Posts Tagged
web development
About a month ago, I rounded up a set of 10 tiny but really useful free web apps for designers. Given how well the app ecosystem on the web has evolved over the years, there’s no reason to stick with the theme of designers, so here’s a list of 10 similar apps, but for web developers.
Made by one of the most prolific community of professionals on the web, for themselves and other like them. All these apps are simple, focused on doing one thing and doing it right. If you are a web developer, they all might come in pretty handy at some point or another.
As the web has evolved over the last few years into a powerful, dependable platform, web apps have grown in popularity as well as complexity. There are web apps out there for pretty much anything you want to get done — even something as unthinkable a few years ago as replacing Photoshop for image editing. This development has come at a cost though — web apps are more powerful than ever with their own learning curves and subscription costs.
As has been the case with any popular platform though, the web has also been a breeding ground for utilitarian applications that do small things well, and at the unbeatable cost of free. In this post, I’ll be listing some of the best small design utilities that I’ve come to use on the web to get very specific tasks done. They’re tiny, focused and get the job done with little fuss. (more…)
When you think of a CMS, chances are you think of a PHP-based application installed on your server that lets you login and add/edit pages, such as Drupal or Joomla, or maybe even WordPress. Such content management systems are great, especially for users that aren’t massively fluent in code. However, the way these websites work can make it difficult to customise your website, leaving the backend dictating how the frontend works. Osmek, on the other hand, aims to be flexible enough (and powerful enough) to work with any design or idea you have whilst leaving you with benefit of easy data entry.
How does it do this, and how good a job does it do? Let’s take a look… (more…)
If you’re a web app developer, no doubt you’ve come across the often painstaking task of sending email within your app. If you’re just starting out, chances are you’re going to be using a small server that you’re maintaining yourself, and because email is a part of almost every app, it’s also your job to ensure that everything runs as smooth as possible.
But you’re a developer. You shouldn’t have to worry about taking care of the server and making sure it’s running when that important email comes in. Plus, even if it all appears to be working fine, how can you be sure how many emails are bouncing?
Postmark is an app that takes care of just that. It provides developers with an API that makes sending transactional emails from inside their apps a breeze. With its simple and to-the-point interface, your sent and received emails can be viewed just as easily. Read on to find out more!
For a while now, GitHub has been running a service called GitHub Pages. Based on Jekyll, GitHub Pages allows for the creation of websites as either standalone sites or to accompany code projects on GitHub. This is great, but adding new pages is a little tricky unless you’re a seasoned Git pro.
That is where Prose comes in. Once you’ve authenticated your GitHub account, Prose lets you edit existing text files and create new ones ready for Jekyll to convert them to HTML. Prose is geared towards the creation of new Jekyll pages in the Markdown format. Markdown, if you’re unfamiliar, is a simple type of markup language designed to be both easy to learn and to convert to well-formed HTML.
The question is, do Prose and GitHub make a good enough team to displace more traditional website backends?
At this time of age, web presence is really critical for your business. Whether you are a florist or running a pet store, nothing sets your apart more than a beautifully crafted website. You’ll be able to reach customers far outside of your normal customer base, and better engage your existing customers.
But web development involves a steep learning curve, and could easily scare beginners away. You can hire a professional developer to do the chores, but that can be prohibitively expensive for small businesses. Is there any simple yet inexpensive way that makes it easy? That’s exactly where Weebly comes in.
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Many tools and packages exist online to help people create websites with minimal effort and involvement. Of course, each one has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some are more aimed at creating blogs, while others are better for single-page info sites.
Moonfruit is another competitor in this market. It looks stylish, promises to be simple, and … you do want to create a new site, right? So what does it have to offer, and what are it’s pros and cons? Lets take a look…
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I’ve just finished designing a website, and I used a ton of CSS: everything from laying out my content, to styling elements like the headings. Then, Twitter released Bootstrap, and I’m pretty disappointed I didn’t delay starting to design it.
Say you’re a web designer new to the scene and don’t know all the ropes. Bootstrap from Twitter is aimed at providing a bunch of really useful CSS classes and IDs in a single library that’s simple to use, removing a lot of the load of designing a website from scratch. Bootstrap is a package, and includes a ton of user interface elements styled to be usable in any web app, or site.
Web development is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. The value of the web has become apparent and business and individuals alike have jumped on board the web bandwagon. During it’s humble beginners, you might find a web developer writing his code in a text editor like Notepad. However, as the web technologies themselves progress, developers can take advantage of rich web apps to produce their content.
In today’s extended roundup, we’ll be taking a look at around eighty or so tools that operate entirely on the web, that you can use in your web development workflow. For the purposes of this roundup, “development” refers to the overall process of a website’s creation and not necessarily just the coding side of things.
Let’s get started.
