“The ‘look and feel‘ of a website is the cornerstone of any successful online venture. But the very nature of the internet means that the instant you upload your carefully constructed pages onto the World Wide Web, you’re global. Indeed, regardless of whether you intend to make buckets of cash from your website or simply build a strong international following online, there are numerous aspects of your site’s design you should consider from the start, to ensure it’s flexible and adaptable to international requirements.”
Text
Computers deal with numbers, not letters. Traditionally, there were lots of encoding systems covering different languages, but Unicode changed all that. Unicode provides a unique number for every character, regardless of platform, program or language.
Color symbolism
Color is an important facet of any website. Your choice of colors will depend on whatever product or service you’re selling. However, your choice of colors should also reflect your target audience. To avoid having to overhaul your website when targeting a new market, carefully consider your color scheme from the start.
Content
Nobody will visit your website for the design alone. The online marketing mantra ‘content is king’ certainly rings true for most websites – you have to offer genuinely useful content for your domestic and international visitors.
Domains
It may be cheaper and more convenient to have a single domain for all your target countries, but from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective, there’s an argument that says it’s best to have a dedicated top-level domain (TLD) for each of your target countries.
Navigation
Navigation is a crucial aspect of the web design process. Consistency and ‘landmarking’ help web users find their way around your site and. Navigation should be intuitive.
“Choosing a CMS (content management system) is an important first step to building your own website. The CMS provides a simpler way to manage website content without much prior knowledge of HTML, CSS, or other web programming languages. As using the web continues to grow quickly, new CMSs arrive to handle websites in different ways. Below are a few tips on picking the right CMS for your website.”
Choose the CMS that fits your websites purpose
WYSIWYG
Simple Backend Layout
Scalability
Design Template Control
Support View chart on how some CMS handle features
Output buffering is a simple way to greatly improve the performance and speed of your PHP script. Without output buffering, your script will show the HTML on the page as it’s processed – in pieces. Adding output buffering allows the PHP to store the HTML as a variable and send it to the browser in one chunk.
To enable output buffering, simply add ob_start ( ) like so at the top of the file right after the DOCTYPE like the following: <?php ob_start ( ‘ ob_gzhandler ‘ ) ; ?>
Since Google Chrome version 4 has been released on Jan25, more extension is being introduced to their users, which makes the browser becoming an useful tool for web development.
Speed Tracer – Speed Tracer is a tool to help you identify and fix performance problems in your web applications. It visualizes metrics that are taken from low level instrumentation points inside of the browser and analyzes them as your application runs. Speed Tracer is available as a Chrome extension and works on all platforms where extensions are currently supported (Windows and Linux).
Webpage Screenshot
Just one click and save a screenshot in 1 PNG image, user can resize the browser window to specific size before capturing.
Resolution Test
Resolution Test changes the size of the browser window for developers to preview their websites in different screen resolutions. It includes a list of commonly used resolutions as well as a custom option to input your own.
Evernote Web Clipper
Save all the interesting stuff you see while browsing the web. No more bookmarks, tabs, or open windows. See something you like, clip it and you’ll have it forever. Evernote saves the content of your clip along with a link back to the original page. Clip text, images, and links into your Evernote account. You can then use Evernote to access your clips from the desktop, phone or the web.
Evernote Search
Evernote Search can create To-do lists, Text and ink notes, take Snapshots and also Audio recordings. Evernote can even recognize text in images. It is incredible! Take a snapshot of something and send it into Evernote. We’ll make it searchable. This tool also available on Apple iPhone.
While I am building the Voice Over Library the past few weeks I face a bunch of technical problems, I try to insert special character like quotation to the input text box and couldn’t be saved to the mySQL table because the single and double quotas basically break the PHP code. At the end I have to ask my favorite instructor Ritchie Macapinlac for help, he told me to do a Google search on HTML encoding and find the following solution.
Photoshop has been a part of every web designer’s life since they picked up their first mouse. On February 10th, 2010, Photoshop turns twenty. To mark this anniversary, Smashing Magazine have come up with an article that takes you through the evolution of Photoshop from its modest beginnings as a bundled program sold with scanners to its current version.
It will shortly be possible to store any type of file on Google Docs. Until now, the system only permitted compatible files such as HTML, PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenOffice, text and images. Users will be able to upload files under 250MB in size and will be given 1GB of free storage. Additional space is available for $0.25 per GB per year.
Although there are many online file storage systems, Google Doc’s and shared folders could be ideal for businesses collaborating on designs, specifications, presentations or other documents. Once complete, the files can be securely shared with clients and other authorized personnel. Perhaps the biggest advantage is that most office file types can be viewed and edited online. Users can access the files from most modern browsers; there’s no need to have a particular OS, a specific version of Microsoft Office or Adobe Reader installed.
Article on Inhabitat
Google.org worked with Greg Asner of the Carnegie Institution for Science and Carlos Souza of Imazon in order to fully develop the program. To evaluate deforestation in a certain area of the world, the software relies on past, present and future models of satellite image data. Under this program, richer countries would provide financial incentives for poorer nations to protect their forests. By protecting said forests, these nations would help eliminate deforestation, a major contributor of the world’s carbon emissions.
