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The idea of machine learning is not new, but it’s also fairly unrecognized by developers. Its goal is to study machine operations and operations to create methods allowing computers to teach themselves how to write their own code for better features or quicker optimization.

It’s not an easy task but the LinkedIn engineering team has never strayed from a challenge. Not only have they put together an A.I. machine learning toolkit, they’ve also released it as open source for the entire development community.

The toolkit is named FeatureFu and it’s downloadable for free on GitHub.

Keep in mind this is not for the faint of heart. FeatureFu is based on Expr, a mathematical expressions framework for Java. To quote the LinkedIn engineering blog:

To unify the feature engineering process and remove the above problems of inconsistencies, we use Expr, a lightweight Java library, which can be used to transform and build features on top of an existing feature pool with great flexibility. Once deployed to an online feature generation framework, it eliminates any further need for code-change to ship models for a wide range of derived features.

Where this could lead is anybody’s guess. LinkedIn has produced a lot of literature on their blog and through very talented employees who are happy to share their knowledge.

Hopefully FeatureFu will prove useful to those intersted in machine learning and the basics of Artificial Intelligence programming.

Read More at FeatureFu: A Machine Learning Toolkit Released as Open Source by LinkedIn

Fun Friday thing! Natalya on CodePen made a super fun Pen.

You know how clicking a with a for attribute that matches a checkbox input, it will toggle the input to checked or unchecked? That, combined with the :checked selector in CSS and the sibling combinator forms The Checkbox Hack, and you can use that to do all kinds of fun stuff.

Natalya used it to build a toggle switch where in the off/left position it shows one emoji, and it slides to the on/right position where it switches to a different emoji.

See the Pen Kitty Toggle by Natalya (@tallys) on CodePen.

I thought whittle it down a bit to the most basic level I could, so if you wanted to snag this idea for something you’re working on, you’d have a more clear building block.

See the Pen Emoji Toggles by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

<!-- The wrap for everything, so you can position it wherever.
     Also, so all the other elements are siblings. -->
<div class="emoji-toggle emoji-travel">

  <!-- The input is first, so the ~ selector can select siblings after it. -->
  <input type="checkbox" id="toggle2" class="toggle">

  <!-- The emoji is a psuedo element on this. -->
  <div class="emoji"></div>

  <!-- This is absolutely positioned over everything.
       Also, the split/label comes from using both :before and :after -->
  <label for="toggle2" class="well"></label>

</div>

The input itself is visually hidden, but absolutely positioned on top of everything so that clicking pretty much anywhere will toggle the checkbox, and thus change the emoji and it’s position.

There is a bit more code than this, but these are the most vital bits of CSS:

.emoji-toggle {
  position: relative;
  .well { // the label
    cursor: pointer;
  }
  .toggle { // the checkbox
    appearance: none;
    background: transparent;
    position: absolute;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    cursor: pointer;
    z-index: 100; 

    // "off"
    ~.emoji:before { 
      content: "emoji unicode here";
      position: absolute;
      left: 0;
      top: -15px;
      font-size: 40px;
      z-index: 1;
      transition: 0.2s;
    }

    // "on"
    &:checked {
      ~.emoji:before {
        content: "different emoji unicode here";
        left: 100%;
        margin-left: -1em;
      }
    }

  }
}

Sass for Versions

To make different versions of it, it required changing the pseudo element content on four different selectors with nested states. It was sorta mind-bending, so I made a quick Sass @mixin to help me. This is the kind of thing I love using preprocessors for – it’s not too fancy, it just helps abstract something that would be very wordy otherwise.

@mixin emojiType($leftEmoji, $rightEmoji, $leftLabel, $rightLabel) {
  .toggle {
    ~.emoji:before {
      content: $leftEmoji;
    }
    &:checked {
      ~.emoji:before {
        content: $rightEmoji;
      }
    }
     ~label {
      &:before {
        content: $leftLabel;
      }
      &:after {
        content: $rightLabel;
      }
    }
  }
}

// Usage
.emoji-happy {
  @include emojiType(
    "1F604", "1F620", "Happy", "Mad"
  );
}

Getting Unicode For Emojis

You may have noticed the unicode values for the emojis are like “1F604” in the CSS content. Fortunately Tim Whitlock has a pretty solid reference page for this info.

