Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

The Official Google PageRank Update has just happened yesterday. WebAppers has got a mixture of PR5 and PR4 from PR0 in most datacenter. Apparently Google has penalized WebAppers for selling Text Link Ads which I have stopped selling for a month already.

Check Your PageRank here
CheckPageRank.com
PageRank Checker from iWebTool
SmartPageRank.com

What To Do If You Are Penalized By Google
If you see a different PR on different datacenter as well, you probably are being penalized by Google for selling Text Link Ads. If you would like to get your PageRank back, you can go to Google Webmaster Tools and request a reconsideration by clicking on “Request reconsideration” after removing your Text Link Ads and stop selling them from now on.

This Google PageRank Update Does Not Make Any Sense
I am happy with the PageRank of WebAppers, I think I can get a firm PR5 back if I have requested a reconsideration. However, I think there is something wrong with this PageRank Update, because there are some REALLY popular websites are getting ridiculous low PageRank. For example, Forbes.com has got a PR4, YouTube has got a PR3. And Showcase Point is a one month old site which has got less than 50 backlinks has got a PR5 from PR0! I cannot really figure out the logic behind it.

We cannot trust PageRank anymore, what is Google thinking about? Or is it just simply because the PageRank update is still in process, the PageRank of all websites are not valid and unstable at the moment?

What did you get for your websites? Are you happy with it? Are you feeling confused as well?

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Finally, Webappers has a complete site redesign today. As you can see there is a hugh difference between the old design and the current new design. We have spent the last few weeks working on the redesign of WebAppers. We would like to achieve the following improvements from the redesign.

Higher Contrast Between Content and Menu
We found a lack of contrast between the categories menu and the main content part. There is no clear separation between them. So now you can see a relatively high contrast between the categories menu and the main content part. You would not be easily distracted by the menu when you are reading the posts.

Unique Look and Feel
The old design was too generic, we would like to have a unique theme for WebAppers. So that people can recognize WebAppers by looking at the site design.

Reduce the Excessive Use of White Color
There is too much white in the old design. It makes your eyes feeling uncomfortable when looking at the bright white screen for a period of time. And also We found the old design a not too much design elements, so that we have more design elements and patterns within this new design.

Avatar Next to Your Comments
We always found the commenting section of the old theme a bit boring. At the same time, Automattic (Owned Wordpress) has just acquired Gravatar recently, it is now more than 3 times as fast. So that, we have implemented the Gravatar system on the commenting section of WebAppers, you can see your avatar next to your comments. We do not need to remeber your name, we can just recognize you by looking at your picture. I hope this can make the commenting section a little bit more interesting and encourage more people to discuss and comment on the posts. ( Go and get your Avatar now )

No Clustered Footer
Compared to the old clustered footer, the new footer is much simpler and useful.

Clear Seperartion Between Components and Design Related Resources
We are trying to separate Components Resources and Design Related Resources on the Right Hand Side Categories Menu. Currently, the categories menu is a bit messy.

I hope the new theme can improve the usability of WebAppers. We are still doing some little modification to the new theme. If you have any opinions, please feel free to leave a comment. Thank you very much for all of your support.

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We have been working on the WebAppers complete site redesign in the last few weeks. You might feel bored with the current design. So that we are trying to give WebAppers a unqiue and fresh look. The new design will be rolled out very soon. Please stay tuned.

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WebAppers always try our best to give some good stuff to our readers. Despite of the success of the icons give away, we are going to give away something really nice again. This time, SlideShowPro.net is very kind to give away one set of SlideShowPro and SlideShowPro Director for FREE to one of our lucky reader . I think you guys are very familiar with SildeShowPro which I think it is an amazingly beautiful photo gallery.

What is SlideShowPro
SlideShowPro is an ActionScript 2.0 component for Flash MX 2004, Flash 8 and Flash CS3 for publishing photo and video slideshows ready to deploy on any web site. Simply add to a FLA document, resize to any dimension, and style however you please. With over 60 customizable parameters to control color, layout, and behavior, the variety of configurations are virtually endless.

What is SlideShowPro Director
As a complement to SlideShowPro, SlideShowPro Director is a content management system built from the ground up to serve all of SlideShowPro’s needs. Simply upload your original imagery, link SlideShowPro to an album or gallery, and Director takes care of the rest through its non-destructive “on-demand publishing system” which formats photos on-the-fly to fit one or more slideshows created with SlideShowPro. Please make sure you met this software requirements before participating the contest.

How to Enter
SlideShowPro consistently earns praise from design studios, professional photographers, and those who simply need an attractive, easy to use photo gallery on their web site. Would you like one set of SlideShowPro + SlideShowPro Director? You will have a chance to get one if you can just finish the following sentence by leaving a comment.

” I like SlideShowPro because… “

One winner will be chosen at random. The contest will be ended on 29th Oct. Thank you for all of your support.