“Wordpress is one of the most popular and beloved CMS’s and it is hardly surprising that there are thousands of plugins for it. While it is an exaggeration to say that all these plugins are great, many of them are. In that aspect, creating any Top 5, Top 10, or Top N lists of Wordpress plugins is a very difficult task because there is no way to include all great Wordpress plugins. Additionally, no matter how great a plugin is, different blogs and different webmasters have different needs and as a result, their personal Top 10s are different. Still, there are some plugins, which are more or less universal and can be used on any type of blog.”
Jack Doyle, founder of GreenSock and creator of TweenLite, spends some time talking to ActiveTuts+ about how he got started, the future of TweenLite/Max, and what he has learned about code optimization & licensing.
How did your past experience help you as a Flash Developer?
Why people choose TweenLite over the competition?
What is most proud features in version 11 of the Tween platform?
Do you feel that developers can make money by selling their code?
Do you have any tips for developer from what you have learned?
Can you talk a little about partnering up with Grant Skinner?
What would you consider your favorite part of ActionScript 3?
Wordpress released the latest 2.9 version this past weekend, there are some cool features including Global undo/”trash” – if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave. Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images. Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one. Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code.
Note: Most of the plugin won’t be able to work in the latest version so make sure you don’t necessary need it before any update.
Learning non-destructive editing techniques helps you produce documents that bend along with your creativity. Photoshop Masks are the cornerstone of this process. Not only do they preserve important pixel data, but they allow for the creation of flexible interface elements as well. In this article on Smashing Magazine, it talks about the technical aspects and creative advantages of incorporating masks into your workflow, it also define five methods of masking: Pixel Masks, Vector Masks, Quick Masks, Clipping Masks and Clipping Paths. It’s worth to spend the time to read this article!
Standard Time involves about 70 workers who built a large (4×12m), wooden “digital” time display. Which they then updated in “real time”. All of this resulted in a unique urban screen that involved about 1,611 tedious changes within 24 hour period. “The spectator looking at Standard Time does not only see the time, but also the people constructing it. People who, with a stoic sense of duty, are wasting time on an apparently useless activity that fulfills only one function: to display time.”
Mark Formanek “Standard Time is a performance lasting exactly 24 hours and recorded on film. However, this film is much more than just the recording of an action, the recording of something that has taken place in the past; it is also a clock. A clock for use right now and in the future which, as each day goes by, extends further into the past, but is still up-to-date and punctual.”
iPhone is getting more popular, one of the reason is the multi-touch makes thing easier for user to navigate different options on the phone, also there’s over one hundred and fifteen applications also make it more user friendly. The stats on App Shopper show there’s a total of 130,928 apps are being approved and 115,994 apps are available in the market. Because of this, to compete with thousands of iPhone apps, having a good app icon is not enough. A nicely designed website for the app is very important. A beautiful website helps to drive traffic in and also makes your app stand out from the crowd. Here’s a related blog post on Web Designer Wall.
With so many different variables coming into play — hosting space, bandwidth allowances, operating platforms, and location — there are a lot of things to look for. When it comes to buying web hosting, these five requirements should be the ones at the top of your list:
Storage space
A lot of web hosts offer storage space without really having it — a phenomenon known as hosting overselling — so ensure that your web host can actually provide what they promise before you order. Quick connection
The best way to check a host’s connection is to view websites hosted on their servers. Not just their own, of course, but other customers’ websites. If possible, ask a service rep to sample their download and upload speed before you buy. Room to grow
Look for hosting companies that don’t just offer a set level of storage, but actively help their customers grow their web presence and online business. Flexible network transfer
Look for web hosts that can work with you on heavy traffic issues. If you’re hosting a blog that social bookmarking websites seem to love, look for a host that’s got previous experience hosting Digg-heavy content. Customor support
When there are disruptions at your web host, you need to be able to contact support and work out what’s going on. While some ultra-large hosting companies are great for pricing, they fall apart when it comes to support.
If you want to compare potential web hosts without flicking from one website to another, Web Hosting Geeks is a great place to look. Separate and compare web hosts by data allowance, OS type, and even the availability of coupons and voucher codes.
For many customers and clients, your business card is their first point of reference when looking at your services. With this huge importance to your business, it’s essential that your business card projects three things, not just about yourself but about your business: value, innovation, and information. By using modern design elements and selective information to build and maintain your brand image, your business card can create not just new business relationships, but powerful word of mouth buzz.
Information
To decide what information you need on your business card, for simplicity’s sake, you’ll want to limit your communications to just a few channels, and by sticking with the most popular ones you can save yourself time, worry and missed business opportunities. Balance
To make a truly great business card design, you need to combine aesthetics and information, balancing the two to guide the eyes around the card. Grouping information not only balances your card effectively, but it guides the reader through the card and down towards your contact information. White space
By balancing the amount of informational space on your business card with minimalist design elements, you can guide the reader through the card and create a design that is clean and professional. Simplicity
By selectively eliminating parts of your design, you can build a business card that not only displays all of your contact information, but gives the viewer a look into the DNA of your business.
Drawing inspiration from the personal solar charging device by Fandi Meng, the Sunny Flower, which charges your gadgets on the go, designer Mac Funamizu has come up with a solar charger called “iPetals”. Full article on The Design Blog
