Archive for the 'Website Development' Category

Review: Xyle Scope - Mac Browser, Source Code Viewer, CSS Viewer, Web Multi-Tool

Tuesday, May 24th, 2005

I just picked up a copy of Cultured Code’s Xyle Scope application. It absolutely rocks and is a must have application for any Mac website designer. Any web site designers on other platforms should switch to a Mac just for this application. A quote on their website sums up what is so beautiful about [...]

Review: Navicat MySQL Client - Now Supports SSH Tunnel!

Monday, May 23rd, 2005

Update #2 I’m using Navicat again for several of my MySQL database tasks, and still enjoy the product. They have also changed their upgrade policy so that users are entitled to all minor updates to the same major version. Very cool!
Update: While I still feed Navicat is a great program, their upgrade policy has left [...]

Google to offer Advertisments within RSS Feeds

Friday, May 20th, 2005

For those of you that might have missed Google’s announcement this week, they will soon be offering a way to inject advertisements into RSS feeds. This could certainly shake things up in the world of RSS feeds.
When I explain RSS/XML/Atom feeds to people I often talk about how I can read the headlines from [...]

Website Evaluations, Reviews, Critiques

Wednesday, May 18th, 2005

I have an idea for a new project and need to solicit feedback. What do you think constitutes a good website? What elements are common in websites you like?
The project I have in mind doesn’t matter, but from your background (whatever that might be) describe what you feel are important elements of good website [...]

Offer Your Blog’s Feed?

Friday, May 13th, 2005

Most blogs offer RSS, Atom, or XML feeds of their news. These feeds are specially generated files that include the main content of your blog in a very specific format. The format allows other programs such as news aggregators to display your blog outside of the context of your browser.
These feeds have other uses [...]

Will the Real tide*.microsoft.com Please Stand Up?

Thursday, May 12th, 2005

Yesterday in a routine overview of server log files I came across one website that had substantially more traffic than usual. An investigation started. I was hoping to find evidence of the “slashdot effect” and discover the traffic was real. However that was not the case.
Instead I discovered that one particular IP address had [...]

Website Page Load Times - How Fast Are You?

Tuesday, May 10th, 2005

Determining how fast a particular website or webpage loads can be a difficult task. Many factors come into play such as server load, network traffic, the visitor’s computer, the visitor’s internet connection, etc.
Assuming all of those factors are working as designed, how fast should a webpage load? A seven second rule has been cited many [...]

Use Text, Not Images When You Want to Display Text

Monday, May 9th, 2005

Last week I blogged about how many websites use images to create fancy text instead of using actual styled text. An extreme example of this is the website for Sky Designs Products.
Sure, there is plenty of text on the site you and I as humans can read. However 100% of that text is comprised [...]