Technobrief #13

Summary: Recent findings of software, articles, and more.

CSS

• 100 Exceedingly Useful CSS Tips and Tricks
  Showcase of useful CSS tips and tricks.
• Better Semantics with CSS Combinators & Selectors
  Chris Sealey explains when and how to use complex CSS combinators.
• CSS Positioning 101
  Noah Stokes looks at the CSS position property to see how we can use it to create standards-compliant, table-free CSS layouts.
• Should You Start Using CSSLint?
  Discusses CSSLint, a recently released code analysis tool for CSS.

Graphics

• 10 Things You Need to Know About Compositing in Photoshop
  Adapted from Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Unlocking the Key to Perfect Selections and Amazing Photoshop Effects for Totally Realistic Composites by Matt Kloskowski
• FAMFAMFAM icons
  Several sets of 16x16 icons in PNG and GIF format.

Hardware

• How To Buy a NAS - The Short(er) Version - Updated 2011
  If you don't want (or care) to get into the details behind what makes a NAS tick and just want a short list of candidates to consider, then this article is for you.

JavaScript

• Create Bookmarklets – The Right Way
  This tutorial looks into creating bookmarklets from scratch and lists some best practices to follow.
• Superexpert JavaScript Reference
  Great reference with examples and browser support indicators.
• Namespacing in JavaScript
  Angus Croll offers several approaches of implementing namespaces in JavaScript.
• Ten Oddities And Secrets About JavaScript
  This article is aimed at intermediate developers who are curious about more advanced JavaScript. It is a collection of JavaScript’s oddities and well-kept secrets. Some sections will hopefully give you insight into how these curiosities can be useful to your code, while other sections are pure WTF material.

jQuery

• A Watermarked Auto-complete jQuery Plugin
  This article presents a watermarked auto-complete jQuery plugin built upon the jQuery UI autocomplete control.
• An Introduction to jQuery Templates
  In this blog entry, Stephen Walther you with enough information to start working with jQuery Templates.
• jQuery Templates, composite rendering, and remote loading
  Dave Ward explains how to to build a jQuery template out of simple sub-templates stored in external files.

Libraries

• Simple Data
  A light-weight, dynamic data access component for C# 4.0.
• .NET Logging Framework
  The logging framework provides you with an easy means to log information to any destination. It comes complete with loggers that support writing to the system console, a file on disk, a TCP/IP socket, and more.

Office

• How to make awesome diagrams for your slides
  Good tips for building PowerPoint presentations.

Opinions

• And Then Along Comes Larry….
  Robert Cringely describes Oracle's Larry Ellison. Quote: "This level of honesty doesn’t make Larry what most of us would think of as a nice person. I once heard him refer to having “nailed” a dinner companion, if you know what I mean and I think you do. But with Larry at least you know where you stand, with most of us standing, frankly, nowhere."
• A Simple Example That's Incredibly Complex
  Great discussion about Domain-Driven Design (DDD), simplicity, patterns, and other coding aspects. Quote: "If you find yourself writing a sentence with the words “banking, simple, not real-world” you might want to rethinking what it is you’re doing." Great, great article.
• MacOS X is an Unsuitable Platform for Web Development
  Ted Dziuba describes his experience with MacOS.
• The State of Video on the Web
  The history behind the <video> tag and its support in various browsers.

Podcasts

• Hanselminutes (Show #262): The Rise of the Micro-ORM with Sam Saffron and Rob Conery/
  Scott sits down with Sam Saffron and Rob Conery to talk about their Micro-ORMs. What have they done in less than 400 lines of code, that the rest of the planet needs a dozen assemblies for? Should you abandon your ORM and start writing inline SQL? All this and more.

Programming

• A Coder’s Guide to Writing API Documentation
  Peter Gruenbaum offers a guide on how to write API documentation.
• C# In Depth – Optional Parameters and Named Arguments
  Extract from Jon Skeet's book, in which he describes these new features of C# 4.0.
• Command line reference: Database and Operating Systems
  Covers Windows command shell (Windows Script Host), VBScript, PowerShell, Oracle, SQL Server, and more.
• Customizing ELMAH’s Error Emails
  Scott Mitchell explains.
• Efficiently Paging Through Large Amounts of Data
  This tutorial explains how to use custom paging when retrieving data from a SQL Server database.
• The Ins and Outs of WebMatrix: .NET Programming Using the Razor Syntax
  This tutorial gives you an overview of programming with ASP.NET Web Pages using the Razor syntax.
• To make a Metro Appx Package from scratch, you must first…
  Peter Nelson explains how to deploy a Metro app on Windows 8.

Security

• Keep it secret, keep it safe
  Eric Lippert explains why "the hard part of a secure design that uses crypto is not the math."

Software

• AVS Cover Editor
  Create covers for various disc types: CD, DVD, Blu-ray discs, VCD, etc.
• Contact Sync
  Synchronize contacts between Outlook and Gmail.
• Dolphin Text Editor Menu
  Adds options to standard text editors (Notepad, OpenOffice.org, Visual Studio, etc) allowing you to sort text alphabetically, reverse line order, remove blank or duplicate lines, change text case, align text, remove HTML tags, remove text formatting, count words and characters, and do more.
• Dropbox Shell Tools
  A Windows Explorer shell extension to speed up copy or move files to your Dropbox folder (must install as Administrator).
• Eusing Free MP3 Cutter
  Allows you to cut out pieces of an audio file (MP3, WAV, WMA), keeping ID3 tag info.
• ExamDiff
  Visual file comparison tool.
• Lifehacker Pack for Windows: Our List of the Best Windows Downloads
  A yearly snapshot of Lifehacker's favorite applications.
• KastorSoft: Free Multimedia Software
  Several free applications including video converter, audio extractor and more.
• PixBuilder Studio
  Yet another free image editing software program for digital photo editing, images processing, and resizing.
• Sweet Home 3D
  A free interior design application that helps you place your furniture on a house 2D plan, with a 3D preview.
• UltraSearch
  Searches files and folders on local NTFS drives without using file indexing.

Training

• INETA Live
  Offers a number of videos on programming and non-programming topics presented at different user groups.

Visual Studio

• StyleCop Compliant Visual Studio Code Snippets
  Within this project the code snippetst that come with Visual Studio 2010 have been refactored to provide StyleCo-compliant versions of the original code snippets while also adding many new code snippets.
• Visual Studio Tools and Extensions
  Good collection of various tools and extensions for Visual Studio 2010.

Web design

• A Basic HTML5 Template
  Explains how to build an HTML5-based to build page template from scratch.
• Responsive Web Design: What It Is and How To Use It
  Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market. This article explains the approach to Responsive Web Design.

Webtools

• IDPhoto4You
  Easy to use tool to create passport, visa and ID photos (for U.S. and other countries).
• Mejuba
  Free, unlimited photo and video storage and sharing site.
• One Page Apps I Actually Use
  Lists a collection of useful one-page web-based tools including: CSS3Please.com, Border-Radius.com, HTML-Ipsum.com, ScriptSrc.net, CopyPasteCharacter.com, Button Maker.
• SignNow
  Allows you to put add a signature to a digital document (such as PDF file).