Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

iPhone Web Apps combine the power of the Internet with the simplicity of Multi-Touch technology, all on a 3.5-inch screen. When you find a web app you like, you can put it on your Home screen for easy, one-tap access.

There are over 600 Web Apps available, I found many of them are useless to be honest. So,what are the best ones? iPhone Toolbox has carefully selected top 25 iPhone Web Apps for us. Feel free to share your favorite ones on the post as well.

Source: Top 25 Free iPhone Web Apps for Your Daily Life

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The common stereotype for programmers is this: nerdy, pocket-protector wielding, and very, very boring. One doesn’t typically link a programmer as a creative individual. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Working with code is one of the most creative jobs one can have. Programmers have to balance two very different worlds: a world of structure and a world of imagination. They create abstract concepts using very structured programming languages (like PHP or Java). It’s not an easy task. Programming is actually a great exercise in creativity. Here are a couple reasons why:

• Programming gives ultimate control. Creating something from nothing is possibly the best example of creativity. The ultimate control over software or web site that a programmer has is perfect for taking the application to any direction that they wish.
• Many ways to do one thing. Programmers have to essentially build a framework for the web site. They’re laying the foundation for something that, up until that point, is just an idea. The programmer uses a wide palate of tools and methods to find

Programmers are a great example of thinking outside the box because programmers can actually create the box. Here are 14 ways to Learn From Creative Programmers.

1. Learn a new language
2. Start from the ground up
3. Question everything
4. Do it for fun
5. Never stop testing ideas
6. Find a passion
7. Master your tools
8. Start making abstract associations
9. Think of structure as a tool, not a limitation
10. Don’t rule anything out until you try it.
11. Always look for a simpler and more elegant solution.
12. Don’t be afraid to build off the code of others.
13. Don’t be afraid to collaborate.
14. From the very basic, create the beautiful.

Source: 14 Ways to Learn From Creative Programmers

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Perhaps you use rsync, Time Machine or similar backup software mirroring your files to external drives for your PCs on a regular basis. What about your remote web server? Webmoney has written an article – Back Up a Web Server, which taught us the ways you can backup the HTML files, stylesheets, application files and databases on your remote web host. The only thing you’ll need is a remote web hosting service allowing SSH connections to the remote shell. The followings are the main topics.

The Backup Tools
The first thing we’ll do is use tar and bzip2; two command lines tools for making compressed file copies, to back up HTML, CSS, Javascript or any other text files.

Automation
Now we have a couple of bash scripts we can invoke from our terminal prompt and backup our files. Great, but who wants to do it manually? Instead, let’s set them up to run automatically once a day.

Locking
Long-running scripts like backups started through cron have a common problem. A new one may get fired off before the previous one is complete. This problem can be solved using a simple lock file.

Logging
Automated scripts should keep a log of what they do in case things go awry. This is an example of writing to a log file, with a start and end time.

Fancier Automatic Backups
Want to get really fancy and have your home machine automatically log in to your server and download those backup files for safe, off-site keeping?

Finishing Touches
Now you should have a shell script set up and a way to log in to your remote server sans password (whether by the insecure method above or the ssh-agent method). The last step in our automation process is to create a cron job on our local machine.

Source: Back Up a Web Server

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Web Standards have never been easier to learn. Everything you need to know is condensed into short, helpful tutorials that inform and inspire. Opera’s Web Standards Curriculum can help you brush up on things you know and maybe even teach you something you didn’t.

Opera’s Web Standards Curriculum, released in association with the Yahoo! Developer Network, is a complete a course designed to give anyone a solid grounding in web design/development, including HTML, CSS, design principles and background theory, and JavaScript basics.

It is completely free to use, accessible, and assumes no previous knowledge. It already has support from many organizations (including Yahoo! and the Web Standards Project) and universities. The first 23 articles are currently available, with about 30 more to be published between now and late September.

Source: Opera Web Standards Curriculum

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Apple has sold over one million iPhone 3Gs in first weekend. iPhone 3G looks stunning and runs a lot faster. I am sure most of us would like to have one too. Have you got yours yet? Have you ever think of developing an iPhone Application / iPhone Web App for it? However, how can we get started? Where can we get all the best iPhone Application development resources? You should take a look at the article: Hand Picked iPhone Application Development Resources by iPhone Toolbox.