So if the unicode for “grinning face” is “U+1F601”, in CSS pseudo content, that becomes “1F601” because of how CSS escapes stuff.

Mileage My Vary

Emojis are weird. I’ve heard this doesn’t work correctly on all setups. Different browser/platform/versions have different emojis available. I’m sure none of us are surprised.

---

Emoji Toggles! is a post from CSS-Tricks

Most people choose to communicate via SMS or iMessage. These are the two default text communication methods for all mobile phone users.

But a recently contender WhatsApp has recently climbed into the spotlight.

Last year Facebook purchased Whatsapp for $19BN. Since then it’s been given a lot of TLC and grown to a considerable size: 900 million users.

According to a post by Jan Koum, WhatsApp just recently hit 900MM users as of very early September 2015.

The app is meant to run as a mobile messaging system to replace things like SMS and iMessage. It can be tough to avoid SMS fees when you don’t have an alternative. But WhatsApp was created for this exact reason and has so far managed to see a lot of success.

You can run WhatsApp on any device from iOS to Blackberry and even Nokia.

Take a peek at the WhatsApp homepage to view features and maybe try it out for yourself.

Read More at WhatsApp Chat Service climbs to 900 Million Users

For years tech fans & web designers have been anticipating the release of Mozilla’s beloved Firefox on mobile devices. And for years there hasn’t been much of an answer – until now.

According to Mozilla, the first round of public testing has started in New Zealand.

People with iOS devices can download the public release of Firefox and test it on their iPhone or iPad.

Mozilla’s goal is to collect feedback from one country to understand what’s working & what’s not. The goal is to slowly roll out Firefox with a few rounds of testing before releasing it globally.

Here ares some interesting features to watch:

• Firefox Accounts: You’ll be able to save your search history, passwords, and other browsing details to sync with desktops.
• Visual Tabs: All tabs are visible as blocks with preview shots of each webpage.
• Advanced Search: Specific search recommendations based on past history and relevant websites/news topics.

If you’d like to signup for public testing just visit this page and submit your info. Mozilla will be selecting various countries over the next few months to gather feedback from users.

There is still no full public release date but we’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Read More at Mozilla Releases Preview of Firefox Browser for iOS

The developers in Redmond, WA just released a brand new update to Skype for smartphones(version 6.0).

It focuses on improved usability for for small and larger screens. Plus with newer devices on the market, additional multitasking features have been added. It’s easier than ever to switch between a chat or call with a simple gesture.

A complete Android UI redesign has been submitted for both smartphones & tablets. You’ll also notice every updated app runs a small floating button with a flyout menu. This makes it easier to access important tasks.

There are so many features and they’re all diversified based on on individual devices. Check out the Skype blog post to learn more.

Microsoft posted a brief update per the Skype iPad App page:

Tons of new features, including location sharing, new large animated emoticons, starting groups and chats, interacting with notifications, and sharing and receiving photos more easily.

If you’ve never used Skype this could be a great time to hop on board – especially if you’re in need of a new chat application.

Read More at Skype Update for iOS & Android improves Navigation & Many other Features

Pre-made Layouts are a valuable asset

When you are looking for a multipurpose WordPress theme that best fits your needs, you are likely to discover that, in terms of the features they have to offer, the themes you are trying to choose among look pretty much the same. All are responsive, many are Retina ready, WPML ready, WooCommerce ready, and seemingly ready for everything. Every single one of them is at least to some extent cross-browser compatible, and most have drag and drop features designed to save time when building a website.

A drag and drop page builder is definitely a key feature, but the importance of having pre-made, easily customizable layouts at your fingertips should not be overlooked, and as far as pre-made layouts are concerned, more is definitely better. Many themes offer one, two, or a handful of these layouts, which may suffice for a theme that is heavily oriented toward a particular type of website, but a theme that provides you with over 100 high-quality, pre-made layouts opens the door to unlimited possibilities, and significantly increases your chances of getting your project off to a running start.

