Monday, April 30, 2007

pearsonified: The Definitive Guide to Semantic Web Markup for Blogs

http://www.pearsonified.com/2007/04/definitive-guide-to-semantic-markup.php
"You’d think that as a result of open-source development practices, blog architectures would be pretty close to perfection in areas like Web standards and maximum SEO impact."

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Grant Robinson Online

http://grant.robinson.name/
"I'm currently based in Wellington, New Zealand and interested in hearing from people with ideas for creative online projects - especially if they involve user-generated content or artwork. If you're in need of a multi-talented digital designer and Flash developer with over eight years industry experience please contact me and I'll be happy to send you a copy of my curriculum vitae."

Pixel Girl Presents

http://www.pixelgirlpresents.com/
"Our award-winning site will allow you to snag the slickest Mac OS X, XP and Icontainer iconsets and desktop images as well as offering tutorials, articles and links.
Make sure to also checkout our fantastic handmade creations in the gallery shop."

interfaceLIFT

http://interfacelift.com/
"Welcome to InterfaceLIFT, your source for graphical user interface enhancements for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux. We specialize in desktop wallpaper, icons, themes, and news with a focus on community. New content is posted virtually every day so make sure to bookmark us and come back often."

ZDNet: Roll your own creative suite (free/open-source alternatives to Adobe CS3)

http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/contentcreation/0,1000001068,39286832,00.htm
"So, you need to complete a design project that requires the image-editing capabilities of Photoshop along with the vectorised lines of Illustrator, and it needs to be animated in Flash with documentation in a PDF. However, your software budget is looking somewhat threadbare. Take your head out of the oven — there is a way to save your project and your wallet from the eye-watering price tags of the various versions of Adobe's Creative Suite 3 (especially in the UK). You just have to be a bit…creative."

Flickr: Intricately carved ivory puzzle ball at the Chen Family Temple

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gserafini/475327044/
"Beautiful intricately carved antique ivory on display at the museum at the Chen Family Temple. The carved nested balls were particularly neat. "

Genopal: Get More Harmonious Color Palettes For Your Designs

http://www.genopal.com/
"
  • PC/Mac tool for finding colors & palettes.
  • Suggests harmonious color schemes.
  • Over 2 million downloads.
  • Used by graphic, web & product designers.
  • Save and exchange palettes.
  • Plug-ins for Photoshop, Illustrator and Rhino.
  • 100% Satisfaction. Or your money back."

IT Enquirer: Designing For The Web: Who Needs Icons Anyway?

http://www.it-enquirer.com/main/ite/more/web_icons/
"A RSS icon these days isn’t simply “RSS” inside a coloured rectangle, but an icon made up of something that resembles a dot with two curves at the right side. Who makes up these things? And why should we use them?"

Uni-Form

http://dnevnikeklektika.com/uni-form/
" Uni-Form is an attempt to standardize form markup (xhtml) and css, "modularize" it, so even people with only basic knowledge of these technologies can get nice looking, well structured, highly customizable, semantic, accessible and usable forms."

roScripts: Best CSS tools of the month

http://www.roscripts.com/Best_CSS_tools_of_the_month-130.html
"We're always hungry in css. It has such a great potential if done right that we don't care if the time spent making our web apps compatible and compliant is so long. We searched and saved the best tools of the month when it comes to css and came up with this great list that might make your job easier or less painful. Hacks, publications, resources and other tools sit here in this edition that follows the CSS creme of the month."

Bill Moyers interview with Jon Stewart

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/watch.html?playertype=quicktime;speed=480;mediatype=video;media=%2Fwnet%2Fmoyers%2Fjournal%2F1102%2FBMJ1102_stewart_320.mov%2C%2Fwnet%2Fmoyers%2Fjournal%2F1102%2FBMJ1102_stewart_480.mov%2C%2Fwnet%2Fmoyers%2Fjournal%2F1102%2FBMJ1102_stewart_320.wmv%2C%2Fwnet%2Fmoyers%2Fjournal%2F1102%2FBMJ1102_stewart_480.wmv;helptemplate=%2Fmoyers%2Fjournal%2Fwatch%2Fhelp_template.html;playertemplate=%2Fmoyers%2Fjournal%2Fwatch%2Fvideo_template.html;basepath=%2Fmoyers%2Fjournal%2F04272007%2Fwatch.html;prefchange=1
"Bill Moyers talks with comedian Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's THE DAILY SHOW since 1999, about how faking the news can reveal more of the truth than all of the Sunday-morning talk shows put together."

