Books

Sitepoint is known to consistently release amazing books.

Their latest book, “jQuery: Novice to Ninja”, covers jQuery, one of the most powerful JavaScript frameworks.

The exciting new 390-page book is perfect for any jQuery user, regardless of whether you’re a beginner, advanced, or somewhere in-between.

WDD has once again partnered with Sitepoint to bring you this great book in a fantastic giveaway.

Just one week from today we will be giving away free copies of this great book to 5 lucky WDD readers chosen at random.

Read on for more details and information on how to participate…

Fernando says: I´m starting now with JQuery and would be very nice to have a book like this.... Thanks!
Art

Some of the best artists deal with disabilities in their everyday lives that the rest of us can’t even imagine living with, and use art to communicate with the world. The results are often stunning.

We’ve collected biographies and sample pieces from outstanding disabled artists, both famous and lesser-known.

The artists below paint with their hands, their mouths and their feet.

Many are blind or suffer from mental disabilities, yet they produce some of the most beautiful and intricate artwork that you can imagine.

Their achievements are arguably epic in the face of the adversity that they face.

We hope that the artists in this post inspire your designs and make you look at adversity in any field as a surmountable obstacle.

Antonio.NG25 says: Great to see that finally someone it is noticing this. As disabled guy, living with a spinal cord injury since I was 14 due to an...
Code

There aren’t many articles covering incompatibilities, or CSS differences in Firefox alone — and for good reason.

Firefox has always done an excellent good job of supporting both CSS and JavaScript in a standards-compliant manner without too many awkward bugs.

There are, however, a few CSS properties and selectors that aren’t supported by one or more of the versions released since version 3.0., which I will cover here.

This article will cover bugs, inconsistencies, and nonsupport. So, if you’re having trouble with a CSS property or selector in Firefox and it’s not listed here, then you’ll probably have to rethink your layout and reconsider what the culprit might be.

Paul says: Mozilla has let down its loyal, very long time, fans with ghastly FF 3.64. My buttons have disappeared but only sometimes on...
Best Of

Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot

Mike Gainer says: Hate to break their balls but Apple an Google merchandise doesn't make anyone a "geek". A fanboy is a more appropriate term. I...
Comics

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

Ikhsan Funstoo says: The advertising. It's called creative Marketing but also called cheating and best ads placement for kind ads of you know related...
Compilation

Every city looks and feels unique. Regional culture, typography, dialect, local customs and many more factors play a part in defining a city’s differences.

Those differences determine how that city sees its citizens and how it wants to represent itself to others.

For each city with one, the metro plays a part in defining those differences. The metro maps in this post show the skeletons of these cities. Each map explores the paths taken by the residents of that city.

The design and style of the maps appears reflective of the particular place. They may be seen as not only maps, but individual expressions of a local identity.

Here’s a great compilation of metro maps from around the world…

Raj says: I'm an artist in Somerville, MA. I create these prints that I call "Mapuccino's" that map intimate moments in people's lives in...
Business

If you’re like me, you graduated from art school and had dreams of working as an art director at a small agency. You envisioned having your own office on the top floor of a loft with 30-foot ceilings.

Designers would play ping-pong below; people were allowed to drink beer at work; and brilliant ideas would flow effortlessly from your mind into multi-million-dollar campaigns for clients like Nike and Coca-Cola.

In fact, you got a job at a large corporation and were shown to a desk in a sea of light-gray fabric-covered cubicles. Instead of 30-foot ceilings, you have surprisingly low ceilings, covered with a substance that you could swear is asbestos.

You were given a 90-page handbook on how to create drop-shadows and sent off to populate templates for product brochures.

Sounds like hell. But outlined below are a few ways to improve your outlook on work life, foster creativity in you and the business and, most importantly, bring some fun into your corporate job.

Christy says: Refreshing point of view! Over 20 years, I've worked in small to mid-size agencies, corporate environments with up to 15,000...
Blogging

This post has been a long time coming. Whether on Twitter or in the blogosphere, the question often arises, and I have been asked numerous times for my opinion on the ExpressionEngine vs. WordPress debate, and why one would choose one content management system (CMS) over the other.

My usual answer is that they cannot be compared. While WordPress had made huge strides in usability, for anything other than a blog it is an apple.

ExpressionEngine, with the release of version 2.0, makes for a lovely platform that is, as we will see, an orange.

DM Specialist says: Dear WebDesignerDepot readers, After days of searching for a good forum where to post this message, I have found none....