Burnout
Web professionals are often expected to be “always on”—always working, absorbing information, and honing new skills. Unless our work and personal lives are carefully balanced, however, the physical and mental effects of an “always on” life can be debilitating. It’s taken me the better part of a year to finish writing this article, and the reasons it took that long are tied directly to the topic at hand. If anything, the last year has made it clear that we as an industry are facing increased levels of stress, illness, and exhaustion. Having learned a few things from my own battle with exhaustion and burnout, I hope they’ll benefit others who are now or may eventually be in the same situation. Burnout: running on empty#section1 Burnout is a psychological response to “long-term exhaustion and diminished interest,” and may take months or years to bubble to the surface. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? The identified phases, several of which I bet sound familiar, are: How it happens#section2 Sleep.
JSON: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Use It
This week I want to cover a topic that I feel has become an important part of any developer’s toolkit: the ability to load and manipulate JSON feeds from other sites via AJAX. Many sites are sharing data using JSON in addition to RSS feeds nowadays, and with good reason: JSON feeds can be loaded asynchronously much more easily than XML/RSS. This article will cover the following: What is JSON?Why does JSON matter? We’ll also use our newfound skills with JSON at the end of this project to build a quick app that loads photos from Flickr without requiring a page refresh. What Is JSON? JSON is short for JavaScript Object Notation, and is a way to store information in an organized, easy-to-access manner. Storing JSON Data As a simple example, information about me might be written in JSON as follows: This creates an object that we access using the variable jason. Storing JSON Data in Arrays Nesting JSON Data
Smashing Highlights 2009
Advertisement 2009 was a very successful year for Smashing Magazine. It was a year of ambitious goals and an intense time schedule, which brought many changes over the past year. In 2009 we published more posts than ever (on average, 8 posts per week). None of this would have been possible without the tremendous support of our authors, contributors, and editorial staff. We have tried our best to improve the quality of our articles so as to increase their value for designers and developers. January The year starts with a rather lengthy post 100 (Really) Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers3 which actually doesn’t gain a lot of attention in January, but gains traffic significantly throughout the year. By far the most popular article of the month is Web Design Trends For 20094. February In February, Paul Boag reveals 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites5. February is also a busy month for us and our readers. March In March, we get technical. April May May turns out to be a practical month. June July
How to Create an Imaginative, Magical Painted Scene
In this tutorial, we will be using several basic tools and stock images to create a fantasy artwork where everything seems to come alive from what is being painted on an old piece of paper. Let's get working! Editorial Note: this tutorial is influenced by the work Afterlife by Maciej Mizer. Final Image Preview Take a look at the image we'll be creating. Preparation Before you start take a look at the images we'll be using: Paper Texture from Bashcorpo, Sky from Neoikeia, Paint Brushes from Nyssi, Tree from WolfC Stock, Stroke Brush Set from FlightOfGrey, Toucan from sxc, Airplane from sxc, and Hand holding brush from sxc. Step 1 Create a document with size 827px by 1169px. Step 2 Then we will need an image of a cloudy sky. Go to Select > Modify > Feather. Step 3 Select the "Sky 1" layer, go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. Step 4 Unhide the "Sky 3" layer. Step 5 Unhide the "Sky 2" layer. Step 6 Let's proceed on to the tree. Step 7 Step 8 Step 9 Step 10 Step 11 Step 12 Step 13 Step 14 Step 15 Step 16
10 Tools For Finding, Registering And Managing Domain Names | De
Advertisement A domain name is the starting point for our online brands and identities, be it for a company, online application or a personal website. Some of us may own only one domain for a portfolio site or blog, whilst others have to manage domain names for clients or all kinds of projects. But even if you do not yet have a personal domain, as the Web becomes more pervasive in our lives, finding yourself a real home on the web becomes more of a neccessity. Of course, social web services like Facebook, Twitter, etc. do indeed offer usernames, but only domains give us full ownership and control over branding and ultimately how we express ourselves online. Many of the traditional sites that offer domain names are poorly organised, hard to navigate and covered in spammy ads. You may also be interested in the following articles: 1. The popular Domainr service comes as easy and clean as it gets. 2. Domaintyper is a well executed little project. 3. 4. 5. 6. iWantMyName DomainApp – iPhone app
Uniform - Sexy forms with jQuery
Web Design Industry Jargon: Glossary and Resources - Smashing Magazine
Advertisement There are specialized terms referring to all sorts of aspects of web design. For someone just getting started in web design, or someone looking to have a site designed, all the technical jargon can be overwhelming. Especially the acronyms. Below is a guide to industry terms that should get you well on your way to understanding what web designers are talking about. Accessibility Basically, this is the ability of a website to be used by people with disabilities, including visually impaired visitors using screen readers, hearing impaired visitors using no sound, color blind people, or those with other disabilities. Stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Anchor Text The text a link uses to refer to your site. Automagically A portmanteau that combines “automatically” and “magically.” Back End The back end of a website is the part hidden from view of regular website visitors. Building the Back-End of a Photo Site13 from Nettuts+ Backlink Bad Neighborhood Bandwidth Below the Fold Em Ex
Adobe AIR Developer's Toolbox: Resources And Tutorials | De
Advertisement Originally called Apollo, Adobe Air was released in beta back in 2007 and has gone from strength to strength ever since. You can build an Adobe Air app using HTML, JavaScript, Flash or ActionScript relatively simply. Basically anyone with even a little knowledge of programming and a little patience can create rich Internet applications. Below, we present the Adobe AIR Developer’s Toolbox: Resources and Tutorials, a round-up of tutorials, links, references, cheat sheets and showcases that will help you create the next popular app. What is AIR and How To Get Started? First things first: Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is a cross-platform runtime environment for building rich Internet applications using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, or Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application. To do so, the runtime complements the browser adding desktop integration, local data access, embedded database, convenient desktop APIs and a cross-operating system compatibility. Adobe AIR SDK
