jrmwillis MusicBridge allows people who use both iTunes and WMP on the same machine to keep their libraries in sync. MusicBridge offers a variety of synchronization options so that you can manage your music collection in either media player or both. Originally developed to handle the problem that although WMP can play AAC files with the correct codec it does not read any of the tag information. MusicBridge is and always has been offered fully functional for free. It has been downloaded over 50,000 times from downloads.com which is just one source for MusicBridge. I am however now accepting donations, so if you have offered a donation in the past, or you like the tool and feel generous please feel free to submit a donation using the button on the left. The 2.0 version has now been released and is available for download. If you have any ideas for new features that you would like to see please use the discussion group that is linked to the left.
10 Helpful Resources for Cross Browser Testing Get the FlatPix UI Kit for only $7 - Learn More or Buy Now Every web designer knows that browser differences can create plenty of headaches. Finding and fixing problems can be difficult if you’re not equipped with the right tools. In this post we’ll take a brief look at 10 of the leading resources for making your browser testing less time consuming and more productive. Browsershots Browsershots is a popular free service that will provide screen shots of a page from just about any browser from all of the common operating systems. There is a paid option that will give you priority over the free requests. BrowserCam BrowserCam provides several different services for browser testing. BroswerCam is a paid service with options for daily, monthly, or yearly. NetMechanic Browser Photo Brower Photo from NetMechanic is a paid service that will allow you to test different versions of Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox and Safari on Windows, Mac and Linux. Litmus IE NetRenderer BrowserCamp ieCapture iPhoney
View Mobile Websites in Windows with Safari 4 Developer Tools Want to try out mobile websites designed for the iPhone and other mobile devices on your PC? Safari 4 for Windows lets you do this easily with their developer tools. By default, Safari will show standard desktop websites. But by making a simple change, you can switch it to work like Safari Mobile on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Getting Started First make sure you have Safari 4 for Windows installed. Or if you already have another Apple program installed, such as QuickTime or iTunes, then you can install it from Apple Software update. And then select Safari 4 from the list of new software available. Accept the license Agreement, and then Safari will automatically install. Once this is finished, Safari will be ready to use. View Mobile Sites in Safari First, we need to enable the developer tools. Click the Advanced tab, and then check the box that says “Show Develop menu in menu bar”. Click the Gear icon, and select “Hide Bookmarks Bar”, and then repeat and click “Hide Tab Bar”. Conclusion Links:
10 Free Wireframing Tools for Designers This series is supported by Ben & Jerry's Joe, Ben & Jerry's new line-up of Fair Trade and frozen iced coffee drinks. Learn more about it here. Wireframing is a crucial step in web design and development as it allows for rapid prototyping and helps to pinpoint potential problems early in the process. It can be invaluable to have a visual representation of content, hierarchy and layout. Wireframes make it easier to communicate ideas, reduce scope creep, cut down on project costs (due to fewer design revisions later), and enable greater upfront usability and functionality testing. This post highlights 10 of the best free wireframing tools available, including standalone applications, web-based tools and browser add-ons. If you're partial to a particular wireframing tool available for free download, let us know in the comments. 1. Mockingbird is a web-based beta software based on the Cappuccino framework to create, link together, preview and share wireframes of your website or application. 2.
Ratings Orzeszek Ratings is a utility to sync ratings and play counts between Windows Media Player and iTunes. If you use both Windows Media Player and iTunes to manage your music collection on one computer, Orzeszek Ratings allows you to sync the ratings and play counts between the two applications. Orzeszek Ratings will only sync the ratings and play counts between files that are in both your Windows Media Player library and your iTunes library. That means that ratings and play counts for any files that are converted when they’re added to your library (like WMA files added to iTunes) won’t be synced, since your Windows Media Player library and iTunes library are no longer referring to the same file. And, since Windows Media Player has no support for half-star ratings, half-star ratings are rounded up to the nearest full star when you sync ratings from iTunes to Windows Media Player.
Style Injection is for Winners By "style injection", I mean being able to see styling changes immediately after authoring them without having to manually refresh your browser window. This isn't a brand new concept, I just mention it now because it's so awesome that if it's not a part of your workflow you should consider updating yours to include it. The Past For a long time, Dreamweaver had the ability to show you a live preview of what you were building. CSS Edit also had a thing like that. Now that is built into Espresso and at a quick glance I saw it still does previews but not split pane editable previews. But they used some built-in WebKit thing to do it, running who knows exactly what version. No offense if you use and these editors or working this way, it's just not for me. New Style The first to come along that I knew of was LiveReload. The name "LiveReload" implies that it reloads the page for you, which is true when you change HTML or JavaScript. Why is Style Injection cool? Here's an example of that: Share On
Browserhacks 10 Essential Free E-Books for Web Designers While many may still prefer print for long-form reading, e-books are gaining popularity as a worthy digital alternative. Aside from all the usual benefits of digitizing a book (faster searches, less page-flipping, linked pages, additional resources, etc.), e-books are a huge help to digital and online professionals. There are now e-books available on almost every aspect of design, from planning your business and managing your time, to designing web applications. Whether they're meant to inspire or educate, let us know if you can recommend any other free e-books aimed at designers in the comments below. 1. This detailed, intelligent guide is a how-to on transitioning from print to web by Jeffrey Zeldman. Even though it was written in 2001, much of the advice about transitioning from print to the web still holds true, and print designers and art directors are still scrambling to move into web and interaction design. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable: