Interesting article on Smashing Magazine that talks about how Geo Location takes a big part in today’s web development. Simply using IP address and tracing down the location of user. This article shows different online tools and examples with code to help you have a better understanding on this topic, also comment the advantages and disadvantages of different online services.

Why Geo Matters

First of all, why is it important to consider physical location on this planet (at this moment) when we develop Web products? There are a few answers to this.

The first answer is mobility. The days of people sitting in front of desktop machines at home are over. Sales of mobile devices, laptops and netbooks have overtaken those of bulky stationary computers in the last few years. The power of processors now allows us to use smaller, more mobile hardware to perform the same tasks. So, if people use their hardware on the go, we should bring our systems to them. Which brings us to the second—very important—point: relevance.

Giving the user content that is relevant to the physical space they are in at the moment makes a lot of sense. We are creatures of habit. While we love the reach of the Internet, we also want to be able to find things in our local area easily: people to meet, cafes to frequent, interesting buildings and museums to learn about. The advertising industry—especially of the adult and dating variety—realized this years ago.

How to erase the data on hard drive completely so your personal information won’t be stolen by others? Well, there a few techniques that anyone can employ to protect their identity. Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that the following software and techniques will ERASE your hard drive and you will not be able to get your data back. That’s the whole point.

Formatting
Most people’s first instinct would be to just reformat their drive to get rid of data. But there are all sorts of formatting that can be done.

First, you can perform what is called a high level format. Sometimes, this is referred to as a quick format. This method is not secure seeing as it only erases the boot sector and partition table, thus leaving all of the other files intact and accessible through purpose built software. There is also low level formatting, referred to officially as “disk reinitialization.” This process goes through your disk and sets values to zero and will erase a hard drive completely.

For more advanced users, you can also change the number of passes that the format goes through. The more passes, the more secure it will be because the format goes through the disk the specified number of times and writes over the information with junk. As you would expect, more passes take more time, but more passes means your data is better scrambled and harder to recover.

If you don’t want to take the process on formatting the drive, you can download DBAN (Darik’s Boot And Nuke), as it is shortened, is a nice little application that lets you completely erase your data. You can download it for Intel/AMD machines and Apple Power Mac machines by clicking “Downloads” at the top of the home page.

Read full article on Make Use Of

An entry at Ideation Award 2010 in conjunction with Malaysian International Fair, the “Go” by Indonesian designer Rizki Tarisa is a piece of multifunctional furniture that makes use of advanced technology, so you could lead a sustainable lifestyle while accomplishing your daily tasks in style. Combining the functions of a lounge chair, exercise bike and desktop into a single unit, the multi-tasking furniture also harnesses human power to generate green energy, when you pedal the bike to burn the extra layer of fat from your body, to juice up your gadgets. Users can browse the internet and listen to music while lounging in utmost comfort. Furniture will never be as functional and sustainable as the Go.

Article on Hongkiat

“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.

Article on ReEncoded

“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 ‘ ) ; ?>

WordPress has good SEO features, this article by Matt Alexander (Web junkie from Dallas, TX specializing in WordPress blog design) on Six Revisions will help you maximize your search engine results while also making sure your site is the best it can be. Take a few minutes out of every day and do them one at a time. By the end of the week, you will have an SEO optimized blog that you and the search engines will be proud of showing in their search results.

Title of post comes first
Use good meta descriptions
URLs with permalinks – [ /%category%/%postname% ]
Use breadcrumbs
Generate an XML Sitemap
Describe your post images meaningfully
Link to related posts
Use good keywords in post headings
Avoiding duplicate content with robots.txt

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!

Containers has been used today for a range of spaces, from houses to offices and even schools. And the reason for that? It’s affordable, modular, easy to build and environmentally friendly. Researching that subject I found a versatile system called Container City™, by Urban Space Management. Container City™ is an innovative and highly versatile system that provides stylish and affordable accommodation for a range of uses, this system uses shipping containers linked together to provide high strength, prefabricated steel modules that can be combined to create a wide variety of building shapes and adapted to suit most planning or end user needs.

Article on ReEncoded

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.

Article on Web Designer Depot

An interesting article talks about how to create email newsletters. Website becomes a standard marketing tool for all sorts of business this day, newsletters is the best way to distribute information to the audience. This article discusses common design patterns of email newsletters and also included a compilation and analysis of different newsletter designs. It suggests a few newsletter software and post examples for inspiration.

Guide to CSS support in email clients
Find this chart pretty helpful, should post it on my blog.

Article by Jacqueline Thomas on Web Design Ledger

As you think of how you will incorporate new trends into your designs, focus on the main idea of each trend. Be encouraged to dabble into these trends so that you become part of the movement.

01. Oversized Logos/Headers: make visitors remember you
02. Sketch/Hand-drawn Design: part of corporate design
03. Slab Typefaces: express who you are
04. Typography: more interesting to readers
05. One Page Layouts: more about personal profiles
06. Huge Images: draw visitors into your site

07. Change of Perspective: different perspectives in 2010
08. Interactive/Intuitive Design: more flash, more interactive
09. Modal Boxes: easy to design and use
10. Minimalism: venture into typology

11. Oversized Footer: less important but more personal information

12. Retro: new ways to honor vintage art
13. Intro Boxes: new way to introduce yourself

14. Magazine Layouts: used for infotainment sites

Li Wei, a contemporary artist from Beijing China, his gravity defying photos have been mesmerizing the world, capturing impossible looking moments of apparent extreme danger. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and that he works with the help of props such as mirrors, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics. He then removes the wires and scaffolding with Photoshop to create these seemingly impossible photos.

Article on Make Use Of, Guy McDowell talks about how internet connection and internet speed work. If you have questions like “Why does the speed test tell me I can download this 3 Mb video in 2 secs, yet it keeps stopping?” Or, “My speed test tells me my upload and download speeds are 512kBps. Why won’t my Skype work better?”, you should check out this article.

Article on Web Designer Depot

No wonder people under estimate the power of branding, it’s not only design, it also involve concept and philosophy. Indeed, branding is everywhere in your daily life. The article basically have a closer look at ways to define a brand for something as unique as a freelancing business, and what one needs to do to get started on the right track to a successful brand.

01. Define your business goals
02. Define your target audience
03. Business name
04. The logo
05. Website and business card design
06. Write an elevator pitch
07. Write an about page
08. Get client to reach you

Article on Presentation Zen
The kanji that has been used by Japan for the past 1300 years or so to represent this concept is 和 (wa). Wa is also the adjective used to describe things which are Japanese or in the Japanese style such as Wafuku 和服 (Japanese clothing), Washitsu 和室 (Japanese-style room), Washi 和紙 (traditional Japanese paper), and Washoku 和食 (Japanese cuisine).

I really like the quote by Kakuzo Okakura 岡倉覚三, a Japanese scholar who contributed to the development of arts in Japan.

This morning I’m working on the Infographic site for school, gathering information by searching on Google, accidentally find this interesting blog – Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. He mentions about Kaizen(改善) means improvement, as the term is used as a business process it more closely resembles in English “continuous improvement.”

Kaizen is a tool used by corporations to achieve greater innovation, productivity, and general excellence, it’s also an approach, an approach that we can learn from and apply to our own lives as we strive for continuous improvement on a more personal level. We can call this “Personal Kaizen.”

“The overriding principles of kaizen is that it is daily, continuous, steady, and it takes the long-term view. Kaizen also requires a commitment and a strong willingness to change.” & “The spirit of kaizen suggests that there is always something to learn and ways to improve, and that it is also better to prevent problems than to fix them. So, no matter how good things may seem now, there is always room for improvement, and looking to improve every day is what the spirit of personal kaizen is all about.”

15 tips to Kaizen (continuous improvement)
01. Keep an analog scrapbook
02. Keep a digital scrapbook
03. Get out of your comfort zone
04. Keep stimulating the “right side” of your brain
05. Read books on graphic design
06. Take some time to examine the packages
07. Learn to draw by taking a class
08. Learn to take better photos
09. Take an art class
10. Go for long walks alone (with ability to record your observations)
11. Get completely unplugged and off the grid
12. Make it a point to watch TED videos on line
13. Go for walks in nature with a keen eye
14. Teach others what you learn
15. Share your new knowledge and passion about design

Read full article on Presentation Zen

Blog is getting more popular, it becomes an easy and efficient way to promote yourself or design firm because it’s easy to maintain. Designer owns a blog seems to be a trend this day. On this article @ Web Designer Depot, it talks about how you should display your contents on a blog’s front page.

“The front page of a blog is obviously of great importance to the overall design because it has a substantial impact on the first impression of visitors. New visitors expect to be able to get a good idea of what the blog offers from the front page alone. Visitors also want to be able to find content they are looking for through it. Easy navigation and usability are important because the front page will likely be the most frequently viewed page on the website.”

Displaying blog content on front page

Full posts
With the full posts option, blog posts are displayed in full, not truncated, in reverse chronological order. This method is not nearly as popular as it was a few years ago.
Post Excerpts
Show only excerpts of posts, with links to the full content for those who are interested.
Magazine-Style
Similar to excerpts, but posts are not necessarily shown in chronological order. Instead, they are usually categorized, with their dates shown.

Article on Noupe suggest 30 different themes for WordPress, osCommerce, Magento, Zen Cart, and CRE Loaded. It also analysis the advantage and disadvantage of each content management system.