I usually only like implementing JavaScript if it will add functionality to a webpage. It keeps the application running its best and performing optimally. It’s one of the same principles that I suggest with regards to using Flash as well.

With that being said I’ve seen lots of great Flash graphics/animations and creative uses for JavaScript for styling a page. DevSnippets has a list of 20 plugins based on jQuery for adding style to design elements.

I would probably say implementing some of these into your next web application will give it a clean look, but don’t overdo it. If it’s something that could be handled in CSS I would make an attempt there first, then look into JavaScript.

Netuts published a screencast tutorial on how to use CSS sprites. It’s a good web optimization technique that I see more and more, but could be adopted throughout a lot more sites. Check out the video below. Make sure you watch in fullscreen mode or go to Netuts site since I’ve scaled the video to fit in the blog post.

While I consider myself proficient in a variety of JavaScript libraries like Prototype, jQuery, and YUI, my library platform of choice at the moment is MooTools. I’ll evaluate each project on a case by case basis and each trial will be different, but I’ve found MooTools to do an adequate job for the type of projects I work on.

Web Design Ledger posted a good collection of user interface enhancements using the MooTools library. It’s got a few good tutorials that could probably be implemented in your next project.

Firescope is a Firefox add-on that allows you to search HTML and CSS reference material directory from Firebug.

After installing you will see a Reference tab in Firebug. From there you can search for HTML Elements, HTML Attributes, and CSS Properties. It shows you what the element is and also it’s compatibility in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, Safari 3, and Opera 9.

It’s a pretty simple add-on, but works as intended. For beginning developers I can see it helping quite a bit and for advanced developers as the HTML spec changes it will give a quick view of what works and what doesn’t.

Starting to use CSS3 techniques that degrade gracefully in older browsers will help design transition into the future. As of right now using these techniques in a design is a secondary thing as opposed to using it for the crucial look and feel of the website. Smashing Magazine has some great tips of including a little bit of CSS3 into designs and worth a look.

Over the weekend, I transisitioned this website from ModxCMS to Zend Framework.  While one is a CMS and the other is just a framework and this site being pretty simple, either technology could get the job done.  Since I launched the site, ModxCMS was running the main pages and WordPress was used for the blog.  For the most recent client work I’ve been using Zend Framework.  Most of the implementations for the clients were pretty customized systems and I felt Zend Framework would give more flexibility in those systems.

It got me thinking and that same flexibility could be used on the company website.  At this point the site wasn’t really using the majority of the features ModxCMS had to offer and for that matter it’s not using much of the Zend Framework as it is now.  What I was more interested in was the MVC code structure and the ability to transition this site much more in the future.  That may or may not happen depending on the amount of time I can dedicate, but I figure being more familiar with Zend Framework over ModxCMS would allow me to implement faster.  I thought about writing blog software on Zend Framework.  I’ve written blog software in the past, but with the latest version of WordPress I’m pretty happy with it.

I was pushing Zend Framework for a lot of clients and rarely suggesting ModxCMS.  Don’t get me wrong both platforms are great products, but I found myself using Zend Framework more and more.  I feel like I should use the technologies that I provide my clients.

Since the site is very simple, it was easy to transition.  I’m sure if the site was much more complex and more time consuming I would have thought twice about the transition.  Overall it was very quick and relatively painless.  I’m pretty happy with the process and I think the site is running pretty well.  As always if there are any comments or suggestions feel free to leave them.

There was a post on TechCrunch yesterday regarding MySpace and Facebook’s inability to penetrate into a market like Japan.  In the post it says it took a long time for translation (Internationalization) to happen, but more importantly the site that works here in the US market isn’t catered to that of another global market.

With my clients now, it has become important to build sites with global aspects in mind.  Previously, clients just wanted an English based site, which for most businesses based in the US, is probably just fine.  For more complex projects like social networking, developing the site with this in mind early makes for a much easier task than trying to do it later.  This was seen by how long it took Facebook to get up to speed.  Translations take a long time so knowing what you want to do in the beginning can be a great help.

As for Localization this is a little bit harder.  There’s a lot more research that needs to take place in order for your site to look and feel just right for your target audience.

So the terminology Localization (L10n) and Internationalization (I18n) gets mixed up at times and people believe them to be the same thing.  In general clients think Localization is your website translated into another language so that the target country can understand the content. This is actually part of Internationalization. Internationalization covers language, number formatting, dates, times, currency, etc. Localization deals with catering the site to the target market. An example of this may be a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge here in America, but using a graphic of the Great Wall in China.

Overall, I think it’s great that people are looking to expand their site to different markets.  It’s also good that clients see that they want to do this up front which makes it a lot easier.  Don’t get me wrong though, the way we design sites, we can always do the translation after the project is complete, it just always seems to be planned better knowing beforehand.

