Loud Dog Links

January 28, 2009

• SEMMYS.org: Honoring Great Search Marketing Content Online
  Wow. I am immediately going to look for "Best Articles" awards for all kinds of topics.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: analytics, onlinemarketing, sem, seo

January 22, 2009

• More Web Design Trends For 2009 (Smashing Magazine)
  The second part of Smashing Magazine's review of design trends, focusing on layouts, visual approaches, and design elements. Word.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: design, designInspiration, patterns, webdesign
• Capture Layers in OSX
  This app lets you capture all your open windows and puts them into a layered PSD file for you. Sounds useful. I could see opening many different pages in a site and using this to collect them all into a file for me.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: design, osx, software

January 21, 2009

• 50 Extremely Useful PHP Tools
  A great list.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: php, programming

January 16, 2009

• 45+ New jQuery Techniques For Good User Experience | Developer's Toolbox | Smashing Magazine
  A great look at the power of jQuery for use in web design elements to make the user experience more interesting and fun.
  by: Jodi Wing | tags: design, jQuery, tips, UserExperience, webdesign
• Explaining the curse of work (New Scientist)
  The New Scientist explores recent research revealing a scientific explanation behind Parkinson's Law that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion."
  by: Josh Orum | tags: economics, interesting

January 15, 2009

• Interview with an Adware Author (philosecurity)
  Matt Knox, a talented Ruby instructor and coder, talks about his early days designing and writing adware for Direct Revenue. (Direct Revenue was sued by Eliot Spitzer in 2006 for allegedly surreptitiously installing adware on millions of computers.)
  by: Josh Orum | tags: interesting, social

January 14, 2009

• jQuery 1.3 and the jQuery Foundation
  I'm a big jQuery fan (at the moment). The jQuery project has joined the Software Freedom Conservancy, which means free jQuery for life.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: javascript, jquery

January 13, 2009

• Userfly - Usability Testing
  This site allows you to record your users actions in a visit. The developer in me marvels at the insight this could provide. The Internet users in me gets the creeps. If I were to ever implement this tool, I would be sure to clearly notify the user, and provide an opt-out (or opt-in).
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: testing, usability
• 10 Useful Web Application Interface Techniques
  I find myself reading articles like these and thinking to myself, "I know all of these." But then I realize that I often forget about them just when I need them. It is good to keep lists like this handy when the time of need arises.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: design

January 12, 2009

• How to: Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet for Any Topic (ReadWriteWeb)
  Wow, this describes a really great research tool. I will immediately begin using this method.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: howto, resources, tools
• Willard Wigan, micro sculptor (YouTube)
  This guy makes very very very tiny sculptures - statues that fit on the head of a pin, or within the eye of a needle. I expected them to be pretty bluntly done, but they are surprisingly detailed. Fascinating stuff.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: interesting

January 9, 2009

• Push Your Web Design Into The Future With CSS3 | CSS | Smashing Magazine
  A nice little article describing some of the sophisticated techniques/capabilities of CSS3 already being used on bleeding edge websites.
  by: Martin Ferrini | tags: code, css, css3, design, development, inspiration, style, Web, webdesign, webdev
• Amazon's New Management Console Makes Setting up a Server in the Cloud Easy
  I am going to have to start paying closer attention to this. Cloud servers may be becoming a more viable option for our clients.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: programming
• The Programmer's Delima: When and How to Refactor your Codebase
  I frequently wrestle with my inner need to improve without reason.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: programming
• Design View / Andy Rutledge - Gestalt Principles of Perception: 1 - Figure Ground Relationships
  Andy Rutledge explores one of our favorite design principles - distinguishing the figure from the background.
  by: Jodi Wing | tags: design, web-design, webdesign
• Using Visualization to Optimize Adwords: Time Series Visuals vs the Pivot Table (FlowingData via Ann Smith)
  Using Excel to augment Google's current analysis tools.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: adwords, analytics

January 8, 2009

• CSS Fun: Flag Deprecated HTML Tags
  I thought this was a fun article.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: css
• jQuery pageSlide
  This effect makes a great admin panel. I'll definitely putting it in my bag of tricks.
  by: Matt DeClaire | tags: design, javascript, jquery

January 7, 2009

• Why the Obama "Brand" Is Working (Newsweek)
  This is an old article, but I'm linking to it because it emphasizes the importance of consistent branding, and the fact that when it comes to branding, as with most things, the details really matter.
  by: Josh Orum | tags: branding, design, marketing