTML behind it
Think of this as the groundwork for a healthy SEO footprint. On its own, it’s usually ineffectual, but as part of your SEO strategy, it’s indispensible.

Here’s how search engines see your site.



Note: The content of the TripAdvisor sample page above has been sliced up to fit this format.

On the most basic level, you need these components:

Title. The <title> of your pages is critical. It’s read from left to right in terms of importance, so once you’ve carefully chosen the keyword phrase(s) you’re trying to rank for, a good, simple formula for page titles can look like this:

Primary keyword phrase | Secondary keyword phrase (optional) | Company name



Meta description. This is the little blurb search engines will show when a page on your site shows up in search results. Make it short and unique, including your top keyword phrase if it fits naturally.



Copy. Each page on your site should contain, at the very least, a few sentences with organized headers describing what the page is about. On your homepage, that means spelling out what you do in simple language that both humans and machines can understand.

2. Getting relevant, good quality sites to link to yours
Link building is like bridge building. It takes time and sweat. But without strong inbound links, your on-page HTML changes will hardly help you rank.


Even one or two powerful links from good sites can funnel “SEO authority” to your site. When negotiating a link, be sure to get specific about the anchor text.



3. Some technical stuff that sounds pretty complicated but isn’t
SEO best practices dictate that you submit a sitemap, use proper redirects and descriptive image alt tags, develop a structured system of internal links to indicate the relative importance of your site’s respective pages to the search engines, and execute on a slew of other minutia in order to achieve organic search nirvana.

I’m going to recommend focusing on #1 and #2 above as a top priority. Once that’s in motion, you can attack these tasks, but don’t let them overwhelm your team into paralysis.

Choose your Cast of Characters to get the Job Done
1. Excel Nerd / Research Ninja. You want a super smart, analytical team player for this role. This person crosses their t’s and dots their i’s. Maybe they once won a spelling bee.



2. Writer Person. You’re not looking for Dostoevsky here, but someone who can write short, punchy marketing copy based on findings curated by your Research Ninja. You also want someone who’s well-liked by your team and great at collaborating with them on different types of projects.



3. Developer. Yup. You’ll need a web developer, too.



Mobilize your Cast of Characters
Here’s a simple email template you can use to rally your team and spell out the tasks that’ll get your SEO gears a grindin’.



From: Mr. CEO guy

To: Research Ninja, Writer Person, Developer

Subject: Let’s SEO our site in 30 days

Hey team,

We’ve never had many resources to devote to SEO, but I see big reward for us if we can start to plant the seeds for greater organic search traffic in the future.

I’d like to enlist your help with this project, whose objective is to get us to a basic level of SEO proficiency so we have a chance to rank on some desirable search terms.

(Research Ninja), I’d like you to:

1. Use the AdWords Keyword Tool to research the types of phrases our prospective customers are using to find sites like ours. The default results will reflect broad match estimates, so be sure to look at exact match, too.

2. Download the search volume and competition data to Excel. This will transform the competition “meter” into a quantitative measure of each keyword phrase’s competitiveness.

3. Strategically whittle down the options to a maximum of 2 or 3 keyword phrases we should try to rank for. Your key criteria are relatively low competition and significant global search volume.

4. Validate your research against search volume and competition estimates shown by other SEO tools like Raventools, SEOmoz, KeywordSpy, etc. You might need to start a free trial or two. See if your recommendation holds water using data from several tools.

5. Whatever you determine our top priority keyword phrase should be, please communicate to the team that this is our preferred anchor text for inbound links. Hand off your final recommendations to Writer Person.

(Writer Person), I’d like you to…

1. Take a stab at identifying the 5 or 10 most important pages on our website.

2. Based around Research Ninja’s conclusions, write a page title and meta description for each of the pages you identified. Use the following format for page titles:

Primary keyword phrase | Secondary keyword phrase (optional) | Company name

Meta description format: One or two very short sentences describing what the page is about, in the context of what our company does. Be sure to use the highest priority keyword phrase Research Ninja identified.

Next, write a short paragraph or two describing each page. Don’t stuff keywords into the copy — work them in naturally. Write for humans.

Each paragraph should have a header or two, as appropriate, related to the keyword phrase(s) from Research Ninja’s research. You’ll hand these over to Developer, who will wrap them in <h1> and <h2> tags.

3. Coordinate with our other properties, if we have any, to get links pointing to our site.

4. Develop a plan to incentivize customers/partners/vendors/affiliates to link to our site.

5. Work with sales / business development to ensure we start requiring a backlink in every contract we sign, if it’s realistic to ask for one.

6. Identify 5 bloggers and/or companies related to our space and reach out to them to explore guest blogging opportunities. Beyond your obvious outreach tools — LinkedIn, Jigsaw, your colleagues’ contacts.

– you can also scope out myblogguest.com for guest blogging opportunities. Once you have some leads lined up, let’s talk about who on our team can help write good content.

7. Are we listed in basic business directories? Please create a standard business profile and submit our site to DMOZ, CrunchBase, LinkedIn, HotFrog, Google Places and Bing.

8. Do we have a blog? Let’s talk about how we can get one going.

In all your link building efforts, remember to request the preferred link anchor text recommended by Research Ninja wherever possible. Of course, if you’re building links to pages other than our homepage, it might make sense to tweak this anchor text. As a rule of thumb, you can use the keyword phrase in the title of the page you’re linking to as the anchor text.

Developer, can you please work with Writer Person to change our site HTML as follows:


Change the <title> of each page per Writer Person’s recommendation
Change the <meta description> of each page per Writer Person’s recommendation
Add the copy per Writer Person’s recommendation, with a single <h1> and 1 or 2 <h2> tags as headers. Please make sure these are the only header tags on the page.

Finally, extra credit to whoever can:


Create Google Webmaster Tools account.
Submit a sitemap.
Check for any indexing errors or site slowness and report back.

Let’s get’r done!

Thanks,
Mr. CEO guy

And there you have it. Define a timeline and get it done. Many months down the road, your shot at free traffic will be much greater for your efforts here.

Get strategic about the HTML on your site, have your developer make the quick tweaks, and suddenly you’re “keeping up with the Joneses” in terms of on-page SEO. Then, get aggressive about your link building campaign and get the link juice flowing your way. You won’t see immediate results, but month by month, you’ll build up that free traffic.

Don’t forget: while it seems like a lot of hard work for a tough-to-measure reward, even companies with modest PPC budgets are paying several dollars for each and every visit they buy. If one can estimate the value of a visit by what others are willing to pay, your team’s hard work will yield some nice loot.

About the Author: Igor Belogolovsky is Cofounder of Clever Zebo, a group of online marketing strategy experts (www.cleverzebo.com) specializing in SEM, SEO and conversion funnel optimization. He also happens to like craft beer and snowboarding.


    
]]></description>
<dc:subject>SEO</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:ccf365e3130b/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:SEO"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/10/25/resume-designs-like-infographics-that-can-stand-out-in-a-crowd.html">
    <title>Resume Designs (Like Infographics) That Can Stand Out In A Crowd</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-25T17:05:56+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/10/25/resume-designs-like-infographics-that-can-stand-out-in-a-crowd.html</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[What is the first step of getting your most desired job? Surely it is the resume that a candidate submits to the organization he wants to work with. Impressive resume always increase the chances of getting the formal interview call. Well-crafted and well-presented resumes not only stand you out as an ideal candidate but also demonstrate your professional level. Here we are featuring few resume cum infographics that can stand out in a crowd to give a better understanding of what goes in to show off your design chops. Take a look at this collection.

You are welcome if you want to share more creative resume designs that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  SmashingApps.com, just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and follow us on Digg as well to get updated.

