50 Great Widgets For Your Blog

Posted on Aug 31, 2006 10:49:43 PM

Widgets are a handy, easy and simple way to add some flare to your blog. Whether you’d like to display the number of currently online visitors to your site or simply the weather report for Los Angeles, you can do it with widgets. I’ve assembled a list of 50 useful or simply cool widgets for your pleasure. And remember, the first rule of widgetizing your blog is - don’t Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Blog, Great, Widgets, your

Generating Dynamic CSS with PHP

Posted on Aug 26, 2006 08:00:32 PM

Introduction

A frequently asked question on the popular css-discuss.org mailing list and archive is, "How do I store and reuse values in my style sheets?"

I can certainly relate to this as a programmer—it was one of the first things I thought of when I started using CSS. Because I prefer to separate my work into discrete modules, I immediately recognized the power behind the concept. I was already using PHP, Perl and other tools Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Dynamic, Generating, with

Collecting for Design

Posted on Aug 21, 2006 03:25:03 PM

Very early in my design career, I noticed that my work was not on a par with that of designers like Jesse Bennett Chamberlain or Daniel Scrivner. Their work has subtlety and nuance at the pixel level that many people might gloss over, but which contributes to an end product that is more than the sum of its parts.

I knew I needed to bring that subtlety into my own designs. I wasn’t about to head to design school for a host Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Collecting, Design

Composition and Usability

Posted on Aug 21, 2006 12:00:37 AM

Since the advent of the Web, we've seen a myriad of design schemas evolve--from the simple navigation/content style of site to the cluttered portal. And as this evolution has progressed, so did the war between UI designers and usability experts. On one side, there are usability experts who want to make every website look exactly like Yahoo because users know Yahoo and so they will automatically know how to use the site. On the other side, Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Composition, Usability

CSS Styling for Print and Other Media

Posted on Aug 17, 2006 10:38:44 PM

Note: This excerpt from the upcoming book “Pro CSS Techniques” by Jeff Croft, Ian Lloyd, and Dan Rubin, has been edited for this publication with permission of the chapter’s author, Ian Lloyd. The excerpt is approximately two-thirds of the length of the original chapter.

There are many different media types that you can apply to CSS, some of which are more useful than others, and they let you specify the look, Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Media, Other, Print, Styling

And The Award Goes to…

Posted on Aug 15, 2006 04:43:52 PM

Well, the voting period is over for our 2007 WordPress theme design competition and the winners have been determined.

Here are the top three winning WordPress theme designs that you, the readers, have chosen!

Each winning theme author will receive one of our cool prizes.

So without further ado, we present to you…

First Place and winner of $1,000 USD:##15## Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 8230, Award, Goes

New Issue: Integrating Social Media into a Web Content Strategy

Posted on Aug 14, 2006 04:08:05 PM

Digital Web is happy to welcome back Britt Parrott this week, with a very helpful post about breaking the concept of social media’s good side to reluctant organization in Integrating Social Media into a Web Content Strategy. Ever tried to explain the social appeal of Twitter or Flickr to those unfamiliar with social websites? Or how to integrate social aspects into key components of your site(s)? Try a different approach that emphasizes the value of openness, transparency and customer engagement. Get started on your organization or project with Britt’s thorough guidance.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Content, Integrating, into, Issue, Media, Social, Strategy

Best Web Gallery Rebuilt

Posted on Aug 14, 2006 11:08:33 AM

After several weeks of hard work, I finally completed rebuilding one of my projects, Best Web Gallery. Note, it is a rebuild, not redesign. I literally went to every single site in the gallery and re-captured the screenshots. Now Best Web Gallery is powered by the latest release of WordPress 2.3. Beside of the WordPress upgrade, I also added many new features such as image tooltip, different display modes (thumbnails, full image, and detailed mode), open external link options, and tag cloud. Check out the gallery now and let me know your feedbacks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Best, Gallery, Rebuilt

11 Ways to Improve Landing Pages

Posted on Aug 11, 2006 07:03:33 AM

You’re about to launch a big online marketing campaign complete with media buys, search engine placement, banner ads and blog buzz. You’ve tested your creative and your clickthrough rate is strong. You know once you go live, tons of targeted traffic will be hitting your site.

Time to sit back and relax, right? Not quite yet.

Conversion’s the Word

Upon arriving at your site, you want the visitor to do something Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Improve, Landing, Pages, Ways

Building a Better WordPress Theme

Posted on Aug 9, 2006 07:08:53 AM

Want to build a custom and dynamic WordPress theme as seen on my sites: N.Design Studio, Web Designer Wall, and Best Web Gallery? Check out my recent article, WordPress Theme Hacks on Web Designer Wall. I have listed most of the common used WordPress features (with code samples) such as Conditional Tags, Query Posts, Custom Fields, WP List Pages, and Page Template. Check out the theme hacks article and don’t forget to digg it if you like it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Better, Building, Theme, WordPress