I’ll be at SXSW Interactive later this week. I’m not sure which talks, panels and events I’m going to attend just yet. I do plan on attending at least one or two of the keynotes – hopefully the Ray Kurzweil conversation with Lev Grossman “Expanding Our Intelligence Without Limit” and Jennifer Pahlka’s “Coding the Next Chapter of American History“. Quite a few of the featured sessions look good too.
If you’re going too there leave me a comment about what events you might be attending.
As a freelance web developer, time is money. I use many different tricks to increase my productivity and these are my top selections for saving time. Please make you own suggestions for other time savers in the comments.
Drop Down Menus
All Web Menus (http://www.likno.com/allwebmenusinfo.html )
Whenever I need to add a complex drop-down menu to a site, I turn to All Web Menus. This program styles a complex multi level menu in less time then it takes to type the text. All websites need menus and for detailed menus, you should try All Web Menus.Time saved: 1 Hour per menu.
Image Capture
Gadwin Printscreen (http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/)
Gadwin Printscreen utility replaces windows standard printscreen keyboard button with more options and flexibility. It loads on windows startup and runs silently in the background without consuming system resources but it’s always there when you need it. Instead of just capturing the entire screen view, Gadwin allows you to select a rectangular area very precisely with the help of a built in magnifying window. This tool is invaluable to my work. I often use it to grab different pieces to mock up a design.Time saved: 2 Minutes per screen capture.
Read More at [Re]Encoded dot Com » 10 Ways to Save Time While Building a Website
There is definitely not a shortage of web design blogs floating around the web, and it’s easy to understand why. Web designers can utilize skills that they already have to get a good looking blog up and running with relative ease. Out of these blogs there are a handful that really stand out in terms of useful content.
Here are some of the most useful web design blogs out there. I’ve excluded big blogs like Smashing Magazine and A List Apart, since most web designers, more than likely, already follow them.
Today is 8/8/8, which is interesting for a few reasons, one of which is that it marks the end of PHP 4. What does this mean? It means yesterday’s release of 4.4.9 is the final release of PHP 4. More information can be gleaned from the mailing list archives, beginning with Derick’s request to drop support:
I am trying to gauge what people feel about dropping support for PHP 4 at the end of this year.
Derick caveated his suggestion with the idea of continuing to publish new releases that address security vulnerabilities. Rasmus didn’t see the point:
I don’t really understand what dropping support means if we will still release security fixes. That’s the mode we have been in for at least a year, so what would change at the end of the year?
He suggested a stronger stance:
I’d be more in favour of a statement that put a final death date on it which means no new releases of any sort. We could still say security-fixes only by the end of the year and then death by 08/08/08 or something like that.
So, here we are. PHP 4 is dead. Long live PHP.