Saturday, April 28, 2007

43 Folders: What's in my menubar?

http://www.43folders.com/2007/04/27/my-menubar/
"Seems like every time another Mac user looks over my shoulder, they freak out over the number of little icons I have up in my menubar. And — like all Mac geeks — we have to immediately start trading information, learning tricks, and sharing tips. I’m sure you know the drill by now.

If you were looking over my shoulder right now (and I hope that you are not) here’s the stuff you’d see in my menubar."

tools for Web Designers

http://www.tlbox.com/web_designers/
" A lot of sites have been promoting pages for web developers, but none of them have asked what people are actually using to do good work. This site hopes to answer that question and provide people with the best sites first - not somewhere in the middle of long lists. I also find myself looking for links I know I've seen on the web before, but can't seem to remember where. This site saves my good links, and organizes them by category so I can find them again. If you saw my list of unorganized bookmarks in my browser... it's sad."

Thursday, April 26, 2007

WordPress Theme Generator

http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/
"This online generator creates your own custom unique WordPress Theme. Without any need for HTML, JS, PHP, or CSS knowledge.

Change the colors, settings, layout, preview live, click "save" and download your unique Wordpress theme zip-file. Extract, upload, set, and you are done! If you have any questions or need additions email me.

Based on the WordPress 2.1 with Yahoo! UI (Grids,Tabs & Fonts) to support all A-Grade browsers. Theme supports Widgets. Themes examples: read more..."

Dustin Bachrach: A Developers Blog: Spotlight-Like Search As You Type With CSS, AJAX & JS

http://dbachrach.com/blog/2007/04/15/spotlight-like-search-as-you-type-with-css-ajax-js/
"OS X has a lot of great effects. These are great building blocks for creating effects for the web. You might have seen my previous tutorial on creating a Dashboard-Like effect using JS and CSS. This tutorial will show you how to create a Spotlight-Like effect for your search boxes. Take a look at the picture to the right to see where we are headed:

You can preview the finished effect here. This example will search through 3 text files of lists of names of celebrities, athletes, and presidents. In most real world situations, you would be searching inside databases, but for this preview I used text files. I have also zipped up the necessary files and put them here. This zip contains all required images, CSS files, HTML files, and javascript files."

ChurchBeauty: Church Web sites that inspire

http://churchbeauty.com/
Like a css gallery site, but with church sites

pingmag: Iranian Typography

http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/12/11/iranian-typography-now/
pingmag: Tokyo-based magazine about "design and making things"
"The past few years have been quite exciting for Iranian graphic designers. As Iran’s design gains more international attention, the graphic designers face new challenges and rewards. In winter 2002 a poster exhibition by Iranian graphic designers called “Un Cri Persan” (A Persian Cry) was held in the city of Echirolles as a part of the Month of Graphic Design in France. The exhibition exposed a wealth of works that somehow escaped the spotlight for almost two decades. Ever since then Iranian graphic designers, many of them already internationally known, have been sharing more of their magic with the rest of the world."

Just Watch the Sky: Ryan Simms (Simmy): Lead designer for Virb (portfolio site)

http://justwatchthesky.com/
"Hello. My name is Ryan Sims.
SIMMY

I am the lead designer for a small company called Virb Inc.

we made this website
* I wish I could write real pretty like Bronwyn or Joshua
* Diet Mountain Dew is the secret to my immortality.<

I have a rather unhealthy obsession with all things Apple: their employees, their products, blah blah fanboy

* I wish I had mad design skills like Khoi, Dan C. or Naz. They are my heroes"

LikeItMatters: Where Is Your Startup? Does It Matter?

http://www.brianoberkirch.com/?p=864
"Next week, Dan Cederholm and I are going to do a panel at SXSW called “ValleySpeak for the Rest of Us: Developing Apps Outside of InternetVille”. We’re looking at what the pros and cons are of trying to do great Web work away from the Bay Area, which is generally looked to as a prime mover for technology innovation.

The irony of global, decentralized technology having an ‘epicenter’ is not lost on me.

So, what impact does geography have on Web startups? While we can point to Google, YouTube, Yahoo, eBay and countless others, we can also point to a number of successful (or at least nascent) Web services that were born elsewhere:"

viiloader.net: Download, search and convert videos from YouTube, Google Video, Pornotube, Putfile, Dailymotion, Metacafe

http://www.viloader.net/
"What is this and how does it work?

From this website you will be able to download with only one click the videos published in the main video websites, for example Video Google, Youtube, Pornotube, Yuvutu, Metacafe...

