15 great HTML5 and CSS3 generators HTML5 and CSS3 are great languages to start off learning with, and I’ve always thought that one of the best ways to start learning is to just dive in and manipulate the code. As you could probably tell, this is where generators step in. They are a great way to generate some code, play with it, and learn. Not only that, they are incredibly useful because often times as a developer or designer we find we are doing things over and over again. As an example, I have a text-expander snippet that creates an HTML5 template that I wrote about here. I will say that most of this list is going to focus on CSS3 generators, simply because they are in demand more than HTML5 generators, and we will learn why. CSS3 Generators There is a somewhat negative connotation when it comes to these generators, and I have to say that as a designer and developer there is nothing negative about using one. General Generators This section will focus on generators that take care of the broad spectrum needs and usages.
A beginner’s guide to building botnets—with little assembly required Have a plan to steal millions from banks and their customers but can't write a line of code? Want to get rich quick off advertising click fraud but "quick" doesn't include time to learn how to do it? No problem. Everything you need to start a life of cybercrime is just a few clicks (and many more dollars) away. Building successful malware is an expensive business. In the process, these big botnet platforms have created a whole ecosystem of software and services in an underground market catering to criminals without the skills to build it themselves. The customers of these services often plan more for the short term than the long game played by the big cyber-crime rings. So how easy is it to get into the botnet business? To assemble your list for some of the simplest get-rich-quick schemes, all you need is about $600, a little spare time, and no compunctions about breaking laws to make a profit. It looks like you’re trying to build a botnet… The marketplace of (bad) ideas
3 Quick Ways to Show Attention to Detail in Web Design With today’s current design trends I’m of the view that attention to detail is perhaps the most important part of any design, be it web or print. In this article, I’m going to exhibit a few examples of designs on the web that lack that little bit of detail that would make the websites a much more pleasant place to explore. Disclaimer “By no means am I saying that I’m perfect” I must point out that I’m not criticizing anything anyone has done in the past, I’m merely telling you what I’d do to make the design more detailed and a better experience for the user when they use the site. For example: The comments section of Dribbble doesn’t have a maximum width so you can manipulate the look of the website with no trouble. Like the article? Text Areas Text areas were the first element that caught my eye and gave me the idea to write this post so I’ll start here. This example is somewhat ironic as it comes from the popular design sharing website, Dribbble. The Fix I would convert this to: Bonus Tip
Best Slideshow (Content Slider) Plugins for WordPress UPDATE Feb 2012: We’ve reviewed all the newest sliders for this year, you can now check out our review of best slideshow (content sliders) plugins for WordPress in 2012. UPDATE Jan 2012: Check out the Sugar Slider, it’s the most awesome slider for WordPress at the moment, the management interface is just amazing! uBillboard is another hot one, more in depth reviews coming soon. Content sliders, slideshows, rotating images, call them what you want, these effects are here to stay. They are excellent at showcasing your portfolio, or to highlight some of the best content on your site/blog. At the moment the Flash-powered sliders are simply too good to be matched by their JQuery-powered competitors. 1. CU3ER is a 3D image slider that is easy to set up, fully customizable, tailored to provide a unique look and feel, inspiring, and fun to use. CU3ER brings creativity to your web design process, makes your slideshows visually and interactively stunning, and delivers a unique 3D user experience.
