Cody Taylor

In this Photoshop web design tutorial, you’ll learn about creating dynamic and high-impact backgrounds that you can use on your own web layouts. We’ll go over color/gradient techniques, lighting effects, and using textures and patterns.

While it’d be great to have a spare 10k to drop on a nice lighting setup – you don’t really need it to get some pretty good results.

How can it make my life easier as a developer? How do I get started? Well, jQuery makes writing Javascript fun again and really allows you to take advantage of some of the more difficult aspects of Javascript with relative ease.

Free open-source software is not so free anymore as more companies — including longtime makers of conventional software — strive to make money on the technology.

jhfry writes “An interesting development by an unexpected source, Phoenix Technologies is releasing a Linux based, virtualization enabled, BIOS based OS for computers. They implemented a full Linux distro right on the BIOS chips, and using integrated virtualization technology it ‘allows PCs and laptops to hot-switch between the main operating system, such as Windows, and the HyperSpace environment.’ So essentially they are ‘trying to create a new market using the ideas of a fast-booting, safe platform that people can work in, but remain outside of Windows.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

adamengst writes “A US Government Accountability Office report raises concerns about the Air Force’s ability to modernize and maintain the constellation of satellites necessary to provide GPS services to military and civilian users. TidBITS looks at the situation and possible solutions.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

imamac writes “It seems Apple is seeking to beef up security by hiring Ivan Krstic, the one-time director of security architecture at One Laptop per Child. ‘Krstic, a well-respected innovator who designed the Bitfrost security specification for the OLPC initiative, joined Cupertino this week and will work on core OS security. His hiring comes at a crucial time for a company that ties security to its marketing campaigns despite public knowledge that it’s rather trivial to launch exploits against the Mac.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

peterwayner writes “Six of the top ten links on a Google search for one of my books points to a pirate site when I type in ‘wayner data compression textbook.’ Others search strings actually locate pages that are selling legit copies including digital editions for the Kindle. I’ve started looking around for suggestions. Any thoughts from the Slashdot crowd? The free copies aren’t boosting sales for my books. Do I (1) get another job, (2) sue people, or (3) invent some magic spell? Is society going to be able to support people who synthesize knowledge or will we need to rely on the Wikipedia for everything? I’m open to suggestions.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.