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I’m sure that who chooses to work as web designer makes a choice of heart, a choice of love. He/she decides to bet any given day on his creativity and his ability of producing an idea and of making it tangible, visible and perceptible for all. These crazy men have my respect. But, also when the creative side is very important for a work, there exists a logical (and technical) part in all creative process.

There are some moments and situations in which the creative mind needs an analytical method to achieve the objective, that is, for us, the creation of a well-done website.

In his article on Design Informer titled “Web Design Iterations And Algorithm,” Adit Gupta explains how we can approach a web design work and how a website project can be processed in a number of iterations following a main algorithm. Well, generally it’s just how Adit has described.
Our brain works well, in order to solve a big problem, if we can divide the main issue in N operations that solve N little difficulties, and the total sum of these N little steps provides the solution for our big problem. Perfect, ‘Houston, we have a big problem!’ We should create a working web design. Actually the common routine requires the following main steps:

• Step 1: understand the theme and the topics of the website and decode the client’s requests
• Step 2: choose the right style and sketch your ideas
• Step 3: draw a clean and clear wireframe to summarize the structure of the website
• Step 4: design the website (in pixels) through an image editor, like Photoshop, to create a real-scale mockup
• Step 5: convert your psd mockup to HTML and CSS

Five macro-steps to build an effective website using brain, pencil, paper, Photoshop, HTML and CSS. But technology doesn’t stop, luckily, and we have other two great allies for the future to design better website: HTML 5 and CSS3.

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"Ryan Lobo has traveled the world, taking photographs that tell stories of unusual human lives. In this haunting talk, he reframes controversial subjects with empathy, so that we see the pain of a Liberian war criminal, the quiet strength of UN women peacekeepers and the perseverance of Delhi’s underappreciated firefighters."

Watch more here

I recently came across this site, FreeRice.com, which I thought it is very nice and creative. It is nice because you can learn vocabulary and help the world hunger. The idea is very creative. This is how it works: you go to FreeRice.com and play their vocabulary game, for each question answered correctly 10 grains of rice will be donated by the sponsors to help people living in poverty. It is a win-win situation – you get to play the game, FreeRice get the traffics, advertisers get their exposure, and people get the free rice. If you like the idea, please help to spread out the word. For more details, please read their FAQ page.

Visit FreeRice now to learn vocabulary and help the world hunger

Adobe Design Premium CS5 software offers you complete creative freedom without sacrificing precision or quality, whether working in print, web, interactive, or mobile media.
There are a plethora of ways to treat a portrait for a myriad of uses, but that is for another feature. Let’s tackle adding drama or a cinematic quality to a regular, humdrum portrait. Let’s even throw in a little bit of faking HDR. That way if you work on a project that requires a stunning shot without the stunning photography, you’ll be able to cobble something together using your mad skillz!

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Adobe Design Premium CS5 software offers you complete creative freedom without sacrificing precision or quality, whether working in print, web, interactive, or mobile media.
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create an eroded metal text effect. Throughout this tutorial we’ll make use of various drawing techniques, channels, and patterns. Let’s get started!

Click Here

Combination of alphabets makes a whole sentence if its a combination in particular manner. But alphabets are not just use for only making sentences, sometimes it can be used as art. Now just check this images below, alphabets are used to create art. So here some beautiful typography art for design inspiration.

