faith, coffee, and web design resources
Web Development
Live PivotViewer Demos & Examples
Aug 11th
I love web technology. A few weeks ago I ran across a new product from Microsoft Live Labs called Pivot that makes it easy to interact with large amounts of data. It almost sounds geeky, except when you stop and realize that if you’ve ever used a site like Wikipedia or Craigslist (who hasn’t) that’s exactly what you’re doing—interacting with large amounts of data. And it’s often a clunky process.
Once I got tired of reading the technical details of what Pivot is and how it works (after all of about 15 seconds) I wanted to take a look at some examples that had been embedded in a website using the Silverlight PivotViewer. Surprisingly it took me a while to dig some up, so I wanted to share what I’ve found here:
(As you find/create more great examples, please let me know in the comments and I’ll update this list.)
Migrating from Xoops to Joomla
Oct 8th
I used to use Xoops a fair amount several years ago, but eventually settled on Joomla and WordPress as being a better solution for my needs. If you are like me and are thinking about making the switch to another platform, you may be interested to learn of a new service by PixelCliff that can make your move a LOT easier. For a fee, PixelCliff can take either your existing website design or an artwork file (e.g. Photoshop PSD) and convert it to a fully functional Joomla template (or WordPress or Drupal theme for that matter). The ability to take your design with you goes a long way toward making any switch much more feasable.
There are a couple of added bonuses here. The first is that it is fast. From the time you place your order till you get your finished template takes just 5 business days (or 72 hours if you are in a big hurry and willing to fork out the extra cash.) The other bonus is that you get a high-quality product, and that means better SEO, better browser compatibility, and should you ever need to tweak things, more readable code.
You can find PixelCliff at: PixelCliff – Open-Source Template Conversions
Practika Icon Set
May 7th
Practika is a set of 11 icons at 256×256px, 128x128px, and 64x64px in png format. These icons can be used for a variety of purposes — in particular, in portfolios and in corporate designs.
You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. However, it’s forbidden to sell them.
Function Icon Set
Apr 15th
Function is a set of 128 icons at 48×48px in png format. The author tried to keep a consistent style with quite a glossy look to the icons. Some of the main social media icons have been included, such as: Design Float, Digg, Delicious, Furl, Technorati, Flickr, Stumble Upon, Twitter & Many more…
The author states these icons are free, and may be used anywhere. They do request you share the icons by linking to their blog post with the download. The set may not be redistributed.
WebInjections Icon Set
Apr 14th
WebInjection is set 26 icons at 48×48px in png format. The included Photoshop file is not a source file for the icons. The set was designed by Midtone Design Studio. The icons were tediously hand crafted by designer Jonatan Castro Fernández.
This free icon set is for use in your personal and commercial projects, and can be used without attribution. It may not be redistributed.