Back to the usual more geeky note, last night I loaded up Coda, which was on this Mac when I got it (2nd hand). I’ve fallen in love with Textmate but for a change I went for Coda, and I think I might have to be in love with them both. Out of personal preference I think I prefer Textmate for development (PHP/JS) but Coda was simply superb for HTML/CSS (and infact some jQuery as well). Coupled with the brillioant Zen-Coding and jQuery for Coda add-ons, Coda is one of the best set ups I’ve ever had. It’s comparable to absolutely nothing on Windows, and that’s why I love Macs. Better applications on a better OS

After my long lack of posting on this blog I’m detirmined now, especially since my exams are all over, to redesign this. I’ve never done a blog on Wordpress and used my own theme, so this is the key aim for me. It’s going be slow, but I’ve a good grasp of PHP and of wordpress so by following a couple of tutorials on the internet I should be able to do it pretty comfortably. I’ve often deliberated on trying to release some free Wordpress themes and it’s another skill I can add to my skillset to show off to potential clients.

One site I have designed recently is my own, www.jackfranklin.co.uk. I did this a different way to anyway I’ve ever done a site before. I loaded up Coda & Firefox and went from there. I went with a no graphics approach, played with some CSS3 and generally just made it up as I went along. The result is a bit like marmite, I think you either love it or you hate it, but personally I’m a fan so it will be staying for a while. Although the old version was one of my favourites as well, so I might drop back to that. Who knows *shrug*. One thing I noticed, I registered that domain in May 2007 and that new design is the 13th iteration. That’s 13 iterations in what, 32 months? One new design every 2.5 months or so. I’m sure they should last longer.

In other news I’ve passed my driving theory test, which you will have seen if you take to following me via Twitter. Delighted with that, especially as it costs £31 per take, so I didn’t want to have to do it more than once, and I didn’t. Did loads of revision.

Back to the usual more geeky note, last night I loaded up Coda, which was on this Mac when I got it (2nd hand). I’ve fallen in love with Textmate but for a change I went for Coda, and I think I might have to be in love with them both. Out of personal preference I think I prefer Textmate for development (PHP/JS) but Coda was simply superb for HTML/CSS (and infact some jQuery as well). Coupled with the brillioant Zen-Coding and jQuery for Coda add-ons, Coda is one of the best set ups I’ve ever had. It’s comparable to absolutely nothing on Windows, and that’s why I love Macs. Better applications on a better OS

I apologise if this has been a bit of a ramble, but I’ve got some cracking stuff lined up:

Coda vs Textmate

Something on jQuery 1.4

A brand new secret project I’m working on with @samblease

Another side project I started work on 2 months ago but then left it due to exams.

And loads more.

Well I know this is a month late…and I know it’s been a while since the last post but the reason behind this post behind a month out is that for me A Level exams take over January and I can’t remember the last January when I didn’t have one exam or the other. As it happened this month, I had 7 exams in 15 days. So January does not count, I had little time to do anything I wanted to do and now I feel my year can truly begin.

Goals for 2010:

• Post at least once a week on this blog.
• Get my own design going on here – which will mean learning how to integrate Wordpress.
• Launch a new project I’ve been working on with a friend and make some money from it.
• Pass my Driving Test (should have this done pretty soon).
• Post at least once per fortnight on TheWebSqueeze.com.
• Have a post posted on Nettuts.com.
• Get featured on an online web publication.
• Get the grades needed to go to Bath Uni to study Computer Science.
• Attend at least 4 Bar Camps.
• Attend at least 3 conferences.
• Redesign my personal site.
• Learn Expression Engine.
• Learn CodeIgniter extensively and release one plugin for it.
• Do enough freelancing to bring in £100 pw.
• Extend my Twitter following to 1500.
• Read at least 10 web books.
• Get up to Level 70 on Call of Duty MW2.
• Launch one personal side project.

That’s a pretty extensive list! If I can make £100 pw, which is going to be tough, that’s going to be some nice extra money, University costs around £9k pa on average and although my student loan will cover most of that, some extra money for books and stuff…ok beer…will be handy.

