Giveaways will always be serve in here. And today, Designious a design studio that creates high quality vector illustrations and design elements are giving away 5 Vector Mega Packs for Naldz Graphics Readers. There will be 5 lucky Winners for this great give away.

In the past weeks I received some requests from my readers which asked to me to suggest a simple way to skin HTML form elements. There are a lot of ways to do that and a lot of posts with interesting resources about this topic. But if you want to save time and obtain a nice result I suggest you to use jqTransform or NiceForms.Both scripts are very useful and simple to use. If you want to use a "native" script which doesn't use an external JS framework (such as jQuery or MooTools) I think a good choice is NiceForms otwerwise, if you use jQuery, a good alternative is jqTransform. Take a look how they work.1. jqTransformjqTransform is a jQuery styling plugin wich allows you to skin quickly form elements in a very easy way. The only thing you have to do is to add a javascript inclusion to this plugin in the header section of your web page, create your form and add two lines of JS code to apply the transformation to your form.Use this code to add a javascript inclusion to jqTransform:<script type="text/javascript\" src="jquery.jqtransform.min.js"></script>...now create a form with class property equal to jqTransform:<form class="jqTransform"><!-- Add form elements here... --><form>...then add this JS code to apply the transformation:<script type="text/javascript\">$(function() {$("form.jqtransform").jqTransform();});</script>2. NiceFormsNiceforms is a script that will replace the most commonly used form elements with custom designed ones. You can either use the default theme that is provided or you can even develop your own look with minimal effort.To implement form style transformation you have to add a javascript inclusion to NiceForms in your web page using this code:<script type="text/javascript\" src="niceforms.js"></script>...then create a form with class property equal to niceform:<form class="niceform"><!-- Add form elements here... --><form>It's all. Really simple and fast!Any suggestion? Please leave a comment.

Our friends over at Packt have been really good to us over the last few months. To promote the recently released Learning Ext JS book, I’ve been allowed to raffle off three copies! To enter, all you must do is link to your resume/CV. More details after the jump!

My boss recently requested that I email her a copy of my resume (or CV). I realized that I didn’t have one on file anymore. To find some inspiration, I did a Google search for “web developer cv”. Shockingly, it’s quite difficult to find quality samples. It occurred to me that, if I’m searching for this, others must be as well! That sounds like a great round-up for Nettuts+.

Show Off Your Resume/CV

If you have a fantastic resume/cv to show off - and are willing - leave a comment and paste a link to the PDF or image. If you wish, you’re free to blur your name - for anonymity. My intention is to create an article on Nettuts+ called “30 Examples of Fantastic Designer Resumes”. From those you have linked, I’ll choose a few random numbers and award their respective authors with copies of Learning Ext JS.

“As more and more of our work is done through a web browser, and more businesses build web rather than desktop applications, users want web applications that look and feel like desktop applications. Ext JS is a JavaScript library that makes it (relatively) easy to create desktop-style user interfaces in a web application, including multiple windows, toolbars, drop-down menus, dialog boxes, and much more. Both Commercial and Open Source licenses are available for Ext JS.

Ext JS has the unique advantage of being the only client-side UI library that also works as an application development library. Learning Ext JS will help you create rich, dynamic, and AJAX-enabled web applications that look good and perform beyond the expectations of your users.”

Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the NETTUTS RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.

Nettuts+ has quickly established itself as one of the premier resources for web development tutorials. One year ago, this website didn’t exist. Today, we’ve surpassed 30,000 subscribers - which is no small feat! To show our appreciation, I have some more freebies to mail out this week, courtesy of O’REILLY. Additionally, I’d like to inform you of a fantastic Javascript workshop that’s coming up, hosted by Douglas Crockford.

What Must I Do?

To enter into the drawing, all you need to do is follow us on Twitter, if you aren’t already! Next, leave a comment containing your username for verification purposes. I’ll then randomly select a few people from this list and email you! It’s as simple as that.

[removed] The Good Parts

Mastering Regular Expressions

Learning Javascript

Master Class With Douglas Crockford

Location: Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco, CA When: March 30th, 9-5

What will I learn?

Get a detailed look at JavaScript’s elegant features, including syntax, objects, functions, inheritance, arrays, regular expressions, and methods Discover why object-oriented programming in classical, prototypal, and functional styles is unique to JavaScript Understand the Document Object Model (DOM) — the web browser API so crucial to your work Improve the quality of your JavaScript code through performance, security, and style Learn how to avoid the bad parts of JavaScript, such as global variables and the eval function

About this class

Most programming languages contain good and bad parts, but JavaScript has more than its share of the bad, having been developed and then released in a hurry before it could be refined. Once Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the Web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language.

