Technobrief #15

Summary: Recent (and not so recent) findings of software, articles, and more.

CSS

• Learn CSS Layout
  This site teaches the CSS fundamentals that are used in any website's layout.
• Responsive Menu Concepts
  Discusses four main concepts for building responsive menus.

Design

• 50 Incredible Freebies for Web Designers, February 2015
  Free icon sets, templates, color palettes, and more.
• 6 Steps to Perfecting Minimalism in Web Design
  Some ideas on making your website more user-friendly.
• Good UI Ideas
  A running list of ideas for improving UI usability for both owners and customers.
• How to Modify Bootstrap Quickly and Effectively
  Introduces several tools and options for Bootstrap UI modification.

Fonts

• 101 Essential Free Fonts for Web Designers
  Fonts that are genuinely free (not just one style or weight free), a balance of fonts that work well for body text as well as display, and a full collection of fonts that are pleasing to the eye.
• 10 Best New Free Fonts
  A small, yet very good, collection.

Graphics

• Graphic resources for everyone
  Find free vectors, PSD, icons and photos.

JavaScript

• Gridforms
  A tiny Javascript/CSS framework that helps you make forms on grids with ease.
• SlabText
  A JQuery plugin for producing big, bold, and responsive headlines.

Programming

• The Ultimate Guide for Getting Started with Foundation
  Introduction to Foundation: one of the two big-name HTML/CSS/JS frameworks for front-end developers.
• Say Hello to PowerShell
  A brief tutorial.

Software

• DVDStyler
  Free slide show and DVD authoring tool. Important features: allows creation of interactive menus (from templates), support for multiple video formats.
• GlassWire
  Free network monitor & security tool with a built in firewall.
• LightWorks Free
  The free version of a video editing application (see limitation in the version comparison charts).
• MP3 Diags
  Identifies and fixes problems in MP3 files, such as duplicate tags, wrong audio duration, character encoding, and many others.
• Windows Media Preview
  Shows thumbnails for all media files in Windows Explorer.

Tools

• A Dozen Tools for Removing Almost Any Malware An article providing all the information needed to remove even the most tenacious malware infestation.
• ITTT (If This Then That)
  Create alerts and notifications for a wide range of conditions: weather, shopping, etc.
• List of Mockup/Prototyping Tools
  An extensive collection (although, with no descriptions).

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.

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).

Technobrief #12

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

CSS

• The 30 CSS Selectors you Must Memorize
  Jeffrey Way describes CSS selectors (includes demos and browser compatibility matrix).
• Shadow Boxing; CSS3 Glossy Buttons
  Five-step tutorial on building cool-looking buttons.
• Quick Tip: You Need to Check out LESS.js
  Jeffrey Way explains how to use JavaScript implementation of the LESS library that offers greater flexibility when creating style sheets, including the use of variables, operators, mix-ins, and nested selectors.

Design

• Best Practices of Combining Typefaces
  A close look at some the best practices for combining typefaces — as well as some blunders to avoid.
• Warm Gun: the Age of Experience
  Luke Wroblewski offers his notes from Jared Spool's The Dawning of the Age of Experience: How to Build A Killer Design Team talk at the Warm Gun Design Conference in San Francisco, CA (there are some excellent points).
• 50 Powerful Time-Savers For Web Designers
  Useful utilities for web designers and developers.

Firefox

• InstantFirefox
  Add-on that enables instant (Chrome-like) search in Firefox.
• Syphon
  Keeps your favorite extensions synced with all your computers.

Humor

• Simplicity
  Great illustration of what a typical Apple product, Google interface and your company's application look like (funny, and so true).

Icons

• 50 New Free High Quality Icons Sets
  Most of the listed freebies may be used for commercial projects as well, some of them may not.
• Gcons
  Comprehensive collection of 100 creative, open source and multi-purpose icons in 12 colors for the web and desktop applications.

Interviews

• John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview Transcript
  Offers awesome insights into how Steve Jobs does things; it’s also one of the frankest CEO interviews you’ll ever read (Sculley talks openly about Jobs and Apple, admits it was a mistake to hire him to run the company and that he knows little about computers).

