Articles Tagged with Tips
- Improving Your Process: Combating Burnout
- Getting burnt out at work is possibly the worst thing to happen for any creative. Here are some things I try to do as soon as I discover I may be burnt out.
- Raising the Bar with Adaptive Templates
- A recent project got me thinking about combining Super-Easy Blendy Backgrounds with CSS constants.
- Improving Your Process: Client Communication
- Although I’ve tried to optimize communication patterns in as many ways as possible, I’ve found that (like Web design and development) experience is the best thing you can do. Use your experience to alter the way you do things to improve your communication process both internally as well as with clients. Effective communication leaves much more time to do what we love to do, create.
- Working with Background PNGs and Internet Explorer 6
- Using PNG images as backgrounds can be very helpful and useful, but there are some things to keep in mind when working with Internet Explorer 6.
- Improving Your Process: CSS Techniques Part 2
- Nearly a year ago, I jotted down a few CSS techniques that I use day to day. Some tips included controlling browser defaults, avoiding box model headaches, stylesheet organization, and using a color glossary. I find myself using many of these techniques a year later, but had some updates that might make the lives of some a bit easier.
- Improving Your Process: Boosting Productivity
- A common goal among people is to work hard, and to work smart. I try to keep this in mind as much as I possibly can, and I’ve got a strong interest in finding new and improved ways to work more rapidly and intelligently. With that comes a constant change in my day to day ‘routine’ (or lack there of), whether it be what time I get up, what I sit down at my desk and do first, or what I save for the end of the day.
- Improving Your Process: Sitemaps and Design Preparation
- I’ve found a new use for sitemaps. Even though they’re not sitemaps which are classic in the sense of the word, they have really helped our process on a number of projects, and the end product is better because of incorporation in the design phase.
- Improving Your Process: 9 Ways to Improve Yourself
- Offering a short list of ways I feel can help you become a better designer/developer. In the spirit of the Improving Your Process theme as well as 9rules, I present: 9 Ways to Improve Yourself as a Web Designer/Developer. This list strays from the technical side of things and sticks to a more generalized overview of your process as a whole.
- Are Sitemaps a Thing of the Past?
- The goal of many Web professionals is to produce high quality work that makes the most of their medium. Products are designed to be both aesthetically pleasing as well as elegantly useful. There are many tools and techniques that can be used to make using any website that much easier to use. One thing I don’t find myself running across very often any more are sitemaps. Have sitemaps become a thing of the past?
- Improving Your Process: Web Branding Style Guide
- Branding is a very involved process that can really make or break a company image. A strong brand can help propel a client to the next level, while a brand that is lacking will hold it back from reaching full potential. A brand guide for the Web can be very helpful with the continuity of your design.
- Installing and Running WebKit in Linux Using Qt
- Running WebKit in Linux is quite easy now that it has been ported to Qt. This article is a walk through on installing WebKit in Ubuntu Feisty 7.04.
- Linux Font Equivalents to Popular Web Typefaces
- I have written before about my admiration for Web typography, and in that article I touched on the fact that many “Web safe” fonts can’t be applied to Linux. Linux distributions each ship with their own font libraries, but I’d like to focus on similar typefaces you can use within a font-family to help make your design bulletproof.
- Applying Progressive Enhancement to Your CSS
- It is becoming more common for designers to neglect progressive enhancement once unobtrusive JavaScript is obtained. There are countless JavaScript libraries available, full of code that is designed with progressive enhancement in mind. The issue that’s becoming increasingly problematic, in my opinion, is the associated style that is required to achieve desired visual effects.
- Using SciTE with TextMate Style Snippets
- SciTE is a very powerful and capable editor. Using a Snippets plugin developed by Mitchell, you’re able to mimic some of the functionality that has made TextMate as popular as it is.
- Improving Your Process: CSS Techniques Part 1
- This group of tips revolves around some CSS techniques I find myself using constantly. I’m sure you’ve heard of some, if not all, but hopefully something comes across as new and possibly helpful. This list consists of just a few ideas I keep in mind while developing, and there are more to come in future articles.
- My Development and Design Process
- Inspired by a post put together from Jonathan Snook, here’s a look into my development process.
- The Best Browser Extensions for Web Development
- The Web Developer Extension and Firebug extension have proved to be most valuable to me when developing for the Web. Here’s an account of the features I find myself using every day in hopes that I can pass some information along to those who may not make use of these features.
- Standards, Semantics, Accessibility, and HTML Email
- You can love email, you can hate email. An opinion can vary from one extreme to the other when asking any group of people, but almost everyone using the Internet spends part of their day sending, receiving, and reading email. One thing that the majority can agree on is having a dislike for […]
- The Pros and Cons of the base Tag
- The base tag can be both a good thing and a bad thing in certain circumstances… personally I prefer to define a ‘base’ URI using a different method…
- Flash, JavaScript, and Providing Alternative Content
- Providing alternate content is becoming increasingly important given the rapid advancement in Web technologies. Take the extra step and provide graceful degradation for your applicable content.
- The Many Faces of the link Tag
- The
link can be used for much more than linking external stylesheets. Not only can browsers take advantage of the tag, it can help out with SEO too.
- Linux and Web Development Part 2
- It has been over two months since my last writeup about using Linux for Web development. I thought now would be a good time to revisit that subject and write a bit about my findings after using the new operating system for a little while.
- Creating a Useful Custom 404
- Given this day and age of searching on the Web, it’s almost hard to find a legitimate 404 error page on any given site. It still happens from time to time, less likely from clicking a link provided by a search engine, and more likely clicking on internal links from within your own site. Some intelligent minds have come up with some really great and usable solutions for unwanted 404 errors.
- Giving Control with Accesskeys
- As a site developer, you truly have the most control over the presentation and usage of any project you’re working on. That is, unless your client feels equally. It is up to you how the navigation will work, where design elements are placed, and how the site content is conveyed to the user. […]
- I Vote Conditional Comments
- Many developers agree that CSS hacks are not the way to go. Personally, I am on that side of the fence and have been for a long time. I will spend time reworking the style of a document so that it will be cross-browser compatible with no CSS hacks in place. I […]
- Giving Markup Some Class
- One of the great things about CSS is the ability to give elements a class or id. The trouble is, like many other elements of XHTML/CSS, they can be abused. I know when I first began using CSS, I would give just about anything a class just because I could. I would […]
- Beautify Your Print CSS
- As mentioned in a previous article regarding CSS and projection, there are multiple forms of media to keep in mind when developing. In my personal opinion, the print stylesheet is a very important addition to any site. I find it frustrating when I come across an article I would like to print out, […]
- Click Here to Read This Article
- Hyperlinks are what make the Internet its own. The concept of being able to connect documents with the click of a mouse was a major selling point of the Web and it is that basic functionality which makes the Internet so great. I’d like to take a quick minute to talk about the […]
- Don’t Neglect the title Attribute
- If it is one thing that I find myself forgetting when initially marking up a document, it is to make effective use of the title attribute in anchors. I think the title attribute is one of those things that gets pushed aside due to the fact that it is seen as tedious by some. […]
- RE: favicon
- A major concern for Web designers is making sure that a particular work stands out from the crowd. A design element that has been ignored quite a bit lately is the favicon. Personally, I have come to use both the Bookmarks Toolbar and a Bookmarks Sidebar (using All-in-one Sidebar) quite a bit after […]
