Web-kreation is sharing a beautifully-crafted sliding login panel that is very handy to be used in websites with limited spaces.

It has 2 versions:

• using MooTools
• using jQuery (improved version in means of design & functionality)

The panel works by overlapping the content rather than pushing it & can be easily converted to be used for any other functionality (like navigation, search, contact form, etc.)

It is also converted into WordPress plugins:

• Sliding Panel: WordPress Plugin by Justin Tadlock.
• SuperSlider-Login by Twincascos.

P.S. It comes only the HTML-CSS-JavaScript part of the code & doesn’t have an integrated login system. Such a function needs to be adapted while using the code.

Tutorialzine is sharing a nice tutorial with source on creating a fancy Ajaxed contact form that is built with jQuery & PHP.

The form is unobtrusive & has a server-side validation which makes it degrade gracefully when the JavaScript is turned off.

It takes advantage of 2 jQuery plugins:

• formValidator – for validation
• JQTransform – for stying input fields

and a PHP class:

• PHPMailer – for sending the e-mails

The contact form also has a basic captcha which works by asking the sum of 2 random numbers.

To check a demo of the form, click here.

Tutorialzine is sharing a beautiful tutorial (with source) on creating an Ajaxed drag’n drop shopping cart with jQuery & PHP.

It uses MySQL for storing the data & simpleTip plugin for displaying information about the products with style.

It takes advantage of the jQuery UI’s draggable & droppable behaviours to accomplish the flawless experience.

The shopping cart is not a ready-to-go one for an e-commerce website but it is a nice base for creating one by improving the features.

Tip: Tutorialzine provides other nice tutorials which you may be interested in like:

• A Stylish Navigation Menu With jQuery
• Creating a Facebook-like Registration Form with jQuery

As the processes in HTML 5 & CSS3 working groups move forward everyday, it is getting much more clear that new standards are not too far.

There are lots of new tutorials, resources being created on HTML 5 / CSS3 including cheat sheets which are very functional helpers for anyone willing to code with these standards.

Although there are (currently) few around, here is a collection of HTML 5 and CSS3 cheat sheets:

P.S. the list will be updated with the new ones once they are created, please feel free to share them.

HTML 5 Cheat Sheets

HTML 5 Visual Cheat Sheet

Read the rest of this entry »

Although MS Excel & Powerpoint seems a little bit out of the scope for web designers/developers, many web applications are built with reporting options that can be exported, so, they can be easily used as templates.

Juice Analytics is sharing 15+ free Excel & Powerpoint charts that can beautify any report.

There are simple-to-advanced examples of various chart  types like bar, line or pie charts which comes with sample data that makes customizing faster by editing the values used.

Quartz Icon Set is a collection of 90 simple but stylish icons that are in 64*64px size & PNG format.

The set contains icons from "files/folders" to main website objects like "search, home, download" or social bookmarking ones.

They are free to use in both personal 6 commercial projects.

P.S. Thanks very much to Andy Gongea, the designer of the set, for the suggestion. And, the set is also shared on his website.

Inside the "Let’s make the web faster" website, Google is sharing the tips & tutorials for better performing webpages.

Some of the articles are:

• HTTP caching
• PHP peformance tips
• Optimizing JavaScript code
• & much more.

Besides the articles, It is possible to reach videos of speeches by several organizations on website performance.

Also, links to various tools for the issue provided & a large community discusses the subject continiously.

Cloud hosting, storage & content delivery networks (CDNs) are very popular services for the last few years, which is very normal, as they offer a series of advantages in running + serving web applications.

An application hosted in the cloud will:

• easily scale (with instantly deployable & API controlled instances, unlimited diskspaces, etc..)
• serve files faster with content delivery network (CDN) support
• have a better availability (with strong SLAs)

With the increasing number of providers & tools created, cloud hosting is getting simpler & simpler everyday.

Getting in the cloud, in most cases, will save so much time & resources when running a growing web application. You won't need to think of the hardware, better react to the system resources & bandwidth usage fluctuations, pay exactly for what you use & much more.

Here is a collection of popular options & tools that can help you in hosting your applications in the cloud:

Cloud Hosting & Storage Options

Rackspace Cloud

Cloud Servers – (hosting)

The service provides instantly deployable servers with a choice of popular Linux distributions (no Windows). Currently, there is no API support but it is on the way.

Cloud Files – (storage)

A redundant data storage service which replicates the data in 3 seperate locations.

Files can be managed from a web-based interface or an API. The system is integrated with LimeLight content delivery network & files can be selected to be served faster via this network.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) – (hosting)

Amazon EC2 is a web service that provides you the environment to instantly launch (or remove) new servers (instances) with the OS & configuration you need which makes scaling of a web application much easier.

This functionality can be controlled via the web service APIs or tools to be mentioned in this post.

You are charged with the resources consumed like hours your servers (instances) work or the bandwidth used.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, mostly disliked by everyone, even the employers, resumes are parts of the business world & in most cases required when applying for a job.

And, they can also be helpful when you’re not searching for a job but willing to present your experience.

For web designers & developers, probably, the best method of having a CV is having it online as employers will be from the online world as well.

SampleResumeTemplate is a free HTML resume template which provides a clean presentation with various list types (both vertical & horizontal) that makes it easier to use & improve (built with YUI Grids Framework).

You may also want to check 5 free HTML resume templates from Terril Dent or this one from Alex King.

First impressions are important & a website with lots of typo may easily result in losing visitors.

Spell Check Rex is an open source website spell checking application, built with PHP & MySQL, which can be installed on any website to automatically monitor & report spelling mistakes.

The application spiders the given website and generates reports. It supports frame-enabled websites & directories, pages can be excluded.

Spell Check Rex only supports English (has a multilanguage backend) & has 110,000+ words in its database.