Since I am currently working on several (count eight) web development projects at the same time, life has been hectic but very productive. With my improved energy levels, I’m better motivated to learn and do more things at one go, but I felt that I needed to use more new arsenals in the form of web development tools that I hope can speed up the development process and the project as a whole. Preferably those arsenals are free and goes hand-in-hand with my prototyping methods of finishing my projects.

One of the things I don’t really enjoy doing is designing forms. I have to think about client-side validation, and making the fields more appealing and user-friendly with tooltips and whatnot. However, since forms are an integral part of data entry in a web application, I can’t get away without it. And then, there’s the wireframing for layout and functional visualization, very important for documentation. I prefer pencil-sketching. It’s easier to control where everything goes, rather than using my mouse to navigate the precise location of a certain text within Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks. I have wireframing sheets printed out and hand drawn, and I would clip them into my handy-dandy notebook, which, at some point will be overflowing with stuff that it just won’t be practical to drag about.

I’ve just discovered and worked with at least two spiffy apps these past week that made project visualization and forms development much faster and easier for me.

JotForm is not only a form builder, but it also hosts the forms and data for you. I personally like the smooth design that comes with the form. It has the ability to not only get those validation and tooltips in, but it highlights the section of the form you are selecting. Once I’m done, I can either just use the embed code, or if I want to integrate the form with my database, I just copy the whole HTML layout with its CSS and JavaScript codes intact into my app, and voila, pretty form. Happy days.

And wireframing using a computer isn’t as bad as I thought after all. Or maybe it’s just Mockingbird making it easy for me. The widgets and forms that are available for me to use are just enough for me to design a nice website wireframe, and I particularly like the align grids that shows automatically every time I insert a new object in. Once I’m done, I can share the file with anyone I want without having to generate the file as another format and upload it elsewhere. Mockingbird is fast for a web application, most probably because it’s programmed with Cappucino / Cocoa, a relatively new open-source programming framework that runs on a client, giving itself the feel that you’re running a software that’s installed in your computer. Very impressive and very nice.

Evolus’s Pencil and Appnitro’s pForm deserve a special mention here; both look promising and worth a try when I have the time to spare. Pencil is a free prototyping/wireframing tool that to me looks even more powerful and richer than Mockingbird, and runs either as a Firefox addon or standalone app. The free AJAX-powered version of pForm provides a simple click-and-drag way to create forms from a variant of design sets available in the site; the commercial version, in the meantime, has MySQL, e-mail and autoresponder integration for unlimited amount of sites.

I admit that I’m so far off when it comes to social networking sites — I just can’t keep up. So you can’t imagine how crazy I went when, while in my mood to listen to David Foster’s songs, I searched and found a site that’s not only a social networking site, but also a music sharing portal!

Imeem! (I can already hear the guffaws coming out of most of you)

If you haven’t heard of the site, though, then I sympathize with you and understand your plight.

Anyways, the site is filled with all sorts of music you can imagine. You build your playlists from the assortment of songs already in there, then share it out with others in your network. The streamed songs are amazingly fast, and extra options such as linking to your Twitter status makes Imeem fun to use.

But if you just want to download some MP3s, MP3Raid is the place to go. You have the option to purchase and download full albums for darn cheap prices, going for as low as 90 US cents per album. I think that’s an awesome deal. They even accept PayPal, which is very convenient for me and I’m sure is for you, too.

Do you have any free music sites that you know and would like to share with me (the legal ones of course)?

Alright, so I kind of lied about the getting a date part, but being a social networking site, Wakoopa does get you connected with other people. But wait, there’s more.

The twist to Wakoopa is that it also keeps track of the software and sites you use, as long as you install and run its lightweight tracker as soon as your computer is on.

You might think it sounds a little lame. But just wait till you see the stats it collects, as per my Wakoopa profile:

According to Wakoopa, “So far webgrrrl has used 157 different applications for 298 hours in total.” The stats even breaks down the type of tasks I was doing most of the time based on the software I was using. From the looks of it, here’s the 5 top tasks I’ve been doing on my computer:

1. Surf the web
2. Is social (it means I’m spending a lot of time on social networking sites)
3. Word processing
4. Present (not “exist”, but as in doing presentations)
5. Search the web

Pretty darn scary — and accurate!

Another cool thing about Wakoopa is the ability to discover new software, sites and tools that friends in your network are using. Leo Laporte was the first person I added into my network (I actually found out about Wakoopa through his FriendFeed update and I have him to blame for my Wakoopa addiction), followed by the creators of Wakoopa. You won’t believe the myriad of software I found just by following their usage.

Enough said. Try it yourself. And remember to add me as your friend while you’re at it.

Since my last post concerning WordPress as a content management system (CMS), I’ve seen a few more sites that showcases this type of setup. Even WordPress.org has jumped on the bandwagon by highlighting sites that are deemed to be well-designed CMSes, and if any WordPress-powered site should aspire to look like a CMS, this is the place to go for inspiration.

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One site in the list is definitely noteworthy, like the New School University Student Senate web site. Golf Royalty is another nifty site and should have been ranked up there in the top 10, not those vote-rigged sites you see right now. Need more inspiration? Here are 10 more fantastic-looking WordPress CMS that Adrian from Rubiqube recommends.

A few tips to make your WordPress site less blog-like and more CMS-like: don’t go for the boring ol’ header-topnav-post-post-post-sidebar-footer layout. Get user interactivity into it (polls and such). Highlight important content and group them well (highlights, news, announcement). Snazzy graphics are welcomed, but not required. There are so many themes and plugins out there that can help your WordPress site stand out and not look like a blog.

If you’re still at a loss, you can always hire me

I was this close to buying a book called Rhythm Programming at the local book fair this afternoon, but my guts told me to hold off the purchase. After reading the reviews in Amazon.com, I’m glad I did. After all, it was printed in 2002, and I’m sure a lot has changed since then.

So here I am back on the Net, doing a small research on how to set up a PC recording studio at home so I could achieve that lifelong dream of composing my own songs. The few sites listed below should be good enough for a beginner like me:

Digital Trends’ Setup a Recording Studio on Your Computer: This article tells you exactly what kind of hardware and software you need to have in order to set up your PC for recording music. This is perfect for me since I plan on playing a few instruments myself instead of relying too much on synths that are built into the computer. I especially like their software recommendations which are almost always focused on the freewares.

How to Configure a Recording Studio Rig: Oh, this one is excellent. It shows you the different recommended setups you can do depending on your budget and computer hardware needs (PC/Mac). Very detailed. My rig will probably be no more complicated than this:

DrawMusic’s How to Write Music: This is actually the site of a music composition software called ChordSong, a very bare-bones version if you’d like to dabble with one, but without the hefty cost. The tutorial is good enough that it may even allow you to compose your very first song within hours. It’s not so flexible when it comes to the beats, but it does its job alright. Here’s what I got after playing with it a bit for 10-15 mins (guess what song it is).

How to Write a Love Song: You can never go wrong with a love song. A guy named William Brooks converted his book into electronic form and shared them out for free in Scribd. I haven’t read it yet, but I will. “It doesn’t matter if you are brand new to songwriting or hammering out your 100th tune, there is something for everyone in this book. You will be walked step-by-step through the process of writing your first love song. It’s just as if I was sitting next to you and just hanging out and showing you what to do next. ” Ooooh….

More Google Book Search results for my reference and future reading.