fidzu : Web Design

Three good questions to ask clients when embarking on a web site redesign:

1. If your site was a person, what would he or she be like?
2. How would you expect visitors to react when they first view your site?
3. What celebrity (or car, movie, etc.) is your site most like? Least like? Why?

Nice ice breaker and a way to get them thinking creatively.

23 Jul 2008 3:24am GMT

I recently read a great article on Boxes and Arrows about the myth of the fold.

Turning to the sidebar to learn more about the author, I was struck by some of the design decisions that had been made regarding this part of the page, most notably the choice to right-align all the sidebar content.

As I looked a little deeper I began to wonder how much more readable the content would be if it was left-aligned and paragraphs were used. How might the visual design be improved if more differentiation was made between the sections? What if the text was a little smaller to better separate it from the article? And so on.

I couldn't resist firing up the 'Edit HTML' feature of the Web Developer toolbar to find out. Here are the results of 20 minutes or so of tweaking:

The original Boxes and Arrows article sidebar is on the left and my version is on the right

Note: I edited down the long bio text in both examples for the sake of this experiment.

Clearly, the left-aligned content is easier to read. I also find that the smaller text is still very readable because of the use of paragraphs and that the whole sidebar is more scannable because it takes up less vertical space.

I like the way the revised sidebar is more distinct from and subordinate to the article content. Given more time I would likely experiment more here, perhaps through the use of different font styles (capitals or italics) and colors (other shades of gray).

I find the 'most commented stories' section, in particular, to be much easier to scan in my version. It really doesn't work in the original.

I also 'fixed' some odd design choices. In the original example, the 'Blasting the Myth of the Fold' link is not colored orange like the rest of the links. However, the '136 Reputation points' text is colored orange but is not a link.

So, what do you think of the revised version - better or worse?

03 Jul 2008 3:41am GMT

After putting together a registration form design showcase, the logical next step was to do the same for login forms.

MySpace's login form has a clean, elegant design

65+ examples later, it's been interesting to see the creative approaches that some designers have taken to this most basic but important element of a web site.

It's also been interesting to see what conventions stand out regarding the design of login forms.

For example, should it be login, log in or sign in? How should the forgot password link be written? What about including a cancel button? Should it be keep me signed in or remember me on this computer? Should the layout be horizontal or vertical?

I did notice that few sites laid their login forms out horizontally in order to fit into the masthead and enable users to log in from the home page or any other page.

Digg provides a horizontal login form in its masthead area

It seems that most web designers are happy to ask users to click on a link to get to the login form. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me, especially if it is combined with a 'remember me' cookie to keep you logged in for future visits.

If you're not sure how best to lay out your login form or what conventions to follow regarding labeling, then take a look through the showcase - hopefully you'll get some idea of what best practice looks like.

24 Jun 2008 2:56am GMT

Here's an interesting idea. Text Prefs is an online typographic survey where you can choose your preferred text formatting - font, text size, line height, column width - and then vote for it.

According to the creators, Message, the site was developed because:

…we found there to be a distinct lack of hard facts about how online users prefer their text displayed…

Once there have been enough responses Message will summarize their findings in a report this summer.

Of course, the obvious flaw in this survey is that what constitutes the most appropriate typography depends on its context of use.

If more people vote for Verdana than, say, Georgia, does this mean you should never use the latter in your web designs? Of course not.

Still it will be interesting to see if there are any useful findings to come out. I am especially keen to see what can be learned about column widths. Stay tuned.

16 Jun 2008 3:11am GMT

I just came across three versions of the RSS icon on the Stargate Worlds web site.

I've not seen green or blue icons being used to represent video and audio RSS feeds before.

I was wondering if this was a convention I wasn't aware of or if this was just how they were trying to differentiate the feeds on this web site.

If the second option is true, I'm not how well it works as the only way to know what the blue and green RSS icons represent is to mouse over them. This doesn't make them particularly 'discoverable.'

Anyone have any ideas?

