DHTMLX Touch is an HTML5-based JavaScript library for building mobile web applications. This JavaScript framework allows you to create eye-catching, cross-platform web applications for mobile and touch-screen devices. It’s compatible with the major browsers for mobile platforms. Applications built with DHTMLX Touch will run smoothly on iPad, iPhone, Android-based smartphones, and other popular devices. In order to display and work correctly, DHTMLX Touch require a mobile device. You can also run the samples on usual computers in FireFox 3.6 and above and WebKit browsers (Safari, Chrome, etc.), but there still can be some issues since the library is oriented mostly for mobile devices.

Upcoming features and release plans:

FreeSEOReport.com is a tool that generates a SEO report for your website, based on a specific keyword. Unlike many Search Engine Optimization Services out there that offer such reports for ridiculous prices, this free tool can analyze your keywords against your competitors quickly and explains why they are beating you in your ranking. You just need to submit your URL, keyword and e-mail address to receive the report.

The tool offers detailed reports about the document title, headings (h1, h2, h3), body text, url, sitemap and robots.txt, meta description, links, html code and page load time, images, and meta keywords.

For your information, here are some suggestions offered by FreeSEOReport.com for the document title:

• Make sure that your title tag includes your keyword (a greater weighting is given to key phrases at the left of the title tag)
• A compelling call-to-action might help you get a better click-through rate in Google search engine results pages.
• Make title tag unique on each page (Google Webmaster Tools can help you detect problems with the title tags)
• Avoid keyword stuffing in your page title.

By referring this tool to your friends you can earn more credits that will allow you to generate more reports. If you are running an online business and need to generate a lot of reports you can upgrade the service for $19.95/month that will allow you to get unlimited number of FULL reports plus you can customize the PDFs with your own logo and footer text.

I would like to let you know about an interesting tool I’ve just stumbled upon called whichloadsfaster. Its purpose is to calculate the loading time of two websites and determine which one is loading faster then the other one (e.g. Site A is 1.5x faster than Site B). This tool is open source, written in HTML and JavaScript and runs entirely on the client-side.

whichloadsfaster is a fun way to spread the word that web performance matters. It’s about friendly competition and about testing in everybody’s browser, not just ones that have nice performance tools already.

PS: I am not sure yet how accurate it is. I will just have to keep testing. So far, so good!

Slides is a simple jQuery slideshow that is easy to implement, customize and style. It includes features like looping, auto play, fade or slide transition effects, crossfading, image preloading, auto generated pagination. Slides is compatible with all modern web browsers including; Internet Explorer 7/8/9, Firefox 3+, Chrome, Safari and Mobile Safari. It even works in the old IE6.

My favorite feature of Slides and main reason for its development is you never see multiple slides fly by. You get to the end and it loops. You click from slide 1 to 5 and slide 5 just slides in from the right. Awesome.

Today I’d like to share with you 3 websites that I found where you can download free PSD designs for your project needs ;)

Premium Pixels is a collection of free design resources created by Orman Clark, a UK based web designer with a passion for all things creative. All resources are aimed at helping web designers either learn something new or just save a bit of time. All resources made available on Premium Pixels, including but not limited to, icons, images, brushes, shapes, layer styles, layered PSD’s, patterns, textures, web elements and themes are free for use in both personal and commercial projects.

Popular designs include:

• Elegant Login Form Design (PSD)
• Horizontal Accordion / Slider GUI (PSD)
• Pretty Little Red Ribbon (PSD)
• 20 Seamless Photoshop Grid Patterns

365psd is a project started by Jonno Riekwel, aiming to help web designers by giving away free PSD resources everyday for one year. There are already hundreds of PSD designs ready to be downloaded. You can also purchase premium designs for as low as 3 euros.

Initially launched as a hobby site, PSDgraphics.com is a place where you can find lot of free stuff for webmasters and designers. You can enjoy here fully editable Photoshop PSD files and high resolution stuff including: abstract backgrounds, textures and patterns, PSD icons and graphics (e.g. ‘call to action’ buttons), web design elements, Photoshop text and video tutorials and Photoshop recreation.

Addy Osmani, a passionate Web Developer, shares a jQuery offline learning pack,for anyone interested in tweaking his skills offline. The kit include printable reference sheets, so you can easy access the right material whether you are wondering what event, selector or method might be the best to you. All the documentation comes in an easy browseable offline format with all the API examples included. For those who started working with jQuery Mobile, the pack also includes a demo application: one for PHP developers and another for Rails developer.

