Tutorials Round-Up: Ajax, CSS, PHP and More

Coding or designing a page, it’s always nice to have some basic templates you can quickly modify or adapt to your needs. However, at least once you have to know, how to create this “universal” template. In this case tutorials prove to be an ultimate solution, particularly if you just want to get an idea how something works and where to start from. Read more here.

Making Your pages load faster

Here's a great article by which the author provides information on how to load your web pages faster by combining and compressing javascript and css files.

Design on the cheap with open source software

So, you would like to be a designer. Ouch, it's going to cost you some dollars. Or does it have to.

Unfortunately, we don’t all have endless reserves of cash to spend on powerful computers and industry leading software. An alternative solution can be to acquire pirated software. But you know that every time legitimate software is copied a puppy gets run over, right? A more morally sound solution can be to delve into the geeky waters of open source software.

The open source movement is a community of dedicated geeks and nerds who develop alternative versions of commercial software, with all the features, bells and whistles, and distribute it for free (or donations). Personally, I’m a firm believer in you get what you pay for, but when you’re not paying anything you can’t really lose. So lets take a closer look at some open source design software.

The GNU Image Manipulation Program (The GIMP)

The GIMP is one of the most famous open source applications, and is considered by many as the open source alternative to Photoshop.

The down side is that the GIMP is pretty ugly - functional more than glossy - and the user interface isn’t the most intuitive. But if you can get over the bad looks, you’ll find a great personality. It offers many of the features and tools of Photoshop and can certainly hold up its own as a decent alternative.

The GIMP is available for PC, Mac and Linux, and can be downloaded from the GIMP website.

Gimpshop

Gimpshop is based on the GIMP application, but replicates as far as it can the feel of Photoshop by replacing the user interface. As the GIMP doesn’t have all the features of Photoshop it is not an exact like for like, but if you are comfortable with Photoshop but scared by the look of the GIMP, Gimpshop might be worth a try.

Gimpshop is available for PC, Mac and Linux, and can be downloaded from the Gimpshop website.

Pixelmator

Edit: Pixelmator is not actually open source. It will retail at $59 (US). The listing is shown here as it is still in interesting option for designers on a budget.

Pixelmator is currently in development but due for release later this year. It’s a Mac only affair, but worthy of mention because the preview screenshots look stunning. It promises many of the features of Photoshop and it looks very similar indeed. As it’s not been released yet, I can’t comment how it compares, but because I know designers are a superficial bunch who love good looks above all else, I know this will cause a stir when it’s released.

Pixelmator will be available for the Mac later this year. Further details are available from the Pixelmator website.

Inkscape

Inkscape is a vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Adobe Illustrator. Currently many of Inkscape’s functions are operated with keyboard shortcuts rather than contextual mouse-operated menus. This is great if you can learn all the functions but for a newcomer it’s a steep learning curve. Inkscape still lacks a few features that a professional designer might need, especially when preparing artwork for print. However, Inkscape is still at version 0.46 - it is very much a work in progress and is showing a lot of promise.

Inkscape is available for PC, Mac and Linux, and can be downloaded from the Inkscape website.

Pushing the boundaries of web design

Do you remember creating your first website?

Children of the web

How the second-generation Internet is spawning a global youth culture--and what business can do to cash in.

Introduction to CSS editing using Firebug

For anyone who’s not familiar with the Firefox add-on - you really should be, it’s a really cool hands-on way to edit or peruse code while you browse, read more, or get firebug here *snipped from the website

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Switchy McLayout: An Adaptive Layout Technique

CSS-based liquid layout has proven successful during the reign of 800-pixel to 1024-pixel screens, but as we use a wider range of devices to access the web, we need more powerful and flexible ways of managing layout. If we want to serve devices whose viewports range from 240 pixels to about 1680 pixels—and with resolution ranging from 72 to 150 pixels per inch—we need a new method.

Google PageRank

Everybody is using it, but (almost) nobody really knows how it works. Google PageRank is probably one of the most important algorithms ever developed for the Web.

Internet Marketing - Search Engine Optimization - Google

Google Boys. Andrew Hazen, President of Prime Visibility speaks with Google Boys regarding Search Engine Optimization and Marketing.

Documentary: The Next Web

An iChat Video interview with 5 Internet Influentials who answer 5 basic questions in almost 20 minutes. Tim O'Reilly from O'Reilly Media, Steve Rubel from Edelman and Micropersuasion.com, Matt Mullenweg from WordPress, Marten Mickos from MySQL and Jay Adelson, CTO and co-founder of Digg.com tell us what the Next Web will look like.

10 ways to lose visitors to your website

Here are some issues that could drive visitors away from a site and many of these factors can impact all types of website.

Web Design Trend: Monkey See Monkey Do

Ever wonder what happened to the wonderful days when you could find a site that was truly original.

Avinash at PodTech

Avinash Kaushik [Analytics Evangelist for Google] speaks with Jeremiah Owyang about kicking off a web analytics strategy for your corporate web program. This is a 15 minute video.

Measure Effective Of Your Web Pages

Avinash Kaushik offers information on focus on metrics, key performance indicators and tips on how to measure effectiveness of individual pages.

Checklist: Before you start a web design project

Martin Hardee provides some insightful information on having a good checklist at hand before starting a web design project.

60 Elegant and Visually Appealing Designs

Another great list from SmashingMagazine where you ’ll find 60 fresh, elegant, professional and visually appealling designs, which pay close attention to details and manage to remain simple, user-friendly and nice-looking.

Creating bulletproof graphic link buttons with CSS

A very useful technique that uses an image-based button to expand and contract based on the amount of text it contains.

Five Techniques for Getting Buy-In for Usability Testing

Christine Perfetti outlines the 5 best techniques for convincing management and key stakeholders of the benefits of incorporating usability testing into the formal design process. It's easier than you think.

Here's another helpful tip on web usability testing.

Coding for Content

Most of us have read countless articles and books about (X)HTML and CSS, but, especially early on in our careers, we wonder what goes on in the mind of someone adept at markup and code. What exactly is the thought process? Is it the same every time, or does one start by focusing on a specific challenge in a design? Veteran front-end developer and designer—and regular Digital Web columnist—Garrett Dimon shares his thoughts as he takes on the markup challenges behind his latest personal blog redesign. Read more

Observing SEO Best Practices When Designing Your Website

Often we get asked to do search engine optimization for various clients who have existing websites. We will review the websites, and we are amazed at the blatant mistakes made by the previous webmasters.

Part 2 here