The first thing they point out is that you really don’t have to read this book from cover to cover. Having said that – I’m glad I did as there was a whole lot of really useful tips that I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise. Continue reading
Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made
The period from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s was an import period for computers, in the span of about 5-7 years an amazing range of technologies became accessible; perhaps the one with the most lasting impact was the nearly universal adoption of the graphical user interface and, while Microsoft eventually brought it to the world, without the Macintosh’s elegant example, it’s difficult to imagine what the dominant user interface would look like today. This book is a collection of stories from some of the people who where there. Continue reading
Drupal User’s Guide: Building and Administering a Successful Drupal-Powered Web Site
A good book for web designers taking Drupal for a test drive. The example projects presented here aren’t too simple to be completely removed from the kinds of websites they are be hoping Drupal will help them build. Continue reading
The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7
A few weeks ago I was listening to a DrupalEasy podcast about the book with lead author Benjamin Melançon. The podcast was aptly named “Epic”, which kind of sums up this two kilo volume that would make Stephen King jealous. As Benjamin points out, he is only one of about 30 authors who have contributed to this 600 page volume. Continue reading
Learning HTML5 Game Programming
Many books on game programming start with a simple game and gradually expand it over the course of the book, or else introduce several mini-games to show different methods. This book doesn’t really do that, it’s more of a tour of different libraries that can be used to build games. Continue reading
Posted in Books, Software Development, Web Design
Tagged Addison Wesley, gaming, HTML5, James L. Williams
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Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web
On seeing this book for the first time, you might be wondering where it fits on the shelf of interface design books that have arrived in the past few years. It’s not a design-pattern book, like Jenifer Tidwell’s Designing Interfaces, or even a nuts-and-bolts book, the kind that gets outdated pretty quickly, rather it’s closer to or Susan Weinschenk’s Neuro Web Design, but focused on solely on user interfaces and a lot more in-depth. Continue reading
Posted in Books, Software, Web Design
Tagged Lukas Mathis, Pragmatic Programme, testing, User Interfaces / UI
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Build Mobile Websites and Apps for Smart Devices
Besides a ton of practical advice, the book focuses on two things: thinking about how the user will use your app and keeping in mind that there are a lot of different types of mobile devices out now and design with that in mind. Continue reading
Posted in Books, Web Design
Tagged Android, BlackBerry, CSS, CSS3, Earle Castledine, HTML5, iPhone, Max Wheeler, Myles Eftos, SitePoint, WebKit
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HTML5 Guidelines for Web Developers
The thing about HTML5 is it’s not CSS3 or whether your browser can play back video without using a Flash plug-in. Instead it’s a set of extensions that will potentially make web applications much more more useful, but today it’s a still a specification in development with different levels of support among browsers. Continue reading
Posted in Books, Web Design
Tagged Addison Wesley, Bernd Öggl, Klaus Förster, Web 2.0, web standards, WebKit
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Joomla! Explained: Your Step-by-Step Guide
Joomla is a content management system that can trace its history back at least to 2005. Currently at version 1.7 it allows users to build websites that display content on the web. if you are familiar with other PHP CMS then it’s closer to Drupal than say WordPress in terms of scope, though it takes it’s own approach in some areas and that’s what Joomla! Explained will teach you. Continue reading
Pro Drupal 7 Development
Now in its 3rd edition, Pro Drupal 7 covers customizing the newest version of the Drupal CMS. The book is 25 chapters starting with the very basics of how Drupal works before proceeding through sections dealing with everything from theming to writing modules, caching and testing among many other topics. Continue reading