09 Jun 2008 2:47am GMT

Before you can build pages that are database driven, you must first establish a connection between your Web server and your database. In the Windows operating system, this process is relatively straightforward, but there are several potential pitfalls that can keep your pages from effectively communicating with your database. This article shows you the step-by-step [...]

08 Jun 2008 11:22pm GMT

Once your new Web site is launched, you can submit it to Web directories and noncompetitive, industry-related Web sites. Once a Web site has some high-quality link development, the commercial search engines should easily discover your site through the natural crawling of the Web. However, submission is not the end of the optimization, design, and [...]

08 Jun 2008 12:02am GMT

I was always baffled by the fact that Photoshop's Picture Package command did not offer an option for three 4×6's on a page. Little did I know, it's extremely easy to customize these layouts and create your own just by editing a plain text file. These instructions also work for Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Album. Important: [...]

07 Jun 2008 8:00am GMT

If you primarily use Adobe Photoshop for creating Web images, there are a few program changes you should make. These few tweaks will result in better Web graphics. 1. Go to File > Preferences > Saving Files 2. Set Image Previews to Never Save. 3. Go to File > Preferences > Units and Rulers 4. Set the Unit of [...]

07 Jun 2008 6:43am GMT

I've often wondered why there are no good tools for easily developing information architectures and producing wireframes.

Visio tends to be the standard, although I regularly use PowerPoint due to its ubiquity. Thanks to the PowerPoint Prototyping Toolkit you can produce quite good results.

The problem with Visio (other than its cost) is that it tends to get pretty fiddly/messy. Sometimes it seems that I'm spending more time fighting with the software in order to get everything laid out properly than actually designing.

The GUUUI Web Prototyping Tool is a great help, but it still doesn't get past the fact that you're using Visio.

"There must be something other than Visio and PowerPoint," I've thought to myself as I've searched the web without success. I like Jumpchart but it's designed more around content development than wireframing and prototyping.

Which is why I was so interested to learn about Oversite (thanks again to GUUUI), an application for creating IAs, wireframes, web page mockups and prototypes (for Windows/Mac/Linux).

Oversite makes it easy to create and - more importantly - manipulate an IA and display it as an attractive sitemap.

I also tested out the tool to see how easy it was to create a prototype for a web site account creation process. Laying out a multi-stage form on separate pages was easy and I could even populate the options in my select fields.

It's far easier than Visio to link everything together and create fully functioning web pages. To test your web prototype out all you have to do is to select the "Click-thru" tab or export the whole thing to HTML.

This is the most full-featured and easy-to-use IA/wireframing/prototyping tool that I've come across and frankly I'm amazed that I've taken so long to discover it (it's been around for 3 years).

I didn't mean this post to turn out to be such a sales pitch, but I really like this tool. You can download the software to try it out and it's only $35 to register it.

31 May 2008 4:00am GMT

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article! Back to Top

22 May 2008 8:22pm GMT

The people other at Brad Blogging have started a new list to help increase technorati rankings. Its simple to do it, just head over their and copy the updated list into your blogposts and leave a comment you will be contacted when the list is updated. Copy The List Below into a blog post of yours. Add [...]

21 May 2008 7:36pm GMT

Here is a list of applications which provide the JPEG lossless rotation feature based on the IJG code: Jpegcrop [Guido Vollbeding] (Windows) - Sample application cPicture [Jürgen Eidt] (Windows) - Includes lossless cropping, Exif patch and automatic Exif orientation correction! PIE [PicMeta Software] (Windows) - Picture Information Extractor, includes Exif patch EXIF Image Viewer [Michal Kowalski] (Windows) - Digital [...]

21 May 2008 7:22am GMT

I'm planning to make a list of blog's here in my site. The aim of this is list is free BACKLINKS for you bloggers. Just 1 favor, please use the above banner on your site to link us . If you want to be in the list, Post a reply in this post or leave [...]

19 May 2008 6:29pm GMT

Marketing plays a very important part in sales. If the marketing department generates a potential customer list, it can be beneficial for sales. The marketing department's goal is to bring people to the sales team using promotional techniques such as advertising, sales promotion, publicity and public relations. Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing along with [...]

