WebDev3000 » Web based

Lubith

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:30:02 +0000

Can you believe that some people pay up to 100 bucks or more to some self-titled “designers” who don’t work at least 20 minutes to “create” a WordPress theme? I didn’t do such a thing, but one buddy of mine did it a few times – in the end, it’s not a fool the one asking, but the one paying, especially since we’re only talking about starting with some theme already available and changing it here and there, not building one from scratch! Well, today I’ll give everyone something to think about – Lubith can do a lot for free… so if you’re planning to pay for a WordPress theme, at least be sure you’ll get an original one, not just a painted old crow, all right?

No need for any other introduction – Lubith is a Web-based WordPress theme editor that, unfortunately, only seems to work with Firefox and Chrome, but it surely gets the job done! By using it, you’ll save a lot of time and money, since it requires no coding, it’s completely free and sports an intuitive interface. Even more, if “intuitive” is not easy for you, there’s also a tutorials section on the official page, available right here. For now, it’s only one there, but we’ll surely have more in the future, I have no doubt about it…

Other than the above, I should add that, in case you’re feelin’ lost, the support forum will surely help you – it’s not really crowded there as I write this, but most issues reported get answers pretty soon and, in the end, that’s what really matters – to learn how to master Lubith as soon as possible, so maybe you can create some WordPress themes for others in need and ready to pay for it, right? Good luck with that and anything else you may have in mind!

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resizeMyBrowser

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 08:45:37 +0000

For a lot of Web developers and designers, keeping things as short and simple as possible is not something to choose – it’s something you follow as faithfully as possible, or else… wasting your time can have really nasty consequences, going as far as leaving you without any work to do. After all, who wants to work with a person/company needing more time than all the others to get the same job done? Well, today we’re not going to talk about any impressive script or IDE that can help you spare some of that precious time, since I think that easy to use, straightforward Web-based tools like resizeMyBrowser can also have a serious impact in the long run…

… so let’s make a short story even shorter: created by Chen Luo, resizeMyBrowser is nothing more but a browser resizing application that works best with best on Safari, Firefox and IE, unfortunately still encountering some issues on Opera and Chrome. Basically, it does the following things: allows you to set to set the browser size by both Inner window and Outer window, displays the current size values in real time when manually resizing the browser, it even lets you create your own presets, all inside a clean layout. Excellent!

As I write this, resizeMyBrowser is free and I have no doubt that it will continue to remain this way. Current version is 1.0.9, released back on the 23rd of February and, if you ask me, all I wish to see until Christmas is support for Opera and Chrome or – why not? – even some extensions for this browser to get the resizing job properly done. That’s all, folks!

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Css-sprit.es

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:45:23 +0000

While an experienced developer can get started with CSS and go above average level in less than an hour, I think that code generators should be used as often as possible, I decided to take a closer look at another Web-based CSS tool. After a few minutes spent searching for something interesting enough, I ended up facing today’s subject – ladies and gentlemen, here’s Css-sprit.es!

Before anything else, Css-sprit.es is a great domain name, if you ask me. Other than that, I think I should add that this is a Web-based CSS sprites generator that can be freely used by anyone and packs a bunch of interesting features, including CSS-based rollover effects with a few different presets available. The sprite image to upload can be in the JPG, GIF or PNG format, while output is CSS or SASS.

“Carefully handcrafted by Nicolas Crovatti” and powered by jQuery and Pixastic, Css-sprit.es is still in Beta status, but seems like a pretty useful, good looking and reliable Web-based tool, so why not take it for a spin? Since “Beta” also means “possibly buggy” and I must confess I didn’t manage to spot any bugs, could you drop a comment below with any compatibility/functional bugs that you encountered, if any? Thank you in advance!

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Patternify

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:45:12 +0000

Weather has been really sad lately – a lot of rain, cold as in late November/early December… all without following any logical pattern. Well… weather may go on a strange path, but as far as pattern generators go, Patternify scores quite a few points in my book, despite the fact we’re not talking about a perfect product. After all, we’re not trying to find perfection here – we simply look for things worth checking out that may prove useful to some of you and, at least if you ask me, Patternify is one of them.