JavaScript

• The Essentials of Writing High Quality JavaScript
  Stoyan Stefanov offers an excerpt of his book (JavaScript Patterns) detailing the essentials of writing high quality JavaScript, such as avoiding globals, using single var declarations, pre-caching length in loops, following coding conventions, and more. This excerpt also includes some habits not necessarily related to the code itself, but more about the overall code creation process, including writing API documentation, conducting peer reviews, and running JSLint.

jQuery

• Composition with jQuery Templates: Why and How
  Dave Ward offers an example of template composition using jQuery templates.
• jQuery Templates, Data Link, and Globalization Accepted as Official jQuery Plugins
  Scott Guthrie (ScottGu) introduces new Microsoft's contribution to official jQuery plugins.
• Progressively Enhance a Form to a Modal Form
  Erik Wurzer offers a tutorial (with demo and samples) explaining how to implement a modal dialog (form) using progressive enhancement: start with baseline, usable functionality, then increase the user experience for those who have browsers to support it.
• Commonly Confused Bits Of jQuery
  Andy Croxall clears up some of the confusions about jQuery functions, methods and syntactical peculiarities that appear similar but differ in some ways.
• Web Delicious jQuery Plugins
  A nice collection of jQuery pligins, including date picker, checkbox tree, context menu, scroll tab, and calendar.

Opinions

• Laborers versus Professionals
  Jan Van Ryswyck offers a frank look at typical corporate application development practices (fear-driven development!).

Software

• Diffuse
  Tool for comparing and merging text files.
• FotoMix
  Allows you to crop, resize, rotate, mix and manipulate different pictures,
  to create a wide variety of images.
• Hamster Free Video Converter
  Converts video and audio files between various formats.
• Free Video Converter
  Converts video between formats (AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, SWF, 3GP, MPEG), creates custom presets, converts to devices, rips & burns DVDs, and uploads videos to YouTub.
• JD-GUI
  Java decompiler.
• xSearch
  A free search tool that offers more features than Windows Search, including searches for special words in files (any of the words, all of the words, exact phrase, without the words, etc), search for hexadecimal values, search for words in Unicode or UTF-8 format, and more.
• CPU-Z
  Displays information about the main devices of your computer including CPU, graphics card, motherboard, memory, etc.
• Rasterbator
  Creates rasterized versions of images, which can be printed and assembled into enormous (or smaller, if you prefer) posters.

Web tools

• GMX
  Pretty decent web-based email.
• Crime Mapping
  Shows recent crime activity in your neighborhood.
• Your Tax Receipt
  Explains how your tax dollars are allocated between different government program.
• Glyde
  Allows you to buy and sell electronic games, DVDs, CDs, and books.
• VolunteerSpot
  Free online sign up sheets and volunteer scheduling tool.
• The Most Powerful and Feature Rich Web-Based Code Editors (IDEs)
  A collection of web-based IDEs for various languages, including JavaScript, CSS, ASP.NET, PHP, and more.

Web development

• The Footer’s the Menu
  James Edwards suggests ways to address usability and accessibility problems with drop-down and fly-out menus.

Technobrief #11

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

CSS

• CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 Help Cheat Sheets (PDF)
  Two useful cheat sheets that will help you quickly look up the right CSS 2.1-property or an obscure CSS 3 property.
• Less.js Will Obsolete CSS
  Dmitry Fadeyev explains how to improve CSS using the LESS preprocessor.
• Modern CSS Layouts: The Essential Characteristics
  Focuses on the broad underlying concepts that you need to know to create successful CSS layouts using the latest techniques (see also Modern CSS Layouts, Part 2: The Essential Techniques).
• The Principles Of Cross-Browser CSS Coding
  Louis Lazaris describes what he believes are some of the most important CSS principles and tips that can help both new and experienced front-end developers achieve as close to a consistent cross-browser experience as possible, with as little CSS code as possible.
• The State of CSS3 in Email Templates
  Ros Hodgekiss goes through two CSS3 properties you can use in your email templates, alongside some practical examples.

Design

• Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices
  Identifies best practices for working with type, such as choosing serif vs. sans-serif fonts, picking font face, light or dark background, font sizes (headlines, body), etc.

Fun

• Cloth Simulation
  Andrew Hoyer simulates effects of gravity on a hanging cloth in JavaScript (beautiful!).
  
