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As you know by now, iOS 5 brought built-in Twitter functionality to the platform, and you no longer need to master third-party frameworks to use Twitter functionality in your apps. The purpose of this tutorial is to get you up and running with this new core framework and to teach you how to tweet predefined text from within your own app as well as how to send the tweet and handle errors.

Part One: Creating the Method

1. First, we need to set up our project, link with the framework and create the actual method that will send your tweet. To do this open up the latest version of Xcode and create a New Project (New – Project…) and select Single View Application. Press Next and give your project a name. In this case I’ll call it Tweeted and you can keep the company identifier the same and the class prefix blank along with all the checkboxes unchecked, and also make sure that device family is the iPhone. Press Next and save your project.

2. Now we have created our project, we’re going to link the Twitter framework with our project. To do this, click the name of your project at the top of the Project Navigation and along the top tabs, click Build Phases. Expand Link Binary With Libraries and press the small “+” in the bottom left.

3. Now, search for “Twitter” and then select the Twitter framework. Press Add. This will add the Twitter framework so you can use it within your project.

Adding the Framework

4. Now with our linked framework, open ViewController.h from within the Project Navigator and add the following line below #import:

#import <Twitter/Twitter.h>

5. Now, in the same file (ViewController.h), we need to define the method we will call to send a tweet, to do this add the following line below the @interface line:

-(IBAction)sendTweet:(id)sender;

6. Now, in the Project Navigator, open up ViewController.m; here we’re going to actually create the method, so under the final curly brace of the -(void)viewDidLoad method, add the following code:

-(IBAction)sendTweet:(id)sender {
TWTweetComposeViewController *twitter = [[TWTweetComposeViewController alloc] init];
[twitter setInitialText:@"Eh up, tweeting directly from within iOS 5."];
[self presentModalViewController:twitter animated:YES];

twitter.completionHandler = ^(TWTweetComposeViewControllerResult result) {
NSString *title = @"Tweet";
NSString *msg;

if (result == TWTweetComposeViewControllerResultCancelled)
msg = @"You bailed on your tweet...";
else if (result == TWTweetComposeViewControllerResultDone)
msg = @"Hurray! Your tweet was tweeted!";

UIAlertView* alertView = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:title message:msg delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:@"Okay" otherButtonTitles:nil];
[alertView show];

[self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
};
}

7. In the above code, you can change the contents of the text within @”…” with the text you would like. For example, you can change @”Eh up, tweeting directly from within iOS 5.” to @”Hello, this is my tweet”. In the above code, we’ve also added some text that will display if the tweet is successful (Hurray! Your tweet was tweeted) and if the tweet doesn’t send, for example, the user presses the cancel button (You bailed on your tweet) – feel free to change this text.

Part Two: Connecting it to Your Interface

1. So far, we have done all the backend work to tweet from within our own application, we’ve added the Twitter framework as well as created the method that will run to send a tweet and now we need to actually hook it up to a button.

2. In the Project Navigator, open up ViewController.xib and open up the Object Library (View – Utilities – Show Object Library) and it will appear in the bottom right of Xcode’s window.

3. Within the Object Library, search for “button” and you’ll be given a variety of results, for this we want a Round Rectangular Button, so drag this to your view. Once you’ve dragged the button to the view, you can now change the size of it and double click it to add some text.

4. On the left of the window, click on the box icon (the File’s Owner) and open up the Connections Inspector (View – Utilities – Show Connections Inspector) and now you’ll see a list of methods associated with your project. Select the circle to the right of the Connections Inspector next to the sendTweet method and drag it to the button you dragged earlier. Release the mouse and click Touch Up Inside.

Making the Connection

5. Now, if you run your application (Cmd + R), you’ll find that your application runs and when you press the button, a tweet dialogue should display.

Tweet Dialogue

Tweet

Part Three (Optional): Configuring the iOS Simulator

1. You can configure the iPhone Simulator with your own Twitter account. With your application running, press the home button on the simulator and open up the Settings app and select Twitter.

2. Here, you can add your own Twitter account so that when you run the application we’ve created, it will tweet successfully from your own account.

Twitter Accounts

The purpose of this tutorial was to help you get familiar with iOS 5’s new Twitter integration. Be aware to run your app only on an iOS 5 device otherwise your app will crash!

Click here to download the source code.

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Getting an application into the App Store is an exciting moment in any developer’s career. Despite the excitement — distributing your application to the App Store and to beta testers can pose somewhat confusing problems for even the most experienced developer — this article aims to point the budding App Store entrepreneur in the right direction to conquer both the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store.

The first thing one should consider — before even thinking about selling an application on any medium — is beta testing your application within a small team of dedicated people that know what they’re talking about.

In my own experience, the hardest part of the whole beta process is actually ‘hiring’ people to test your app. I can guarantee that only about 40% of the people you ‘hire’ will actually provide good, in-depth and useful feedback on your app for every beta release you push out. I have found that the best ways to get people to beta test is to create a simple contact form on a website that you can quickly redirect people to (for example, http://website.com/beta).

But how do I actually get traffic to my beta website? My simple answer to that would be: post about it! I have found Stack Overflow and MacRumors Forums to be particularly useful when it comes to getting people interested in your application.

Once you have a reasonable number of beta testers that have signed up with their information and details, you’re ready to build up your beta team. When you actually come to doing this, you’ll find that you have two options available to yourself.

Option 1

Simple ad-hoc distribution. This option is possibly the least efficient of the two. Ad-hoc distribution is good if all you want is communication via email and don’t want anything too fancy. You simply create a Provisioning Profile in the iOS Dev Center and add your beta tester’s device UDIDs to it. Then archive your application with the Distribution certificate and send out the .ipa application via email and rely on your testers to get back to you with screenshots, crash logs, feedback and comments manually.

As I said, only about 40% of all of your testers will get back to you with good, decent comments. Furthermore, with this method, testers then have to sync their provisioned devices with iTunes and sync the application as if it were any ordinary application.

Option 2

TestFlight. TestFlight has been a godsend to developers. TestFlight requires you to create a Provisioning Profile for all of your device UDIDs and add them to the iOS Portal. You archive the application, but then you upload the build and TestFlight sends out an email to your team, which they’re able open the email on their device and install without even having to connect to iTunes once.

TestFlight is the most efficient method for beta-testing as it provides details on crashes and provides an easy way for people to send feedback and comments. What’s more, TestFlight has recently released an SDK that allows the developer to add checkpoints, push buttons to send feedback and even ask your testers why they chose to do something over something else.

Obviously, TestFlight does indeed take care of all the tedious tasks that come with beta testing and I truly cannot recommend it enough for any developer — however if you do full control when doing a no-frills ad-hoc .ipa distribution then option one is the way forward for as you don’t have to rely on a third-party vendor.