An Infographic Resume


Curriculum Vitae di Lissi Mattia


Ester Liquori Design Visual Resume


Siddhesh Kabe Resume


Francesco Mugnai’s resume


Infographics Resume


Infographics Resume: Randall Knapp


Resume


Kumar Kolaganti Visual Resume

Brought To You By


Do you want to advertise here? Click to get more info…


         

]]></description>
<dc:subject>Best_of_the_Web color_Schemes Infographics Inspiration</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:0ef1f996d110/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Best_of_the_Web"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:color_Schemes"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Infographics"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Inspiration"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/10/dos-and-donts-of-call-to-action-pages/">
    <title>Do’s and don’ts of call to action pages</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-25T09:23:10+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/10/dos-and-donts-of-call-to-action-pages/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Good call to action pages (including landing pages and sales pages)  are an important part of any website that either sells or asks visitors  to sign up for something.An effective call to action page can increase  conversions and signups by a hundred percent or more (sometimes much  more). As designers, we [...]]]></description>
<dc:subject>Smashing_Network</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:c2a7b84f2c58/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Smashing_Network"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://boagworld.com/mobile-web/mobile-maze/">
    <title>Navigating the mobile maze</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-25T09:20:02+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://boagworld.com/mobile-web/mobile-maze/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Everybody is talking mobile. Smart phones and tablets are changing the way that your users interact with content and online services. 45% of people interact with online content while out and about. That rises to 70% for 16-25s. (UK Sept. 2011). As an online provider you must engage with this emerging market or face losing [...]]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:45e407d09172/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nettuts/~3/Zn7LKIi_Xa8/">
    <title>Enhancing Web Apps with AmplifyJS</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-25T01:57:20+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nettuts/~3/Zn7LKIi_Xa8/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[There seems to be a new crop of special-purpose JavaScript libraries every week. Gone, it seems, are the days of using only one library per project. Today I’ll introduce you to a very cool component library, AmplifyJS, that offers just a few very specialized components.




Devs, Meet AmplifyJS
According to the website:


AmplifyJS is a set of components designed to solve common web application problems.


Sounds prestigious, but what’s actually in this library?

AmplifyJS has three main pieces:


An AJAX API
A PubSub Event System
A Client-side Storage API

Join me now for a tour of the incredible AmplifyJS library! We’re going to build a super-simple employee tracker; really, it’s just a table with a few app-like features, courtesy (partly) of AmplifyJS.

We don’t really need to concern ourselves with styling and layout issues today so I’m going to use the Twitter Bootstrap library. It’s incredibly simple: just include the link to the CSS file—which they let you hotlink from Github—and you’re in business.


Step 1: Setting it Up
So, make yourself a project directory. Start with the index.html file, and a js folder. Now, head over to the AmplifyJS website and click that huge, red “download” button. Once, you’ve got the library zip, extract it, and move it into the js folder. We’re going to need a few other things as well:


jQuery: Amplify’s AJAX component uses jQuery’s AJAX feature underneath it’s API, at least by default. But we’ll be using jQuery for other stuff, so bring it on in.
bootstrap-modal.js: The Twitter Bootstrap library includes a few scripts for getting all interactive. And we’re going to use one: the modal window jQuery plugin. Download it, and add it to that js folder.
There are two other scripts that I’ll mention along the way, but these we’ll write ourselves.

Then, start off our index.html file like this:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>AmplifyJS</title>
    <link rel='stylesheet' href='http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/1.3.0/bootstrap.min.css' />
  </head>
  <body>
    <div class='container'>
      <div class='row'>
        <div class='span16' id='alert-area'>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class='row'>
        <div class='span4'>
            <h2>Commands</h2>
        </div>
        <div class='span12'>
        <h1>Employees</h1>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
    <script src='https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js'></script>
    <script src='js/amplify/amplify.min.js'></script>
    <script src='js/bootstrap-modal.js'></script>
  </body>
</html>
If you aren’t familiar with using Twitter Bootstrap, you’ll see it’s no sweat to use. We’ve got a container that is 940px wide. Then, we have two rows. The first has one column, that covers all 16 columns. The other has two columns: one is 4 columns wide, and one is 12 columns wide.

One more thing, before we get to some real coding: we’re going to pop up a modal window that allows up to input employees. Under the <div class='container'>, add this modal window HTML. Yes, it seems like a lot code, but it’s mainly Bootstrap stuff:

<div id='add-employee-modal' class='modal fade'>
  <div class='modal-header'>
    <a href='#' class='close'>x</a>
    <h3>Add an Employee</h3>
  </div>
  <div class='modal-body'>
    <form id='employee-form'>
      <div class='clearfix'>
        <label for='firstName'>First Name:</label>
        <div class='input'><input type='text' name='firstName' placeholder='John' /></div>
      </div>
      <div class='clearfix'>
        <label for='lastName'>Last Name:</label>
        <div class='input'><input type='text' name='lastName' placeholder='Doe' /></div>
      </div>
      <div class='clearfix'>
        <label for='role'>First Name:</label>
        <div class='input'><input type='text' name='role' placeholder='Designer' /></div>
      </div>
    </form>
  </div>
  <div class='modal-footer'>
    <button id='create-employee' class='btn primary'>Add</button>
  </div>
</div>
All right, we’re ready to go! Let’s code.


Step 2: Wiring the Modal Window
Open up a script tag at the bottom of index.html (I’m just doing this inline, but feel to put it in a new JS file). start this way:

(function () {
var employeeModal = $('#add-employee-modal').modal({ backdrop: 'static' });

}());
We’re using the Bootstrap modal plugin here; this just “instantiates” the modal window. Now, we want the window to appear when we click the “Add Employee” button. Of course, we’ll have to add the button first: put this in the <div class='span4'>, right under the <h2>.

<p><button id='add-employee' data-controls-modal='add-employee-modal' class='btn'>Add Employee</button></p>
That data-controls-modal='add-employee-modal' attribute will display the modal with said ID when the button is clicked.


So, the user will need to fill in the form,  click the “Add” button which has an id of create-employee. So, let’s wire up a click event handler for the button:

$('#create-employee').click(function () {
    var form = $('#employee-form');
    employeeModal.modal('hide');
    EMPLOYEE.create(
        form.find('[name=firstName]').val(),
        form.find('[name=lastName]').val(),
        form.find('[name=role]').val()
    );
    form.find('input').val('');
});
We get the form, and then hide the modal window. Then, we’re going to call an EMPLOYEE.create method, passing the first name, last name, and role as the three parameters. Finally, we clear the form.

amplify.publish
But wait, you say, what’s EMPLOYEE.create? Well, it’s a micro-“class” that I’ve put in js/employee.js. Check it out:

var EMPLOYEE = {
    create : function (firstName, lastName, role) {
       var employee = {
            firstName: firstName,
            lastName: lastName,
            role: role,
            dateEmployed: new Date()
       };
       amplify.publish('employee-created', employee );
       return employee;
    }
};
You’ll want to throw a script tag for it up with the others.

Pretty simple, right? We just create an object literal with our parameters, and add a dateEmployed property. But, then—and finally!—we have the first entrance of the AmplifyJS framework. Here, we’re using the pub/sub events component. This is great for doing loose coupling between parts of your app. 

This method doesn’t have to know if another part of our code wants to do something with each new employee we create; Our “Add” button event handler doesn’t have to worry about it. We’ll just publish it as an “employee-created” event for any part that is interested to take. We pass our new employee object as data for anyone interested. Then, we return the employee object (even though we don’t keep track of it in our event handler).


Step 3: Reacting with amplify.subscribe
So, is any other part of our app interested in the “employee-created”? Yes, in fact. We want to do two things. First, add this employee to a table on our page. Second, we want to store the employee in localStorage. Here’s the first part of that:

  amplify.subscribe('employee-created', function (employee) {
    employeeTable.add([employee.firstName, employee.lastName, employee.role, employee.dateEmployed]);
    newAlert('success', 'New Employee Added');
  });
To subscribe to an event, we call amplify.subscribe. We want subscribe to the “employee-created”; when that events occurs, we want to add it to the employeeTable; notice that instead of just passing it the employee object, we “convert” it to an array; this is because we need to be sure the elements will be in the right order. Then, we want to display an message, letting our user know that the employee was added successfully.

What’s up with this employeeTable variable? Well, first, we have to add the <table> to our document. So, underneath our “Employees” <h1>, add this:

<table id='employee-table' class='zebra-striped'>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th> First Name </th>
            <th> Last Name </th>
            <th> Role </th>
            <th> Date Employed </th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    </tbody>
</table>
Now, we have to capture this table as a variable up in our var statement at the top:

employeeTable = TABLE.create($('#employee-table')),
And TABLE? That’s the last piece of JS for this puzzle. Put this in js/table.js and don’t forget the script tag:

var TABLE = {
    proto : {
        init : function (el) {
            this.element = $(el).find('tbody');
        },
        add: function (arr) {
            var row = $('<tr>').html(function () {
                return $.map(arr, function (value) {
                    return '<td>' + value + '</td>';
                }).join('');
            });
            this.element.append(row);
        },
        load: function (rows, order) {
            for (var i = 0; rows[i]; i++ ) {
                this.add(rows[i]);
            }
            var fields = [];
            for (var j = 0; order[j]; j++) {
                fields.push(rows[i][order[j]]);
            }
                this.add(fields);
        },
        clear: function () {
            this.element.empty();
        }
    },
    create : function (el) {
        var table = Object.create(this.proto);
        table.init(el);
        return table;
    }
};
It’s a bit complicated, but you should have no problem grokking it. We’ve got a proto property that is the prototype for our table instances. Then, when we call create, we use Object.create to create an object that inherits from this.proto. After that, we call the init method to set any properties. Finally, we return the table instance. 

