Haseebzone template: March 2009

Saturday, 28 March 2009

10 Interesting social applications for your Google Phone

If you have a Google Phone I suggest you to take a look at this list with ten interesting and useful social applications for your mobile phone Android based. This list includes a Twitter client, Delicious bookmarks manager, MySpace and Facebook apps, Wikipedia and some music and contacts managers.

Any suggestion about other Android applications? Leave a comment, thanks!

1. Twidroid
Twidroid is a very nice client application for using twitter or identi.ca on your android mobile phone. It includes direct messaging, photo posting, replies and background notifications.

2. Delicious Bookmarks
This application allows you to save bookmarks to Delicious from the Android web browser. The current implementation simply adds the option to 'Save to delicious' when 'Bookmark page' or 'Share page' is selected from the browser menu. You can also view your bookmarks in the browser by clicking on the 'Delicious Bookmarks' icon in the application list.

3. Last.fm Android App
With Last.fm Android Application you can choose an artist or genre and Last.fm builds the perfect playlist just for you, fresh every time, featuring your favorites and new discoveries powered by millions of Last.fm users sharing the music they love. You can skip any song and find out about concerts, too.

4. MySpace App
If you love MySpace, you're really going to love MySpace Mobile for Android. Simply download the free application to stay connected with your friends, share photos, and check out the tour schedules of your favorite bands… anytime, anyplace!

5. Phonebook
Contacts are among the most important data on your phone. Phonebook gives them the place they deserve on your G1 phone.Phonebook is a great alternative to the Contacts application and it comes with a new user interface and extra features such as a landscape view, an activity log which includes calls and messages.

6. imeem App
Imeem for Android helps people easily discover music that matches their tastes. The application enables users to create custom Internet radio stations by searching for specific artists, discover new music through personalized recommendations and listen to the most popular artists in the imeem community. The application also gives people the ability to purchase DRM-free downloads by linking to the Amazon MP3 application on Android.

7. Quickpedia
Quickpedia is a free app for browsing Wikipedia on your Google Phone. Quickpedia's many features include:View Wikipedia pages optimized for comfortable and easy viewing on your phone's small screen; search Wikipedia articles using our fast find interface that puts you a click away from your most frequent searches;Dig deeper and find out more about current events and much more.

8. Fbook, Facebook App
fBook is an Android app that wraps and optimizes the Facebook iPhone website for your Android phone. In addition to the features available from Facebook's iPhone web app, fBook adds several important new features. You can upload photos directly from your phone to your Facebook account.

9. Snap!
Snap! stands for Social Networking on Android Phones. Snap! makes it easy to meet new people with common interests and to keep in touch with your friends and colleagues. Snap! turns your phone into a social networking companion and combines the best features from mobile devices and social networking sites. Check out the short screencast with audio below if you are interested.

10. Palringo
Palringo is the ultimate Instant Messaging client for mobile phones and computers. Palringo allows you to instantly exchange text, photos, and vocal IMs with groups or individuals. Keep in touch with all your buddies on all the most popular IM services, without installing or switching between different applications. Palringo allows you to chat to your friends on MSN, AIM, iChat, ICQ, Yahoo!, Jabber, Gtalk, Gadu-Gadu and Facebook.

Typoork | A clean, professional and free Blogger Template

Finally after some days I'm really happy to release for my readers this new blogger template: Typoork. Typoork is a clean and professional Blogger template totally free and highly customizable. It supports inline comments form, delicious and retweet counters in each post.

How I said, this template is totally free! The only thing I ask you is please don't remove the link to Woork in the footer. Take a look at this preview:

Download Typoork template here

Typoork live preview

Disclaimer

PLEASE, READ THIS! This is an highly customized Blogger template which I suggest to use only if you have familiarity with HTML, CSS and Blogger. Before to make changes on your actual Blogger template, save a copy of your template on your local hard disk, so, if something go wrong with the update, you can restore it. Take a mind, if you use custom Widgets on your actual Blogger template, they will be removed using this template. I'm not responsible for eventual problems. Ok? :)

I provide HTML instead XML code because in this wat you can modify this template simpler if you use an wysiwyg like Dreamweaver.

Blog title

Find this code and change the content into the tag title with the title of your blog:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<title>Typoork | A clean, professional and free Blogger Template</title>

Customize the header

Find this code and change the comment "Your logo here" with some line of HTML code for example adding a logo, adding some links a background image, etc:

About me

"About me" is the section where you can add a short description about you, your blog and add some links to your main social identities (in this case I addedd Facebook and Twitter by default).

Find this code to customize your social identity links:

<a href='#'>Facebook</a> | <a href='#'>Twitter</a>

...and change '#' with your Facebook and Twitter profile link.