Apple released the iTunes App Store last week for the iPhone and iPod Touch and I’ve spent some of the weekend using a variety of applications.  For the most part all of the applications run better than their web application counterparts which is expected.  Some of the applications are lacking features, but I’m sure as time progresses those features will be added and they will become complete miniturized versions of their desktop web based applications.

For a few months now I’ve been contemplating jumping into iPhone applications.  I don’t have any Mac OS X desktop experience.  I do have experience in several programming languages both computer and web based.  I’m thinking that this platform would be something worth looking into.  With all the lines in front of the Apple Stores each product launch, I see this platform being just as popular as the iPod.

I did apply for the program and was initially rejected.  I recieved a letter from Apple recently stating I can now join the program.  I’m sure all the other developers that applied were notified as well.  I think it’s going to take a lot of research, development, and testing and hopefully I have the time to take on the challenge.

I see it much more fulfilling to create native applications over the web applications for this platform.  Sure you are limited to the specific platform of Mac OS X for the iPhone, but I think that platform will grow much larger than other manufacturers we see today.

If I start dedicating more time and the company moves more into this sort of development, I’ll be sure to post.  Until then back to web development.

Noupe had a recent post some websites you shouldn’t have missed in May 2008.  It’s a list of 54 things to review covering a range of design, coding, to just some good resources to bookmark and keep for future reference.  I’m going to go through and give my top 10 from the list.

1. Pastel color menu with dynamic submenu using CSS – While I haven’t necessarily made pastel color menus, I have used this technique many times to create menus and submenus using list elements.  It keeps the code pretty clean and of course you need to have the small piece of JavaScript to support browsers like IE6.  One thing to be aware of is if you have a large elaborate menu scheme, this creates a lot of HTML in the header of your page.  If you are supporting JavaScript it might be a good idea to AJAX the appropriate data when the user takes action.
2. Yahoo! Design Pattern Library – I’ve been posting a lot about Yahoo.  I’ve just been really happy with the work they’ve produced over the last year.  This is a very good reference piece if you are wondering how something should be implemented or if you have a client that insists on one thing, you can show them that it’s been tested and proven to be best this way.
3. Which CSS Grid Framework Should You Use for Web Design? – I’ve been using a few of the Grids frameworks listed in this article, mostly the YUI Grids CSS for my work.  For the most part it gets the majority of what I want to do done faster and I feel like I’m a step ahead when I’m creating a site.  Good clean CSS is what we strive to create and these libraries make it easier for us to do that.
4. Applying Divine Proportion To Your Web Designs – While I don’t do too much design work personally, there are times when I do and I think that’s one area in my work that I can learn more and improve.  It’s always been pretty difficult for me to design things.  I guess I just don’t have enough creativity.  This article describes the rule of thirds when designing and this fits in well if you are using a Grids library.  You can work together with your front end developers and designers to create great looking layouts and save some time in the process.
5. Free 278 Page PDF eBook- The Photoshop Anthology – I haven’t read the entire book yet, but it looks like a good read.  There’s only a limited amount of time left if you want to sign up and download.
6. Find Similar Users on del.icio.us – I’ve really gotten into del.icio.us lately and I think it’s kind of cool to see who has similar interests as you.  I’m not one of those social network stalkers though.
7. 45+ Free Premium WordPress Themes with Magazine or Grid Layouts – There are some great looking designs in this collection.  Just glancing over them has given me some inspiration on some future projects.
8. 36 Cool Business Cards You Should’ve Seen – I’ve been looking for some new business cards since I formed the LLC.  I’ll have to take some more time to come up with something cool.
9. 30 Websites to follow if you’re into Web Development – I saw this posted in Digg the other day.  I saved it to my bookmarks.  It’s a great resource for web development.
10. SEO Guide for Designers – While I don’t like to take on too many SEO projects anymore, this is a good resource for best practices.  I don’t like taking the projects on because there are no guarantees in that market and if someone says they can guarantee something they probably aren’t doing it white hat style.

So that’s my top 10 from Noupe’s post.  If you have any questions for me or any comments about the resource, let me know.

I’ve been waiting for Versions to come out for about a year now.  I have been using Subversion for a couple years now and there really hasn’t been any clients for the Mac that I have given me the Mac experience I have been used to in quite a few of my other applications.  I had tried ZigVersion a while back and I don’t know if it’s changed much, but it didn’t work out so well for me.  It wasn’t a bad experience, it just wasn’t what I was looking for.  On the PC side, I use TortoiseSVN, but the Mac-like client didn’t seem to function as well as the PC.  Since then I’ve been using SmartSVN.  This has so far worked out the best for me, but I don’t really care for the interface and since it’s a Java app it doesn’t seem to play well with Spaces.

I was looking for something better and I saw a post on TUAW about a year ago and decided to sign up for the mailing list.  Today I saw another post that the beta had been released so I thought I would try it out.  I loaded all my current repositories into the client and everything seemed to work okay today.  The interface was new to me, but after a short while I was able to get used to where everything is located.
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