A new collection of the most interesting and creative websites from the past couple of weeks. The post Inspirational Websites Roundup #31 appeared first on Codrops.

Since 2010, the number of U.S. apprenticeships has risen 64 percent and is expected to increase. For software developers, apprenticeships are beneficial for the apprentice, the mentor, and the company. They are an investment in the future of each. Beginners gain skill and exposure toward a possible career while the company grows its talent pool … continue reading The post The benefits of software development apprenticeships appeared first on SD Times.

On the Sticher.io blog Brent has written up a post covering the use of MySQL views in Eloquent, the database ORM that's included with the Laravel framework. MySQL views are a way of storing queries on the database level, and producing virtual tables with them. In this post we'll look at why you want to use them and how they can be integrated in Laravel with Eloquent models. If you're already convinced of the power of MySQL views, or just want to know how to implement them in Laravel, you're free to skip ahead. For those not familiar with the concept of "views" in MySQL, he spends a little time explaining what they are and what benefits they bring to the table. This includes a code example of a migration to create one and how something similar could be achieved with event hooks on a Laravel model. He then gets into the use of the views with Laravel, refactoring a more complex SELECT query into a view and creating/removing it using the same migration methods as any other table in the database.

Winter means getting out your scarf and a cozy hat to brave the cold — if you're located in the Northern hemisphere that is. For all those occasions when your projects may need to get dressed up a little, we are happy to present to you the free Clothing Icon Set created by the design team at Creativebin today. The set includes 40 icons with everything ranging from shirts, pants and dresses to a blazer, hat and even a scarf. Available in nine styles and four formats (AI, EPS, SVG and PNG). Please note that this icon set is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is not cool. Please provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word in blog posts or anywhere else.The post Freebie: Clothing Icons (40 Icons, 9 Styles, AI, EPS, SVG, PNG) appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Using a quality responsive CSS framework can give you a nice head start on any web design project. Some, like Bootstrap, are a bit bloated with excess code while others... The post 10 Free Lightweight CSS Frameworks for a Fast Start appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Young and impactful. Generation Z dictates the future of digital business. This segment of consumers is now under the close attention of all innovative-thinking brands. Gen Zers make a massive impact not only on modern marketing but also on product conceptualization and customer service. They shape an entirely new culture of online interactions between brands...

Find out how governments can effectively leverage blockchain and smart contracts to improve their public relationships and enhance the transparency of their inner processes, making them faster and cheaper. The post The Role of Smart Contracts in the Government Sector appeared first on SCAND.

This week's Designer News (N.382) includes a Board to Track Job Applications, a CSS Grid Cheat Sheet, a Vue.js Introduction, a look at Smooth Scrolling & Accessibility, Mastering Design Fundamentals, Improving UX Through Performance and more. The post Weekly News for Designers (N.382) appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Potential employers are busy people. They have the time-consuming task of reading many applications and resumes before finally selecting the perfect person. When you have the task of looking through... The post 20 Beautiful & Free Resume Templates for Designers appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

On the TutsPlus.com site they've posted a new tutorial showing you how to use the Symfony Security component to authenticate users in your system and use role-based access checks. In this article, you'll learn how to set up user authentication in PHP using the Symfony Security component. As well as authentication, I'll show you how to use its role-based authorization, which you can extend according to your needs. The tutorial starts with a summary of the Symfony Security component and what subcomponents it includes. It then walks you through the installation of the component via Composer (of version 4.1). They then walk through a more real-world example that uses user credentials and role information pulled from a MySQL database. They provide the code for the User class, a DatabaseProvider class, a DatabaseAuthenticationProvider, and how they all work together. Code is provided to complete the authentication process and to create the database table for the user credential and role details.