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Click one of the following bulleted items to jump to that selected topic area on this page.
(These are just the main topics. There are many other topics, too numerous to list.)

"The business we're in today ... is based on an innate understanding of, and empathy for, the experience a user or customer has when engaging the product, service, or brand we're creating."
and
"Remember this if you work online: there is no packaging on a website. Online branding should involve less emphasis on logos and color schemes, and more work on what actually improves things for the customer."
-- by Mark Hurst, in Good Experience

 W3C - The World Wide Web Consortium ...
 Architecture of the World Wide Web


"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint Exupery (French Poet, 1900-1940)
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." -- Oscar Wilde
 
Good Software Takes Ten Years. Get Used To it.
"it takes a long time to write a good program, but when it's done, it's done. ... After that, nobody can think of a single feature that they really need. ... Failure to understand the ten-year rule leads to crucial business mistakes."
 

5 questions for your web development team - "When we purchase a car most of us aren't aware of the underlying technical issues. Double overhead camshafts, limited slip differential, inline 6 cylinder engine all mean little to most purchasers. But there are always a number of key issues to address. What's the mileage? How long is the warranty? How safe is it in an accident? How does the resale value hold up? Is there a new model due? ... You should ask the same sort of questions before you invest in a new or improved web site. You don't need to understand the minutiae of the technology - XHTML, CSS, SVG, PNG, ECMAScript may mean little to most of you - however these underlying technologies do have an impact on a number of key issues. ... It's your developers' job to build the site. But it is your job to understand enough that you make the right decisions about your investment. If you make the right choices it may be paying dividends several years down the track. Go down the wrong path and it may cost you a lot more than you think."
 

Where Are the Flying Cars? - "By continually mystifying and shrouding computers as the realm of the geek and the nerd and creating ridiculous user interfaces, they [movies] perpetuate the idea that computers should be hard to use. The syllogism is that if programmers create hard-to-use applications, they are somehow creating a sophisticated piece of software. Nothing could be further from the truth - the GUI is all about simplicity through sophistication."
 

Users Want Freedom to Be Wrong - System designers should understand that users won't let dumb machines decide what risks to take for them.

Now you see it, now you don't - To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to “disappear”  

Mobile PC magazine's Top 100 Gadgets of All Time

Sometimes, The Better You Program, The Worse You Communicate - Good programming practices are directly opposed to good communication practices.
 

The Wayback Machine
Browse through 55 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible.
 

The Interface of a Cheeseburger - All things have an interface. Shaping interfaces is shaping the character of things. The brand is what transports the character of things.
 

Why Software Sucks (a Dr. Dobb's podcast)
Author David Platt has some theories about why users are so frustrated with current software. Ultimately, he says, it's all down to losing touch with what users care about.
 

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Why so many mainstream software development tools are not as powerful as they theoretically could be.
 

Nine Rules for Good Technology
As technologies mature they tend to become easier to use, even intuitive. But not all technologies are easy to use, remaining in the domain of specialists, requiring expertise and patience to operate. ... What distinguishes a good technology from a stupid technology? The author, a senior researcher in the Canadian National Research Council, argues that there are some easily identifiable features which separate the good from the bad, and says that technology should do exactly what you want it to do. Technology which does something else, either by design or by accident, is not good technology.

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USABILITY & INTERFACE DESIGN

"LESS IS MORE"

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  • Download page for the Bad Usability Calendar (PDF format).  The Bad Usability Calendar (FREE) from NetLife Research
    The calendar demonstrates usability issues through a calendar, one issue per month.
     
  • The Art of Unix Usability - An online book about software usability engineering for Unix programmers, but with many points of interest to those in all fields of usability engineering.
     
  • CoScripter - a system for recording, automating, and sharing processes performed in a web browser such as printing photos online, requesting a vacation hold for postal mail, or checking bank account information. Instructions for processes are recorded and stored in easy-to-read text here on the CoScripter web site, so anyone can make use of them. If you are having trouble with a web-based process, check to see if someone has written a CoScript for it! (custom browser extension for Mozilla Firefox automates the process of recording and playing back processes.)
     
