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Secure Messaging Apps for Encrypted Chat

Privacy concerns are on the rise and secure messaging tools offer the public a much needed firewall. We’ve compiled the top secure messaging apps available, which allow secure messaging, anonymous encrypted chat, file transmission & more.

Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of the modern world, but it's slow degradation can be tough to notice. Some have fallen back on the "If I'm doing nothing wrong, it doesn't matter" approach, but that antiquated rhetoric is quickly fading. If people don't take active measures to protect their own communication, we all know that corporations and governments will gladly vacuum our data up and utilize it for their own causes. Once people come to that realization, their logical next question "how can we actually have secure chat"? While it will be nice to live in a time where the public is familiar with concepts like "key based authentication" and "cipher suites", that's currently a large ask. Luckily a more obtainable goal is already in users hands - Simply using a secure messaging app.

The Absolute Best Lazy Load Javascripts

In a field dominated by imagery, using the best lazy load javascripts possible can help you deliver amazing impact without becoming an absolute drag on your pageload times.

Web designers are constantly weighing two factors - form and function. The value of pictures really can't be overstated, but they do come with their own drawbacks... most notably the size. Anyone old enough to remember the "dial-up" days can certainly attest to the bandwidth imagery can occupy. As the value of providing a solid user experience grows, including images judiciously and providing them efficiently becomes a field all of it's own. To that end - lazy loading images seems to be the best solution. Ultimately the goal being to delay loading an image until it's actually needed by the viewer. Wherever the field web design expands, that seems like a resolution that should remain useful for quite some time. While researching different lazy loading approaches for a recent project we decided to keep a few notes so we can provide our visitors with a definitive list of the absolute best lazy loading javascripts. We've included the best options currently available, along with some sample code snippets, and a few performance tips to have your project humming in no time!

Top 5 Javascript Frameworks

Quality Javascript Libraries are a web developers best friend. These are the top 5 Javascript frameworks every web developer should be familiar with to make amazing web apps in minimal time!

Anything code based requires repetition and there's usually no need to rewrite code that already exists. Javascript libraries are an especially useful proof of this concept, since they can often be very time consuming to start from scratch. In practice, the problem is usually not knowing what code you can really rely on. Luckily a little know-how can let you sort through the riff-raff and get right to the heart of the code that'll help your project and still be around and well maintained if any updates need to be done. With that goal in mind, we've compiled the five most notable Javascript libraries online today. They may not fit every exact situation, but they're certainly the frameworks that should be bookmarked by any serious web developer and looked to as a first option.

Mobile Editing Apps - iOS Code Editors

The best Mobile Editing Apps and iOS Code Editors contain an amazing power - Allowing you to actually take your web development skills on the road.

People unfamiliar with coding might imagine that a coder's life consists of picking up an iPad off the beach, knocking out an hour, then rolling over to retire for the day. Unfortunately technology has just not gotten to that point yet. The restrictions that most editing apps possess make working away from a known network very difficult. In the last few years large moves have been made in the worlds of design and development, what really hasn't changed much though are the code editors we're doing all this fun work on. What could make real freedom a possibility in the near future is the development of intuitive mobile coding applications. Historically this has been an undeserved niche, but now there are a few solid choices in the field. In the name of pushing progress lets take a look at the leaders of the pack and identify exactly what they're doing right.

Top 10 Favorite Inspirational Websites

Inspiration comes in many forms - When it comes to graphic and web design, these are our top 10 favorite inspirational websites.

There are several important aspects to a quality inspirational website. You need high quality project pieces, an interactive community, impressive design freebies, and a cohesive overall presentation. With several years in the industry, it's safe to say inspiration drains out of even the best of designers from time to time. Here are a few sites that should push you past that occasional "writer's block" and inspire any passionate designer to their next portfolio worthy project.

10 Top CDN Plugins, Providers, and Tips

If you’re minding your pageload times, then your probably already familiar with CDNs. We’ve collected the top cdn plugins, quality cdn providers, and a few tips for handling cdn on cms.

Let's start by briefly addressing how a cdn functions and then take a look at the best ways to utilize them. In it's simplest form a CDN is provides performance through using multiple servers. By using multiple servers to deliver content, your website is placing a lighter load on each and cutting down the distance needed to travel in almost all circumstances. These benefits are folded into your site by rewriting resource urls to your CDN service provider, but it's not really as complicated as you may think. Since you need to select a provider, lets start by identifying a few quality CDN providers.