When beta testing I have learnt many, many lessons – some positive, some not so good. I have learnt that even if you have hundreds of beta testers, you should have at least three of your own iOS devices to test your app on to get truly reliable feedback. However, the developer needs to remember that nobody else using your application looks at it the same way you do — it’s like that old cliché: nobody cares about you, as much as you do — this is the same for your apps. I have also learnt that beta testing takes time and you shouldn’t anticipate a reliable and accurate beta testing program if you want to be done with the testing within one week, regardless of the size and complexity of your application. What’s more, I have learnt that, during testing, your beta testers are the most important people in the world – you need to thank them for their ideas and comments constantly as they can potentially stop your application from going into the App Store and simply crashing and burning.

So you’ve successfully completed the somewhat timely process of beta testing your application and you’ve also smashed out some bugs and fixed areas of your application that are prone to crash. You’re officially ready to release version 1.0 of your application on the App Store, be it iOS or Mac.

First things first, you need to actually ‘tell’ Apple that you’re going to be submitting an application to them so that when you submit your application using Xcode or Application Loader, iTunes Connect knows what you’re actually sending.

To start this process, you need to head over to http://itunesconnect.apple.com/ and select Manage Your Applications and then select the Add New App button that’s in the top left corner. Once you’ve done this you need to select what type your app is — either iOS or Mac OS X.

From there, you need to enter your app’s name, your app’s SKU number and your Bundle ID. I have found that the SKU number is somewhat pointless and I have entered numbers that are completely random. The purpose of an SKU number is essentially a number that will identify your application on the App Store and the number you enter will be unique to your application.

Once all of the primary details are correct, then you get to add information that potential customers will see when they browse the App Store. You do get to change the description, screenshots and any URLs once your application is live on the App Store but it’s generally a good idea to get it right prior to submitting your app because your application will be rejected if any of these are incorrect, including broken URLs, false information in your description and/or any misguiding screenshots.

Once you have entered all of your information and details of your application, you need to click Ready for Binary Upload, and you’ll receive an email saying that your application is ready for upload. You need to hop over to Xcode and head to the Organiser, select the Archives toolbar item and select the most recent archive of your application and press Submit.

When you press Submit, you’ll need to sign in and Xcode will validate your application and check that your binary gets the green light from iTunes Connect. Your application will be sent off for review by the App Store review team. Make sure that your app’s version number is correct because, as you can guess, your app will get rejected if the app number doesn’t initially start at 1.0 and if it doesn’t increment with every update.

To recap: you’ve conducted a beta testing program with a team of dedicated, useful and insightful testers for at least a month, you’ve gotten feedback and acted on the feedback, you’ve prepared your application in iTunes Connect and you’ve sent your application for review. Wow, this is really getting serious and within a week you could potentially have a world-wide chart topping application on the App Store.

This is where it gets really interesting. The only hurdle between you and App Store domination is Apple’s app review team and Apple’s app review process.

Once you’ve submitted your application to the App Store, you’ll find that for the majority of the time prior to your App Store release, your application state is ‘Waiting for Review’.

A small side-note, according to some statistics released not that long ago by Apple, you should expect your application to be reviewed within a week. 95% of new apps and 98% of application updates are fully reviewed within 7 days.

After a couple of days have elapsed, you’ll find that the state of your application changes to In Review — this is where all of your hard work can truly pay off; on the other hand, this is where all of your hard work can quickly become a waste of time. In the past, I have had an application rejected within 1 hour and I have had an application in the ‘In Review’ state for about 4 days. In fact, I have an application right now that’s been in review for around 3 days.

If all doesn’t go to plan and your application sadly gets rejected, then the kind folks at Apple provide an in-depth description as to why your application was rejected — as well as any crash logs and anything you should do to get your application accepted next time. Furthermore, if you’re completely stumped as to how to correct a specific problem, you can take advantage of your two free iTunes Technical Support requests. Every developer gets two free support requests and Apple gives you a qualified expect that will help you out with your problem; I personally have only used one technical request within two years because I find the Apple Developer Forums, Stack Overflow and MacRumors Forums to be useful during bug-crunching.

However, if your application gets approved, you’ll find that the state of your application goes from ‘In Review’ to ‘Processing for App Store’ and then at last, ‘Ready for Sale’! That is, of course, providing you have everything in order — you will have to have all of your contracts signed and sorted if you want to get an application on the App Store (even if your app is free).

Having an app on the App Store does make you feel great! You’ve gone from putting your passion into an app to being approved by a notoriously frustrating app review team. However, just because you’ve got an application on the App Store doesn’t mean you can stop worrying about the app! If you want to get good ratings and feedback then you need to listen to your customers. These people have given you their money — the least you can do for them is listen to them.

I try to push out a ground-breaking new feature in my apps every month or two and I ensure that every two weeks I release a minor update, nothing I create is ever truly finished and I always ensure that I keep my projects active. Go ahead and create something amazing and go the extra mile to make each and every one of your customers say wow.

Finally, I would not be where I am without a few resources I’ve found online. Make good use of these:

• Stack Overflow
• Programmers (Stack Overflow)
• iTunes Connect Flow Chart
• iTunes Connect Developer Guide

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Table views are used in a lot of applications for iPhone and iPad and even Mac OS X. Today I’ll be focusing on a table view for iPhone and iPod Touch. A table view is the most popular type of view controller used and they are used to display a list of information that the user can interact with.

For example, a table view could display a list of fruits and then the user would select one of the fruits and a new screen could be displayed telling the user about that certain fruit. Then they could navigate back and choose another fruit.

The purpose of this tutorial is to get you up and running with table views and populate one with some information from, in our case, an array.

1. To begin, we need to start a new Xcode project. In order to get the full flavor of what it takes to make a table view, we’ll create a Single View Application in Xcode (Xcode 4.3) and press Next.

2. Now, we need to give our project a name, for this example I’ll simply call it TableView. It’s popular to leave out any spaces and simply capitalize the start of each word like I’ve done. You don’t need to worry about the company identifier and you can also leave the class prefix blank. Change the device family to iPhone and ensure that none of the check boxes are selected and then press Next.

3. Choose somewhere to save your project and press Save.

4. Now we have a completely functional iPhone and iPod Touch application that, if you press Command + R (Run) it will load and run completely fine within the iOS Simulator. Granted, the application is very boring and doesn’t do anything useful so return back to Xcode.

5. Back in Xcode, you’ll notice that there’s a View Controller (you can see it in the left of your window in the Project Navigator), this is essentially the start of where we’ll add or code to create a table view. There’s three files, ViewController.h (a header file for declarations), ViewController.m (an implementation file to give our view controller the ability to perform methods and what not) and finally ViewController.xib (an interface file where can drag interface elements onto our view).

6. Open up ViewController.xib and in the bottom right-hand corner, you’ll notice a little area called the Object Library (if you cannot see it, you can bring it up by going to View – Utilities – Show Object Library), in the search field at the bottom of the library, type in “Table View” and you’ll see a number of results. For this tutorial we need the one called Table View, click and drag it to your view. Now, we’ve created a table view and positioned it on our view but the table view doesn’t have anything to display and doesn’t know what to show.