19 May 2008 3:35pm GMT

1. Generate Traffic. To generate a lot of traffic to your site and gain recognition, you need to promote in as many places as you possibly can. Do not throw all your advertising dollars in only one or two spots. Try to determine or ask the amount of traffic they are generating. Sites generating huge [...]

19 May 2008 3:32pm GMT

In writing about redesigning the TechCrunch footer I came across many great examples of creative and useful footer design.

So I thought it was about time I created my own showcase of web site footer designs.

Footer design showcase examples (click to view all)

Some are simple and elegant; many are information-rich. But all combine typography, color, layout and imagery to reinforce the brand of the site, engage visitors and drive traffic to other pages. Enjoy!

13 May 2008 4:20am GMT

If you work on windows , you know that shutting it down can be really a hassle and time taking , especially when a lot of programs are running . Most of us tend to avoid shut down due to this reason but we know that shut down is always safer and also considered good [...]

11 May 2008 6:04pm GMT

I've been a reader of TechCrunch for some time. Although I mainly read it via RSS, I occasionally visit the site - either to post a comment or view something that's not displaying properly in my RSS reader.

I'm always interested to check out the design of popular, content rich sites like this, to see what they are doing to make the full range of their content available to their readers.

The TechCrunch design is serviceable at best, and could probably do with a refresh. However, it is the footer that has always irked me the most.

Before: What Footer?

Currently, the site footer is almost non-existent:

Current TechCrunch footer (click to view full size image)

This seems like a lost opportunity to me as there are so many things you can do with a web site's footer area - blogs in particular - to bring new content to readers' attention.

With this thought in mind I took a shot at redesigning the TechCrunch footer.

After: It's…So…Beautiful!

Bearing in mind that this is the product of about an hour's work and is not intended to be presented as a finished design, here's what I came up with:

Redesigned TechCrunch footer (click to view full size image)

As far as the content to be included in the footer, my rationale is as follows.

TechCrunch Network

The TechCrunch network is quite a large family of sites, some of which may be less familiar to TechCrunch readers.

I thought it would be a good idea to list the sites in the network along with a brief summary of what each was about.

Popular Entries

TechCrunch is updated many times a day, and I don't have the time or interest to read through all the posts.

However, it would be useful if I could see what posts were recently popular - much like Digg does - so that I could make sure I didn't miss out on any major stories.

Recent Entries

This section is a pretty default option for an informational footer like this. It's never a bad idea to make more posts available from the home page.

However, this area could be used for anything, depending on the priorities of the site - advertisers, comments, categories, you name it.

Parting Thoughts

Regardless of what you think of my footer design, the point I'm trying to make is simply to do something with this area.

This is free space to use. It doesn't get in the way of your main content and vie for your readers' attention. It doesn't complicate your information architecture.

However, when done right it just might provide enough of a hook to keep your visitors reading your content rather than heading off elsewhere.

Further Reading

• 35 website footer designs, trends and styles
• Footers In Modern Web Design: Creative Examples and Ideas
• Web Design Elements: Footers
• Geek Trends: 15 Footers with great usability
• CSS-Based Footers: Modern Solutions
• Put Your Best Foot Forward: 19 Gorgeous Website Footers

05 May 2008 3:08am GMT

In his article Press releases: spin and propaganda, Gerry McGovern recently railed against the practice of posting press releases on web sites, asking the question:

…why do so many organizations still publish press releases prominently on their websites?

I agree in principle that putting press releases on a web site does not serve the purpose for which they were originally intended. That is, providing information to journalists for them to write stories about you (although with the advent of the social media release this might be changing).

However, regardless of whether they are serving their original purpose, I wonder if the practice is now so ingrained that visitors expect to find an archive of press releases in the About or News section of an organization's site, along with a list of the most recent ones on the home page.

I, for one, wouldn't bat an eye if I came across this sort of setup on a web site, and quite often will scan over the most recent ones on the home page.

Under certain circumstances I actually find press releases to be very useful. If I am researching a potential vendor I'll always read through their press releases to see what's been happening with their product and what deals they have landed.