  • Practical (and Cheap) Usability Testing - "Usability testing may not be considered a mandatory stage in the design process, but without it you are releasing the product blindly. Contrary to popular opinion, you don't need a large budget for simple usability testing."
     
  • Produce screencams with CamStudio (FREE) - record all screen and audio activity and create industry-standard AVI video files, then using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into streaming Flash videos (SWFs).
     
  • When good interfaces go crufty
  • The New Adventures of Verity Stob - Verity has developed a new tool that will help you make rapid diagnoses of sick PCs. A rolling computer gathers "cruft."
     
  • Tim Berners-Lee's blog  
  • In the Beginning was the Command Line - "Ditching an worn-out old OS ought to be simplified by the fact that, unlike old buildings, OSes have no aesthetic or cultural merit that makes them intrinsically worth saving. But it doesn't work that way in practice. ..."

  • 37signals >> Defensive Design for the Web (book) - How to improve Error Messages, Help, Forms, and other crisis points.
     
  • Web Browser Wars, Second Edition - Competition between Web browsers is now heating up again. This article looks at that competition from an engineering perspective.
  • Voice as a User Interface: Case Study and Lessons Learned - targeted at speech application developers and architects who want to design and develop voice portlet applications. Includes a description with sample scenarios describing advanced functions available in voice portlet applications such as messaging for portlet-to-portlet communications, single sign-on to access secure backend applications and Web Service access.
     
  • IBM developerWorks >> Web Architecture
    Quality Busters - articles, such as ...
    • Treat everyone equally - Test your app and its efficiency on old and new systems -- not all your users will have fast and powerful system resources. (Recognize differences between developer and end user environments.)
    • Not measuring the risks - Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and risk assessments, as important tools for business software architects. (Even business software can have safety concerns. An improperly processed financial transaction might cause long-lasting harm to a customer or to the business itself.)
    • Coding by assumption - Is your application ready for the latest version of the operation system it runs on or the program product on which it depends? Will you have to modify your application to upgrade? Have you made assumptions about the operating environment? These and other questions are easier to answer if you build portability into your application -- even if you do not plan to run it on another platform. One key to portability lies in not making any assumptions.
    • What version is it anyway? - Modern applications are built using many shared components, including dynamic link libraries (DLLs), JAR files, and runtime environments. Keeping track of these components, their versions, and their dependencies creates development and operational issues. This article discusses some of those issues and the considerations that arise from the use of components.
    • Make your error messages meaningful - Many applications treat users as if they were programmers. Messages that report errors are often cryptic, contain meaningless codes, and provide no help regarding what to do next. While the developers who wrote the application can use those messages, most users are left with one option: call the help desk. This article describes a more appropriate kind of error message for users: one that includes description, cause, and recovery steps.
       
  • A summary of the International Standard Date and Time Notation - authors of Web pages and software engineers who design user interfaces, file formats, and communication protocols should be familiar with ISO 8601.
     
  • Application Vulnerability Description Language (AVDL) - security vulnerabilities for Web Services and Web applications are addressed by this new OASIS standard
     
  • Keep It Simple - If you're not thoughtful about your approach to balancing computer security with computer usability, you may end up with neither. ... "Secure usability" comes from a user interface that guides the user to secure practices by making other practices difficult or impossible. ... The balance between security and usability should be fluid, not fixed.
     
  • 'Stolen' parts make for a better intranet - the Department of Victorian Communities has won a place in the Nielsen Norman Group's list of the 10 best government intranets. ... "Keep your aims realistic. Work to a tight timeline. Use what's already built. And talk to the users all the way through. ... Many intranets try to develop into knowledge management systems. But, as management expert Peter Drucker puts it, you can't manage knowledge, because it's inside people's heads. ... It is better to let people get in touch with each other."
     
