Mon, 28/07/2008 - 12:35pm.
jQuery Sparklines
"This jQuery plugin generates sparklines (small inline charts) directly in the browser using data supplied either inline in the HTML, or via javascript."
Elsewhere archive
I regularly find interesting links on the web, which I collect on del.icio.us), a website for storing and sharing links. Feel free to add me to your network and/or subscribe to my links.
Mon, 28/07/2008 - 11:55am.
Web Analytics: structureel aan de slag
(dutch) " In een reeks van vijf afleveringen zal ik aan de hand van concrete voorbeelden demonstreren hoe je tich meer uit je data kunt halen. In aflevering een: hoe te beginnen met web analytics?"
Mon, 21/07/2008 - 1:57pm.
Smart CSS Ain’t Always Sexy CSS
I like using smart CSS names to keep my CSS DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). Using presentational class names (such as "horizontal", "left", "right") makes it very easy to quickly create complicated structures.
Mon, 21/07/2008 - 1:53pm.
HeatMapApi.com - Create your own heat maps using HeatMapAPI.
"Create your own heat maps using HeatMapAPI. Use it over the Internet or as a .NET DLL to run in your environment. Integrate heat map images into Google Maps or other GIS systems."
Mon, 21/07/2008 - 1:41pm.
jQuery plugin: Tooltip
Display a customized tooltip instead of the default one for every selected element. Replacing standard tooltips is easy: Just include the script on the page, add a stylesheet, select the elements to tooltip and call the tooltip plugin.
Mon, 21/07/2008 - 1:38pm.
jFlow 1.2 - The Ultra-lightweight Fluid Content Slider for jQuery
Just like the Coda-slider, this jQuery plugin transforms a series of divs into horizontally sliding content.
Thu, 17/07/2008 - 1:30pm.
Urbanspoon on the iPhone
This looks like an interesting interaction design concept: the slot machine metaphor is used for selection variables, while shaking your iPhone will show you the results. Nifty!
Thu, 17/07/2008 - 1:27pm.
Opera Web Standards Curriculum
"Opera’s new Web Standards Curriculum, released in association with the Yahoo! Developer Network, is a complete course to teach you standards-based web development, including HTML, CSS, design principles and background theory, and JavaScript basics."
Fri, 04/07/2008 - 1:07pm.
Weg met de overheidswebsite, leve de gebruiker!
(dutch) "Het is volgens McGovern voor de overheid belangrijk niet geobsedeerd te raken door technologie en de focus te leggen op het helpen van gebruikers om hun taken te realiseren. De overheid moet zich niet bezighouden met het managen van websites en s
Fri, 04/07/2008 - 1:00pm.
Future of Interaction in Gaming
"Softkinetic is using 3D cameras to track your movement and converts it to similar movements in a virtual space. If you need to jump over an obstacle you simply jump, if you want to reach out for something, you simply do that."
Fri, 04/07/2008 - 11:10am.
What comes next in this series? 13, 33, 53, 61, 37, 28...
Apparantly, one axis upon which Google measures the complexity of its homepage is in the number of words featured on it.
Wed, 02/07/2008 - 7:54am.
Zoomii.com - The "Real" Online Bookstore
Another zooming & panning interface for a subselection of the Amazon bookstore. Controls are very much like Google Maps (and seems to be implemented using the Open Source variants thereof).
Tue, 01/07/2008 - 8:49am.
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Improved Flash indexing
Google now extracts text and links for Flash (SWF) websites. I wonder what the consequences are for websites with an HTML version, since that’s technically duplicate content…
Tue, 01/07/2008 - 8:39am.
Working With History in Bash
Some very useful tips for those old-style dudes still working in a terminal from time to time (like me, when I’m configuring a Linux server, or need so quick & dirty hacks on my Mac).
Tue, 01/07/2008 - 8:30am.
Cooper Journal: Navigating isn't fun
A (slightly outdated) article on the necessities of navigation on websites. General advice: however cool your navigation is, it would be better if there was less of it.
