Nice Tutorial: CSS Decorative Gallery

Stumbled across this in my pile ‘o feeds… nice collection of css-based image decorations for galleries (or whatever you want). Check out the tutorial over at Web Designer Wall:
CSS Decorative Gallery

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May

2008

A Peek Into Yahoo! BrowserPlus

This looks like it has a lot of promise… BrowserPlus is a platform for extending the Web: an end-user installs it and a developer uses its features through a small JavaScript library. Some of the features that exist in the platform today include:

Drag-and-drop from the desktop
Client-side image manipulation (cropping, rotation & filters)
Desktop notifications

Check out the full article:
A Peek Into Yahoo! BrowserPlus

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May

2008

Announcing AJAX Libraries API: Speed up your Ajax apps with Google’s infrastructure

Very simply put, it’s about damn time! Check out the announcement article over at Ajaxian:
Google AJAX Libraries API

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May

2008

AtMail = Awesome (Open-Source Webmail)

I’ve been aware of AtMail for a while, but it was always a bit ho-hum… Looks like they’ve made huge steps since I last looked at the project, and I think they’re worth a look:
AtMail Open-Source Web Mail

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May

2008

Seam Carving and Imagick

Wasn’t really aware of seam carving until today, but I must say it’s pretty damn cool. I can’t really explain it quickly, but Mikko does post a link to a nice youtube video that shows it off and explains it. What’s really exciting is that it will be (or perhaps is) going to be available for PHP via new versions of ImageMagick and Imagick. Check it out:
Seam Carving @ Mikko’s Blog

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Quickies & Cool Stuff

Web Developer Collection: Packaged up Firefox extensions

Mozilla announced a new feature for add-ons today: collections. It also looks like they’re getting the ball rolling with several useful collections, such as the Web Developer Collection. It includes all sorts of goodness like Firebug, ySlow, GreaseMonkey, ColorZilla, and many more. Well worth a quick visit.
FireFox Web Developer Collection

MooTools ScrollSpy – Surprising Useful JS Plugin

David Walsh has put together a really handy plugin for MooTools called ScrollSpy. What impressed me the most was the automatic display of a “Return to Top” link on your page once you’ve scrolled beyond a certain boundary. There are also a handful of other neat demos worth checking out. Sounds simple, but if you think about it, there are tons of great applications for this plugin.
http://davidwalsh.name/scrollspy

jQuery vs. MooTools – Finally, a Useful & Subjective JS Framework Comparison

It’s been said a thousand times I’m sure, but picking the right JavaScript framework is a pain. There are all sorts of biased arguments for one vs. another, but there’s really nothing subjective out there… until now. Arguably, jQuery is probably the most popular JS framework out in the wild, but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best choice. What you choose should really depend on what you’re trying to do. Aaron Newton of Clientcide has put together a really impressive look at jQuery vs. MooTools, which doesn’t categorically say one is better than the other, but, rather, goes into detail about why one framework is better than the other based on your needs. Definitely worth a read:
www.jqueryvsmootools.com

Doctrine – PHP Object Relational Mapper

ORM is certainly a very popular concept these days, but I haven’t really come across any PHP implementations that I found worth-while. Sure, big frameworks like CakePHP may have ORM functionality, but I’m not a fan of huge frameworks. I’ve also dabbled in my own implementations, but never got too far, as I’m not a fan of re-inventing the wheel. At any rate, I stumbled across Doctrine by accident (good ol’ RSS readers), and am impressed, mostly because it’s something that can be integrated into existing projects / frameworks.
www.doctrine-project.org

Preloaders.net – Fantastic Preload Image Generator

Ajaxload.info used to be the site of choice when it came to generating preloader images… unfortunately, I think it’s been bested. Preloaders.net allows you to generate not only the standard set of preloaders, but even 3D ones! You also get much more control (size, speed, etc.) and the quality of the final images is impressive. Definitely worth checking out.
www.preloaders.net