Challenge Webdesign

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2010-04-27T04:53:00.000-07:00

Koundamani and vedivel Tamil special Comedy Cut Nakkal tones

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Unnai Pol Oruvan Mp3 Songs Download

2009-09-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Kamal Hassan’s eagerly awaited Unnaipol Oruvan, produced by Kamal Hassan in association with UTV, a remake of A Wednesday,

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Best Baby model of the year

2009-09-09T02:24:00.000-07:00

Nan kadavul songs Download Link

2009-01-03T00:19:00.000-08:00

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Vaaranam Aayiram Movie-DVD Print with English Subtitle-Watch Online

2008-12-29T01:42:00.000-08:00

Movie:Vaaranam Aayiram Movie-DVDrip-with English Subtitles - Watch Online
Cast :Surya, Sameera reddy, Simran, Divya
Director / Script : Gautham menon
Music director : Harris Jayaraj

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Plot:
The story starts off with a senior citizen Krishna (Suriya) getting his hair trimmed in a saloon only to die after reaching home. The news is conveyed to his son, Major Suriya (Suriya) who is part of a rescue mission. With gritty determination, the young man declares he wants to go ahead with the mission. But the son in him overwhelms the Major that he is and events of his life unfold as flashes in his mind.Suriya's adolescent days come across as a breath of fresh air. The antiques he indulges in once he sees Megna (Sameera Reddy) on a night train and his train of thought that goes on in his mind to woo her, gets across to the audience very well.After the interesting introduction, the determined Suriya goes to her house to see her. Megna is surprised but then is not convinced that his love for her is true. She reveals her plans to study in America and her preparations to leave in a week's time.The happy-go-lucky Suriya does some business and using the gift of being a good guitarist makes money. And then he is off to America, not for a career, not for studies but to win his girl's heart and marry her. They do meet in America and the interesting character that he is wins Megna's heart. An unfortunate incident happens and Megna dies.A reckless Suriya then starts smoking, drinking and becomes a horrible drug addict. His parents take care of him through these torrid times. His parents even want him to go away somewhere to find himself and come back as the person that he really is.Suriya walks the streets of Kashmir and Delhi and even indulges in daring endeavors like rescuing a kidnapped child. Then the military bug bites him and he joins the armed forces. It is about this time that the director has made maximum usage of his good looks and the famous six-pack ab. After six years in the armed forces, he becomes a major and also has loving thoughts of a girl (Priya played by Divya Spandana) he had known for a long time but had really not given any kind of attention to.................

Aamir Khan-Ghajini-Hindi Movie-Watch Online

2008-12-26T01:30:00.000-08:00

Movie: Ghajini- Video Clips-First on net
Cast: Aamir Khan, Asin, Jiah Khan
Music: A.R.Rahman
Director: A.R.Murugadoss

Part1

Part2

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Dindugal Sarathy-Tamil Movie -Watch,Download for Free

2008-12-26T01:17:00.000-08:00

Movie:Dindugal Sarathy-Tamil Movie -Watch Online-First on net
Cast:Karunaas, Karthika, Saranya, Livingston, M S Bhaskar
Direction:Subramaniam Pilai
Music:Dheena
Release Year: 2008
Language: Tamil

Part1

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Part2

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Sarathy's (Karunaas) problem is that he is short, stout and dark skinned. With most of the girls he approached refusing to marry him, a fair and beautiful girl (Karthika) comes forward to accept Sarathy in her life.But the real problem starts only after the marriage. His inferiority complex drives him to suspect his wife. At one point, things go way beyond control. How the couple overcomes all hurdles and reunites is the climax.

Download Links
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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Bommalattam -HQ-Tamil Movie-Watch,Download for Free

2008-12-23T22:26:00.000-08:00

Movie:Bommalattam -High quality-Watch,Download for Free
Cast:Arjun, Nana Patekar, Kajal Agarwal, Vivek
Direction:Bharathiraja
Music:Himesh Reshammiy
Language: Tamil
Release Year: 2008

Part1

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Thiruvannamalai-Arjun-Tamil Movie-Watch,Download for Free

2008-12-23T22:18:00.001-08:00

Movie:Thiruvannamalai-Watch Online for Free -First on net
Starring: Arjun, Pooja Gandhi
Direction: Perarasu
Music: Srikanth Deva

Part1

Part2

Silambattam-Simbu- Tamil Movie-watch Online for Free

2008-12-23T22:08:00.000-08:00

Movie: Silambattam Movie-watch Online-First on net
Cast: Simbu, Sneha, Sana Khan
Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja
Director: Saravanan

Villu - Vijay - Tamil Movie Songs - Download and Listen online for Free

2008-12-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

Villu - Vijay - Tamil Movie Songs - Download and Listen online for Free

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Listen Online

The three songs that have been doing the rounds recently in internet. Villu songs are: Uyirai Thozhitthen, Nee Parthidel and Kanavellam Neethane. These three songs are said to be from Villu.However, in most of the cases the songs distributed on the internet do not feature in the film. Mostly these songs would have ripped from Malaysian local band group albums. So it needs to be seen if the songs doing rounds on the internet will be a part of Villu. Villu, which is directed by Prabhu Deva, stars Ilayathalapathy Vijay.

Vaaranam Aayiram Video Song and Movie Download - Download Link1

2008-12-08T00:30:00.000-08:00

Annul Maelae - Sudha Raghunathan

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Mundhinam - Naresh Iyer, Prashanthini

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Yethi Yethi

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Adiyae Kolluthey Original_quality - Krish, Benny Dayal, Shruthi Hassan

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Nenjukkul Peidhidum - Hariharan, Devan, V Prasanna

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Mahesh,Saranya Matrum Palar-Tamil Movie -Watch Download for Free

2008-12-06T00:49:00.000-08:00

Movie: Magesh, Saranya, Matrum -First on net-Watch,DOwnload for free
Cast: Sandhya, Shakthi, Keerthi Chawla, Daniel Balaji
Direction:P.V. Ravi
Music: Vidyasagar

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Part1

Part2

Poo Tamil Movie- Watch online for free

2008-12-05T00:59:00.000-08:00

Movie:Poo - Watch online for free
Cast : Srikanth, Parvathy
Direction : Sasi
Music : S S Kumaran
Cinematography : Sakthi Saravanan

Part1

Part2

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Tamil Comedy Cut Tones and Cut Songs

2008-12-04T01:38:00.000-08:00

Tamil Comedy Cut Tones and Cut Songs

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Tamil Adult Cut Tones and Cut Songs

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Tamil Comedy Cut Tones and Cut Songs List

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Vaaranam Aayiram Video Song and Movie Download - Download Link

2008-11-30T21:56:00.000-08:00

Ava Enna - Karthik, V Prasanna

link

Adiyae Kolluthey - Krish, Benny Dayal, Shruthi Hassan

link

Annul Maelae - Sudha Raghunathan

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Mundhinam - Naresh Iyer, Prashanthini

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Yethi Yethi

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Adiyae Kolluthey Original_quality - Krish, Benny Dayal, Shruthi Hassan

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Nenjukkul Peidhidum - Hariharan, Devan, V Prasanna

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Vaaranam Aayiram Superb Scenes

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Vaaranam Aayiram - Watch Online for Free

2008-11-21T22:17:00.000-08:00

Part1

Part2

Part3

Part4

Part5

Tamil New Song Online Fm

2008-09-27T01:54:00.000-07:00

FM radio - Latest songs - Live streaming
Listen to tamil songs from latest movies - 24X 7

Requires real player
Click start button to start the player

Aahaa Fm Online Tamil Fm

2008-09-13T03:14:00.000-07:00

Recommended: Firefox 2.0 above,IE 6.0 above, Windows media player

Top Ten Web Design Tips of 2007

2008-07-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Most Useful Design Tips of the Year

The Internet is changing with the development of Web 2.0, and the changing marketplace reflects a need for increased usability, easier functionality and design that is visually appealing but that still lends to an easy to maneuver, content-rich website. The following is a list of ten top website design tips that made a difference in 2007.

