MS Surface

A “Surface computing device”, an amazing technology that is really a touch-sensitive table, with a powerful PC inside. It can do a number of stunning things, such as digital picture manipulation in a very mind-blowing way - as if they were were right there in front of you. Also, it allows you to interact with other devices, such as cellphone, digital camera; moreover, it allows to drag multiple “objects” into them. Powerful laser, which is located inside of this “table”, recognizes objects with which it is being touched, allowing you to use paintbrushes, pencils or other tools the way they’re intended to be used.

8 Great Tutorial Websites

There are plenty of great websites featuring tutorials that fall into magnitude of categories ranging from 3D to .Net. I have taken a little bit of time to compile a list of 8 tutorial sites that caught my attention. To narrow down my list to just 8 excellent tutorial websites, I have used the following criteria:

1. Variety of Tutorials
2. Pleasant overall design
3. Recently updated content
4. Two or more different categories

This list is displayed in excellence order (top one being the best).

1. Tutorials Garden
   Great looking website offering tutorials in multiple categories: CSS, Flash, HTML and XHTML, Javascript, Photoshop, and PHP. Graphics on this website are clean and look very professional and attractive. RSS feed is offered.
2. Good Tutorials
   This website features tutorials in 9 different categories that include Photoshop, Php, Illustrator, Flash, etc. Site is easy to navigate and search field is located in a very prominent location. RSS feed is offered.
3. Pixel2Life
   Pixel2life is another great tutorial website that has indexed nearly 29,000 tutorials. There are numerous tutorials in 85 different categories. Websites’ graphics are nice and clean. RSS feed is offered.
4. Tutorial Kit
   A great resource for tutorials in such categories as Photoshop, Flash, Php and Mysql, HTML and CSS, etc. No RSS feeds were found at this time.
5. Total Tutorial
   Total Tutorial is a good looking website housing over 4,000 indexed tutorials that are broken down into multiple categories as well. RSS feed is offered.
6. Tutorialized
   A little heavy on advertisements, but nevertheless still this site has a great variety of tutorials. Banner “branding” Graphics at the top of the site are of a good quality and produce an excellent appearance. RSS feed is offered.
7. Kirupa
   A clean layout with mostly white background really sets this website apart from all the other sites. Although, the majority of kirupa’s tutorials is comprised of .Net, Php, Flash (AS), and Web Dev tutorials, Photoshop category also contains many great tutorials. RSS feed is offered.
8. Toxic Lab
   This nicely designed website offers tutorials in 6 different categories: Photohop, Javascript, Flash, Css and XHTML, Asp, and 3D. No RSS feeds were found at this time.

What I am currently reading…

There are a lot of articles that I am going through per day, and here are a couple of them:

• how to make sexy buttons with CSS - this is a nice little tutorial written by Alex Griffioen that showcases how to create simple but stylish button utilizing sliding door technique.
• CSS hover effect - although it doesn’t work properly in IE6, it is very nice and efficient technique that brings modern web 2.0ish look into a webpage.
• css float theory - a very helpful and insightful article brought by smashing magazine. It explains all the things you should know when dealing with floats.