Archive - Dec 1, 2009

Dare to Be Different: Focus on Innovation

Do you consider yourself innovative? Are you willing to step away from the status quo to try something new and different? If this isn’t how you typically operate, you may benefit from introducing more innovation into your daily life. Not only will it help you avoid burnout, but it can spark new opportunities for personal and professional growth.

PHP Advent 2009

With the help of Sean and twenty-four fantastic authors from the PHP community, PHP Advent is back for a third year.
Paul gets things started with an article on comprehensible code:
Reading code is hard work. Here are some reasons why, along with some tips on how to make it easier for other developers to understand your code.

A day filled with symfony news

Great stuff is happening today! I would dare to say that to date, december 1 2009 is probably the most active and important day in the history of the symfony project! Three(!) new versions have been released, amongst which the first of the last branch of symfony 1, and a new book is available in the form of an online advent calendar and a print book.

Why Pages Disallowed in robots.txt Still Appear in Google

robots.txt is a useful file which sits in your web site’s root and controls how search engines index your pages. One of the most useful declarations is “Disallow” — it stops search engines accessing private or irrelevant sections of your website, e.g.

Disallow: /junk/
Disallow: /temp/
Disallow: /section1/mysecretpage.html

You can even block search engines indexing every page on your domain:

Look, Listen, Learn: 10 Podcasts For Designers

Podcasts offer a way to learn on the move, whether you’re listening in the gym or watching on the bus on the way to work. And today, in no particular order of brilliance (because they’re all good), here are 10 Podcasts to keep you up to date with what’s going on in the world of web design.
Layers TV

24 deals in 24 days. Let the countdown begin …

With the festive season just around the corner, and the close of another year looming, we wanted to finish 2009 on a high. Last year we released a special hard cover edition of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, which were all snapped up in a week. This year we’ve got something bigger up our sleeve…
We’re very excited to present:

24 deals in 24 days. Let the countdown begin

With the festive season just around the corner, and the close of another year looming, we wanted to finish 2009 on a high. Last year we released a special hard cover edition of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, which were all snapped up in a week.

Enhance User Profiles with Google’s Social Graph API

Google’s Social Graph API gives developers access to a wealth of public social data mined from the Web. In this tutorial, Louis extends a Ruby on Rails user registration form to query the API and suggest site URLs for users to add to their profiles.

Preventing Iframe Hacks

conticreative wants to know what's behind iframe hacks, and how to help prevent them. Can you help?

Communicating a Rate Increase to Clients

When it's time to raise your rates, how do you communicate this to your clients?