Blog
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Interesting links this week
15 February 2009 by
We often come across new applications and web stuff. In no particular order, here’s a few interesting links that we found this week.
Lovely Charts is a free online diagramming application that looks very easy to use. Check out the screencast for a demo. If you regularly create diagrams like wireframes, flow charts, site maps, and organisational charts, this might be the online application for you.
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HTML, CSS and Web Standards. What more could you want?!
08 February 2009 by
Whilst searching Amazon for books about CSS [as you do], I came across HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions: A Web Standardistas’ Approach by Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson. I must admit I have not seen this book before and it looks like one that I should have in my collection.
The book is from Friends of Ed who normally publish very good web design and development books. I have a few other books from Friends of Ed and they are well worth it.
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Three image slide show scripts using jQuery
03 February 2009 by
Clients often ask for an image slide show to ‘jazz up’ their websites. Most often this is because they have seen a similar effect on another website and it is perceived as ‘cool’ to be able to do this. I think you should use these only if they add something to the page but it seems that a slide show is a popular request. As a result, I try and keep a few slide show scripts bookmarked for future usage. Here are three that use the popular jQuery JavaScript library.
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Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG2) explained
27 January 2009 by
WCAG2 are an update for the original WCAG1 accessibility guidelines. In fact, the original initiative was published in 1999 and the finalization of WCAG2 at the end of 2008 was well overdue. However, although this is a worthy initiative, I have found it hard to digest and understand the new version because it is a very long document [even though the authors have tried to help with an Understanding WCAG2 document].
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Add a query string to your style sheet link for cache busting
21 January 2009 by
I was looking at the UX London website recently and I noticed that their CSS files are referenced with a query string like this.
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Reviewing your personal websites
16 January 2009 by
If you are like me, you may run or manage several personal websites in addition to those that you create or manage for paying clients. I like to review the personal stuff every year just to make sure that my master plan for Internet world domination is working. Only kidding! However, it is still useful to review your personal websites and these are the points I normally consider during the review process.
Note: You may have different goals but the objectives of my review are to determine whether to continue with each website and assess how much work might be required during the year.
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Browser statistics and Internet Explorer 6 usage
09 January 2009 by
Six months ago, I collated browser usage statistics for a personal website and reported that Internet Explorer 6 hangs on. I have repeated the exercise for the 6 months ending 10th December 2008 and here’s my update. The overall summary is that IE6 usage is still quite high and is only showing a slow decline.
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Joining Twitter late
06 January 2009 by
I must admit I did not understand the Twitter thing at first. However, after seeing more and mentions on TV recently, I've decided to join and see what's going on that I might be missing
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Thinking of new income sources
28 December 2008 by
Christmas has finished and with 2009 looking like it will be be a bad year for the economy in general, I have been considering whether the recession or credit crunch [or whatever it is called] will have an effect on web design business in 2009. I have a few actions/objectives ready to go [partly as a result of a free business advice consultation with Business Link a few weeks ago] and I cover a range of web-related activities … so I am hopeful that I will be able to survive the downturn. However, I have also been considering alternative potential income sources just in case.
During my thoughts on this subject, I stumbled on the dilemma of diversification or specialisation. When developing new sources of income, is it better to spread your activities a bit or concentrate on the areas that represent your core skills? Diversification is an area that can be worrying because there is a real danger that you will ‘spread yourself too thin’ and it’s something I have been concerned about in the past. However, perhaps it is necessary? Here are two ideas that I have been considering.
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Check your search engine positions with the Rank Checker Firefox add-on
19 December 2008 by
One of the things I do on a regular basis is on-site search engine optimisation campaigns for several clients. Rank Checker must be the most useful Firefox add-on I have discovered this year!