This micro-API makes it easy for us to work with our table. You should be able to see how passing an array to the add method will add a row to our table. Notice also that we can pass an array of rows to load and fill the table up; we’ll use this soon.

Oh, then there’s the newAlert method we called:

function newAlert (type, message) {
    $('#alert-area').append($('<div class='alert-message ' + type + ' fade in' data-alert><p> ' + message + ' </p></div>'));

    setTimeout(function () {
        $('.alert-message').fadeOut('slow', function () { this.parentNode.removeChild(this); });
    }, 2000);
}
As you can see, this just simply adds a div inside out <div id='alert-area'>; the new div takes advantage of the Twitter Bootstrap alert styling; after two seconds, we fade the alert out and remove it.

amplify.store
But that’s not the only think we want to do when the “employee-created” event occurs:

employeeStore = amplify.store('employees') || [];
At the top, with our two other variables, make the third and final one: employeeStore. If amplify.store('employees') returns something, we’ll use that; otherwise, we’ll use an empty array.

amplify.subscribe('employee-created', function (employee) {
    employeeStore.push(employee);
    amplify.store('employees', employeeStore);
});
Now we’re using the storage component of AmplifyJS. It really couldn’t be simpler: to store a value, pass amplify.store a key and the value. To retrieve the value, hand it the key. Underneath, AmplifyJS is storing that key and value in whatever storage type is available on that browser. 

So here, we add a new employee to the array and store the array in the “employees” key. I should note that since we’re storing an array, AmplifyJS is using JSON serialization to convert that array to a string. Therefore, if you’re trying to support browsers without native JSON support (IE 5 and down, Firefox 3 and down), you’ll want to include the json2.js library.


Step 4: Saving to the Server (with amplify.request)
In our little app-example, we’re saying that by default, the data you put into the app is kept only on your computer (in that one browser). However, if the user wants, we’ll allow them to put it up on the server (hypothetically, this is private information they might not want to share; however, if they want to access it from other devices, they could do this.).

We’ll start by adding a button for uploading the data.

<p><button id='push-data' class='btn'>Push Data to Server</button></p>
Now, of course, your brilliant minds have already figured out that we’ll be using AmplifyJS’s AJAX component. amplify.request is an incredibly flexible API, and we won’t be looking at everything it can do. However, you’ll get a good feel for how it works here.

Doing AJAX with AmplifyJS is a bit different than with other libraries: the idea is that first you define a connection to the server; then, you can use that connection any number of times after that. Let’s begin by defining a connection, called a “resource” by AmplifyJS:

amplify.request.define('pushData', 'ajax', {
    url: 'data.php',
    type: 'POST'
});
The first parameter here is resourceId, which we’re setting as “pushData”; this is how we’ll refer to our connection when we’re using it. The second parameter is the request type; in this case, “ajax.” This is the only request type built into AmplifyJS; you can add your own, but this is suitable for our needs today.

Finally, we have an options object. According to the documentation, your settings options are anything you would set in jQuery.ajax, as well as cache (which allows you to set up a custom memory cache) and decoder (for parsing the AJAX response). In our case, only two options are necessary: the url, and the type of request we’re making.

Of course, we’ll need some simple PHP on the back end; make sure the data folder is writable.

data.php
 <?php
   $employees = json_encode($_POST['employees']);
   $file      = fopen('data/data.json','w+');
   fwrite($file, $employees);
   fclose($file);

   echo 'success';
?>
Now, how about using the connection, the resource, we’ve defined? Well, let’s do this in a click handler for that <button id='push-data'>:

$('#push-data').click(function () {
    amplify.request('pushData', { employees: amplify.store('employees') }, function (data) {
        amplify.publish('data-pushed', data);
    });
});
When using the resource, the first parameter is the resource ID; it’s the same resource ID we have the resource we defined, so AmplifyJS knows which to use. Second, we pass data hash. In this case, we pass the content in our store, under the key “employees.” The final parameter is a function that’s called when we get a response.

Once we get a response, we’ll publish the “data-pushed” event. Then, we’ll just alert the user that it worked:

amplify.subscribe('data-pushed', function () {
    newAlert('success', 'Data successfully sent to server');
});

Taking it a Step Further
Well, that’s our little example app. We’ve looked at using all three of AmplifyJS components: amplify.publish / amplify.subscribe, amplify.store, and amplify.request. We’ve covered pretty much all there is to know about the pubsub and store parts (there is a bit more!), but there’s a lot more you can do with the request API. So, go check out the website to learn more!

So, what are your thoughts on AmplifyJS? Like it? Find it too redundant? Let’s hear it in the comments!


    
]]></description>
<dc:subject>JavaScript_&amp;_AJAX</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:d3a13ef639d1/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:JavaScript_&amp;_AJAX"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.webappers.com/2011/10/24/make-your-lists-seachable-sortable-filterable-with-list-js/">
    <title>Make Your Lists Seachable, Sortable &amp; Filterable with List.js</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-24T07:01:52+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.webappers.com/2011/10/24/make-your-lists-seachable-sortable-filterable-with-list-js/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[List.js is a 7 KB cross-browser native JavaScript that makes your plain HTML lists super flexible, searchable, sortable and filterable.
You can add, edit and remove items by dead simple templating. You can also write your own filter functions easily. List.js is free for download and released under MIT License.

Requirements: Javascript enabled Demo: http://listjs.com/ License: MIT License
Related PostsEasy List Splitter Helps You Split a List into Different Columns
jQuery Navigation Control to Manage Alphabetical Lists
Tokenizing Autocomplete Text Entry with TokenInput
How to Create Digg Spy Effect with jQuery
Simple & Easy Interactive Featured Items Widget
SponsorsProfessional Web Icons for Your Websites and Applications

     
]]></description>
<dc:subject>MIT_License Tables</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:d8aa467ecfb1/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:MIT_License"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Tables"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://minimalmac.com/post/11833723471">
    <title>Sumo is an elegant and useful cable management tool designed to...</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-23T20:52:18+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://minimalmac.com/post/11833723471</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[
Sumo is an elegant and useful cable management tool designed to be placed on a desk, tabletop or workstation to prevent cables from dropping off the edge. Sumo acts like a paperweight for your cables and features high-tech Japanese micro-suction pads underneath for even further grip. Cables are now easily weighed down and remain in place yet they can still be repositioned.


Looks like a nice solution. 
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:06f39da1f768/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=30267">
    <title>Why the QR Code Is Failing</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-21T20:02:22+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=30267</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Sean Cummings:



  People will not adopt a technical solution that serves to
replace a manual task, if that solution is less efficient than
the manual task it replaces. How could we think that QR codes
for marketing would work any better than CueCat? Did we not learn
the first time?



QR codes are built for machines, not humans. And they’re ugly.


Update: Mikey-san nails it:



  Robot barf looks like QR codes.




 ★ 
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:7fbda1f1dd1b/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/shawnblanc/~3/sXJ2Eb2nLL0/">
    <title>✚ Using Siri to Add Reminders to a Shared List</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-20T19:14:52+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/shawnblanc/~3/sXJ2Eb2nLL0/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[In my review of the iPhone 4S, I talked a bit about location-based reminders. Particularly, I brought up some use cases that I think could come in very handy for a family.


In Anna’s and my near-seven years of marriage, I don’t know how many times one of us has swung by the store without the other knowing it and then, upon returning home with some groceries in hand, the other says: “Oh! I wish I had known you were going to the store. We’re just out of [some item].”


And so, one thing that would be useful for setting a location-based reminder is if it could be shared. I wrote:



  An example of that in real life could look like this: I’m at home and realize we need batteries. I create the reminder and it syncs to my iPhone and Anna’s. Then, suppose Anna realizes she needs to swing by the store on her way home from work to get an ingredient for dinner. When she gets there a reminder pops up notifying her that we also need batteries.



Come to find out, as Brad McCarty pointed out at The Next Web, shared lists in Reminders app are doable using iCloud. They can only be shared via the iCloud website.


