15 Awesome web design & development sites you should know about
This is a small list of invaluable websites I use to further my knowledge of everything web and to help out with inspiration, tools, resources and tutorials. It’s a list not aimed at any one facet of web design and development, but the many facets and processes that make a website possible.
It is becoming more and more important to at least have a basic understanding of all the information that goes into making a fantastic website. Knowing limitations and pushing those limits makes web design and development fun, interesting, and challenging. If you work in this field you probably already know that web work is all about constantly learning new technologies, tools, tips and tricks.
Bespin, web design in the cloud
Mozilla Labs released a really exciting Open Source project this month called Bespin. It’s still in an extremely early alpha stage right now, but it looks promising and really gets the imagination going. There’s a great video by the developers about what Bespin is all about, but the real highlight is near the end when they talk about different scenarios in which Bespin could be used.
Quick! Stop writing your blog, it’s so 2004
According to Wired writer Paul Boutin we Bloggers should all pack up our bags and move along. In his article “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004” he does hit on a lot of valid points, but there are also glaring oversights. Either this is link bait and I’ve taken it hook line and sinker or this guy is seriously out of touch with the Blogsphere.
Poverty, we can make a difference – Blog Action Day 2008
I am a little late with this, but today was Blog Action Day 2008, and this years topic is another issue I am passionate about and that’s poverty. I try to give aid whenever there is a terrible disaster somewhere and I have a sponsored child through World Vision. Late last year I sponsored a second child for my Mother. It’s a strange feeling doing something like this, although it feels great knowing you are helping in a very small way, it also makes you very sad to know that people live in such poverty, especially children.
Facebook was redesigned and you don’t like it – Get over it!
Lets face it, most of us hate change, even if it is for the better or in the form of progress. You hear it all the time with technology, “Oh who really needs that”, or “The Internet is a fad”. Sometimes it’s something smaller like oh… I don’t know… “I hate the new Facebook design!“.
Twitter manga mania with FaceYourManga
It seems like FaceYourManga.com has gone mega viral, so viral that one by one my Twitter buddies are being transformed into their cartoon equivalents.
FaceYourManga is a site where you can create a manga / anime style avatar of yourself. The sheer number of options from the type of head you want, colour of skin, and other characteristics like beards, glasses, lines and sideburns leaves ample room for creativity. Only a few of my Twitter followers have converted themselves into cartoons, but so far they do look a lot like there real human counter parts.
Anyone can make one and within moments of completion your new avatar will be emailed to you. Be warned though that you cannot go back and edit your avatar once completed. This would be a nice feature and would probably make the site a little more sticky. This one drawback is why mine has brown eyes instead of blue.
Although this trend may be short lived, it’s kind of cool seeing all these unique cartoons of people you know showing up everywhere, so go try it out, it only takes a few minutes to create one.
Scrabulous is back! Well sort of
The makers of the incredibly popular Scrabulous application for Facebook were told to remove the application or face legal action by Hasbro, the makers of the original dusty Scrabble board. Hasbro lacking any vision of their own waited until they had their own Scrabble application. Reports are saying that this application is not near as polished as Scrabulous was.
Gravatars, what are they and how do I get one?
A few days ago I added Gravatar functionality to my blog. A Gravatar is a unique picture or icon of yourself which is stored online and globally accessible by blogs that implement Gravatar, or globally recognized avatar. When you post or comment to Gravatar enabled blogs your own avatar will show up on that blog if you have signed up for one on the Gravatar site. It’s a nice way of making your posts more unique and personalized.
Twitter vomit—a great way to get removed
I recently started using Twitter. For the longest time I couldn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. Now I get it, and I like using it. It’s a great networking tool, and a cool way to follow industry leaders and pass around breaking news that you care about. To me Twitter is different from many other social media sites out there because it’s not overloaded with tools and apps I don’t need. Twitter is so simple and I think that’s why it has taken off.
Openmoko Neo FreeRunner
Wow, a lot of smart phone news lately. Yesterday another really interesting phone was released called the Neo FreeRunner for use with Openmoko. The actual phone is made by First International Computer a Taiwanese computer and components manufacturer. The Openmoko project was started by the founders of FIC. The about section of the site describes the project as:
Openmoko is open.
Open to life, desire, function, and simple beauty. Never closed, perfect, or complete. An empty vessel, ready to be filled with your ideas.