What’s so special about Patternify, after all? Nothing really special, but it’s clearly one Web-based tool I had some fun discovering and taking for a spin – this free to use application allows you to easily design stripe patterns that can be exported as PNG files. More than just designing a pattern from scratch, you can also choose one of the existing 15 patterns, grouped into three categories – Old School, Color and Misc. Even more, you can also grab the generated base64 CSS code instead of the PNG file mentioned above. At last, Patternify provides a unique link for each pattern, so you can easily share your work with others – not that it’s really hard to draw something that’s as large as 10X10 pixels maximum…

In case you’re still wondering about the licensing part… there’s no license to be scared of, just a free service that can be used to generate freely usable patterns – nothing more, nothing less! Oh, yeah… speaking about compatibility… I guess there’s no surprise that Patternify works with all major browsers – at least that’s what I can tell you. If you have some problems with Patternify on a specific software/hardware combination, please drop a comment below to let everyone know about it, all right? That’s all, folks!

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Page Speed

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:40:21 +0000

As I’m sure you know already, Google’s algorithm has been taking into account the speed of the Web sites checked for quite a while. Obviously, the speed of a page/website doesn’t only depend on the raw speed of the server hosting it, since there’s much more to keep in mind than that, and Page Speed was always one of the best tools to help you evaluate your websites’ performance…

… only that today we’re talking about Google’s popular Firebug/Chrome addon with a twist: Page Speed just got a brand new online version that offers similar functionality to the addon mentioned above, only that it can be used on any Web browser. Using it is really straightforward – all you have to do is enter the URL you want to check, choose if you want to get suggestions for improving your site’s speed on desktop or mobile devices, then browse the results.

If the above doesn’t seem clear enough, then you definitely have to take a look at Page Speed or… just read some of that official mumbo-jumbo right now, despite the fact it doesn’t actually say anything new: Page Speed “is a web-based tool that allows users to analyze pages at any time, in any browser, without downloading an extension. It also features Page Speed Mobile analysis, which lets developers analyze their site as viewed by a mobile browser, and get suggestions specific to mobile optimization.” Got it? Get to it!

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CSSWARP

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:53:34 +0000

To be honest, I think the time for warped text has passed, but if you’re into some retro-style Web design, then I am sure you’ll find CSSWARP to be pretty useful – after all, we’re talking about a Web-based application that can generate HTML5 code, so it’s not retro to the bone, actually…

According to its official page, CSSWARP is a CSS3 text to path generator that’s more than just another tool – this one “is a proof of concept” that allows you to “create Illustrator like “warped” text (text following an irregular path) with pure CSS and HTML.” Using CSSWARP is really straightforward, but some things need to be said – for example, this Web-based tool can also use local fonts, next to any font you may want to pick from the Google Font Directory.

The features of this tool are not hidden, so everything’s revealed at first sight – customizable text, curve style and font type, instant warped HTML generation, browser-specific CSS rules (IE9, Opera, Firefox and WebKit available), while compatibility of this tool shouldn’t raise any concerns – CSSWARP works with all modern browsers… as long as we’re not talking about some modern text mode browser, of course!

Ouch, forgot about this – in case you didn’t manage to take a look at CSSWARP yet and you’re wondering about its price, I have some good news for you – this tool is free to use for everyone, at least at this time!

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Online CSS Code Generators

Adrian — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:21:53 +0000

CSS is the most used style sheet languages. But if you are new in web programming, CSS is not that user friendly as you might expect. But there are a few solotuins for this. The online CSS code generators are perfect tools for beginners and they will really help to design your website as you wanted.

In my opinion, the best online CSS code generator is CSS3.0 Maker. Using CSS3.0 Maker you can create Border Radius, Gradient, CSS Transform, CSS Animation, CSS Transition, RGBA, Text Shadow, Box Shadow, Text Rotation and @Font Face. Another great thing about CSS3.0 Maker is the browser compatibility and mobile compatibility options. This way you can see with what browsers/mobile devices is your CSS code compatible.

If you want to create only menus using CSS code, you should try Only CSS Menu. The name says all about this online tool. Using Only CSS Menu you can create great horizontal menus, vertical menus, horizontal dropdown menu, step by step navigation, and vista style CSS menu.

