InsideTheWeb@blogger.com

24 ways to impress your friends

2006-08-08T07:18:00.000+02:00

24 ways owns a collection of 24 very nice articles about bleeding edge JavaScript and CSS hacks to make things look good and work well. Definately worth a look or two if you are in the web business.

Playing nicely with Search Engines

2006-07-30T08:38:00.000+02:00

The subject may be as old as the web itself but still today, one tool to market your website is to have it have a high ranking with search engines. The Ultimate SEO Checklist seems to be a comprehensive article on this subject. It does not compile all the new ideas into a single article but also presents some new techniques.

I like the style of this article since it presents facts rather than "shoulds" and "mays".

Adobe - Reader Download

2006-07-18T16:37:00.000+02:00

What the hell is this? I am trying to upgrade my quite old instance of acrobat reader 5 since some new documents seem to require it. But this seems to be not quite such an easy task.

On the download-page for the adobe reader I am getting a EXE-file which tries to execute an AOM file, which of course I have no runtime for. If I retry downloading, the AOM file hops directly into my face. Since I am not willing to get me yet another installer for an installer, I guess I'll stay on acrobat 5 for awhile.

Way to go guys! This certainly spreads adobe reader faster ;-)

Download SYSCON's Magazines

2006-07-15T17:58:00.000+02:00

Browsing some old Links of mine and modifying some URLs. I got access to the public PDF download area of SysCon, who have brought to you e.g. the MXDJ (Macromedia Developer Journal, which all of it's issues may be downloaded here). I liked reading the magazine in the past and might continue now...

2Advanced Studios

2006-07-09T08:35:00.000+02:00

2Advanced Studios have released their new site called "v5 Attractor". Again its a very impressive experience graphical-wise and certainly worth a look if you like surfing the web just for enjoyment and to see what Flash can do.

Patterns For PHP - WebSites

2006-07-09T08:33:00.000+02:00

Since PHP-Patterns does not seem to get any new content for quite awhile (probably because Harry Fuechs has moved his activities over to Sitepoint), the new Patterns For PHP website seems to take the same approach of an open wiki on the subjects of design patterns for PHP.

Hopefully this time there will be a longer lasting effort on the subject since I personally like pattern-pages very much. For all those of you that are craving patterns on an abstract non-implementational level Martin Fowler's website might be worth a look.

Browser Statistics

2005-01-29T10:32:00.000+01:00

If you are looking for an easy way to get the latest statistics for usage. Have a look at the W3Schools Site of
Browser Statistics. This also includes current stats about OS used, resolution and the likes.

Navicat - Desktop MySQL GUI

2005-01-07T08:31:00.000+01:00

Navicat - the World's Best MySQL GUI for Windows, Linux & Mac OS X is a rather claimy title for a product like this. I don't know if it quite meets it's promises, but damn sure looks like it. You can do anything from stored procedures to views and table contraints if you MySQL Server installation allows it. Unfortunately this is not freeware or an open source product. But at least they give you a 30-day trial.

As I said, I did not test this thing throughoutly but it looks very promising to me at the moment. The only thing I am missing is the possibility to plan a database using ER diagramms to design databases.

Comparing programming languages

2005-01-04T09:26:00.000+01:00

While A Very Quick Comparison of Popular Languages for Teaching Computer Programming compares a simple "Hello World" Programm in Basic, C, Java and Python listing pros and cons in a very humoristic way, there is also a site which compares the "99-bottles-of-beer-on-a-wall" algorithm in currently 621 programming languages and/or different styles.

The Evolution of a Programmer

2005-01-04T09:13:00.000+01:00

The Evolution of a Programmer made me laugh my butt of. It actually shows the natural ways of life in which programmers tend to align the solution to a problem to their own skill and not to solve the problem the easiest way there is. This is simply a great piece of insider-humor...

flashAmp - The Flash MP3 Player

2005-01-03T08:43:00.000+01:00

I stumbled over flashAmp - The Flash MP3 Player when I came from the site check of FLASHKIT.com. FlashAmp is a nicely skinned MP3 streaming player completely built in Flash. I have not tried it out but there is an instruction page with the free download which enables you to change the coloring and playlist of the player dynamically to fit your needs. However new skins are currently not possible (again they are against a small fee and an order to the designers). Anyhow. Someone should do this: create a fully WinAmp compliant Flash Player that is free of any charge.

Road Runner

2005-01-02T23:08:00.000+01:00

Road Runner is a Macromedia Flash based news portal from Time Warner Cable. While the content might not be interesting to all audiences, especially web designers, who want to broaden their horizons of usability and accessibilty.

The portal as a whole is very nicely integrated - which is mainly due to Macromedia Flash. The site is organized into highly customizable and personalizable pods. For a portal this makes good sense, especially since media is seamlessly integrated.

You also have some options on the appearence like font-size and contrast to aid accessibilty. Also the help-system ist nicely integrated into the site, playing movies that explain what to do on the site and how to do it.

On the downside I have yet not found any permanent URL links or ways to generate favorites... just have a look and judge for yourself.

Spamihilator - Anti-Spam-Filter

2005-01-02T11:53:00.000+01:00

Spamihilator - Anti-Spam-Filter may be tool for all of you, who still have mail boxes without a explicit server sided spam-filter. The tool is free and compatible with about any POP3 Mail-Client Software. I just started using it... if it doesn't help me, I'll let you know.

Fantasy Interactive (FI)

2004-12-28T07:25:00.000+01:00

Fantasy Interactive (FI) - Interactive Design & Development is a great crew of web designers who obviously understand how to take internet to the next level. Specialized in very high quality flash applications, which even outperform most of what I have seen at 2advanced. They are responsible for the roadrunner network site, which a completely new cool flash experience, the ford vehicles site. They quality put in their work is tremendous.

On their site I particularly like the way they show case their major projects. Having a nice HQ-project site together with background info on how the project was completed and which tools were used to tame the beast. Also I like the HQ-FlashVids on the site showing the people behind the scenes, their vision and how they do their work. Great site and worth a look or two.

LAUNCH: Music on Yahoo!

2004-12-20T07:55:00.000+01:00

I don't know if many people know this, but I am afraid they don't.
LAUNCH is a music video/entertainem portal on the Yahoo platform. You can get access to the latest music-vids there, have a lot of cool radio stations to tune in and stuff. I really like it although I must admit that I got registered there about 3 years ago long before Yahoo had a part in the portal. Since then performance and reach have decreased a little in my opinion but maybe that is only due to the public exposure.

Anyhow if you were looking for a place to stream your favorite music vids from. Launch is the place to go for you.

Macromedia "On Demand"

2004-12-20T07:49:00.000+01:00

Anyone who has been to Macromedia's website in the past year or so must have stumbled over the omipresent Breeze Presentations. Those nice pieces of multimedia, Macromedia uses to provide/broadcast product information in the sense of infotainment. Although I know it's basically advertising I frequently catch myself watching those nice presentations over and over again. Ok, I am a huge fan of Macromedia in general but in my opinion Breeze Presentations are a great alternative to just reading text, especially since audio and video a frequently embedded in those presentations.

As I am a developer (or at least I call myself one) Breeze online tutorials are currently one of the favorite things to watch on the web. You get a little inside/general overview of the products and how to work with them and although it's obviously just advertising, you "just need to stay". It's kinda addictive. At least for me.

Now all those tutorials - called modules - are centrally stored in a searchable library called Macromedia On Demand. So whenever you feel you would need to get to know a little more about the macromedia products launch Macromedia On Demand to get your daily brainwash.

X-Desktop

2004-11-27T09:46:00.000+01:00

Just to have another system of the open-source community opposing the closed source solution just presented I have to mention X-Desktop. X-Desktop aims to bring the a skinnable windowing metaphor to the web. And they do that pretty well. The project might not have evolved much since it has been orginially released (about 2 years ago). It's comprised of a few JavaScript files which provide an API to open, close and arrage skinned inline windows on any website.

You probably find some bugs that are worth fixing but basically it's a very stable software all in all. I have started using it, when it first came out and was still published under a non-commercial license. Those guys do not have it so much with licensing and I guess it's still not perfectly clear, how you can utilize the API in commecial projects.

Bindows.net

2004-11-27T09:02:00.000+01:00

Bindows.net is a client sided rich client application framework, that uses petty much CrossBrowser JavaScript to do really impressive things. It aims to enable developers to code OS-style applications using just XML and deliver them via the browser.

You can use XML to layout your application, and use JavaScript to implement dynamic behaviour for components in their own component model. Components can be embedded pretty easily into existing web site. It's a truely exiting technology, and since x-browser support is available for Internet Explorer and Mozilla I guess the reach of products built with Bindows is pretty great, too.

Although Macromedia Flash can probably deliver better user experiences, Bindows is probably better suited to provide OS-type/styled applications through the web browser.

I have not played around with Bindows too much, but the examples I see in the AppLauncher a very promising. On the downside this is no open-source technology as you need to aquire licenses if you want to use this stuff in production with a commercial project.

I originally came to notice Bindows though the creators original DHTML-website, WebFX, which provides a lot of cross-browser (and also browser specific) widgets components that are written in XHTML and JavaScript. Nice things such a menus, sortable tables, tabbed browsing etc. are available for free here. Not quite as integrated as Bindows. But this stuff got me addicted to, when I used to be a web design script kiddie ;-)

2Advanced Studios

2004-11-27T09:01:00.000+01:00

2Advanced Studios is some site you need to love. Everything they do is like a little masterpiece of the web of it's own. They understand to give sites personality by applying new navigation concepts and still you'll never feel lost.
Although I am not too much a fan of the new prophecy design in particular (liked the old one better) I still have to say "hats off" to the great crew behind 2advanced, a name they truely deserve.

Welcome to InsideTheWeb

2004-11-21T19:26:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

as stated in my main/personal blog this one will featue stuff that I have discovered on the web and which is probably very useful for topics of web design and graphic design and such. I hope you find this blog useful once a few posts from my end hit it ;-)