7. Now, we need to specify where the data for our table view is stored and where it’s being managed and initialized. Select the table view on your view and go to the Connections Inspector in the top right-hand corner (the sixth tab) or go to View – Utilities – Show Connections Inspector.

8. Now, in the connections inspector, select the circle towards the right of the screen next to dataSource and drag it to the File’s Owner located on the left and let go. Congratulations! You’ve just made a connection between the table view and your ViewController. Now, do the same but for the delegate connection underneath dataSource, once again, drag it to File’s Owner. You should now have two connections.

9. We’ve linked the table view to the ViewController but we haven’t actually added any code to our ViewController so, in the Project Navigator, open up ViewController.h and now link it as table view datasource and delegate and also declare an array, see the image below:

Your file should look like (click the image to see it full size):

You might be asking: what’s the NSArray *dataArray; part mean? Well, an array is essentially a collection of things and we’ll be using dataArray to store the data that will be displayed within our table view.

10. Now, we need to head over to ViewController.m and add some information and code to make the table view actually populate with some data. Add the following code to ViewController.m underneath the -(void)viewDidLoad method:

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil {
self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
if (self) {
self.title = NSLocalizedString(@"Fruits", @"Fruits");

dataArray = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:
@"Apple",
@"Banana",
@"Dragon Fruit",
@"Grapefruit",
@"Lilikoi",
@"Mango",
@"Pineapple",
@"Raspberry",
@"Strawberry",
nil];
}
return self;
}

- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
return 1;
}

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section {
return [dataArray count];
}

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell";

UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
if (cell == nil) {
cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease];
cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryDisclosureIndicator;
}

cell.textLabel.text = [dataArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
return cell;
}

And ViewController.m such look similar to:

What we’ve done here is we’ve initialized an array: dataArray = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects… and populated it with objects (the fruits). Then we’ve called a method to determine how many rows we should have, in our case it’s the same amount of rows as items within the dataArray and we’ve essentially set up the table view to display our content and also set the table view to look like the default style provided by Apple.

11. If you press Command + R, you’ll find that our table view now contains our fruits and is populated with data. Congratulations, you’ve successfully set up a table view!

Here we’ve gotten to know some of Xcode’s libraries and inspectors as well as got to grips to create a simple table view that displays and populates with data that we have created from an array. You can now go on to more advanced table view programming topic such as pushing another view controller when the user taps a row within the table view to display a detail view.

Click here to download the source files.

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As Apple explains it, storyboarding enables you to use Interface Builder to specify not only all the screens in your application, but the transitions between them and the controls used to trigger the transitions. Thus you can lay out every possible path through your application graphically, greatly reducing the amount of code you need to write for a complex multiscreen application.

So, in this tutorial, we’ll be creating a tab bar application that contains two tabs using the Xcode’s wondrous new Storyboard feature. Without further ado, fire up Xcode and create a New Project. Select a Single View Application and give it any name you wish; for this tutorial, I’ll call it StoryboardTabBar and also ensure that ‘Use Storyboard’ and ‘Use Automatic Reference Counting’ are selected and save it somewhere where you can easily find it.

Xcode's New Project Window

Right now, you have setup an application that contains one view controller and therefore one view as you also have an project that contains a Storyboard but at this moment, it only displays your single view meaning that we now have to create a new view controller so that we can add another tab; so do this by going to File – New – New File and selecting a UIViewController subclass and giving it a name of ViewController2 with a subclass of UIViewController and ensure that ‘Targeted for iPad’ and ‘With XIB for user interface’ are both unchecked and add it to your project. Now, you have two view controllers however ViewController2 doesn’t actually do anything now so we need to ‘associate’ it with a view.

Creating a New View Controller

To do this, we need to go ahead and open up MainStoryboard.storyboard in the Project Navigator and it should contain just one simple view controller (ViewController). The beauty of Storyboards is that you can simply select the current view and go to Editor – Embed In – Tab Bar Controller. What this does is it adds the view to a tab bar controller meaning you’ve successfully created a tab bar application however it only contains one tab and we need to create another tab, so to do this we need to open up the Object Library and search for a View Controller and drag that to your scene/canvas.

Embedding a Tab Bar Controller

Adding a Secondary View Controller

Now, we have another view in our Storyboard however it’s not a subclass of ViewController2 so, to the Identity Inspector to the right of Xcode with the view controller selected and give it a class of ViewController2. So, you’ve successfully given your view a class of ViewController2 but it still doesn’t actually appear within the tab bar.

To add the new view controller to the tab bar, you simply Control + click and drag from the tab bar controller to the new view and they will form a ‘relationship’ and a new tab will appear that will display the view of ViewController2 and then select ‘Relationship – viewControllers’ from the HUD that appears once you release your mouse from the drag and as if by magic, you’ll see a new tab within the tab bar controller! Now, to make sure that each tab corresponds to the correct view, add a Label from the Object Library into each view and insert something unique to that view in each label.

Creating a Relationship

To make sure that everything is working correctly, Run the application in the iOS Simulator (5.0) and you should see that each tab corresponds to the correct view! Sadly, both of the tabs at the bottom look pretty sad and boring so let’s spice them up with icons and a name! Return to Xcode and open the Storyboard back up if it closed.

Two View Controller's Within a Tab Bar Application

Select the first view and at the bottom there should be a tab bar with just one item in it, double click the ‘Item’ text and you will be able to give it a name so go ahead and name it anything you like and do the same for the second view controller. Now, we can add an icon so you can head over to a website like Glyphish and download some pretty kickin’ icons from there that you’re able to use within your application, for this tutorial, I’m using alternative icons from App Bits – world.png and delivery.png. Add these to your project by going to File – Add Files to “StoryboardTabBar” and add the files to your project. Once the icons are added, double icon the icon within the tab bar of the view controller and then within the Attributes Inspector, select your image from the drop down menu and do the same for the second view and now if you are to run your application, you will see that the tabs have names but also include icons too!

Adding a Tab Icon

In this tutorial, you have successful set up a tab bar application and added two views to it, all by using Xcode’s new Storyboard feature. Now, you can use the view controllers to add content to your views as well as customize their behavior. Without Storyboards, this would’ve taken a lot longer to complete and achieve the same outcome – regardless of whether or not you did it using Xcode’s visual interface building tool or by code.

Final Tab One

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With front-end design getting more and more attention in web development these days, it’s not a wonder that the two are beginning to meld into one. It is crucial to maintain consistency and efficiency in web projects and Sass/Compass tackles this head on. In geek speak, Sass is a meta language integrated with CSS that makes stylesheets more manageable and less repetitive. This simply means you can create CSS without copying and pasting and having to constantly search for previous style references.

The beauty of implementing Sass/Compass is that the learning barrier is low and only requires general knowledge of CSS. It can be utilized in existing popular CSS frameworks because it actually compiles to CSS. Sass stands for Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets and it will create mixins, set variables, do math when necessary and much more. Compass is the open-source CSS authoring framework where you can write Sass.