1. Know the audience: The design of your website should cater specifically to your target market both in the visual sense, and in usability. It is critical that the design of your website reflect the values that your potential customers will hold.

2. Personalize: Even if your website is designed by the greatest professionals in the business, if you do not allow your customers to get to know you, or to believe in you, you will have difficulty selling your ideas.

3. No uncertain terms: Clearly identify what the purpose is for your website, and ensure that every facet of your website focuses on this goal. Are you conveying a message, selling a product or offering a service? Make this obvious from the beginning, and keep your focus until the end.

4. Keep it quick: You have between ten and thirty seconds to capture the attention of your customer, so keep graphics small in order to minimize the time it takes to load your website. Compress images when possible, so that your loading times stay low.

5. Design is important, content is more so: Good content is what sells your ideas and products. Is your copy delivering the message you intended for it to? Grammar and spelling ARE important; so proofread everything you write before it goes live.

6. Map your Site: You can make your website’s navigation much more easy and intuitive simply by creating a site map, or a directory web page. If your customer cannot navigate your website quickly or easily enough to find what they came for, they will go elsewhere for solutions.

7. Strive for consistency: Your website should be consistent in the design, the look and the feeling. Colors, themes and ideas should stay constant throughout every page on the website to make the best impression on your visitors.

8. Keep track of links: You should make sure that your site is fully functional at all times, which means checking out your website links on a fairly regular basis. If you have dead links on your site, there is no telling how much of a negative impact will transfer to your search engine page ranking, or the opinion your visitors have of your website.

9. Make a simple start: When you begin your site, take everything one page at a time, and optimize each page for the best results before moving on to the next. This means that you should make sure that every page is perfect before leaving it for the next one.

10. Optimize: The top search engines are responsible for helping more than 85-percent of all web users to find exactly what they are looking for. If you want to be one of the websites that is considered when users look for similar products or information, you must make sure that your pages are designed to maximize your search engine placement.

I hope you enjoyed our Top Ten Design Tips list - If have any comments or would like to add to the list - we strongly encourage you to do so…

Top 10 Great SEO tips for your site

2008-07-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

You can easily make your site search engine optimized by follow 10 easy steps that will make sure everything is ready for Google to go through and understand what your pages and site are about. This can help you to get more traffic from search engines by ranking well. Once you rank well, of course, you need to make sure that you are persuading the visitors to actually click on your search listing. The relevant and quality traffic is why we all have web sites and want to rank well in search engines, right?

1 Content

As cliché as it sounds this is the number one for any search marketing strategy, it is impossibly important to ensure that you have content worth viewing. Without this one simply step to ensure that there is a reason for someone to be on your site, everything else is useless. There are a lot of great sites to find inspiration for writing great content that works.

2 Incoming Links

A link is a link is a link, but without the simplest form you aren’t going to do well in search engines. The more links you have the more often you are going to be crawled. It is also important to make sure that you have the proper anchor text for your incoming links. The easiest way to gain quality links from other sites is to link to sites to let them know your site is there and hope for a reciprocal link. It is also important to make sure that you have content that is worth linking to on your site.

3 Web site title

Making sure that you have the right web site titles for your pages is extremely important. The keywords you place in your title are important in order to ensure that your topic is understood by Google. One of the primary factors for ranking is if the title is on-topic with the search results. Not only is it important for robots to index and understand the topic of the page either. It is important for click-through rates in the search results. Pay attention to what you click on when you are searching in Google, I know that I don’t always click the first results. Using great titles and topics on your site will bring you more traffic than a number one listing. Most of the time it is within the first page, but I skim through the titles to see which looks to be more on-topic for my search query.

4 Heading tags

When you are laying out your site’s content you have to be sure that you are creating the content flow in such a way that the heading tags are based on prominence. The most prominent of course being the h1 tag, which says “this is what this block of copy is about.” Making sure you understand heading tag structure is very important. You only want to have one (or two) h1 tags per a page. It is important to not just throw anything into an h1 tag and hope you rank for it.

5 Internal Linking

Making sure that your internal linking helps robots (and visitors!) to find the content on your site is huge. Using relevant copy throughout your site will tell the robots (and visitors!) more effectively what to expect on the corresponding page. You do want to make sure that on pages you don’t want to rank in Google that you add a nofollow tag to ensure that the ranking flow of your site corresponds with your site’s topic and interests. No one is going to be searching Google to find out what your terms of service or privacy policy are.

6 Keyword Density

Ensuring that you have the right keyword density for your page and sites topic is paramount. You don’t want to go overboard and use the keyword every 5th word but making sure it “comes up” often is going to help you rank better in search engines. The unspoken rule is no more then 5% of the total copy per a page. Anymore then this and it can start to look a little spammy. Granted, you aren’t shooting for 5% every time. It is really all about context and relevance— just make sure it is good, quality copy.

7 Sitemaps

It is always a good idea to give search engines a helping hand to find the content that is on your site. Making sure that you create and maintain a sitemap for all of the pages on your site will help the search robots to find all of the pages in your site and index them. Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask all support sitemaps and most of them offer a great way to ensure that it is finding your sitemap. Most of the time you can simply name it sitemap.xml and the search robot will find the file effectively.

8 Meta Tags

Everyone will tell you that meta tags don’t matter, they do. The biggest thing they matter for is click-through though. There will be a lot of times when Google will use your meta description as the copy that gets pulled with your search listing. This can help to attract the visitor to visit your web site if it is related to their search query. Definitely a much overlooked (as of late) ranking factor. Getting indexed by search engines and ranking well is just the first step. The next, and biggest, step is getting that visitor that searched for your keywords to want to click on your search listing.

9 URL Structure

Ensuring that your URL structure compliments the content that is on the corresponding page is pretty important. There are various methods to make this work, such as modrewrite on apache.

10 Domain

It can help to have keywords you are interested in ranking for within your domain, but only as much as the title, heading and content matters. One very important factor that is coming to light is that domain age is important. The older the site or domain, the better it is not spam and can do well in search results. The domain age definitely isn’t a make or break factor but it does help quite a bit.

Ten Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines

2008-07-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

I typically focus my top-ten lists on issues that I think are the most important and most in need of attention. This time, I've used a different criterion: I've focused on the known usability principles that designers most frequently violate. Whether big or small, the very prevalence of these usability problems makes them worthy of attention.

1. Emphasize what your site offers that's of value to users and how your services differ from those of key competitors

This is one of the most important issues in homepage design, so it's particularly sad that it's the least followed of all the guidelines. Websites are incredibly bad at explicitly stating what they offer users. Instead, they hide their offerings in generic marketese that makes very little impression on prospective customers.

Remember: when users have needs, they typically query search engines and allocate only a few seconds to scan each of the sites that the search engine drags up.

2. Use a liquid layout that lets users adjust the homepage size

Fighting frozen layouts seems a lost battle, but it's worth repeating: different users have different monitor sizes. People with big monitors want to be able to resize their browsers to view multiple windows simultaneously. You can't assume that everyone's window width is 800 pixels: it's too much for some users and too little for others.

3. Use color to distinguish visited and unvisited links

Knowing where you've been is one of the three basic features that all navigation designs should support. (The other two are "Where am I?" and "Where can I go?")

It's sad that only a third of corporate homepages tell users at a glance which site areas they've already seen. Navigational confusion results when designers disable one of the few useful features of a standard Web browser: having visited and unvisited links appear in different colors. Our testing has shown that violating this guideline is particularly harmful for elderly users.

