StrangeBanana (http://www.strangebanana.com/generator.aspx) "is a program that creates a random webpage design. The page design you are looking at has never been seen before - it was created programmatically just now. If you want, you can use this design for your own website (in that case you should save it immediately, because when you leave the page, you will never be able to get the same design again)." - uses XHTML and CSS
bruce (thanks Zeldman)
Read MoreWhen the same image is saved in both PNG and GIF formats, in an editor with full and proper support for both formats, the PNG image is typically a smaller file size, is free from royalties, patents, and copyright restrictions that hinder the GIF format, and can use more than 256 colours - up to 48-bit colour. So why don't we use it much? Because support in Internet Explorer is terrible!
Owen Briggs has an on-line petition to Microsoft, requesting proper PNG support in IE/ Windows.
It's here http://www.petitiononline.com/msiepng/petition.html. Why not check it out and sign it?
Ian Lloyd of the Web Standards Project interviews Bruce Lawson (the newest DMXzone team member) about his role in popularising Web Standards and Accessibility at the late lamented glasshaus publishing house. It's at the Accessify site
Bruce joins DMXzone as our Premium Articles editor. He no longer wears his fake moustache.
Read MoreFor Deamweaver professionals looking to become full-time designers, there's often a catch-22 situation; you need a good and varied portfolio of sites you've designed in order to to impress potential clients - but how do you get the portfolio in the first place?
At http://www.interconnection.org/ you can help a not-for-profit organisation in the developing world make a web site they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford, boost your own portfolio, and increase the level of goodness in the world a little bit. Newbie freelancers - get volunteering!
Bruce
Read MoreWe’ve put our ears to the ground and heard the buzz about what's hot in the world of Dreamweaver professionals.
With the new dynamic features of Dreamweaver MX many of us are finding ourselves on the verge of a new era of developing websites. Clients are demanding interactivity with users of their sites, content needs to change on the fly, they need a product catalog and a shop area with secure payment processing, etc. And all this has to conform to the latest web standards.
Read MoreTomorrow is the official kick off of our latest adventure! Let us introduce you to the writers of Wednesday: Robin Dewson and Chris Ullman!
Each article costs just $1.99 to download – making it the cheapest way to learn these vital skills for Dreamweaver professional.
To read more about our Premium Content addition to DMXzone click here
Robin Dewsons first set of articles discuss how to move from Access (or other consumer databases) to SQL Server 2000, when you need its speed, concurrencies security features and scalability.
Then he’ll be teaching how to design a new database from scratch for your new website (using any SQL database implementation) – how to design it for data integrity, efficiency and future expansion.Finally, Robin will be sharing his knowledge of SQL Server 2000 optimisation, performance tuning and iterative database design in order that your site always works the fastest, the best, and kicks your competitors’ butts!
Chris Ullman specialises in writing books for people beginning technologies. He will be writing .NET technologies, particularly ASP.NET (and how to migrate from ‘classic’ ASP), and introducing XML and showing you the practical benefits rather than the headache-inducing theory.
Read MoreWith only 2 days to go until the big event we would like to introduce you to the Tuesday writers: Molly Holzschlag and Matt Machell!
Molly will be writing on the best way for Dreamweaver users to spice up their resumes by learning the latest in cross-browser contemporary markup and design techniques. This is a practical course that makes your documents reusable, faster – generally leaner and meaner!
Matt is the first contributor in our series Idea to implementation, in which we invite real-life designers to design a website to our brief, and they talk us through the various stages of building a web site, taking the core concept and developing it systematically based on client requirements and user expectations. Along the way we'll look at the design decisions that have to be made, and consider aspects of development like usability, information architecture, all the while giving the audience what they want so they come back time and time again.
Each article costs just $1.99 to download – making it the cheapest way to learn these vital skills for Dreamweaver professional.
To read more about our Premium Content addition to DMXzone click here
With 3 days left till kick off to the Premium Content addition, we would like to introduce you to the writer who will write an article every Monday especially for DMXzone.
Allan Kent comes from Cape Town, South Africa. He has been implicated in writing for several WROX and glasshaus publications, generally in the 'cool stuff that PHP can do' sections.
His hobbies include tattoos, body modification and Death Metal. Any links between these and his willingness to help the designers in his company programin ActionScript are purely in the mind of the reader. When not writing PHP code or recovering from over-exposure to designers, he likes teaming up with the other PC people in the office to deal out some Quake pain to the Mac users.
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At the first MySQL user conference, the MySQL company announced that the new version (v 5.0) is available for download (in a pre-alpha build) and will support foreign keys, stored procedures and database alerts.
This is certainly good news for those who need speedy pre-compiled stored procedures etc over interpreted on-the-fly queries in an enterprise environment - and could ultimately prove a serious contender for Microsoft's SQL Server
The list of changes and pre-alpha source code (buyer beware!) is here http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/TODO_MySQL_5.0.html
Related news: watch for an announcement this Wednesday (14th May) on our Wednesday Premium Content authors, one of whom is a Database guru and will teach you platform-neutral methods of optimising your database and performance tuning.
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