Each month I’ll be doing aims for the next month as well, so expect a post soon about February aims, and I’ll also be reviewing this list each month.

Well as you know I’ve been trying out MooTools recently, including starting a new series “Journey Into MooTools” at thewebsqueeze.com. And I have to say I really like it, especially creating elements. For example, I find:

var img = new Element("img", {
src: 'myimage.jpg',
'class': 'galleryimg',
alt: 'Check out this image'
});

Nicer than:

var img = $("<img /">).attr("alt", "Check out this image").attr("src", "myimage.jpg").addClass("galleryimg");

MooTools is the first one. I love it! If there is a nicer way to do it in jQuery (I can’t find one but I have a feeling there should be) then please let me know!

Whenever I want to create a jQuery plugin, I always go to one of my old plugins and copy and paste the source code. That’s fine, but other developers may layout jQuery plugins slightly differently. I decided to try and create a jQuery Plugin “template” that does the hard work for you. But who should I follow? In the end I took my ideas from tutorials by Jeffrey Way, editor of nettuts.com who certainly knows a thing or do about jQuery. So I present the jQuery Plugin Template. There are probably enhancements to be made…if you see something you think should be different please say so!

(function($){
	$.fn.pluginName = function(options) {

		var
		  defaults = {
		  	//here you should set your default options.
			//example: backgroundcolor: red
		  },
		  settings = $.extend({}, defaults, options);

		  this.each(function() {
		  	var $this = $(this);
			//now use $this instead of $(this), makes jQuery do less work

		  });
		  // returns jQuery which allows for chaining
		 //eg $('div').yourPlugin().hide();
		  return this;
	}
})(jQuery);

Spaces is a terrific Mac feature that I don’t think people realise how powerful it is until they try it. I know I ridiculed it, not seeing the point of it. But now I use it all the time and I am not sure how I lived prior to using them. Here is a quick video on setting up and using Spaces.

I really do think that if you can code well enough and learn how to avoid common IE bugs, then IE6 suddenly becomes less of an issue. Still a pain, but less. This is my rant at those who rant at IE6. Confused?

This is my first attempt as such a video so please let me know what I can do better
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foreUI (foreui.com) is a rapid prototyping tool. Here I downloaded the demo and gave it a try, to see what I thought of it. Turned out I liked it, a lot!
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With college on the way I wanted to take advantage of the plethora of great tools used for tracking to-dos, tasks, that kind of thing. I never found a method I was fully happy with on Windows, but I had heard great things about “Things” from Cultured Code, and “OmniFocus” from the Omni Group. So I set about downloading them both and tried them out.

What I liked about Things:

• Much Nicer Interface. Very clean, very simple. Very Apple-esque.
• Really simple. Add a task, drag it into the project, voila.
• Easy to use – move tasks between categories depending on when you wanted them done.

What I didn’t like about Things:

• Projects can be categorised into “Areas”. Makes sense. I wanted an Area for college work, one for Web work, one for Personal things and a few others. However, there is no way which I found to view these in hierarchy. All the Areas were shown in the sidebar, all the projects were shown in a big long list in the other. But there is no sense of them being connected. This is the only thing that put me off.

What I liked about OmniFocus:

• OmniFocus is clearly a very, very powerful app and when using it I kind of feel like I am barely scraping the surface. It certainly involves a lot more than Things – and as such the interface is not as clean, in my opinion. However, it is still a very easy to use interface.
• Perspectives, however daunting and very confusing they are when you first look at OF, they are a brilliant idea. Perspectives are how you want to “View” your tasks. For example, I have a perspective that shows all tasks due in the next 48 hours, so I can see what is ahead. I also have a view for Quick Tasks – tasks that will take me 15-30 minutes or less, meaning if I find myself with a spare hour I can immediately look for quick tasks I can do to fill the time.
• Contexts – you can define where you are to do a specific task. Whilst not as useful for me, as I don’t move around as much, it’s useful in the sense that one of my contexts is “In Town”, which essentially stores things I need to buy when I am in town. Coupled with the iPhone app, this becomes very useful.
• Also, you can categorise your projects into Folders, and those Folders into Folders and so on, solving my major gripe with Things.