Then, find the following code and add a picture of you and a short description about your blog.

<div class="sidebar-section" style="background:#EFEFEF; padding:8px;">
<img src="#" class="profileImage"/>
Add a short description of you here
<div class="spacer"></div>

You can also add your picture in the section above comments:

Find this code and replace "#" with the link to your image:

Feed RSS links

Find this code and change '#' with the link to your Feed RSS file:

<h3>
<span class="feed-small-right">
<a href='#'>Subscribe now!</a>
</span>Feeds RSS</h3>
<div class="section-links">
<a href='#'>Subscribe to my RSS Feeds</a>
</div>

I suggest you to use Feedburner to manage your feeds RSS. It's perfectly integrated with Blogger and simple to use.

Latest posts

You may active a Feedburner account to display your latest post list. In your FeedBurner account login, click on "Publicize" tab and select "BuzzBoost" service. Follow instructions on the page and substitute BuzzBoost code into the section highlighted in bold:

<h3>Latest posts</h3>
<div class="section-links">
<div class="spacer"></div>
<ul style="margin:0; padding:0; border:0;">
<li><a href="#">Your link 1 here</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Your link 2 here</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Your link 3 here</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Your link 4 here</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

...Feedburner code it's something like this:

Add new section in the sidebar

In the sidebar you can add new sections like the following (Hot links) simply adding this code:

<h3>Hot links</h3>
<div class="section-links">
<div class="spacer"></div>
<ul style="margin:0; padding:0; border:0;">
<li><a href="#">Your link 1 here</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Your link 2 here</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Your link 3 here</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Your link 4 here</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

You can customize sections how you prefer, adding link, images and external widget (MyBlogLog, Google FriendConnect, etc)

That's all! For your feedback about this template, please leave a comment! Thanks :)

Add a retweet counter on your posts with Tweetmeme

Twitter is the best service I use daily to drive constantly a big amount of traffic on my blog. Retweets from my followers help me every time I write a new post to become popular on delicious and reach easily delicious home page.
Tweetmeme is a service which help you promote your blog by using the tweetmeme button, a simple and easy way you can integrate twitter into your blog and websites.
The result is a button like this:

If you want to add the tweetmeme button on your blogger template use this simple code:

The only thing you have to change from the original code provides by Tweetmeme is set the var tweetmeme_url = <data:post/url>.
That's all! If you have some problem or suggestion please leave a comment. Thanks!

O'Reilly: Upcoming Javascript training class with Douglas Crockford in San Francisco

If you develop sites or applications for the Web, don't miss this class with Douglas Crockford in San Francisco. This class is a must, whether you’re managing object libraries or just trying to get Ajax to run faster. You will get a detailed look at JavaScript’s elegant features, including syntax, objects, functions, inheritance, arrays, regular expressions, and methods, Document Object Model (DOM), and much more.

In this Master Class, JavaScript expert Douglas Crockford (author of JavaScript: The Good Parts) will scrape away the language’s bad features to reveal all the good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language.

You can use the discount code "SPH25" to recieve a 25% discount.

Schedule and location:
March 30, 2009 from 9am - 5pm
Mission Bay Conference Center
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
1675 Owens St.
San Francisco, CA 94143
1-866-431-8273

Fore more information please, take a look at the O'Reilly website.

Useful scripts to plot charts in web pages

In this post I want to suggest you a list of some interesting scripts you can use to plot easily charts (line, area, pie, bar...) in your web pages using jQuery, MooTools, Prototype and other JS frameworks.

Any suggestion? Please add a comment!

1. Flot

Flot is a pure Javascript plotting library for jQuery. It produces graphical plots of arbitrary datasets on-the-fly client-side. The focus is on simple usage (all settings are optional), attractive looks and interactive features like zooming and mouse tracking. The plugin is known to work with Internet Explorer 6/7/8, Firefox 2.x+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.5+ and Konqueror 4.x+. If you find a problem, please report it. Drawing is done with the canvas tag introduced by Safari and now available on all major browsers, except Internet Explorer where the excanvas Javascript emulation helper is used. Take a look at some examples here.

2. JS Charts

JS Charts is a free JavaScript based chart generator that requires little or no coding. With JS Charts drawing charts is a simple and easy task, since you only have to use client-side scripting (i.e. performed by your web browser). No additional plugins or server modules are required. Just include our scripts, prepare your chart data in XML or JavaScript Array and your chart is ready!

3. TableToChart
TableToChart is a MooTools script which converts a list of values contained in a HTML table drawing a graphic chart. You can use table tag to generate charts. Bars, lines (filled and wire) and pies are available.

