Retro Inspiration

by Cat Johnson

Feel like adding a little pizazz to your website? Want to give a site some old-time flair but you’re not sure how? Fear not. Specky Boy has collected 50 Creative Examples of Vintage and Retro in Web Design for your inspiration and enjoyment.

Some of the designs are very “Flash-y” but a lot of them could be created using CSS and some nice background images. Enjoy and be sure to check out the link library at the bottom of the post for more inspirational goodies.

Happy Holidays!

The Magnificent Stu Nicholls

by Cat Johnson

When I was learning the basics of CSS, Stu Nicholls was my hero, mentor and guru. He guided me through simple menu construction, pushed me to experiment with Javascript in my designs and gave me permission to cut and paste his menus that were way beyond my abilities.

This morning I clicked over to Stu’s CSS Play site to see what he had been up to. Turns out, he’s been up to a lot. We wouldn’t expect any less right?

Here’s an overview of his current projects.
Warning: Loss of time and extensive idea-generation may ensue.

CSSPlay.co.uk
CSS Play has been cleaned up and simplified. There is still a ton of information and if you’re looking for that one perfect thing, it may take a minute, but the amount of resources here is awe-inspiring.

StuNicholls.com
This project is “dedicated to exploring the possibilities of mixing CSS with simple javascript routines to produce demonstrations that offer more than CSS alone can do.” It’s a great resource for menus and galleries that utilize Javascript as well as CSS.

CSSMenus.co.uk
This is a clean, deep, easy to navigate site that is focused entirely on CSS menus that are good for SEO, easy to install and update, degrade well and work with Javascript turned off.

CSSPlay.com/forum
This is a great addition to Stu’s CSS arsenal. The man receives several hundred emails a week asking for help and guidance. He claims to read them all but only responds to a few. The forum is probably an attempt to lighten his inbox, but I’m sure it will prove a valuable resource for troubleshooting and connecting.

CSSPlay.com
Not to be confused with the other CSS Play (.co.uk), this is the gateway page to Stu’s sites. It’s a good one to bookmark as it leads to all the CSS resources listed above.

Thanks Stu!

A Good Design Goes Bad

This comic strip is buzzing around Twitter right now and I thought you guys would get a kick out of it. Check out How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell.

Special Character Cheat Sheet

In the off chance that you don’t have your html special characters memorized, here’s a cheat sheet from WebMonkey.com. Cheers.

Bing?

by Cat Johnson

I’ve seen the commercials (very clever I must say), I’ve heard about it, and I’ve popped over there a couple of times, but really, I haven’t used Bing at all.

Aside from their “decision engine” marketing campaign, I didn’t know the specifics of their angle so I headed over to the vast, global town hall meeting otherwise known as wikipedia and did a bit of poking around.

According to the wikipedia page for Bing, what sets Bing apart is the “listing of search suggestions in real time as queries are entered and a list of related searches (called “Explorer pane” on the left side of search results)… [and] the ability to Save & Share search histories.” They’ve also flipped the minimal search engine page on its ear with their beautiful, full size background image.

At last count, Bing had 9.4% of the market share. Who are those people? Do they find Bing a superior engine, or do they all work for Microsoft?

We are very fortunate that we are constantly being wooed and given free stuff to stick with a product. We can be picky and critical because we determine who succeeds and fails (how the times have changed), and something new is always coming down the pipe. Who knows what the future will bring. I remember years ago, a friend mentioned a new search engine that she really liked…called Google.

What has your experience with Bing been? What’s your overall impression? Do you use it? Have you used it? What did you like or not like? I’d love to know.

Putting Your Best Footer Forward

by Cat Johnson

Ever wish you had a bit more room on a page? Feel like you’re crowding too much into a navbar? Where do you put important, yet secondary site information?

Turns out, an effective and stylish place to include information and strengthen a design is the footer. Gone are the days of a simple copyright symbol and developer’s name. Footers have become a big-time design element and usability tool.

