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Web Dev
If you use computers long enough, chances are you’ll eventually want to learn at least a little bit of programming. You can only hear so many stories about exciting new apps and whole businesses built from several thousands lines of code before you start thinking that you could do it, too. Problem is, it’s often daunting to get started programming. Most programming books almost seem too difficult, or else they start out so slow and basic that you’re bored before you even get started.
We clearly need a new way for the next generation of coders to learn how to program. Programming doesn’t have to be an exclusive thing only for über geniuses. And you don’t need a Stanford Computer Science degree for it, either. Codecademy is an exciting new web app that aims to make programming more approachable for everyone. Best of all, you can start off learning JavaScript, that all-important language for web apps. Let’s take a look.
When building a website, it’s important to have a different set of eyes take a look and let you know if you’re on the right track, particularly because there are so many moving parts and so many doubts that can arise. Are the buttons on my site easy to find? Is the banner large enough? How about legibility? Is there a logical flow in my registration process? Which of these two header graphics should I use?
While there are some questions you can answer yourself, sometimes you might need an outside opinion. There are a ton of tools available including OpenHallway, Usabilia, and Silverback that do the job and then some, but what if your needs are simpler?
BagelHint is a little app with which you can create easy usability surveys quickly. Developed by a compact UK-based team called EpicBagel, this service is great for designers and developers looking to get started with UX feedback and testing, with projects that need just pointers and not deep analytics. There’s nothing to install and your results are displayed in real-time. All you need to use it are some screenshots and a few minutes of your time. Let’s set up a trial account and see how we go, shall we?
There’s a never-ending debate over whether tablets can be productive devices, perhaps even substitutes for full computers, or if they’re simply to be relegated to the status of a nice tech toy. Despite the many brilliant productive tools that have been designed for the iPad, one of the best examples of areas that tablets break productivity is web apps. While some web apps work great on the iPad, many are much more difficult to use.
Gmail Mobile presents a nice change to this trend, with a beautiful iPad-style web app. LucidChart is another example of an app that includes extra features designed just for the iPad. Today, we’re featuring another great app that’s been designed just for tablet browsers: Axe. This new free app from ZURB joins the ranks of their other great apps as an easy way to quickly markup a website with your feedback. It’s easier than ever on a touchscreen, so let’s take a look at how this app might make your iPad a bit more productive.
If there’s one major problem with web apps, it’s that it’s incredibly hard to get them to work together. For the most part, they don’t. Microsoft Word and iWork Pages work with Dropbox automatically if they’re all installed on the same computer. Now try getting Google Docs and Dropbox working together without relying on your computer’s operating system to handle download a file from Dropbox and then uploading it to Google Docs. Odds are, you won’t get it to work.
There are some web apps that work together. Instapaper and Pinboard are great examples of web apps that have built in options to pull in and push data to and from other apps. But most web apps exist in their own island, and being able to run different apps in different browser tabs is about the closest we get to web app multitasking.
ifttt is a new web app that aims to change this. Similar to Yahoo Pipes, but much simpler to use, ifttt lets you tie your favorite web apps together in unique ways. Whether you want to get a txt message when your best friend posts a new blog post, or save your Instagram pictures to Dropbox, or post your Tweets to Google+, ifttt’s got what you need, and more. In this article, we’ll look at how you can put ifttt to use quickly, and we’ve got more tutorials planned to show more ways you can put this powerful tool to use.
If there’s one thing that should be incredibly simple today, it should be making online forms and simple pages. There’s no dearth of survey and form apps: from Wufoo to Google’s free Docs Forms, there are form solutions for every design style and budget. And if you want to take payments, share rich info, or do almost anything else you want with a form, there’s likely an app for that.
And then there’s Lanbito. I’m always on the lookout for new high-quality web apps, and Lanbito caught my eye in our Quick Look post. It’s a simple solution to making mobile forms, and best of all, it’s a touch-ready web app. That’s something you don’t often see, and Lanbito’s implementation is simply brilliant. It’s worth taking a look at, even if you’ve already got a form solution you love.
There’s a ton of great web development-oriented web apps out there, everything from in-browser image editing tools to full-fledged cloud IDEs. It’s evident that you don’t need a ton of expensive software to develop websites, and even a Chromebook can be turned into a great little web development machine.
Today we’re going to take a look at WebPutty, a CSS editor based in your browser, complete with previewing new styles on existing sites. WebPutty is a simple affair, allowing you to create a site and load it up in the editor with the CSS editor beside it. Here you can manipulate the styles in real-time, previewing them before exporting and publishing to your live site.
Mobile phones have, in the last few years, become a sheer necessity in almost everyone’s life. Imagining life without a mobile phone is like imagining a world without air – nothing would function and people would be at a loss on what to do. We use mobile phones for everything, from checking the weather forecast to keeping in touch with everyone – the possibilities with them are endless.
Along with this sharp rise in mobile phones (especially, in the past few years, smartphones), mobile advertisers have found ever more ingenious ways to cash in. Mobile advertising and marketing is big business and, owing to the rise in popularity of smartphones, a growing business. There are many different ways to embed adverts into mobile phones, either through applications or advertisements on mobile-optimized webpages.
In today’s mobile and tablet-centric world, it often feels like the best apps come out only for smartphones. Web apps and traditional PC apps often aren’t as fancy as their mobile counterparts. Plus, they’re often much more expensive than the dollar or two you might pay for a high quality mobile app.
This morning on Hacker News, I came across a new web app from the developers of a popular mobile to-do list app, Do It (Tomorrow). It turned out to be an impressive example that web apps don’t have to be saddled with bland interfaces. Best of all, it’s been designed to make it easier to manage your tasks, so it’s an elegant UI with a purpose. Keep reading to get a quick tour of Do It Tomorrow and see if this free web app is the to-do list you’ve been needing.
It’s no secret that I am a huge WordPress advocate. It’s full-featured, extendable, and super powerful. However, depending on the project it could be overkill. You need space and a database backend, and you’ll end up with a lot of features that some clients might not use. Especially if you’re making a site that won’t be updated often, most of WordPress’ features will go untouched.
Luckily, there are a bunch of lightweight CMSs. One of them is GetSimple CMS, a promising newer CMS that . Today, we’ll take a closer look at that.
I’m a web developer who’s not much for prototyping, at least not using some online tool. I’ve changed up my process a lot, but the only thing that’s still frustrating is the sketches phase. Sometimes I’ll dive right into code and start mocking up using just HTML and CSS. Other times I boot up Photoshop and create a series of mock-ups from nice, organized layers. If I need feedback, I’ll upload the screenshots into a project manager and ask people to comment.
This admittedly is not a very good way to do it. Then I heard about inVision, a fantastic prototyping tool that allows you to create user experiences and get feedback. We’ve recently seen a Quick Look post about it, and several lucky readers got free subscriptions to it in our recent giveaway. For everyone else, keep reading to learn more about InVision.