In this Master Class, JavaScript expert Douglas Crockford will scrape away the language’s bad features to reveal all the good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language — ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. You’ll learn why this powerful feature subset is more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole, and discover firsthand how to create extensible and efficient code with it. Based on his popular O’Reilly book, [removed] The Good Parts, this class will demonstrate how JavaScript can be a beautiful, elegant, lightweight, and highly expressive language. Early bird registration ends March 22nd ($50 discount). Nettuts+ readers receive a 25% discount on top of that! Use the code “SPH25″ when registering.  

Subscribe to the NETTUTS RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.

You may notice the last few days I made some list of free texture resources. And as a continuation of gathering some High Quality Textures on the internet, Here is another textures which I can say very useful when it comes in creating a grunge concept of design. So here is a list of 60+ Hand-Picked Extremely Useful Free Concrete Texture Backgrounds. These are some of the best Concrete Texture you could ever find. As always its free however make sure to check some agreements and conditions from the owners of this textures. Also try to check 200+ Ultimate Free High Quality Wood Textures and 200+ High Quality Free Paper Textures to Grab for more texture resources.

February is all about romance and love and one special day: Valentine’s Day! The day when candy, flowers and cards are exchanged between loved ones. In that manner, DryIcons are presenting their brand new free icons set, called “Valentines”. Because this holiday is so special to all of us . ” Valentines” free icons set comes in 32-bit transparency PNG and 32×32px, 48×48px, 64×64, 128×128 and 256×256px size.

Over the last few months, we have extensively covered the influence of retro and vintage style on modern Web design. We have looked at recent vintage Web designs, showcased posters and typography and presented vintage tutorials. In fact, we are confident that vintage is still in, and that many designers are experimenting with this style to achieve unusual, creative and (hopefully) effective results. So today, we are pleased to release the Smashing Retro Icon Set, a set of 10 beautiful, high-quality “vintage” icons, created by the talented Russian design agency SoftFacade especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The set contains 10 original icons: search, sign-up, calendar, news, RSS, comments, email, ads, home and address.

Download the set for free! You can use the set for free and without any restrictions in both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sub-licensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

Download the set (.zip, ICO and PNG, 9.3 MB)

Thank you, guys. We really appreciate your efforts! (al)

© Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 45 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Submit to Reddit | Submit to Facebook | Who is linking?

Post tags: downloads, free, Freebies, Graphics, icons

TextureKing is a project created and maintained by REH3design. Throughout the site you will find a growing repository of high quality texture photos that are free for personal and professional use.

After my previous post about Best Image Croppers ready to use for web developers I want to suggest you some interesting resources where you can find useful and free file uploaders ready to use in your web projects.If you know other interesting resources about this topic please leave a comment!1. Yahoo! UI Library UploaderYUI Uploader provides file upload functionality that goes beyond the basic browser-based methods. Specifically, the YUI Uploader allows for multiple file selection in a single "Open File" dialog, file extension filters to facilitate the user's selection, progress tracking for file uploads, faster file upload on broadband connections due to the modified SEND buffer size, same-page server response upon completion of the file upload.2. jQuery.MultiFileThe Multiple File Upload Plugin (jQuery.MultiFile) is a fantastic non-obstrusive plugin for the jQuery Javascript library that helps users easily select multiple files for upload quickly and easily whilst also providing some basic validation functionality to help developers idenfity simple errors, without having to submit the form.3. FancyUploadFancyUpload is a file-input replacement which features an unobtrusive, multiple-file selection menu and queued upload with an animated progress bar. It is easy to setup, is server independent, completely styleable via CSS and XHTML and uses MooTools to work in all modern browsers.4. Steve Sanderson’s jQuery Ajax uploaderSteve Sanderson release this simple and useful jQuery plugin to upload files to your website. It shows a nice progress bar during the upload and is really simple to customize how you prefer.5. Mega Upload Progress BarMega Upload is a progress indicator for web based file uploads with PHP, perl and JSP. Originally the project was a solution to the lack of a progress monitor for PHP file upload. Since then it has expanded to include upload monitors for perl and JSP.6. Free ASP UploadFree ASP Upload is a free script which lets you create upload forms on your web site. You will be able to do it easily, without having to buy a binary component. This ASP does not require an ASP.NET server.7. ColdFusion file upload progressThis Coldfusion file uploader is a very simple and useful script to upload files to your websites Coldfusion-based.8. MooMultiple file uploadMooMultiple FU is another MooTools-based multiple file uplader really simple to implement and reuse on your web projects ().Related Content- Best Image Croppers ready to use for web developers- 20 Great PHP frameworks for developers- 10 Beautiful Web UI libraries- 10 Free powerful Content Management Systems- 10 Useful tutorials to learn Scriptaculous- 7 Stunning tutorials to design modern interfaces for websites

