Full Disclosure » Tools

BrowserStack.

Nate — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:40:10 +0000

BrowserStack looks pretty strong. Multiple resolutions, debugging tools, and, most importantly, local testing. Browser-based browser-testing is a little Incept-y, but as long as the latency isn’t too bad, it beats maintaining your own virtual machines. Only $19 for one user unlimited testing for one user, and a free trial to boot. If I wasn’t already invested in my own virtual machine setup with infinite configurability, I’d be giving this a long, hard look. Who knows, I may end up using it anyway.

Gradient App.

Nate — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:10:14 +0000

Gradient is a handy CSS gradient generating app from Jumpzero. Seems ideal for the designer-developer in your life.

Jdrop.

Nate — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:39:42 +0000

Mobile web development will soon be at least on par with desktop development if not a more lucrative field. Therefore, mobile requires development tools to debug and optimize. Here’s another one from Steve Souders:

Bookmarklets basically perform those two steps: gather data and display data. It was pretty simple to insert a step to save the data to Jdrop. Once the data is in the cloud, it can be accessed from anywhere especially desktops with more screen real estate. The bookmarklet’s display code is easily re-used by wrapping the data in JSON and passing it back to the display code inside Jdrop’s web page. That, in a nutshell, is Jdrop.

Photoshop Etiquette.

Jay — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:39:27 +0000

I am, admittedly, horrendous at maintaining an organized Photoshop document. At best, my designs get a hasty tidying up before being sent off for programming. Enter Photoshop Etiquette, a site that hopes to impose some order on the chaos of PSDs.

Two New Collaboration Tools.

Nate — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:35:29 +0000

Working remotely means I’m always watching for new ways to edit documents with others in real time. The current state-of-the-art leaves a lot to be desired, but two new, browser-based tools released today give me hope that progress is being made.

Squad is a text editor with support for chat, syntax highlighting, and the killer feature of opening and saving local files. You’re going to need to pony-up for that last feature, however. It’s $39/month for a five person account with file access. Check out EtherPad for a disposable alternative.

In the collaborative whiteboarding arena, Flock Draw compares favorably with existing free options. It has colors, a smooth UI, responsive performance, and all the features of primitive painting application. Until they address the lack of full-screen mode and ability to save your work, however, it’s just a novelty.