Best resources for Web developers and designers

* denotes new links added on 28th March

CSS

• TabCreator - A CSS Menu generator*
• Write a well structured CSS file without becoming crazy*
• Most used CSS tricks*

Data Management

• 50 Content Management Systems - some are free...

Design > Guidelines

• 20+ Free Web Design Ebooks And Guides
• 20 Free Ebooks and Whitepapers for Better Web Design*
• 20 Websites That Made Me A Better Web Developer*
  

Design > Icons

• 35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets
• Best Small Web Design Icon Download Sites
• PI Diagona Pack

Design > Photoshop

• 45 Photoshop Tutorials for Better Navigation - I finally know how to make a nice looking button...
• Photoshop actions: 124+ Free Photoshop Actions to Boost Your Designs - some are really cool..
• 100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art
• 23 Most Incredible Photoshop Tutorials*
• 33 awesome body enhancement photoshop tutorials*

Javascript

• FancyZoom 1.1 Smooth Javascript Image Zooming For Your Web Pages - something different from the widely used Lightbox
• iCarousel - creating image / text carousel like widgets
• dfFlexiGrid - Liquid Javascript Grid Layout*
• 10 JavaScript Effects to Boost Your Website’s Fanciness Factor*
• Mootools - Allow you to write flexible, and cross-browser code with its API*

Security

• How Hackers Hack Your Website - informative...

Testing

• Browsershots - Free online service to test your web design in different browsers with just a few mouse clicks

Other great lists..

• 99 Sites ALL Designers Must Know About
• 100+ Resources for Web Developers

Evolution of Microsoft Word for Windows (1989-2007)

Prior to 1989, Microsoft Word was originally a DOS application with complex set of commands. It was later added with more graphical features but only available for Mac OS. The first Word for Windows appeared in 1989 and was designed for Windows 3.0.



When Word version 2.0 was released as part of Microsoft Office 3.0 in 1992. Word became the market leader which was partly due to major competitor, WordPerfect, failed to produce Windows version. You can see that most of the basic features we use today are already in Word 2.0.



Office 4.0 was released in 1994. Word was called Word 6.0 at this point despite the fact the previous version number was 2.0. The purpose was to use common version numbering with the Mac OS version. Word 6.0 is the first version of Word that I used, I was still a primary school kid at that time.




Word 7.0 was part of Office 95 which released in 1995 for Windows 95. Word is already more than a word processing application at this point, it included drawing tools, multilingual supports etc. The best feature is the real time spelling checking - the red-squiggle line.



When Word 97 released in 1996, it included a most stupid feature ever which had irritated most Office users - Office Assistant (the 'clippy-guy') which in fact wasn't assisting at all.



If I am no mistaken, Word 2000 (Part of Office 2000) released in 1999 was the las t release that support Windows 95. Office macro viruses were getting more widespread. Office Genuine Advantage was introduced at this time which allowed legal copy of Microsoft Office to download updates from the web. The major addition was the clipboard which allowed to hold multiple copied objects at once - very nice feature.



I can't believe they kept Mr Clippy until Word 2002 (Part of Office XP) which released in 2001. I remembered back in those days, I have to ask Mr Clippy to piss off every time I use Office at my University (Mr Clippy comes back again for the next user after you log off from the machine). Clippy was supposed to be switched off by default in Office XP but the university settings were different.



When Office 2003 was released in year 2003, Microsoft Word was renamed as Microsoft Office Word to emphasize Microsoft's intention to make Office application suite into a more integrated Office system. Besides the appearance changes to match Windows XP design, I don't feel any difference from Word 2002.





Word 2007 (Part of Office 2007) was released on 30 jan 2007 took approximately 3 years to develop. This release includes numerous changes. The most obvious one are the Ribbon user interface design and the new XML-based file format (which is incompatible with previous versions). Microsoft claimed the new Ribbon design is result-oriented (as oppose to command-oriented). However, many users complaint about the interface overhaul because they couldn't find the menu items they want. Having said that, majority users are satisfied after 2 months according to a survey conducted by Microsoft.



The next release is Office 14 (There will be no Microsoft Office 13 due to superstition). No announcement is made regarding its release date yet.

Usability in UI design - What is the best practice?

Source: stuffthathappens.com

The comparison is unfair since the purpose of the applications is different. Nevertheless, how do we use the 3rd screen? It seems to save a record, we need to click Apply to end edit mode, then click Save to save record then click Okay to dismiss the form?? It is common to see business applications with unnecessary complexity.

I guess the common approach is to have a Customer list plus a pop-up edit form after select a record. Recently, I rolled out the new version of my application to clients. The biggest change I made from previous version is allow the users to edit directly on the data grid listing but I keep the pop-up edit forms for 'backward-compatibility'. After visiting several clients across Malaysia, I am surprised to find out that no one uses the pop-up edit form anymore. When I asked for reasons, they said, editing in data grid listing is faster and is 'Excel-like'. So....users do prefer spreadsheet approach??

The only disadvantages for editing on data grid listing are master-detail records cannot be represented, and it is harder to read when there is too many columns (So I include the Excel-like's freeze column feature). Otherwise, reading, sorting, filtering, searching and editing directly on the listing, i.e. the all-in-one approach, is the best option according to my observation. What do you think?

Excellent Blog Design

I like these two design: both contain aesthetic page layouts. With reasonable amount of spacing, the content is easy-to-read, and the search box is located at obvious place too.



I saw this kind of map+photo blog before, it is really innovative. This example is integrated with Google Maps...


Source: Smashing Magazine (Feb 2008, Nov 2007, Aug 2007)

How Well Do You Understand Design?

Even though the blog post is more relevant to website design, I still learned a couple of fundamental design concepts there.