Sat, 28/06/2008 - 12:13pm.
Mediamatic - We heffen onze bibliotheek op
(Dutch) "Mediamatic geeft al haar boeken weg. We roepen het publiek op de hele boekencollectie te komen halen en zelf goed voor het culturele kapitaal te gaan zorgen. Mediamatic kan dat niet langer alleen."
Sat, 28/06/2008 - 11:57am.
CSS: Fun With Floating in the Grid
I knew I wasn’t the only one using this technique! Although you could argue classes such as .left or .left are purely visual and unsemantic, they can be used in addition to semantic names.
Fri, 27/06/2008 - 11:21am.
How to get Cross Browser Compatibility Every Time
Excellent article with some common best-practices to prevent some of the most annoying cross-browser compatibility problems.
Fri, 27/06/2008 - 9:43am.
The Paper Version of the Web
Paper prototypes of various websites, like Flickr, Twitter and Vimeo. Very cool!
Fri, 27/06/2008 - 9:28am.
Announcing whoisi
whoisi.com seems like a nice twist on the focus of social networking sites on accounts instead of people by providing wiki-style adding of feeds.
Tue, 24/06/2008 - 12:43pm.
Development to Production: A Database Merge Script | Ceardach
"Migrating changes from development to production is particularly tricky in Drupal due to a large amount of configuration settings being stored within the database." These scripts provide an automated answer though.
Mon, 23/06/2008 - 3:19pm.
Old People Don’t Get Social Media
A very nice rant-like article on the perceptons of social media by a 50-year old who compares it to the closeness and touchiness of the hippy-era – "I’m 50 years old. I get the whole social media gig. It’s like Woodstock on the ‘Net, where people ga
Mon, 23/06/2008 - 3:16pm.
MultiFirefox 2.0
A Firefox wrapper that lets you launch a particular Firefox version with a (dedicated) profile (Mac-only). Takes the pain out of the manual launching of Firefox X with profile Y!
Sat, 21/06/2008 - 1:25pm.
Voordelig of liever goedkoop? (Vertrouwen is te ontwerpen, deel 4/5)
Nice (Dutch) post on how to leverage Google Trends to use the correct keywords for search engine optimization.
Wed, 18/06/2008 - 8:18am.
i18n and pathauto
Use this module to insert language prefixes in pathauto. This will allow unique (language-specific) nodes and language-neutral nodes.
Wed, 18/06/2008 - 7:56am.
HTML5: More flexible linking
A proposal for adding the href (and related) attributes to a lot more elements in HTML5, to provide easy linking. This document adds use cases and discusses pro’s and cons. Very interesting since it touches the very core of the Web.
Wed, 18/06/2008 - 7:53am.
PodiPodi - The magical box
Podipodi is Quicksilver or Enso for websites: "a special widget that makes possible the integration of a smart command line interface and a bunch of additional services directly into your website to perform common web-tasks."
Wed, 18/06/2008 - 7:48am.
Webby Nominees
The runner-ups for the webby’s this year for navigation (Schematic.com and Blenderbox.com) feature some interesting zoomable interfaces.
Wed, 18/06/2008 - 7:37am.
How many items in a navigation bar
"I don’t think I’ve seen reliable research on this, and if I did I think I’d be suspicious of it anyway as the complexity of the issue isn’t about number, but about complexity of concept."
Wed, 18/06/2008 - 7:28am.
Faux Absolute Positioning
"There are two popular approaches to positioning with CSS: float and absolute positioning. Both approaches have their pros and cons. My teammates and I have developed a new positioning approach that gives us the best of both worlds"
Fri, 13/06/2008 - 3:00pm.
Drupal Node Access Explained
There are many contributed node access control modules for Drupal and you really should understand the basics of node access before installing and configuring one. Read this article for a non-developers guide.
Thu, 12/06/2008 - 11:41am.
The making of mystic
"This tutorial focuses on the big picture steps taken to create this image. You’ll learn some incredible techniques in this tutorial, and get a view into how Nik Ainley creates beautiful photo-manipulation based images."