If you have an iPhone, you can download free iPhone Wallpapers, iPhone Icons from iPhone Toolbox. Also, you can check out the iPhone news and hand picked iPhone Web Apps as well.

Source: Hand Picked iPhone Application Development Resources

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We always have IE6 whining about how you should be using an obtuse “filter” attribute, causing all those nice, pretty pngs on your page to go whacky. There are some scripts available for solving this problem, e.g. IE PNG Fix from TwinHelix, Javascript IE PNG Fix, Transparent PNGs in Internet Explorer 6 from 24 ways. Now Unit Interactive has shared us Unit PNG Fix and bask in the the glorious phosphoresence of your PNG images with the following major features as well.

• Very compact javascript: Under 1kb!
• Fixes some functionality problems with IE’s filter attribute.
• Works on img objects and background-image attributes.
• Runs automatically. You don’t have to define classes or call functions.
• Allows for auto width and auto height elements.
• Super simple to deploy.

Requirements:-
Demo: http://labs.unitinteractive.com/unitpngfix.php
License: License Free

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Do you enjoy solving tough problems and grappling with technical challenges? Google Code Jam is a coding competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The contest is all-inclusive: Google Code Jam lets you program in the coding language and development environment of your choice.

Google Code Jam begins in July and continues in August, when you will compete in online rounds against contestants from around the world. The Top 500 participants will advance to onsite competitions at a local Google office to compete against those in their region (Asia Pacific; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and the Americas). The Top 100 will participate in the final round at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California on Friday, November 14.

Don’t be left out! Make sure to register between June 17 and July 17, and show your coding creativity in Google Code Jam. The top 100 finalists will divide over $80,000 in prize money!

Source: http://code.google.com/codejam/

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Do you actually think you can rid the world of the scourge that is Internet Explorer 6? We can only hope, but the truth of the matter is that not all users have the luxury of upgrading their browser, and some simply fail to see the flaws and therefore adopt the “if it aint broke, don’t fix it” mentality.

For the next few years we’ll probably need to continue supporting Internet Explorer 6, but that doesn’t mean we just have to wait for users to find something new. The goal of SaveTheDevelopers.org is to rally the development community behind the goal of reducing the number of Internet Explorer 6 browsers in use by urging users to upgrade their browsers without hindering the user experience.

SaveTheDevelopers.org strives to be different is that they want to offer an unobtrusive option for developers to inform their visitors that there are more secure, stable browsers available as opposed to slapping them on the wrist and hiding content if they happen to visit a site using Internet Explorer 6.

Source: http://www.savethedevelopers.org

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Cross-browser compatibility is one of the most time consuming tasks for any web designer. We’ve seen many different articles over the net describing common problems and fixes. Anthonyshort has collated all the information he could find to create some coding conventions for ensuring that your site will work first time in every browser. There are some things you should consider for Safari and Firefox also, and IE isn’t always the culprit for your CSS woes. Here is a quick summary of How to get Cross Browser Compatibility Every Time:

• Always use strict doctype and standards-compliant HTML/CSS
• Always use a reset at the start of your css
• Use -moz-opacity:0.99 on text elements to clean up rendering in Firefox, and text-shadow: #000 0 0 0 in Safari
• Never resize images in the CSS or HTML
• Check font rendering in every browser. Don’t use Lucida
• Size text as a % in the body, and as em’s throughout
• All layout divs that are floated should include display:inline and overflow:hidden
• Containers should have overflow:auto and trigger hasLayout via a width or height
• Don’t use any fancy CSS3 selectors
• Don’t use transparent PNG’s unless you have loaded the alpha

Source: How to get Cross Browser Compatibility Every Time

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PHPBench was constructed as a way to open people’s eyes to the fact that not every PHP code snippet will run at the same speed. You may be surprised at the results PHPBench generates. It was also created so that you would be able to find discovery in these statistics and then maybe re-run these tests in your own server environment to play around with this idea yourself, by using the code examples. You can see some interesting conclusions from PHPBench as follow as well.

1. Surprising results show that if you implement sizeof() there is almost no difference in whether calculating the size of a loop in advance.
2. In reality the echo and print functions serve the exact purpose and therefore in the backend the exact same code applies. The one small thing to notice is that when using a comma to separate items whilst using the echo function, items run slightly faster.
3. The while loop 90% of the time is indeed slightly faster.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://www.phpbench.com/
License: License Free

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