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WebAppers has joined the Blog Action Day with 4000+ blogs around the world. We are here to publish a post today about the environment. We hope the power of bloggers can draw the attention of everyone to the issue of environmental problems on earth. Please spare some time to visit The Nature Conservancy and see what you can help.

The Nature Conservancy conserves the Earth’s ecologically important lands and waters in local places across all 50 U.S. states and in more than 30 countries all around the world. The Conservancy focuses on creating lasting, tangible results by using the best possible science — the Conservancy employs over 700 conservation scientists who do daily work in lands and waters worldwide to create conservation solutions that benefit both nature and people.

The Conservancy is non-confrontational and works respectfully and collaboratively with all sectors of society to achieve meaningful conservation results. By showing that tangible, large-scale conservation results can be delivered, the Conservancy provides hope that the Earth’s special places can be restored and preserved for future generations.

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Kreg Wallace has gone through the entries and selected a lucky guy. We are happy to announced that comment #54 by Todd Budnikas as the winner of 264 Toolbar Pro Icons Set.

Congratulations! I will be sending you the Icons Set.

Thank you for all who have participated in this contest.

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I should have said thank you to our new sponsors last week, but I did not have time to write this post last week. Therefore, here it is now. Thank you for all of WebAppers sponsors, unlike other sponsors, WebAppers sponsors are very high quality, we only accept sponsors which are up to certain standard which also can really help our readers.

Stoodeo provides excellent web design solutions to customers.

Copper 2008 is a intuitive web 2.0 project management web application.

Design Float is the first ever Digg style site for Designers.

YikeSite is a easy to use CMS for your clients.

KickApps is a social media platform that helps you grow your audience.

Just to remind you the contest of Giving Away One Set of 264 Apple’s OS X Style Icons will be ended today. Comment on the post to get your chance to win the beautiful set of icons. The winner will be announced on 26th Sep. Thank you very much.

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We are happy to announce that we have just broken 2000 RSS readers milestone. It means there are 2000+ people who have subscribed to Full Feed RSS, and receiving new blog post from WebAppers everyday. The growth of this blog is really impressive, we never imagine we can have this success in just about 3 months. Thank you for all of your support.

We have some advertising opportunities on WebAppers, you can view more details on Advertising Page if you are interested.

I hope we can keep bringing you more high quality resources and good stuff about web development. Just to remind you, if you have any suggestions or useful resources, please feel to leave a comment or contact us directly.

Thanks again for all of your support. And I would like to say thank you to our new sponsor – FlashDen. They do have a lot of quality Flash components that would be very useful for web development as well.

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Kombine has designed “Pro Toolbar Icons” which is a set of 264 toolbar icons and buttons to help users intuitively understand the functions of your application. All icons in this set are PNG images with transparency and designed to fit the look of Apple’s OS X operating system. It is very useful when building websites and web applications. You can Preview the full set of 264 icons or Download the Quick Reference Card here.

The full set of icons costs $59.95, however you can get a set of 45 common toolbar icons for FREE. Kreg Wallace, the designer of the Kombine toolbar icons is very kind by giving away one set of 264 “Pro Toolbar Icons ” for FREE to one of WebAppers readers . You can use them on both personal and commercial projects. If you would like to be the one Lucky Guy, it is really easy.

To participate, you only have to

Make a comment on this post.

* You will get 2 more entries if you have a link back to this post or Webappers.

I would like to keep this event short, so that we do not have to wait too long for the result. Kreg Wallace will pick the winner on 24th September. Thank you Kreg Wallace for the icons and thank you all for the participation in advance.

*** 2007-09-10 UPDATE ***
Kreg Wallace said
Hey folks. Just so you know, I’m more inclined to pick someone who plans to use the icons for an interesting project. So, if you have a software application or web site you want to use the icons for, indicate that in your comments.

This contest has ended, please view http://www.webappers.com/2007/09/26/winner-of-264-toolbar-icons-set/ 

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About two months ago, I realized I have collected so many open source resources for building websites or web applications. I think it would be such a waste if I am having them for myself only.

And also, as a freelancer, we do always look for some resources on the web to aid our development. However, I found some of the sites are overloaded with too many not so good resources. I personally would like to spend more time on development rather than spending the time on picking the best from a list of 100+ resources that doing the same thing.

Therefore, I would like to share all my findings of open source resources at the same time picking only the best from the list for you. Once Webappers was opened to public, I received so much encouraging feedback about how useful Webappers is. WebAppers is gowing rapidly and just gained 1000+ subscribers today in less than 2 months time ( I know it will go down a bit on weekends, but breaking 1000 readers really is a milestone for WebAppers ). I am really happy and I will try my best to continue finding more open source resources for you everyday at the same time maintain the quality of the resources.

If you have any comments for WebAppers, please feel free to leave a comment! And also I would like to know what kind of resources you would like, more Gallery? Components? Brushes?

P.S. If you like WebAppers, introduce it to your readers is really appreciate!!!

Thank you for all of your support!

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