4. PlotKit
PlotKit is a Chart and Graph Plotting Library for Javascript. It has support for HTML Canvas and also SVG via Adobe SVG Viewer and native browser support.

5. Yahoo UI Charts Control

The YUI Charts Control visualizes tabular data on a web page in several possible formats including vertical columns, horizontal bars, lines, and pies. Notable features include support for the DataSource Utility, customizable series and axes, a customizable mouse-over datatip, combination charts, and skinning.

6. ProtoChart

ProtoChart is an opensource library using Prototype and Canvas to create good looking charts. This library is highly motivated by Flot, Flotr and PlotKit libraries. It supports line, bar, pie, curve, mix, and area charts, multiple data series on same graph, customizable legend, grid, grid border and background. It supports: IE6/7, FF2/3 and Safari and even works on an iPhone.

7. EJSChart

EJSChart supports mouse tracking, mouse events, key tracking and events, zooming. Scrolling, and crosshairs raise interactivity and user experience in web charting to a new level. You can choose multiple chart types: line, area, scatter, pie, bar and function series. Every aspect of the charting display can be configured and customized through well-documented properties and methods.

8. fgCharting
fgCharting is a nice jQuery plug-in which allows you to plot easly charts. It supports several types of charts (line, filledLine, additiveLine, additiveFilledLine, pie, bar, additiveBar) you can customize how you prefer.

9. Pure Css Data Chart

Data visualization is mostly achieved with flash applications or with help of some programming languages. Are those solutions the only way to present, let's say simple data chart? How about giving it a try with nothing but good ol' css? CSSGlobe provides this useful tutorial which explains how to draw simple data Charts using only CSS, without using JavaScript or any backend application.

Useful formulas and resources for becoming a spreadsheets master

This tutorial is a step-by-step guide which illustrates how to use some useful formulas in order to simplify the way you work with spreadsheet tools. I also added some interesting links to my previous posts about the same topic.

In this tutorial I used Zoho Spreadsheet, a free and powerful on-line spreadsheets tool, but you can reuse all concepts in the most common spreadsheet tools (Google Spreadsheets, EditGrid, Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Spreadsheets, etc.)

You can download this tutorial for Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice Spreadsheets or take a look at the on-line spreadsheet.

1. vlookup()

Vertical LookUp - vlookup() - is a powerful formula to check if a specific value is contained in the first column of an array. The function then returns the value to the same line of a specific array column named by index. For example take a look at the following image.

Add this formula into the cell F2:

=VLOOKUP(D2;A1:B4;2;false)

"Translated" is: find the value contained in the cell D2 looking in the interval A1:B4 and return the value to the same line in the column with index 2 (in this case, A:index =1, B:index=2 so the formula return the value in the column B).

The formula returns #N/A if the name in input doesn't exist in the table:

Take a mind: You can use exactly the same formula with Microsoft Excel. But if you use Google Spreadsheets you have to change the syntax of all formulas in this tutorial changing the char which separates formula parameters (;) with (,). For example using Google Spreadsheets you may to use this syntax:

=VLOOKUP(D2,A1:B4,2,false)

2. type()

Type() returns the type of value. For example, if an error occurs, the function returns a logical or numerical value. In the VLOOKUP example, if you don't like to see #N/A you can use type() to create a custom message if the value doesn't exist in the table:

Add this formula in the cell F4:

=TYPE(F2)

...and the result in the cell F4 is 16 if F2 is equal to #N/A. Then in the cell F6 add this formula:

=IF(F4=16; "Name not found";"")

You can also embed into a single formula directly into the cell F2:

=IF(TYPE(VLOOKUP(D2;A1:B4;2;false))=16; "Name not found"; VLOOKUP(D2;A1:B4;2;false))

3. hlookup()

Horizontal look up - hlookup() - is the horizontal version of VLOOKUP. The formula searches for a value and reference to the cells below the selected area. The function returns then the value in a row of the array, named in the Index, in the same column. For example take a look at the following table:

Add the following formula in the cell B6:

=HLOOKUP(A6;B2:D3;2;false)

If the name you are looking for in the cell A6 doesn't exist in the table the result will be #N/A.