To share a Reminder list, log in to your account on icloud.com, go to the Calendars app, click the round satellite/wi-fi radio beams-looking button that is next to the name of the Reminders list which you want to share (or create a new one for sharing), and then enter the email address of the person (or persons) you wish to share that list with.





The new list will then show up in your Reminders app, and once the person you’re sharing it with accepts the invitation, it will show up in their Reminders app as well. I created a list called “Shared”, that is synced on my iPhone as well as my wife’s. Any reminder I or she creates or checks off on that list will be synced on both of our iPhones.


Now we can share any type of Reminder that the iPhone supports: regular, time-based, and location based.


For shared location-based reminders, it’s important that both people have the same contact names and addresses for certain locations such as Walmart, work, home, the grocery store, etc. Also worth noting is that if I set a shared reminder to check the mail when one of us gets home, the alert will go off on both of our phones as soon as either one of us triggers the reminder, even if the other is still out and about.


So now I have two reminder lists on my iPhone: Reminders (which is my main list), and Shared (the one that Anna and I have synced). By default, Siri creates new reminders in your iPhone’s default list. You can change what the default list is in Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendar → Default List.


I am keeping my own Reminders list as my default list because that’s the one I use most often with Siri. However, I still want to use Siri to add shared reminders on the synced list that Anna and I both have.


Unfortunately, getting Siri to add a reminder to a specific list other than the default list can be tricky. I for one have had quite a difficult time with it.


For example, the following Siri commands in which I am trying to create a reminder on my shared list (which is called “Shared”) all create a task on my default “Reminders” list:



“Create a shared reminder to take out the trash when I get home.”
“Create a reminder on the shared list to take out the trash.”
“Remind me to take out the trash when I get home on the shared list.”


If I ask Siri to “Create a shared list reminder to take out the trash”, Siri will tell me that it cannot create lists.


But, I have found one path of syntax that works. And you have to be pretty specific with it too:



  Me: Remind me to take out the trash when I get home.

  
  Siri: Here’s your reminder. Shall I create it?

  
  Me: Move it to the Shared list.

  
  Siri: Okay. I can add this to your Shared List in Reminders. Shall I go ahead?

  
  Me: Yes.

  
  Siri: Okay. I’ll remind you.






Moreover, it seems that only the phrase “Move it to the [name of other list] list.” will work. If I say “Put it on the shared list” or “change it to the shared list” Siri will not move it. In fact, Siri will change the content of the reminder to “On the Shared List”. Oy.


So, in short, adding reminders to shared lists with Siri does work, but it could use a bit of polish.

]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:3bee8ccaee1c/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://blog.kissmetrics.com/selling-more/">
    <title>6 Steps to Selling More</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-20T17:42:59+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://blog.kissmetrics.com/selling-more/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Properly written e-commerce copy can make a HUGE difference on your website. It’s not uncommon to see proper copywriting increase search traffic by 50% and conversion rates by 30%. 

Quality e-commerce copywriting is vital to the success of any online business. Remember, if you’re selling something online, potential customers can’t see or touch your product — they can only read about it. Keep this in mind when crafting product descriptions and writing copy in general.

Below, we’ve presented 6 steps to selling more through e-commerce copywriting. Courtesy of @smashingmag.

Click on the image below to view an larger version of this infographic:



View an enlarged version of this Infographic »
Click here to download a .pdf version of this infographic.

Want to display this infographic on your site?
Simply copy and paste the code below into the html of your website to display the infographic presented above:


++ Click Image to Enlarge ++Source: 6 Steps to Selling More Infographic


Facts and Stats to Tweet:

It’s not uncommon to see copywriting increase search traffic by 50% and conversion rates by 30%. »tweet«
79% of people scan webpages instead of reading every word. »tweet«
A Forrester study showed that 20% of people had abandoned a purchase because shipping costs were unclear. »tweet«


    
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Conversion</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:0c171f34c25b/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Conversion"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.somegeekintn.com/blog/2011/10/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/">
    <title>Lies, Damned Lies, and App Store Statistics</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-20T16:05:12+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.somegeekintn.com/blog/2011/10/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Interesting analysis of iOS App Store popularity by category, by Casey Fleser. (Via Jamin Guy.)



 ★ 
]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:2027e178a82a/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/20/comprehensive-review-of-usability-and-user-experience-testing-tools/">
    <title>Comprehensive Review Of Usability And User Experience Testing Tools</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-20T14:13:39+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/20/comprehensive-review-of-usability-and-user-experience-testing-tools/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[



        
        
          
        
         
        
          
        
         
        
          
        
      



Usability and user experience testing is vital to creating a successful website, and only more so if it’s an e-commerce website, a complex app or another website for which there’s a definite ROI. And running your own user tests to find out how users are interacting with your website and where problems might arise is completely possible.

But using one of the many existing tools and services for user testing is a lot easier than creating your own. Free, freemium and premium tools are out there, with options for most budgets. The important thing is to find a tool or service that works for your website and then use it to gather real-world data on what works and what doesn’t, rather than relying purely on instinct or abstract theories.

Free And Freemium Tools
A ton of free and freemium tools are out there to test your website’s usability and user experience. Many of them get you to use your existing visitors as a testing base, which can give you a very accurate picture of what users are experiencing when they use you website.

Ethnio
Ethnio enables you to intercept visitors on your website and recruit them to help you with research (you can offer incentives to make participation more enticing). Ethnio acts as a hub for your various UX tools, including Usabilla, Optimal Workshop and UserTesting.com. It even works with GoToMeeting for screen-sharing. You’ll get detailed reports on the people who respond to your recruitment efforts. Ethnio has a free plan that allows for up to 10,000 page views per month and up to 250 responses. Paid packages start at $49 per month (for up to 100,000 page views and 500 responses) and go up to $299 per month (for over 1 million page views per month and unlimited responses plus other features).



Simple Mouse Tracking
Mouse tracking is a great way to see how visitors are actually interacting with your website. This plugin lets you record mouse activity on your Web pages and then replay that activity in real time. It works in virtually all modern and not-so-modern browsers, it works with static and liquid layouts, and it is customizable by the end user.



xSort
xSort is a card-sorting application for Mac OS X. It gives you full control over the exercise, supports sub-groups, gives statistical results in real time, and lets you create, read, print and export reports easily. The visual environment of the app resembles a table with cards (and you also get an outline view).



KISSinsights
KISSinsights lets you embed surveys directly on your website. The free plan offers an unlimited number of surveys, with up to 30 responses for each one. The premium plan, at $29 per month, allows you to customize the surveys and thank-you messages, removes KISSinsights’ branding, and allows for unlimited responses.



FiveSecondTest
FiveSecondTest helps you better design your landing pages and calls to action by analyzing which elements of your design are most prominent. Just upload a screenshot or mockup, set the questions that you want answered, and then wait for users to complete the test. FiveSecondTest collects the responses for you and analyzes them for common keywords, which it then represents visually. The free community plan lets you earn tests by participating in tests run by others. Paid plans start at $20 per month with more features, including private tests.



AddUse
AddUse enables you to conduct user surveys and user tests. You get one of each for free, and then can purchase additional surveys and tests from there. Signing up is quick and easy and doesn’t require a credit card. AddUse offers real-time results and analysis, and also includes ready-to-use usability questions that you can incorporate in your surveys for faster set-up.



UserEcho
UserEcho is a simple widget for collecting customer responses and ideas. Just copy and paste a few lines of code onto your website and then wait for visitors to respond. The free plan offers one forum and one official representative, as well as simple moderation, admin control, rich-content editing and YouTube embedding. Paid plans start at $15 per month and include more forums, more representatives and more features.



Usabilla
Usabilla lets you run micro-usability tests to get a better picture of how well your website performs with visitors. You can collect feedback, discover usability issues, measure how various tasks perform, and then get visual results. The free plan lets you run one public, active test at a time with up to 10 participants. Paid plans start at $49 per month, allowing you to create private tests with up to 50 participants, and go up to $199 a month (allowing up to 10 active tests at a time and up to 250 participants).



Google Website Optimizer
Google’s free Website Optimizer lets you run A/B and multivariate tests on your website. Just sign up with your Google account and create an experiment. You can specify which page you’d like to test and which sections of the page, and then identify your conversion and success targets. Setting up experiments is a straightforward process.



Userfly
Userfly lets you watch videos of users interacting with your website. Just install a single line of code, and it will record every mouse movement and click that users make. The free plan allows up to 10 captures per month and stores recordings for 30 days, while premium plans (ranging in price from $10 to $200 per month) allow for more captures and downloadable recordings.



