Right-click menus in HTML5

The image below is from the future. :) It shows a context-related right-click menu implemented with just a few lines of #HTML5 code. This is already part of the official HTML 5 spec but is only supported by Firefox at the moment. The spec describes menus that are related to a section, can have sub-menus and even support icons.

Check out how to do it in the example by +David Walsh at http://bit.ly/zmMKJ6 (via +Chris Coyier)

If you can't wait for the future, here's a #jQuery solution http://bit.ly/Aii4rq

Google+: Reshared 9 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Responsive design wireframing

The #responsivedesign concept is quickly becoming a must-have item in any new web design project. But while the miracle of "code once, run everywhere" is upon us, some challenges are ahead for the designer. Suddenly, it's not one #wireframe , but three or four (for each #layout of the website). And while there may be some tricks to make the process easier, you might not have the best result in each device/resolution case.

Leigh Howells explores the situation on boagworld http://bit.ly/yFyZx4

Google+: View post on Google+

Responsive menus: one code to rule them all

If you haven't joined the mobile web yet, you should really start thinking about it. 66% of 24-35 year olds already own web-hungry smartphones in the United States. +Webdesigntuts shows us how you can have one piece #HTML / #CSS code for your menus for both your mobile and "full size" visitors.
Check it out here http://bit.ly/wlFH3i

Google+: View post on Google+

iOS 1986

Awesome retro iOS icons by Anton Repponen http://bit.ly/xq0RJj

Google+: View post on Google+

This is why people pirate

Awesome Oatmeal comic about trying something as simple as watching your favorite show online http://bit.ly/Aeok0T

To quote Valve's Gabe Newell:
"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

That said, Game of Thrones rocks! :)

Google+: View post on Google+

Can you convince me in 5 seconds?

Value proposition is the #1 thing that determines whether people will bother reading more about your product or hit the back button. It’s also the main thing you need to test – if you get it right, it will be a huge boost. If I could give you only one piece of conversion advice , “test your value proposition” would be it.

The full article: Useful Value Proposition Examples (and How to Create a Good One) at ConversionXL http://bit.ly/zoS2HF

Google+: View post on Google+

The Cross-CMS Perception Matrix

In the spirit of the latest "What People Think I Do / What I Really Do" meme (more at http://chzb.gr/A6accB), here is how #CMS developers view other developers and their favorite system. I think each CMS has it's own purpose and use but there no harm with a little fun :) Included: #WordPress , #Drupal , #Joomla , #WIX and #Sharepoint . Matrix image via +Ana Nakamura Bonus graph on web developers ;)

Google+: View post on Google+

In album 2012-02-18

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Microsoft: Google.com is malware site

Mark this as #fail of the week: Google.com was marked as a #malware distributing site by Microsoft Security Essentials program due to a buggy update. #Google was labeled as a “severe” threat due to being infected with the Blackhole Exploit Kit – a nasty sounding exploit developed in Russia that allows hackers to target Windows users. The error has since been caught and corrected... More at http://bit.ly/wmkGWF

Google+: View post on Google+

Multi-lingual content in Drupal 7

If you're building a site with multiple languages on #Drupal you're going to need two things: translation of the interface and translation of the content. The +Lullabot people have you covered on that with an extensive guide on how to have your site interface and your nodes (content) translated. http://bit.ly/wFB5Vk

Side-note: Trying to post a comment on the lullabot.com article was caught by the spam filter and I couldn't thank the author for it. That said, trying to use the contact form to report the spam filter malfunction had the same result: my message triggered a spam filter... (cc +Jeff Robbins)

Google+: View post on Google+

You can now play doctor with Google

In it's quest to serve you the most accurate (ads and) information that you are looking for, Google will now match searches for illness symptoms with the actual disease you might suffer from. A search "abdominal pain on my right side" will provide a top-of-search-results box with possible situations such as appendicitis, ovarian cyst and hernia. Of course #Google is quick to note that this is not medical advice...
Full details at the official Google Search blog http://bit.ly/xGk5TT

Google+: View post on Google+

Don't forget to dream big!

"We're gonna tour the world and we'll spread the cosmic love vibe all over the world and the universe, we're gonna blaze a trail of red hot funkiness everywhere we go. yep." :)

Google+: View post on Google+

Improve your SEO with XML Sitemaps

One process often suggested to improve your search engine rankings are creating your #sitemap in XML format and submitting to search engines. #Google and #Bing are among the search engines that support the format. But a simple dump of every single page on your site might not be the best way to go about it.