• Spider 3D
  Interactive tarantula by Tomas Eriksson (freaky!).
  

Graphics

• iconFinder
  Collection of free icon sets (see also Free icons!).
  
• morgueFile
  Public image archive.

Internet

• Google Experts Answer your SEO Questions
  Transcript of an interview with the Google search quality team: John Mueller (Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google Zurich), Matt Cutts (Webspam Engineer, Google California), Zareen Kazim (Strategist, Google India), Koteswara Ivaturi (Project Manager, Google Hyderabad) and Kaspar Szymanski (Strategist, Google Dublin).
• Non-Latin TLDs Spotted in the Wild
  Don't be surprised when you see URLs containing Russian and Arabic characters (e.g. http://وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر/).

JavaScript

• l10n.js: JS localization library
  Dion Almaer describes Eli Grey's JavaScript library that enables localization through the native JavaScript method intended for it (and gracefully degrading if the library is not present).
• JavaScript sprintf
  JavaScript implementation of C-like sprintf function.

Jobs

• 10 Questions to Ask Your New Manager
  Jurgen Appelo suggests 10 questions that you may want to ask your hiring manager.
• Why Engineers Hop Jobs
  Ted Dziuba (humorously) explains why.

jQuery

• A jQuery UI Growl/Ubuntu-like Notification Widget
  Eric Hynds demonstrates the use of a small, yet effective, jQuery notification widget.
• jQuery 1.4.2 Visual Cheat Sheet
  A very useful reference for the jQuery API and usage.
• jQuery Globalization Plugin from Microsoft
  Scott Guthrie describes the prototype of a new jQuery Globalization Plugin that enables you to add globalization support to your JavaScript applications.
• jQuery Templates and Data Linking (and Microsoft contributing to jQuery)
  Scott Guthrie shows a prototype of client-side templates based on jQuery.
• My 7 jQuery Articles on Script Junkie
  Collection of excellent articles by Elijah Manor that covers topics such as jQuery debugging, history and back button support, writing plugins, and more (you can start with Six Things Every jQuery Developer Should Know).
• Uniform
  Masks your standard form controls with custom themed controls to make the look similar across various web browsers. It works in sync with your real form elements to ensure accessibility and compatibility.

Podcasts

• Boagworld
  A weekly podcast by Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington on building and running websites.

Programming

• Fixing Internationalization in ASP.NET
  Jason Kester introduces a simmple way to add internationalization (i18n) support to your ASP.NET-based web site.
• Solution Setup, Part Deux
  Hüseyin Tüfekçilerli covers such topics as versioning attributes, resource attributes, project naming convention, web project code and UI separation, and build output (see also part one).

Software (free)

• Daniusoft Video Converter Free
  Somewhat limited version of the video converter that also allows you to crop and trim videos, merge two or more video clips, adjust video effects, etc.
  
• Format Factory
  Multifunctional media converter that supports conversion of all media formats to compatible
  MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF (video), MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV (audio), and JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA (image). It can also rip video DVDs and music CDs to video and audio files. MP4 file support covers iPod/iPhone/PSP/BlackBerry format. (Note: This is my favorite free media conversion tool so far.)
• HxD Hex Editor
  Very fast hex editor which can handle files of any size.
• Komodo Edit
  Text/code editor that supports PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl Tcl, JavaScript, CSS, HTML and template languages like RHTML, Template-Toolkit, HTML-Smarty and Django (somewhat slow to start, but otherwise quite capable).
• PicPick
  Screen capture tool that also comes with image editor, color picker, color palette, pixel ruler, protractor, crosshair and whiteboard.
• SmillaEnlarger
  Small graphical tool for resizing, and especially magnifying bitmaps in high quality.

Tips and tricks

• How to Fix your Slow Internet Connection
  Amit Agarwal explains how to troubleshoot slow internet connections.
• Skip the DVD Trailers & Go Straight to the Movie
  Amit Agarwal suggests several methods of skipping trailers when watching DVDs on DVD players, as well as computers.