Base Need reasons to love Bootstrap? Look no further. By nerds, for nerds. Built at Twitter by @mdo and @fat, Bootstrap utilizes LESS CSS, is compiled via Node, and is managed through GitHub to help nerds do awesome stuff on the web. Made for everyone. Bootstrap was made to not only look and behave great in the latest desktop browsers (as well as IE7!) Social Media Design Cheat Sheet 2019 (Updated Infographic) If you’ve been active on social media for a while, or you just made your accounts, you’ll realize that when it comes social media, visual content and social media go together like French fries and dip sauce, and all comes down to the last pixel. Social networks are constantly adding up more features, visual elements, and it seems like every day when you wake up, you see a new element or iteration being made to the social networks you are active, making you go back and figure out the right size of cover images, post images and align your campaign according to the latest set of changes. It has become extremely difficult for businesses to stay on top of all of these changes, and we see a lot of people asking, what should be the size of my Twitter Header? Can I post the same picture on Twitter which I shared on my Facebook feed? Can I add call to action on my cover? Anytime you want to make a new visual piece you have to search on Google for dimensions of different social networks. 2) Google+
Free Zocial Button Set: Social CSS3 Buttons Advertisement The idea behind this project was to produce a consistent set of buttons that could be used for the range of social actions frequently taken in Web applications. These actions are often important goals for users, such as connecting third-party accounts or sharing content to third-party platforms, so their appearance has to be attractive and clear. The standard buttons provided by third parties (such as Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud) vary in size, style and interactivity. The button set was designed from the beginning to require no extra markup, and the elements used are entirely the choice of the (semantically considerate) designer. No raster images or sprites were used. Download The Button Set For Free This button set is free to use and extend, personally or commercially. Features Preview Screenshots of each set are below. Usage The button set was designed with simplicity and semantics in mind. <button class="zocial facebook">Sign in with Facebook</button> (al) Footnotes
Lean Startup "Lean startup" is a method for developing businesses and products first proposed in 2011 by Eric Ries. Based on his previous experience working in several U.S. startups, Ries claims that startups can shorten their product development cycles by adopting a combination of business-hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, and what he calls "validated learning". Ries' overall claim is that if startups invest their time into iteratively building products or services to meet the needs of early customers, they can reduce the market risks and sidestep the need for large amounts of initial project funding and expensive product launches and failures.[1][2][3][4][5] Background[edit] Although the lost money differed by orders of magnitude, the failures of There, Inc. and Catalyst Recruiting share similar origins, with Ries stating that "it was working forward from the technology instead of working backward from the business results you're trying to achieve Origins[edit]
Chalkwork Icon Library In 2006 while I was still freelancing, I suspected that creating a digital icon set might be a good way to have an actual product that generated a bit of recurring income. Over the next few years, I built up multiple sets within the same visual icon family, almost 600 base designs available in 3 different bitmap sizes — which was how icons were commonly delivered at the time.) Info Management Commerce Flags Basic In order to assist with finding the right icon in a set that large, I also spent time coding up a textual search engine that would match visual features and the object portrayed. While never a smash hit, the larger icon family sold relatively well over the years, more than paying for the time I spent creating it.
GuideGuide: Free Plugin For Dealing With Grids In Photoshop Advertisement This article is the fourth in our new series that introduces the latest, useful and freely available tools and techniques, developed and released by active members of the Web design community. The first article covered PrefixFree; the second introduced Foundation, a responsive framework; the third presented Sisyphus.js, a library for Gmail-like client-side drafts. Today we are happy to present Cameron McEfee’s Photoshop extension GuideGuide which provides a tool to create pixel accurate columns, rows, midpoints and baselines. Take a moment and think about creating a multi-column grid in a Photoshop comp. (siteWidth - (gutterWidth × (numberOfColumns - 1) ) ÷ numberOfColumns = columnWidth I was sitting at my desk one day doing this exact equation when I thought, “Man, this looks just like code. Enter: GuideGuide I created GuideGuide for the sole purpose of making one of the most time consuming parts of Photoshop based design as easy as possible. Columns and Rows Midpoints (il)
DevOps Set of software development practices DevOps is a methodology in the software development and IT industry. Used as a set of practices and tools, DevOps integrates and automates the work of software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) as a means for improving and shortening the systems development life cycle.[1] History[edit] Proposals to combine software development methodologies with deployment and operations concepts began to appear in the late 80s and early 90s.[2] Around 2007 and 2008, concerns were raised by those within the software development and IT communities that the separation between the two industries, where one wrote and created software entirely separate from those that deploy and support the software was creating a fatal level of dysfunction within the industry.[3] In 2009, the first conference named DevOps Days was held in Ghent, Belgium. As of 2014, the annual State of DevOps report was published by Nicole Forsgren, Gene Kim, Jez Humble and others. See also[edit]