You have two options:

1.- Paste the url in the upper form and press the download button

2.- Even much easier: install the Internet Explorer addon, the Mozilla Firefox addon or the Opera addon"

Fonts 500: The web's top 500 free fonts!

http://fonts500.com/

Fonthead: ClickBits: Technology-themed icons

http://www.fonthead.com/fonts-clickbits.php
"ClickBits is an extensive set of technology-themed icons and arrows that are especially suited for web design but work equally well in print. ClickBits comes in an 11-font set with a handy quick reference key chart so you know exactly what font and what key to press to get the icon you need. ClickBits are vector-based fonts, so they can scale BIG if you need them to. But they scale down quite reasonably as you can see below. ClickBits come on CD and via download."

IconShoppe~Royalty-free stock icons for the web (from Dan Cederholm-SimpleBits)

http://iconshoppe.com/
"IconShoppe hand-crafts each icon from the finest pixels available. Our royalty-free stock sets are simple, built for the web, and very reasonably priced. Browse around the ‘Shoppe and take some home, won’t you?"

Red 5 Studios

http://www.red5studios.com/
"Let me welcome you to our little spot on the net. I’d like to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about our new company, Red 5 Studios.

We left Blizzard® and founded Red 5 shortly after we finished working on World of Warcraft®. I was the Team Lead, and Bill Petras was the Art Director on that project. Taewon Yun was the Co-Founder of Blizzard Korea, and the rest of us all had long, multi-year careers there. We loved Blizzard, but we left because we felt the industry was changing, and WoW had opened up a new platform and medium for games that was profoundly different."

Tutorial Blog: Links for Web Designers : April

http://tutorialblog.org/links-for-web-designers-april/
"This is the start of a new monthly feature where we will be rounding up all the hot links related to design; Web design, Typography, Code Snippets and Interesting Articles - we digg out the best for you …"

Zoom Quilt II

http://zoomquilt2.madmindworx.com/zoomquilt2.swf
Constantly moving "zooming in" collaborative artwork project

Flickr group: Web Design Inspiration

http://www.flickr.com/photos/splat/sets/981332/
Set of captures from well-designed web sites for inspiration

A CSS Sticky Footer

http://ryanfait.com/sticky-footer/
"A CSS sticky footer that just works

We've all tried to use a sticky footer one time or another, but they never seem to come out right, do they? Well, the days of a hard to understand CSS-based sticky footer are thankfully over. In just a few simple CSS classes with minimal extra HTML markup, I've fashioned a sticky footer that even beginners can get a handle on. It's been tested in IE 5 and up, Firefox, Safari and Opera."

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

iconfinder: Icon search engine for webdesigners

http://www.dreamplay.dk/icon/
Icon search engine for webdesigners

CSS Slicing Guide

http://www.csslicingguide.com/
"Welcome to CSS slicing guide, your number one source for learning how to turn a Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or Fireworks template into a fully sliced, coded and XHTML and CSS valid web page.

This site is a free resource for the budding web designer looking to take the step into the future of modern web design. Throughout the guide, you will be shown cunning CSS techniques used to keep loadtime to a minimum and to organize and fine tune your content so it is presented in the best possible way."

Logo Orange: Logo/Branding Design History

http://www.logoorange.com/logodesign-A.php
Basically a historical archive of famous logos, alphabetized with downloadable eps files.

BIG Interactive: Interactive Marketing Solutions via Web, Mobile, and Broadband

http://www.biginteractive.com/
Award-winning, nationall-known interactive agency working out of Los Angeles

Magnetosphere: Fantastic video created with Processing

http://www.flight404.com/_videos/magnetosphere/index.html
Fantastic art video set to music...

Other work by Flight 404

Frank Buchwald: Light sculptures (okay, lamps--but cool)

http://www.frankbuchwald.de/serie.html
German designer doing amazing lamps/desktop lights out of metal...looks similar to a sci fi lamp or something.

The Trouble With Katie Rogers (online comic)

http://www.katierogers.co.uk/
"Who... or What is Katie Rogers?
Katie is a 26 year old Fashion Editor for the respected and adored New York based "GLOBO Magazine" . Born in the UK, our little English girl up and left to pursue her dreams of working in publishing in New York, which is where she resides today.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Eric Meyer: Reworked Reset

http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/04/14/reworked-reset/
" Here’s the latest version of my “baseline” style sheet, with some changes based on feedback from readers on the original post."

The baseline, reworked. It's a CSS hotrod.

problogger: How to Leverage Your Blog for Bigger Things - Springboard Blogging Part II

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/04/25/how-to-leverage-your-blog-for-bigger-things-springboard-blogging-part-ii/
"Yesterday I wrote about using a blog as a Springboard for bigger things. In the post I talked about different kinds of bloggers and shared a little of my own story. Today I want to suggest a few ways to build a blog that launches you into bigger things."