Web development

• 2010: Web Fonts Are Here and Ready to Use
  Brad Neuberg explains how to incorporate recently released open source fonts from the Google Font Directory in your web site.
• ASMX and JSON – Common mistakes and misconceptions
  Dave Ward explores a list of common misconceptions and potential pitfalls when it comes to using ASMX services for AJAX callbacks.
• Conditional-CSS
  Web-based utility allows you to write maintainable CSS with conditional logic to target specific CSS statements at both individual browsers and groups of browsers.
• Online Regular Expression Tester
  Allows you to test JavaScript-based regular expressions.

Web tools

• Rebate Reminder
  Lets you keep track of your mail-in rebates.
• Milo
  Lets you search for product availability at local stores.
• NolaPro Free Accounting
  Free web-based accounting site (the tool is also available as a free Windows application).
• Phonebooth Free
  Web-based inbound phone system that offers a local business phone number and sophisticated call routing, auto attendant, extensions, voicemail, and more. Free service allows 200 minutes of inbound calling per month (6 cents per minute thereafter).
• Paper Rater
  Checks grammar, proof-reads, detects plagiarism, and does more.
• SpeedTest
  Tests the speed of your Internet connection.
• Terms of Service Generator
  Construct a sample Terms of Service based on your answers to the questionnaire.

Technobrief #10

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

Blogs

• Top 200 Blogs for Developers (Q3 2009)
  The most recent compilation from Jurgen Appelo.

Freeware

• EncodeHD
  Re-encode all types of video files for use on your home media player or portable device.
• GUUUI
  This article explains how to use Visio for rapid prototyping of the web pages. It includes a reference to the GUUUI Web Prototyping Tool and sketchy interface widgets.
  
• iWisoft Free Video Converter
  Converts videos between all popular formats like AVI, MPEG, WMV, DivX, XviD, MP4, H.264/AVC, AVCHD, FLV, MKV, RM, MOV, 3GP, and audio MP3, WMA, WAV, RA, M4A, AAC, AC3, OGG; directly converts video for playback on your PSP, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PS3, Xbox, Zune, Creative Zen, Archos, and other digital multimedia devices; supports cropping, trimming, merging, adding watermark and special effects to videos.
• MP3 Diags
  A GUI-based application that allows end-users to identify issues with their MP3 files, fix some of the issues and make other changes, like adding track information.
• multiAVCHD
  A tool for authoring VCHD, Blu-Ray, HD DVD, and SD-Video videos.
• Mute on Lock
  A tiny utility that mutes the sound of the speakers when the Windows workstation is locked.
• Quick Sound Switch
  A small system tray tool, which allows you to switch the default sound device with only one click (it is useful for PCs with more than one sound card, or a sound card and a headset).
  
• Selenium
  A suite of tools to automate web application testing across many platforms.
• Ultimate Windows Tweaker
  A freeware utility for tweaking and optimizing 32-bit & 64-bit Windows 7 & Windows Vista (similar to TweakUI for Windows XP).

Opinions

• Code rant: Why is 'Buy' not always better than 'Build'
  Mike Hadlow explains why.
• iTunes Solves the Nested Clause Dilemma
  Theresa Neil describes UI design patterns for implementing predicate builders for complex rules.
• Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?
  Tom DeMarco wonders if the advice he gave in "Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimation" (Prentice Hall/Yourdon Press, 1982) -- a book that played a role in the way many budding software engineers quantified work and planned their projects -- was correct at the time, is still relevant, and if he still believes that metrics are a must for any successful software development effort. [SPOILER ALERT: The answers are: "no", "no", and "no".]
• The Duct Tape Programmer
  Joel Spolsky discusses when worse (coding practice) is better (than good coding practice).
• The Benefit Of Attending User Group Meeting
  Marlon Ribunal explains how a user group can help you.
• The Myth of Usability Testing
  Robert Hoekman, Jr discusses the difficulties and misconceptions related to usability testing.
• Wanted
  Michael "Rands" Lopp proposes a hiring strategy that managers should appreciate (a very insightful perspective on high-tech hiring).

Podcasts

• .NET Rocks!, Show #309: Les Pinter Looks Back
  Listen to a very lively conversation with the guy who sold Microsoft Word to Bill Gates.

Presentations

• OSCON 2005 Keynote - Identity 2.0
  This is an old talk, but I really liked the content and presentation style (it's not long, too).

Programming

• 10+ jQuery Form Enhancement Plugins
  Some handy plugins for HTML forms.
• 1000 Free "Farm-Fresh Web Icons"
  This free icon set includes both 16 and 32 pixel versions of icons in PNG format on transparent backgrounds.
  