Getting Started with Pre-made Layouts

The layouts shown here are not just pictures to be cut and pasted. They are concepts, and they have been created to be edited and customized. Study a few of them now and you will begin to see the ideas they can generate. Once you have installed one of these pre-made layouts for the first time, the versatility they offer will quickly become apparent, and you will soon find yourself designing professional-looking web pages that are more appealing than you ever thought possible.

Examples of Pre-made Layouts

If these example have given you a few ideas as to how you might be able to take advantage of what pre-made layouts have to offer in creating websites and landing pages, you will quite naturally be interested in knowing just how to put them to use. They obviously need to be installed, and you want to be able to customize them to fit your needs. The installation and editing processes, as you will see, are not difficult at all.

How to Install and Edit a Be Theme Pre-made Layout

It will take but a minute of your time to watch this video that illustrates how quickly and easily you can install and edit a Be Theme layout. By the end of the video, you should be convinced that actually performing the process, even for the first time, does not take much longer.

After you have installed a layout of your choice, the next step will be to do the necessary editing to put it to practical use. This will obviously take more than minute, but you will find you have become a relative expert in no time at all, as you will soon be quickly be able to create pages quickly and efficiently. The following tutorial takes you through the simple, 3-step process required to install a layout.

Step 1- Once you have installed Be, select Appearance and click on Be Theme Demo Data. You have now completed the first of the 3 steps.

Step 2 – The Be Theme Demo Data will take you to the dashboard shown here. The next step is to scroll down the drop-down menu, select the pre-made layout you want to work with, and click on Import Demo Data. You have now successfully completed two-thirds of the process, with one step to go!

Step 3- You are almost done. You are but a click away from being ready to begin editing the pre-made layout you just imported. Select Pages on the WordPress dashboard and begin editing, using Visual Composer, Muffin Builder, or both. It’s as easy as that.

To sum up: Installing a pre-made layout takes but three steps, and you can complete the entire task in well under a minute.

Be Theme’s Core Features

Be is loaded with features. Very few of the other WordPress themes on the market offer such a complete package, so it is little wonder that this particular theme is considered by its users, and others who should know, as being one of the top premium themes on the market. The number of features Be provides is impressive enough, but the fact that this theme has been used by more than 29,000 customers speaks volumes. If you take the time to go through the entire set of features Be brings to the table, you will see why so many have made it their theme of choice. To save time, we have limited our discussion of features to four core features that are characterized by their focus on single-click page building.

Pre-made Layouts

As mentioned earlier, Be’s 100+ ready-to-use, pre-made layouts gives you a practically limitless set of options to work with, and since whatever layout you happen to choose is so easy to customize, you will be creating pages in no time at all. You will be pleasantly surprised, if not astonished, at how easy it is to create a page that exhibits the exact look and feel you are looking for. A comprehensive selection of header sizes, skins, logos, grid sizes, along with the ability to select box or full-width layouts, makes it easy to use different layout schemes for different pages.

Muffin Builder/Shortcodes

Muffin Builder is an extremely practical, and highly popular web development tool. You can use it in combination with Be Theme’s 200+ shortcodes if you have limited coding experience or if you just want to use this tool to its maximum advantage. If you want to eliminate the need for coding altogether, you can use Muffin Builder together with Visual Composer and create web pages with extreme rapidity.

Visual Composer – Visual Composer, or VC, is one of the more powerful page builder plugins on the market. It is featured in many, if not most, multipurpose themes, and it is an extremely popular page builder with website developers. Coding experience is not necessary when working with VC. In fact, it allows you to create an entire website without having to resort to using a single line of code, or the use of shortcodes. Not only does VC give you complete control over your layouts, but it allows you to save them as templates for later use, should you wish to do so.

Layer Slider – With this feature at your disposal, you have the ability to create slideshows of your image galleries, embed videos into your web pages, and design sliders down to the tiniest of details. Working with the layer slider admin interface is no more difficult than editing a layout, and you have already been given a glimpse as to how easy that can be. Like Be Theme, Layer Slider is fully responsive. It supports touch features, along with other operations unique to many mobile devices.

