Resources

Deceth — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:16:38 +0000

Any competent overlord knows that providing his/her minions with the tools and training to improve their skills is essential to building a powerful empire. That’s why Looble links to these excellent open source resources.

An overlord must recognize the strengths and weaknesses of individual minions. An empire cannot succeed if incompetent minions are constantly eliminated for their failures – that’s poor empire management. Henchmen must be used strategically and rewards for achievements provided in order to motivate the legion and avoid mutiny.

Development Tools

Eclipse

The Eclipse project is aimed at providing a universal toolset for development. It is a free open source IDE, with strong support for JAVA.

Looble Tags: eclipse

NetBeans

NetBeans is a fully-featured open source Java IDE written completely in Java, with many modules available, such as debugger, form editor, object browser, CVS and more.

Looble Tags: netbeans

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free open source Notepad replacement and source code editor. Fast and lightweight making it perfect for quick editing of files.

Looble Tags: notepad

FileZilla

FileZilla is a free open source FTP client and server. An FTP client is used to connect to an FTP server to upload or download files on that server.

Looble Tags: filezilla

Subversion

Subversion (svn) is a version control system. It is used to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation.

Looble Tags: subversion

Graphics Tools

GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free tool for image retouching, composition and authoring. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything for your graphic needs.

Looble Tags: gimp

Sound and Audio Tools

Audacity

Audacity is a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds in Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and more.

Looble Tags: audacity

Useful Links

A directory of open source Java software.
http://java-source.net/

Developer resources for Java technology.
http://java.sun.com/

Many source code samples to help educate beginners on many concepts.
http://www.planet-source-code.com/

Access thousands of open source projects or get free hosting for yours.
http://sourceforge.net/

Looble... Looble!

How to Create Animated Favicons

Deceth — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:17:05 +0000

First things first, what is a favicon you ask? A favicon is the small icon you see in the URL field of your browser when visiting a website. If you bookmark a website, you’ll also see the favicon when looking through your bookmarks. If you look up into your URL field right now, you’ll see that the favicon for Looble is Tux the penguin!

Favicons are awesome!

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of favicons while browsing the internet… Favicons rock, they allow for better site branding and give an appearance of professionalism. However, have you ever seen an animated favicon? That is to say, have you ever seen one that shows a moving image? They are rare, but actually quite easy to make!

How do I add a favicon to my website?

To add a favicon to your website, all you need to do is create an icon named favicon.ico and put it in the root directory of your website. It will then automatically show up for all users visiting your site! Pretty simple.

How do I create a favicon.ico file?

For more advanced users, you can draw it in Photoshop or Gimp. I recommend using Gimp since it is a free open source tool! Make sure you save the image in .ico format (this requires downloading a plugin for Photoshop). Alternatively, you can save the image as favicon.gif, then rename the file to favicon.ico and it will still work in all browsers I have tested (Internet Explorer & Firefox). Please note, for your favicon to work, it must be exactly 16×16 pixels.

For beginners, rather than create an image, you can use an existing image. I’m a beginner, so I decided to use a picture of Tux the penguin. Generating a favicon from an image file is very easy. HTML-kit.com offers a great tool which will let you choose an image file on your computer and have it converted into a favicon. You can also input your Twitter account and it will turn your profile picture in a favicon! That’s what I did. If you go visit my Twitter page, you’ll see Tux the penguin is my profile picture!

Once you have your favicon file, upload it to your server in your root directory.

How do I make my favicon animated?

For advanced users, use Photoshop or Gimp to create an animated GIF image. Once you have a 16×16 GIF animation, you can use it as a favicon. See code snippet below for how-to add it to your website.

Previously I mentioned that you can use HTML-kit.com to create a favicon. HTML-Kit also offers an extra option to turn your image into a scrolling animation. This might be all you need if your only goal is to try and make your favicon a little more noticeable to users browsing their bookmarks.

Another option is to visit GifAnimations.com if you’re looking for some free animations you can use. Any animated GIF image will work as a favicon as long as it is 16×16 pixels.

To use your animated .gif file as your favicon all you need to do is use the following code on your webpage:

Why use an animated favicon?

Since the favicon will be displayed when a user is browsing through their bookmarks, the fact that yours is animated will make it stand out. This will help remind visitors to visit your website more often!

Another good reason for using an animated favicon is for better branding. Having a unique favicon is another way to make your website more memorable. Just make sure it’s not annoying. If it’s animated, it has to be good and fit the theme of your site.