Below we have included 35 resources for you to become introduced as well as an expert on Sass/Compass. After reviewing these resources, you’ll be able to make the Internet prettier in less time. Enjoy!

Articles, Opinion and General Information

• Getting Started with Sass and Compass

• CSS is for Suckers. An Introduction to Sass & Compass
• Authoring Stylesheets with Compass and Sass
• The Sass Way Guides
• The Sass Way Beginner

• The Sass Way Advanced

Tutorials

• Using Compass and Sass for CSS in your Next Project

• Improve your Responsive Design Workflow with Sass
• Using Sass and Compass for Managing CSS in WordPress
• Using Compass and SASS in a Java Project
• Using Compass and SASS to Generate Skinr Styles

Podcasts and Videos

• Intro to Compass/Sass
• SASS and Compass for Web Designers: Introduction
• Responsive Sass, Awkward Hugs

• Faster Color Theming With Compass and Sass
• Less is less: Introduction to Compass & Sass
• Creating Unobtrusive Stylesheets Using Compass and Sass
• Chris Eppstein talks with Engine Yard about Compass and SASS
• SASS and Compass for Web Designers: Building a Theme
• SASS and Compass for Web Designers: Grids and Sprites

• Finding love in Sass and Susy with a Compass

Books

• Sass and Compass in Action
• Pragmatic Guide to Sass

Groups

• Compass
• The Sass Way
• The Sass Way on Google +

Apps, Frameworks and Tools

• Compass.app
• Scout App
• Compass, SASS and SCSS support for Grails
• Sass for Wordpress
• Zurb Foundation

Who’s Using It

• Heroku
• BusyConf
• JumpstartLab

• Pure Charity

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We’re in a time that’s more politically correct than we’ve ever been before. Sometimes for the greater good and sometimes as part of an epidemic of overreaction, we go to great lengths to keep our language bland and boring out of fear of inadvertently offending someone.

Then there are times — the hundreds of years of abuse that shaped our culture of political correctness — when we really do go too far. History doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the way that women, people from various ethnic groups, and others have been treated by whichever group was in the dominant position of the time.

There was the Sqoot drama a little over a week ago, when the company advertised beer-fetching women as one of the perks of their event. They copped a hiding (and rightly so) from the technology community, though as a small startup figuring it all out, it was unfortunate to see little forgiveness after they offered their apologies and promised to do better.

The Ruby community has kept its sense of humor. We’ve done some digging and found that there’s a whole lot of strangely named Ruby gems out there. Whether these are funny, offensive or neutrally unusual, we’ll leave up to you: don’t shoot the messenger.

Drugs

Apparently, Ruby developers love their drugs. There are a range of gems with names inspired by various pharmaceuticals and narcotics:

• Cocaine is a command line library.
• Valium is for accessing attribute values without instantiating ActiveRecord objects.
• Cannabis is a permissions gem.
• Crack is a JSON and XML parsing library.

In a surprising instance of a strange name matching the purpose of the gem, Psychedelic is a syntax colorizer library for Ruby.

Sex

There are a surprising number of gems named after things with various levels of sexuality to them. At this point you just know someone, somewhere is going to get offended, so if you’re prone to writing angry comments, you might want to stop reading here.

• Polyamory is a tool that can run test files regardless of the testing framework being used. As the documentation says, “Polyamory loves all of your testing frameworks.”
• Girlfriend is an “installable, upgradeable and removable girlfriend” that runs in Ruby, and as such is one of the better examples of how a career in code can simultaneously destroy your sex life and your sanity.
• Womanizer is a JavaScript and XML formatter.
• Tranny is a hash transformer. The author has claimed that tranny was an innocent shortening of transformation.
• Lolita is a Rails CMS, and also a term for a generally underage girl who is attractive and/or seductive.
• Ball_gag validates user input using pluggable back-ends.
• Trollop is a command line option parser.

Sometimes these are funny (particularly things like Polyamory, since it fits the bill) — but is disturbing to note the frequency with which rather degrading names for women are used.

Rock & Roll

We couldn’t give you sex and drugs and fail to provide the rock and roll. It seems your favorite Ruby developers felt the same way.

• Rockstar is a Last.fm scrobbler gem.
• Sinatra is for creating web apps in Ruby with minimal effort.
• Ratpack plays on the Sinatra theme, and is a set of view helpers for Sinatra.
• Musical is a tool for turning songs from music DVDs into wav files in your iTunes library.
• Harmony is for executing JavaScript and DOM code in Ruby.
• Jazz provides support for running JavaScript specs written using frameworks such as Jasmine under env.js.
• Piano is a Sinatra server for website sketching.

Many of these are clearly harmless. Many aren’t so much. Are there any gems in this list you’d avoid in favor of a potentially less useful solution just because of the name?

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Today I had the pleasure of receiving one of the latest books from Wiley, HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites. The bottom line, quite simply, is that this book breaks the mold for technology books and is stunningly beautiful and engaging.

The book is a hair under 500 pages long and is printed in full color. From the front cover through to the last page, HTML & CSS is expertly designed and incessantly attractive. If you’re a hardcore software engineer who hasn’t left the terminal in decades and claim not to care about things like design… well, this book will prove you wrong. The color coding throughout the book helpfully differentiates between various types of code, and makes it easy to tell what you’re looking at.

The approach to language in the book is refreshing. Too many technology manuals, guides and textbooks take a stuffy, academic tone as if to assure the reader the authors are serious programmers. HTML & CSS certainly wasn’t written in an unprofessional voice, but it is easy to read, simple, concise and errs on the side of warmth.

The content is up to date, covering a range of HTML5 and CSS3 features. The book is quite appropriate for beginners, starting with the simplest of HTML and CSS markup — and even a primer on how the Internet works — all the way up to new toys like box-shadow. There’s also some good discussion of design process.

Speaking of the primer on how the Internet works, the book is full of full-spread infographics like the one in the image below. Not only do they look great, but they break up the experience so you’re always looking at something new.

I don’t consider myself too shabby at HTML and CSS, but I’ll certainly be giving this book a more thorough read, even if it is just as a refresher and to admire the fantastic design work within its pages.

You can find out where to acquire HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites in your country on the book’s website.

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You’ve spent the last few weeks, months or even years slaving away on your newest web app. You’re convinced that this project is the one: it’ll win the hearts and minds of everyone who gives it a shot, and stands a real chance of taking off.

But you know that in order to get people to stick around a take a serious look, your app needs to look good. A developer’s design skills won’t do the trick, and you know you need to outsource your project’s front-end designer. But you don’t know many designers, and the one you do know — who sits over the way at that startup you work for — you’ve alienated by making fun of the polka dot teapot he keeps at his desk. What do you do next?