Clickdensity
Clickdensity is a heat-map analytics tool that installs in under five minutes. It provides heat maps, click maps and hover maps and gives you real-time results. The trial version can be installed on a single page and stores up to 5,000 clicks. Premium plans start at £2.50 per month, and all include an unlimited number of pages.



Navflow
Navflow is a tool for analyzing the conversion paths for your mockups and wireframes. Just upload the designs that you would like to test, run a private or public test, and then view the results. The free plan allows you to earn public tests by participating in tests run by others. Paid plans start at $20 a month and allow you to run unlimited private and public tests.



User Plus
User Plus offers two tools for testing your website’s usability: Tester and Advisor. Tester lets you test the important tasks on your website with real people. Just create a test, invite users and then measure and see what they do. Advisor evaluates your website’s usability based on ISO standards and gives you a usability score. Tester is currently in private beta, and for a limited time you can try it for free. Advisor offers both free and paid plans.



Chalkmark
Chalkmark is for first-click testing, to see what visitors click on first on your website. It’s a simple concept, but vital to ensuring that your website is converting well. A free plan is available for running short surveys on a trial basis before you buy. The free plan lets you survey 10 people, with 3 tasks each. Paid plans include unlimited studies, unlimited tasks, unlimited questionnaires and unlimited participant responses.



4Q
4Q is an online survey tool for evaluating user experience and customer satisfaction. Setting it up takes less than five minutes, and the intuitive suite of online tools gives you valuable insight into how visitors are interacting with your website with only a few mouse clicks. A free plan is available that lets you collect responses from up to 100 participants. Paid plans start at $19 per month and include more features and more responses.



WebSort.net
WebSort.net is a remote card-sorting application. Just create a study, send the link to participants, and wait for the results. You can create a free study with up to 10 participants. Then upgrade whenever you want to include 100 participants or more (starting at $149 per test). You can also buy a three-pack of studies for $299; or buy an enterprise license, with unlimited tests in a 12-month period for $2,499.



Concept Feedback
Concept Feedback lets you get feedback on your website so that you can increase conversion rates. Just post your website, get expert feedback from experienced design, usability and strategy pros, and then share the evaluation with your team or client. You can pay to have experts review your website ($99 per expert), or just get feedback from the community for free.



Premium Tools
Vendors of premium testing tools generally recruit users specifically to offer feedback on your website. Many of the tools come with videos of users interacting with your website, and some offer both remote and local testing.

WhatUsersDo
WhatUsersDo lets you test the user experience of virtually any part of your website. Just set tasks for users to carry out on your website, and then watch and listen to recordings of everything they do and say. Setting up a test takes less than five minutes, and results are available within 48 hours. Pricing is a flat fee of £30 per user, and five users are recommended for each test.



TryMyUI
TryMyUI lets you test your website with real users and watch videos of them using your website. You get to see all of their mouse movements and keystrokes and hear everything they say about your website. Users also provide written answers to your questions. A free trial is available, and the regular price is $35 per test.



Userlytics
Userlytics is a full-featured testing service that guides you through the entire testing process, from designing the study to scheduling tests, managing logistics and incentivizing participation. Pricing starts as low as $59 per participant but goes lower with volume discounts. You’ll also get videos of participants interacting with your website for accurate results.



OpenHallway
With OpenHallway, you create test scenarios, record users either remotely or locally, and then watch video results from your browser. You can share videos with clients or team members, and an unlimited number of projects and test scenarios are allowed within your storage limit. You can try OpenHallway for free, with a test scenario and up to three 10-minute user videos. Regular plans start at $49 per month, which allows for up to 1 GB of storage (3 hours of video), and go up to $199 per month for 9 GB of storage (30 hours of video) and downloadable test results.



GazeHawk
GazeHawk runs eye-tracking studies on any image or website. It offers targeted or general user studies, depending on your needs. The starter plan, which includes a 10-participant study with heat maps and gaze replays, is $495. GazeHawk also offer A/B testing packages ($995 for two 10-participant studies), a professional package with 20 participants for $995, and enterprise solutions for bigger tests.



Silverback
Silverback is downloadable software for your Mac for running user tests. You can capture screen activity, record video of testers’ faces, record their voices, and control recording with the built-in remote. And it’s all exportable to Quicktime. The app is free for the first 30 days, and the full license is $69.95.



Verify
Verify, from Zurb, includes nine different test types: click, memory, mood, preference, annotate, label, multi-page click, and linked. New user tests can be set up in less than three minutes. You can share tests with team members or make them public, and visual reports are included to make decision-making easier. The “Plus” plan is $9 per month and includes unlimited tests, while the “Premium” plan includes demographics reports, linked tests and PDF export. A 30-day free trial is available on all accounts.



Feedback Army
Feedback Army offers cheap and simple usability testing for your website. You can set up a new test in two minutes, submit a question about your website, and get 10 responses from Feedback Army reviewers. And it all costs only $15.



UserTesting.com
For $39, UserTesting.com provides you with video of a visitor as they use your website, speaking their thoughts about their experience. You also get a written summary of the problems they encountered while on the website. Videos are generally about 15 minutes long and can be downloaded for archiving and editing (even embedded on a Web page).



IntuitionHQ
IntuitionHQ lets you sign up and start creating tests for free. Pay only once you start actually running tests (and then it’s only $9 per test). Creating a test simply requires that you upload screenshots and then write tasks for users to complete. Once the test is created and published, you get a URL to share with whoever you want to perform the tests.



Mechanical Turk
While not strictly a usability testing app, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service can be used to gather usability data or feedback from real users. Just set up a “HIT” (human-intelligence task), and then set how much you’re willing to pay people to perform it. You pay only when you’re satisfied with the results.



UserFeel.com
UserFeel.com performs remote usability tests for you, providing videos of users testing your website. Just specify the website that you want to test, set the scenario and tasks, and then watch the videos. Pricing is $39 or less per test, with a 90-day money-back guarantee.



Loop11
Loop11 offers user testing for up to 1000 participants at a time, with an unlimited number of tasks and questions. There’s no time limit and no limit on the number of websites or wireframes you can test. Try Loop11 for free (with a maximum of five tasks and two questions, with data stored for only seven days); after that, tests are $350 each. Tests don’t require any code to be added to the website being tested, which means you can even test competitors’ websites.



ClickTale
ClickTale offers a number of usability testing services, including visitor recordings, click heat maps, mouse movement heat maps, and conversion funnel visualizations. Premium plans start at $99 per month, with full playback and a choice of three out of the four heat maps offered, while other plans (at $290 and $990 per month) include more features. A limited free plan is available to try out the service, as well as enterprise options.



CrazyEgg
CrazyEgg offers heat maps so that you can see exactly how users interact with your website and so increase your sales or leads. In addition to standard heat maps, CrazyEgg also offers scroll maps, confetti (which allows you to distinguish between all of the clicks your website gets, broken down by referral source, search term and other variables), and overlay reports. The basic plan is only $9 a month and includes 10,000 visits per month, up to 10 active pages, and daily reporting. Starting with the “Plus” plan, which is $49 a month, you get hourly reporting.



Webnographer
Webnographer provides remote usability testing services. You can test websites, Web apps, prototypes and intranets with a large number of users anywhere in the world. The tests are unmoderated, so you get honest feedback. And no downloads or website modifications are required to run tests. Pricing is available on request.



Regardless of which tool you choose, the important thing is to recognize the value of user testing. Getting real feedback is an invaluable way to determine which parts of your design work and which don’t. With that information, creating a more user-friendly website that converts better is possible. Usability and user experience testing should be a part of any website redesign project, to ensure that the changes being made will actually have a positive effect.

To streamline the selection process, below is a chart with the key features of each tool, as well as pricing information.





Service
Cost
Tests existing or new users?
Type of testing
Visual reporting?