  • Dive into Accessibility (FREE online book)
    • Tips by person - Here the tips are grouped by the people who benefit from them.
    • Tips by disability - Here the tips are grouped by the disabilities that benefit from them. This includes both physical and technological disabilities.
    • Tips by design principle - Here the tips are grouped by design principles proposed by the W3C. All web pages should be perceivable, operable, navigable, understandable, and robust.
    • Tips by web browser - Here the tips are grouped by the web browsers or assistive technologies that benefit from them.
    • Tips by publishing tool - Here the tips are grouped by the publishing tools that can implement them. Each tip includes specific instructions for each publishing tool, where applicable.
       

  • Videos of robot-assisted wayfinding, navigation, and human-computer and human-robot interaction (Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University) -- including a wearable wayfinding toolkit for guide dog Users, and robot "RG" leading a persona and a guide dog and RG on a trial run at a grocery store.  Also: SANDEE (System for Assisted Navigation in Dynamic and complEx Envrironments).
     

  • A Framework For Developing Experience-Based Usability Guidelines - presents a method in which software development organizations can develop and evolve domain-specific guidelines based on the kinds of applications they develop. The method facilitates the process of determining when and how guidelines should be applied by tying guidelines to specific design cases and providing the means to match customer requirements to specific interface techniques that have proven effective for similar users and application domains.
     

  • Realize Your Potential - Microsoft has "embraced a new corporate mission: To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential. Delivering on this mission means we strive to build products that are accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities."

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WEB DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT & GRAPHICS
  Don't let TIME catch you -- click here!
 

AJAX  and  WEB 2.0  and  MASHUPS


Click on the chart to go to learn more about this BZ Research report.

Most Used Language for AJAX Development? Java. ... Least used? Ruby.
 
  • WEB 2.0 Name Generator - "Generate the BEST web 2.0 name"
  • WHATWG -- Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group - "a growing community of people interested in evolving the Web. It focuses primarily on the development of HTML and APIs needed for Web applications." >> HTML 5 Working Draft
     
  • DesignerVista - a commercial Graphic User Interface (GUI) design tool for software professionals, analysts, consultants, usability engineers and project managers. It features a visual editor for creating and modifying GUI mockups, screenshots, desktop GUI prototypes and simple Web page prototypes.
  • Big Picture of the XML Family of Specifications, by Ken Sall
    XML Family of Specifications - The Big Picture ... a unique imagemap gateway to all major XML technical specifications, by Ken Sall
     
  • CrossBrowserTesting.com - Allows website designers see what their website looks like in various different browsers and in different operating systems.
     
  •  AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript And XML ~ and other Web 2.0 technologies  ...
    • Adaptive Path
    • DevSource
      •  The Father of AJAX Gives Paternal Advice (webcast, May 2006) - Jesse James Garrett coined the term "AJAX" and in this video he touches upon AJAX and a range of other matters (interface development, design, information architecture, and user experience. He authored the book The Elements of User Experience and co-founded of the Information Architecture Institute. (Here's a direct link to the videocast to try if the above article link fails.)

    • WikipediaVision - Watch anonymous edits to Wikipedia (almost) in real-time!
       
    • IBM developerWorks ... Ajax -- A guide for the perplexed, Part 1: Survey of Ajax tools and techniques
      and Ajax -- A guide for the perplexed, Part 2: Develop a Dojo-based blog reader and Where and when to use Ajax in your applications (make your decision carefully to avoid common pitfalls and enhance your user experience).
       
    • Rich Internet Applications - State of the Union (February 2007) - What's your technology choice for implementing RIA?
    • AJAX: Selecting the Framework that Fits - AJAX frameworks can make software development easier. The hard part is selecting the right framework for the job at hand.
    • ProgrammableWeb - "where you can keep-up with what's new and interesting with mashups, Web 2.0 APIs, and the new Web as Platform."
       
    • Openkapow.com "Mashups in minutes" ... "an open service platform, this means that you can build your own services (called robots) and run them from openkapow.com, all for free. These robots accesses web sites and allows you to use data, functionality and even the user interface of other web sites in a whole new way. No longer are you limited by what public APIs or RSS feeds that are available, instead you can build your own in minutes. You can then use those services from within your own mashups, code, Yahoo! Pipes, Google Gadgets etc. (Openkapow is built on Kapow Technologies Enterprise Mashup Platform.)" >> Mashup Demos >> Show U.S. Phone Location on a Map - Personal Digg RSS feed - Millionaire Game and more.
       