Coquette part 2, the better, improved version of one of DryIcons’ most downloaded and most popular free icons sets. they powered this free icons set with 50 brand new icons, mostly demanded by users. This playful free icon set contains curvy and colorful free icons made with one goal, to get all the affection to your projects. These free icons flirt with style! “Coquette” free icon set contains 50 high quality, free icons in these sizes: 16×16px, 32×32px, 48×48px, 64×64px and 128×128px and 32-bit transparency PNG file format.

If you are looking for an image cropper user interface ready to use in your web projects and simple to customize, take a look at this list with the best and free image croppers UI currently in circulation.If you know other interesting resources about this topic please leave a comment!1. Yahoo! UI Library ImageCropperYahoo! UI ImageCropper control provides an API and skin for making an image croppable. Simple to use and customize in your web projects, this cropper is actually one of the best free cropper interface you can find. The ImageCropper comes with a default skin, but you can extend or override this as needed using CSS.2. KropprKroppr is intended to help webmasters allow their users to manipulate the images available on the site. With this script you can rotate, resize, crop and save images to your hard drive. Kroppr is using the graphic tools found on a common hosting server so an expensive server is not required for this script to run. In the same time, if there are more choices on the server, Kroppr is choosing the one with the best results in quality and server load.3. JcropJcrop is a quick and easy way to add image cropping functionality to your web application. It combines the ease-of-use of a typical jQuery plugin with a powerful cross-platform DHTML cropping engine that is faithful to familiar desktop graphics applications.4. Javascript Image Cropper UIThe JavaScript image cropper UI is a very popular image cropper which allows the user to crop an image using an interface with the same features and styling as found in commercial image editing software, and is is based on the Prototype JavaScript framework and script.aculo.us.5. MooCropMooCrop is an Image Cropping utility using the amazingly powerful mootools javascript framework. The script is completely customizable with CSS, detects and handles multiple CSS box models, allows for masking to be toggled and set minimium size limit and it's really fast.6. UvumiTools CropUvumiTools Crop is an advanced image cropper which gives your users the ability to create a selection area that can be used to crop an image live on your web site. You can customize a lot of parameters such as minimum sizes, keep aspect ratio (or not), Real time preview and reuse it quickly on your web project.7. PHP & JQuery Photo Upload and CropPHP & JQuery Photo Upload and Crop is another nice image cropper which use jQuery and PHP to upload, resize, crop and save images. It's simple to customize and reuse in your web projects. You can find full documentation about this script here.

BG Patterns is a web based tiled backgrounds designer. You can create any pattern your site needs just in few minutes. You will have adjustable size, pictures, colors, texture and transparency in any pattern. As you create any pattern, you can also share them as well. Recently created patterns by others are also available there. You can save your created patterns there for future use as well. Preview is also available for any patterns.

The PHP Web Stat offers you a highly configurable web tracker and detailed real-time web stat script. You will be able to analyze and monitor all visitors of your website. This script is totally FREE and licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

General characteristics

requires no database connectivity separate counter for your website easy administration console configuration of the modules: turn on/off, count entries, percentage view, etc. exclude own visits by cookies ip recount time can be adjusted exclude fixed ip-addresses analysis of any time interval possible/saveable password protection update notifier changeable style with CSS-editor easy installation manual compressed cached logfile different languages

DryIcons is wishing you a lovable Valentine’s Day filled with candy, wine and music. These icons were designed to fit the romantic feel of the holiday. The “Valentine Love” free icon set comes with 12 high quality web icons in 32-bit transparency PNG and 32×32px, 48×48px and 128×128px size. February is about love and renewal, so don’t hesitate to let the breeze in, and may your heart be always full of love.

Click. Drag. Done. Now anyone can create beautiful websites online in just minutes. Roxer is an easy-to-use, free online tool that lets anyone create beautiful web pages without programming. It was created by Lex Arquette and Jeremiah Grossman.

Live editing Simply visit your web page and make changes on the spot. No programming Create web pages that look exactly how you want them to, without the hassle of HTML.

