Keeping up with technology is a lot of work. Luckily, we enjoy wading through the noise just to find the gems of awesomeness sprinkled throughout. Fusion Radar is our gift to you, Current or Potential Client, so that you can enjoy all of the awesome without any of the drudgery. Unwrap it each week, and know that you’re loved by the geeks and pixel-pushers at Agency Fusion.
Macaw
Macaw is a web design tool that allows you to "draw" your code. It's as flexible as your standard image editors–and at $129, is much more reasonably priced than most of them. In addition to the low price point, Macaw also writes semantic HTML and succinct CSS for you while you design. This allows designers to define responsive breakpoints, resize all elements on a canvas at once, and build clickable prototypes with dynamic interactions.
Offscreen
Offscreen.js is a lightweight jQuery plugin that can detect if an element is cut off by the sides of your screen, and adjusts its placement accordingly. More specifically, Offscreen.js adds a special class to the offscreen element, bringing it back into view so you can address the problem.
Madeira
Madeira is a set of powerful and simple tools that allow users to design, build, and manage their AWS cloud. It uses drag-and-drop controls to help you quickly and efficiently design your application architecture. It also enables users to configure specific resources and security group rules. Finally, users can launch their design into a real environment to see how well it works.
Gremlins.js
Gremlins.js is a monkey testing library you can use to test the robustness of web applications. The creator states that it "unleashes a horde of undisciplined gremlins"; Gremlins.js basically throws events at your HTML, and is able to report back when something goes wrong.
Squirt
Squirt is a simple speed reading web app that shows users one word at a time, allowing them to read up to 600 wpm. (Note: the average adult reading speed is 300 wpm.) You install Squirt as a bookmarklet in your browser; then, whenever you come across something you want to speed read, click on the bookmarklet. Squirt will help you speed read your way through whatever text is currently on the page.
NameChk
NameChk is a simple site and iOS app that lets you search for available usernames on dozens of social networks sites all at once. Simply type in your desired username or url and NameChk will review sites like Pinterest, reddit, LinkedIn, and about 80 other sites for that name's availability.
Why Don't Designers Take Android Seriously?
Cennydd Bowles, a design lead at Twitter, recently wrote an article that explores why he thinks Android will be the dominant platform of the next decade. Among other reasons, Bowles cites Android's universally accessible software that enables it to work with devices from many different companies. He also takes some time to address the issues he sees as the biggest barriers to designing for Android.