Search Engine Journal: Exposing the Invisible Web to Search Engines

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/exposing-the-invisible-web-to-search-engines/4771/
"The Invisible Web (aka Deep Web) is that humoungous slice of the Internet’s web pages that traditional search engines either have not indexed or cannot index. Often, if they cannot index a page, it’s because the page is database-driven and requires a human trigger before it is rendered in your web browser. For example, you may have to ask a question, such as “show me all the job listings for project manager,” using an HTML form to enter information. In other instances, access to a web page requires authorization such as username and password."

BLOG Bash: “Help me, my mom is my blog’s only reader!”-By Darren Rowse

http://chitika.com/blog/?p=184
"How do I get my blog beyond the initial launch phase and actually find readers beyond my mum, girlfriend and work mates?"

commoncraft: Video: RSS in Plain English

http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
"We made this video for our friends (and yours) that haven't yet felt the power of our friend the RSS reader. We want to convert people... if you know someone who would love RSS and hasn't yet tried it, point them here for 3.5 minutes of RSS in Plain English.

If you'd like to share this video, please do! Grab the code here."

Monday, April 23, 2007

mediacrumb.com: Building Web 2.0: A Case Study for Simply Fired’s Redesign

http://www.mediacrumb.com/2007/04/20/building-web-20-a-case-study-for-simply-fireds-redesign/
"So today the Media Crumb team, with the help of Simply Hired’s Ops team, launched Simply Fired.com into the wide open space of the web. It was a two month long process for MC and something we really enjoyed working on. It is not often that a design & development firm can say they have worked for truly helpful and forward thinking clients such as Simply Hired so we thought it would a perfect case study for the new MC site and blog. So if you ever wanted to know what is takes a small company like ours to build a “web 2.0″ (what ever that means) type site, check out or little case study of Simply Fired."

Witty Sparks: 60 best CSS directories you would die to watch!

http://www.wittysparks.com/2007/04/22/60-best-css-directories-you-would-die-to-watch/
"With new technologies flooding the web,different tools are available with which a web designer can showcase his creativity and craft. But despite putting in the effort and sweat, numerous websites with fantastic creativity fail to get noticed. Also, the surge in designing is driving designers to dig for creativity, color schemes and layouts.

Keeping these aspects in mind, we came up with a compendium of best CSS directories, CSS showcase, CSS galleries that rank / grade websites (using CSS) on the basis of ‘alexa ranking’, colors, categories, tags, ratings and RSS."

userscripts.org: Gmail superclean

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7646
"Clean | White Gmail - Upadated! Now with "User Script Command" Options :)"

joshuabryant.com: Best Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3) Icons

http://joshuabryant.com/cs3icons
"An exciting time for us Mac users, this week Adobe CS3 finally officially ships. I’ve been relying on betas up to this point that are a little buggy in all the wrong ways, so it’s a good week.

But no matter how many people get used to Adobe’s new periodic table chart, I still can’t. Thankfully a handful of great icon artists have come out with some nice candy that’s useable, recognizable and chalk full of class! (Click each preview to visit download locations)"

socksoff.co.uk: some fantastic desktop wallpapers

http://www.socksoff.co.uk/walls01.html
"[usage] Wallpapers are free for personal use only. You may not use them for commercial purposes or redistribute them."

iChat borderless

http://myobie.backpackit.com/pub/666902
"iChat Borderless is an installer which replaces four files in the Resources folder inside iChat to give it a more streamlined look, similar to iTunes."

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Dean Edwards IE7: web standards update for Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6

http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
"IE7 is a JavaScript library to make IE behave like a standards-compliant browser. It fixes many CSS issues and makes transparent PNG work correctly under IE5 and IE6 (learn more)."

Flickr: Photos from Veerle Pieters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/veerles-blog/
Photos used on Veerle's blog

Aten Design Group, Inc: Web Design & Development from Williamsburg, Virginia

http://atendesigngroup.com/
"We help clients make meaningful connections with their users.

We create rich user experiences for the Web using standards-centric (X)HTML and CSS, Flash, and a variety of back-end technologies.

We're passionate about what we do, and love to work with vision-driven clients."

My Dream App: Next Generation: A UI update on the Cookbook software

http://mydreamapp.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1713
"

Hey everyone! Cookbook has been progressing from behind closed doors for the last few months and we have some absolutely delicious material for you to check out. Before we get to that, though, we'd like to officially announce that Wolfgang Bartelme, the creator of the TextMate and iSnip icons, has been working closely with us on the application's design and user experience. In case you're wondering (and you're probably not) iSnip was actually a project that I was involved in before AppZapper and it was a freeware semi-competitor to John's iClip.

