Archive for the ‘resources’ Category
I don’t believe in showing up early for a party (after all, it’s important to make an entrance). In a business context, this probably isn’t the best thing in the world, and in an internet context, it’s even less so. For instance, I just recently started making use of Twitter. I honestly didn’t get what the big idea was. Then I started using it.
It’s amazing. News stories break on Twitter before the newspapers even have an idea what’s going on. You can see real-time photos of Stephen Fry stuck in an elevator. If you complain about a product, its manufacturers will help you out. But most fascinating are the conversations: it’s like what I imagine The Crysalids was like. Someone makes a comment about the colour of the sky, and people respond; threads of conversation begin spidering off in different tangents. Anyone can jump in at any point and drop out just as easily, and nobody dominates because every response is limited to 140 characters. It’s the digital representation of the collective unconsciousness. And it’s searchable!
Social media, I’m sure you’ve heard, is changing our world. If you’re late to the party, like me, it’s time to get involved! Rather than give you a bunch of information that may or may not be true, I’m going to point the way to some resources from more credible experts than I.
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Tags: business, how-to, information, resources, SEO, social media
Posted in resources | 4 Comments »
I’ve been doing some work with email newsletters of late. It is, of course, a bit of a challenge, given how email is even less reliable at properly interpreting standards-compliant CSS code and the like. (Seriously, one of these days, all these companies will get together and start implementing code consistently, across the board, and web designers across the world will suddenly find that what used to take ten hours now only takes one. Companies like the fabulous BrowserCam will go out of business. Why is so much of our economy built on busy-work? Screw the unemployment rate, I want efficiency!)
Anyway. Two things I’ve learned:
- Gmail doesn’t care about your CSS text-formatting. That’s right, that means you’ll need to use <FONT> tags. Gross. I haven’t used those in at least five years!
- Outlook 2007 will make things look ugliest. Apparently, this is because it uses the MS Word rendering engine. Now, seriously? Why? If you’ve ever tried to design anything in Word, well, you know how impossible it is. They do, however, provide this handy little “validator” to check to see how/if your code is going to work, which is nice for those of us who get the shakes just opening Outlook. And it’ll plug into Dreamweaver!
On a vaguely related, but mostly unrelated, note: remember to vote, kids! This is the first year in a while I haven’t been directly involved in doing design work for a campaign, and as a result I’m less jazzed about the election than I usually am, but it’s starting to get to me as the day goes on. Go! Vote! (Or at least spoil your ballot (though it’s illegal to do so). Or vote Libertarian, if you can! Efficiency 2008! Down with Busy-Work! Alright, now I’m excited.)
Tags: business, css, design, email, politics, resources, typography, websites
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I usually use Scriptalicious for my AJAX needs, but I’m working on a set of AJAX-ified forms on a website that’s already using jQuery, so I figure hey, it can’t be that hard to change over! Twenty minutes later, cue the loud cursing and growling. I mean, the whole thing seems far more powerful, but every time I’ve wanted to start implementing it, I’ve been turned off by how complex it seems to do simple things. (Like slide down a div window, which I hope to have accomplished before I turn 30. On a side note, I’ve been feeling old because I turned 25 today, until my little sister sent me a message saying that I’m “plenty young, for a president!” Which I suppose is technically true, so I don’t feel quite so washed up anymore.)
Anyway, back to my jQuery-induced headache: this very helpful thing to the rescue! If I can stop being distracted by the gorgeous site design, I might be able to figure this stuff out, after all, without having to spend all day teaching my brain new methods of programming. I do so love programming tutorials written for designers. Thank you, pretty colourful website!
Tags: design, pretty, process, resources, tutorial, websites
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I gave a presentation to my BBC group last week, giving some tips and guidelines for how to make a website more effective. It’s aimed towards the non-technical person, though implementation of much of the advice would likely require a designer or developer’s help. However, I thought it might be a useful resource, especially if you’re in the process of creating a new website, or revamping an old one.
Do note that I’ve not been ferociously good at following all of these guidelines myself—but it’s certainly given me some better ideas about where I ought to be taking my website! (continue »)
Tags: business, design, how-to, information, process, SEO, websites, zen
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So, let’s say you’re having a problem with your email, or if you’ve found a bug in your website. Your first instinct, naturally, is to fire off an email to your trusty web-person. But wait! Before you hit send, make sure you’ve included as much detail as possible—what you were trying to do when the error happened, what sort of error message (if any) you got, what software you were using at the time, etc. This will help your trusty web-person track down the problem far, far more quickly.
An excellent way of supplementing this information is by sending along a screenshot. I’ll often request this of clients when I can’t replicate a reported bug—if you’ve sent one to begin with, I can be that much more effective.
Here’s how you do it.
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Tags: design, how-to, information, resources, screenshot, tutorial, websites
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Confused by CMYK, RGB, and the like? Got a plethora of logo formats and no idea which to use? Read on for some quick tips about how to get the most out of your colour. (continue »)
Tags: business, consistency, design, education, how-to, information, process, websites
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A quick introduction to the two major types of file formats you’re likely to run across, and what to use when. (continue »)
Tags: design, education, how-to, logos, process, resources, websites
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