Ethnio
$0 – $299 per month
Existing
Surveys (a hub for other testing services)
Detailed reports


Simple Mouse Tracking
Free
Existing
Mouse tracking
Yes


xSort
Free
Both
Card-sorting
Yes


KISSinsights
$0 – $29 per month
Existing
Surveys
No


FiveSecondTest
$0 – $200 per month
New
Visual questionnaires
No


AddUse
$0 – $99, depending on number of tests
Existing
Surveys and user tests
Somewhat


UserEcho
$0 – $256 per month
Existing
Surveys
Somewhat


Usabilla
$0 – $199 per month
Existing
Micro-usability
Yes


Google Website Optimizer
Free
Existing
A/B and multivariate tests
No


Userfly
$0 – $200 per month
Existing
Mouse clicks and movement recording
Yes (video)


Clickdensity
$0 – $400 per month
Existing
Heat maps
Yes


Navflow
$0 – $200 per month
New
User paths
Yes


User Plus
$0 – $35+ per month
Both
User testing and usability scoring
Yes


Chalkmark
$0 – $109 per month
Existing
First clicks
Yes


4Q
$0 – $399 per month
Existing
Surveys
Yes


WebSort.net
$0 – $2,499 per year
Both
Card-sorting
Yes


Concept Feedback
Free for community feedback, $99 per expert
New
Expert and community feedback
Yes


WhatUsersDo
£30 per user
New
General usability
Yes


TryMyUI
$35 per test
New
General usability
Yes


Userlytics
$59 per participant
New
General usability
Yes


OpenHallway
$49 – $199 per month
Both
General usability
Yes


GazeHawk
$495 – $995+ per test
New
General usability, including heat maps
Yes


Silverback
$69.95
Both
General usability
Yes


Verify
$9 – $29 per month
Existing
Nine types of usability tests
Yes


Feedback Army
$20 per test
New
Surveys
No


UserTesting.com
$39 per user
New
General usability
Yes


IntuitionHQ
$9 per test
Both
Screenshot surveys, including A/B tests
Yes


Mechanical Turk
Varies
New
Surveys
No


UserFeel.com
$39 per test
New
General usability
Yes


Loop11
$350 per project
Both
General usability
Yes


ClickTale
$99 – $990 per month
Existing
Heat maps
Yes


Crazy Egg
$9 – $99 per month
Existing
Heat maps
Yes


Webnographer
Unknown
New
General usability
Unknown



(al)


© Cameron Chapman for Smashing Magazine, 2011.
]]></description>
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    <title>Amazon Item of the Week: Surefire 6PX PRO</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-19T21:31:47+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://d.pr/CK5D</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[There are flashlights and then there are flashlights. This is the latter. A dual LED output with the low beam clocking in at 15-lumens and the high beam hitting a blinding 200-lumens. If you have never seen a Surefire flashlight before, then you are really missing out.
This thing is rock solid and sturdy — I just bought mine a month ago to replace another incandescent Surefire I had purchased over 5 years ago. This flashlight is really, really amazing. If you are a camper, photo light painter, gadget hound, or other — this is the flashlight you want. 1
Seriously, I love this thing.
∞
I was not paid to say any of this.]]></description>
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    <title>Optimizing Long Lists Of Yes/No Values With JavaScript</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-19T20:05:48+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/19/optimizing-long-lists-of-yesno-values-with-javascript-2/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[



        
        
          
        
         
        
          
        
         
        
          
        
      



Very frequently in Web development (and programming in general), you need to store a long list of boolean values (yes/no, true/false, checked/unchecked… you get the idea) into something that accepts only strings. Maybe it’s because you want to store them in localStorage or in a cookie, or send them through the body of an HTTP request. I’ve needed to do this countless times.

The last time I stumbled on such a case wasn’t with my own code. It was when Christian Heilmann showed me his then new slide deck, with a cool feature where you could toggle the visibility of individual slides in and out of the presentation. On seeing it, I was impressed. Looking more closely, though, I realized that the checkbox states did not persist after the page reloaded. So, someone could spend a long time carefully tweaking their slides, only to accidentally hit F5 or crash their browser, and then — boom! — all their work would be lost. Christian told me that he was already working on storing the checkbox states in localStorage. Then, naturally, we endlessly debated the storage format. That debate inspired me to write this article, to explore the various approaches in depth.

Using An Array
We have two (reasonable) ways to model our data in an array. One is to store true/false values, like so:


[false, true, true, false, false, true, true]

The other is to store an array of 0s and 1s, like so:


[0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1]

Whichever solution we go with, we will ultimately have to convert it to a string, and then convert it back to an array when it is read. We have two ways to proceed: either with the old Array#join() (or Array#toString()) and String#split(), or with the fancier JSON.stringify() and JSON.parse().

With the JSON way, the code will be somewhat shorter, although it is the JavaScript equivalent of slicing bread with a chainsaw. Not only there is a performance impact in most browsers, but you’re also cutting down browser support quite a bit.

The main drawback of using array-based strings is their size in bytes. If you go with the number method, you would use almost 2 characters per number (or, more precisely, 2N − 1, since you’d need one delimiter per number, except for the last one):


[0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1].toString().length // 13, for 7 values

So, for 512 numbers, that would be 1023 characters or 2 KB, since JavaScript uses UTF-16. If you go with the boolean method, it’s even worse: 


[false, true, true, false, false, true, true].toString().length // 37, also for 7 values

That’s around 5 to 6 characters per value, so 2560 to 3072 characters for 512 numbers (which is 5 to 6 KB). JSON.stringify() even wastes 2 more characters in each case, for the opening and closing brackets, but its advantage is that you get your original value types back with JSON.parse() instead of strings.

Using A String
Using a string saves some space, because no delimiters are involved. For example, if you go with the number approach and store strings like '01001101010111', you are essentially storing one character per value, which is 100% better than the better of the two previous approaches. You can then get the values into an array by using String#split:


'01001101010111'.split(''); // ['0','1','0','0','1','1','0','1','0','1','0','1','1','1']

Or you could just loop over the string using string.charAt(i) — or even the string indexes (string[i]), if you don’t care about older browsers.

Using Bitfields
Did the previous method make you think of binary numbers? It’s not just you. The concept of bitfields is quite popular in other programming languages, but not so much in JavaScript. In a nutshell, bitfields are used to pack a lot of boolean values into the bits of the boolean representation of a number. For example, if you have eight values (true, false, false, true, false, true, true, false), the number would be 10010110 in binary; so, 150 in decimal and 96 in hex. That’s 2 characters instead of 8, so 75% saved. In general, 1 digit in the hex representation corresponds to exactly 4 bits. (That’s because 16 = 24. In general, in a base2n system, you can pack n bits into every base2n digit.) So, we weren’t lucky with that 75%; it’s always that much.

Thus, instead of storing that string as a string and using 1 character per value, we can be smarter and convert it to a (hex) number first. How do we do that? It’s no more than a line of code:


parseInt('10010110', 2).toString(16); // returns '96'

And how do we read it back? That’s just as simple:


parseInt('96', 16).toString(2); // returns  '10010110'

From this point on, we can follow the same process as the previous method to loop over the values and do something useful with them.

Can We Do Better?
In fact, we can! Why convert it to a hex (base 16) number, which uses only 6 of the 26 alphabet letters? The Number#toString() method allows us to go up to base 36 (throwing a RangeError for >= 37), which effectively uses all letters in the alphabet, all the way up to z! This way, we can have a compression of up to 6 characters for 32 values, which means saving up to 81.25% compared to the plain string method! And the code is just as simple:


parseInt( '1001011000', 2).toString(36); // returns 'go' (instead of '258', which would be the hex version)
parseInt('go', 36).toString(2); // returns  '1001011000'

For some of you, this will be enough. But I can almost hear the more inquisitive minds out there shouting, “But we have capital letters, we have other symbols, we are still not using strings to their full potential!” And you’d be right. There is a reason why every time you open a binary file in a text editor, you get weird symbols mixed with numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters and whatnot. Every character in an UTF-16 string is a 2 bytes (16 bits), which means that if we use the right compression algorithm, we should be able to store 16 yes/no values in it (saving 93.75% from the string method).

The problem is that JavaScript doesn’t offer a built-in way to do that, so the code becomes a bit more complicated.

Packing 8 Values Into One Character
You can use String.fromCharCode to get the individual characters. It accepts a numerical value of up to 65,535 and returns a character (and for values greater than that, it returns an empty string).

So, we have to split our string into chunks of 16 characters in size. We can do that through .match(/.{1,16}/g). To sum up, the full solution would look like this:


function pack(/* string */ values) {
    var chunks = values.match(/.{1,16}/g), packed = '';
    for (var i=0; i < chunks.length; i++) {
        packed += String.fromCharCode(parseInt(chunks[i], 2));
    }
    return packed;
}

function unpack(/* string */ packed) {
    var values = '';
    for (var i=0; i < packed.length; i++) {
        values += packed.charCodeAt(i).toString(2);
    }
    return values;
}

It wasn’t that hard, was it?