These days, company blogs serve a similar purpose, but there's often too much noise. Press releases are useful because they contain only 'official' news about the organization.

When I'm researching a company as a job applicant I'll always read through the more recent press releases as part of my interview preparation. For example, when I was doing research for my current position, it was invaluable to be able to easily find NCsoft's 2007 financials.

In his article, McGovern decries the spin that is put on press releases. Well, yes, but I think it's generally accepted that an organization will try to present itself in the best light.

However, it's not hard to go beyond that to get at the facts that are being reported - a deal was made, a product launched, an executive was hired, etc.

Also, the absence of recent press releases can be a telling sign of a company's financial health. You certainly don't want to become a customer or employee of a company that might not be in business in 12 months.

Of course, it is true that most press releases are poorly written from a web standpoint.

They are typically not formatted for reading online, use language that requires too high a reading level, and include information about the organization that is unnecessary when read on that organization's own web site.

However, these are issues of implementation and can be said of many other forms of online content. Have you read any web site privacy policies lately?

Although McGovern correctly concludes by saying:

The Web is not where you announce; it's where you do.

I think there's a place for the press release in helping certain audiences easily find out what it is that you have done.

01 May 2008 2:10am GMT

Jacob Nielsen recently posted an Alertbox simply titled Four Bad Designs.

While I don't disagree with his observations and his conclusions, I also felt that perhaps it was a little unfair to single out these sites in particular for his scathing remarks:

Following is a modest harvest of design stupidities I've recently encountered.

Ouch!

As one who works in the web design industry I am all too aware of the pressures that cause seemingly poor design decisions to be made.

These causes can include lack of time to properly design and test, internal politics, lack of resources (especially when it comes to writers), and insufficient understanding of the web by those making decisions concerning it.

Web Design Goal Triangle

I like to think of the web design process in terms of the "goal triangle" (thanks Brian) where the design of a web site is influenced by 3 types of goals (each of which can be thought of consisting one side or point on a triangle):

1. Organizational goals
2. User goals
3. Web team goals

For example, the organization (e.g. marketing) may want a site that is highly interactive and uses a lot of bells and whistles.

On the other hand, users may just want a site that's easy to navigate, while the web team wants to develop something they can easily maintain.

These goals often conflict in some way, and the web design process involves balancing them so as to best meet all three.

If one of the goals outweighs the others by too much, the web site will not be successful for the stakeholders of those other two goals.

And if organizational and web team goals outweigh user goals your site may end up in Mr. Nielsen's next writeup.

Why Can't We All Just Be Friends?

It's all too easy to criticize web sites for seemingly stupid design mistakes, and I know I've been guilty of it in the past.

However, I'm generally wary about writing posts that are critical of other web sites because I know how difficult it is to develop a web site in a corporate environment - there are simply too many cooks in the kitchen.

This is why I am reluctant to make snap observations about a web site without knowing the reasoning behind the decisions that were made.

It's also why I recommend that anyone interviewing for a web design-related job not offer a critique of the company's web site without being asked.

On the other hand, it is useful to point out design mistakes so that others can learn from them.

I would prefer to see a more balanced approach that includes some positive statements about the site along with the bad - after all, there are few web sites that are completely without merit.

Those In Glass Houses…

And of course, Mr. Nielsen himself manages to commit two cardinal sins in this article:

1. Not linking to the sites he is discussing. He even goes so far as to write their URLs without making them into links. I hate having to copy and paste a URL instead of click on it.

2. Link hoarding. This practice whereby a site links to other internal pages when it should be linking out to an external page or site is becoming the bane of the internet. Please stop it.

22 Apr 2008 3:17am GMT

Want to come and work for a leading computer game developer and publisher? I'm looking for an interaction designer web producer and a web production specialist to join the web team at NCsoft here in Austin.

Now that I've been in my new position all of three weeks I can say with confidence that this is a cool place to work.

Dress is casual, the atmosphere is very friendly, and people are very bright and committed to creating and supporting great MMO games.

Currently, the web team is three five talented professionals and me, so if you like working with a small team you'll fit in well.