4. Use graphics to show real content, not just to decorate your homepage

For example, use photos of people who have an obvious connection to the content as opposed to using models or generic stock photos. People are naturally drawn to pictures; gratuitous graphics can distract users from critical content.

Stock photography sellers are doing a brisk business, but users don't believe that your product will make them happy just because there's a smiling lady on your homepage. Better to show your actual product.

5. Include a tag line that explicitly summarizes what the site or company does

Our recent study of how people use "about us" information on websites did find that most users could eventually dig up information about a company's purpose. But why do most sites make prospects work so hard?

In keeping with most advertising slogans, content-free tag lines abound. Once you've paid millions to get a useless slogan developed, it's probably hard to accept that it won't work for your website.

I suggest a compromise: put the useless slogan in a graphic banner next to your logo, where it will be ignored. Then add a true tag line in plain-text format in the content area where people will actually see it.

6. Make it easy to access anything recently featured on your homepage

For the Alertbox, 80% of the readership happens after a column has passed from the homepage into the archives. In general, users remember when they've seen something interesting on a homepage. However, unless that homepage lists recent features and offers links to them in the archive, users will never be able to find what they're looking for on subsequent visits.

7. Include a short site description in the window title

This is mainly important for search engine visibility, but why not take advantage of this superior -- and cheap -- form of Internet marketing?

8. Don't use a heading to label the search area; instead use a "Search" button to the right of the box

This is a small point, but there's no reason to label the search box if there's a "Search" button right next to it. Interaction design's less is more principle tells us that extra elements in a dialogue distract users from the salient points and reduce their ability to understand an interface. (In other words, with less to consider, people understand more of what's there.)

9. With stock quotes, give the percentage of change, not just the points gained or lost

This guideline only applies to sites that provide stock quotes, either in the investor relations information or elsewhere. With stock quotes, the general principle is to help users understand the relative magnitude of a change, and thus its true importance. (A similar guideline applies to presenting other statistics that change over time.)

A stock increase of $0.75 means very different things if the starting price was $8 (a booming 9% leap) versus $60 (a modest 1% gain).

10. Don't include an active link to the homepage on the homepage

This is a special case of a guideline that applies to all website or intranet pages: never have a link that points to the current page. (A button to refresh stock quotes or other changing information is a different matter, and should be presented as a command button rather than a navigation link since it doesn't lead to a new location.) Active links to current pages cause three problems:

* If they click it, a link leading to the current page is an utter waste of users' time.
* Worse, such links cause users to doubt whether they're really at the location they think they're at.
* Worst of all, if users do follow these no-op links they'll be confused as to their new location, particularly if the page is scrolled back to the top.

Homepage links on the homepage typically result from using a universal navigation bar that includes "home" as an option. Fine. But when users are on a page that's featured in the navbar, you should turn off that option's link and highlight it in such as way that indicates that it's the current location.

Do’s and Dont’s of Great Web Design

2008-07-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

The Process of Great Web Design Just to make sure we are all on the same page, lets begin with the basic definition for “web design”. According to Wikipedia, web design is:

“a process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media delivery via Internet in the form of Markup language suitable for interpretation by Web browser and display as Graphical user interface”.

The process of web design can be compared to the process of writing a research paper. In the conceptualization/planning stage, flowcharts (the outline) are created which illustrate the navigational structure of your website. In the modeling stage, static wireframes are created (the rough draft) which illustrate the skeletal layout for each section of your website. After the wire frames are created, graphics, colors and text are used to create the design of your web pages based on the layout of the wire frames. In the execution stage, your design is converted into a format supported by web browsers, text and content are added, and finally, your website is published live to the Internet for the world to see (final draft).

All three stages of the design process are equally important. Many web designers skip a stage in order to save time or because they don’t think that is is necessary. However, all three stages are necessary if your goal is to create a successful design and respectable website. Even if the three stages are used, there are many mistakes that web designers can make that will lead to poor-quality, non user-friendly websites.
It’s time to clean out the cabinet of bad web design practices and restock it with the good ones.

Stage 1: Conceptualization and planning

This stage is skipped more often than the other two stages. Most writers don’t enjoy creating outlines for research papers, and most web designers don’t like creating flowcharts either. Don’t be lazy. If you put forth the effort and plan out your website, then you will find the web design process to go smoothly with fewer mistakes made along the way.

There are a few things that you will need in order to effectively conceptualize and plan your website:

-a brain
-a pen and paper
-(optional) flowchart software
-a general idea of the different sections of your website

To begin, grab your pen and paper or launch your favorite flowchart software. We use OmniGraffle Professiona for Mac OS X which costs $150 per license but is well worth it if you create websites on a regular basis. If you’re on a PC, then SmartDraw is a great FREE piece of flowchart software that you can use. A pen and paper work just fine, though.

There are many methods to creating flowcharts. We are going to show you the most basic way to do it for the sake of time and the length of this article. If you want to learn more about flowcharts search for flowcharts on Google or Yahoo.

View the flowchart that we created when conceptualizing Chromatic Sites. (1) At the top of the flowchart we list the name of our website. (2) Next, we include each primary section of our website: Home, About, and Services. These sections are the main navigation for your website. What the names of each section will be is entirely dependent on the content of your website. Try to use as few sections as possible so that your visitors are not overwhelmed when navigating through your website.

(3) Next, add all of the secondary pages (subsections) that will be listed on each of the primary pages. For Home, we have included Professional Web Design, Web Development, and Search Engine Optimization. The secondary navigation needs to be more descriptive than the primary navigation. The deeper your website

The Dos

-Less is more; keep the number of primary sections to a minimum. We use 6 sections on our website which is more than enough -Whether you use a pen and paper or flowchart software, keep things as clean and organized as possible. Although you (and anyone working with you) are the only ones that will be using the flowchart, it still needs to make sense -Your primary sections should use broader terms, while secondary and tertiary terms should be more descriptive

The Donts

Creating a flowchart is pretty straight forward; however, there are a few mistakes that can easily be made:

-Don’t use very descriptive terms in your primary navigation unless your entire website focuses on one narrow topic -Don’t try and lump multiple topics on the same page. Create a general section for these topics and from that section create subsections. This will make the subsection (descriptive) web pages more likely to have better rankings in the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask) Once you have created a concise and descriptive flowchart, you’re ready to move on to the second stage of the web design process:
modeling.

Stage 2: Modeling

In the modeling stage, static “wireframe” mock ups are created. Each mockup illustrates a bare-bones skeleton of the layout for each of the web pages that will be included in your website. This stage is important because it gives us an idea of where different elements will be placed in our design. Some of these elements are:

-logo
-navigational menu
-content
-images, videos

To create these mockups, you can use a pen and paper or your preferred mockup software. In the past we have used Photoshop, but lately we have been using OmniGraffle Professional. OmniGraffle is not as resource intensive as Photoshop is and it allows us to assemble our wireframe mockups much quicker.

In addition, make sure that you have the flowchart(s) that you created nearby as you will need to reference these from time to time to make sure that you are mocking up all of the pages that will appear on your website.

Here is our example of how a wireframe mockup should look. As you can see, there are no colors or graphics included. This is exactly how a wireframe mockup should be - a skeletal layout of your design. The purpose is to be able to have a general idea of where each of the web page’s elements will be placed.

We usually begin from the top left and work our way down to the bottom. There is no specific way that a wireframe should look. Use your imagination. However, make sure that when creating your wireframes you don’t forget to include the most important elements of a website (logo, navigational menu, content placement, images/video placement).

If some of your pages will be using the same layout, then it is not necessary to mock all of those pages up (although you certainly can).
Just be sure to mockup any unique layout that your website will have.
You’ll thank yourself later.