    • The IBM Mashup Starter Kit (preview, available on IBM alphaWorks) - enables line of business users to assemble their own Web 2.0 mashup applications, solving business problems without aid from information technology specialists.
       
    • What is Web 2.0? (by Tim O'Reilly) - Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software
    • Ajax For Web App Development - What Businesses Need To Know
       
    • Does the excessive hype about "Web 2.0" starting to annoy you? See Web 3.0 is Underway -- but "Web Pi" is unreachable ...
      Click the image to view the Wikipedia article about Pi
      Click here to view the Wikipedia article about Pi
       
    • Web 2.0 'neglecting good design - Hype about Web 2.0 is making web firms neglect the basics of good design, web usability guru Jakob Nielsen has said.
       
    • Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures - the rationale behind the design of the modern Web architecture and how it differs from other architectural styles. >> Software Architecture - Network-based Application Architectures - Network-based Architectural Styles - Designing the Web Architecture: Problems and Insights - Representational State Transfer (REST) - Experience and Evaluation (Standardizing the Web - Architectural Lessons)
       
    • Web 2.0 and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ...
    • Project Zero - focused on the agile development of the next generation of dynamic Web applications, it introduces a simple environment for creating, assembling and executing applications based on popular Web technologies. The Project Zero environment includes a scripting runtime for Groovy and PHP with application programming interfaces optimized for producing REST-style services, integration mash-ups and rich Web interfaces.
       
    • Developers Face Ajax Compatibility Crisis - Although the desire to jump on Web 2.0/Ajax technologies is great, vendors and developers must agree upon a level of standardization to achieve interoperability. In the rush to produce easier-to-use Ajax development environments, the problems that have occurred with Web services development may re-appear.
       
    • Backbase - provides a Rich Internet Application (RIA) AJAX-style development and production environment "that radically improves the usability and effectiveness of online applications, and increases developer productivity. With Backbase you can build web applications with a richer and more responsive user interface."
       
    • An Introduction to AJAX
    • Taconite - a framework that simplifies the creation of AJAX-enabled Web applications and automates the tedious tasks related to AJAX development.
    • A Primer on Microsoft Atlas - Atlas is Microsoft's flavor of AJAX. It offers a comprehensive platform that marries client-scripting functionality with ASP.NET server-side features.

    • Web 2.0 Reality Check - a flood of Web services and user-driven apps will mean fresh challenges for IT management. The whole lengthy cycle of software projects is now on Internet time, and woe to the CIO who fails to keep up.

    • Taconite - a framework that simplifies the creation of AJAX-enabled Web applications and automates the tedious tasks related to AJAX development.
       
    • The Prototype Javascript Framework - "Prototype is a JavaScript framework that aims to ease development of dynamic web applications. Featuring a unique, easy-to-use toolkit for class-driven development and the nicest Ajax library around, Prototype is quickly becoming the codebase of choice for web application developers everywhere."

      •  
    • jMaki - an Ajax framework that provides a lightweight model for creating JavaScript centric Ajax-enabled web applications using Java, PHP, and Phobos. (jMaki makes it very easy for Java developers to build Ajax applications.)

    • script.aculo.us - an open source collection of Web 2.0 style JavaScript libraries -- built on the Prototype JavaScript Framework -- that provides dynamic visual effects and user interface elements via the Document Object Model (DOM), to help web developers add AJAX functionally to projects. >> And here's the Wikipedia description
       
    • Johnny's Thoughts >> Quick References for ... Prototype - Script.aculo.us - Ruby on Rails - Subversion - Ubuntu - VIM editor