I hope to be able to add a few more people to the team over the coming months to flesh out our expertise, so we should soon be a well-resourced and very capable in-house web team.

Which is good, because I, and my colleagues in marketing and the game studios, have some big plans for the year ahead and beyond.

Now, who wouldn't want to be a part of that?!

14 Apr 2008 3:10am GMT

You may or may not be aware that the BBC recently redesigned its news web site. I'm going to comment on the merits of the redesign (well, okay, I like it) - there's plenty of that going on elsewhere:

• Refreshing changes (check out the comments)
• News and Sports Website Refresh: Your Comments
• The BBC News redesign disaster
• BBC News redesign: Can someone powerful please yell at them?
• 60% of Editors Blog comments hate the BBC News redesign

As a web designer, what's interesting to me are the reactions of users to a redesign that was no doubt well-researched and thought out by a team of talented web professionals (take a read through The Glass Wall (PDF 6.7MB) to learn more about their design process).

If you read through user comments, they appear to be largely negative. Therefore, the redesign was a disaster, right?

Well, let's not be too hasty.

Firstly, let's not forget that the online feedback makes for a pretty biased sample. It's a fact that people who feel strongly about something - especially if it's negative - are most likely to make their opinions heard.

What stood out to me in reading through the negative comments and feedback was the overwhelming desire to turn back the clock and return the site to its old design. Basically forget the whole redesign thing ever happened.

Funnily enough, this appears to be the very same reaction that many users had when the BBC News site went through its last redesign, back in 2003.

Comment on the 2008 redesign:

In terms of style, if the old look was the Times, it now looks like the Beano. I thought the old style had more gravitas.

Comment on the 2003 redesign:

Looking at it from the most basic level, nothing stands out and i don't know where to look first.

So, the 2003 design that many users want to return to is the same redesign that initially drew similar criticism to that which is being leveled at the new 2008 design.

It seems to me that perhaps people are reacting more to the fact that the design has changed rather than whether it is inherently better or worse.

E-commerce site redesigns have a similar problem in that sales may initially drop because visitors are unfamiliar with the new design.

So, what's a designer to do? Well, firstly realize that no matter how great your design, some (even many) people are going to hate it initially - and will do so vocally.

But also recognize that this reaction may be due largely to lack of familiarity with the new design more than anything.

Therefore, it's important to gather user feedback once users have had time to get used to the new design - say, after one and three months. This will likely be a truer test of whether the redesign has succeeded than relying on initial reactions.

11 Apr 2008 4:07am GMT

When I look over a web site from a professional standpoint, I'm primarily concerned about three things - the user experience, the aesthetic design, and how well the site is optimized for search engines.

Of the three, I'm regularly surprised at how little attention is paid to SEO, especially the basics.

Everyone knows that the <title> tag is the most important element on a web page for SEO, right?

But what of the meta description, which provides the text summary for each result (the snippet)? It's far more important than many web designers seem to think.

Certainly, the <title> tag, as it forms the clickable link for a search engine result, is key to get right.

However, the snippet provides an opportunity to deliver a targeted call-to-action to the searcher that supports and builds on the text of the main link. It can also differentiate your result from those around it.

Not writing a good meta description - one that at least summarizes the content on the page - means that you're giving up free traffic from organic search engine rankings.

What's all the more surprising to me is that many notable web design-related sites ignore or incorrectly implement the meta description.

For example, the latest A List Apart article (on findability - the irony) has no meta description, even though a summary is provided on the page (although it makes the mistake of being clever rather than useful).

The same is true for Vitamin, Freelance Switch, Graphic Define Magazine, and Boxes and Arrows.

What is especially interesting to me is that these sites are all magazine-format and probably receive a significant proportion of their traffic from search engines. You'd think that they would want to optimize their articles for these important sources of traffic.

Fortunately, SitePoint bucks the trend by actually using meta descriptions, and descriptive ones at that, although they tend to be rather long winded.

Just to drive the point home, here's how that ALA article on Findability looks on Google:

Other than the A List Apart name, a searcher has no idea whether this article is going to be relevant or useful.

