How to Create a Web Spy with a PHP Crawler
Crawler, spider, bot, or whatever you want to call it, is a program that automatically gets and processes data from sites, for many uses.
Google, for example, indexes and ranks pages automatically via powerful spiders, crawlers and bots. We have also link checkers, HTML validators, automated optimizations, and web spies. Yeah, web spies. This is what we will be doing now.
Actually I don’t know if this is a common term, or if its ever been used before, but I think it perfectly describes this kind of application. The main goal here is to create a software that monitors the prices of your competitors so you can always be up to date with market changes.
You might think “Well, it is useless to me. You know, I’m a freelancer, I don’t have to deal with this ‘price comparison’ thing.” Don’t worry, you are right. But you may have customers that have a lot of competitors they want to watch closely. So you can always offer this as a “plus” service (feel free to charge for it, I’ll be glad to know that), and learn a little about this process.
So, let’s rock!
Read More
20+ Useful CSS3 and HTML5 Frameworks, Tools and Templates
I hope you have heard a little about CSS3 and HTML5. And I’m sure you’ve used at least one of the cool features they offer. But now it is time to use them at their full (or almost full) power.
You may be asking yourself “It is time to change? Should I forget everything I know and dive into this new world?”. Well dear padawan, you don’t need to do so. We have a lot of tools that make our transition to new and better technologies safer (ultimately we can’t just crash our customer’s website, we have bills to pay :D).
Frameworks are helpful with this. They’ve already been tried, tested and proven. Of course, you can always make them better, but they are a really good starting point.
This time we will talk a little about frameworks and other tools, like generators and templates.
So, let’s rock.
Read More
30 Useful and Cutting Edge CSS3 Text Effect and Web Typography Tutorials
CSS3 with it’s possibilities is a revolution in web development. The new CSS3 properties give developers a wonderful chance to enhance their designs in a way that’s quick and easy, yet visually impressive. What’s more, almost all of the major browsers now support most of the CSS3 features so that’s another reason for mastering the new techniques. One of the spheres CSS3 has changed dramatically is web typography. Text styling and neat effects can now be achieved without using any Javascript or images at all. This article presents 30 useful and cutting edge CSS3 text effect and web typography tutorials that will take your designs to the next level.
Read More
WordPress Plugin Development – Relate Posts as a Series – Part 1/2
Today our task is to create a simple WordPress plugin to relate posts as a series. With this, when you create a new post it is automatically listed in your series, so if a user is reading any post of the series he can jump to others, even posts created after that one he is reading.
It may seem a bit too simple, but with this we can learn a lot about:
1. Custom post types
2. Custom fields
3. Metaboxes
4. Actions
5. Shortcodes
6. Basic plugin structure for WordPress
7. Little bit of jQuery
So, let’s rock!
Read More
Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Better CSS and HTML
CSS and HTML are key languages to begin with, when you decide to invest your time in web design and development. They are powerful languages and most of the time may seem simple to work with.
However, every single one of us, beginners, or advanced developers, have committed basic or major mistakes working with both these languages. With this in mind, I believe it is extremely important and always welcome to learn some good tips and practices which I hope will help you improve your skills and experience.
Read More
How to Create an Awesome Blurry Menu Using CSS
Today we will get a perfect and simple blurry menu effect via CSS. In addition to it, we will get a useful multiple borders effect. To achieve this effect you will need to have a basic understanding of HTML and CSS. We will work with IE filters and text-shadow, but there is no reason to worry if you have never used it, they’re all well and simply explained.
And the best part is that anything done here works almost anywhere, from IE6 to real browsers.
So, let’s work!
Read More
Creating Your Own CMS Part 3 – Advanced Features
If you have been following along you should have a simple CMS built that has a place to securely log in and you should be able to create some users and access levels for your site. If you are creating a CMS you will need more than just to be able to log in and create users so here in part three we will get into a few of the things that you can do with your own CMS. A few people have really knocked the idea of creating your own CMS which is fine because we can all have our own opinions so I will just tell you all why I personally like to use my own.
Read More
16 Hot Websites To Download Cool Scripts
The IT industry is full of tough challenges for developers who are one step away from creating new forms of interaction. The trend of web scripting is growing rapidly and developers are striving to develop web pages which automate more tasks on a website. The benefit of client-side scripts is that HTML supports it regardless of the language that is used for scripting. By using these scripts, developers are able to introduce plenty of highly active ways to enhance HTML documents.
Read More
Convert Burnstudio from PSD to HTML [Very Detailed]
In this article you will learn how to convert Burnstudio Personal Website from PSD to HTML in a detailed step-by-step tutorial. You will learn how to create this layout by using a CSS framework, some CSS styles and JavaScript. When you’ve completed this tutorial you’ll have a valid HTML/CSS, cross browser compatible and dynamic layout. I hope that you can go through this tutorial and learn a few techniques that will help you in future projects.
![Convert Burnstudio from PSD to HTML [Very Detailed]](http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/preview_large_bstudio.jpg "Convert Burnstudio from PSD to HTML [Very Detailed]")
Read More
20+ Websites To Help You Learn Flash and ActionScript
There are many software products that are available in the market for website development. In the world of multimedia, Flash has its own position. In designing interactive demos, standalone movies, and aesthetically pleasing web content, flash plays a main role.
Tips and tricks can be learned from different websites. The good reputation of Adobe products is one of the core reasons that Flash and ActionScript are so popular. A major reason for it’s popularity is that ActionScript is similar to JavaScript. There are many websites that are very helpful for learning Flash. Below are 25 websites that will help you in learning Flash/ActionScript.
Read More