    • AJAX MAssive Storage System (AMASS) - "uses a hidden flash applet to allow JavaScript AJAX applications to store an arbitrary amount of sophisticated information on the client side. This information is permanent and persistent; if a user closes their browser or navigates away from the web site, the information is still present and can be retrieved later by the web page. Information stored by web pages is private and locked to a single domain, so other web sites can not access this information."
    • Bindows - an object-oriented platform for developing AJAX applications
       
    • AJAX Developers Journal
    • AjaxWorld Magazine
    • Web 2.0 Journal
    • Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials and 60 More AJAX Tutorials (by Max Kiesler)


    • Java EE meets Web 2.0 - Web 2.0 applications developed using standard Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 (Java EE)-based approaches face serious erformance and scalability problems. The reason is that many principles that underlie the Java EE platform's design — especially, the use of synchronous APIs — don't apply to the requirements of Web 2.0 solutions. This IBM developerWorks article explains the disparity between the Java EE and Web 2.0 approaches, explores the benefits of asynchronous designs, and evaluates some solutions for developing asynchronous Web applications with the Java platform.
       
    • Developing AJAX Applications That Preserve Standard Browser Functionality - "Ajax applications are praised for their richness, interactivity, and responsiveness, which are achieved by loading data dynamically using the XMLHttpRequest object instead of loading new pages. Among the hype and excitement, a few critical voices have pointed out that Ajax applications break several important browser features, including support for the back/forward button."
       
    • Speed up your Ajax applications while dodging Web Services vulnerabilities - a brief Ajax recap, shows what Web services vulnerabilities are and why Service Level Agreements (SLA) are important, and suggests some solutions for speeding up Ajax applications.
       
    • ProgrammableWeb - "Keeping you up to date with the latest on mashups and the new Web 2.0 APIs"
    • Mashery - "Power Your API" ... Aiming to make your web service offering successful by building a strong and active developer community while giving you complete control over how your API is used. (An on-demand service offering management infrastructure and community building tools for API providers.)

      •  
    • JBoss RichFaces - a rich component library for JSF and an advanced framework for easily integrating AJAX capabilities into business application development. The RichFaces components come ready to use out-of-the-box, so developers can immediately save time in taking advantage of component features to create Web applications that provide greatly improved user experience more reliably and more quickly. RichFaces also includes strong support for the skinnability of JSF applications. RichFacxes also takes full advantage of the benefits of the JSF framework including lifecycle, validation, and conversion facilities, along with the management of static and dynamic resources.


    • Why Ajax Sucks (Most of the Time)
    • AjaxLessons.com - "a resource for AJAX tutorials as well as information surrounding AJAX and Web 2.0"
    • AJAX and Multibyte Character Support
    • Ajaxian
    • AjaxPatterns - The publicly editable repository of all things Ajax: Design Patterns, Ajax Frameworks, Libraries, Tools, Links..

    • Places to Use AJAX

    • AJAX Mistakes
       
    • Dojo - "the Open Source JavaScript toolkit that helps you build serious applications in less time. ... Dojo makes professional web development better, easier, and faster. In that order. ... Dojo lets you prototype interactive widgets quickly, animate transitions, and build AJAX requests with the most powerful and easiest to use abstractions available."
       

    • SAJAX - Simple AJAX Toolkit - an open-source toolkit "to make programming websites using the AJAX framework — also known as XMLHTTPRequest or remote scripting — as easy as possible. Sajax makes it easy to call ASP, Cold Fusion, Io, Lua, Perl, PHP, Python or Ruby functions from your webpages via JavaScript without performing a browser refresh."
       

    • TinyAjax - PHP5 Ajax library (a modified/enhanced version of SAJAX) .... "AJAX-enable your pages without having to write a single line of JavaScript."
       
    • Fjax - "an open, lightweight, cross-browser methodology for Ajax-style web 2.0 development. Fjax is a technique focused on drastically streamlining the XML handling layer of web 2.0 applications."
       
    • Dion Hinchcliffe's Blog - Musings and Ruminations on Building Great Systems - excellent Web 2.0 articles
    • The Web 2.0 Workgroup - a network of premium weblogs that write content about the new generation of the Web.
       
