Top 10 Firefox Extensions

I love Firefox. Open-source, standards compliant (mostly) and with the added bonus of a huge amount of extensions. So, if you've yet to be converted, download Firefox, and then give some of these extensions a try. If you go back to "the other browser" after spending some time with Firefox, I'll eat my hat..

1. Firebug - If you're a web designer or developer, Firebug is the definately the best reason to switch to Firefox. I'm not going to write a review, just try this top notch suite of development and client-side debugging tools for yourself. Their slogan is "Web Development Evolved". 'Nuf said.
2. Fireshot - Ever wanted to send your client a full page screen-shot, including everything below the fold? What about being able to easy take screen grabs and annotate them. Fireshot is all you need. A really handy little add-on.
3. Web Developer - The Web Developer extension adds various web developer tools to Firefox. It includes HTML and CSS validation tools, a ruler, enabling/disabling JavaScript and CSS and much more. A really good side-kick to Firebug.
4. FireFtp - An FTP client, right inside Firefox, very useful, with SSL/TLS/SFTP support, automatic reconnect and resume of transfers, search and filtering and more.
5. Palette Grabber - This is a useful one, if you like a colour-scheme you see on your web travels, you can grab the color palette for use in Flash, Photoshop, The Gimp and more. Mmmmm handy.... as Homer Simpson might say.
6. Execute JS - An enhance JavaScript console, allowing you to quickly test arbitrary scripts, evaluate properties of an object and more. Well worth a look if you do any JavaScripting.
7. Font Finder - This useful little add-on lets you find out the CSS properties of selected text. Simple, but very useful nevertheless.
8. ColorZilla - Another useful tool for designers, it allows colour picking, colour palette creation, zooming, DOM based colour analysis and more
   
9. YSlow - This add-on for Firefox/Firebug lets you analyse your site for performance issues and and points out problems according to Yahoo's guidelines for high-performance websites.
10. Pencil - The Pencil add-on is a simple tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping, with built-in stencils for diagraming and prototyping, Multi-page documents and more. A really useful wireframing tool, and its free.

If you are interesting in finding more Firefox extensions and add-ons, have a look at the official Firefox add-ons site. And please, DON'T revert to the dark sIdE..

Top Ten Resources for Learning Web Design and Development

I've just been surfing about tonight, revisiting some old favourites and checking out some new sites friends have told me about. In the 12 years I have been working as a web designer/developer, I have often fallen back on other peoples code samples and tutorials to learn.

Some of my collegues on the design team have expressed an interest in learning some more technical, code based skills, such as JavaScript or ActionScript, and I am always keen to find tips and tricks for Illustrator, After Effects and Photoshop, as well as SQL, XML, or any one of many web design and development techniques, so, here's my top 10 resource sites if you're keen to learn...

1. W3 Schools. - If you want to learn about any of the web design and development languages, including HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL and much much more, this site should be your first port of call. Hundreds of clear examples and references make this site indispensible. Bookmark it!
2. Webreference - Another indispensible site, for any of the popular web languages. Webreference is a HUGE site, and a great place to find new tips and tricks, from Multimedia and Internet Design to PHP and Active X programming. Essential!
3. WebDesign Tutorials - I had'nt seen this site before today, but I'm impressed by the amount of content. The frames based displaay is a little irritating, but, if you can ignore that, there's a huge amount of useful stuff to be found, covering 3d Studio Max, PhotoShop, Flash, C++, CSS and much more.
4. CSS Zen Garden - If you have'nt seen CSS Zen Garden, just go there. This site is the best illustration of the full potential of CSS when used well. A Stunning collection of stylesheets, showing how a single site can be completely redesigned, without touching the HTML mark-up. If you are into CSS, this is nirvana!
5. Web Pages That Suck - At the other end of the spectrum from CSS Zen Garden, this is the place to go if you want to learn how NOT to do it. Well worth checking out, some of the sites listed are truly shocking! Just make sure one of YOUR sites never appear on this site!
6. W3C HTML Validation and Jigsaw - These two sites are equally useful and important in the web designer/developers arsenal. If you want to be sure your site is vaild HTML and CSS, then you need to bookmark and use them both!
7. SitePoint - I'm a big fan of SitePoint, both for their website, and the books they publish. SitePoint has a real community feel, with hundreds of quality articles, books, videos, forums and more. Well worth checking out.
8. A List Apart - This is another indispensible site. With hundreds of authoratitive articles and tutorials about standards based and best practice web design, this is one you just can't do without.
9. Webmonkey - This site has been around for years, and had undergone a re-design over the last year or so. With tutorials, a code library and reference sections, this is another really good place to start...
10. Kirupa - This is a good site for those of you interested in Flash, Sliverlight, WPF and ASP.NET/PHP. Kirupa has been around for some time now, and has some top notch tutorials and artciles. Well worth a visit

If I've missed any, let me know! I'm always on the lookout for new sources of inspiration...

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Top 10 Web 2.0 Rants

I have had enough of Web 2.0. Listen up. ITS NOTHING NEW! When will they learn? I agree that the web has entered a new phase, with users expecting feedback and richer interactivity rather than the passive experience that used to be the norm "back in the day". However, Web 2.0 is not a design technique, or a technology per se. It's more about the web becoming a more useful, and accesible tool. To see what I mean, just have a look at the amount of APIs out there, allowing developers to build new more powerful web applications.

I'm not the only one who feels this way (if anything I'm late joining the fray), and to prove it, here's my top 10 Web 2.0 Rants (it's worth noting the age of some of these posts too!)

1. I Hate Web 2.0
2. Web 2.0: Is it just hype?
3. Web 2.0 != a check
4. Application Insight: Why I Hate Web 2.0
5. 10 Things I hate about Web 2.0
6. Valentines Day Massacre
7. You Are Not a Web Designer
8. Web 3.0 at Binary Bonsai
9. There is no Web 3.0, There is no Web 2.0 - There is Just The Web
10. Does Web 2.0 Still Look Good? Did it ever?

So, if you were wondering what Web 2.0 is, you should, after reading the above articles, have a much better idea. Then we can move on to Web 2.1, or Web 2009, or Web Service Pack 1, or whatever the hell the marketing and hype-munkys decide to call the next trend!

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