How much consideration do you give to your footers? With a little thought and creativity, you can use a footer to raise your SEO standing, legitimize yourself as a modern designer and use this prime real estate for useful information.

Here are some collections of inspiring and functional footers. Enjoy!

25 Impressive Blog Footers

15 Footers With Great Usability

Footers Design Showcase

Informative and Usable Footers

Creative Footers in Modern Web Design

Animator vs. Animation

Fun animation for the designer in you. This is the original Animator vs. Animation made by Alan Becker, but many more have since been made if you have some time to waste…I mean spend.

Blog ’til You Drop

Blogs in Plain English by Common Craft

The Nature of Blogs

• Reverse chronological order
• Easy, code-free photo, video and text updates
• Pages, posts and categories
• Comments and blogrolls
• Posts are tagged and categorized for easy search and archiving

Some Blogging Platforms

• wordpress.com and wordpress.org
• movable type
• typepad
• blogger

Why we chose WordPress

• Large community of users and developers
• Thorough documentation and support (forums and otherwise)
• Many blogs dedicated to wordpress tips, tutorials and information, from newbie to super-user
• Massive and ever-growing library of plug-ins
• Growing number of themes to choose from

WordPress Hosted (wordpress.com)

wordpress.com

Pros:

• Free
• Low-maintenence
• Stable themes and widgets
• Good search bar and results page
• Great real-time stats (viewers, keyword searches…)
• Updates and backup are taken care of by wordpress

Cons:

• WordPress in the URL (paid upgrade to remove it)
• Limited customization options (paid CSS upgrade)
• No back-end access
• Solid, but limited number of themes

Self-hosted WordPress (wordpress.org)

wordpress.org

In this case, you download the wordpress files and upload them to your server

Pros:

• Freedom to customize, change, add or delete anything you want
• Enormous and ever-growing number of themes to choose from (free and premium)
• Active and prolific developer community
• Freedom to create your own themes

Cons:

• You’re on  your own with backups, updates and theme issues
• Once you begin tweaking your back-end, you risk update incompatibility (may happen anyway)

Google “Free WordPress Themes” for a world of design and development wonders. However, I would look for themes that have active developers as sometimes a theme is created but not maintained or updated.

Gotchas to Watch Out For

Plugin/update issues (good time to have a backup). If issues arise, deactivate plug-ins and reactivate one at a time to find the culprit. Ideally the developer will have an updated version of the plug-in.

You can change your theme whenever you like, BUT beware of image sizes, sidebar widgets and information etc. The best plan is to have a plan BEFORE you choose a theme. What is your vision (today and down the road) for your blog?

Do you want 1,2 or 3 columns? How wide do you want your main column? What’s in the sidebars? Do you want a customizable header?

The more changes you’ve made, the greater the risk of something breaking on a theme switch.

WordPress.com does not allow ads (some exceptions are: in-house ads, some affiliate programs etc. Their aim is to keep wordpress free of spam, junk ads and pyramid schemes). If you or your client has plans for advertising, the self-hosted option is the best way to go.

EXAMPLES

www.streetlightsc.wordpress.com

www.houseofcat.net

What on Earth is PHP?

There’s been a lot of talk in our group about PHP and how powerful and useful it is. While some of us have some experience installing, writing and modifying scripts, to others, it is a total mystery.

If you enter “PHP” into a search engine, you’ll be inundated with geek-speak, most of which is way beyond what you’re ever going to need, unless you plan on becoming a php expert.

I found a series of php tutorials posted by Zend Developer Zone that are written in a human, readable style, that build on each other in a practical, comprehensible way, walking you through what can be a minefield of indecipherable lingo.

The first in the series is entitled PHP 101 (Part 1): Down the Rabbit Hole. There’s a lot to learn, and it won’t come in one sitting, but you can start getting a feel for a programming language that will certainly be a part of your web development future.