iOS has a simple event-based XML parser built in, which makes it fairly easy to do less involved parsing operations without having to load up a third-party framework. This tutorial will show you how to build a simple iPhone application that will download an XML feed from Twitter containing a user’s tweets, and then display them with a pretty UI. (You could easily adapt this to parse other XML documents, such as RSS feeds.)
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Envato, the company behind the Tuts+ blogs, has launched a new marketplace for buying and selling premium tutorials. Running from $3 to $7 apiece, the tutorials include the ones available under the Tuts+ subscription as well as user-submitted ones unavailable elsewhere.
It’s certainly an interesting idea, though I wonder if it might take away from the blogs a little bit? The Tuts+ blogs pay a lot of money upfront to their regular authors, but infrequent contributors could be more attracted to the promise of recurring sales.
Automattic’s latest site, WordPress.tv is quite interesting. The site, described as “Your Visual Resource for All Things WordPress,” is an attempt at putting together a central place to find quality WordPress-related videos.
So far it’s mainly short beginner-oriented tutorials and clips from WordCamp, though it will eventually have all the videos they can round-up. Judging by what they’ve done so far, they will be adding existing videos from around the web, by using Vimeo/YouTube/etc embed code snippets, in addition to their own clips.
On the design end, it looks pretty good; it’s kind of a combination of the WordPress.org design and Hulu, with a dash of YouTube. The videos are sized nicely, plenty of information to the right, and threaded Gravatar-equipped comments underneath. It’s very clean, and (big surprise) it’s all powered by WordPress.
The site looks promising. I will definitely be checking in now and again to see how it turns out.
If you work with CSS much at all, these ten tutorials are must-reads. They range from sprites to print stylesheets, speech bubbles to sliding doors. The sorts of things that are nice to have in your CSS toolbox for future use, when you’ll undoubtedly need them.
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Webmonkey, around sine 1996, is one of the most well-known and long-running web development sites. Their blog was one of the first blogs I read, and the first one that I subscribed to via RSS. Some changes have been happening lately over at Webmonkey. They’ve been purchased by Condé Nast, the parent company of Wired Magazine, and they’re restructuring their site.
Let’s start with their blog. When it launched, it was known as Monkey Bites. Eventually the blog was moved over to Wired.com, where it ran for awhile before being renamed to “Compiler.” The blog is, once again, known as Monkey Bites, and is now residing at webmonkey.com/blog and it’s integrated more tightly with Webmonkey than ever before.
The WebMonkey site itself is now a wiki. What used to be a repository for tutorials penned by HotWired’s designers and developers is now opening-up and allowing anyone who knows what they’re talking about to submit articles to be included. It looks like WebMonkey is moving forward into the 21st century, making an effort to keep up with today’s technologies, instead of staying a dusty collection of out-of-date tutorials.
Now, let’s move on to the design.
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CSS. Without it the web would look pathetic. If the W3C hadn’t put out the CSS standard, our blogs would look like this, this, or this. Is that scary or what?
Whether you’re a web designer, a PHP coder, or a blogger, it pays to know the ins and outs of CSS and HTML. Even if you’ve memorized the entire CSS Spec documents (unlikely), there’s still more to learn. CSS Maniacs everywhere are coming up with new techniques every day, and it’s a good idea to keep current on the latest methods for dodging around Internet Explorer bugs and building CSS grid layouts. Then you have a constant stream of downloadable utilities (and Firefox extensions) to aid you in your design work.
Well, let’s cut to the chase. Here are a few CSS tutorials, techniques, and resources (in no particular order):
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Are you a blogger? Whether you’re new to blogging, or you’ve been blogging for years, you should take a look at North X East. Once or twice a week, a nice informative article is posted, going in-depth on a blogging-related topic.
I often find myself waiting anxiously for another article to be posted (much like I do with Smashing Magazine).
Web Design from Scratch is a site that calls itself “Your complete guide to web design”. They cober a wide range of stuff from HTML/CSS to Graphic Design. There’s plenty to check out. I like their Opinions page, where they have articles on topics such as “Why Code by Hand?“. If you want to build a layout for your site/blog, then take a look. They cover nearly every aspect of design.
Webmonkey is one of the oldest webmaster tutorial sites around. They update their content regularly and sort it into meaningful categories. The content is well-written and easy to read. If you’re a beginning webmaster, head over to Webmonkey. I’m also fan of their MonkeyBites Blog, which covers tech news,
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