Wed, 11/06/2008 - 8:06am.
Reputation Parent
Yahoo has expanded its Design Pattern Library to also include social interaction design patterns. This one’s for reputation. One could easily see patterns for all kinds of aspects of social networking sites (would be a nice research subject for a master s
Tue, 10/06/2008 - 2:36pm.
Introducing ThemeRoller: Design & Download Custom Themes for jQuery UI
"ThemeRoller is a web app that offers a fun and intuitive interface for designing and downloading custom themes for jQuery UI."
Tue, 10/06/2008 - 2:36pm.
jQuery UI v1.5 Released, Focus on Consistent API and Effects
Details on the new release for jQuery UI, which includes widgets and animations for web applications. Too bad the demo’s work poorly in Safari.
Sun, 08/06/2008 - 1:29pm.
Custom search forms with Views and Fastsearch
"The search and views modules can be glued together and made to cooperate using the views fastsearch module. In this article I show how to build a search form that has filters for taxonomy terms and content types."
Sun, 08/06/2008 - 1:27pm.
Deployment Module Installation and Usage
This Drupal module (first beta is now out) provides a GUI for pushing data and content from your development server to the production server. No support for node deployment yet though…
Sun, 08/06/2008 - 1:21pm.
Twitter timeline proof-of-concept
Cool mashup prototype that mixes the SIMILE Timeline component with Twitter using jQuery.
Sun, 08/06/2008 - 1:16pm.
Desktopography 2008 exhibition released! - Nature's design on your desktop
Beautiful wallpapers that mix nature and design in creative ways.
Sun, 08/06/2008 - 10:55am.
Dutch National Soccer Team «New Warriors»
Some great (photoshopped) photographs of Dutch soccer heroes.
Sat, 07/06/2008 - 3:05pm.
Interaction Criticism: How to Do It, Part 1
“I often get asked–by students, by design professionals in the HCI community–how someone without degrees in literature (etc.) can practice criticism. But for the sake of accessibility, and at the risk of being flamed for attempting to present the practice of criticism in a bullet-list laden blog post, I offer a high-level overview of what (I think) interaction criticism looks like. “
Sat, 07/06/2008 - 2:03pm.
Interaction Criticism: How to Do it, Part 2
"This post will offer much more concrete, do-it-yourself strategies that I believe anyone could start doing today."
Sat, 07/06/2008 - 2:02pm.
Interaction Criticism: How to Do It, Part 3
“This post continues a multi-part series on interaction criticism begun here. The series goal is to offer a useful introduction to criticism in the context of interaction design, targeted at interaction design professionals.”
Sat, 07/06/2008 - 1:42pm.
Obama/Clinton support visualizer that rocks
A great example of how an interactive chart can provide much more information in a coincise manner than traditional reporting. There’s lots of information here, showing clear relationships between age, gender and colour in voting trends, without losing some subtler nuances that often get lost presenting statistics.
Sat, 07/06/2008 - 1:37pm.
10 Examples of Beautiful CSS Typography and how they did it…
Yes, a top-ten list, but actually a pretty good one. The examples are beautiful, and the analysis clarifies why they’re so good.
Fri, 06/06/2008 - 2:13pm.
The Vintage Aviator - Build Story
A great write-up of the process that one developer went through in creating a gorgeous website. Using lots of custom modules and some great front-end tricks (e.g. using Flash for transparency effects), the result is nothing short of amazing.
Thu, 05/06/2008 - 3:35pm.
Coda Slider Effect
Using the ScrollTo plugin family, this article teaches you how to create a scrolling tab area. It seems quite complicated for such a simple effect, but the result is worth it!
Thu, 05/06/2008 - 3:32pm.
Blueprint | drupal.org
This Drupal theme is based on the Blueprint CSS framework. That means normalized CSS across browsers, strong typograhic defaults and a grid framework for easy custom layouts.
Thu, 05/06/2008 - 3:30pm.
