Serving Up A Free Flash Menu

Posted by webalong | software | Monday 26 May 2008 10:19 pm

Might you have an appetite for a fancy, dynamic menu for your site, but you’re not willing to pay for those bells and whistles? A good solution might be freewebmenus.com. The site has a slick on-line menu builder. Just choose your styles and page links and get the embed code when you’re done. You need give them props by letting them put their name at the bottom of the menu you build. But it’s still pretty darned cool.

Going On A Windows Safari

Posted by webalong | software, technology | Tuesday 20 May 2008 11:48 am

In working with clients, I’ve done my best to cover as many browser combinations as possible.  IE, Firefox, Safari grab the bulk of the space.  Although both Mac & Windows are in my arsenal, I’ve been checking now and then for Safari for Windows.  I installed it a while back, and it failed quite miserably–I saw fellow users’ complaints about nothing happening on an install.  But give up I did not.  Is that a form of insanity?  :O

Recently I gave it another shot.  Happiness abounds.  Excellent feel to the interface, plus there’s now a handy web developer plugin by default.  Way to go, Apple!!

A Multimedia Flashup Brainstorm on Steroids

Posted by webalong | creativity, media, software | Friday 16 May 2008 6:41 pm

This Flickr Related Tag Browser by Felix Turner is a masterpiece. You can simply spend time using this multimedia search tool to check out all the photos and the brilliant manner in which results are presented; but as far as I can see, it’s as close as you can get to a living, breathing thesaurus, complete with related photo albums generated on the fly. Enter a word and see related terms and photos come right back at you, in an animated and compelling presentation.

What’s GIMP, and Why You Should Care

Posted by webalong | media, software | Sunday 4 May 2008 2:11 pm

Back when I was working at a Fortune 500 IT company, a colleague with industrial-strength geek credentials told me about a great program that had a ton of Photoshop style functionality.  The product, GIMP (which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program — more about GNU in a later installment) is free software, available for many operating systems, that lets you create layered graphics and save them in popular file formats like .jpg, .bmp, and .gif.  You can even save as a Photoshop file (.psd).  Get creating…. : )