Direct Hire

This is probably the most common approach: a developer, or anyone else needing a designer, uses Google, social media and other avenues to find designers on the web. They look through hundreds of portfolios, make a shortlist, and reach out to the select few for a quote. Particularly if you’re after a specific style of design, which some designers will be better at than others, this approach leaves the least to chance.

Job Boards

Job boards are a great way to get designers pitching to you. Instead of scouring the web, filtering what you find and creating a shortlist, you can sit back, watch the applications come in and stick to filtering and shortlisting. Scouring sure does take a lot of time, and if you’ve not fixated on a certain style for your site, you can be open to looking at the variety of portfolios and specialties that are pitched to you.

This is also a great way to find unknown designers, many of whom are vastly talented but much cheaper than those who’ve done their years and built a strong reputation. A few job boards where you can find designers include Authentic Jobs, 37signals Jobs, FreelanceSwitch Job Board and DesignCrowd Jobs.

Job Bidding Sites

Job bidding sites are essentially places where you post a job brief and freelancers belong to the site pitch you on price, ability, experience and their rating on that marketplace. The pitches are visible to other users, making the process highly competitive.

This drives the price down substantially, but this often means more established designers don’t use these services as they can’t compete on those prices — be careful to check out each applicant’s previous work to ensure that it looks good. If you’re not going to slice and dice the design into front-end code yourself, grab sneak a look at the source for one of their sites in your browser to make sure they’ve got solid enough skills.

Job bidding sites include Elance and Guru.

Crowdsource It

If you’ve got a limited budget, crowdsourcing is probably the best way to get some decent design work done. While with traditional designers, you’ll work one-on-one to develop one or two mockups from which you’ll make a selection to go ahead with, with crowdsourcing you have less one-on-one but pay a reasonable fee and get to select from a whole range of options. If you want to ensure that designers whose work you don’t select are appreciated for their pitch, go with DesignCrowd, which gives participation payments to unsuccessful entrants.

Partnerships

If you’re a serial developer, always coming up with new ideas for web apps and banging them out, you might want to think about finding a designer whose work you love, building a good relationship with them and partnering up on new ideas with some sort of equity or revenue split agreement. This can be time consuming as you need to find a designer who you’re willing to work closely with for the long-term, and you also need to build enough of a relationship and prove your development skills so that they’re willing to enter into this kind of arrangement.

As a budding entrepreneur, you need good design, and you need it within your limited budget. These methods will get that for you in a way that’s fair to everyone. Good luck!

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Feel like the sites you’ve been putting together are a bit bland and need some more color and motion? Despite the incredible advances in CSS3 and HTML5 we’ve been seeing in recent times, sometimes a grab bag of JavaScript plugins that can do the trick is useful to have on hand. Here are ten items you might like to put in your library.

Hyphenator

Going for that traditional book look with your website? Without hyphenation, which isn’t supported by CSS, that can be tricky! Fortunately, Hyphenator makes the process as simple as using justified text alignment and installing this script.

jFormer

Want to easily create aesthetically pleasing forms that can be processed without a page reload and that validate client-side and server-side, that can be saved and resumed later and much more, all without you having to dive into do-it-yourself AJAX? jFormer takes care of everything for you, and makes the process of filling out forms much easier for your user.

liteAccordion

Regular jQuery sliders are pretty useful, but liteAccordion looks great and provides an effect somewhat different to the typical slider that’s plastered all over the Internet. Well worth a look if you need to place some featured content in prime position without submitting to the cliches.

arbor.js

Need to display graph visualizations or things like mind maps on your site and don’t want to resort to static old images? arbor.js is a graph visualization library built with jQuery that allows you to draw graphs and other abstractions with canvas, SVG or HTML elements.

jNotify

If your web app or site needs notifications, jNotify has a tasteful way to present them by appearing at the top of the page until they fade out after a set time period or are dismissed by the user. The user will be sure to see these notifications but they won’t get in the way of what they came to your site to do.

Website Tour

If your web app or service could use a tour to guide the user the first time around, Website Tour is the jQuery plugin for you. By either clicking through the tour using next and back buttons or going through a timed tour, you can introduce new users to your sites features more effectively than ever before.

Reveal

Modal windows come in handy in all sorts of scenarios in web design and development, and if you’re going to use a plugin from anyone, ZURB are the best interaction designers on the planet. Fortunately for you, they offer their Reveal modal window plugin free to anyone with a great default look and customizability.

Galleriffic

Galleries can be a UI pain point for users when done poorly, and they often are. When you’ve got more than three or four images for a user to browse through, you need a gallery that’s fast and easy to navigate and doesn’t require you to open 50 images in new tabs just so you can cycle through them quickly. Galleriffic allows you to do just that in a range of different configurations.

jQuery UI

You use jQuery to save a heap of time when it comes to JavaScript development for your site. Why not use jQuery’s own jQuery UI library to save even more time getting basic UI elements in place? This library contains patterns for interaction (dragging and dropping, for example), widgets such as progress bars and autocompletion, animated transitions and effects, theming, and much more.

jCapslide

Well-styled captions do a lot to give a site an air of credibility, given that most people are used to seeing image captions in traditional newspapers and publications and not as much online. You can achieve great captions using CSS, but jCapslide makes it easy to create captions that slide up into view on rollover with customizable transitions.

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Rumors that Apple has been working on a television set have been going for quite some time. The fire was stoked on the release of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, in which Jobs declares that he “finally cracked it” — referring to television user interfaces — and again in the past week after DigiTimes claimed the company was working on a summer 2012 timeline with 32″ and 37″ models (at those sizes, I hope DigiTimes is wrong — their track record is hit and miss).

The current Apple TV, a fantastic product but not a television set in itself, runs a version of iOS that has no support for third-party App Store applications. In the last few months, we’ve had the smallest taste of what apps on an iOS TV platform could do with the introduction of AirPlay, which allows an iPad to serve as a controller, serving up the control interface on the tablet and another view on the television.

We can assume that a fully-fledged television set from Apple, with the interface Jobs says he finally perfected before his death, will do what the iPhone 3G did for third-party developers and allow applications on the platform. But just what exactly is it that we can look forward to? What innovative ideas will take root on Apple’s television platform in ways that could be significantly different from the apps present on existing iOS devices?

Gaming

With AirPlay, some of the most interesting developments have been in the gaming world. When the feature was announced in June, I wondered about the potential that could be unlocked by using iOS devices as controllers for console-like gaming, with many parallels to the upcoming Wii U. The big question is: will AirPlay setups eventually dent console sales as much as devices like the iPhone and iPad have put a dent in sales of dedicated mobile gaming devices like the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS?

The iPad is a pretty great mobile gaming device but the current Apple TV is decidedly underpowered; it still can’t run 1080p video content, which is at this stage otherwise pretty ubiquitous. It pretty much goes without saying that the iTV would run 1080p video and there’s a good chance it would have the guts to run apps with 3D graphics of some quality if Apple has any plans to let developers near it.

With a television that can handle high-definition graphics processing and an iOS controller that can change to suit any game, I’d say this is one area that independent and big name studios alike will have a field day in. I don’t believe it would take serious gamers away from the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation but I can see the Wii losing market share.