The Dos

-mockup all unique pages
-include important elements (logo, navigation, content placement, images/video -placement) -start from the top and work your way down -reference your flowchart created in stage 1 to make you don’t forget to mockup any pages -save, save, save - like with anything on the computer, save your mockup(s) every 10 minutes or so
focus on clean, user friendly layouts -label your elements so you don’t forget what they are when you reference them in stage 3, execution -use other web sites as inspiration; there is nothing wrong with taking elements from other sites and making them your own (see “donts”)

The Donts

-don’t include graphics or colors (that’s for the next stage) -don’t make your mockups too “busy”; focus on clean, well organized, user friendly layouts -don’t skip this stage; it is just as important as the first and the last -if you take elements from other websites, make sure you don’t plagiarize; there is a difference between being inspired by another website to create certain elements of your design and blatantly ripping off their layout and colors

Stage 3: Execution

n the third and final stage, execution, the planning from stages 1 and 2 are combined to assist in creating a live, interactive website.
The third stage is by far the most time intensive since you will be 1) creating the graphics 2) creating the content, and finally, 3) converting the web designs from images into code that web browsers use to present your website to the world.

By the time you reach the third stage, you should have a clear idea of:

-how your visitors will get from one place to another (stage 1, flowchart) -how your web pages will be laid out (stage 2, wireframe mockups)

If you don’t have a clear idea of these two things, go back to the first and second stagees and continue to develop them. You will find that the third stage is easiest when you have constructed a clear, concise battle plan for designing your website.

Ditch the pen and paper

In stage 3, you need to be using Photoshop or another image editing program since you will be using colors and graphics to create the layout for your website.

We usually begin creating the “home” page (index) first. Use your wireframes that you created in stage 2 as a template for each of the pages you create. However, instead of using solid boxes, use graphics, colors and text instead. Each page must look exactly how you want them to look on the Internet since this is the final stage of the design process.

Be sure to include the background for your navigation (but don’t actually add the text to your image). When converted using CSS (cascading style sheets), your navigation should be in the form of text and not images. Images are not crawl-able by the search engines (the keywords used in your navigation won’t be indexed in the search engine results pages, meaning fewer people will be able to find your website).

When you’re happy with your designs and feel that they are ready to be put on the Internet, it’s time to break apart the designs so that you can create a CSS based layout. For more information on converting your layouts to CSS or marking up your website in CSS, visit w3schools.com. After looking around the Internet, we couldn’t find a decent image-to-CSS tutorial - so expect one from us in the coming weeks. Converting your designs into CSS is extremely important since table layouts are a thing of the past.

Here is an example of a nearly-completed website of the layout we mocked up in stage 2. This was taken directly from our web browser and as you can see, there is now a logo, colors, a pretty navigation system, a footer, and a most importantly, a clean, organized layout.
Thanks to the planning in stages 1 and 2, our layout is well-organized and easy to use.

The Dos

-reference your templates that were created in stage 2; though it is fine to deviate from your original layout, you shouldn’t need to -do some research before creating your actual design; get ideas from other sites and make them your own (without plagiarizing) -include color and graphics to create the final look for your web pages -use CSS (cascading style sheets) to convert your designs from images into markup understandable by web browsers -reference your flowchart from stage 1 when coding your pages with hyperlinks; it is better to use a drop down menu that includes all (or the majority) of the links in your website on every page; this will allow for easier navigation and also make your pages easier to crawl when the search engine spiders stop by; a great place to get CSS drop down menus is at DynamicDrive.com -finalize your design while working in Photoshop or whatever image editing software you use; it can be a pain to make changes to your design once it is converted into markup (code)

The Donts

-don’t include the text in your navigation menus when converting to CSS; instead of using image text, use regular text that is readable by search engine spiders -don’t use tables when converting; even if you need to buy a book on CSS, it will be worth it; tables are dead -don’t skip the first two stages just to save time; your website WILL be better if you start from the beginning of the web design process (instead of at the end) -don’t forget to compress your images when they are cut apart for CSS; there is nothing worse than a slow loading website because of large image files; Photoshop has a “Save Optimized For Web” option (CS3 - “Save for Web and Devices”)

Process Makes Perfect

By following a web design process such as the one illustrated in this article, you increase the chances of creating a website that is well-organized, easily navigable, and very user-friendly. Lets face it - if visitors get lost or become confused while attempting to surf your website, they might hit the back button and look for a more user friendly website. People do not like to think when it comes to finding their way around websites. Don’t make them think. You do the thinking by planning out your website from stage 1 to stage 3 and you will find that more people will enjoy visiting your website.

How to use CSS the Proper Way

2008-07-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

1. CSS font shorthand rule

When styling fonts with CSS you may be doing this:

Code (css)
font-size: 1em;
line-height: 1.5em;
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic;
font-variant: small-caps;
font-family: verdana, serif;

There’s no need though as you can use this CSS shorthand property:

Code (css)
font: 1em/1.5em bold italic small-caps verdana, serif;

Much better! Just a couple of words of warning: This CSS shorthand version will only work if you’re specifying both the font-size and the font-family. Also, if you don’t specify the font-weight, font-style, or font-varient then these values will automatically default to a value of normal, so do bear this in mind too.

2. Two classes together

Usually attributes are assigned just one class, but this doesn’t mean that that’s all you’re allowed. In reality, you can assign as many classes as you like! For example:

Code (html)
<p class="text side">…</p>

Using these two classes together (separated by a space, not with a comma) means that the paragraph calls up the rules assigned to both text and side. If any rules overlap between the two classes then the class which is below the other in the CSS document will take precedence.

3. CSS border default value

When writing a border rule you’ll usually specify the color, width and style (in any order). For example, border: 3px solid #000; will give you a black solid border, 3px thick. However the only required value here is the border style.

If you were to write just border: solid; then the defaults for that border will be used. But what defaults? Well, the default width for a border is medium (equivalent to about 3 to 4px) and the default color is that of the text color within that border. If either of these are what you want for the border then you can leave them out of the CSS rule!

4. !important ignored by IE

Normally in CSS whichever rule is specified last takes precedence. However if you use !important after a command then this CSS command will take precedence regardless of what appears after it. This is true for all browsers except IE. An example of this would be:

Code (css)
margin-top: 3.5em !important;
margin-top: 2em;

So, the top margin will be set to 3.5em for all browsers except IE, which will have a top margin of 2em. This can sometimes come in useful, especially when using relative margins (such as in this example) as these can display slightly differently between IE and other browsers.

(Many of you may also be aware of the CSS child selector, the contents of which IE ignores.)

5. Image replacement technique

It’s always advisable to use regular HTML markup to display text, as opposed to an image. Doing so allows for a faster download speed and has accessibility benefits. However, if you’ve absolutely got your heart set on using a certain font and your site visitors are unlikely to have that font on their computers, then really you’ve got no choice but to use an image.

Say for example, you wanted the top heading of each page to be ‘Buy widgets’, as you’re a widget seller and you’d like to be found for this phrase in the search engines. You’re pretty set on it being an obscure font so you need to use an image:

Code (html)
<h1><img src="widget-image.gif" alt="Buy widgets" /></h1>

This is OK but there’s strong evidence to suggest that search engines don’t assign as much importance to alt text as they do real text (because so many webmasters use the alt text to cram in keywords). So, an alternative would be:

Code (html)
<h1><span>Buy widgets</span></h1>

Now, this obviously won’t use your obscure font. To fix this problem place these commands in your CSS document:

Code (css)
h1 {
background: url(widget-image.gif) no-repeat;
}

h1 span {
position: absolute;
left:-2000px;
}

The image, with your fancy font, will now display and the regular text will be safely out of the way, positioned 2000px to the left of the screen thanks to our CSS rule.

