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links for 2010-09-16

  • Your searchable source for FREEBIES
    (tags: free)
  • The other day my fellow co-worker, Cameron, and I were discussing what the best way to style the hr tag? I usually try to use a div if I just need a line for presentation. But what if I need to style an hr that is used on an existing site. It is certainly easier to apply a simple style to the hr tag in the style sheet to make the change. However, each browser, as you can guess has a different way to render them. At first I thought it was Mozilla and the rest of its crew that was rendering the styles incorrectly. However, surprise surprise, it turned out to be IE that did it incorrectly in the end. Here are my solutions and examples on how to get the hr tag to render the same in the popular browsers. By default the hr tag is center-aligned. To align it left follow the example.
  • What I learned at work:  During an interview about green design for our Climate Desk podcast, Dwell magazine editor Aaron Britt dropped a word on me I hadn’t heard before: Retronym.  It means, “a word or phrase for something that now has to be specified because it is no longer identifiable in its original state.”  For example, the retronym “acoustic guitar” exists only because there are now electric guitars. Other retronyms include digital clock, sit-down restaurant, black-and-white photo. You get the idea.  Britt believes green design is a retronym because once upon a time homes were built with the environment in mind as opposed to how they are built now.  The invention of the word has been attributed to former NPR president and Robert Kennedy press aid,  Frank Mankiewicz, circa 1980.  Thinking of retronyms is a good time killer and I believe a great Scrabble word if you get lucky.
  • Eric Schmidt has confirmed that we could be getting “Google Me” sometime this Fall. This Google Me service will introduce what Google calls “a social layer” into online search, video and Google Maps. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters quote Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying the company will integrate social networking elements to its services. What’s interesting to me is that this doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a stand-alone product — it appears the plan is to weave some social goodness into Google’s existing product base. Squeezing social stuff into their already successful products is probably Google’s best shot at getting widespread adoption — as I imagine it would be extremely difficult to get 500 million users to see the value in a competing service, and then decide to switch. I am looking forward to see what Google’s got up it’s sleeve — and I’m hoping it’s going to knock my socks off. What do you think “Google Me” will look like?
  • There are many ways to play Super Mario Bros. 3.  This… is not one of them.  With Mario's 25th birthday just passed, it's nice to see some retro funniness coming out of the internet woodwork.  This new video from YouTube's Master0fHyrule shows exactly how not to get to the secret area in the clouds of level 1-3:
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    links for 2010-02-03

  • We like free stuff. That’s why we posted links to download and play 365 free games so you could have a decent game to play for every day of the year, free of charge. Unfortunately, GamesRadar has yet to wrestle the most formidable type of free games into submission so that they can be preserved in their proper list form for eternity. We’re talking about the free games that were good enough to sell, important enough to review, and memorable enough to warrant a second play through years later. Luckily, we’ve somehow managed to sort through over a hundred previously-for-sale titles that you can now play for free, and synthesized our list down to just the essential games you’d still want to play. Most of them look dated, for sure, but whether you’re looking for some decent side-scrolling action, nostalgic hits from the golden age of adventure, classic titles of interest, or even MMORPGs, you’re bound to find something in the following pages.
  • Check out these great online resources on creating liquid/fluid and elastic layouts, including sources for design inspiration, downloadable templates, frameworks, articles and tutorials. I often get asked for my recommendations of resources to learn how to create liquid/fluid and elastic layouts. My first answer is, of course, my own book Flexible Web Design: Creating Liquid and Elastic Layouts with CSS. Hey, is it so bad to be proud of your work? It’s the only book out there entirely devoted to designing and building flexible web sites, and the dozens of layout techniques it covers can also be applied to fixed-width design. But I’ll shut up about my book now; if you’re not the book-buying type, here are over 70 online resources to get you started creating attractive and robust flexible web pages.
  • If you’re a web developer, you’re almost certainly constantly looking for ways to improve your skills, expand your technology arsenal, and keep on top of the latest trends in development and design. Whether you need to pick up a new coding language, get informed about new standards, brush up on best practices, or simply get inspired by great examples from your peers, we’ve collated a number of great resources to help you stay at the top of your game. Have a look at some of the online repositories for great development information and inspiration below, and be sure to tell us about any other trusted sources we haven’t included in the list that other developers should check out.
  • The field of web design is constantly changing and growing. Getting in a rut is often the result of not staying up to date with the latest trends and technologies in the industry. Even if we do stay up to date, many of us at one time or another feel anxious about whether we’re advancing. If you’re at a firm, you may be working towards a raise or promotion, or perhaps you’re thinking of jumping ship to a bigger and better company. For the freelancers out there, we of course determine our own destiny; but far too often our careers feel stagnant, too. This article goes over some ways to reignite your growth as a web designer.
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