The most important tech skill that you could learn is the ability to learn new ones. That might seem like a hard skill to acquire, but it’s actually pretty simple if you practice learning and researching new things using search engines to find solutions to problems. Try it now: find a solution to one of your…
So you’ve got a great tech-startup idea, you’re motivated, energetic, have time on your hands, some funds for investing and absolutely no knowledge of coding what so ever. So you have a few hurdles to jump through, but nothing a concoction of time and sincere dedication won’t overcome.
Read more on Bootstrapping IT – Learn To Do IT Yourself Or Outsource IT…
This is only going to be of interest to programmers, but the fact there aren’t that many sites letting you do what CSSLoad.net lets you do is enough to make it worthy of inclusion on KillerStartups today. This tool lets you create CSS preloaders, and have them previewed right on your browser. All you have to do is to select a CSS animation template from the eight that are provided, choose the two colors you want the preloader to have and then pick both a size and a speed for the preloader itself to spin.
That will be it. You’ll be able to click on the “Generate Preview” button to see how would it all work in practice, and if the results are indeed good then merely clicking where it reads “Get Code” will let you get the code snippet you should use to have the spinner or bar you’ve devised actually implemented.
And if you’re unsure whether the browser you intend to work with supports CSS animations, don’t worry. You’ll be able to figure that out by checking the browser-by-browser list that is provided, and also by giving the featured live demo a whirl.
Self defined as “a simple CSS editing and hosting service”, WebPutty can be used for free by all those who sign up for the service in its current early stage. WebPutty stands a really versatile editor that comes with full preview capabilities, and that can have CSS published both with minification compression and automatic cache control. And the fact of being usable straight from the browser also goes into taking its practicality quotient higher. When you launch WebPutty, your browser becomes the editor and the preview pane comes built-in. And they work in conjunction, as any CSS selector you click on will result in the elements that go with it being highlighted on the preview pane.
WebPutty can be set up by adding two tags (a link tag and a script tag) to the end of your own site’s
element. That will be it. No need to deal with repositories or media servers of any kind, or to update remote file systems. And since changes are instantly implemented, no need to restart your web app whenever you want to see how any change actually translates into practice.
There are many things to watch out for when implementing an email marketing campaign. Obviously-enough, most people tend to focus on aspects like how to track results and measure engagement. Yet, not many people stop to think about the problems that arise when email clients block the images that they have included on their mails. That might not sound like too much of a big deal, but the effect it can have on what is being sent out can be massively damaging. An email without a logo looks shady to say the least.
Well, that is what this new service is here to try and amend. Essentially, it can take images and have them converted to HTML/CSS. This guarantees these will always be viewable by recipients, as they will become an integral part of emails and not mere attachments.
This service is available at a cost, and most image formats are already supported. ImgToCSS works best with PNG images, yet it can also handle JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, and ICO files with ease. A perfect pixel-for-pixel copy is generated in all cases.
With so many email clients around, it is almost impossible for designers to check the readability of what they are sending in every conceivable context. There are no less than 24 emails clients that are currently in use. Most designers check compatibility with the three or four they know most people resort to, and then keep their fingers crossed as far as the rest is concerned. How come there is not an application to have everything compared side by side?
Well, it turns out that there is a service that makes exactly for that. It has just launched, and that goes into explaining its still-relative obscurity. Named Fractal, it basically enables email designers to test the messages they are going to send and see if anything is not where it should. Fractal can take care of validating both HTML and CSS, and ensure that there are no clashes of any kind when the email is finally put its way.
This is done in as easy a way as cutting and pasting the HTML to be verified into a box. The results will be instantly displayed, without fees of any kind having to be paid, or sensible information having to be disclosed.
Editing code on your iPad should never be that difficult again. As soon as you become acquainted with this new application, that should become an intuitive and pleasurable task. Koder App is here to let you both create and modify programming files of all kind of your iPad. PHP, CSS, Javascript and HTML can all be created and edited in a really supple way. Some of the most praiseworthy features of the application include syntax highlighting, tabbed editing and a find & replace functionality that makes for handling code in a faster way. And Koder App will let you work with files locally, and support for both FTP and iDisk turns everything into a more connected task.
That is, those of you who have to collaborate with others either because that is the way you have always worked, or because you have become part of a team for the first time will be able to get everything done in the quickest and most effective way of all.
The Koder App can be bought at the iTunes Store for $ 5.99. The current version is 1.0, and the file is really small – it weighs just 1.6 MB.
A web-based alternative to the creation of CSS, Layer Styles turns a process that involves a certain structural mastery into a process that any person who has the time and the imagination can handle more than satisfactorily. Using this supple tool, everything boils down to choosing the style that applies from the many that are provided (IE, drop shadow, inner shadow, background, border, border radius) and then tweaking with the colors and opacity of that style until you have what you need.