6. CSS box model hack alternative

The box model hack is used to fix a rendering problem in pre-IE 6 browsers, where by the border and padding are included in the width of an element, as opposed to added on. For example, when specifying the dimensions of a container you might use the following CSS rule:

Code (css)
#box {
width: 100px;
border: 5px;
padding: 20px;
}

This CSS rule would be applied to:

Code (html)
<div id="box">…</div>

This means that the total width of the box is 150px (100px width + two 5px borders + two 20px paddings) in all browsers except pre-IE 6 versions. In these browsers the total width would be just 100px, with the padding and border widths being incorporated into this width. The box model hack can be used to fix this, but this can get really messy.

A simple alternative is to use this CSS:

Code (css)
#box {
width: 150px;
}

#box div {
border: 5px;
padding: 20px;
}

And the new HTML would be:

Code (html)
<div id="box"><div>…</div></div>

Perfect! Now the box width will always be 150px, regardless of the browser!

7. Center aligning a block element

Say you wanted to have a fixed width layout website, and the content floated in the middle of the screen. You can use the following CSS command:

Code (css)
#content {
width: 700px;
margin: 0 auto;
}

You would then enclose

Code (html)
<div id="content"></div>

around every item in the body of the HTML document and it’ll be given an automatic margin on both its left and right, ensuring that it’s always placed in the center of the screen. Simple… well not quite - we’ve still got the pre-IE 6 versions to worry about, as these browsers won’t center align the element with this CSS command. You’ll have to change the CSS rules:

Code (css)
body {
text-align: center;
}

#content {
text-align: left;
width: 700px;
margin: 0 auto;
}

This will then center align the main content, but it’ll also center align the text! To offset the second, probably undesired, effect we inserted text-align: left into the content div.

8. Vertically aligning with CSS

Vertically aligning with tables was a doddle. To make cell content line up in the middle of a cell you would use vertical-align: middle. This doesn’t really work with a CSS layout. Say you have a navigation menu item whose height is assigned 2em and you insert this vertical align command into the CSS rule. It basically won’t make a difference and the text will be pushed to the top of the box.

Hmmm… not the desired effect. The solution? Specify the line height to be the same as the height of the box itself in the CSS. In this instance, the box is 2em high, so we would insert line-height: 2em into the CSS rule and the text now floats in the middle of the box - perfect!

9. CSS positioning within a container

One of the best things about CSS is that you can position an object absolutely anywhere you want in the document. It’s also possible (and often desirable) to position objects within a container. It’s simple to do too. Simply assign the following CSS rule to the container:

Code (css)
#container {
position: relative;
}

Now any element within this container will be positioned relative to it. Say you had this HTML structure:

Code (html)
<div id="container"><div id="navigation">…</div></div>

To position the navigation exactly 30px from the left and 5px from the top of the container box, you could use these CSS commands:

Code (css)
#navigation {
position: absolute;
left: 30px;
top: 5px;
}

Perfect! In this particular example, you could of course also use margin: 5px 0 0 30px, but there are some cases where it’s preferable to use positioning.

10. Background color running to the screen bottom

One of the disadvantages of CSS is its inability to be controlled vertically, causing one particular problem which a table layout doesn’t suffer from. Say you have a column running down the left side of the page, which contains site navigation. The page has a white background, but you want this left column to have a blue background. Simple, you assign it the appropriate CSS rule:

Code (css)
#navigation {
background: blue;
width: 150px;
}

Just one problem though: Because the navigation items don’t continue all the way to the bottom of the screen, neither does the background color. The blue background color is being cut off half way down the page, ruining your great design. What can you do!?

Unfortunately the only solution to this is to cheat, and assign the body a background image of exactly the same color and width as the left column. You would use this CSS command:

Code (css)
body {
background: url(blue-image.gif) 0 0 repeat-y;
}

This image that you place in the background should be exactly 150px wide and the same blue color as the background of the left column. The disadvantage of using this method is that you can’t express the left column in terms of em, as if the user resizes text and the column expands, it’s background color won’t.

Useful Tips For CSS Designer

2008-06-28T10:58:00.001-07:00

1.Check Your Website Content

Is an image in your DIV Container one pixel bigger then your container’s dimension in your CSS file?

Do you have a long text string that’s too wide for your container set width? (ie. a long URL?)

2.Check Your HTML Source

Io Are you typing valid HTML code? Or are you making tiny mistakes that can impact your layout? eg.
<div id=”wrapper”><p></div></p>

Did you use id=”XXXX” instead of class=”XXXX” or vice versa?

3.Check Your Spelling

Copy and paste element names from your CSS file to your HTML file. This avoids typing and spelling errors.

Did you order your CSS correctly? Make sure wrapper2 is actually inside wrapper if you write the following code: #wrapper #wrapper2 {color:#ffffff; font-size:10px;}

Did you make sure to include 6 characters in your hex color?

4.Check Your Syntax

Are you forgetting brackets ({}) or semi-colons (;)?

Did you mistakenly forget to add the pound sign (#) before an ID or the period (.) before a class?

5.Don’t Use Padding/Margins with Width

This is a common problem, especially with beginners. Padding or Margins combined with Width on the same element yield different results on different browsers. Example, this CSS:
#wrapper { width:100px; margin:5px; padding:5px; }
will appear different in Internet Explorer then in Firefox. This is especially critical if you’re using an image-dominant layout.

6.Check The Little Things

Did you make sure to give your Div Container position:relative; before positioning a Div Container with position:absolute; inside it?

7.Allow Breathing Room

Internet Explorer 6.0 will add a 3 pixel breathing room to some div containers, either use a build your website knowing that this can very well happen and mess up your layout.

8.Use a Validator

You can use the w3c CSS validator or the validator built into the Web Developer toolbar (a Firefox Plugin) to scan your CSS and can help solve your CSS problem.

Opening your CSS file in Adobe Dreamweaver can sometimes give you an idea where something went wrong.

9.Be Aware Of Some Browser’s Existing Problems

You may spend hours trying to find the solution when the problem lies in the Web Browser, and example includes the Peek-a-boo IE6 bug.

10.Do Some Research

Odds are you aren’t the only person that’s ever had the CSS problem you’ve described, use Google and type in keywords for your search you think others would use

Top 10 Steps to Better CSS

2008-06-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

A few simple guidelines you can make your life a lot easier.

Organise your stylesheets

How you divide up your stylesheets is very much a matter of personal choice. You do however need to decide on how you organise your stylesheets. I use a slightly modified veresion of the template that comes with Andy Budd's excellent book CSS Mastery. This has author details at the top and clear delineation of sections throughout. If your site is large one stylesheet may become unmanageable so break it down into chunks and use @import to pull stylesheets into the master.

Use universal selectors

Knowing where you are starting from is very important. Often you will be perplexed as to why padding has been applied by a particluar browser. For that reason I like to remove padding, margins and borders from everything using a universal selector. I then reapply padding, margins and borders to specific elements and know exactly where I am starting from

/* Remove padding and margin */

{
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
}

Code defensively

The more you code CSS the more you will become aware of browser inconsistencies. Take the double float margin bug in Internet Explorer 6 and below for example. This is where a left float is placed within a container and a margin is applied to the move it away from the left edge. IE gets it wrong and applies a double margin. To combat this and the need to hack I like to apply margins to everything within the left float rather than the float itself. This results in consistent display across browsers.

Note: Both examples assume the div is floated left within a container.

Example one - applying the margin directly to the div. This will result in IE misinterpreting it and probable hacking.

#left-content
{
float: left;
margin-left: 10px; /* This margin will be doubled in IE6 and below */
}

Example two - float the div left and then move everything in it away from the edge by 10px using a universal selector. No hacking needed

#left-content
{
float: left;
}

#left-content *
{
margin-left: 10px;
}

Avoid hacks

Hacking CSS is lazy and unless completely necessary should be avoided. With the release of IE7 may old skool hacks will cause problems. If you encounter a problem debug your CSS rather than hacking straight away. Understanding the nature of the problem is key to improving your skills. Most of the time you will be able to fix it without hacking. If you must hack put hacks in a separate stylesheet and comment clearly.

