Development posts

I’m thrilled to officially announce that CodeVisually.com has been recently acquired by Webdesigner Depot and is now part of our growing family of sites.

If you don’t know the site yet, Code Visually offers a simple way to discover the latest web development resources and tools out there. We cover CSS, Javascript, HTML, PHP, frameworks, browser extensions, web apps and tools, CMS templates, CMSes, wireframing tools and a lot more.

The site has been online since 2011 and was created by Paul Andrew, the webmaster of the popular blog Speckyboy.com, and has been gaining tremendous popularity among web developers ever since. Developers visit it daily to read about all the latest tools and resources.

We’ve all been there. You have an idea, something that just seems like it would work perfectly for your current project. It’s the ideal solution. Nothing could possibly be better suited.

Except you’re not quite sure exactly how to implement that idea. You can see it in your head, and you’re pretty sure you’ll need to use CSS3 animations, or Canvas, or some other technology you aren’t 100% familiar with yet.

You have a few options here. You can look at hiring someone else to do the coding for you. Except may your client won’t approve extra funds to do...

Still using desktop code editors? Web integrated development environments (IDEs) are a new way to build your web projects directly in the browser, often saving development time and making collaboration easier.

The humble browser used to just serve up simple HTML documents, but it’s often now your first stop for just about any task. Think about it — document editing, file sharing, image manipulation, server backups, 3D rendering, music production and just about any other work traditionally done in desktop software can now be handled by a web service.

I’ve actually become reluctant to install anything anymore, as there’s usually a great web alternative that just requires a simple account signup to use it. But even with all the great...

In 2006, while working at a design agency in Cardiff, Wales, I conceived of an idea to feature on our website the current weather conditions outside our office. I wanted to make our website fully engaging and to show our visitors and clients what we were experiencing in real life each day, in real time.

After doing some extensive research, I discovered that the best starting point for this is Yahoo!’s Weather API, because it gives weather conditions in a consistent, usable format. At the time, however, the only...

Today I’m going to talk to you about setting up a local server to use with WordPress.  Using a local server is important for many reasons, if only to keep you from having to upload and download your files all the time.  Anytime we need to make changes, we can use the local server.

To keep your website live without putting it in maintenance mode for a very long time, we can use the local server.

Downtime is an enormous fear of many website owners and this alone keeps them from making big changes or upgrades, because after all, downtime can cause your website to miss out on sales, affiliate income, new visitors or it...

Great websites always seem to combine great design with great code. Since building a website is a pretty simple task you find many people learn HTML and CSS and figure that if they can learn that then they can design any website they want. While technically they can you will often find that there are some key mistakes they make because they don’t wish to take the time to actually learn about design.

Programmers are designers in their own right, but they design code and wonderfully architected systems. To design something visual is completely different and just because you have a good eye for design doesn’t mean you have a good mind to apply it.

Since so many programmers have personal projects that usually...

With the recent passing of Steve Jobs, a lot of people and experts are crowning him one of the greatest innovators of our time, if not of all time. It’s rather hard to disagree, as he’s helped bring forth many innovations that have seriously changed the way we look at our future. And with all the talk about innovators, folks are starting to celebrate the lives of other creative geniuses at any level or platform before it’s too late. But all the talk about innovation is leaving people thinking, what is real innovation and how can one be innovative in whatever they’re doing?

Is innovation just a synonym for “invention”, or is it really just a positive spin on “imitation”? I guarantee if you ask five different people, you’ll probably get five different answers. Not because everyone is wrong, but because the exact definitions for ‘innovation’ and...

Whether you are self-taught, fresh out of school, or a design veteran, continuing education has invaluable long-term effects on your ability to stay competitive and business savvy.

The immediate benefits are also abundant. Emerging techniques you learn today can be applied to a client project tomorrow for added value, or to set your work apart from the mainstream.

There was never a point at which successful designers have learned enough. The secret to being cutting edge is to stay sharp. Aside from your local library or book store, and in lieu of returning to college full-time, the internet offers you an infinite number of outlets and resources for learning.

With so many blogs, e-books and forums offering...

As a site developer, web designer or site administrator, you’ve probably had to go through the process of choosing between platforms. But maybe not recently—if you’ve been designing and developing web sites for very long, chances are you’ve already got your favorite go-to platform that you always use. And if your go-to content management system isn’t already Drupal, maybe it’s time to take another look.

The downside is, Drupal is huge. There is a steep learning curve and it can be a full-time job just looking through all the contributed modules to find exactly what you’re looking for. It is not a happy-go-lucky, “set it up right out of the box” platform.

But the upside to all of this is, Drupal is huge! There is nothing you can’t do with Drupal. Want to run a blog? Done. Want to run a blogging community? Done. Share links and photos, run classified ads, show Twitter updates and...

[Editor's note: This is a sponsored review for Parallels 7]

One of the long-standing complaints about Macs is that there are more limited software options than for Windows-based PCs.

While the gap has closed in recent years as Macs become more popular (and let’s face it: there are some awesome Mac-only programs that PC owners are rightfully jealous of), there are still programs you can only run on a PC.

And even if the programs you want are available for the Mac, what if you already have Windows licenses for them? Do you really want to spend hundreds of dollars on buying the exact same version of your software, just for a different platform? Can you even afford to do that? Probably not.

Sure,...

For many web designers and developers, Firefox is unsurpassable. For others, Firefox eats Chrome’s dust.

For the past two years, since Google Chrome’s release, there’s been a raging debate on which browser is superior. Mozilla’s open source product has stood the test of time and Firefox has quickly become the most used browser, having surpassed Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Don’t feel sorry for Google Chrome, however. Even in its infancy, Chrome has already reached second most popular, having already surpassed Internet Explorer and with a high chance of surpassing Firefox.

Although Firefox is more robust (primarily due to its popularity), Chrome is lightning fast...