Widgets that Work

A collection from around the web of widgets that enhance the functionality (user experience?) of a web page.

An Example of Effective Complex Website Navigation

Check out the website and have a click around (screenshots for posterity 1, 2, 3). Nicely done, no? A lot of people are using tabs, and triangles and arrows and all that jazz on their navigation, but here we see them used together, and done beautifully. Then, when you get to the bottom of the page,... Read more »

Ping-o-matic's Hover Invitation

Cameron Adams wrote about this already, but I wanted to include this here. Pingomatic uses a hover behaviour, a hover invitation, that works very well to not only invite people to click on something but to educate them that something is indeed clickable. What I am talking about is using hover... Read more »

Dark Eye's Thumbnail Hover Preview

Before I get too far into this, a quick note to say that this is the first in a series of posts in a feature series called Widgets that Work. More details... About the site A quick word about the site itself, which could be considered yet another design showcase site, except this one not only includes... Read more »

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Mike Papageorge.com

SiteUptime Web Site Monitoring Service

Sitepoint's web devlopment books have helped me out on many occasions both for finding a quick solution to a problem but also to level out my knowlegde in weaker areas (JavaScript, I'm looking at you!). I am recommending the following titles from my bookshelf:

The Principles Of Successful Freelancing

I started freelancing by diving in head first and getting on with it. Many years and a lot of experience later I was still able to take away some gems from this book, and there are plenty I wish I had thought of beforehand. If you are new to freelancing and have a lot of questions (or maybe don't know what questions to ask!) do yourself a favor and at least check out the sample chapters.

The Art & Science Of JavaScript

The author line-up for this book says it all. 7 excellent developers show you how to get your JavaScript coding up to speed with 7 chapters of great theory, code and examples. Metaprogramming with JavaScript (chapter 5 from Dan Webb) really helped me iron out some things I was missing about JavaScript. That said each chapter really helped me to develop my JavaScript skills beyond simple Ajax calls and html insertion with libs like JQuery.

The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks

Like the other books listed here, this provides a great reference for the PHP developer looking to have the right answers from the right people at their fingertips. I tend to pull this off the shelf when I need to delve into new territory and usually find a workable solution to keep development moving. This only needs to happen once and you recoup the price of the book in time saved from having to develop the solution or find the right pattern for getting the job done..