Use conditional stylesheets

If you have done more than 10 minutes of CSS you will realise that Internet Explorer is the most buggy of all browsers. Thankfully you can use conditional comments to manage the CSS that is served to IE. If I need it I have a stylesheet called ie6_and_below.css that targets older versions of IE. It allows me to manage CSS for older browsers quickly and easily.

Test, test, test

If you want to create robust CSS based layouts there is no way to avoid testing. Begin by outlining the browsers you want to support. Then create a test environment. Most browsers allow you to install multiple versions. For IE there is a handy .exe available that will allow you to install multiple versions on one OS. You will also need to test on a Mac. In fact I would recommend you buy a Mac and use it as your primary machine.

Comment your CSS

Almost every book ever written on coding advises commenting. Comments explaining why and how you did something will make maintaining the CSS much easier.

/*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I use this for block comments
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
/* I use this for short commments */

Read blogs

Stuffing your newsreader full of feeds is a great way to learn and develop. The web is an industry that actively shares knowledge so take advantage of this. If you find an interesting article or CSS fix through Google add the RSS feed to your newsreader.

Read the specs

If you really want to understand CSS there is no way of getting round reading the CSS specification documents. The good news is they are all free. You will learn a great deal from doing this so it is well worth it.

CSS 1

CSS 2

CSS 2.1

Drink lots of tea

OK I'm English and I like drinking tea but there will be times when you simply cannot fix a layout bug however hard you try. At this point it is a good idea to put the kettle on. Relax, go and do something else and come back to it with fresh eyes. You will often find that the solution will come very quickly after a break.

Beginners Guide to CSS

2008-06-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

In this guide I’ll be going through how to start out learning CSS. Hopefully by the end of this tutorial you will be much more comfortable using CSS to code websites.

CSS or cascading style sheets are used to style html or xhtml documents. The idea behind CSS is to allow you to dramatically change how a webpage looks without editing any HTML. CSS is normally stored in an external css file, this means that you can change how hundreds of pages look by changing some code in a single CSS file. It is a good idea if you have some experience with html or xhtml before you do this tutorial.

The Syntax

First of all I’ll demonstrate what the CSS syntax should look like:

selector{
property:value;
}
An example of some working CSS syntax is:

html{
color:#333333;
}
This would make the font colour of everything in the <html> </html> tags #333333.
You can define multiple properties for one selector as long as you seperate them with a semicolon (;).
For example:
html{
color:#333333;
background-color:#cccccc;
}
This would give the page a light grey (#cccccc) background with dark grey text (#333333).

The Selectors

There are three main types of selectors, the first type are the selectors that correspond to html elements such as body, p, li etc. Here’s an example of the p selector at work:
p{
color:#333333;
}
That would change the text colour of everything inside the <p> </p> tags on your web page.

Next we have classes. A class will allow you to name sets of styles, this means you can have two paragraphs that are styled differently in a single page. A class selector looks like:
.text_sample{
color:#333333;
}
In the example I called my class text_sample. You must always put the full stop before the name of the class as this tells your browser what you’re defining. Classes can come in useful when you want to style a number of elements differently. For example I might have two paragraphs, one that has dark grey text and one that has light grey text. My CSS would look like:

(Please note, you have to close the p tags, for some reason wordpress wont display them)

The great thing about classes is that you can use the same class as many times as you want in an html document. That brings us on to the final selector an ID.

I use ID’s to define the main parts of a layout, for example if a page has a wrapper div I would make that an ID. The other important thing to remember about an ID is that it should only appear on an html page once. To define an id simply use:

#divname{
selector:value;
}
Then to use it in your html document you would use the code:

#divname{selector:class;}
And that’s it for selectors!

Style Sheets

There are two ways of including a css in your pages. The first way is internally, you would do this by using the code:

The reason I don’t recommend using internal styles is because the whole point behind style sheets is to keep the styling and the actual html of the page separate and using internal style sheets would be defeating the object.

The next method of including css into your html is to use external style sheets. This consists of creating a file, which is normally called something like style.css and then including it inbetween the tags in your html file. The code for including a css file is:

<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />

Obviously you would replace “style.css” for the path and name of your css stylesheet.

That’s just about everything you need to know when you’re first starting out with CSS! My advice to you now is to sit down and practice what you’ve learned here. I’ll be adding some more tutorials soon so keep checking back!

If you like this site you could always sign up for my rss feed and if you’re feeling generous you could buy me a pint using that button on the top right of every page :

Relation of CSS and HTML

2008-06-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

What is the relation of CSS and HTML?

HTML = Content
CSS = Representation
So HTML + CSS = content + Representation = Decorated webpage

What are the advantages of using CSS ?

You can easily change the content in HTML file without having to worry about spoiling your layout which lies in CSS file.

You can easily redesign your layout in CSS file without worrying about spoiling your content in HTML file.

and there are some more advantages waiting you ahead! But that is enough for our first lesson about CSS!

TOP 5 USEFUL CSS TRICKS

2008-06-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

As you guys know, I am CSS designer, I deal with the CSS codes and web design. I found that CSS is a useful tool to beautify your website. However, for those who don’t know CSS, it can be a bit complicated but once you know them well. You can make friends with them but maybe you need to leave your old friend (IE6) first… All right, today I am going to share some of the CSS tricks with you. Let’s learn something different today.

1. FONT

Usually, we beautify font with several line of codes like this :

h3.my {
font-size: 28px;
font-weight: bold;
font-family: "Arial", Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #333333;
line-height: 24px;
}

<h3 class="my">Loon Design</h3>

Do you find the code is a bit too messy or too long? Here is my solution for them:

h3.my {
font: 900 160%/240% "Arial", Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #333;
}

<h3 class="my">Loon Design</h3>

Will this cut down your coding time? The output will be:

Loon Design

Tips

The order of the attributes are font: weight size/line-height family;

400 = normal and 900 for bold

2. Margin and Padding

Wondering what how to differentiate them? You check this site for details. We use margin and padding most of the time when we write up the codes. However, I am not to say the padding problem with IE6 ( seriously, I am having a bad time with IE6 during my work, may post it out later ) here but try to give you some tricks on how to make it in 1 line.
Normally, we code like this, we take margin as example :

.my {
margin-top: 10px;
margin-bottom: 20px;
margin-left: 5px;
margin-right: 5px;
}

but now we can make it in 1 line like this :

.my {
margin: 10px 5px 20px 5px;
}

TIPS

margin: top right bottom left;

or when you have the same margin for the top and bottom, it become like this : margin: 10px 0;

while margin: 0 auto; means vertically align.

3. Class and ID

the symbol for class selectors is (.) while id selectors is (#), but what’s the different between them?

ID

IDs identify a specific element and therefore must be unique on the page. It can only be used once in a page.

We consider that it has the higher level than class. It is more specific.

can be used and an anchor name.

CLASS

Classes mark elements as members of a group and can be used multiple times.

4. Ignore by IE - !important

This is a trick to write something that ignore by IE but can be run in all browsers. The attributes before the !important will be ignored by IE.

Example: margin: 20px !important; margin: 10px;

There will be 20px margin for all browsers except IE which will have the 10px margin. This is useful when you doing some positioning adjustments and most of the time it is showing different result in IE browser.

5. Block vs. inline level elements

Most of the HTML elements are block or inline elements. What is the different between them?

BLOCK

Always begin on a new line.

Height, line-height and top and bottom margins can be manipulated.

Width defaults to 100% of their containing element, unless a width is specified.

Example <div>, <p>, <h1>, <form>, <ul> and <li>

Inline Elements

Always begin on the same line.

Height, line-height and top and bottom margins can’t be changed.