Summary

The features described here are but a few of the many that Be Theme offers, but taken together, they enable you to use this theme’s pre-made layouts to your best advantage. Most of the effort required when creating a webpage will consist of dragging, dropping, and single click selection of various elements or options. You have seen but a few examples of how versatile and easy to work with this theme is. Take one additional step for an even better demonstration of how easy it is to convert a pre-made layout into a highly-customized web page, by Visiting the Be Theme Site.

Read More at How To Start Using Pre-Made Layouts and Improve Productivity

This week, the Web’s been falling in love with Font Flame. Billed as the ‘Tinder’ for typefaces, it’s an addictive little site that asks you to judge font pairings.

You can love or hate the combinations that are randomly presented, all drawn from Google’s free font library. If you love a combination, it will be saved for you under My Type.

Suitably as superficial as picking a life partner from a selfie, it’s questionable how useful the pairings actually are. When browsing through combinations the typical response seems to be: hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… love… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate… hate…

Developed by Jan Wennesland, Font Flame is still in development, and with feedback from the design community Wennesland hopes to make it the definitive tool for font pairing.

One of the first revisions was the introduction of curated suggestions by Typewolf‘s Jeremiah Shoaf. Whilst the suggestions are nice it does circumvent the purpose of the app. It would be great to see a ‘Most Loved’ section, that combines curation and random selection.

Currently the biggest obstacle to the app being useful is that you’re asked to compare a title, and a subtitle; it would be far more useful to compare a display font with a text font, preferably with language options. It would also be nice to be able to ‘pin’ one of the random options and keep rolling the dice until you find a suitable partner for it. Hopefully those are things that will be addressed in a future version.

As with relationships, compatibility is a complex formula, dependent on contrasting and complementary characteristics. Font Flame tends to produce just a few usable combinations. But it’s a great way to show non-typophiles how much work goes into type pairing. And if nothing else, it’s a fun way to spend 30 minutes.

55 Logo Templates with Monogram Incorporated – only $12!

Source

Hey, welcome back again to this week’s web development reading list. It’s great to see your support and the still growing list of subscribers. If you love to read WDRL, please do recommend it to your colleagues and consider a small donation.

This week we saw a new Google logo but while the “I like it” and “I hate it” posts dominated our social media channels, some great technical articles were published as well.

The post Web Development Reading List #102 appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Apple developers will be excited to know that Xcode 7 recently put out its sixth beta release. This marks a long period of testing for Apple developers to ensure that all features are ready to go for the latest software updates.

This latest version of Xcode is meant to encapsulate all the tools needed for building apps for Apple devices. This includes mobile devices running iOS 9, computers running OS X 10.11 El Capitan, and the latest watchOS 2.

There is no immediate set date for the final release of Xcode 7. We do know there are many updates pushed with each new beta including Swift language parameters, new OS playgrounds, and some general syntax additions to Objective-C.

Apple has already put out a preview of iOS 9 and has been working vigilantly to release all the new OS’ on a similar timeframe.

To read a full list of features take a peek at the online developer’s documentation.

Until then developers should familiarize themselves with the new Xcode features.

Whether you build mobile apps or desktop software, Xcode is the one-and-only application you’ll need. Be on the lookout for more Xcode release info in the coming months.

Read More at Xcode 7 Beta 6 readies Developers for iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 El Capitan

Allow me to admit that I dislike SEO as a profession. I do know that we cannot do without it, however. Keeping your head above the water of the ever rising information flood and the ability of swimming with the sharks demands either acquiring a sound knowledge or hiring someone with a sound knowledge. In any case, this profession is completely man-made. Would there not have been people overdoing it, this whole rat race would never have to have been started. But, here we stand… Okay, I heard you. No need to repeat the same thing in different terms over and over again. Might the listener have tuned his ears to different search phrases the SEO guy wanted to be sure to reach? Possibly… By the way, we have more cartoons for you here.