Dot Net Monkey

Smashing Magazine has released some PDF's with the good guff about web design and css.

• 35 Designers x 5 Questions - 35 designers. 5 questions. 5 precise answers. Result: 175 professional suggestions, tips and ideas from some of the best web-developers all around the world.  Available online, or download it in PDF.
• 70 Expert Ideas For Better CSS Coding - We’ve taken a close look at some of the most interesting and useful CSS tricks, tips, ideas, methods, techniques and coding solutions and listed them below. We also included some basic techniques you can probably use in every project you are developing, but which are hard to find once you need them. Available online, or download it in PDF.

Here is a 3 hour talk by Krzysztof Cwalina (co-author of Framework Design Guidelines) on API design.  If you want to hear a person with an enormous brain you should check this out.  (now I've just got to get a spare 3 hours)

I'm currently in the process of thinking about how I am going to turn my bland study into an awesome uber-productive development environment.  I want a place that inspires creativity, helps me focus and get work done. (this one is probably more up to me than the room).

I'm a firm believer that a good environment can have a big impact on work output.  I noticed there was an interesting entry over at Creating Passionate Users which seems to confirm my beliefs.  Check it out.

Bite Size Standards aims to offer concise web development tutorials, tips and tricks. Written by designers and developers who are passionate about web standards.

The site is a bit bare at the moment but promises to give a wonderful resource of standards coompliant tricks... oh, and they've got a funky dashboard widget also!

Here is an entry in edevil's weblog to a bunch of Javascript libraries.  I don't use this stuff much myself but on the odd occassion that I need to create a web site it is handy to have a good Javascript library to help you get shit done, fast.

Have at the Javascript Libraries Roundup here.

Here is a really interesting little article on how to take an icon from concept through to the finished .ico file.  This article is full of useful little tips, tidbits and design ideas.  I'm in awe of this most magnificent of artists.

Have a read of Keyfob: Anatomy of an Icon

The good folks over at 456 Berea Street have provided a end of year summary of the top articles on the 456 Berea Street Weblog.  There is some good stuff in there particularly relating to CSS and web design standards.

Here is the link 456 Berea Street highlights of 2005

There is also a link to last years best articles: 456 Berea Street highlights of 2004

I love the work of the steet artist Banksy.  If you haven't seen any Banksy works then you should get yourself to the Banksy Site and have a look at some good subversive art.  Banksy has a book out, which I have ordered from Amazon.  I've got high hopes for this book, so I'll let you know if all my dreams have come true when it arrives and I have a look.

I love seeing interesting site designs and this one called typorganism caught my eye.  As the name hints, it's got a definite "under the microscope" feel to it.  Basically it's a bunch of UI experiments done in flash, according to the site:

Typeorganism is a series of communication experiments exploring Computation Interaction Design and Interactive Kinetic Typography, based on the Metaphorical Notion of Typography, "Type is a lifeform", which Lives on the Net, Responds to User's Stimulus, Evolves through Time, has Intelligence powered by Computation Algorithm. So, this is the showcase for the manifest: Type is an Organism.

Personally, I think they might be giving fonts a bit too much street-cred, but I sure do like the site design.  And they've got a funky Picture to ASCII applet.

Okay, if you haven't seen the Creating Passionate Users blog yet you should get yourself over there immediatly and check it out.  It really is a great resource for well, err, creating passionate users of your software.

Take for example, this entry which applies basic dating rules to provide guideliness for how your software should behave on its first date with users.

So whether you need dating tips or want to make your software better, follow these basic rules:

• Look your best.
• Be fun. Don't be negative. Be the one others want to be around.
• Be trustworthy and consistent.
• Don't be fake.
• Be polite, be helpful.
• Be forgiving.
• Be sensitive, be a good listener.
• Don't assume I'm an expert.
• Be fun.
• Don't assume there's no competition.
• Married people really DO have more sex.

How cool is this!?! 

LEGO has a thing called LEGO Factory which is a bit of software that allows you to design your own custom LEGO kits.  It appears to be a 3d modelling package using virtual LEGO bricks, but even better than that, you can share them with other people and order your own custom made kits online. 

Now all I need to do is write a little bit of software that converts 3D Studio Max models into Lego Bricks and I can get a LEGO kit of my own head. Yippee! BTW, I hope they are moderating the models people are going to share with the community.

Thought I would start keeping a collection of links to places where design impaired developers (like myself) can get hold of graphics, icons and textures to spiff up their applications.

Photography:

• MyDeskCity - Collection of beautiful large images.  Seems to be a bunch of different stuff in here but they all seem high quality.
• stock.xchng - Very good site with many quality royalty-free images.
• jupiterimages - Another great location of royalty-free images; site is also developed in .NET :)
• inmagine - Very large source of royalty-free!
• photolibrary - A little bit slow to load, but another good source of royalty-free.
• Public domain image resources - A wikipedia page of public domain image resources

Icons:

• Pixelgirl Presents - This very attractive site provides icons, desktop images and tutorials
• Foood's Icons - Great site with some very lovely icons... one of my favourites
• Glyfx - This site provides a limited range of free icons for tooblars, however, they promise to provide more.  Having said that, if you are willing to pay some dollars they have some nice lookng Icons.
• Miranda Instant Messenger - If you are looking for small IM icons then this may very well be your place.
• FamFamFam - Stacks of free icons. Looks like they are mainly useful for toolbar icons as they tend to be on the small side (16x16)... but pretty none-the-less.
• JoeJoe.Org - Some neato photoshop tutorials and also has libraries of vista icons
• IcoFX - IcoFX is an award winning freeware icon editor designed to work with XP and Vista icons.
• OpenClipArt.org - collection of icons

Textures:

• SquidFingers - Quite a collection of bachground textures.  Lots of florals and ye olde looking designs.  Very distinguished

Desktops/Wallpapers:

• Veer - Beautifully designed pages.

Fonts:

• TypeNow - Collection of free themed fonts.  Lots of brands, movies, etc.
• MyDeskCity - Large collection of free fonts
• 25 Best Free Quality Fonts - Vitality Friedman has a list of 25 beatiful fonts
• Geek Fonts - Over 9,500 free fonts for the everyday geek

Developer Resources:

• Adding and using 32 bit alpha blended images and icons to the imagelist control - This article on The Code Project tells you how to get alpha blending to work with .NET apps
• Access multiple icons in a single icon file - A nice article about how to work with .ico files that contain multiple icons.

Just thought I'd post a link to this site which does reviews of website designs.  Very nice

http://www.unmatchedstyle.com/

Here is a good little article on providing help on web pages without resorting to popups.  It's nothing particularly now or exciting but I like this solution because of it's simplicity and it is also very intuitive for users.

Have a look at John Martz web site.  He is a kick-ass illustrator.  over and out