• 10 Great Free Icon Packs for Your Website or Web App
  Some great free icon packs.
• 10 Usability Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit
  Chris Spooner offers great usability tips for web form design.
  
• 20 jQuery Plugins Worth Implementing in Your Themes
  A nice collection of helpful jQuery plugins.
• Click me Only Once - jQuery
  Explains how to execute an event on the HTML page only once.
• Excellent JQuery Plugins To Enhance Form Validation
  jQquery plugins that are related to all kinds of form validation.
• Jumpstarting Your Next jQuery Plugin with an Online Tool
  Elijah Manor explains how to quickly make a jQuery plugin.
• Mastering CSS Coding: Getting Started
  This article explains and illustrates the fundamental properties and capabilities of CSS: padding vs. margin, floats, center alignment, ordered vs. unordered lists, styling headings, overflow, position, background images, and image enhancement.
• Some Useful JavaScript & jQuery Snippets
  QUite useful code snippets for common tasks (see also part 2, part 3, and part 4).
  
• UI.Layout – The Ultimate Page Layout Manager
  When used along with jQuery UI widgets, this jQuery plugin allows to create a sophisticated application (see demos).
• Web Forms for People
  Luke Wroblewski offers great tips for designing web forms.

Webtools

• 1-800-FREE411
  Allows callers from the continental United States to place free five-minute international calls after listening to two short advertisements. There is no limit on the number of calls they can make in a day, and many countries are supported.
• Mockingbird
  An online tool that makes it easy for you to create, link together, preview, and share mockups of your website or application.
• VoiceMeMe
  Provides a personal voicemail box for your web site, classfieds, auctions, blog, social network profile (see tutorial and alternative).

Technobrief #9

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

English

• Online Style Guides: Collection of free style guides.

Guidelines and standards

• Windows UX Interaction Guidelines: 828-page guide (PDF) for each aspect of Windows 7 user experience (UX); the first 32 pages cover the UX design principles for Windows 7, a list of inspirations for how to design a great UX, top design guide violations, and more.

Quotes

• From Don't Believe Anyone by Jurgen Appelo:

  "After eating and sleeping, disagreeing comes third on the list of basic necessities in my life. It's because I like thinking."

Jobs

• From 7 great reasons to work at Netflix (Reason #5):

  Rules Annoy Us
  Rules creep into most companies as they try to prevent errors by less-than-stellar employees. But rules also inhibit creativity and entrepreneurship, leading to a lack of innovation. Over time this drives a company to being less fun and less successful. Instead of adding rules as we grow, our solution is to increase talent density faster than we increase business complexity. Great people make great judgment calls and few errors, despite ambiguity.

Programming

• ComposedRegex: Martin Fowler explains how to write more readable regular expressions.
• Four switch oddities: Eric Lipper explains non-obvious aspects of the switch statement (I did not know any of these).
• TDD Anti-Patterns: James Carr catalogs the most common misuses of and omissions in Test-Driven Development.

Software

• AoA Audio Extractor provides you a handy tool to extract audio/sound or background music from video files.
• Copy Path is a Windows shell extension that adds the ability to copy the path, folder path, or filename within the right click shell extension; works on individual and multiple files and folders.
• GoOo is another Microsoft Office alternative based on the OpenOffice.org source code; it claims to be fster and slicker.
• Precision Helper creates and manages help projects; works natively with the Microsoft HTML Help projects format (HHP) and allows to publish resulting help to the CHM, WebHelp, PDF and the single HTML document formats.
• SmillaEnlarger increases the size of digital images while trying to retain the quality.
• SpyDLLRemover is the standalone tool to detect and delete spywares from the system.
• StyleCop analyzes C# source code to enforce a set of style and consistency rules.
• XMedia Recode is a video converter, which can cut and crop a movie, change the resolution, invert and correct the colors and do more (to change the default German interface to English, use the Optionen - Sprache menu option).