Obviously, you can also set down parameters such as the actual size of the style and (where applicable) the distance of elements, their angles and how much blur you want them to have (that is the case when you are working with boxes, for example).
And in addition to functioning on the browser and being really easy to use, Layer Styles is a free tool. You can use it to put as many styles as you need together, and you can use it for as long as you want too.
There is no need for you to be named The Brain (and have a goofy sidekick known as Pinky) to realize what the overlying theme of this site is. It is blatantly obvious that here you can generate CSSS3 elements (IE boxes) to use in your very own website. What must be mentioned is that such a process is kept as simple as possible.
Creating anything on this site is done by the use of an interface made up of big, unmistakable sliders. And when generating any box, you will get to see the results of what you are creating in real time – a full preview will be shown on the right-hand side of the screen. You will be able to set everything down from the border radius of the box and its background gradient to the kind of shadows that you want to have used.
Once you are done adjusting these sliders and you are 100 % happy with the way the box looks, then you can click on the large button provided at the bottom of the page in order to get the embed code that will let you have the box displayed on your site for all to see and put to good use.
Letting you optimize your website as if you were an expert is the prerogative here. Zbugs is a web-based tool that can make any website faster by merging, minifying and GZip-compressing all the CSS and Javascript files that go with it.
All that is needed for this to be done to do is input the URL of the site in question for the files to be merged. Alternatively, you can take the long way around and upload the actual files yourself. Or enter the URL of each individual files to be processed. The results will be the same in every case, though, and the speed at which you will get everything merged and fused is certainly something to write home about.
And Zbugs can also give you a CDN link to the files you compress, so that putting them to their intended use could hardly be any easier. The site is absolutely free to join and use, too.
The compression of CSS is a process that can pose serious difficulties to seasoned coders and the uninitiated alike. Things would be a lot easier if there were a web-based tool for getting the job done. And it turns out that one such app has just become available.
Named CodeBeautifier, this application can take care both of formatting and optimising your CSS before going live with any project. On CodeBeautifier.com you will be able to control the extent and quality of the compression of your stylesheets by picking one of four available options (low, standard, high and highest), by regrouping selectors, and by optimising shorthands.
This might be Greek to you, but ask any coder and he is going to tell you that these are all the things to keep an eye on when compressing code.
CodeBeautifier can be used for free, and without the need to register first. Just paste the code that you need to have processed, and it will be dealt with for you in the blink of an eye.
A new tool that is squarely aimed at web designers, Spritebox lets them create CSS classes from a single sprite image. This is achieved by aligning the different areas of the sprite image to be used into the block elements of the webpage in question. Technically, such a thing is made possible by combining JQuery, CSS 3 and HTML 5, and Spritebox is compatible with Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.
The site has a resizable editor that lets you either upload the image that you want to have used or supply the URL where such an image can be found, and then adjust it manually by changing its width, height and position. A preview window will let you see the effect of all these changes in real time.
Spritebox can be used for free, and there is no need for you to sign up in advance either. The site is usable on the fly – as long as you have any of the browsers mentioned above, then you will be able to start turning your images around.
Read more on Spritebox.net – Create CSS Classes From Sprites…
To put it in simple words, Typechart is a service that will let you see how different web types would look when implemented on any site you are developing. The objective of the site it to let you avoid the hassle of actually implementing them for good, and swapping them for a different one in order to see which would suit the design of the site best.
And what’s even more interesting is that a “Get CSS” link is provided for every typeface that you try out. If you are wowed by the results, you will be capable of having that web type added to your site without batting an eyelid.
This is the kind of service that keeps everybody happy. Both seasoned and young designers can save a lot of time and effort through it, and the whole service is provided at no cost. You just type in the style ID in question for the web type to become displayable. And if you like it, implementing it is a matter of grabbing and using the CSS code as just described.
Read more on Typechart.com – Find The Right Web Type To Use…
CSSbake is a site that turns the process of designing a website into something comparable to cooking a meal. Here, the many components that you can use to build up your site go into the category named “Ingredients”, whereas the ways that these could be combined are grouped under the “Cookbook” banner.
It is interesting to mention the many “ingredients” included on the site as that would give you a good idea of CSSbake’s actual depth. These include not only backgrounds, forms, footers and sidebars but also 404 pages, headers and navigation bars. Besides, comprehensive examples of good paginations are provided along with imaginative ways to display post data. And something as tricky as coming up with a good comments page is also touched upon, and as extensively as the topic deserves.
And if you think your site could be deemed as a good design example, then you can proceed to have it submitted. The link is on the main page, and if your site is indeed accepted then it will become viewable by just everybody.
Read more on CSSbake.com – Learn How To Design A Great Site…
ProCSSor is a web-based service that you can use to prettify your CSS. That is, by putting this service into motion you can have any CSS of yours turned into a much mightier and more elegant alternative.