Complete All works in your web browser. Nothing to install. They even host it. All for free.

In this post we release 2 free high-quality WordPress magazine-themes. The themes include full PSD-templates and can be used without any restrictions whatsoever. The themes were commissioned by Smashing Magazine exclusively for our readers and designed by Wendell Fernandes. As you may know, since the beginning of the year, each release on Smashing Magazine has been dedicated to a specific theme or topic that could be useful in your next project. This release focuses on the vintage-look and on the magazine-style. Vintage: A Free WordPress Theme As the title suggests, we wanted to release a WordPress theme that would reflect the vintage, old-style look and thus look attractive, unusual and memorable. We discussed retro and vintage designs already, but we wanted the theme to literally stand out – not through its style, but also through its structure. Therefore we were more than happy when the designers suggested a design with a magazine-look. The result is the Vintage WordPress theme, a 2-column theme with various illustrations and icons. Please notice that the theme requires Wordpress 2.7 to work.

The theme is available for free download and can be used for any purposes without any restrictions whatsoever. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

full image preview live demo download the theme (.zip, 0.4 Mb) download the psd-sources (.psd, .zip, 9.3 Mb) release post on Dellustrations.com

Behind the scenes As usual, here are some insights from the designers themselves:

The reasoning behind this theme is simply, taking us back to an old-school look and feel, reminding where our fathers came from and the fathers of our fathers. It’s simply remarkable to think, that people lived a full and abundant life inside a “vintage” world and brought us all here to this date and day. Today we can look back and watch and admire their struggles, fights, victories, failures, submission and humbleness. Today we can see how far we’ve come and how far we can reach. This theme brings us back to the beginning of it all, and remind us of 2009 as a year of reflection for all we’ve accomplished, and what we can achieve moving forward. We would like you to enjoy the theme. Yours truly,Dellustrations

Blues: A Free WordPress Theme This theme is a variation of the theme presented above; however, it tries not to focus on the vintage look but on a simple, clean, and user-friendly design. This theme was commissioned by Smashing Magazine exclusively for our readers and designed by the Dellustrations design agency.

The theme is available for free download and can be used for any purposes without any restrictions whatsoever. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

full image preview live demo download the theme (.zip, 0.4 Mb) download the psd-sources (.psd, .zip, 3.3 Mb) release post on Dellustrations.com

Thanks, guys, we appreciate your efforts! Suggestions for particular WordPress themes? What themes would you like to be released on Smashing Magazine next? What are you looking for? Or, more importantly, what kind of themes shouldn’t we release any more? We appreciate your input in the comments to this post!

JonDesign’s SmoothSlideshow javascript gallery system allows you to have simple and smooth (cross-fading…) image galleries, slideshows, showcases and other cool stuff on your website… Unlike other systems out there, JonDesign’s SmoothGallery is designed from the ground up to be standard compliant: You can feed it from any document, using custom css selectors. And even better, this solutions is very lightweight: The javascript file is only 24kb. It’s free as in beer and even better, this library is open-source, GPL licensed to be precise, You can download it from here!

myPhotoshopBrushes.com is a great collection of Adobe Photoshop brushes, patterns, tutorials and many useful Photoshop stuff. They are made by artists all over the world and all are free to use. Take a look, find something interesting for you and free download. With us design can be easier than ever.

We continue to deliver fresh high-quality freebies to our readers, and we continue to pursue the diversity of subjects that we like to cover on Smashing Magazine. Since the beginning of the year, each icon set has been dedicated to a specific theme or topic that could be useful in your next project. Today, we are releasing two free high-quality icon sets. Flavours Icon Set Oliver Twardowski, a graphic designer from Bonn, Germany, has put in a lot of time and effort to release this handy icon set especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. His set, aimed to help designers in their Web and user interface designs, contains 177 icons in a resolution of 48×48 pixels. The files are available for in the PNG and PSD sources, so you can modify the files as you wish.

