Weekly Update #2

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Type Guide

DESIGN: I’ve never been quite sure which typeface is the best for which scenario. This poster doesn’t just convey the rules in plain english, it clearly shows you what you need to know. Another helpful resource I found was from Mark Boultons Designing for the Web book, and in particularl the chapter on Typography Heirarchy. Don’t skimp on the web version either, totally worth a purchase.[/one_third]

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jQuery.fracs

JAVASCRIPT: jQuery.fracs determines the current viewable area of the entire web page, and provides a refrence point map on the side of your page. Imagine zooming all the way into an image in Photoshop, but still having a small box with a preview of the image and another area shaded to show the spot you’re looking at. Doesn’t make sense? Well take a look for yourself. It would be great for a full sized map broken up into divs. Think World Map![/one_third]

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Spy on Facebook

ANALYSIS: Be a little bit more successful than the characters from Spy vs Spy. These handy tips start with some developer work and getting your competitions social reach, moves onto bringing their content through Social Graph, keeps things moving by setting up RSS feeds to see updates rather than Like them, and finally see how to target advertising only to their Loyal Fans. They’ve got some Twitter techniques too![/one_third_last]

Welcome to all the new subscibers especially seeing as I had a bit of a mishap with the first mail out and my gmail integration. After a few hundred bounces, 19 unsubscribes and 1 complaint I found my account block and a please explain. It doesn’t matter now though, because here we are again and you’ve all resubscibed. Do me a favour though, if you think anyone of your collegues or friends would be interested, or recieved the last email and might want to continue to receive them, please forward this on to them so they can resubscribe.

This week I’ve had Chrome crash about 25 times on my new shiny OSX Lion install, so I can’t wait to get rid of all of the tabs that I’ve been keeping open to share with you.

I know that some of you are more interested in the Business advice than the Javascript or Design elements, so I’ve tried to keep them separate. Do youself a favour though and still click through to some of the areas that that you might not be used to. It’s adventageous to at least see the technical side of things even if you don’t understand how they occur…. and for you techies it’s also good to get a business perspective on why people want their websites.

Mobile

• Create Mobile Apps Free – for HTML5 mobile sites at least. Then you’re looking at $99 a month, we’re trialling them out now.
• Mobile Emulators – when your budget can’t stretch to buy the devices, use the emulators!

Javascript

• http://creativejs.com is a site dedicated to showcasing the latest and best implemenations of Javascript and HTML5. The implmenetations are mainly focussed around the CANVAS element. So far it covers HTML5 page turn effect, 31 Days of cavas tutorials, and some greate examples of paper.js.
• http://paperjs.org is an open source vector graphics scripting framework that runs on top of the HTML5 Canvas. It offers a clean Scene Graph / Document Object Model and a lot of powerful functionality to create and work with vector graphics and bezier curves, all neatly wrapped up in a well designed, consistent and clean programming interface. You can check out the examples, Voronoi is my favourite. Once you’ve found someting you like check out their tutorials on how to do it.
• Free NodeJS Book

Business

• Google + is all the rage at the moment and Michael Mahemoff has taken a step back to look at the good and the bad. If you’re looking to get involve with Google+ then we have a few invites sitting here that we can send out. All you need to do is Like our Facebook page and post your details and we’ll send it through (oh the irony).
• Increase CTR in Google Adsense Many of you will be trying to fleece some money through advertising on your site. I’ve personally found it difficult to get any revenue through personal blogs, however have recently had some luck on a Magazine site after we moved a few page elements around and began going with Visual Ads over text based.
• Good first impressions with Clients

Social Media

• Twitter Time Saving Apps – Everyone is getting on the bandwagon of Social Media, but it can be difficult to make time every day to keep up the regular updates. Use these tools to make life a little bit easier, and more organised.
• Create your own foursquare page

CSS

• Stuff New comers get confused about – Anyone getting started in CSS is boud to hit a few brick walls every now and then. Here are a few basics to get you going.
• Multiple Borders with CSS
• CSS Radial Gradients
• CSS Attribute Selectors
• The Future of CSS Layouts *recommended read*
• Annimations & Tranistions – PLUS a tool that builds it for you.

HTML5

• HTML5 Audio & Video
• HTML5 Audio & Video in ALL browsers

If you’re interested in using any of this in an upcoming project let me know, I might be able to lend you a hand.