It's worth noting that we have made same pretty drastic strides since the initial mockups by Michael. As you know from the last post, we're going with a 3 column interface that will promote visual browsing. Likewise, the theme of the recipe view will actually change based on the kind of recipe you're viewing. We've expanded this thinking to include a unique style for the app itself... which we feel encompasses a kitchen atmosphere very nicely while still proving to be neutral enough for the themed recipe view to not look out of place."

Coptix: Chattanooga Web Graphic Design Development Branding Identity

http://coptix.com/
"Imagine a web site that energizes your brand, increases sales, and keeps customers happy.

We believe design and technology serve business (not the other way around)."

Twittervision: Watch people post to twitter in real time over a map

http://twittervision.com/
Not sure what the point is, but it's kind of cool to watch, and kind of fun.

Tango Fridays: Open source collaborative effort to design the Tango desktop

http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Fridays
"This page is not for general icon requests, but a status page for artists working on specific icon tasks. Please do not add your project art needs. Feel free to send requests to the tango-artists mailing list instead.

If you want to join our focused effort to fix a particular issue every friday, feel free to join #tango on irc.freenode.net."

Flickr group: Visual Language

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/431244502
AWESOME Flickr group based on the theme of "visual language". Great for graphic design, inspiration, etc.

MTV Interview: Digg.com Founder Kevin Rose Talks User-Controlled News, TV — And Vomit

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1555262/20070321/id_0.jhtml
"SAN FRANCISCO — Getting where you want to go on the Web is easy. It's called Google. Finding topical news stories from around the globe is just as easy: Hello, Google News.

But such convenience often brings sameness — and relief from that sameness is exactly what makes community-driven news sites like Reddit and Newsvine so appealing. Those sites allow users to submit stories and vote on their favorite ones; stories with the most votes rise to the top of the queue in categories ranging from sports and entertainment to technology and science."

PicLens: Safari: Cinematic Views for the Web

http://piclens.com/mac/
"The free PicLens plug-in enables you to:
  • View photos in full screen with a single click
  • Glide between photos from within full screen mode
  • Play a slideshow of image search results and photo albums
  • Browse online photos with your Apple® remote"

Lifehacker: 10 Must-have Firefox Extensions

http://lifehacker.com/software/firefox-extensions/lh-top-10--must+have-firefox-extensions-246127.php
"If ever a software application was built to be more than itself, it's Mozilla Firefox. Over the past 2 years we've tried, loved and posted dozens of feature-adding extensions for our favorite web browser. But today we have the master, grand daddy list of 10 must-haves.

Narrowing the huge field of available add-ons down to the ten best was quite a challenge. Your Firefox extension choices have everything to do with your needs, but the ten add-ons you'll find in the following pages are highly-evolved, robust and have proven their usefulness over and over."

Vertua: Web Standards Stole My Truck: Presentation from An Event Apart 2007, Boston

http://aea.vertua.com/boston07/
"Thanks very much for attending the presentation. The deck is available to download as a Quicktime movie (191MB) or a PDF (75MB).

If you’d like to keep in touch, please feel free to do so at Vertua or sidesh0w.com.

Rock."

Josh Spear: Design Can Change

http://www.joshspear.com/item/design-can-change/
Beautifully designed blog as well as interesting post.
"I have plenty of creative and talented friends and I’ve expressed to a few of them that they are are lucky in that if they ever wanted to do a personal project or or focus on a cause, they could easily use their design, programming, or artistic skills to really make it appealing. It looks like a group of graphic designers did just that as they team up to address climate change. What started, and is still lead, by a studio out of Vancouver called smashLAB has now become a collective of designers that are working together towards a common goal. The issue here is global warming and though you’ve heard the issue all over the news, and even in Al Gore’s award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” seeing the story presented visually in an aesthetically pleasing fashion makes the lesson more enjoyable and memorable. Design Can Change focuses on using the talents of print, television, and advertising to promote awareness and change. They also work as intermediaries between the consumer and the producers to steer projects in a more environmentally conscious direction. The site was completely designed pro-bono and as you can imagine, is extremely clean and a pleasure to look at. I implore you to check it out."

PHP Form Mailer: Swift Mailer

http://www.swiftmailer.org/
Works with PHP 5 and is really clean!
"Swift is a fully OOP Library for sending e-mails from PHP websites and applications. It does not rely on PHP's native mail() function which is known for using high server resources when sending multiple emails. Instead, Swift communicates directly with an SMTP server or a MTA binary to send mail quickly and efficiently.

Early versions of Swift were comparable to PHPMailer. Swift has since evolved and matured into a fully-fledged object-oriented mailing solution. Compared with PHPMailer, the interface for Swift is both tighter and more intuitive."