    • DomAPI DHTML platform - an application-centric, enterprise-ready development environment, targeted at version 5.0 or better browsers running on Windows, MacOS and Linux. Supported browsers include Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, Safari, Chimera and Firefox.
       
    • ajaxLaunch - "Ajax for Everyone - goal is to launch exciting new Ajax-based applications (a *NEW* Ajax application every Wednesday)" ... Such as: ajaxWrite
       
    • Getahead
      • DWR - Direct Web Remoting - Easy AJAX for Java ... DWR allows JavaScript in a browser to interact with Java on a server and helps you manipulate web pages with the results. DWR makes it easy for you to AJAX-enable your website. DWR is freely available as open source software (under the Apache Software Foundation's ASL version 2.0 license model). It is straightforward to implement with extensive libraries, examples and tutorials. Incorporating it into existing sites is simple as it readily integrates with the most commonly used Java frameworks.

    • Sun Microsystems: AJAX Developer Resource Center - JavaScript Resource Center - What is AJAX and Why is it Important?
       
    • XAP - eXtensible Ajax Platform - an Apache project: XAP is an XML-based declarative framework for building, deploying and maintaining rich, interactive Ajax powered web applications.  It aims to reduce the need for scripting and help solve the development and maintenance challenges associated with large scale JavaScript programming. ... XAP is geared to application development - it picks up where JavaScript toolkits leave off. ... Rather than writing many lines of JavaScript to build a user interface XAP uses simple XML to create rich, complex user interface.  XML is also easy to parse, enabling supporting tools for visual creation and management of XAP UI.  XAP is not about "XML for everything" - XML is clumsy for expressing sophisticated logic.  XAP provides the plumbing and uses XML to describe the user interface, link controls to data objects and form a foundation for building applications; it then allows developers to place the right amount of code where it's needed. ... XAP is a client side offering that you can use with any web server - PHP, .NET, etc.  It does not have any specific server requirements.
       
    • IBM developerWorks articles about AJAX ...
  • Pew Internet & American Life Project

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  • WHATWG - Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group - a loose unofficial collaboration of Web browser manufacturers and interested parties who wish to develop new technologies designed to allow authors to write and deploy Applications over the World Wide Web. ... The term "Web Application" in this context refers to applications accessed over the World Wide Web by using a Web browser. (This group is not attempting to describe APIs for writing high-end sophisticated programs such as office productivity suites, graphics manipulation packages, or 3D games.) This working group aims to make their development easier, and hopes to specify new technologies that make it possible to make much prettier and more usable interfaces with less dependence on complex scripts, less dependence on server-generated pages, and a more seamless user experience.
    • Web Applications 1.0 - Working Draft - "The main area that has not been adequately addressed by HTML is a vague subject referred to as Web Applications. This specification attempts to rectify this, while at the same time updating the HTML specifications to address issues raised in the past few years."

  • Why Web Applications Can be Problematic and Unreliable - a fundamental source of all these problems is the HTTP communication layer of the Web, based on the HTTP "Request/Response" model. Initially designed for presenting and sharing hyperlinked documents in the form of Web pages, the Internet has since evolved far beyond simply supporting browsing activity and is now being utilized as an interactive platform for supporting mission-critical enterprise applications. ... The messaging layer does not support guaranteed message delivery, nor does it guarantee the order of message delivery. Further, the Web's messaging layer does not support server-initiated or server-push communications; it supports client-pull only.
     
  • SPI Dynamics - a leading provider of Web application security testing products. A suite of application security products and services that support the entire Web application lifecycle, from development and quality assurance to deployment, ongoing operations management and auditing.
     
  • OctaGate SiteTimer - allows you as a web site developer to monitor how long it takes for a user to download one or more of your web site pages. (Slow page load speeds will lead to users leaving your pages even though they're interested in the material. Users are becoming less and less accepting when it comes to slow sites as internet maturity increases.)
     