Education

I’m not a fan of straight up educational video, and I’m not a huge fan of audio teaching either. I love learning using web apps or the reflective nature of learning via text where you can pause and think about certain concepts or lines, or the passive, reactionary mode of learning through video — which pretends to be more like classroom experiences where the teacher can interact with the students but is really anything but.

We’ve had heaps of great apps on computers, tablets and mobile devices for learning new skills, such as the plethora of language-learning apps that have been selling in droves since before the Internet was a common household utility, but I think an iTV running iOS, using voice or other iOS devices as an input, could make for a great learning environment in your living room.

Imagine, for example, pulling up guitar tablature on your iPad while watching the technique in practice, in real-time on the TV, and being able to quickly pull up related instruction — for instance, if there’s a pinch harmonic in the song you’re learning but you’re not sure of the technique, you can keep the context — the tablature for the song — on the tablet and learn the technique from the video instruction on the big screen; you wouldn’t have to leave the current exercise to learn prerequisite techniques as you went along.

As the Siri technologies of voice recognition and intelligent processing get more advanced it’s exciting to think about what teacher-student interactions our devices could emulate in the future.

Fitness

For longer than I can remember, aerobics on the beach has dominated early morning TV. One of the most popular product categories inspired by the Xbox Kinect is fitness gaming, with titles such as Zumba — which appeals primarily to women, not the Xbox’s traditional demographic — selling insanely well, along with other strong performers like UFC Personal Trainer.

It’s clear that, for those who can’t find, get to or afford fitness groups in their area, or are just taking baby steps off the couch, the television is a great facilitator of beginner exercise. I can see iOS developers building programs much like those seen on TV but that offer the user complete customization over their workouts, and integrated ways to track and graph things like weight loss and gain and logging of food consumption.

Where Xbox fitness titles can be pretty gimmicky, I can see iOS developers creating a cohesive system across devices: responsive video training in front of the TV and logging data on the go with the iPad and iPhone.

These are just three of the areas that developers will undoubtedly leap on first if the iTV arrives and if it opens up for App Store submissions. Let us know your own predictions in the comments section.

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Like webfonts, responsive design wasn’t something you heard much about until CSS3 specs started making it into popular browsers. Now, it’s the cool thing to do, and for good reason — it means one site to maintain for all devices. But it’s also a really challenging approach to web design. In this article, we look at 10 tools that’ll help you handle the challenge.

320 and up

Most responsive designs are built with full desktop size in mind and scaled down from there. Andy and Keith Clark, the developers behind 320 and up, believe the opposite approach works best: design for the small screen, and implement the layout working upwards in size. 320 and up contains Media Query increments for five viewport sizes, a vertical grid, preset styles for typography and components from HTML5 Boilerplate.

inuit.css

inuit.css is a HTML5 framework that uses a grid system that scales down to small screens ‘out of the box’. It’s a minimalist approach, giving you just what you need to get started without unnecessary styles, but it’s extensible and there are a range of handy plugins available for it — such as one that creates breadcrumb trails out of ordered lists.

Skeleton

Skeleton is a light collection of CSS and JavaScript files that make designing responsive sites based on the 960px grid easy. Skeleton includes some basic styling and typography presets to get you out of the gate quickly. This project is the brainchild of Dave Gamache, formerly of esteemed UX firm ZURB and now on Twitter’s design team.

Less Framework

Less Framework is a CSS starter with four layouts — default at 992px, and tablet, mobile and wide mobile sizes — based on a grid system and including a selection of typography presets. Because Less Framework is one of the most popular options, there’s a range of supporting tools such as a Rails gem, OmniGraffle stencil and Compass plugin built around Less.

BluCSS

BluCSS is a CSS framework that, as usual, uses a flexible grid to facilitate responsive design. One feature that stands out is its responsive images, something many of these frameworks leave out; apply a class to your images and they’ll scale with your design. No need to include multiple files at multiple sizes, though be wary of unnecessary load on mobile devices with this approach.

Mobile Boilerplate

From the developers behind the famous HTML5 Boilerplate comes Mobile Boilerplate, a responsive template that puts the focus on mobile devices, namely those running Android, iOS, Blackberry and Symbian software. Everything from viewport scaling to HTML5 offline caching to home screen icons are ready to go.

Tiny Fluid Grid

If you find all these CSS frameworks to be too much for your needs, Tiny Fluid Grid may be the alternative you’re looking for. Simply tell it how many columns your grid will need, how big you want your gutters and how wide the site will be, and this site will spit out a responsive fluid grid you can use right away.

Golden Grid System

The Golden Grid System is a 16 column grid that uses a folding method inspired by the DIN paper system to collapse down to 8 columns on tablet-size screens and 4 columns on mobile screens, making it work for designs that range from 240 to 2560 pixels wide. The GGS developers say their folding method is superior to others because the gutters are better at staying in proportion with the content, producing less of a squeezed (or sparse, depending on direction) look.

1140 CSS Grid

The 1140 CSS Grid takes the opposite approach of the 320 and up system. This is primarily aimed at people who really want to design for a wider 1280 pixel screen, and are sick of catering to a 1024 pixel baseline. 1140 CSS Grid allows them to do that while fluidly re-arranging to fit on smaller screens all the way down to mobile.

Respond.js

Even before you start working on a responsive design, you may be worried about visitors using browsers that don’t support media queries, the CSS3 feature that responsive sites depend on. With Respond.js, this problem is easily solved; the script makes min-width and max-width work in Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8, and should work with other browsers lacking support.

Bonus: ZURB Foundation

ZURB’s Foundation is a newer entry among responsive design frameworks, and is one of the most promising, having already won over many users of other frameworks. Billed as an easy-to-use yet powerful framework for building both prototypes and production deployments that work across all kinds of devices, Foundation makes use of a flexible grid, a library of styles and elements for rapid prototyping, and professes to take the pain out of creating layouts for different formats with the same markup.

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The Fuel Network has supported FITC events over the years and today is no different. SCREENS 2011, (formerly known as “FITC Mobile”), now dedicated to mobile, tablet and set top box development. Jam packed with information and a massive networking opportunity, SCREENS consists of presentations, demonstrations and panel discussions. It is one of the only events in the world designed for developers of all platforms of screen content.