What I don’t like about OmniFocus:

• Some of the options are in places you would not expect. For example, recurring tasks are added from the “Inspect” panel, which is certainly not somewhere you would look. Many of the options are buried under menus and sub menus.

There really is not a lot I do not like about OF. I think when first loaded, you think it’s very daunting compared to Things, but once you get into it it really does work well. It will take a few days to get used to, but it pays back that time very quickly. Paul Boag is a user, and he has done two great videos over at his blog: paulboag.posterous.com.

These are my links for August 29th through August 31st:

• 10 Killer Flash Tips For Beginners | Tools – I really need to learn Flash, good beginner tips.
• 20 Vital Techniques & Best Practices For Effective Web Design – Some great tips and inspiration here
• 50 Essential Web Typography Tutorials, Tips, Guides and Best Practices : Speckyboy Design Magazine – I love Typography and Fonts but sometimes getting good type on the web is a pain. Use these tips to get great web fontage!
• 30 Gorgeous Text Effects of Photoshop | Tutorials Palace – More text goodness.
• 60+ Typography & Font Mega Toolbox | tripwire magazine – More free fonts, tutorials and inspiration.
• 100.000+ Free Fonts Mega Compilation | tripwire magazine – Free Fonts galore!
• 65+ Hand-picked Free Fonts for Serious Designs | tripwire magazine – More free fonts…
• 75+ Excellent Free Fonts For Professional Design | tripwire magazine – And some more…
• 90+ Exceptionally useful Logo Tutorials, Tips and Resources | tripwire magazine – As well as being great tutorials there is some great inspiration there!
• How To Create a Pure CSS Polaroid Photo Gallery – Wow! All that achieved with CSS! Can’t wait for CSS3.
• 300+ Resources to Help You Become a Photoshop Expert | Webdesigner Depot – Gotta love Photoshop.
• 30 Quality Sites To Easily Preview And Download Free WordPress Themes | Graphic and Web Design Blog – Inspiration, Resources and Tools – Free Wordpress themes.
• Create a Fun Illustrated Toy Site Design in Photoshop – Great tutorial and awesome design by Chris Spooner.
• 45+ Typography-Inspired Wallpapers | Static-Romance.Org – More typography, this time some great wallpapers.
• Most useful and must read articles on HTML 5 – Great list of articles on HTML 5.
• Top Articles On The Web Design Billboard In August | Showcases | instantShift – A list of great articles from the summer month
• Carsonified » 10 User Interface Design Fundamentals – How to design a great UI.
• 40 High Resolution And Elegant Apple Wallpapers | Graphic and Web Design Blog – Inspiration, Resources and Tools – Some more great wallpapers.
• 35 Websites To Teach You How To Use CSS Effectively | Graphic and Web Design Blog – Inspiration, Resources and Tools – Great CSS tutorials for beginners.
• 40 Fresh (Best) Wallpapers For Developers & Geeks | Wallpapers | – Shareordie – Some more awesome wallpapers.
• 25+ Excellent Free Stock Photo Sites for Designers | tripwire magazine – Great places to get free photos for your websites.
• 100 Reasons to Mind Map | Mind Map Inspiration – Why you should mind map.
• 10 Tools For Finding, Registering And Managing Domain Names | Developer’s Toolbox | Smashing Magazine – Great tools to get that perfect name.
• CodeIgniter From Scratch: Day 5 – CRUD – Nettuts+ – Another great CodeIgniter tutorial.
• 20+ High Quality Free Fonts To Enhance Your Design Project – YET MORE FREE FONTS!

Fluid [http://fluidapp.com/] is a great way to bring your favourite web applications to your desktop. In this 4 minute video I’ll show you how to add a desktop version of the Wordpress Back-End to your Mac, so any editing, writing, moderating can be done without opening the browser. Enjoy.
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