Italy. A beautiful country that my girlfriend and me visited last year during our summer holiday. While we were there, we took a lot of pictures that would look pretty nice on polaroid.

Placing them on simple polaroids on a webpage simply didn't do it for me. I wanted to drag them around, rotate them and still have a fun time. That's were CSS and jQuery come in play. By combining the CSS3 Box Shadow and Rotate properties, this effect is relatively easy to create. When dragging a polaroid around, you'll see the shadow. When it's placed down, it's rotated to the left or the right (random).

This example is making use of CSS3 and jQuery, just to show the effect when combining two powerful techniques. The CSS3 is injected by jQuery, keeping the CSS file clean.

  

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Sadly, CSS3 and HTML5 aren't the standards (yet) these days (when will it ever be?). Since this demo is using CSS3, not all modern browsers will be able to show off the full effect. Because of this, it only works on Apples Safari and Google Chrome as they are the only browsers supporting the Transform and Box-Shadow property of CSS3 via the -webkit- prefix. Mozillas Firefox 3.1 is getting these properties too (with the -moz- prefix). So, for now, this is just for fun - Other browsers will display the polaroids, but won't have the neat shadow while dragging and rotating while placing them down.

With that said, check out how you can re-create this effect and learn some more about CSS3 and jQuery. Check out one of my older articles if you're searching for an image gallery that isn't using CSS3.

Remember that I created "the iPhone unlock screen" and "the iPhone springboard" in xHTML, CSS and jQuery? Today, I'm bringing you another chapter of transferring some of the beautiful iPhone layouts to the webbrowser.

The design of the Contacts app will be used and displayed in your browser. Funny fact is that this is the first "iPhone to CSS/jQuery conversion" that I created (before the unlock and springboard screen). I'll try to give you the real iPhone feeling with these tutorials.

OK, maybe not fully the "feeling" (look and feel) from the iPhone, since I can't make any webbrowser react to placing your finger on the screen, but your mouse will do the trick.

  

Features:

• XHTML and CSS valid.
• "Top indicator" changes character while scrolling (Just like the iPhone).
• Including "Search" on the right (Just like the iPhone).
• Pretty sleek interface, including see-through elements (Just like the iPhone).
• Falls back nicely when the user has JavaScript disabled.
• Combined with the unlock and springboard screen, it looks like the real deal.
• Tested and working on Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7 (With fixes) and Safari 3.

Known issues

• The "top indicator" doesn't always show the correct character, especially when using the search.
• The "top indicator" is placed on top of the scrollbar of the browser.
• I wrote some pretty damn ugly JavaScript (Hey, it works).
• Works crappy on an actual iPhone.
• Only works correct when browser doesn't scroll. For people with a small screen resolution, here's a smaller demo (I just changed the CSS and images to 50% of the original size).

Other than those minor issues, it works as expected. Make sure you check it out!

Last week, I wrote an article on how to create the iPhone Unlock Screen using xHTML, CSS and jQuery. As stated in the article, I would really love to tranfer more of the sleek iPhone design to a webpage. The next obvious step for me, was to create the iPhone Springboard in xHTML, CSS and jQuery.

Chris Coyier from CSS-Tricks allowed me to place the article over at his website (Thanks Chris!). If you want to know how I created the iPhone Springboard, make sure you read the article on CSS-Tricks.

  

I'm planning to make some more of these "iPhone style" webpages, so subscribe to the feed if you want to keep updated.

!JoomlaComment is one of the leading free commenting components for Joomla!. I've been using the component since the beginning of my website.

As I said before, !JoomlaComment isn't perfect (yet). It's still missing some features that make others (Like JomComment) more attractive, like the support for trackback. On the other hand, !JoomlaComment does allow threaded / nested comments which is a big positive point.

Another downside of the component is the lack of using the Akismet service. Akismet (which is often used together with WordPress) is a service that helps you preventing others of placing automated spam messages in your comments. !JoomlaComments current solution for preventing spam messages was by enabling CAPTCHA: A technique not many users like.

We're now going to disable the CAPTCHA and enable Akismet support in !JoomlaComment. How? By "hacking" in the !JoomlaComment core.

So let's edit the PHP code from !JoomlaComment and add Akismet support! This tutorial is written for the latest release of !JoomlaComment at this moment: 3.26.

The iPhone: Everybody knows what it is, many people "played around" with the gadget and most people love it. I also own one of these amazing smartphones, and the looks of the software is really, really sleek and innovative (Just like we're used from Apple).

I wanted to transfer (some) of these amazing designs to a webpage to re-create the same look and feel for webbrowsers. Today, I'm going to show you how to create The iPhone unlock screen in xHTML, CSS and jQuery.

OK, maybe not fully the "feeling" (look and feel) from the iPhone, since I can't make any webbrowser react to placing your finger on the screen, but your mouse will do the trick.

  

Features:

• XHTML and CSS valid.
• "Timer" displays the current time (Just like the iPhone).
• "Date" displays the current date (Just like the iPhone).
• Pretty sleek interface, including see-through elements (Just like the iPhone).
• Changeable background.
• Tested and working on Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7 and Safari 3.

Known issues

• The "slider" doesn't slide back (what the iPhone does).
• The "unlock animation" isn't exactly the same as the iPhone.
• Doesn't work on an actual iPhone.

Other than those minor issues, it works as expected. I'm planning to make some more of these "iPhone style" webpages, so subscribe to the feed if you want to keep updated. Want to know how I created it? Check it out.