Technobrief #14

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

Books

• Field Guide to Web Applications
  Bert Appward introduces the skills and practices for building modern web apps (online book).

CSS

• A Comprehensive Introduction to LESS
  Ivaylo Gerchev covers the basics of LESS.
• How to optimize your CSS
  David Pickett describes different techniques to streamline your CSS files.
• Learning LESS
  A series of posts that will focus on LESS, the dynamic language that takes your CSS and puts it on steroids.
• Metro: Introduction to CSS 3 Grid Layout
  Stephen Walther provides a quick introduction to the new W3C CSS 3 Grid Layout standard. You can use CSS Grid Layout in Metro style applications written with JavaScript to lay out the content of an HTML page. CSS Grid Layout provides you with all of the benefits of using HTML tables for layout without requiring you to actually use any HTML table elements.
• Refactoring >14,000 lines of CSS into Sass
  Eugene Fedorenko shares a story of converting 5 files, 14,211 lines and 290 KB of CSS code to SASS.
• SASS vs. LESS
  Explains why SASS is better than LESS?
• Sass vs. LESS vs. Stylus: Preprocessor Shootout
  Johnathan Croom covers the various features and benefits of using three different preprocessors.
• An Event Apart: CSS Best Practices
  Luke Wroblewski shares his notes from the Nicole Sullivan's Our Best Practices Are Killing Us presentation at An Event Apart in Atlanta, GA.

Data

• 7 Tips & Tricks To Get The Most Out Of Google Drive
  Chris Hoffman's favorites. Many of these tricks will also work with Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive, and any other service that provides a magic folder that automatically synchronizes your files over the Internet.
• Compare SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox
  Compares these three popular services.
• Data Recovery Tales: RAID Is Not Backup
  Elena Pakhomova lists five reasons why RAID isn't acceptable as a backup strategy.
• Google Drive vs. Dropbox vs. SkyDrive vs. Amazon Cloud Drive vs. iCloud
  Compares these cloud data storage options.
• The Best Online Backup & Cloud Storage Solutions
  Eric Shafer describes 10 popular cloud data storage services.

Design

• 16 PIXELS: For Body Copy. Anything Less Is A Costly Mistake
  D Bnonn Tennant explains why websites should user bigger fonts.
• Best free high quality HTML/CSS templates - examples and tutorials
  Collection of templates.
• Cheat Sheet For Designing Web Forms
  This crib sheet presents best practices for a variety of Web form issues: variety of fields (simple, optional, etc.), layout and examples, page-level error handling, password strength, currency values, inline validation, buttons (free download).
• How To Set Up A Print Style Sheet
  Christian Krammer explains how to make your website printer-friendly.
• Multi-Device Layout Patterns
  Luke Wroblewski catalogs what seem to be the most popular of these patterns for adaptable multi-device layouts.
• Position Text Labels on Forms Using CSS
  Cameron Adams describes three common approaches to positioning text labels on web forms using CSS.
• Responsive Web Design
  Katrien De Graeve shows how to use flexible and fluid layouts that adapt to almost any screen.
• Progressive And Responsive Navigation
  Jeremy Hixon explains how to implement website navigation.
• Richer UI Design with PowerPoint Storyboarding
  Mark Michaelis explores PowerPoint Storyboarding, a new feature of Visual Studio 2012 that comes as a PowerPoint add-on and can be a great tool for building screen mock-ups.

Graphics

• 50 Amazing Free Icon Sets
  Nice collection.
• How to make logos - Photoshop Tutorials - October 2011
  Various tutorials on logo making.
• The Noun Project
  Collection of monochrome icons and symbols (in the SVG format).

HTML5

• Back to basics: how to code an HTML5 template
  Dain Miller covers the basic constructs of HTML5.
• HTML5Boilerplate
  A template that helps you build fast, robust, and adaptable web apps or sites.
• HTML5 Form Validation
  Stephen Walther describes how you can take advantage of HTML5 client-side validation regardless of the type of application that you are building.
• Paul Irish on HTML5 Boilerplate
  In this video, Paul Irish, the man behind the project will show you how you can use HTML5 Boilerplate to get your projects up and running quickly while keeping best practices covered.

JavaScript/jQuery

• An introduction to Modernizr for designers
  Louis Lazaris introduces a way to ensure that you’re designs are able to take advantage of new HTML and CSS features using the Modernizr JavaScript library and API.
• Create a Windows-like Interface with jQuery UI
  A walkthrough by Nikko Bautista.
• Differences Between jQuery .bind() vs .live() vs .delegate() vs .on()
  Elijah Manor attempts to shed some light on confusion about the real differences between these methods and when they should be used.
• Essential jQuery Plugin Patterns
  Addy Osmani takes the official jQuery plugin authoring guide a bit further
• Forsight.js
  Gives webpages the ability to tell if the user's device is capable of viewing high-resolution images (such as the 3rd generation iPad) before the image is requested from the server. Additionally, it judges if the user's device currently has a fast enough network connection for high-resolution images. Depending on device display and network connectivity, foresight.js will request the appropriate image for the webpage.
• Introduction to the ASP.NET Web API
  Stephen Walther offers a brief overview of the features of the new ASP.NET Web API. You learn how to use the ASP.NET Web API to retrieve, insert, update, and delete database records with jQuery. We also discuss how you can perform form validation when using the Web API and use OData when using the Web API.