Here's how that result looks after spending a couple of minutes rewriting the meta description (based on a more relevant sentence I pulled from the article):

Imagine how good that call-to-action could be if you spent a whole 5 minutes writing and copy editing it. Hopefully I've made my point.

A lot of the business of creating and managing web sites is about getting the basics right. The meta description is one of those basics that you can't afford to ignore.

01 Apr 2008 3:21am GMT

Friday marked my last day as a Web Strategist for AMD.

Although I was only there for a year, it was a great experience - my first working as part of a big multi-disciplinary web team for a large, multi-national organization. I learned a lot.

Why my last day? Because on Monday I start my new gig as Director of Web Production for the US division of NCsoft.

NCsoft's PlayNC web site

For those who aren't into gaming, NCsoft makes massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs). These include:

• Tabula Rasa
• Guild Wars
• City of Heroes and City of Villains
• Lineage and Lineage 2
• Dungeon Runners (free-to-play! View my character)
• Exteel (also free-to-play)
• Aion (in development)

Yes, that's right. I'm going to be running the web team for a company that makes video games - being an avid gamer it's an understatement to say that I'm excited about the position and the opportunity.

Working for a large corporate web team has certainly been educational, but I'm looking forward to being back on a small web team and being much more hands-on. It suits my working style and makes better use of my skills and experience (at least, I think so).

I'm also looking forward to leading a team again. After managing the web team at Seattle Children's Hospital for 4+ years, moving to the role of an individual contributor felt more limited than I liked in terms of what I could actually get accomplished.

So, expect some MMO-related posts in the future. Is anyone else a fan of this genre of gaming? If so, what are you playing?

23 Mar 2008 4:00am GMT

If you use FeedBurner to deliver your RSS feed then you'll want to check out Feed Analysis by BlogPerfume. Plug in your FeedBurner URL and Feed Analysis will spit out a variety of pretty charts of your site's RSS activity.

Whereas FeedBurner only provides reports for the last 30 days, Feed Analysis will report your subscriber count, number of daily views and clicks for up to 50 months.

Don't forget to mouse over the charts as they are interactive.

Subscriber chart for this blog for the last 12 months

It will also predict the number of subscribers you will have in the next 3,6, and 12 months which could be useful if you've actually set some goals around these numbers.

[via Woork]

20 Mar 2008 4:22pm GMT

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22 Jan 2008 7:34pm GMT

I thought folks might be interested in the Nielsen Norman Group Report Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users With Disabilities. It describes 75 accessibility-related best practices based on actual usability studies, starting at page 35. (There is a lot of discussion about the study itself and about adaptive equipment in [...]

18 Dec 2007 7:13pm GMT

AskApache Password Protect adds a 2nd layer of security to your blog by requiring a username and password to access anything in the /wp-admin/ folder. Better Than Live WordPress Search sets up an AJAX-powered search for your WordPress blog. Custom Query String UTW allows you to set how many posts are displayed [...]

19 Oct 2007 11:27pm GMT

CSS Juice has an interesting collection of rounded corner techniques to share: Rounded corners is one of the most popular and frequently requested CSS techniques. Even the father of Internet Google also launch the rounded corners style markup with their Google Adsense and let users to custom their ads recently. Actually, there are a lot [...]

11 Oct 2007 5:41am GMT

Here the list of online generators specifically for web 2.0 design. It includes several options in each of the very long list of categories that follows: Graphics & Image generators Color generators CSS generators Domain Name generators Email generators Favicons generators Flash generators Form generators METATAG generators Password generators PopUp generators robots.txt generators RSS generators SiteMap generators Text generators ASCII generators PDF generators Tooltip generators XML Forms generators HTACCESS generators Fun & Humor

09 Oct 2007 3:13am GMT

Laura Milligan compiled a pretty good list of free image sources over on VirtualHosting.com. These resources are some of the most popular free stock image sites on the Web and with good reason. If you're looking for some mainstream images, these are the first place to try.