You can use the XML Sitemap to guide the search engine bots to the page you really want to have traffic. +Ben Goodsell at +Search Engine Watch is analyzing the concepts and tricks behind this, check the full article here http://bit.ly/zTddWV

Google+: View post on Google+

John Cleese on creativity

How many Jewish mothers does it take to screw a light bulb? :) An excellent video of John Cleese on #creativity not as talent but as a way of operating.

http://vimeo.com/18913413

via +Mike Spinak

Google+: View post on Google+

The greatest Flash animation there has ever been

After 15 years, at last there is a reason for the existence of Flash. It's called The Scale of the Universe by Cary and Michael Huang and you have to see it now http://bit.ly/wWGTVg

Google+: Reshared 2 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Romney: to defecate in terror!

Apparently Mitt #Romney now has a "Santorum problem". www.spreadingromney.com has managed to come up in the top search results on Google and Bing for "Romney" (#5 on Google on my tests both with "google plus your world" and normal settings)

+Search Engine Land has more on the subject http://selnd.com/ytX7Oc
(Yes, I suppose this post's title just helped spreadingromney.com's cause a little bit :))

Google+: View post on Google+

Piracy??

What's the point of the music industry continuing their arguments on piracy and losing revenues (or worse, regular people "stealing" revenues) when you can legally have pretty much any music video stream to your computer? The ease of listening to any music anywhere has gotten to the ridiculous point where you can have a continuous stream of music (and video) on a window of your browser at excellent quality with zero cost (and no ads usually) just by doing a search on the Google+ YouTube widget.

And how long before this happens for movies? :)

Google+: View post on Google+

This is completely wrong, but it doesn't really matter

Finally, a computer for your mom's living room? Which magically turns to an iPad?
Price not set yet. If you really want to know more, click here http://bit.ly/xxa2h3
And yes, there is also an iPhone version....

On a more serious note: this started as a #Kickstarter project, where 37 people funded the product with an average of $159 each. Which goes to show, there IS a market for you out there, you just have to find the the right way to reach the proper people, no matter how #crazy or "crazy" your idea is ;)

Google+: View post on Google+

How to Design User Flow

Getting visitors to your site is one thing. But once they are there, you need to provide an exciting/useful/engaging/you-name-it experience if you are going to have results.

The good folks at conversionXL.com have a very thorough post on how to guide your visitors to the desired action (whatever that may be: sale, quote form, support information, etc). The article include actual examples on getting started with the described concepts.

Check the full thing at http://bit.ly/A5BbnO

Google+: View post on Google+

Tracking your visitors' location with PHP

If you are in a situation that you need to show different content to your visitors depending on their location, an easy way to do it is with #PHP using MaxMind's IP database. MaxMind is offering commercial database of locations for IP addresses, but they also have a free product GeoLite Country http://bit.ly/yoPj7C

It is a downloadable data file (MaxMind provides monthly updates) that you can query through PHP or other languages or even an Apache module (MaxMind offers libraries http://bit.ly/yMsTP8 for several languages). If you don't like the idea of downloading a file every month there are other alternatives like GeoPlugin.com and IpInfoDB.com but I opted to skip the part of making network requests to a third-party server.

I've cooked up an example of querying the the data file and keeping the information on a cookie so that the total number of queries is smaller. Check it out here http://bit.ly/wBm7bm

Google+: View post on Google+

12 Steps to organic keywords optimization

+George Aspland at +Search Engine Land has posted a comprehensive guide on improving your search engine ranking through careful curation of your content and code. His 12 steps:
1. Choose The Keywords To Focus On
2. Prioritize Your Keywords
3. Check That Important Content On The Page Is Getting Indexed
4. Ensure The Indexed Text Is Unique
5. Try To Improve The Search Listings For The Keywords
6. Update Or Add A Headline
7. Optimize Existing Text
8. Look For Text In Images
9. Possibly Add New Content On The Page
10. Develop Alt Tags for the Image Links
11. Update The HTML Page Title & Meta Description Tag
12. Increase Internal / External Links & Social Engagement

Full article here http://selnd.com/zXRr4k

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Weekend WordPress reading

Just got this! http://t.co/GdRVvuWu Digging into WordPress +Chris Coyier and +Jeff Starr is 400 pages of WordPress knowledge. Just updated to cover WP 3.3 (and with a promise of free future updates forever!) this looks really good. Hopefully, I'll repost soon with a review of the book :)

Edit: just discovered the "All AJAX" theme included with the book. I always wondered if someone had done something like that. /installs now :)

Check out a free PDF sample and the full contents here http://bit.ly/xJsLHJ

Google+: View post on Google+

Don't forget

For your #WebDevelopment checklist: Always remember to buy that stock photo you are using on your front page before going live :)

Google+: View post on Google+

Login log for your WordPress

Here is a companion #WordPress #plugin for the Limit Login Attempts one I posted about before ( http://bit.ly/z3q1gM ): Simple Login Log does exactly that. It keeps a log of all successful or not attempts to login on your site. You'll be surprised at the number of attempts (I certainly was when I found I had 600 attempts from bots in 3 days :))

Simple Login Log can be found at WordPress.org http://bit.ly/xeA67f

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+