Digital Web Magazine: Redesigning the ExpressionEngine Site

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/redesigning_the_expressionengine_site/
FANTASTIC article of a terrific site redesign.
"Prior to this week of meetings with the pMachine people, I had worked with Rick Ellis on a variety of smaller projects, and we had developed a very good working relationship. This paved the way for one of the largest projects that I’ve yet to take on in my career, and includes new website designs for pMachine (now EllisLab) and ExpressionEngine, as well as redesigns of CodeIgniter and pMachine Hosting (now EngineHosting)."

The Digerati Life: A Job Quitter’s Primer: 15 Ways To Resign

http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/07/a-job-quitters-primer-15-ways-to-resign/
"This is Part 2 of the series entitled “A Job Quitter’s Primer”. Find Part 1 of this subject here.

So now that I’ve discussed both the recommended and the questionable reasons for leaving a job, I’m following up with how it should be done. Or not."

Flickr: Type (Font) Identification

http://www.flickr.com/groups/typeid/
Awesome group for placing images of type for typographic identification.

Woody Maxim: PDF Password Removal

http://www.woodymaxim.com/pdf-password-removal/
"I buy a lot of books online… most are .pdf's. I'm an avid reader and I enjoy it.

But I hate reading these books on my laptop… as I believe most people dislike it. I like to print them out and read them in bed, on the john, or in my back yard on a nice day.

But some publishers think that their book shouldn't be printed (for God knows WHAT reason). They think they know me and think that I enjoy straining my eyes to read their latest masterpiece."

http://www.verypdf.com/pwdremover/index.htm

smartbusinessindex.com: 5 tips for creating a great logo

http://www.smartbusinessindex.com/5-tips-for-creating-a-great-logo-n7.html
"Creating an identity through a new logo can be one of the most exciting, yet daunting tasks you’ll have to do at the start of your business. The first experience people will have with your company will more often than not be your logo. So as a first impression – you want to make it count."

Saturday, April 21, 2007

LikeItMatters: Trimming the attention sails

http://www.brianoberkirch.com/2007/04/20/trimming-the-attention-sails
"You are what you pay attention to.

I had a “no mas” moment. I have a project generating a ridiculous amount of non-productive email. I have social networking service emails crufting up my inbox. I burned time in online ‘debates’ I just shouldn’t have gotten involved in. And I read Tim Ferris’ 4 Hour Work Week, which unhinged my mind and helped me think totally differently about goals, workflow, and being a stringent gatekeeper of your time. (If you like 43folders, you’ll like 4 Hour Work Week.)"

Adam Betts: Replacement Icon Set for Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3)

http://www.artofadambetts.com/weblog/?p=190
"Full icon set replacement for Creative Studio 3 based on CS3 retail product box design.

What’s missing is document icon for Contribute CS3 and few more small CS3 apps. I’ll do second part as soon as Adobe releases more CS3 apps to public."

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

More Bloons: Fantastic Flash game

http://www.ninjakiwi.com/morebloons.html

Freelance Switch: The Monster List of Freelancing Job Sites

http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/the-monster-list-of-freelancing-job-sites/
"When it comes to freelancing, one of the biggest challenges can be finding work. Even the most successful of freelancers will experience a lean month here and there, so it pays to have as many sources of potential work as possible. That’s why we’ve compiled a monster list of job sites from around the net. There is sure to be a site in here that is listing a job tailor made for you!"

Monday, April 16, 2007

thewebcreator.net: Why you should be using HTML 4.01 instead of XHTML

http://www.thewebcreator.net/2007/04/16/why-you-should-be-using-html-401-instead-of-xhtml/
"If you’re a web developer, you’ve probably heard about XHTML, the markup language developed in 1999 to implement HTML as an XML format. Most people who use and promote XHTML do so because they think it’s the newest and hottest thing, and they may have heard of some (usually false) benefits here and there. But there is a lot more to it than you may realize, and if you’re using it on your website, even if it validates, you are probably using it incorrectly."

Robot Replay

http://www.robotreplay.com/

Where Are Your Visitors Going?

RobotReplay lets you record and watch your website visitors in action. View recorded sessions of every mouse movement, click and keystroke:

  • Improve your site's usability
  • See where your readers get bored
  • Convert more visitors to buyers
It's usability testing for the rest of us.

Microsoft Silverlight: Introducing Microsoft Silverlight

http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/04/15/introducing-microsoft-silverlight.aspx
" It is with tremendous pleasure that I can reveal Microsoft Silverlight: our next-generation, cross-platform, cross-browser web client runtime. Silverlight (previously codenamed "WPF/E") is a lightweight subset of XAML for building rich media experiences on the web.