  • Selenium - a test tool for web applications, developed by team of programmers and testers at ThoughtWorks. "Selenium tests run directly in a browsers, just as real users do. And they run in Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Firefox on Windows, Linux and Macintosh. No other test tool covers such a wide array of platforms. ... Selenium uses a unique mechanism which allows it to run on so multiple platforms."
    You can use Selenium for:
    • Browser compatibility testing. Test your application to see if it works correctly on different browsers and operating systems. The same script can run on any Selenium platform.
    • System functional testing. Create regression tests to verify application functionality and user acceptance.
       
  • Simunication - a rapid-design web application prototyper designed online using Simunicator to enable users to visualize and test drive the application before the formal development process begins. You can use the design editors to build the prototypes or upload your own HTML, CSS, Flash, script, etc. (Free, Basic, Pro and Team editions available.)
     
  • HTMLArea - a FREE, customizable online Web-based editor (one that works inside your browser). It uses a non-standard feature implemented in Internet Explorer 5.5 or better for Windows and Mozilla 1.3 or better (any platform), therefore it will only work in one of these browsers.
     
  • WebFormDesigner - a FREE online service that enables you to visually design on the screen, dragging about the various components to create an email form. And when you're done, you can easily produce the HTML code snippet ready to paste into your web page.

  • Richard Cornford's site - over 3000 JavaScript (ECMA Script ) examples

  • www.RexSwain.com
  • SitePoint - an online media company and information provider targeting the Web professional market, specifically Web Developers and Designers. ... Articles, blogs, plus books and kits (for sale), including:
    •
  • Copyscape - FREE search for copies of your page on the Web ...
    "Copyscape is dedicated to defending your rights online, helping you fight against online plagiarism and content theft. Copyscape finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you."
    • The advanced Copysentry service (not free) "provides comprehensive defense for your entire website. Copysentry automatically scans the web daily and alerts you to copies of any page on your site."
    • The Global Web Rights campaign provides the tools and information you need to defend yourself against content theft and copyright violations on the web.
       
  • WEB DEVELOPER'S TOOLKIT - Four free power tools for your toolbox - (Curl, LiveHTTPHeaders, Microsoft Web Application Stress Tool, IBM Page Detailer)
  • 37signals >> Defensive Design for the Web (book) - How to improve Error Messages, Help, Forms, and other crisis points.
     
  • Blender - open source FREE software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback (for Windows, Linux, Irix, Sun Solaris, FreeBSD and Mac OS X).
  • AutoStitch - "a new dimension in automatic image stitching"
    • FREE demo version of AutoStitch (There is no commercial version of AutoStitch at present. They are currently looking for developers interested in building products using AutoStitch technology.)
       
  • notestips.com
  • Web Design Group

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  • ImageMagick - a collection of tools and libraries to read, write, and manipulate an image in many image formats (over 90 major formats) including popular formats like TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, PhotoCD, and GIF. ImageMagick is copyright ImageMagick Studio LLC, a non-profit organization and is distributed under an Apache-style license, which is approved by the Open Source Initiative and is compatible with the GPL. ImageMagick is available for FREE, may be used to support both open and proprietary applications, and may be redistributed without fee.
     

  • Ghostscript - an interpreter for the PostScript language, and for PDF (Ghostview and GSview) - for displaying or printing Postscript files
     

  • The Cover Pages - "a comprehensive Web-accessible reference collection supporting the SGML / XML family of (meta) markup language standards and their application."
     

  • TouchGraph Google Browser - Enter a web site's URL and "see" that website in the context that Google sees it - fascinating!

  • The Trellian ToolbarBrowser - "a complete Toolbar Authoring and Management tool. You can use it to manage dozens of toolbars in a simple tabbed control to save valuable browser space. It also includes all the standard features for search, navigation, popup blocking, etc., so you will never need another toolbar."
     

  • Not-So-Mad Science: Genetic Algorithms and Web Page Design for Marketers

  • A Matter of Trust - What Users Want From Web Sites (a report on consumer concerns about credibility of Web sites) - "Based on responses from a telephone survey of 1,500 U.S. Internet users, less than one third (29%) say they trust Web sites that sell products or services. And just 33 percent say they trust Web sites that provide advice about such purchases or services. That's surprisingly low when compared to the 58 percent who say they trust newspapers and television news and the 47 percent who say they trust the federal government in Washington."
     

