jQuerty s3slider

http://www.serie3.info/s3slider/
It looks really good. It could come in useful for photo galleries and ads.

HostGo and my attempt to install Django

For the past few days I have been trying to get Django to work with my web host, HostGo, with no success.

Even after setting up virtualenv I could not find away to properly deploy an application.

I'm pretty sure it's because mod_python / mod_wsgi isn't installed or configured properly with Apache. Since I have no control over that and the fact that they will not install this technology for me to use I have to find an alternative host.

I'll be sure to post some alternate host that'll support Django.

Web Tech Talk : Head Rush AJAX

I know there are tons of resources all over the web that will help you with AJAX.

But if you're just breaking into the AJAX world and you're looking for a book that covers all the basics and help you address some of the more intermediate problem then Head Rush AJAX is the book for you.



It covers everything from creating an XMLHttpRequest Objects to controlling the DOM of your site to provide feedback to users waiting for page content to update.

You can check out details on the book here : http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/headra/

Web Tech Talk : Testing your web applications

When it comes to testing web applications there are quite a few tools out there but the really good tools are few and far between.

Lately project are getting to point where they're big enough to required automated testing. After search around the net and trying out tons of software I have found a tools that is very useful.

Selenium IDE

What is Seleniun IDE? Well if you look at the OpenQA site here's what it says about Selenium IDE.

Selenium IDE is an integrated development environment for Selenium tests. It is implemented as a Firefox extension, and allows you to record, edit, and debug tests. Selenium IDE includes the entire Selenium Core, allowing you to easily and quickly record and play back tests in the actual environment that they will run.

Selenium IDE is not only recording tool: it is a complete IDE. You can choose to use its recording capability, or you may edit your scripts by hand. With autocomplete support and the ability to move commands around quickly, Selenium IDE is the ideal environment for creating Selenium tests no matter what style of tests you prefer.

Features:

* Easy record and playback
* Intelligent field selection will use IDs, names, or XPath as needed
* Autocomplete for all common Selenium commands
* Walk through tests
* Debug and set breakpoints
* Save tests as HTML, Ruby scripts, or any other format
* Support for Selenium user-extensions.js file
* Option to automatically assert the title of every page

This is, in my opinion, by far one of the better testing tools available to web developers.

Be sure to try it out. OpenQA : Selenium IDE

OpenID

There's a lot of buzz around the net talking about OpenID.

To be quite honest I haven't hear too much about it other than the fact that you'll use one username and password for all your sites you have an account on.

I'm sure there are many other features and advantages to using OpenID.

Here are a few sites that will help get you up to speed.

http://openid.net/
https://www.myopenid.com/
http://iwantmyopenid.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID

Developer Addons, Javascript, AJAX and more.

Yesterday my co-worker sent me this link (*). It seems like the developers over at Mozilla are doing some pretty interesting stuff with AJAX and SVG.

Since you're here take a look at this presentation. It raises some good points for developers and the future development platforms of the web.

I'm pretty sure most of you would have seen this by now but check out http://developer.mozilla.org/. That is a great resource for all sorts of tools.

* PLEASE NOTE: The links marked with a (*) will only work in a FireFox web browser.

Web Tech Talk

Every web designer, web developer and web monkey needs to keep their skill updated. Some of us are lucky enough to have a good job that pay for classes, courses and seminars that will improve our skill or better yet teach us new skills. Others have to try and keep themselves a float by teaching themselves the new tricks of the trade.

Here are a few resource that may help you when you're building a new web site or add some extra functionality to your web applications.

Google Code.

I'll be completely honest with you and say that I integrate almost all of the sites I create with the Google Search API. It's fast, effective and Google has been doing this for years so you might as well use their technology. Also, the APIs they have up there are fun to play with and can be very useful.

Yahoo! User Interface Library.

I haven't used any of these libraries yet. So I can't give you much input. But I'm sure Yahoo! has plenty of tricks to show you. Plus I hear the AutoComplete is really cool.

Dr Web's Web 2.0 Webdesign - Tutorials

These tutorials are a great resource if you're trying to achieve an updated look. It has many tutorials on the new Web 2.0 design techniques.

AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

For all of those trying to get a handle on Ajax be sure to check out W3C School - Ajax Tutorial, Dojo - The Javascript Toolkit, ASP.Net AJAX, AJAX - MDC and AJAX Design Patterns

CSS - Cascading Style Sheets

CSS has come a long way. In my opinion CSS is the best way to design and construcht your web site. The control you have over each element on the page is amazing and designers have the ability to specify different style sheets for different browsers to increase the sites usability. Be sure to check out W3C Cascading Style Sheets
home page, W3C School - CSS Tutorials, CSS Zen Garden, Smashing Magazine - CSS Category

Hopefully these resources will help some you. They were pretty useful to me.