The whole package include:

• My 1.4.3 Selectors Printable that explains what each selector does and how it should be used (PDF)
• The FutureColours 1.4.3 Cheatsheet showing all the different methods supported by 1.4.3 (PDF)
• The jQAPI 1.4.3 Offline Documentation pack that lets you browse the documentation and API examples on your desktop (thanks to the guys at yayQuery and the awesome Ben Alman)
• A Complete Developer’s jQuery 1.4.3 Mobile Demo Application (PHP courtesy of DevGrow, Rails courtesy Fuel)
• Rebecca Murphy’s excellent jQuery Fundamentals book and exercises (PDF)
• 1.4.3 and our 1.4.4 Release Candidate Preview

PS: Take also a look at jQuery 1.4.2 Visual Cheat Sheet from Woorkup.com ;-)

We know how important web icons can be to a web page. They look more interesting than text and are more likely to attract the eye than the words. For instance when you use lists to show a product’s feature it’s recommended to use web icons as people are often bored to read full descriptions and putting icons next to features’ description will definitely make the list easier to process.

The problem is, lists are boring, and they are especially boring when they have a lot of text. People browsing your website certainly won’t put much effort into reading your ads – and they’re there to browse, not work – so it’s up to you to make the list as easy to process as possible. [...] Icons beside feature description in lists work like bullet points: they’re little anchors on the page which our eyes can easily focus.

Quote from “The Smashing Book“.

I would like to share with you three valuable web resources that you can use to get the web icons you want.

IconFinder.net is a database of over 156,000 icons / 484 icon sets. You can download the icons in either .PNG or .ICO format. They have different sizes ranging from 12×12 to 256x256px. The search feature of the website is customizable: you can set total results per page, the background of the icons, a license filter (2 options: No license filtering, Allowed for commercial use). If you know a good icon set / or have one that you created and want to share it with others you have the option to “Submit icon set”.

Read the rest of this entry…

Catch404 is a jQuery and CSS3 Modal Plugin for showing broken links and 404 errors without users even having to leave the page after they click the actual link. The plugin uses the power of AJAX to check the target clicked link in the background. If the URL is not broken nor generates a 404 error, then the page will load for the user. Otherwise, the visitor would be prompted through an Inline jQuery Modal Window that he is trying to access a non-workable URL address.

Let’s pretend that this is a broken link. Can you imagine that when your users click this link, instead of them being redirected to a 404 error on your site, a friendly modal message pops up on your current page saying that it’s not available?. In that same message box you can then give them a sense of direction so that they’re not lost – you could ask them to click on a contact link to report the link’s broken, offer an alternative mirror, recommend they do a site search for the file or just say that you’re experiencing hosting issues and the file will be back up soon.

Daniel Scocco, the owner of DailyBlogTips.com (a blog I personally enjoy reading) released a new project called “How to make a website – Free tutorial” that basically teaches you how to get a site up and running in a matter of hours. He covers how to choose the domain, how to get the hosting plan, how to install WordPress, how to choose a nice template and how to customize the website design.

HowtoMakeaWebsite.net offers a free 26 pages e-book titled “50 Mistakes to Avoid When Making Your Website.”. This is for beginners, but I am sure even the experienced web developer will pick some good points by reading it. Here’s an excerpt from the book:

16. Using The Wrong Font Color / Background
Apart from using a large font, you should also makesure that the font and background colors are producing a good contrast.
For example, it is very hard to read a yellow font on a white background. If possible stick with the basic color palletes: dark font on white background or white font on dark background.
17. Not Testing On Different Browsers
Different browsers interpret HTML code differently, so it is important to check how your website is loading at least on the major browsers (e.g., IE 8, IE 7, Firefox, Safari and Opera).
You can use a tool called BrowserShots.org for this purpose. It is free and easy to use.
18. Making Links Look Like Normal Text
Your visitors must must be able to identify what is clickable and what is not on your website.
The standard is to underline links. Alternatively you can change the color of the links.
19. Not Changing Color of Visited Links
It is also important to change the color of visited links. This is a common practice around the web, as it allows visitors to know what pages they have been to in the past.