With these few lines of code, you can pack the aforementioned 512 values into — drum roll, please — 32 characters (64 bytes)!

Quite an improvement over our original 2 KB (with the array method), isn’t it?

Limitations
Numbers in JavaScript have limits. For the methods discussed here that involve an intermediate state of converting to a number, the limit appears to be 1023 yes/no values, because parseInt('1111…1111', 2) returns Infinity when the number of aces is bigger than 1023. This limit does not apply to the last method, because we’re only converting blocks of bits instead of the whole thing. And, of course, it doesn’t apply to the first two methods (array and string) because they don’t involve packing the values into an integer.

“I Think You Took It A Bit Too Far”
This might be overkill for some cases. But it will definitely come in handy when you want to store a lot of boolean values in any limited space that can only store strings. And no optimization is overkill for things that go through the wire frequently. For example, cookies are sent on every single request, so they should be as tiny as possible. Another use case would be online multiplayer games, for which response times should be lightning-fast, otherwise the games wouldn’t be fun.

And even if this kind of optimization isn’t your thing, I hope you’ve found the thought process and the code involved educational.

(al)

Thanks to Eli Grey and Jonas Wagner for their advice and corrections

Image on front page created by Ruiwen Chua.


© Lea Verou for Smashing Magazine, 2011.
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Coding</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:64e80c1a2953/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Coding"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://codevisually.com/wordpress-widget-boilerplate-an-organized-maintainable-boilerplate-for-building-wp-widgets/">
    <title>WordPress Widget Boilerplate – An organized, maintainable boilerplate for building WP widgets</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-19T15:46:52+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://codevisually.com/wordpress-widget-boilerplate-an-organized-maintainable-boilerplate-for-building-wp-widgets/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[The WordPress Widget Boilerplate ships with both JavaScript sources and stylesheets for both the administrator and the client-side views. It provides a basic localization file to make it easy to localize the plugin. It also includes a stubbed out README that follows WordPress conventions.
Each file of the plugin and each method of the core code is clearly documented for its purpose in the overall plugin. Additionally, the core code includes various TODO’s to make it easy for your IDE to locate everything you need to populate when working on your plugin.
It is based on the WordPress API in order to enforce best practices when building on top of the WordPress platform.



Homepage: http://moreco.de/wordpress-widget-boilerplate/
GitHub: https://github.com/tommcfarlin/WordPress-Widget-Boilerplate


    
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Wordpress IDE README TODO WP</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:3742e70b89c1/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Wordpress"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:IDE"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:README"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:TODO"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:WP"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/10/19/347495/another-9-9-9-distributional-analysis-chart/">
    <title>Another 9-9-9 Distributional Analysis Chart</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-19T13:15:09+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/10/19/347495/another-9-9-9-distributional-analysis-chart/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Neil Klopfenstein offers us another visualization of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan based on the Tax Policy Center’s analysis:



Here instead of looking at dollar amounts, we look relative to income and the picture gets clearer. I should reiterate again that there’s some dispute over the TPC’s methodology for calculating the distributive impact of consumption taxes. Their view, as I understand it, is that in the infinite horizon, all income is consumed, so a consumption tax is equivalent to a flat payroll tax. With the methodology my colleagues on the CAP econ team prefer, which looks more literally at the incidence as the new system phases in, the Cain plan is even more regressive. 



]]></description>
<dc:subject>General Yglesias Herman_Cain</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:566f9a72c752/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:General"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Yglesias"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Herman_Cain"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/19/free-e-commerce-wordpress-theme-balita/">
    <title>Free E-Commerce WordPress Theme: Balita</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-19T10:32:00+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/19/free-e-commerce-wordpress-theme-balita/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[



        
        
          
        
         
        
          
        
         
        
          
        
      



In this post we release yet another freebie: the Balita WordPress theme, a theme dedicated to shops that sell products for children. The theme was designed by Tokokoo and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. As usual, the theme is absolutely free to use for both private and commerical projects.

Not many theme providers have produced e-commerce themes for baby and toddler products. For you who have been working in this particular market niche for some time or are about to start, this Balita e-commerce theme is a great opportunity for you. Using such bright and cheerful pantone colors that suit this clothes department (baby/toddler products), this Balita e-commerce theme will surely attract more and more customers to your online store.

Download the Theme for Free!
The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish.

Large Preview


Live Demo
Large Preview (.jpg, 0,17 Mb)
Download the .zip-package (zip, 16 Mb, including instructions)

Balita Theme: Features

WordPress E-Commerce Plugin: It will help you generate your e-commerce store on a WordPress platform. The Balita WordPress theme uses a powerful plugin to encourage the functionality of WordPress used.
jQuery Slider: It helps potential customers to generate general information about your online store and its products at a quick glance.
Custom Shopping Cart: The custom shopping cart notifies customers about the total amount of items and pricing within their shopping carts.
Product List With Grid View: Customers can easily compare the general overview and price of the products.
HTML5 + CSS3 Optimized: Latest tech weapons for the prime look of your online store.
Ads Banner: Show off, promote, sell ads… anything! Each inch on your website is worth the attention.
Product Slider: Our aim is to make e-Commerce as interesting and as profitable for you as possible. If you wish to have a vivid description for your product showcases, product slider will be a good match.
Zoomable Product Images: Allow your customers to get a closer look at your product. Your customers want to see high-detailed pictures of your product when making purchase decisions.
Search Products: It helps shoppers to find and buy products on your site without having to browse each and every page. You can place an input text form on the sidebar that allows shoppers to quickly and easily find your site.
Blog Integration: This is a powerful tool on the Web to help build trust and provide updates for people who could be your potential clients. The theme already provides you with this feature — all you have to so is prepare the contents.
Related Products: The idea of cross-selling basically means offering alternatives and additions to the current product which are considered. The most common way of doing this is by presenting within the site’s product details page, which is usually manually assigned. This may be known as the “Related Products” or “Similar Products” page, but might also be a manually assigned “Accessories” page or even more generic recommendations using the titles “May We Suggest” or “You May Also Like”.
Multiple Product Images: Do you happen to have a lot images for particular products which you sell on your online store? No problem. This theme and its functions will help and let you upload multiple images at once for the products you sell.
Multiple Widget Areas: You can place widgets on any suggested area. Otherwise, all of our themes support widget allocation almost anywhere, but not limited to the sidebar.
Facebook Page Integration: This feature enables you to market your products through one of the biggest social networks around the world. Reach the highest sales potential with this Facebook integration feature.

Large Preview

Large Preview

Capture Left Side (Large Preview)

Footer Left (Large Preview)

Footer Widget (Large Preview)

Logo Nav (Large Preview)

Right Nav Cart (Large Preview)

Single Add to Cart (Large Preview)

Single Full (Large Preview)

Single Preview (Large Preview)

Single Sidebar (Large Preview)

Slider Nav (Large Preview)

Visible Area (Large Preview)

Behind the Design
As always, here are some insights from the designers:

“We designed the brand logo section as well as the navigation below to be very clear so that this theme looks neat and attractive. We made the single product page to look clean so users would concentrate more on products and thus is free of distractions. Contents are on the left side, while the add-to-cart button are on the right side, beside the contents. 

Don’t miss the opportunity to get this free Balita Theme because there are not many ways you can get a free premium theme everyday. Last but not least, once again, thank you Smashing Magazine for the opportunity.”

Thank you, Tokokoo. We appreciate your work and your good intentions!


© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Freebies E-Commerce themes</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:8b6d37cbe392/</dc:identifier>
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	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:E-Commerce"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:themes"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://designm.ag/designer-showcase/28-fresh-e-mail-newsletter-designs-for-graphic-inspiration/">
    <title>28 Fresh E-mail Newsletter Designs for Graphic Inspiration</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-17T03:17:58+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://designm.ag/designer-showcase/28-fresh-e-mail-newsletter-designs-for-graphic-inspiration/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Webmasters are often wise to consider running a small e-mail newsletter. There are tons of free systems such as MailChimp which automatically collect subscribers and send out messages for you. But one aspect which does require some work is the design and layout.
Most e-mail messages are written in basic HTML code. Campaign [...]]]></description>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:71b87a6c125c/</dc:identifier>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/10/no-mobile-site-no-more-excuses/">
    <title>No mobile site? No more excuses!</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-13T09:51:30+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/10/no-mobile-site-no-more-excuses/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Considering the growth of the mobile web, not having a mobile accessible version of your website is akin to ignoring a huge segment of the internet population.]]></description>
<dc:subject>Smashing_Network</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:4761cc96a194/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Smashing_Network"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.onextrapixel.com/2011/10/12/build-your-own-qr-code-generator-with-google-chart-api/">
    <title>Build Your Own QR Code Generator with Google Chart API</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-12T11:30:21+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.onextrapixel.com/2011/10/12/build-your-own-qr-code-generator-with-google-chart-api/</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[
QR code has become more and more popular since it enables us to grab information instantly using a smart phone. It saves us time from typing a long reluctant URL to a small phone browser; Smart phones will auto dial a number by scanning a QR code using a QR code scanner. 