• 2 full days of presentations, plus one optional day of pre-conference workshops
• Covering iOS, Android, HTML5 – JQuery Mobile, HP/WebOS, AIR, FLEX, Windows Mobile, as well as marketing and business of apps
• Over 40 presentations and panels covering all aspects of mobile, tablet, and set top box development
• 400+ attendees anticipated from around the world
• Evening networking event

The Details

Developing for Mobile, tablets, and more
November 14-15, 2011
Toronto, Ontario Canada
Event website link

The Venue

Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC)
North Building (255 Front street west), Toronto, Ontario Canada

Confirmed Speakers

• Alex Kennberg
• Bob Burns
• Brady Gilchrist
• Chuck Freedman
• Darren Osadchuk
• Erik Von Harten
• Greg Carron
• Julian Dolce
• Kevin Suttle
• Marin Alejandro
• Martin Dufort
• Matt Fisher
• Matt Rix
• Matthew Patience
• Mikko Haapoja
• Pearl Chen
• Peter Nitsch
• R Blank
• Renaun Erickson
• Ryan Creighton
• Scott Janousek
• Timothy Quinn

Topics

Android OS • App Success • BlackBerry Tablet OS • Corona SDK • Designing for Mobile • Mobile Marketing • Digital Home • Grand Central Dispatch and Blocks • iOS • jQuery Mobile • Managing Mobile Projects • Metro • Microsoft Stack • HCI • QNX • Thread Management • UI • UX • Windows Phone

Who will be attending SCREENS?

SCREENS is for both current and future developers of mobile, tablet and set top box content. The program caters to beginners, intermediate and advanced programmers. While most of the topics will be technical in nature, they will include coverage of usability and design considerations for these platforms. They will also cover how to monetize app content, what the market looks like, and how to market your product and services.

Companies represented at SCREENS 2011 include:

Microsoft • Adobe • HP • Wavefront • Indusblue • QNX • Mobicartel • Ludicrous Software • Jam3 Media • Bestbuy • WhereCloud Inc • Almer/Blank • Transcontinental Interactive • Teehan + Lax • Canadian Film Center • WhereCloud Inc.

Pricing & Fuel Discount

Festival ticket prices range from $199-$499
Festival + Workshop ticket prices range from $249-$299
Student Festival ticket prices range from $99-$229

All tickets include coffee, snacks, evening events and an event grab bag.

Discount code ‘Fuel’ provides 10% off any SCREENS 2011 tickets.
The super early bird deadline is August 26^th

Full ticket details here.

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I recently had the opportunity to get an inside look at a graduating class from Full Sail University. Future Coders may be a little misleading as these students have already been rocking out, but I’m still calling them “The Future” because they are now leaving school and heading out to join the community.

Where They Learned

Admittedly, the initial thought of university based web education had me a little skeptical. As with most things in life, though, proper perspective is achieved by getting a first-hand look instead of judging from afar. I challenge anyone to take a walk around the Full Sail Campus and not drop your jaw. In a city hosting Disney World, it approaches a Campus layout with the same level of awe inspiring detail. My wife joined me for the tour and said that she would even become a geek like me in order to attend there.

Inspiration is vital and there is no lack of it on this campus. The achievements of past creatives and some fantastic tech are all around the facilities. While these aren’t coding related, being in a space with full video green rooms, amazing sound decks and an ESPN motion capture studio has to be inspiring. The campus is filled with creatives and the feel as you walk around is amazing.

Who they Learned From

These students took the web design and development track, which focuses on Interface Design & Usability, Web Standards, Flash / ActionScript 3.0, Dynamic Back-End Development, leading to a Final Project.

Graduation from the program doesn’t just end with Final Project, though. These students sit down with their teachers and the faculty and discuss the program. They discuss the good and the bad, sharing observations and suggestions for improvement. There was some great data shared in comparing Github’s commit history graphs with their daily schedules. The staff truly listens and engages, it was great to see the process in action. I imagine that this happens with every group, but this particular one seemed as if they could not be ignored. They were extremely impressive.

Their Final Projects

The biggest challenge that I could imagine that there is for the instructors at Full Sail University is letting these awesome students out of their sight. I only got a few short hours with them and I went home wanting to know what they’ll each be doing next. For the time being, though, we’d like to share their Final Projects.

Anthony Colangelo

What did you think of Full Sail University?

I absolutely loved Full Sail University. The community is so vibrant, the teachers are all brilliant and truly amazing teachers, and all of the people around here are awesome people to be around. They’re all smart, passionate, and driven, which inspires you and makes you push yourself harder. I cannot convey my love for this school and these people enough.

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

For our final project, we built WDD Social (http://wddsocial.com), which is a social network for the Full Sail web community (teachers, students, and alumni). It is a great way for the community to meet, share projects and industry information, and to stay connected. It is also a great way for the outside world, especially industry professionals and future employers, to see what the community has to offer.

We built it because, after going through the degree, we realized this is something that has been missing from the community and it is something that would make the community better as a whole.

We built the front-end of WDD Social with HTML5, CSS 3, and jQuery 1.6. On the back-end, we built a custom PHP 5.3 framework, called Framework5, and a MySQL database.

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

The teachers that stood out to me were Jason Madsen (@jason_madsen, now the Program Director, formerly the Object-oriented Programming teacher) and Rick Osborne (@rickosborneorg, now Department Chair, formerly server-side language and database teacher). They both are so smart, passionate, and hardworking that it truly inspired me to work extremely hard. They really taught me a lot, and I will always go back to them for advice and insight as I move on in my career.

Follow Anthony @antcolangelo

Alicia Brooks

What did you think of Full Sail University?

Full Sail University was by far the greatest choice I could have made. I absolutely love the fast pace and realistic structure. The accelerated program keeps you on your feet, working hard, and out into the world so much sooner. I feel that it really did prepare me for my upcoming career.

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

 
I built my final project, supportmymission.org because I wanted to help people through my web skills. Supportmymission is a non-profit that makes raising funds for mission’s trips easier. It allows users to share their mission with everyone online rather than being limited to the people they know. I used a lot of technologies but the main one was CakePHP, learning a framework was something I wanted to accomplish before graduating.

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

 
I have to say that every teacher at Full Sail is awesome, they are all experienced and all always willing to help you advance your skill set. I would have to say that Brandon Brown (@bybrandonbrown) and Marianne Sheldon (@marianneSheldon) definitely stood out to me. I asked them so many questions during final project. They were always willing and open to make time for anything I needed. I really appreciated that!

Follow Alicia @aliciaj_

Oliver Lacan

What did you think of Full Sail University?

I loved nearly every minute of it.

I mastered more in two years than I’ve managed to teach myself in ten: vector drawing, user experience & usability concepts, basic animation, object-oriented programming, server-side dev, relational and NoSQL databases, web standards & accessibility, mobile dev, and the all-essential production process. I’ve met good, passionate and driven people, both on the teacher and student side.

New classes each month meant that we never got stale information, curriculums evolve month-to-month. It also made it hard to get sick of a topic for which you had no affinity.

What is your Final Project?

My final project at Full Sail is called Roomies. It’s a web application that offers task and expense management for roommates with busy schedules. It incentivizes collaboration and good relationships by rewarding participation and assignment completion.

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

We wanted to make tedious house-related group tasks and expenses less painful and stressful. The idea had been in the back of my mind since the fall of 2009 when I met Andrew Smith, another Full Sail web student, on Twitter and realized he had a very similar idea. We wanted it to exist too badly.

