Writing an API Wrapper in Ruby with TDD
Sooner or later, all developers are required to interact with an API. The most difficult part is always related to reliably testing the code we write, and, as we want to make sure that everything works properly, we continuosly run code that queries the API itself. This process is slow and inefficien...
Comics of the week #114
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD. The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers. These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, p...
Limiting The Visibility Of WordPress Posts Via Usernames
Controlling who is able to view a post is a simple task once the system is established. Limiting access to certain users has several advantages, ranging from a design studio distributing artwork among various clients, or a small school arranging to have its students' homework poste...
15 useful plugins for multi-author blogs
Managing a blog with a single author can be time-consuming enough, but adding in multiple authors can exponentially increase the amount of time and effort it takes to manage. There’s editorial workflow, scheduling, and author management to consider, among other things. Below are fifteen plugin...
Line25 Sites of the Week for January 27th 2012
Line25 Sites of the Week is a weekly roundup of the most outstanding website designs that I stumble across during my every day browsing. In this week’s collection, we have designs from rtraction, Bear CSS, Graz Secrets, Circles and Unify. rtraction View the website Bear CSS View the website Graz S...
ShopTalk Episode 3
Where Dave and I are joined by Chris Eppstein. Sponsored by LessAccounting and United Pixelworkers (who are offering a 10% discount on shirts with coupon code "shoptalk"). Direct Link to Article — Permalink…ShopTalk Episode 3 is a post from CSS-Tricks...
24 Extremely Useful Ruby Gems for Web Development
One of the nicer things about developing on the Ruby platform is the sheer amount of meticulously categorized, highly reusable code wrapped up in the form of aptly named ‘gems’. I’m sure you’ve heard of popular frameworks like Sinatra or the super popular Rails that ship as g...
Animate to an Inline Style
You already know that inline styles are "bad practice." Inline styles aren't reusable like CSS in separate files is, and thus, inefficient bloat. Unless of course, when it isn't. There are some instances where inline styles make perfect sense. Perhaps you have an application where user's pick their...
The UX Research Plan That Stakeholders Love
UX practitioners, both consultants and in house, sometimes conduct research. Be it usability testing or user research with a generative goal, research requires planning. To make sure product managers, developers, marketers and executives (let’s call them stakeholders) act on UX r...
7 mistakes developers make
Great websites always seem to combine great design with great code. Since building a website is a pretty simple task you find many people learn HTML and CSS and figure that if they can learn that then they can design any website they want. While technically they can you will often find that there ar...
Custom Fonts in Emails
A reader writes in: Would it be possible to draw an entire typeface in CSS to be sent in emails? Our company needs to send out emails to about 20k people to introduce a new brand that we are launching. The emails will be in HTML/CSS. My CEO is very specific about the type of aesthetic he wants to ac...
Why you Should be using PHP’s PDO for Database Access
Many PHP programmers learned how to access databases by using either the MySQL or MySQLi extensions. As of PHP 5.1, there’s a better way. PHP Data Objects (PDO) provide methods for prepared statements and working with objects that will make you far more productive! PDO Introduction “PDO...
How To Deliver Exceptional Client Service
We often hear companies, including Web agencies, boast about how they provide exceptional client service. But how do they define exceptional? Consider this scenario. You are hired to design and develop a new website for a retail client. The client loves the design, and the pages yo...
How To Display a Message on Old WordPress Posts
If you post helpful information on your blog chances are some of your early posts are now outdated as technologies have changed over the years. Let’s take a look at how we can add a mix of PHP tags to our WordPress themes to automatically add a small disclaimer or warning message to posts over...
Line25 Sites of the Week for January 20th 2012
Line25 Sites of the Week is a weekly roundup of the most outstanding website designs that I stumble across during my every day browsing. In this week’s collection, we have designs from Fine Goods, The Gifts Project, UPPERDOG, Smashing Magazine and One Minute With. Fine Goods View the website The G...
UPrinting Business Card Giveaways
This Friday giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting, a shop that provides a wide range of online printing services. We are giving away 3 sets of 250 die-cut business card printing to 3 winners. Each winner will receive a set of 250 business card printing with free shipping. To enter this contest, all you...
Responsive Design in 3 Steps
Responsive web design is no doubt a big thing now. If you still not familiar with responsive design, check out the list of responsive sites that I recently posted. To newbies, responsive design might sound a bit complicated, but it is actually simpler than you think. To help you quickly get started...
Despositphotos Giveaways
As mentioned last week, I will be giving away some goodies in December. So here is the first giveaway sponsored by Depositphotos stock photos. Depositphotos is giving away $50 credit to 5 readers on Web Designer Wall. Hurry, this contest ends in two weeks on Dec 21, 2011. If you need stock photos fo...
