October 7, 2012: Weekly Roundup of Web Development and Design Resources

CSS

Master the New CSS Layout Properties: Finally, an easier way to layout out pages. Microsoft’s Thomas Lewis describes and provides code samples for the CSS3 Multi-Column Layout Module, Flexbox Module, and Grid Alignment.
The Code Side of Color: If you’ve ever wondered how hex values work for color, this is the post for you. Good explanation on how small changes to hex values can improve your design.
Better Web Typography in a Few Simple Steps: Choose subsets carefully, pay attention to numbers, don’t fake styles, and use your dashes wisely (one I always seems to forget, hopefully my journalism class will help).
Getting Started with CSS Shaders: What I like about this tutorial from AlteredQualia is that I can quickly jump to the examples and the code, without having to scroll. Good user experience.
Creating Inputs with Perfect Borders and Shadows: In the second post of his CSS series, Ivo Mynttinen walks you through using multiple box shadows to style form input fields. Note: his method works well in modern browsers, but if you need to support older browsers, continue using borders.

10 Online HTML5 Tools For Web Designers: These aren’t applications to create HTML5 markup, rather they use HTML5 in their application. Two useful sites: Online Sprite Box Tool and Online XRay Tool.
Code a Mobile-Friendly HTML5 Video Stream with Multiple Sources: Jake Rocheleau provides code examples, demo, and description of the different video formats in this HTML5 video stream tutorial.

Inspiring UI Wireframe Sketches: After looking at these sketches, my sketches look like a six-year old child did them. Stunning.
Combining Responsive and Adaptive Strategies to Solve Mobile Design Challenges: Read the discussion for Aaron Gustafson’s comment pointing out how adaptive web design uses techniques so the website adapts to the device, which is different from responsive web design, which focuses on layout.
Online UX Courses, Conferences & Presentations: Great resource from UX Mastery of free and paid online courses, conferences and presentations. A good page to bookmark.
Crafting a Mobile App: A UX Design Case Study for Startups: Guest writer Suelyn Yu walks through the development of the Ridejoy iPhone app, the challenges faced and lessons learned. Prototype/test, and iterate, was number one on the list of lessons learned.
Quantifying The Value Of A Promoter: Interesting approach to quantifying the value of a promoter, via survey data.

WordPress Security: Dealing with Today’s Hacks: I always count on Sucuri for the most current info on WordPress security; check out their presentation published yesterday.
Finely Tuned Consultant: Jake Goldman: WPEngine interviews Jake Goldman, president of 10Up, the WordPress company responsible for TechCrunch and many other sites. I met Jake while walking into WordCamp Phoenix this year. I liked his challenging questions about WordPress journalism.
WordPress Plugin: Remove Posts in Category From Homepage: New plugin from David Walsh prevents posts in a given category from displaying on the homepage.

Intro to Accessibility for WordPress: Not a lot here yet, but it’s a start. And WordPress developers are listening, check the comments.
WAVE 5 Beta Launch: New features include a sidebar that allows you to interact with WAVE, color contrast checking based on WCAG 2.0 AA, and more. The feature I like best is the ability to filter results for WCAG 2.0 AA, WCAG 2.0 A, or Section 508.
WAVE Free Webinar: Learn about the new features of the WAVE 5 beta at the webinar held Tuesday, October 9 from 1:00pm to 2:30pm Central Time.
Notes from the Accessibility Summit Conference: Thanks to Kevin Boucher for posting his notes from all the sessions at this year’s Accessibility Summit conference.

How KitchenAid Minimized Its Twitter Damage: Great job at monitoring the KitchenAid brand. What could have been a public relations disaster (caused by an inappropriate tweet posted incorrectly to the KitchenAid Twitter account during the first U.S. Presidential debate) was managed by a quick apology by KitchenAid across social media channels.
Tips for Coding a Solid Frontend Interface in HTML5/CSS3: Another helpful post by Jake Rocheleau on coding sites with tips for validation, browser testing, and keeping documents simple, though I’m not likely to use a single letter for my wrapper container.
The Man Who Invented the Escape Key: Love the backstory: the escape key, created in 1960 by Bob Bemer, an IBM programmer who was trying to solve a Tower of Babel problem.
Giving Our Clients The Best Deal In Mobile: Paul Boag discusses the business issues involved with mobile and responsive sites and questions if we’re making the best business decisions for our clients.