4. Subtotal()

Subtotal() calculates subtotals in a specific range of cells. If a range already contains subtotals, these are not used for further calculations. Take a look at this table:

Add this formula into the cell B2:

=SUBTOTAL(9; B3:B4)

The first parameter (9) is a number that stands for the function SUM. You can change it with the following values, depending on the operation you have to do:

- 1 AVERAGE
- 2 COUNT
- 3 COUNTA
- 4 MAX
- 5 MIN
- 6 PRODUCT
- 7 STDEV
- 8 STDEVP
- 9 SUM
- 10 VAR
- 11 VARP

The result will be 12+23 = 35

Then, copy and paste the previous formula into the cells B5 and B8. Now to obtain the total of all subtotals add this formula in the cell B11:

=SUBTOTAL(9; B2:B10)

5. Choose()

Choose() returns a value from a list of up to 30 values. The value to return is identified with an index (an integer from 1 to 3o). For example, in this example I want to choose the value contained in the range A2:A9 in the position 4 (index=4):

Copy and paste this formula in the cell E2 (the index of the value you have to choose is contained in the cell C2):

=CHOOSE(C2; A2;A3;A4;A5;A6;A6;A8;A9)

The result is "Micheal".

Take also a look at the following links to find other resources on Woork about the topic "spreadsheets":

Google Spreadsheets Tips: Add custom charts
Google Spreadsheets Tips: Gantt Chart (Microsoft Project-like) using Widget
Use Google Spreadsheets to get financial informations about companies
Google Spreadsheets Tips: invert word position using formulas
Google Spreadsheets: formulas tutorial
Gantt Chart with EditGrid online spreadsheets
Implement a Project Plan and manage activities with Google Spreadsheets
Project Management: a project plan with Excel (template)
Gantt Chart using Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting
Project Management: Excel Gantt Chart Template

Best of Woork in February 2009

Did you miss anything in February 2009 on Woork? Take a look at this list with the most interesting articles I wrote on my blog in the past month.

Interesting Resources to learn Object Oriented Design
This is a small list with some basic references about Object Oriented Design process and it includes an UML guide, some articles about how to write OO javascript, PHP and Perl code. I also included some video tutorials about an useful introduction to OO PHP.

Simple process to estimate times and costs in a web project
In this articles I want to illustrate a simplified top-down process to estimate times and costs of a web process using a simple spreadsheet (in this example I used Google Spreadsheets but if you prefer you can use Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Spreadsheet or a free online service such as Zoho or EditGrid).

Best Image Croppers ready to use for web developers
If you are looking for an image cropper user interface ready to use in your web projects and simple to customize, take a look at this list with the best and free image croppers UI currently in circulation.

Ultra small code to drag everything in HTML pages
A frequent question I receive from my readers is about how to implement a simple script to drag elements in a web page. So in this post I want to illustrate the simplest method I know and use to drag everything in HTML pages, using just three rows of Javascript code.

File uploaders collection for web developers
After my previous post about Best Image Croppers ready to use for web developers I want to suggest you some interesting resources where you can find useful and free file uploaders ready to use in your web projects.

Best Rich Text Editors ready to use in web projects
This post illustrates five interesting rich text editors ready to use in your web projects.

Interesting html FORM Validators for web developers
This post illustrates how to use some interesting HTML Form validators to check FORM fields writing only some lines of HTML and JavaScript code. All these proposal are lightweight, cross-browser and simple to use and customize in your web projects in few minutes.

Useful Ajax Auto Suggest scripts collection
This post is a collection of some interesting and useful Ajax Auto Suggest scripts ready to use (from beginner or professional web developers) in your web projects. This collection includes standard auto suggest scripts, del.icious tag suggestion, autosuggest control to search images on Flickr, and advanced table filter with auto suggest control.

10 Beautiful and free fonts for web designers
Are you looking for new interesting fonts to make inspiration for your new website or design project?

Take a look at this list with some beautiful free fonts you can download and use on your creative projects.

Free spell checkers for HTML Forms
In this post I want to suggest you five interesting and free spell checkers for HTML Forms (input and text area) ready to use in your web projects. I also provided some suggestions regarding how to implement them on your pages using a few lines of HTML and Javascript code.

6 Interesting online presentations for web developers
If you are looking for free resources to learn Ajax, PHP, CSS and JavaScript take a look at this collection with six interesting online presentations about these topics. The list includes a short introduction to Ajax, how to write modular CSS code, PHP Object Model fundamentals and an overview about the most popular JavaScript libraries.

Free resources for quickly developing AJAX applications
In this post I want to suggest you some free resources which allow developers to quickly build and mantain powerful and advanced AJAX web applications. In this list you can find advanced grid features, calendars, tab-strip and a lot of other interesting components to develop and enrich your AJAX web applications.

10 Free CAPTCHA scripts and services for websites

In the past days I received several requests from my readers to suggest some CAPTCHA scripts and services quickly to embed into a web page. This post proposes a list of ten interesting scripts and services you can use to provide protection from spam bots and ensure that only humans perform certain actions.

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