SMS Framework + Notifications and Messaging Modules = Wicked Simple SMS Notifications in Drupal
"The Messaging Framework makes use of the API to support SMS as a send method. Add Notifications and you’ll be able to alert users about updated content via SMS. I wanted to quickly show everyone how easy this is to set up."
Thu, 05/06/2008 - 3:26pm.
Ubercart | drupal.org
"Ubercart is an e-commerce suite developed for Drupal. It has been designed with the end user in mind, focusing on usability in three key areas: store configuration, product and catalog creation, and order administration. " 1.0 was released today.
Mon, 02/06/2008 - 4:54pm.
Gyminee - Workout Programs, Exercise Routines, and Food Diary
"Gyminee is the premier fitness social network for detailed tracking, online accountability, and motivation." Well-executed Web 2.0 website for health and fitness addicts like myself.
Mon, 02/06/2008 - 11:31am.
Simple.art
I love the birds’ eye perspective on a website. The design here is perfectly executed in a fluid manner (try resizing your browser window).
Mon, 02/06/2008 - 11:29am.
How To Create A Keypress Navigation Using jQuery
"Lately, I have began experimenting with new ways to navigate a website. In this tutorial I’ll show you how to let the user make use of their keyboard to get around your site."
Mon, 02/06/2008 - 10:42am.
Adobe Launches Online Office Suite and New Flash-Enabled Acrobat 9
"Adobe is has just launched their version of an online office suite available at Acrobat.com, complete with word processor (Buzzword), web conferencing/whiteboard app (ConnectNow), online file sharing (Share), file storage, (My Files), and PDF converter.
Sat, 31/05/2008 - 10:11am.
film music | mobygratis.com
Very cool: Moby launches free movie music for non-commercial and non-profit use (smells like a Creative Commons license, although I saw no mention of it anywhere).
Wed, 28/05/2008 - 11:06am.
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - Here Comes Everybody
Excellent essay by Clay Shirky on media changes in the beginning of the 21st century: " But media is actually a triathlon, it ‘s three different events. People like to consume, but they also like to produce, and they like to share."
Wed, 28/05/2008 - 12:23am.
Google AJAX Search API Blog: Speed up access to your favorite frameworks via the AJAX Libraries API
Google now offers hosted access via their speedy servers to several popular Javascript libraries, such as jQuery, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Dojo and Mootools.
Tue, 27/05/2008 - 8:24am.
Conditional Compilation in JavaScript
To target Internet Explorer with Javascript, this proprietary technique can be used similar to conditional comments in CSS. Simply place code between: /*@cc_on and @*/.
Tue, 27/05/2008 - 8:13am.
R.E.M. Tour Website Case Study
Another interesting Drupal case study. While the resulting website is pretty simple (an aggregator of various social platforms), it uses some interesting modules to make everything a bit more user-friendly.
Mon, 26/05/2008 - 2:53pm.
How to separate categories
Hack to the Drupal simplefeed module which enables it to import feed items with tags, and convert them to a Drupal taxonomy. In an upcoming release of the del.icio.us API, this shouldn’t be necessary anymore, however development seems slow.
Mon, 26/05/2008 - 11:22am.
Inherent Value Testing
Using two research groups, one with loyal customers, and one with new users, to discover the perceived value, the communicated value, and the hidden value of your website.
Mon, 26/05/2008 - 11:01am.
Eureka! Science News just launched!
"Eureka! Science News just launched – it is a site dedicated to provide the very latest science news, but with a special twist – it is entirely automated!"
Mon, 26/05/2008 - 10:38am.
JavaScript Information Visualization Toolkit (JIT)
Also very useful for my thesis on navigation in websites: "The JIT is an advanced JavaScript infovis toolkit based on 5 papers about different information visualization techniques."
Mon, 26/05/2008 - 10:34am.
Structures of Participation in Digital Culture
Freely downloadable series of academic articles that explore "…digital technologies that are engines of cultural innovation, from the virtualization of group networks and social identities to the digital convergence of textural and audio-visual media."
Mon, 26/05/2008 - 10:31am.