There's lots of material at the NAB virtual press room site, but I thought I'd share my top ten list of reasons why you might want to use Silverlight:"

Gallery: brands in Second Life

http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=140
"There seems no end to the number of high profile brands entering Second Life. From Adidas, Toyota, to Sony-BMG, companies that have embraced the virtual world span many industries.

So, inspired by Nic Mitham's map of brands in Second Life, I decided it would be fun to put together an image gallery of screen shots of the various companies' efforts to setup shop in-world."

Alan's blog

http://braindonut.livejournal.com/

Saturday, April 14, 2007

VSA Partners: Logo Burns Brightly for Chicago's Olympic Hopes

http://www.vsapartners.com/news.asp?article=63
"Chicago, Oct. 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Mayor Richard M. Daley and Patrick Ryan, chairman of the Chicago 2016 Committee, unveiled the committee’s official logo, a torch composed of some of Chicago’s most iconic symbols, today at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. The unveiling marks another step in the city’s campaign to be chosen as the U.S. bid city for the 2016 competition, if the United States Olympic Committee decides to bid."
http://www.vsapartners.com/

Neave: Flash projects and portfolio

http://www.neave.com/
"Welcome to the playground of one Mr Paul Neave, serial Flash fettler and interactive designer. Paul says hello. Hello!"

Smashing Magazine: Designing With Grid-Based Approach

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/04/14/designing-with-grid-based-approach/
" The main idea behind grid-based designs is a solid visual and structural balance of web-sites you can create with them. Sophisticated layout structures offer more flexibility and enhance the visual experience of visitors. In fact, users can easier follow the consistency of the page, while developers can update the layout in a well thought-out, consistent way. However, it’s quite hard to find your way through all the theory behind grid systems: it isn’t easy at all. Some important notions and related key-facts can help to learn basics and keep essential techniques in mind."

Friday, April 13, 2007

Department of Airbag Security can create an Airbag Security Advisory System

http://www.airbagindustries.com/archives/airbag/law.php#21914
"Department of Airbag Security can create an Airbag Security Advisory System with a color-coded Asshat Levels to keep us all informed of the potential threats from commenting Evil Doers?"

Freelance Switch: 12 Breeds of Client and How to Work with Them

http://freelanceswitch.com/clients/12-breeds-of-client-and-how-to-work-with-them/
"There are loads of different types of clients out there and chances are at some point you’ll get to meet all of them. So let’s take a look through some typical clients and see if you recognise a few of your own in there!"

O'Reilly: Draft Blogger Code of Conduct

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/04/draft_bloggers_1.html
"When I wrote my Call for a Blogging Code of Conduct last week, I suggested some ideas of what such a code might contain, but didn't actually put forth a draft that people could subscribe to. We're not quite there yet, but we have a plan."

A List Apart: Setting Type on the Web to a Baseline Grid

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/settingtypeontheweb
"We web designers get excited about the littlest things. Our friends in the print world must get a kick out of watching us talk about finally being able to achieve layouts on the web that they’ve taken for granted for years. Let’s face it: it’s easier these days to embed a video on the web than it is to set type consistently or align elements to a universal grid."

Ruby on Rails CMS and Blogging Systems

Lingua: http://www.linguaproject.net/

Top 20 Ruby on Rails Content Management Systems CMS Tools:
http://www.rubyonrailsblog.com/articles/2006/08/28/top-20-ruby-on-rails-content-management-systems-cms


Mephisto: http://mephistoblog.com/

Typo: http://typosphere.org/

elogodesign: Complete Color Matching Guide

http://www.elogodesign.com/color-matching-guide/
"Research reveals all human beings make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment , or item within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone."

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

zenhabits: Big Rocks First: Double Your Productivity This Week

http://zenhabits.net/2007/04/big-rocks-first-double-your-productivity-this-week/
"If your week is seven buckets, and you go into each bucket without planning ahead, and you fill it up with little pebbles and grains of sand and whatever other debris comes your way … soon there will be no room for the Big Rocks. Your buckets fill up faster than you know it, and once your buckets are full, you’re done. You can’t get bigger buckets."

Digital Web Magazine: HTML5, XHTML2, and the Future of the Web

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/html5_xhtml2_and_the_future_of_the_web/
"As workers on the web today, we are dealing with many technologies that have been stable for a long time.

While HTML 4.01 is formally an SGML-based document format, the only clients actually treating HTML that way are validators. Browsers, on the other hand, treat HTML documents as tag soup—they try to make sense out of, and display, even the most horridly broken document to their best ability.