Web development

• 11 Classic CSS Techniques Made Simple with CSS3: Vasili explains how to create rounded corners, box/text shadows, use fancy fonts and opacity, define multiple backgrounds and do more using classic way and CSS3 way.
• 32 Indispensable Bookmarklets for Web Developers and Designers: A collection of bookmarklets for testing, analyzing and tweaking web pages.
• Inline Validation in Web Forms: Luke Wroblewski reports on the findings from the usability study assessing various methods of inline form validation (a must read for developers!).
• Mastering CSS, Part 2: Advanced Techniques and Tools: advanced techniques and effects you can achieve with CSS, e.g. date parts using sprites, timelines, menu lists, sequential lists, date badges, and more.
• Niceforms is a script that will replace the most commonly used form elements with custom designed ones.
• Web app theme showdown: Aristo and Ace: Comparison of web application UI themes released by two thick-client web frameworks; both look great, are licensed as Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike, and come as part of the framework or as separate assets.

Web tools

• JSON Formatter and Validator is intended to help debug JSON data.
• 25 Essential Web Services for Designers collected by Giulio Bai (by Services, Giulio might have meant tools or sites).

Technobrief #8

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

Articles

• Cannot Measure Productivity by Martin Fowler
• Emerging Trends in Web Design by Aaron Kupferberg
• Social Media Experts Are Poets, Software Developers Are Novelists by Jurgen Appelo

Blogs

• AjaxLine (resources for AJAX, jQuery, ASP.NET, and other web technologies)
• 94 Great Freeware Programs For A Freeware Only PC
• Top 200 Blogs for Developers (Q2 2009)

English

• Online Style Guide by Saint Anslem College:
  • Overview of Web style guidelines
  • Writing for the web
  • Alphabetical list of style preferences

Graphics

• 15 wonderful set of icons for web design
• Iconza (free customizable icons for a web site)

jQuery

• 15 Resources To Get You Started With jQuery From Scratch by by Jeffrey Way
• jQuery plugins by Jörn Zaefferer (includes accordion, auto-complete, password validation, tooltip, treeview, and more)
• jTruncate in Action by Jeremy Martin (jTruncate is a jQuery plugin that truncates long text entities on a web page)
• jQuery vs MooTools by Aaron Newton

Programming

• Ajax survey 2009: jQuery and MS Ajax are almost tied among .NET developers
• Hungarian Notation – Use What Works Spit Out The Bones by Dave

Quotes

• From Sphinx - text search The Pirate Bay way by Ted Dziuba:

  "Before Sphinx, the other option for text search was Apache Solr. Solr, whose name-giver understands that vowels are a scarce resource and must be used sparingly, is a server that sits on top of Lucene. Solr is popular with the enterprise crowd, who love its Java. Being a Java program, Solr includes no shortage of technology whose acronyms contain the letters J and X."

Software

• CodecInstaller detects the installed audio and video codecs, analyzes files to understand which codecs they require, and suggests which codecs need to be installed.
• Convert AVI to MP4 converts video files from various formats (AVI, DivX, Xvid, WMA, MOV, H.264, MPEG1/MPEG2) to the MP4 (MPEG4) format.
• GSpot shows information about video and audion codecs used in a media file.
• DriverBackup! backs up, restores, and removes drivers.
• JPEG Lossless Rotator rotates JPEG images without re-encoding and loss of quality.
• MPEG Streamclip video converter plays, cuts, copies, pastes, trims, exports, and converts video files (MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD,VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AUD, AVR, VDR, PVR, TP0, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3, and more).
• Postbox email client offers an alternative to the popular Outlook and Thunderbird.
• Roadkil recovers files from disks with physical damage (bad sectors, scratches, etc).
• Shrink Pic automatically reduces the size of photos sent or uploaded toemail, instant messaging, blogging, and web galleries
• Svchost Process Analyzer lists all svchost instances and checks the services they contain making it easy to uncover worms and viruses, such as Conficker.
• Zimbra Desktop is an email, which can syncs Zimbra, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail email, contacts, and calendars.
• Zortam MP3 Media Studio includes audio file organizer, ID3 tag editor, CD ripper, WAV/MP3 converter, MP3 volume normalizer, lyrics finder, batch lyrics and cover finder, playlist manager, CD burner, and more.

