Servage Magazine

CSS frameworks help web designers create nice layouts quicker and better. Here is a short list of a few great ones: http://lessframework.com/ Less Framework is a CSS grid system for designing adaptive web­sites. It contains 4 layouts and 3 sets of typography presets, all based on a single grid. http://foundation.zurb.com/ A responsive CSS framework, MQFramework utilises the @media property to allow you to design your sites for browsers of all sizes. Based on a 12 column grid, MQFramework degrades perfectly down to mobile screen sizes. http://goldengridsystem.com/ Golden Grid System (GGS) splits the screen into 18 even columns. The leftmost and rightmost columns are used as the outer margins of the grid, which leaves 16 columns for ...

Project management and collaboration apps are popping up everywhere. Here is a new one that looks really cool, and ideal for web developers! Bunker App can: Manage your projects easily Create simple and intuitive task lists in seconds. Assign your projects to specific clients profile. Set delivery dates for the things you have to do and be noticed in a friendly way when they are overdue. It's like having a project manager watching you, minus the hassle. Create stylish invoices in a few clicks Every freelancer knows that creating invoices is both long and boring. That's why Bunker lets you generate invoices for your projects instantly. Every invoice has a unique URL that ...

This might just be the very best learning tool I have ever seen for beginners in programming. Codecademy offers free online courses in JavaScript, Ruby and Python. The trick is the interactive way Codecademy teaches: It's a interactive tutorial, where you have to read a little, and test a little, for every step of the process. It's done via a nice interface, where you have a console-like input to fulfill the exercises live. It's pretty cool! The developers description says: "Codecademy was created out of the frustrations Zach and Ryan felt with learning how to program. Tired with less effective text and video resources, Ryan and Zach teamed up to create ...

Maybe you read the earlier presentations of Sencha Touch here on the blog. Basically it allows you to create mobile apps based on web-technologies like JavaScript, rather than native languages for various platforms. Everything is a little better and faster in Sencha Touch 2 compared to the first version, currently available in Beta 2. One of the cooler additions is the new class system, with automated setter and getter methods for all class variables, like this: var panel = Ext.create('Ext.Panel', { html: 'Sencha Touch 2 rocks' }); alert(panel.getHtml()); // alerts the current value of the html config panel.setHtml('It sure does'); // changes your panel html to a new value Check out Senchas own ...

This part of the course is about Arrays. Arrays are a datatype in PHP that you can use to store data. You can look at an array like a chain. It can contain multiple elements, each element can contain multiple sub-elements. Imagine, the chain can divide in every link, becoming a new chain, with endless possibiliteis of where it can lead. Let's start with a simple example: $my_array = array(); $my_array[] = 'Element 0'; $my_array[] = 'Element 1'; $my_other_array('Element 0', 'Element 1'); The code above creates an array called $my_array, whereafter it appends to values to the array. You can also do the same thing in one-line, by adding the elemenets like done in the ...

Maybe this problem isn't one you're facing every day, or every. However, I'm always fascinated by interations between different IT systems and software, and the procedures are similar, regardless of use-case. API's are the core behind any cooperation between systems. While many modern web companies offer API-access to their products, it is also possible to interact with other systems. Remember to think about the usefulness of opening up your product or service to customers via such an interface. Another funny related pice of software I stumbled upon resently, is a Windows app wich allows to reset screen resolution from the command line. By downloading the developers app "qres.exe" you can ...

Recently more and more community-funding portals have emerged for all kinds of categories, mainly in music and web development. Now there's another great place to get resources for your project, only this time you get time instead of money. Check out Crowdfunding from Springwise: "UK-based team: Peoplefund.it, a crowdfunding site that’s designed to connect fledgling community projects with people interested in supporting them. Visitors to Peoplefund.it can browse the many young projects listed on the site — they’re organized into categories including energy, food, health, community, environment and recreation — or they can search for projects based on popularity, location or keywords. Each project page includes a ...

Here's another great and beautiful web-app, which combines current trends, products and web-technology into a user-friendly experience, serving a specific need greatly: Greenpocket. Springwise recently presented it, and I think it's worth mentioning as well: "There are few aspects of life that can’t be enlivened by a little friendly competition, and home energy metering is no exception. Enter German GreenPocket’s namesake smartphone app, which “helps consumers share their carbon footprint in a competitive and entertaining way on Facebook”. Based in Cologne, GreenPocket is a software provider focusing on the visualization and interpretation of smart metering energy consumption data. As a complement to its smart metering and smart ...

Hi again, and welcome to this third little guide on PHP development. In this article you'll learn about the PHP class, which is an object-model for handling various kinds of data. As usual, it's easiest to understand based on an example. Say, you want to make a web app that has different kinds of users, so we need a User class to handle the user in your scripts. class User { var $first_name; var $last_name; var $nickname; function __constrcut($nickname) { $this->nickname = $nickname; } function get_full_name() { return $first_name.' '.$last_name; } } The class definition lets PHP know we create a class, containing multiple variables and functions. Classes are also often called objects, and functions inside classes may be called methods. You ...

Yet another pretty little JS library offering a set of special functionality: Money.js. It's doing what it advertises, easily and quickly. The description says: "JavaScript currency conversion library, done right - with no dependencies, in just over 1 kb. Designed to work seamlessly with data from the Open Source Exchange Rates API project - but can be set up to use any data source and base currency in just a few lines. And it works as a NodeJS/CJS and RequireJS/AMD module, too. Yay!" Example code: // From any currency, to any currency: fx.convert(12.99, {from: "GBP", to: "HKD"}); // Chaining sugar: fx(1000).from("USD").to("GBP"); fx(1000).to("AED"); // With simple settings and defaults, making this possible: fx.convert(5318008); fx(5318008).to("AED"); // Can also be used as a ...