Width is as long as the text/image and can’t be manipulated.

Example <span>, <a>, <label>, <input>, <img>, <strong> and <em>

CSS - Colors and background colors

2008-06-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

Adding colors with CSS

Color is what gives life to anything. Television has never been this interesting when it was still black and white. Same thing with websites. Most websites that do not have colors and backgrounds look dull, which leads the visitors away.

This lesson will teach you how to apply colors and background colors to your website.

CSS Color property

Color property is what describes the foreground color of an element. To give you a clearer idea, I will provide you with an example. Say, you want to change the font color of your header to blue. Whnnat you do is you apply the color property. You already know that the tag for header is You then make a code to set the color of the foreground. This is the code to use:

.h4 {
color: #ffff00;
}

You can enter color values in three different ways.

You can choose to use hexadecimal values such as the one used in the above example;
you can use common English color names;
you can opt to choose “rgb-values”. RGB is short for Red, Green, Blue. It is the color language of computers.

p {color: red;}
p {color: #CC0000;}

CSS Background color

Background color property is what describes the background color of elements.

To change the background color of the entire page of your HTML document, the background color property must be placed within the element, as this element contains all that is in your HTML document. This can also be applied to several other elements such as texts and headers.

body {
background-color: #CC0000
}

h1 {
color: #ffff00;
background-color: #FF0000;
}

As you see, you can change the background color of any element on your site - be it just text or entire text blocks:

myTextStyle {
color: #FFFFFF;
background-color: #000000;
}

Css - How to apply attributes to different elements

2008-06-22T07:54:00.003-07:00

Attributes are instructions of how elements in the HTML should look. Attributes can be anything from font-size to background-color, but this section describes how to effectively apply certain attributes to different elements.

ID’s

ID tags in HTML (<div id=”header”>) are tags which should only be used once per web page. Generally, you want to use an ID to denote the page structure, so you might have id’s for a web page of “header”, “content”, “sidebar” and “footer”, because you’re not going to have two headers or two footers for any one webpage. To assign a style to an ID tag in CSS, use:

#idtagname{
/* assign attributes here */
}

Class

Unlike ID tags, class tags can be used multiple times. This is great when you want different parts of the design to look the same.
To assign a style to a class tag in CSS use:

.classname{
/* assign attributes here */
}

HTML elements

You can apply a style to a particular HTML tag with CSS without using an id or class. For example, if you wanted to change every list (ul) to change from a dot to a square, you could simply do:

li{
list-style:square;
}

Generally you don’t want to apply a style to an element like this. One exception though would be the body tag because it only appears once. In the next paragraph though, you will see where using the general HTML element is appropriate.

Combining All Three

If you’ve played around with CSS before, you’ve probably created HTML like this:

If you have a lot of li elements, you’ll know it can get very annoying to type out class=”x” every time. But there is a way to simplify this. Instead use the following CSS,

.y li{
/* CSS attributes for class x here */
}

And your HTML can become this:

The CSS applies the attributes for define in “.y li” for the li elements embedded in class “y”. Thus you get a cascading effect where you can affect elements inside certain elements. You can use this cascading affect for any combination of ID’s, class and elements. For example, you might use:

#content .post ul{ /* style attributes here */}

Css - How it works

2008-06-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

CSS styles are defined within the tag.

If you define the styles embedded within your current document you will find code similar to the following in your head content:

To use an external file, you would usually name the file something.css (choose an appropriate name), and then use the LINK tag to tell the page to use it. Inside the head of a document put this:

CSS - Default

2008-06-22T06:36:00.000-07:00

When you load your HTML file in any web browser whether it be Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari, the browser will render the web page with certain style attributes already assigned. You can of course override these attributes with CSS, but if you don’t specify differently, the browser will render the page with certain attributes already applied. Each web browser has subtle difference in how they render a web page under defaults, but in general a web page will look the same.

For example, the dots for a list item or the font family is a default style of the browser. You have the power to make that dot into a square or that font from Times New Roman to Verdana. But if you don’t specify, the browser will assume it. Another default attribute that always fools a beginner is the body tag which has a margin.

Css Style - Intoduction

2008-06-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

CSS is an excellent addition to plain HTML. With plain HTML you define the colors and sizes of text and tables throughout your pages. If you want to change a certain element you will therefore have to work your way through the document and change it.

With CSS you define the colors and sizes in "styles". Then as you write your documents you refer to the styles. Therefore: if you change a certain style it will change the look of your entire site.

Another big advantage is that CSS offers much more detailed attributes than plain HTML for defining the look and feel of your site.

INTRODUCTION

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is a way to divide the content from the layout on web pages.

There are 3 types of CSS Styles:

Custom Css(Class) Style create a customized style with the set attributes. These class styles can be applied to any tag.
HTML Tag styles:
Advanced CSS Selector styles:redefine the formatting for:

A particular combination of tags (for example, td h2 applies whenever an h2 header appears inside a table cell) and pseudo-class styles (for example, a:link, a:hover, a:visited)

A specific ID attribute (for example, #myStyle applies to all tags that contain the attribute-value pair id="myStyle")

DHTML Dynamic Calendar Particular Month

2008-06-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

JavaScript calendars have existed for a long time now, but never have they looked pretty (literally), until DHTML came along. Check out Constantin's cool DHTML calendar, which not only looks handsome, but allows you to dynamically look up the calendar for any particular month/ year (by pressing the "Prev Next" buttons). Cool!

Step 1:

Insert the below into the section of your page where you wish the calendar to appear:

Step 2:

Add the below event handler into the tag itself, like this:

Step 3:

Finally, you need to download the calendar.js (by clicking it, or clicking it with the shift key depressed for NS users), and upload it into the same directory as the page containing the calendar:

you done the calender

Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

2008-06-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

I have compiled many top-10 lists of the biggest mistakes in Web design. See links to all these lists at the bottom of this article.

Bad Search

A related problem is when search engines prioritize results purely on the basis of how many query terms they contain, rather than on each document's importance. Much better if your search engine calls out "best bets" at the top of the list -- especially for important queries, such as the names of your products.
PDF Files for Online Reading
Users hate coming across a PDF file while browsing, because it breaks their flow. Even simple things like printing or saving documents are difficult because standard browser commands don't work. Layouts are often optimized for a sheet of paper, which rarely matches the size of the user's browser window. Bye-bye smooth scrolling. Hello tiny fonts.
Scrolling Text, Marquees, and Constantly Running Animations
Never include page elements that move incessantly. Moving images have an overpowering effect on the human peripheral vision. A web page should not emulate Times Square in New York City in its constant attack on the human senses: give your user some peace and quiet to actually read the text!

Of course, is simply evil. Enough said.
Long Scrolling Pages

All critical content and navigation options should be on the top part of the page. Users will only scroll if they believe that there is something useful lower down the page.
Non-Standard Link Colors

By default links to pages that have not been seen by the user are blue; links to previously seen pages are purple or red. Don't mess with these colors since the ability to understand what links have been followed is one of the few navigational aides that is standard in most web browsers. Consistency is key to teaching users what the link colors mean.
Fixed Font Size

SS style sheets unfortunately give websites the power to disable a Web browser's "change font size" button and specify a fixed font size. About 95% of the time, this fixed size is tiny, reducing readability significantly for most people over the age of 40.

Respect the user's preferences and let them resize text as needed. Also, specify font sizes in relative terms -- not as an absolute number of pixels.
Opening New Browser Windows

Designers open new browser windows on the theory that it keeps users on their site. But even disregarding the user-hostile message implied in taking over the user's machine, the strategy is self-defeating since it disables the Back button which is the normal way users return to previous sites. Users often don't notice that a new window has opened, especially if they are using a small monitor where the windows are maximized to fill up the screen. So a user who tries to return to the origin will be confused by a grayed out Back button.
Overly Long Download Times

I am placing this issue last because most people already know about it; not because it is the least important. Traditional human factors guidelines indicate 10 seconds as the maximum response time before users lose interest. On the web, users have been trained to endure so much suffering that it may be acceptable to increase this limit to 15 seconds for a few pages.