SocialistWorker - Drupal newspaper site case study
Nice showcase: "This site makes extensive use of Panels 2, Views, ImageCache, and CCK content types/fields to create a highly functional site without much custom development."
Mon, 26/05/2008 - 10:22am.
Why people participate in online communities
Based on the presentation from Yaniv Golan, a throughtful overview of Incentives In Online Social Communities.
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 1:43pm.
Luis von Ahn launches 'Games with a Purpose'
"GWAP and the new games – Tag a tune, Squigl, Verbosity, and Matchin, puts von Ahn and his team at Carnegie Mellon by a wide margin at the forefront of tapping into human cycles to do jobs that computers only can solve poorly or not at all. "
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 1:40pm.
Think about paths instead of hierarchies
I like the idea of paths, but the explanation makes it sound more like a task-based approach to website navigation.
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 1:38pm.
David Barrie: A case of blurred vision
Interesting article on how we find stuff in shops through manoeuvring: "a broad surveying gaze which is used to move around objects, which acknowledges objects but does not engage in any depth with them."
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 1:34pm.
Community: From Little Things, Big Things Grow
"Any community—online or off—must start slowly, and be nurtured. You cannot “just add community.” It must be cared for, and hosted; it takes time and people with great communication skills to set the tone and tend the conversation."
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 1:02pm.
How Little Do Users Read?
"On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely." Have to confess I only read 20% of this article…
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 12:59pm.
Narfstuff
Beautiful website, another fine example of the aesthetic appeal of a hand-drawn, personal feel.
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 12:21pm.
Rotating Banner Images with Views and jQuery
Using two views, one for initial content, and a second with an array of all images, which will be dynamically injected into the page on demand.
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 12:09pm.
Google Code Blog: Introducing Google Doctype
"In its current (beta) form, Google Doctype contains dozens of articles written by top Googlers on topics important to all web developers: security, performance, caching, DOM manipulation, CSS styling, and more. "
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 12:08pm.
Google Friend Connect
"Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. With just a few snippets of code, you get more people engaging more deeply with your site."
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 12:03pm.
Charles Joseph Minard's visual stories, by Jeffrey Veen
"Much like the patterns in data visualization, designers seek out stories and meaning when crafting interfaces. Well designed sites "convey promptly to the eye" what’s possible, while doing so intuitively as to avoid "requiring mental calculation.""
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 11:59am.
jQuery Interactive Date Range Picker with Shortcuts
"Our version is optimized for quickly selecting a date from a list of preset dates/ranges, and we added smooth transitions when additional options are revealed."
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 11:50am.
Pulling Your Flickr Feed with jQuery
"However, you can also display feeds on your site using JavaScript, so in this post I’m going to be talking about a feed format called JSON and how you can use JavaScript to parse it out and display it."
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 11:48am.
Tripoli - a CSS standard for HTML rendering
"Tripoli is a generic CSS standard for HTML rendering. By resetting and rebuilding browser standards, Tripoli forms a stable, cross-browser rendering foundation for your web projects."
Mon, 19/05/2008 - 11:34am.
How to hide and show initial content, depending on whether JavaScript support is available
A flash-of-unstyled content is often seen when hiding content for non-javascript UA’s. This method solves that.
Wed, 07/05/2008 - 11:22am.
Information Design Patterns
"A sophisticated online collection of about 48 design patterns that describe distinct methods for the display of interactive information graphics, their active behavior as well as the forms of user interaction with them."
Wed, 07/05/2008 - 11:16am.
Opera Dragonfly
Alpha release of Opera’s Firebug version: "Debug JavaScript, inspect CSS and the DOM, and view any errors – Opera Dragonfly makes developing using Opera easier than ever, both on your computer and mobile phone. "
Wed, 07/05/2008 - 11:14am.
50 Drupal Newspaper and magazine showcase video from Newstools 2008
"I think Drupal day was a big hit and a lot of journalists were able to see that they could use open source software to build an online newspaper with Drupal."
