Thanks to everyone who came out to our new location! The IIT campus was a hit, and I’m trying to book the room again for next month.

Some other links discussed at the Meetup:

• docs.jquery.com
• jQuery UI
• Uniform jQuery plugin for styling forms
• SWiSH inexpensive Flash development tool
• JS-Chi Chicago Javascript Meetup
• Demos of Gordon, a Flash runtime written in Javascript
• JSC64 Commodore 64 emulator using jQuery & Canvas

You can still get one free heatmap (with a big watermark) every day.

A “pro” version with a smaller watermark costs $10-$25 based on how many credits you buy at one time. The “pro unwatermarked” version is $15-40.

For those who missed the presentation, this site simulates eye-tracking algorithmically. Eye tracking is the new “big thing” in usability, as it lets you see how much attention various elements on a page attract. AttentionWizard claims 75% accuracy with their algorithm, at a cost far below traditional eye-tracking equipment, and without the hassle of recruiting people for eye-tracking studies.

No, it’s not a substitute for proper eye-tracking. But it’s a start, and a good way to test a rough design concept before committing to it.

If there were a product statement for PHP, it’d probably be something like “only a drunken Martian could come up with this.” [. . .] I, myself, have been known to go through episodes of periodical rejection, during which I can’t stand a particular feature of PHP (and, often, of other products, but that’s a different story), but I haven’t given up on PHP—yet.

I also enjoyed Coping with the Holiday Shopping Spree, an article on enhancing client-side site loading performance.

While checking out their site, I found a link to save 15% on your first year’s professional membership.  It’s through ACM Queue, one of their publications.  Just visit the link below for instructions.

Save 15% on your first year as an ACM member

With the discount, my membership came to $84 and change.

ACM has a lot of resources and groups available to their members, online and off.  That includes online access to a bunch of technical books, including a bunch published by O’Reilly.  For the cost of two technical books, I have access to over 1,000.  That alone makes the membership worth it.

If you find yourself checking the PHP docs at php.net a lot, the PHP devlopers have provided PHP.net Search Bars for the popular Windows browsers, and a Sherlock plugin for OSX — not sure if it works in Spotlight.

I have mine up in Firefox’s “bookmarks” toolbar, so I can just click it to open up a new search sidebar next to whatever I’m working on at the time.

It’s much better than surfing over to php.net every time I want to find something out, and lets me leave Firefox’s search box pointed to Google for anything else I want to look up.

Coinstar doesn’t charge any fees if you take your money in a gift card or e-certificate, and Amazon is among the retailers they deal with (as are Starbucks and iTunes). A couple of times a year, I take my coins when I go shopping and end up with enough for one or two technical books that I’ve been wanting to read, but didn’t want to spend the money on. This “found money” is a great way to catch up on my reading.

Browsercam.com

I can’t say enough nice things about Browsercam. You can have them take “snapshots” of your site in different browsers on different operating systems, or even get “remote access” to a machine with your choice of OS.

But, it tends to be pricey, starting at $19.95/day, $59.95/month, and $399.95/year. Ouch!

If you go to http://fundable.com/browsercam you might find some folks running a “group purchase” on one of their corporate accounts. Get 20 people to pay $25, and you’ve got a “complete” account (with 20 individual users) for a full year. Get 25 people to pay $40, and you’ve got a “premium” account for the year.

Firebug

I’ve mentioned it before, but this is an indispensable tool for web development with Firefox. Go to http://www.getfirebug.com/ to get this plugin. It lets you edit the code for your page in the browser to see how changes would effect the rendering, without changing the actual code on the server.

Prototype Windows

It’s not PHP, but this Javascript library comes in quite handy for creating popup-like windows and dialog boxes on web sites. Get it from http://prototype-window.xilinus.com/ — you’ll also find documentation and demos there. It’s based on the popular script.aculo.us and Prototype libraries.

PasswordSafe

I have too many passwords to keep track of. That’s why I keep a copy of PasswordSafe with an encrypted database on a thumb drive. Get it at http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net. You might also want to check out KeePass @ http://keepass.info.

RocketDock / ObjectDock

I love the Mac OS X dock. It’s the ultimate shortcut menu. RocketDock is a free dock clone for Windows, and bills itself as “the single greatest piece of software. Ever.” Get it at http://rocketdock.com/.

ObjectDock is from the folks who made WindowBlinds, and has a free version & a paid version. The paid version (only $20) offers great features, like making the system tray part of the dock so you can get rid of the Windows taskbar completely. Get it at http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/.