Videos

• Revealing Design Treasures from the Amazon by Jared Spool

Web design

• 15 CSS Tricks That Must be Learned by Drew Douglass
• Common Mistakes in Web Design by Marko
• A Pattern Library for Interaction Design by Welie.com
• Visual Hierarchy in Web Design by Jarel Remick
• Web form design guidelines: an eyetracking study by Chui Chui Tan

Web tools

• Color Scheme Designer (page examples are really helpful)
• SpiderOak provides an easy, secure and consolidated free online backup, sync, sharing, access and storage solution for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (Ubuntu, Debian & Fedora)
• Mojo Helpdesk centralizes, assigns and tracks organization requests for customer and tech support, internal tasks management, website maintenance, and so on (free edition offers 3 ticket queues and 2 support accounts)
• Path 101 provides free career services including personality test, resume analysis, and career advice
• ProjectLocker offers source control, defect tracking, document management and other services (free account supports 5 users, 500 MB of space, and unlimited number of projects)

Technobrief #7

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

Articles

• Why hiring is paradoxically harder in a downturn by Auren Hoffman

Books

• Almost Perfect by W. E. Peterson (a story of the rise and fall of WordPerfect Corporation from the author's point of view; free online/PDF version)

Browser add-ons, bookmarklets

• Ask & Record Toolbar lets you download, record and convert all kinds of Internet Video and Audio, right from within your browser.
• PriceProtectr browser toolbar helps you monitor prices, keep track of your purchases, and get rebates when prices drop.
• Readability bookmarklet removes clutter around text on web pages making it easier to read.
• Web Development Helper browser extension for Internet Explorer that provides a set of tools and utilities for the AJAX and ASP.NET developers.

Humor

• From ManagementSpeak by Bob Lewis:

  ManagementSpeak: Work space will be designed to create an environment that promotes teamwork and effectiveness, while improving space utilization.
  Translation: We’re going to cram twice as many employees into the same floor space.

Quotes

• From How to Do Things Your Customer Didn't Ask For by Jurgen Appelo:

  "The underpromise, overdeliver principle tells us that we should manage our customer's expectations in such a way that we are able to deliver more than the customer asked for."

• From How to be a program manager by Joel Spolsky:

  "There are so many development organizations where specs are a monument to mindless bureaucratic paperwork that entire movements sprung up organized around the idea of not writing specs. These people are misguided. Writing a functional specification is at the very heart of agile development, because it lets you iterate rapidly over many possible designs before you write code."

• From Make It Simple vs. Do It Simple by Jurgen Appelo:

  "It's a complicated thing to build stuff that is simple. It's a simple thing to build stuff that is complicated."

• From Out with objectives, in with technique? by Bob Lewis:

  "Measuring employees is a bad idea because employees have a remarkable talent for gaming the system. They can: Work the system so the numbers look good; behave in ways that make the numbers look good while circumstances deteriorate; or just falsify the data outright. I pointed this out once in an executive meeting, and one of the participants recommended firing any employee who would behave this way. Interesting concept, as I was referring to a very large number of American CEOs."

Software

• Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks.
• Greenshot creates screenshots.
• Ken Rename is a capable a multi-file rename utility.
• RichCopy offers comprehensive file copying capabilities.
• SEAMonster can resize images with minimal pixel loss (see seam carving).
• Starter is an application startup manager which also provides extended process info (similar to Task Manager), as well as service and driver manager.
• UnlockMe enables you to delete, move or rename files or folders that are temporarily locked by other processes.

Tips

• 10 Youtube URL Tricks You Should Know About by Varun Kashyap
• 15 Essential Checks Before Launching Your Website by Lee Munroe

Tutorials

• A beginner’s guide for consuming a WCF service in JavaScript using ASP.NET AJAX by R. M. Masudur
• Interactive Prototypes with PowerPoint by Maureen Kelly
• Make a Mega Drop-Down Menu with jQuery by Raena Jackson-Armitage
• Regular Expressions for Dummies by Jeffrey (video tutorial)

Videos/podcasts

• Living with legacy software by David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals) at RailsConf Europe '08 (also podcast)

Web tools

• AlternativeTo suggests alternatives to popular applications.
• AnyClient is a web-based file transfer application that supports all major file transfer protocols including FTP/S, SFTP and WebDAV/S.
• StyleNeat organizes and standardizes your CSS in a structure that makes it easier to define page areas and see how they relate to each other.
• When is Good offers an easy way to find out when everyone is free for your next meeting or event.