08 Oct 2007 10:07pm GMT

There is a very useful, printable Unix cheat sheet available over on Fosswire.com. Jacob, the author had this to say: In an attempt to find a good Unix reference for you FOSSwire readers, I was unsuccessful at finding a decent one on the Internet. So, why not make one? It is available in the following languages: English Russian Spanish Brazilian Portuguese Simplified Chinese Polish Japanese

05 Sep 2007 5:17pm GMT

Cimy Navigator provides an easy way to generate page and category lists. Inline AJAX more displays content that is hidden by WP's Tag on the same page using AJAX (instead of linking to another page). Menu Maker lets you create hierarchical menus directly from your category tree. Most Commented Posts displays a customisable [...]

03 Sep 2007 7:17pm GMT

There is a great little article over at CodeLair about HTML elements which have been depreciated and what to do about it: The W3C has set several HTML elements and attributes as obselete. This tutorial shows you the HTML you shouldn't be using, and the best ways to replace your 'illegal' code. There are several HTML elements [...]

03 Sep 2007 5:56pm GMT

What do you do when your blog goes from a thousand pageviews a day to a million? Well, you start out by watching this video of a lecture on HyperDB and High Performance WordPress given by Barry Abrahamson and Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp 2007, in which they explain how they scale WordPress.com across hundreds [...]

25 Aug 2007 2:59pm GMT

This video features Google engineer Cuong Do, an engineering manager that helped scale the YouTube software and hardware infrastructure from its infancy to its current scale. He discusses challenges of dealing with the growth including hardware, software and databases.

21 Aug 2007 8:44am GMT

Cape Clear's CTO, James Pasley, presents a video explanation of XML. It's a good little overview if you are not yet familiar with the concepts of eXtensible Markup Language. This presentation introduces the basic concepts of XML, XML namespaces and XML Schema. As the name suggests, it's not intended to be comprehensive, but if you're [...]

21 Aug 2007 6:44am GMT

This one hour session, entitled State of the Word, from the WordCamp 2007 conference features Matt Mullenweg giving an update on the current state and future plans for WordPress. This lecture occurred on Sunday July 22, 2007 from 3:30-4:30pm in San Francisco, CA at the Swedish American Hall. Matt gave the updates and then allowed [...]

14 Aug 2007 5:12am GMT

This is the video of the one hour long lecture given by Matt Cutts at the WordCamp 2007 conference in San Francisco, CA two weeks ago on the topic of Whitehat SEO tips for Bloggers. For those not familiar, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and this lecture is all about ways to make [...]

14 Aug 2007 5:04am GMT

Here is a massive color chart with the useful hex codes for about 1,500 different colors. What I like best about this chart is that it keeps all the similar colors grouped together (unlike just about every other color chart I can find.) There is also a complimentary Black and White color chart [...]

14 Aug 2007 4:55am GMT

For quick reference sake, here is a table with hex codes for a wide range of grays from White to Black. It should assist when you are needing to pick a color for text or backgrounds. There is a complimentary color hex code chart here.

14 Aug 2007 4:47am GMT

The following images come from a collection on Flickr entitled "Visual HTML Jokes". I got a good chuckle from some of these so I thought I'd share just a few.

06 Aug 2007 6:59pm GMT

Something went horribly wrong with the previously planned server migration at ValueWeb and the company was responsible for keeping thousands of servers off-line for much, much longer than expected. HTMLHelp's two dedicated servers were offline for over 75 hours. The worst part was that the company failed to communicate to anyone during the longer than [...]

30 Jul 2007 6:51am GMT

Step 1: Highlight the links below, right click, then click "View selection source" Step 2: Paste the "Say No To Pagerank" list into your blog or site Step 3: E-mail me at: pagerank@designcreatology.com Step 4: Get a mention and link here and every other site that plays the game Step 5: Update your list daily to reflect the new [...]

28 Jul 2007 11:50pm GMT

divShare allows you to integrate the file upload and storage site with your WordPress and WPMu installation. JAlbum allows you to integrate JAlbum galleries directly into your posts. MultiUploader allows you to attach many files at once. Ultimate Progress Bar creates customizable progress meters to show progress of Your projects. Zorpia Hot [...]

28 Jul 2007 6:13pm GMT