Life

• 5 Awesome Things You Can Do With Google Voice
  Justin Pot shares a few tips, like making free calls to Canada.

Mobile

• Common mobile web design mistakes
  A list by Pamela Rodríguez.
• Create a great mobile experience for your website today. Please.
  Scott Hanselman suggests.
• Developing a mobile app for iPhone, Windows Phone 7 and Android
  Scott Hanselman and Toran Billups discuss mobile development (podcast).
• Finger-Friendly Design: Ideal Mobile Touchscreen Target Sizes
  A few notes on index fingers.

Opinions

• A Design Primer for Engineers
  Michael Lopp's perspective.
• A meta post about negative code reviews
  Ayende Rahien explains why writing a negative review does not make you evil.
• Application review: Northwind Starter Kit
  Get them, Ayende.
• Great Artists Steal
  Marius Bancila is perplexed with the Apple vs. Samsung ruling, just as anyone should be.
• Hire and Pay a Designer and Be Happy
  Scott Hanselman is happy.
• How To Explain To Clients That They Are Wrong
  Sam Barnes on no means no.

Process

• Exclusive: a behind-the-scenes look at Facebook release engineering
  An inside look at how changes are made to one of the world's largest websites.

Programming

• Authoring Documentation with DocProject and Sandcastle
  Marius Bancila gives a walkthrough of writing conceptual documentation and API reference using the free DocProject and Sandcastle Help File Builder tools.
• Features NO ONE NOTICED in Visual Studio 11 Express Beta for Web
  Scott Hanselman shares his favorites.
• Non-trivial and real-world feedbacks on writing Unit-Tests
  Patrick Smacchia shares several non-trivial feedbacks gained over all these years of practicing real-world testing.
• On Writing Unit Tests for C#
  Patrick Smacchia gives his opinion based on hard-won experience.
• Uploading a Variable Number of Files from an ASP.NET Web Page
  A walkthrough by Scott Mitchell.

Software

• ActivePresenter
  The free edition allows you to create screencasts in three simple steps. Supported formats: AVI, MP4, WMV, WebM.
• Adapter
  Free video and image converter for Mac and PC.
• Kaspersky WindowsUnlocker
  A free program that you can use to remove the effects of malware that is blocking you from accessing parts or all of the system.
• MP4Cam2AVI
  Free MPEG4/MJPEG to AVI converter/joiner for MPEG-4 camcorders and digital photo cameras (also cell phones that shoot video in MP4 format). It repackages video content to AVI container without video recompression, it's fast and loseless.
• Siren
  Free file renamer.
• XVI32
  Free hex editor.

Tools

• Ambient-mixer
  Listen to relaxing music, ambient atmospheres and astonishing sound effects. If you want, you can even create your own atmospheric sound mix, online and for free. Every audio template can be easily edited for your own needs.
• Compfight
  Image search engine tailored to efficiently locate images for blogs, comps, inspiration, and research. We make good use of the flickr™ API, but aren't affiliated with flickr.
• jsFiddle
  Offers an easy way to test HTML, CSS, and JavaScript online.
• Codeacademy
  Great learning resource for teachers and students of computer programming.
• Marklets
  Bookmarklet search engine.
• Mockup Builder
  Build mockups of websites and software apps online (free).
• Invoiceable
  Free online invoicing app (the free version will include a link to the site).

Work

• How effective are office team-building exercises?
  Very effective at breeding disconnection and mistrust.
• How to Hire a Programmer
  Jeff Atwood shares his advice on a few techniques that he've personally tried out over the years.
• Meetings: Where Work Goes to Die
  Jeff Atwood wonders why we have meetings at all.
• Mythical man month : 10 lines per developer day
  Patrick Smacchia is counting.

UX

• Are Design Patterns an Anti-pattern?
  In a world of limited resources, code beats pictures; by Stephen Turbek
• Complexity and User Experience
  Understanding features in terms of complexity instead of functionality; by Jon Bolt.

Windows

• How To Anonymize and Encrypt Your BitTorrent Traffic
  Tips to circumvent eavesdropping on your bittorrent activities.
• Registry Tricks
  Helge Klein describes some pretty cool ways to work with the Windows registry.
• Getting the most from Windows Search — Part 2
  Woody Leonhard explains how to search in Windows 7 the way you used to in Windows XP, Windows 95, or even DOS.