Technobrief #6

Summary: Recent (and not so recent) discoveries of software, articles, and more.

I haven't posted latest findings in a while, so here some of the goodies I've found since the last Technobrief post.

Software

• 3DP Chip: Shows a summary of devices -- CPU, audio card, video card, hard drive, DVD drive, etc. -- installed on the computer along with device drivers.
• Ammyy Admin: Remote computer access and desktop sharing.
• Analogy (screensaver): Typographic clock which fuses the immediacy of digital with the visual-spatial quality of analogue into a hybrid format (beautiful).
• ArsClip: Windows clipboard manager (good alternative to ClipX and Ditto).
• DriverBackup!: Backs up and restores drivers.
• DVD Flick: DVD authoring tool; supports custom audio tracks, subtitles, and navigation menu.
• DVD slideshow GUI: Import photos and burn them as a slideshow on a DVD (supports music, transitions, effects, subtitles, and more).
• Gizmo Drive: Mounts ISO, BIN, CUE, and NRG files to a virtual CD-ROM drive.
• Inkscape: Vector graphics editor with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X.
• JPEGCrops: Crops images without quality loss (very handy when preparing images for printing, i.e. 4x6 aspect ratio).
• jZip: WinZip alternative that supports many compression formats including Zip, TAR, GZip, 7-Zip, RAR, and ISO (think of it as 7-Zip with a better GUI supporting different languages).
• MKN VolWheel: Changes system volume via the mouse wheel or a hotkey.
• Quick Media Converter: Converts files between multiple video and audio formats.
• RIOT - Radical Image Optimization Tool: Resizes and optimizes JPEG, GIF and PNG images in a simple, clean user interface (offers a nice plugin for IrfanView).
• RocketDock: Slick, Mac OS X Dock-like program that gives quick access to programs and Windows features (can replace the default Windows Quick Start toolbar).
• SketchPath: XPath editor and XML analysis and testing tool supporting XPath 1.0-2.0, which provides an integrated graphical environment for viewing XML files, developing and testing XPath expressions against them and managing the expressions in file libraries.
• SoftMaker Office 2006 for Windows: Free alternative to Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org (it's smaller, and reportedly faster than OpenOffice.org).
• Tail for Win32: Windows version of the UNIX 'tail -f' command.
• TeamViewer: Remote control your partner's PC.
• Ultimate List of Free Office Software from Microsoft: Lists many FREE software titles offered by Microsoft.
• UndercoverXP: Prints CD and DVD covers.
• Windows Essentials Codec Pack: One of the most comprehensive collection of media codecs, filters, splitters and other tools that will enable you to play 99% of all the movies, music, and flash files you download off the internet.

Web

• AccessMyLibrary: Free access to millions of articles from top publications available at your library.
• Code Converter: Translates C# code to VB.NET, and VB.NET to C#.
• Microsoft Live Labs: Thumbtack: Online notes (similar to Evernote and defunct Google Notebook)
• net2ftp: Web-based FTP client.
• Nregex: Online regular expression builder and evaluator (C# syntax).
• Rex V: AJAX regular expression evaluator (JavaScript, PHP syntax).

Articles

• Amnesia: Joel Spolsky writes about effects of short-term memory on project management.
• Firefox 3: 8 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do: Logan Kugler shares several Firefox usage tips.

Firefox add-ons

• iMacros for Firefox: Records and replays repetitive tasks like filling out forms.
• FireRainbow: Javascript syntax highlighting for the Firebug add-on.
• SwitchProxy Tool: Easily switches proxy settings.
• YSlow: Analyzes web pages and tells you why they're slow based on Yahoo's rules for high performance web sites.

References

• CSS Reference by SitePoint
• HTML Reference by SitePoint
• JavaScript Reference by SitePoint

Tutorials

• 6 Steps to Professional Podcast Publishing: Kevin Yank describes steps for podcast publishing.
• GoingManual.com: Tutorials on photography, Adobe Photoshop, and GIMP.
• Wix# (WixSharp) - Managed Interface for WiX: Oleg Shilo explains how to build application installers (MSI packages) using his Wix# program.

Photos

• Fog Creek's New Office: Sneak peek at an ideal office space.