As usual, the set is available as a free download and can be used for any purposes without any restrictions whatsoever. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sub-licensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

Download the set (Zip, 2.0 Mb) Download the PSD sources (.psd, Zip, 5.9 Mb)

Behind the scenes As usual, here are some insights from the designer himself: In November 2008 I designed and released my first icon set, Sketch’d up!. This set was 100% vector-based and contained over 100 icons. After finishing it, I knew exactly what was the next task on my list. I wanted to create a pixel-based set of icons for websites and Web applications. For the size of the icons, I choose 48×48px, because for me this is the perfect size to fit on a website. I never thought that it would be such a hard task to create an icon based on pixels that says what it has to say. Pixel by pixel, every single icon of “Flavour” was created over the weeks. I am personally pretty satisfied with what came of it in the end. And I do really hope that you like it, too! Would be a pleasure to hear and see where you used it. Just drop me a line at icons [at] addictedtocoffee [dot] de. And who knows, maybe there’s a Part 2 of the “Flavour icon set” already in my head… All the best from Bonn, Germany, Oliver Twardowski Thank you, Oliver, for your great work! We hope the second part of the set comes soon! Cute Tweeters Icon Set This set was designed by the talented Mirjami Manninen, an illustrator from Finland who released the beautiful RSS feed set Feed Me Animals on Smashing Magazine last year. This new set contains eight transparent PNG icons for Twitter, available in resolutions of 128×128 pixels, 256×256 and 512×512. The sources are in EPS files (for CS4 and CS3), PSD files and AI files (for CS4).

Again, the set is available as a free download and can be used for any purpose without any restrictions whatsoever. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sub-licensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

Large preview (JPG, 0.4 Mb) Download the set (.zip, 2.2 Mb) Download the sources (PSD, AI, EPS, .zip, 13,1 Mb)

Behind the scenes As usual, here are some insights from the designer herself: I am an illustrator from Finland. While drawing for one design competition that was about Twitter, I started to really like this little bird, and decided to create a whole set for Smashing Magazine’s readers. I am very excited of the mesh tool in illustrator, andIi want to encourage all designers to try it. I have found it very helpful in my icon design. Greetings to all Smashing Magazine readers! Mirjami Manninen Thanks, Miriam, we really appreciate your efforts! Suggestions for particular icon sets? What icons would you like to be released on Smashing Magazine next? What are you looking for? And, more importantly, what kind of icons shouldn’t we release anymore? We appreciate your input in the comments to this post! (al)

Are you looking for any interesting and beautiful Web User Interface libraries for your next web site or Rich Internet Application ? Take a look at this list with ten WUI I suggest you to try in order to simplify your work and develope faster beautiful and usable user interfaces.1. IT Mill ToolkitIT Mill Toolkit is an open-source framework, providing widgets and tools for the development of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Deliver web applications without worrying about incompatibilities of web browsers, DOM or JavaScript by using standard Java tools.2. LivePipe UILivePipe UI is a suite of high quality widgets and controls for web 2.0 applications built using the Prototype JavaScript Framework. Each control is well tested, highly extensible, fully documented and degrades gracefully for non JavaScript enabled browsers where possible3. Iwebkit iPhone/iPod touch frameworkIwebkit is the revolutionnairy kit used to create high quality iPhone and iPod touch websites in a few minutes. In the first 4 months of it's existance the pack has greatly evolved from a basic idea to a project that has reached worldwide fame!4. JitsuJitsu contains an integrated set of tools to enable developers to build and deploy sophisticated user interfaces for web applications. These include an Xml markup language, page compiler, data binding engine, JavaScript runtime, control library, runtime inspector, animation engine, cross-platform library, Ajax, and back button support.5. MochaUI MochaUI is a web applications user interface library built on the Mootools JavaScript framework.Uses: web applications, web desktops, web sites, widgets, standalone windows and modal dialogs.6. Echo Web FrameworkEcho is an open-source framework for developing rich web applications. From the developer's perspective, Echo behaves as a user interface toolkit--like Swing or Eclipse SWT. AJAX technology is employed to deliver a user experience to web clients that approaches that of desktop-based applications.7. The Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI)The YUI Library is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM scripting, DHTML and AJAX. YUI is available under a BSD license and is free for all uses.8. Sigma Ajax UI builderWritten in javascript and PHP, SigmaVisual is web based visual AJAX UI builder for professional developers. Developers save their time in building up prototype as well as real web applications. TreeBar, TreeGrid, Layout, Menu are supported.9. WUI Web UI FrameworkWUI (Web User Interface) is an MVC framework for writing web UIs in a single language: Java. Write web apps with components, widgets & events, not JSPs. Runs in any servlet 2.3 container. Similar to Model 2 / Struts, only better. Apache-style license.10. Butterfly Web UIButterfly Web UI is a component oriented web framework for Java, like Wicket or Tapestry. The main advantage compared to these frameworks is that Butterfly Web UI integrates naturally with Butterfly DI Container, giving you a state-of-the-art dependency injection container to help you structure and decouple the internal components of your web applications.Add a comment to suggest other interesting WUI. Thanks!