To build Roomies we used Ruby on Rails (a first at Full Sail). We became familiar with it while working on cleverCode, a tiny company we founded six months into our degree with my classmate Zach Nicoll. Andrew, who joined us in early 2010, introduced us to RoR and I started actively teaching myself how to use the framework six months before our final project.

After we discovered CouchDB at Full Sail, Andrew showed me the MongoDB document-oriented database. The excellent integration with Rails through the Mongoid ODM made us decide to use it on Roomies instead of classical SQL.

We also used CoffeeScript, Sass, Haml, and Compass to speed up and clean up our development process as much as we could since we had less than 2 months of active development time.

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

All teachers at Full Sail have one great quality, they constantly evolve. They’re encouraged to freelance by the faculty which means they’re always learning new techniques and eager to pass them on to us.

Chris Burke & Gus Hernandez – Web Interface & Usability / Applied Design Tools & Interfaces: Those two classes are the crux of the user experience, usability and web design knowledge we received. Both spectacular courses taught by two guys who will not wear gloves to smack you down if you don’t apply critical thinking and logic when designing an interface. In a field where people give to much credit to aesthetics, I can’t overstate how crucial this was.

Concepts of Object-oriented Programming: As a non-programmer when I started Full Sail, I struggled through the first ActionScript class there. After Sean Bernath ( @sbernath managed to help me “get” programming, Jason Madsen was the guy who carried me through the “OOP revelation” faster than I had ever imagined possible. His skill at breaking down intimidating concepts into simple metaphors and challenging exercises made me fall in love with coding, and bear in mind this was AS3 & Flash. The fact that he went on to become the Program Director at Full Sail Web makes me extremely confident regarding the degree’s future.

Advanced Server-side Languages & Advanced Database Structures: I’m still amazed at the in-depth knowledge of database design & management Rick Osborne managed to transmit to us. His push for the use of Git (now widespread in the program), unit testing, and further OOP concepts is why I think grads will be very valuable in the industry.

The jQuery class with Mike Smotherman (@codeinfused) made me realize why I had fallen in love with the web (and not applications) in the first place, and get a glimpse at the power of the DOM.

Follow Olivier @olivierlacan

Kent Lassen

What did you think of Full Sail University?

It was an amazing experience. I couldn’t have asked for a better school. It has brought me from my days of coding HTML in tables to today, where I know plenty of languages and how to create amazing websites.

What is your Final Project?

Lightning Owl. It is a web app that allows a person to write and share notes. It is a writer’s management tool.

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

I built this as my final project. It was an idea that I had been thinking about because I was getting into blogging.

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

Jason Madsen, who was one of my flash teachers was amazing. His class was extremely helpful to me when it came to programming. I also think that all of the final project teachers were amazing and helped greatly. Without them, I wouldn’t have been inspired.

Follow Kent @kentlassen

Tyler Matthews

What did you think of Full Sail University?

Full Sail has provided me with an incredible education experience. The curriculum is designed to teach the latest technologies used in various areas of the web, including user interface design, server-side development, as well as production and deployment. The program is also accelerated, which is essential when you consider the fast paced nature of the web, with its ever expanding list of technologies and trends. The most beneficial part of Full Sail was the people I interacted with during the time I spent there. The community of web students and teachers come from a diverse range of technical backgrounds, which provide everyone with various perspectives, methods and techniques.

What is your Final Project?

For my final project, Anthony Colangelo and I built a social network for the web program here at Full Sail. Our site WDD Social (wddsocial.com) is a community for students and teachers to interact and share industry related information. Members can also share projects with the community, which are displayed on their public profile and visible to prospective employers. We also created a job board for current students and alumni, where positions could be posted by community and non-community members. 

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

Early in the program, Anthony and I realized that it was difficult to interact with students throughout the degree. Full Sail has an accelerated approach to education, where classes are typically taken at the rate of two per month. This makes it difficult to meet others throughout the degree, especially those who are more than a few months ahead or behind our group. We realized that a community site could benefit students, while utilizing the technologies we learned during our 21 months here at Full Sail. 

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

I’ve always been fascinated by server-side languages, and feel as if that part of the degree was most beneficial to me. The topics covered provided me with an in-depth understanding of what it takes to develop practical applications in PHP and Coldfusion. The server side courses also covered database topics such as relational database systems, MySQL optimization, and even experience with NoSQL database technologies.

Follow Tyler @tmatthewsdev

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One sign of a developer power tool hitting critical mass is when a wellspring of Graphical User Interfaces explode onto the scene. It looks like Git — the distributed version control system authored by Linus Torvalds — has arrived. It brings with it a bevy of Git clients for Mac OS X.

Some are old, some are shiny new, and some haven’t even officially been released yet. Let’s run them down, shall we?

GitX

GitX may be the oldest of the lot, but this is a powerful and great looking Git client. It features a history viewer, GitHub’s gist integration, and most importantly a great commit interface which allows for easy hunk and single-line commits.

Best of all, it’s totally free & open source! There is a ton of activity on GitHub, most interesting of which is a fork by Brotherbard that adds many experimental features.

Git Tower

Free while still in beta, Git Tower is a commercial application claiming to be “the most powerful Git client for Mac”. Big words, but they’re doing a great job living up to them. Git Tower has a slick interface, a repo manager for easily loading previous projects, remote repo integration, and the list goes on.

Another thing that makes this application special is that they managed to capture FUEL editor Doug Neiner’s ugly mug on the History view screenshot. What are the odds?! :)

Gitbox

Gitbox hosts a bunch of powerful features while maintaining a minimal interface. Anybody who has designed interfaces for software knows how difficult a task that can be.

The app is free for a single repository and $39 for multiple repositories. Its features include single-click operations, automated remote commit fetching, local/remote branches, and external diffing tool integration.

GitMac

We don’t know too much about GitMac since it hasn’t entered its beta stage yet, but its definitely one to keep an eye on as development progresses.

Review

It’s exciting to see the maturation and adoption of a tool as powerful as Git. While graphical interfaces aren’t necessary for us “hardcore developers”, they are really nice for those who could benefit greatly from distributed version control, but have a case of Terminalitis®.

Give these tools a try and be sure to let us know in the comments if we missed any!

Advertise here via BSA

Manoj Sachwani — a contributor here at Fuel Your Coding — is launching a free weekly newsletter just for web developers!

Manoj says there will be just one email each Saturday and absolutely no spam. Right now the newsletter will mostly be sharing valuable links for developers, but he is open to feedback and would love us to help him improve it.

Potential topics include:

AJAX, AS3, ASP, ASP.net, Browsers, CSS,Cappuccino, CoffeeScript, Cold Fusion, Flash, Flex, HTML, HTML5, JavaScript, Media, PHP, Photoshop, Prototype, RSS, Rails and Ruby, SOAP, SQL, SVG, Semantic, WAP, XML, YUI, jQuery,Jobs, & more

Looks like he has something for everybody in that list. If you’re interested head on over to WebDeveloperWeeky.com and subscribe!