You can submit your own CSS in three different ways. First, you can copy and paste your CSS directly into the box that is provided on the main page. Second, you can upload the relevant file. Lastly, you can point ProCSSor to the URL in which the CSS in question can be found. That’s entirely up to you, and in each and every case you will be able to tweak with the same options for prettifying the CSS: “Neat”, “Pretty” and “Pro”. Each comes with increasingly advanced rules and indent properties. And you will choose them using a series of drop-down menus.
So, this is an Internet tool that will let you format CSS in the exact way you want. It will put a definitive end to having a design in your mind that you can’t translate into your screen. And it is wholly free, too. If you want to see it in action, you can proceed to do that right now by heading to the site and furnishing your own CSS in any of the ways that were described above.
Read more on ProCSSor.com – Giving Your CSS A Touch Of Class…
If you are looking for WordPress themes that are a cut above the rest, then checking out the Themify website is a definitive step in the right direction. The company is a purveyor of themes that look invariably elegant, and which can be used right out of the box.
Best of all, every theme that you can buy through the site comes with the Themify framework – a framework that you can employ in order to tweak with the style and the functionality at will, and without having to touch a single line of code at that.
And along with this framework, themes come complete with a series of widgets that you can use in order to have dynamic content displayed, and engage you visitors to an even further degree.
And everything has been thought of – PSD files (IE, Photoshop files) are included as part of the package that you are buying in case you want to do any manual customization. And full documentation is likewise provided on themes, frameworks and widgets. You will always know exactly how everything has been put together, and why.
A site that was wholly created around the “random” function of PHP, CSS Rand features some of the best CSS designs that can be found on the Internet as chosen by the webmaster himself.
The site is as simple as it can be, and you will know how to use it as sure as night follows day.
There are only two things you can do when you visit it. One is looking at the random design that has been featured. The other is pressing “F5” for a new one to be displayed. Alternatively, you can click on the big button that is provided and have a new CSS design loaded.
For the time being, the site only features designs that have been chosen by the webmaster. That is going to change soon, fortunately, and you will be able to start submitting your own site (or any site that you have come across and liked) for everybody to take a good look at it and become inspired.
Read more on CSSRand.com – Random CSS Inspiration For Everybody…
There are so many CSS galleries around that nobody would blame a newcomer if he threw up his hands in despair and did not bother submitting his site to any of them at all. Even if he were able to individualize the good ones, how many times would he have to resubmit the selfsame information?
Gallery Rush has been devised to address that very conundrum.
In principle, it is an Internet tool that can take care of submitting a web design to as many galleries as the user wishes.
All that the user has to do is to fill in a concise form in which he details who he is and what he intends to submit for his design to be evaluated. If it is indeed accepted, the submission to multiple sites will take place within 24 hours of the form having been accepted.
This service is provided at a fixed fee. Currently, Gallery Rush lets you have your site featured on more than 70 galleries for $ 17.And note that if your site does not get accepted you won’t be charged.
Read more on GalleryRush.com – A Simple Way To Submit CSS Designs…
This is an application that will be of use to webmasters who are looking into ways of improving their sites. In general terms, what Font Fonter does is to let anybody take a site and have it visualized using a different font.
That is, it lets the user transform the site in a way that does not entail modifying a single line of code. All that has to be done is to supply the URL of the site in question for the website to be loaded along with an elastic interface that lets you chose which font to implement. Again – there is no need to touch a single line of code. You will be using a series a drop down boxes for choosing whether to replace all the fonts on the site in one fell swoop, or only serifs/sans serifs.
From a technical point of view, FontFonter uses custom CSS to replace a site’s actual font styles with Web FontFonts.
As I said at the beginning, this is not a service that would appeal to an average internaut at all – this is for webmasters and no mistaking. But if you are not one and you think that the site could be of assistance, do not hesitate to pay it a visit.
Read more on FontFonter.com – Try All The Fonts That You Want…
Presented by Ascender Corp, Fontslive aims to position itself as the one-stop for web designers and developers that are looking for quality fonts to use. On the site, these can have ready access to both web fonts and desktop fonts that come from renowned type designers and font foundries.
When it comes to the web fonts that are offered these have the clear advantage of letting you avoid the usage of images for headlines. That makes a difference when it comes to aspects like the time the site takes to load, and the way in which people can interact with the text once it is displayed. All major web browsers are actually supported.
I think the best way to appreciate this service is by giving the provided font library a good look. Actually, you can do much more than that since you can sign up for a free trial and see how these fonts could be implemented in your site for real. This free trial will amount to 30 days – more than enough time to gauge how effective such a modification can turn out to be.
Read more on FontsLive.com – All The Fonts You Could Ever Need…
