Posts Tagged ‘developer tools’

TestSize.com – Test Your Site at Multiple Sizes

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Designers have a distorted view of the web. We all have huge monitors and speedy computers and it’s easy to forget that your average web user isn’t always so lucky. Testsize.com is a simple web app that allows you to easily check out how your site will display on monitors of varying size.

To use the site you only have to enter a url, a size, and hit enter. There are shortcuts that allow you to cycle through different sizes, and zoom, but the developers of the app have done a good job of keeping the options minimal and the application simple.

Check out TestSize.com here.

screenshot of test size

Notable – The Easiest Way for Teams to Provide Feedback on Websites

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Notable

Notable is a web and iPhone based service that allows team members to easily share feedback on all aspects of a website. To start a discussion you create a new project called a capture, or a set to hold multiple captures. Captures can be created from a url, by uploading an image, from an iPhone screenshot or from a Firefox Plugin. After creating a capture your team can comment on the page’s design, code, copy or seo. Users can also output the results to a PDF, email, public or private urls.

home

Design

When uploading a jpg, or a capture from a url, Notable creates and stores a full page screenshot of your webpage. Multiple users can create transparent boxes with comments on top of the page giving the designer consolidated visual feedback.

design

Code

Code view is organized by html, css and javascript. You can isolate each source file and highlight lines of code by clicking and filling out a pop-up comment box.

code

Copy

The copy tab removes all graphics and markup from your page and reproduces the page as plain text. Unlike code view, you can highlight individual characters or words for comment.

copy

SEO

The SEO tab analyzes how search engines see your page and only displays relevant content. The left column contains a list of keywords and keyword phrases appearing on your page. The right column breaks down the page by metadata, headers, first 100 words used on the page, bold/strong elements, alt tags and outbound links giving you a thorough view of how a search engine sees your site.

seo

Pricing plans for Notable range from free to $119 a month based on the number of users and the total amount of storage needed. Notable is one of the most thorough site markup tools on the market allowing you to give feedback on site design, code, copy and seo. Pair that with the companion iPhone application and you have a tool that no production team should be without.

Check out Notable here.

Designing iPhone apps using Adobe Flash CS5 and AIR

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Arguably the biggest announcement from Adobe’s MAX conference last week was the (future) ability to create iPhone applications using Flash CS5. There were several sessions that materialized shortly after the announcement, but this session by Arno Gourdol was by far the most useful and practical. Check out the video below.

Four major Facebook Upgrades

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Over the last 24 hours Facebook has made four important announcements. Not shy about going head to head with Apple’s music announcements (or Twitter) they announced Facebook Lite, @replies, a Facebook Desktop Notifier for Mac and Tornado an open source framework for real-time web services.

Facebook Lite

Facebook Lite launched in the US and India, as a scaled down version of the Facebook without the clutter. They have removed everything from the interface except a users stream, profile, events and inbox. Profile pages even more closely resemble Twitter, showing just a status feed and links to wall, info, friends and photos & video. No mafia wars. No zombies. Just an elegant, paired down interface showing you the the basics for communication on Facebook. To check out Facebook Lite, click here.

facebook_lite

@replies

While Facebook Lite is arguably in response to Twitter, the inclusion of @replies in Facebook is an obvious clone. You can now include your friend’s names in your status updates as “@friend name” and Facebook will remove the “@” and link your friend’s name to their profile. The advantage over Twitter is (theoretically) the auto fill feature that Facebook has implemented, that I have yet to see work in Safari. Check out the Facebook blog post on @replies.

Facebook Desktop Notifier for Mac

Facebook has released a beta version of Facebook Notifications for Macs. Facebook Notifications is a desktop application that will alert you to what Facebook calls “interesting ativity. Small, unobtrusive messages will pop-up on your machine to alert you, and you can deep link to important sections of the Facebook site through the app. Get the app (Mac only) here.

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Open Source Friendfeed’s realtime tech

Last, but by no means least, Facebook has opened up a piece of the core technology behind their recent acquisition, FriendFeed. They released Tornado, a real-time web framework written in Python that will allow users to interact with thousands of simultaneous connections at once. You can find out more about the Tornado framework here.

Two great services for Flash Lite developers

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

While building a Flash Lite prototype I stumbled upon two really great resources for developers both by Kuneri, an amazing Flash Lite company based in Finland.

The first is Swf Pack. It’s an online tool that lets you package up a Flash Lite application, assets and icons into a single .sis file that can be installed on Nokia phones. It really eases the development process and makes the installation of Flash Lite applications smooth and easy. 

Swf Pack

The second is an application called Kuneri Lite that allows you to extend the native capabilities of Flash Lite for Nokia phones. It gives you access to things like the accelerometer and camera. Definately worth checking out.

Kuneri Lite

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