Online CSS Editor is not really a code generator. Is more like a CSS dynamic previewer. You can write the code and you can preview the results. Or you can use it to modify a CSS file. From here you can also use CSS Validator. With CSS Validator you can validate your code and you can see the errors in your CSS that can make your page to be displayed incorrectly.

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DevHub

Adrian — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:18:00 +0000

With DevHub you don’t need to pay a webdeveloper to build your website. Even if you don’t know nothing about website building, with DevHub even your grandpa can build his own website. You can build in a few steps a blog, a webhub, a website where you can promote your products and even a website for your business. If you already have a blog you can import it to DevHub. You can import your blog from Blogger, Posterous, TypePad, tumblr. and WordPress.

DevHub uses click n’ drag modules that will help you to easily build your website. You want to add a video to your webpage? Simple. Click on Video and choose YouTube Video. Put the link to the video and the description for it. You want to add a photo gallery from Flickr? Click on Images and choose Flickr User Stream. To add a new page click on Add new page and put a Page Title. If you build your company website you can also add your company`s custom header at the top.

If you are not pleased with the free content modules, you can choose from the paid ones. For example, for $1.95 you can remove “Powered by DevHub” branding from your site. Also from here you can buy themes for your website.

If you already have a domain name bought, no problem. You can use your own domain, or you can buy a new one for $1.66/month. If you don’t want to spend money, you can use DevHub subdomain. If you want to build your blog, there is no problem with the subdomain. But if you want to build a website for your company, you should buy a domain from them or transfer your already bought domain.

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HTMLform.com

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 18:47:25 +0000

This is no secret, but I never told you about it so far – I am moderating the IT section of a general-purpose forum. Nothing out of this world, just a medium-sized forum reached by a few thousand users daily. Strange enough, even there people started to come up with various questions I wouldn’t expect on such a forum, and a few users there asked about creating forms for their sites. These being said, it should be no surprise that I finally decided to tell you about HTMLform, right?

HTMLform.com makes things really easy – no configuration/programming needed for your HTML form to work, the code generated thanks to this online service is all yours, using it is completely free, and you even get email notifications and a basic data tool that allows export to CSV or Excel files. Awesome!

More than the above, think about these: HTMLform can generate forms in any language, offering support for any character set (100% Unicode, baby!!!), the code generated is XHTML 1.0 strict compliant, completely commented and, even better, the CSS files are totally editable, not to mention the rather obvious fact that you get cross browser compatible code and that can be easily embedded in any HTML page you can think of, including those in websites created using WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or any other CMS you may have ever heard of.

The official page of this product has more than you’ll ever get from most of its competitors, including a well done tutorial, examples, FAQ, a support forum and, to make it all easier, you don’t even need to sign up to get started, so since everything’s free, in case you need a form… you know what to use, right? That’s all, folks!

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ZoomZio

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:15:22 +0000

Facebook again? Oh, well, it seems soon we won’t be able to go anywhere without hearing about it. Just think about a world where everything will have a “Like on Facebook” label, be it a digital display connected wirelessly to the Internet or just… a good old sticker! I don’t know about you, but to me this is really frightening, but since I can’t do anything to stop Facebook from taking over the world, at least I can help you grab a share of it via Facebook, right?

While I may not be able to provide any assistance in your quest to take over the world on/via Facebook, I can surely tell you something that could brighten your entire week: ZoomZio! Just look at the headline – “Gets you more active on Social Web” – and you may already start to figure out some things. To me, there’s much more than just spamming your links around but, unfortunately, that’s what a lot of people do. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with adding your links to no-matter-how-many sites you want, but at least don’t fill the Web with junk, people!!!

With ZoomZio, things are pretty serious – you can create your own trivia tests and quizzes, post your own coupons to fan pages, build a Web From for your Facebook Fan Pages… in a few words, create buzz and build your brand on Facebook the right way!

I don’t want to tell you too much about this simply because you have to take it for a spin, so I’ll end this article with the most important part you should keep in mind: ZoomZio is basically free, but if you want access to more than just 5 form fields and 10 daily entries, you may want to consider grabbing an account – more information on pricing can be found here. That’s all, folks!

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