HTML 4.01 was made a recommendation in 1999, XHTML 1.0—a formulation of HTML 4.01 in XML—became a recommendation in 2000, and was revised in 2002. In other words, at the base of all modern web development is an eight-year-old technology."

Valleywag: Hottest Startups (Web 2.0)

http://valleywag.com/tech/the-chart/hottest-startups-250874.php
"In two threads -- one on Linked In, the other on Venture Beat -- commenters are nominating the hottest startups of Silicon Valley. We totted up the mentions on both threads. Facebook, the college social network, scores highest; with Admob, the mobile ad network, following up. Warning: we ignored obvious self-promotion, but those Valley hustlers are cunning; and we have to doubt the wisdom of any crowd that determines Linden Lab's Second Life to be one of the 10 most promising new ventures. In the comments: what do you think? Which companies least deserve to be thought of as "hot"? (We particularly liked this line from one of the Venture Beat pundits: "Digg is as hot as two pandabear-looking humanoids dryhumping each other in an empty casino in Second Life while chatting on Meebo. Get real.") "

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Ianlabs: Indianapolis Web Design Blog

http://www.ianlabs.com/
"The adventures of a freelance web designer"

Communication Nation: What is an infographic?

http://communicationnation.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-is-infographic.html
"This year's Malofiej competition is notable because for the first time ever, an interactive graphic was the only winner for the "best in show" award.

This sparked a lot of conversation about "what is an infographic?" As infographics go online, the line between infography and software begins to blur. Where does infography end and interface design begin?"

Josh Pear: Design Can Change

http://www.joshspear.com/item/design-can-change/
"I have plenty of creative and talented friends and I’ve expressed to a few of them that they are are lucky in that if they ever wanted to do a personal project or or focus on a cause, they could easily use their design, programming, or artistic skills to really make it appealing. It looks like a group of graphic designers did just that as they team up to address climate change. What started, and is still lead, by a studio out of Vancouver called smashLAB has now become a collective of designers that are working together towards a common goal. The issue here is global warming and though you’ve heard the issue all over the news, and even in Al Gore’s award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” seeing the story presented visually in an aesthetically pleasing fashion makes the lesson more enjoyable and memorable. Design Can Change focuses on using the talents of print, television, and advertising to promote awareness and change. They also work as intermediaries between the consumer and the producers to steer projects in a more environmentally conscious direction. The site was completely designed pro-bono and as you can imagine, is extremely clean and a pleasure to look at. I implore you to check it out."

Pentagram: Scenes from a Blog

http://blog.pentagram.com/archives/2007/04/portrait_of_a_blog.php
"Paula Scher diagrams the verbal jousting in the life cycle of a blog thread in the Op-Ed page of today’s New York Times."

Flickr set: Swiss graphic design history

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20745656@N00/sets/72157594296535170/
Great collection of histroric Swiss graphic design

Saturday, April 7, 2007

Friday, April 6, 2007

Influx.com: Badass origami stuff

http://www.influks.com/post862.html
" Some REALLY amazing origami art here.

Edit: A lot of people have been asking for citing sources. The place i found it honestly didn't have any sources, but i did some googling and this is what i came up with:"

Fuzzy Future: Bookmark Bliss: 10 Tools to help you select a Web 2.0 Color Palette

http://www.fuzzyfuture.com/tools/bookmark-bliss-10-tools-to-help-you-select-a-web-20-color-palette/
"Lucky for me, there are a lot of helpful tools that can turn color coordination nightmares into a dream come true :) If you’re in the same boat as I am, have a look at some of these sites I unearthed from my bookmarks:

ColourLovers"

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Tutorial Blog: Top 10 Church & Religious Websites

http://tutorialblog.org/top-10-church-religious-websites/
"While compiling various lists for tutorialblog, something struck me - I kept noticing Religious and Church websites with really good standards compliant designs, something I wouldn’t have expected at first but makes complete sense - They are trying to embrace new technologies to get their message across. Here we bring together the best for you …"

WikiHow: How to Use English Punctuation Correctly

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-English-Punctuation-Correctly
Great wiki entry on all the major punctuation components and how/when to use each of them. It even goes over when to use em dashes! Exciting.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

problogger: Blogging Is About Writing

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/04/02/blogging-is-about-writing/
"When you visit Google, do you click a picture to begin your search? Do you face a screen full of images like in a grocery store self-checkout? Click fruits, then apples, then scroll through pictures of apples before you find the Jonagold Apples you want to buy, and select those?"

http://avalonstarlove.com/

http://avalonstarlove.com/

Web Design Inspiration (Flickr set from Splat)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/splat/sets/981332/
Web Design Inspiration (Flickr set from Splat)