Wed, 07/05/2008 - 11:07am.
Filtering Drupal Views Dynamically
"(or, ‘Leverage the big CMS and web application frameworks! Only losers start from scratch!)’". Very useful tutorial on using Views and Panels 2 effectively in Drupal.
Wed, 07/05/2008 - 11:03am.
jQuery.SerialScroll
Useful for creating interesting effects without Flash: "This plugin allows you to easily animate any series of elements, by sequentially scrolling them."
Wed, 07/05/2008 - 11:01am.
Module: Sass
“Sass is a meta-language on top of CSS that‘s used to describe the style of a document cleanly and structurally, with more power than flat CSS allows. Sass both provides a simpler, more elegant syntax for CSS and implements various features that are useful for creating manageable stylesheets.”
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 11:40am.
Data visualization: is it the future of the Internet?
"While innovative strides are being taken in online interaction design, there is still a gaping void in making data visualization a useful tool. " It’s not just utility which makes these applications so great though.
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 11:33am.
User Interface Implementations of Faceted Browsing
"A user interface that optimally supports faceted filtering must expose its robust functionality in a way that expresses affordances, controls complexity, and follows existing standards that have been pre-established across the web."
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 11:14am.
Create amazing photomontages
Nik Ainley is a rockstar amongst graphic designer, who "shows you how to make a splash, blending two very different images to create this amazing underwater effect, complete with a dissolving figure of a man."
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 11:08am.
The Weblog of Josh Tilton
Beautiful website, although the giant head is a little off-putting.
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 11:03am.
Deusty, Home of Mojo
P2P music sharing integrated with iTunes: "Mojo is music sharing done right. With just two clicks, you are ready to browse, select, and download music from other Mojo users."
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 10:45am.
Magento Connect - iDEAL extension
"The extension provides iDEAL payment integration. Which enables payment procces through an existing Internet banking product."
Thu, 01/05/2008 - 11:38am.
Peachpit: Designing for the Social Web
"With the right design strategy you can use this social interaction to get people signing up, coming back regularly, and bringing others into the fold. With tons of examples from real-world interfaces and a touch of the underlying social psychology theory
Wed, 30/04/2008 - 12:23pm.
twistori
A Twitter mashup, inspired by We Feel Fine, that shows tweets based on people’s feelings. Very nice, built exclusively with Prototype and Scriptaculous, by Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs.
Tue, 29/04/2008 - 12:18pm.
Influencers, Promoters, Inviters and other social media user types
"Character types, modified to account for the effects of social media and related technologies on interaction and communication, and taking into account users’ communication styles, relationship preferences, and sense of self and self image, could be a po
Mon, 28/04/2008 - 3:17pm.
Google Web Site Optimizer Tool: I Told You So
Great introduction to using Google’s WSOT for testing design variations and measuring which one is most succesful.
Mon, 28/04/2008 - 3:12pm.
CSS Masks
"WebKit now supports alpha masks in CSS. Masks allow you to overlay the content of a box with a pattern that can be used to knock out portions of that box in the final display. In other words, you can clip to complex shapes based off the alpha of an image
Mon, 28/04/2008 - 3:11pm.
Clay Shirky on growing the Drupal community
“The first ten percent is active Drupal contributors. How do you grow the tail? You create lots of lightweight tasks for people in the long tail to participate, tasks that can just take a minute."
Mon, 28/04/2008 - 3:09pm.
Drupal Theming and Site Building Workshop Notes
Instead of focusing on HTML, CSS and Javascript, like most theme tutorials for Drupal tend to do, this one focuses on Drupal’s theme functions and related modules, such as Panels. Very useful pieces of information here!
About this website
My name is Jeroen Coumans, I'm a freelance web designer, front-end developer and Drupal ninja from the Netherlands. I love to create beautiful, usable and accessible websites. On this website, you can find my portfolio as well as my personal weblog. Interested in hiring me? I'd love to hear from you.
After completing my BA in Arts and Culture I'm now doing a MA in Communication and Multimedia Design. More …
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