Nearly two weeks ago, you participated in a giveaway for $50 credit at 4Templates. Now is time to draw the winners!

And they are:

Alejandro Carrillo and Patschi

They have been contacted and will receive their prizes shortly. Congratulations!

4Temlates.com has hundreds of awesome website templates and WordPress themes with amazing graphics, standards compliant XHTML and CSS code, PSD files, and great tech support whenever you need it. And with pricing $25 or below, you’ll always find something that works great no matter the project or budget.

Today two of you will have a chance to win $50 in credit for their online store! You can use it to download any themes you wish.

How to win?

• Follow @4Templates on Twitter.
• Tweet this article and leave a comment below.

The winners will be announced on May 7th 2012 in a follow-up post. Announced!

We all love jQuery. This site is even dedicated to building beautiful examples that use the library. But there are situations in which jQuery is not the smart choice. If you are using it only for simple DOM manipulation or an AJAX request or two, why slow down your page load times and introduce an additional dependency?

The problem is more severe on mobile devices. You see, although we include jQuery via a CDN like Google’s, it is still not free – downloading it and parsing it still takes time. The very thing that made jQuery popular – perfect cross browser support, also makes it too bulky for use on mobile devices. After all, why would you need your mobile website to support old IE versions if it is meant to be viewed only on iOS and Android?

Getting Lean

There are additional problems to be solved. jQuery’s approach to animations for instance is to modify the css style properties of an element in small intervals. This works fine on the desktop, but performs poorly on mobile devices. Pure CSS animations on the other hand (that use transitions and @keyframes) are hardware accelerated and smooth.

This means that a whole new approach must be taken for building mobile websites. Fortunately, there are five libraries that can help us with that.

Zepto.js

Zepto.js

This is the most feature-rich library out there that is specifically designed for iOS and Android (both using the webkit engine). It retains nearly all of jQuery’s functionality in 8kb (instead of jQuery’s 32) and adds support for touch events (including pinch to zoom) and pure CSS animations. It takes a modular approach – you only add the components that you need for an even leaner library.

Site | Github

Snack.js

Snack.js

Snack is a small and simple JavaScript library. Though ideal for small projects, it’s got enough in it to build complex, cross-browser web apps. It takes a different approach than Zepto in that it breaks away from the jQuery API but at 3kb is half the size. You will have to handle animations yourself with this one.

Site | Github

$dom

$dom

$dom is even smaller – at 2kb it packs quite a punch. It keeps cross-browser compatibility and even handles animations (albeit taking jQuery’s approach with a timeout), but omits functionality like array manipulation functions and AJAX. The perfect use case for this library is when building responsive websites, which can be viewed on smartphones, tablets and desktops.

Github

xui.js

xui.js

At 4kb XUI is a small framework for authoring HTML5 mobile web applications. It works across all of the devices in the mobile landscape and even has special builds for webkit, ie mobile and blackberry browser. It supports touch events and even has a jQuery compatibility plugin.

Site | Github

140medley

140medley

You can’t go more micro than 140medley. This 0.5kb collection of functionality was inspired by the 140bytes contest, where participants create tweet-sized JavaScript snippets. It supports templates, events and even AJAX. This is pro territory only, as the only documentation provided is through comments in the cryptic source code.

Github

Conclusion

These are only some of the exciting new frameworks that are out there. But it isn’t enough to have an awesome name or site – the community is what makes or breaks an open source project. So if you find something interesting that is worth your time, make sure to spread the word about it.

You probably know about MightyDeals.com, it is a flash sales platform for digital goods aimed at web professionals. Their deals include products and services that are heavily discounted, exclusively for their customers, usually from 50% to 90% off.

Today they are offering a one-time offer for Tutorialzine readers. Five of you will have a chance to get whichever deal their want from their catalog for free!

How to participate

For a chance to win one of their deals, do the following:

• Enter your email in the box below;
• Leave a comment (using the same email) with the deal you would like to win from the list of currently active deals.

The winners will be chosen on April 4th using random.org and announced in this post.

The winners have been chosen and contacted by Mighty Deals. Thanks to everybody that participated!

Two weeks ago, you participated in the DigiSeller giveaway. Now it’s time to draw the lucky winners.

And they are: Max Requião, chiuto and Giorgos Yfantis.

Winners

The winners have been contacted and will receive their prizes shortly.

Do you love to build things? I know I do. It can be a web app, template, PSD, a PHP script, or even an ebook. Sooner or later, an idea comes to your mind – you can turn your love for building things into an extra revenue stream. But I have bad news for you.

Selling online sucks

You have a choice – join a marketplace or do it yourself. Doing it yourself clearly has a lot of benefits – you can choose your own pricing, design your shop, and keep all of your profits. But the bad thing is that you have to deal with heavy and archaic CMS systems that are a nightmare to customize, or join an equally unfriendly platform for a monthly fee.

I was looking for a solution that was quick to set up, easy to customize, and lightweight. I wanted something that I could throw on a domain and have a working microsite with PayPal integration. I couldn’t find one, so I built it myself.

Introducing DigiSeller

DigiSeller is a PHP+MySQL script for setting up a digital shop. It has full PayPal integration and helps you sell a digital item securely. You only need to upload it to your hosting space along with your product in a zip file, add your PayPal email address to the config file, and start selling!

DigiSeller - PHP Webshop Script

Notable Features:

Just before the holidays, you took part in the iPhorm WordPress Plugin Giveaway, where two of you had a chance of winning a copy of the plugin. Now it is time to draw the winners!

And the two of you who got a late Christmas present are WPH and Mike Dedmon. They have been contacted and will receive their prizes shortly.

iPhorm winners

For those of you who did not win, I wish the best of luck next time!

WordPress is undoubtedly the most popular CMS in the world. It is used for so much more than the authors initially envisioned. With all of its wonderful features and incredible plugins, you can build anything – from a personal blog to a fully-fledged online shop.

With the holidays right around the corner, we decided to give away two copies of the iPhorm plugin which will help you create forms for your website with an easy to use drag-and-drop builder directly from WordPress.

The iPhorm Plugin

iPhorm is a WordPress plugin that makes building forms easy with elements that include email address, date and time, file uploads and many more. The form submissions are received as emails or directly in your dashboard. Designers have full control on how the forms looks, and for everybody else, two themes are provided. For a live demo, see here.

How to Win

For a chance to win a copy of the plugin, do the following:

• Leave a comment below this article;
• Tweet it.

The winners will be announced on January 5th 2012.

Ten days ago you took part in the IM Creator giveaway, where three of you had a chance to win a lifetime subscription for their new web site building service. Now it is time to draw the winners!

And they are kit, Richard Bland and Chen YH. They have been contacted and will receive their prizes soon.

The Winners

I am wishing the best of luck in the coming competitions for those of you who did not win!

Every website is different. From complex online stores that test your development skills, to presentation oriented pages that depend heavily on design, and everything in between. But there is a right tool for any job. You can use an open source CMS to lift the development burden off complex sites, but it would be an overkill for simpler ones.

This is where a tool like IM Creator comes into play.

IM Creator Lifetime License

IM Creator is a new simple and free HTML-based drag and drop website builder that allows you to create your website in a trouble-free, accessible and pleasant experience. With IM Creator, you can build a beautiful site, fast. Start from an existing design or make a new one - it’s up to you.

The Prize

The folks behind IM Creator have generously offered three lifetime licenses for their premium plan to Tutorialzine readers (valued at $95/year each). The offer applies to new clients of their service.

How to Win

For a chance to win a lifetime subscription, do the following:

• Leave a comment below this article;
• Tweet it.

The winners will be announced on December 15th 2011.