Marketing with StumbleUpon

Depending on your perspective StumbleUpon can be viewed as a giant time waster or a fantastic web tool. Whatever your view, it can be an overwhelming source of traffic for your website and we'll show you how to take advantage of that potential.

StumbleUpon is a content discovery engine that was started in 2001 and their primary function has remained relatively unchanged since its foundation. The basic concept is that by aggregating tastes and tracking patterns, the site can recommend posts that you may never find by just searching aimlessly online. The web is a big place and by flipping the Google concept on its head, StumbleUpon aims to give their loyal visitors some valuable guidance. While the quality of the delivery can be debated, the concept serves a real niche and any business owner should pay heed.

360 Panorama App

This 360 Panorama review reinforces one simple theory - Beautiful panoramas should be easy. With the 360 Panorama App they can be.

There are rare instances in which a true nerd runs face-first into a technology they've never even considered. Don't get me wrong, I've run across attempts to paste photo's together into a 360 picture, but never in an intuitive manner (yes Microsoft, I'm looking at you). The 360 Panorama App allows you to take your panoramas everywhere. In this post we'll give you a quick review and add a few 360 panorama app tips the get you to pro level in no time.

Advanced Access Manager

One simple plugin makes handling your Wordpress user access a snap...

Advanced Access Manager is an extremely powerful and flexible Access Control tool developed exclusively for WordPress. When you need to assign privileges to specific users (allowing registered users to view certain content for instance) - there is simply no better "plug-and-play" option on the market.

Adobe Kuler

Makes coordinating colors and developing unified themes as easy as pie.

Some tools become so useful that you almost forget about them. The trigger that reminds you of that fact is usually a friend who mutters something like "Whoa, what is that!?". In this case that tools was Adobe Kuler (available both on web and in a nice little AIR based desktop application). When it comes to choosing a color palate for your project, there is simply nothing like it.

Klout - Whats Your Klout?

When it comes to social media it’s important to know, what’s your Klout? Here's a quick rundown of Klout usage tips & ways developers can get started with the Klout API.

Klout is an application dedicated to tracking a profiles audience and performance on specific social networks. Anyone can click on a Twitter profile and check the followers, but we all know that's a fairly inaccurate way of measuring social success. Every social network has "exploits", but there's no real way to fake a successful social media presence (although I'm sure some shady types are working on it as we speak). Klout aims to thwart those tricks and place a real numerical value on the efforts social media experts put into building their sphere of influence. Just like analytics offer a way of gauging web traffic, answering "What's your Klout" is a way of providing track-able data for businesses to work with.

Zombies Run!

Fear based exercise motivation App that turns your mobile into a personal trainer

Sometimes motivation is the challenge with working out... with Zombies Run! you can harness all of your subconscious apocalyptic fears into one hell of a workout.

Square App - Mobile Credit Card Reader

Payment processing that turns your mobile device into a credit card processing powerhouse.

Let me hit the basic points. Square App - Mobile Credit Card Reader is a FREE credit card reader for any iOS or Android handheld. Yes - that includes iPhones or even iPod touch! You can setup your account in mere minutes and POOF - a few days later check your mail and they'll be a nice little package with the tiny (roughly inch x inch) mag strip reader.

The Clocky Alarm Clock

Web geeks require some tricks in the morning... meet the Clocky Alarm Clock.

Can't wake up? You're not alone. Stats show that 40% of people 'abuse' the snooze. Typical alarm clocks just don't work well... but that's where the Clocky alarm clock comes in. Because if you really think about it - what could possibly be more annoying then an alarm clock that runs away from you in the morning?

Synergy Application

Using one mouse and keyboard for multiple computers is a huge time saver and it's not as complicated as you may think. If you're looking for solid cross platform device sharing, look no further then the Synergy application.

Synergy is a C++ based application that has been intuitively developed to run quietly in the background and allow device sharing between multiple computers. The setup is relatively simple and the time saving benefits are nothing short of remarkable. Once you've got everything setup you can control 10+ computers from one keyboard & mouse. Since the code is platform agnostic, you can switch between Mac, Windows, or Linux computers with no additional setup. I'll cover a few of the benefits below, but lets run through the setup so you can see just how Synergy works.