Even websites with high-end users need to consider download times: we have found that many of our customers access Sun's website from home computers in the evening because they are too busy to surf the web during working hours. Bandwidth is getting worse, not better, as the Internet adds users faster than the infrastructure can keep up.
Flashturbation

When used well Flash gives you the freedom to create an unrivaled user experience but (and this is a pretty BIG but) it is dangerously easy to get carried away. Splash pages and animated banners don’t achieve anything other than distract from your content. Use Flash only when it serves a purpose which directly benefits the audience or don’t use it at all.
Site doesn’t work on a mac

I’m a Mac user so I freely admit that I’m biased, but it really frustrates me when I can’t use a web site with my Mac. Thankfully this is becoming less common as more people get seduced by slick apple marketing campaigns, but it still happens occasionally and it still bugs the hell out of me. Web designers can pick up a cheap 2nd hand imac off ebay for buttons and use it to test sites. Plus itunes makes it a great office jukebox!

Top 10 Webdesign Tips

2008-06-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

A well designed website will help your users easily find what they are looking for and will make your business look professional. Designing a website from the beginning with Search Engines and your users in mind will help your website to be a success.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. What is the most important thing you want to tell the visitor about on each page? If a web site has too much information on a page, it ends up being confusing to the user. Additionally, Search Engines actually prefer that you separate topics out onto their own pages, as it sees this as more relevant to the users.
Personalize: Even if your website is designed by the greatest professionals in the business, if you do not allow your customers to get to know you, or to believe in you, you will have difficulty selling your ideas.
First impressions are very important. When people arrive at your web site, you have about five seconds to convince them to stay. On your homepage, keep it simple, communicate what you do and what makes your business different.
Design is important, content is more so: Good content is what sells your ideas and products. Is your copy delivering the message you intended for it to? Grammar and spelling ARE important; so proofread everything you write before it goes live.Don't make an all Flash website. Don't make visitors wait for your site to download every time they visit it. Don't make them scroll down to see the last three lines of a block of text.
Be personal.Use photographs of people and testimonials from happy clients to build trust. Make sure you include your address and phone numbers on your contact page. People like being able to easily contact you and know where you are located.
Make sure to do your keyword research before you start building your site. After discovering what users are searching, you should then choose 6 to 10 phrases you want to rank for and try to incorporate them naturally into your page titles and headlines.
Limit your color palette. Professional looking websites tend to use 2-4 colors. This site uses green and white. Use color to help highlight important features on your web site.
Use web conventions.For example, using underlined text when linking and make your logo link back to your homepage. People have certain expectations driven by their experiences of other websites. You need to understand what these are and make sure you accommodate them in your design.
Make a simple start: When you begin your site, take everything one page at a time, and optimize each page for the best results before moving on to the next. This means that you should make sure that every page is perfect before leaving it for the next one.
Design is important, content is more so: Good content is what sells your ideas and products. Is your copy delivering the message you intended for it to? Grammar and spelling ARE important; so proofread everything you write before it goes live.

I hope you enjoyed our Top Ten Design Tips list - If have any comments please mail me - we strongly encourage you to do so…

Java Script Calender

2008-06-19T03:01:00.000-07:00

If you need a simple, elegant calendar to display the current days of the month, asic Calendar is an excellent script for the purpose. Uses CSS to allow easy changing to its appearance, everything from calendar dimensions, colors, down to the font used to highlight the current day.

Step 1.

Insert the below into the HEAD section of your page:The above references an external .js file. Download basiccalendar.js (by
right clicking, and selecting "Save As"), and upload to your webpage directory.Within the above code, you may customize the CSS rules to change all visual aspects of the calendar.

Step 2.

Finally, insert the below script where you wish the calendar to
appear on your page:

My Designs

2008-05-17T02:43:00.000-07:00

Webdesign portfolio

Photoshop Tips

2008-05-09T04:18:00.000-07:00

Language Availability

Adobe Photoshop CS3 is available in the following languages: Arabic (Middle Eastern version), Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Middle Eastern version), Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian.

Adobe Photoshop Middle Eastern language versions available from WinSoft.[12].

[edit] Specific Features for Arabic and Hebrew languages

The Middle Eastern/Hebrew and the Middle Eastern/Arabic versions are specifically developed for Arabic and Hebrew languages.

Text Settings
Photoshop Middle Eastern versions come with special settings for typing and laying out Arabic or Hebrew text, such as:

* Possibility to use Arabic, Farsi or Hindi digits
* Use kashidas for letter spacing and full justification
* Set vowels /diacritics positioning
* Ligature option
* Justify text in three possible ways to get the results you want (Standard, Arabic, Naskh)

Additional Fonts
Photoshop Middle Eastern versions support most fonts shipped with the OS as well as a large number of third party fonts widely used by graphic designers in the Middle Eastern regions. Photoshop Middle Eastern versions install one additional font that facilitates your work in Middle Eastern languages: WinSoft Pro, which is available in four styles: Medium, Medium Italic, Bold and Bold Italic.

Bi-directional Text flow
In Photoshop Middle Eastern versions, the notion of right-to-left behaviour applies to several objects: Paragraph and Character. You can easily mix Right-to-Left and Left-to-Right Words and Paragraphs in a document.

Dictionary and Hyphenation Module
Photoshop Middle Eastern versions come with a comprehensive dictionary for Arabic allowing you to spell check Arabic text with a choice of rules, like Strict Aleef Hamza, Strict Final Yaa, both or none. Photoshop Middle Eastern version comes with a Dictionary and Hyphenation Module for Hebrew.

Find / Replace
You can search for and change specific occurrences of Middle Eastern text. Photoshop Middle Eastern versions include a "Ignore Accent" option. When checked, the user can search for a string of text whether it contains some accents or not.

Save for Web
Special encodings have been added to allow this option to work with Middle Eastern languages.

Contact Sheet II / Picture Gallery / Smart Quotes
These options have been adapted to work correctly with Middle Eastern languages.

Webdesign

2008-05-09T04:07:00.000-07:00

A Web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Designing a web site is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn make up a web site. A web page consists of information for which the web site is developed. A web site might be compared to a book, where each page of the book is a web page.

There are many aspects (design concerns) in this process, and due to the rapid development of the Internet, new aspects may emerge. For non-commercial web sites, the goals may vary depending on the desired exposure and response. For typical commercial web sites, the basic aspects of design are:

The content: the substance, and information on the site should be relevant to the site and should target the area of the public that the website is concerned with.
The usability: the site should be user-friendly, with the interface and navigation simple and reliable.
The appearance: the graphics and text should include a single style that flows throughout, to show consistency. The style should be professional, appealing and relevant.
The visibility: the site must also be easy to find via most, if not all, major search engines and advertisement media.

A web site typically consists of text and images. The first page of a web site is known as the Home page or Index. Some web sites use what is commonly called a Splash Page. Splash pages might include a welcome message, language or region selection, or disclaimer. Each web page within a web site is an HTML file which has its own URL. After each web page is created, they are typically linked together using a navigation menu composed of hyperlinks. Faster browsing speeds have led to shorter attention spans and more demanding online visitors and this has resulted in less use of Splash Pages, particularly where commercial web sites are concerned.

Once a web site is completed, it must be published or uploaded in order to be viewable to the public over the internet. This may be done using an FTP client. Once published, the web master may use a variety of techniques to increase the traffic, or hits, that the web site receives. This may include submitting the web site to a search engine such as Google or Yahoo, exchanging links with other web sites, creating affiliations with similar web sites, etc.