June 10, 2009 — As Web developers, we never stop hearing about the Mac. A lot of people love to talk about their Macs, but despite the “elite” status of the Apple computer, is there any need for a Web developer to splash money on one? A few weeks ago, Mark Nutter wrote here on … Read More…

June 9, 2009 — Fluid web designs have many benefits, but only if implemented correctly. With proper technique, a design can be seen correctly on large screens, small screens and even tiny PDA screens. With bad coding structure, however, a fluid layout can be disastrous. Because of this, we … Read More…

June 2, 2009 — The problem has boggled the minds of Web designers for years: fixed, fluid, elastic or a hybrid layout design? Each option has its benefits and disadvantages. But the final decision depends so much on usability that it is not one to be made lightly. So, with all the … Read More…

June 1, 2009 — Regular expressions are an essential part of any programmer’s toolkit. They can be very handy when you need to identify, replace or modify text, words, patterns or characters. In a nutshell: regular expressions (regex) are like a Swiss army knife for modifying strings of … Read More…

May 25, 2009 — This is our sixth installment of Ask SM, featuring reader questions about Web design focusing on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These entries are not all questions, but rather quick Twitter responses to the query, “What has been your most difficult CSS challenge?” … Read More…

May 6, 2009 — Regular expressions (or regex) are a powerful way to traverse large strings in order to find information. They rely on underlying patterns in a string’s structure to work their magic. Unfortunately, simple regular expressions are unable to cope with complex patterns and … Read More…

May 5, 2009 — Magento is a popular open source e-commerce software platform that has a modular architecture and is extremely flexible. It comes with a number of online shop maintenance capabilities. It is also simple to configure and easy to customize. And despite the fact that it was … Read More…

April 28, 2009 — CSS Sprites are not new. In fact, they are a rather well-established technique and have managed to become common practice in Web development. Of course, CSS sprites are not always necessary, but in some situation they can bring significant advantages and improvements – … Read More…

April 22, 2009 — Progressive Enhancement is a powerful methodology that allows Web developers to concentrate on building the best possible websites while balancing the issues inherent in those websites being accessed by multiple unknown user-agents. Progressive Enhancement (PE) is the … Read More…