Image credit: Spiralshannon

As a developer, have you ever wonder how to build your own QR code generator? With the power of Google Chart API, building a QR code generator might be much easier than you thought.
Let us get started! 

Before We Start
At the end of this tutorial, you will build your own QR code generator similar to below: 



Demo Download
Preparation
Create two php files called index.php and gen.php. 


index.php: this will be the front page where users select size, encoding and error correction of the generated QR code image. And it is also the place to enter data for QR code.
gen.php: this page will request data from Google Charts API. And it is called from index.php above using an iframe.

File: index.php

<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<div id="container">
    <h1>QR code generator</h1>
    <div id="generator">
        <form target="qrcode-frame" action="gen.php" method="post">
          <fieldset>
            <legend>Size:</legend>
             <input type="radio" name="size" value="150x150" checked>150x150<br>
             <input type="radio" name="size" value="200x200">200x200<br>
             <input type="radio" name="size" value="250x250">250x250<br>
             <input type="radio" name="size" value="300x300">300x300<br>
          </fieldset>
          <fieldset>
            <legend>Encoding:</legend>
            <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="UTF-8" checked>UTF-8<br>
            <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="Shift_JIS">Shift_JIS<br>
            <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="ISO-8859-1">ISO-8859-1<br>
          </fieldset>
          <fieldset>
            <legend>Content:</legend>
            <textarea name="content"></textarea>
          </fieldset>
          <fieldset>
            <legend>Error correction:</legend>
            <select name="correction">
                <option value="L" selected>L</option>
                <option value="M">M</option>
                <option value="Q">Q</option>
                <option value="H">H</option>
            </select>
          </fieldset>
          <input type="submit" value="Generate"></input>
        </form>
    </div>
    <div id="result">
        <iframe name="qrcode-frame" frameborder="0"  id="qrcode" src="gen.php" height="315px;" width="350px"></iframe>
    </div>
</div>

</body>
</html>

First part of the code above is an HTML form with available options which will be passed to create the QR code image. Take note the form's target attribute's value is qrcode-frame. This tells the form to submit through an iframe.


<div id="generator">
<form target="qrcode-frame" action="gen.php" method="post">
    <fieldset>
        <legend>Size:</legend>
        <input type="radio" name="size" value="150x150" checked>150x150<br>
        <input type="radio" name="size" value="200x200">200x200<br>
        <input type="radio" name="size" value="250x250">250x250<br>
        <input type="radio" name="size" value="300x300">300x300<br>
    </fieldset>
    <fieldset>
        <legend>Encoding:</legend>
        <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="UTF-8" checked>UTF-8<br>
        <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="Shift_JIS">Shift_JIS<br>
        <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="ISO-8859-1">ISO-8859-1<br>
    </fieldset>
    <fieldset>
        <legend>Content:</legend>
        <textarea name="content"></textarea>
    </fieldset>
    <fieldset>
        <legend>Error correction:</legend>
            <select name="correction">
                <option value="L" selected>L</option>
                <option value="M">M</option>
                <option value="Q">Q</option>
                <option value="H">H</option>
            </select>
     </fieldset>
     <input type="submit" value="Generate"></input>
</form>
</div>

Second part of the code above is an iframe which will be used to submit the form. The reason we are using iframe here is to let users constantly generate QR code without refreshing the page.


<div id="result">
    <iframe name="qrcode-frame" frameborder="0"  id="qrcode" src="gen.php" height="315px;" width="350px"></iframe>
</div>

Now view index.php from your browser. It should look like something below. 



It does not look very good with the current plain CSS style; let us add some CSS style to the page. We will not discuss details of CSS styles here, since this tutorial is more focus on the PHP part. 


<html>
<head>
<style>
body{
    width:100%;
    margin:0px;
    padding:0px;
}
#container{
    font-family: Arial, serif;
    font-size:12px;
    padding-top:20px;
    width:700px;
    margin: auto;
}
form{
    width:300px;
    padding: 0px;
    margin: 0px;
}
form textarea{
    font-family: Arial, serif;
    font-size:12px;
    width:270px;
    margin:5px;
    height:40px;
    overflow: hidden;
}
iframe{
    border:1px solid #DDD;
}
#generator{
    width: 300px;
    float:left;
}
#generator fieldset{
    border:1px solid #DDD;
}
#result{
    padding-top:7px;
    margin-left:340px;
    width: 350px;
}
</style>
</head>

<body>
<div id="container">
    <h1>QR code generator</h1>
    <div id="generator">
        <form target="qrcode-frame" action="gen.php" method="post">
          <fieldset>
            <legend>Size:</legend>
             <input type="radio" name="size" value="150x150" checked>150x150<br>
             <input type="radio" name="size" value="200x200">200x200<br>
             <input type="radio" name="size" value="250x250">250x250<br>
             <input type="radio" name="size" value="300x300">300x300<br>
          </fieldset>
          <fieldset>
            <legend>Encoding:</legend>
            <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="UTF-8" checked>UTF-8<br>
            <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="Shift_JIS">Shift_JIS<br>
            <input type="radio" name="encoding" value="ISO-8859-1">ISO-8859-1<br>
          </fieldset>
          <fieldset>
            <legend>Content:</legend>
            <textarea name="content"></textarea>
          </fieldset>
          <fieldset>
            <legend>Error correction:</legend>
            <select name="correction">
                <option value="L" selected>L</option>
                <option value="M">M</option>
                <option value="Q">Q</option>
                <option value="H">H</option>
            </select>
          </fieldset>
          <input type="submit" value="Generate"></input>
        </form>
    </div>
    <div id="result">
        <iframe name="qrcode-frame" frameborder="0"  id="qrcode" src="gen.php" height="315px;" width="350px"></iframe>
    </div>
</div>

</body>
</html>

Now view index.php again from your browser, now it should look better as below: 



File: gen.php
Copy and paste following code into gen.php.


<?php
//1
if(isset($_REQUEST['content'])){
    //2
    $size          = $_REQUEST['size'];
    $content       = $_REQUEST['content'];
    $correction    = strtoupper($_REQUEST['correction']);
    $encoding      = $_REQUEST['encoding'];

    //3
    $rootUrl = "https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=$size&chl=$content&choe=$encoding&chld=$correction";

    //4
    echo '<img src="'.$rootUrl.'">';
}
?>


Do request only if there is a data posted to the page.
Capture data using $_REQUEST and store them in different variables.
Construct a Goolge Charts API URL, and append captured data above to the URL.
Print out a img tag with src equals to the Google Charts API created previously.

Generate Your Own QR Code Now!
That is all, now your own QR code generator should be fully working. Navigate index.php from your browser and enter some data in content filed, select your desired options and click "generate" button.
You should be able to see a QR code being created instantly.

50 Handy CSS Tools And Generators for Developers10 Web Apps For A More Seamless Workflow Online10 Tools To Make The Most Of Twitter25 Handy Freelance Web Designer Tools
Written by: Xu Ding for Onextrapixel - Showcasing Web Treats Without A Hitch | 10 comments

Post Topic(s): Development


     
]]></description>
<dc:subject>Development javascript tools</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:eb0383c2ec2b/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Development"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:javascript"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:tools"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.netmagazine.com/features/ethan-marcottes-20-favourite-responsive-sites">
    <title>Ethan Marcotte’s 20 favourite responsive sites</title>
    <dc:date>2011-10-11T10:00:00+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.netmagazine.com/features/ethan-marcottes-20-favourite-responsive-sites</link>
    <dc:creator>pesh2000</dc:creator><description><![CDATA[Ethan Marcotte, the father of responsive web design, has compiled a whole folder of responsive sites, each as flexible and foxy as the last. Here he rounds up 20 of his favourites]]></description>
<dc:subject>Smashing_Network</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/b:8426ecfe353f/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:pesh2000/t:Smashing_Network"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
</rdf:RDF>