Tools & Utilities
Wordle
I didn’t create the image you see to the right here, it was automatically generated by a web app called Wordle. I knew nothing about Wordle until today, but as I was experimenting with the Refresh Columbia intro text, Gray walked up and said “oh. It’s Wordle…” Maybe I’m the only person that didn’t know [...]
Easy Whiteboard Prototyping with GUIMagnets
Ahh. The ubiquitous whiteboard. Nothing is quite as “wide open” as an empty whiteboard. When sketching out your next UI, why not reach for something to make your job a bit easier? These magnets represent various form elements without having to draw them. They would also be very helpful when dealing with clients who don’t [...]
Use Any Font Without Flash
You’ve probably heard of sIFR before - the dynamic javascript/flash combo that allows you to render segments of text on a site in any font. Well, there’s a newer technique called Facelift Image Replacement (or FLIR) that does essentially the same thing using the the PHP GD library. This method still requires javascript, but [...]
Firebug for IE
Firebug Lite 1.2 was released today at OSCON. Those in the web design world no doubt are familiar with the Firefox extension that allows you to manipulate javascript, html, css, and the like from a debugging console. The newest version of Lite 1.2 offers enhanced functionality to non-Firefox browsers. For those suffering through debugging IE [...]
Testing Paragraph Density
TypeTester is a very nifty website that allows you to test what different fonts look like in your browser. Beyond that, though, it allows you to compare the affect of different css effects on your paragraph density. Do I like impact 1.3em with 3px tracking? How does it look with 1px tracking, but .25em wordspacing? [...]