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  • Planning to dump IE? Think again - For many people, using a non-Microsoft browser such as Firefox is now a must for secure Web surfing, but most still keep a copy of Internet Explorer around just in case. ... The problem is that many Web developers create their sites so they work best with Internet Explorer (IE), but not to work as well with browser software used by relatively tiny groups of potential visitors.
     

  • BitWorking - "Theories of software development"

    • Standards and the World Wide Web - "The field of software has the worst record of shipping standards compliant products. No company today is shipping a browser 100% compliant with the W3 recommendations for HTML 4 and CSS2. ... The companies themselves are not really at fault. They are reacting to market demands, providing the features that they believe their customers want the most. The real blame for lack of standards compliant software falls on the users of that software and the standards committees."
       
  • So Many Browsers - How Your Audience Can Make You a Better Web Developer - Use Web browser information to tighten and improve your code base so your Web site displays well across all browsers.
     
  • Plone: a user-friendly and powerful open source Content Management System - Plone is "a content management system with strong multilingual support. ... It is ideal as an intranet and extranet server, as a document publishing system, a portal server and as a groupware tool for collaboration between separately located entities. ... Plone is: easy to use, easy to install, standard, open source, extensible, technology neutral, protected. ... Plone is built using Zope, an object oriented application server. The language that drives Zope and Plone is Python."


  • The Web Standards Project - "a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all."
    • Accessibility TF - the Accessibility Task Force works with accessibility organizations, technology vendors and others to help promote Web accessibility.
    • ACID2 - Acid2 is a test page, written to help browser vendors ensure proper support for Web and related standards in their products.
    • DOM Scripting TF - the DOM Scripting Task Force evangelizes unobtrusive scripting and facilitates knowledge sharing.
    • Dreamweaver TF - the Dreamweaver Task Force works with Macromedia's engineers to improve standards compliance and accessibility in Dreamweaver.
    • Education TF - the Education Task Force works with institutions of higher education to promote instruction of Web standards and standards-compliant public sites.
    • Microsoft TF - WaSP and Microsoft work collaboratively on issues related to Web standards support in Microsoft products, including Internet Explorer.

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Paint.NET (FREE) ... Every feature and user interface element was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly learnable without assistance. It is also designed to be immediately familiar to users of the original MS Paint software that comes with Windows. "Paint.NET was written from the scratch and is completely separate from Paint in every way except for its name. Any similarity between the two is on purpose, and is neither accidental nor the fault of legacy code." Paint.NET is provided free-of-charge, and the Paint.NET source code is also available for free under generous licensing terms. (The bulk of Paint.NET is written in C#, with only a small amount of code related to setup and shell-integration written in C++.)

Adobe Photoshop Express - a FREE online version of the highly popular Adobe Photoshop product, with up to 2 GB of free online storage!

gliffy (FREE) - Draw and share diagrams on the Web


GIMP - the GNU Image Manipulation Program (FREE) -- for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. This is the official GIMP web site. It contains information about downloading, installing, using, and enhancing it. ... GIMP from Source - GIMP for Unix - GIMP for Windows - GIMP for MacOSX
  • GIMP for Windows installer - available from SourceForge
  • Note that you must install the GTK toolkit before installing the main program!
  • WIDGETS and GADGETS ...
    • Widgetbox - an online directory of FREE web widgets for blogs and other web pages. They work with TypePad, WordPress, Blogger, MySpace and most any other blog, sidebar or website. (No plug-ins needed.)
    • Bookmarklets - free tools for power surfing ... Simple tools that extend the surf and search capabilities of Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers. They allow you to modify the way you see someone else's webpage, extract data from a webpage, search more quickly, and in ways not possible with a search engine, and navigate in new ways.
    • Google Desktop Gadgets - these free gadgets work on your Google Desktop
    • Google Universal Gadgets - these free gadgets work on your Google homepage, Google Desktop, or your own website

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