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I’m a big fan of FREE STUFF, so it should be no surprise that I gravitate towards free software. Sure much of it is junkie, but there are some realy diamonds out there that haven’t hit the mainstream yet. Here’s my favorite 10.
1. Logmein (https://secure.logmein.com)
Ever find yourself away from home and wishing you could e-mail yourself something? Or maybe you have a mother-in-law who lives 4 states away and is always having computer problems, and instead of loading up the kids in the family trickster for a marriage-trying trip, you could just log in to her computer remotely¦.without her needing to do anything? This is where Logmein comes in. There are lots of products out there that will do this, but very few will do all these things as well as Logmein ds for free.
2. Mesh (http://www.mesh.com)
Microsoft has a knack of not promoting some of the apps that they offer. Mesh is one of those apps. Another computer sharing application, but Mesh displays all the computers in a 3-D rotating ring and also offers a Web DesktopÂ� that syncs with all the computers on your Mesh. There is a promise of making Mesh work on Macs, but I haven’t yet seen it work. Mesh is super responsive and I really like how it feels while using it! The interface is clean and intuitive and I think the reason Microsoft ds not promote it is too many people would use it!
3. PhotoStory 3 (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/PhotoStory/default.mspx)
Yet another non-marketed gem from Microsoft. Photostory 3 is one of the easiest ways to create a very professional photo slideshow complete with background music (MP3 or you can create your own with the built-in music generator) and narration. The application is super easy to use and the results are far superior that some softwares that I’ve paid to use. The only downfall is that it dsn’t have a built-in burning application to burn the slideshow to CD or DVD.
4. Orb (http://www.orb.com)
Like many people, I don’t get to stay at home with my vault of audio and video goodness at my disposal. This is where Orb steps in. Orb allows a simple way to put your audio, photos and video online and accessible to your little antsy fingertips. One of my favorite features is the ability to stream webcams live on the internet, so if I miss my dog, I can log in and see and hear him. Very slick and very easy to set up!
5. Dropbox (http://www.getdropbox.com/)
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a storage cloud of your own to store items and further more wouldn’t it be nice if it synced with your other computers? That’s Dropbox. I use it to store keepersÂ� or documents and small apps that I want in multiple places or to ensure I don’t lose it. Dropbox installs easily and creates a folder on your computer. Drag the files you want to sync into the Dropbox and dropbox takes care of the rest. All the other computers you log into the dropbox with can now access and upload their own files. A great solution for simple collaboration or small off site back ups.
6. MWSnap (http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html)
If you need to do lots of screenshots for websites or manuals, this is a great tool. It has a nice zoom tool to enlarging parts of the screen to draw focus to it, a ruler for measuring the size of items in the shot, and can export in BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG and GIF.
7. Camstudio (http://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/files/)
If you need to create a screencast, this a a great free tool. Comparable to Camtasia or Adobe’s Captivate, it’s not as feature-rich as those, but it will get the job done. It will record whatever you do on your screen and produce and AVI or SWF output. Plus you can narrate as you go through a microphone. This is the easiest way to convey complex techniques or just a way of communicating step by step instructions.
8. DimDim (http://www.dimdim.com)
A tool similar to WebEx, DimDim allows you to create free webinar-style sessions where you can share screens, whiteboards, presentation, web pages and even voice and video. I have been super impressed with DimDim in that it supports up to 20 people, it dsn’t require any installation and it handles the voice and video, unlike some other pay-for softwares. Sure, it isn’t as ubiquitious as WebEx (I’m certainly not going to tell someone to DimDim meÂ�, but for free, this is a wonderful offering.
9. Ning (http://www.ning.com)
If you’ve ever wanted a web site for your church group, scouting group, or maybe even class reunion, then Ning is the place to go. It’s a DYI social networking site that allows you to roll your own blog/forum/event feed/calendar/whatever. I’ve used Ning for several side projects to collaborate with large and small groups of people. I also use Ning for a special interest web site-BisManPhoto.com, which is a site devoted to camera lovers in the Bismarck/Mandan North Dakota area. The sites scale wonderfully and gives me the freedom to worry about content rather than functionality.
10. Qik (http://qik.com)
Everyone carries their cellphones with them all the time. Ever wanted to stream live video from your phone? That’s what Qik ds and it ds it beautifully. Great for budding independent journalists wanting to stream live to the web (and post an alert on twitter simultaneously) and it’s equally great to share part of your vacation with people at home. The stream is recorded from your phone and saved for posterity so people who couldn’t see the live stream can watch it archived on the Qik site.

Article Source : http://www.zmogo.com

Today we are glad to release two useful cheat sheets that will help you quickly look up the right CSS 2.1-property or an obscure CSS 3 property. The style sheets contain most important properties, explanations and keywords for each property. The help sheets were created by GoSquared and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the cheat sheets for free!

Image galleries and slideshows provide a good user experience and make viewing images more pleasant and intuitive on your website. With the advent of powerful JavaScript frameworks like jQuery, Prototype, Mootools etc., the quality of JavaScript based image galleries and slideshows have improved dramatically.

As these frameworks are getting popular day by day, more and more web developers are coming out with new and creative ideas every day. Here are some brilliant jQuery plugins which you can easily use to create an image gallery/slideshow for your website.

1. Spacegallery
Spacegallery displays your images with a nice 3D effect and it is also pretty easy to use and customize.

2. prettyPhoto

prettyPhoto might look like jQuery Lightbox clone but it supports videos, flash, YouTube videos, iFrames besides images. It also comes with useful API and 4 beautiful themes. It is a great plugin to create an image as well as multimedia gallery.

1. Brighten Colors

If you have a design that you just feel isn’t anything special – stop – crank up the color intensity – then reevaluate. Saturation plays a big role as far as mood goes. If you ever feel like you’re lacking inspiration when it comes to color schemes there are some great online tools, not to mention our own color series.

2. Use Monochromatic Themes Sparingly

Monochromatic themes are great, there are some great black and white designs and sometimes using only a single color makes designing easier. The point is to explore other colors as well without getting too hung up on one in particular. Branching out to more than one color palette means you can provide emphasis with something other than the lightness/darkness of a shade of blue.

3. Layout on a Grid

Here’s the deal, align your text and things will look better, not to mention it will increase your scannability. There should be some rhyme or reason to how you have placed your text, if there isn’t you risk a clumsy look which gives the impression that little thought went into it.

4. Take the Time to Polish

This was discussed wonderfully over at PsdTuts a while back but there are a few key things to keep in mind.

• Don’t be afraid to use shadows sparingly, helps fight the flat and boring look.
• 1px lines are great at clearly defining edges.
• Using faint gradients over text and backgrounds gives a subtle 3D look.

 

5. Defy Image Boundaries

Overlap your images in ways that are out of the ordinary. Wrap around banners, pop-up images, anything that shakes the normal “color inside the lines” mentality websites are so often designed around. If you are fascinated as to how to go about doing this, check out Lee Munroe’s article on Designing Out Of The Box.

6. Add Whitespace

Give your user room to appreciate what you’ve done, it will help them focus on each element and not feel overwhelmed. Think of the padding as the frame for your work.

7. Textures

Adding noise to a background, including some rock pattern that fades into the backdrop, scribbles, whatever. Do something that makes your background a piece of artwork in its own right while complimenting the foreground.

8. Strokes

Don’t have them, use them. Strokes can be used in addition to the above effects to differentiate the foreground from the background. They can be a good substitute if you are trying to avoid gradients and maintain a more 2D look.

The Wrap Up

You’re now armed with a handful of tricks that can have an positive effect on your projects. Use your best judgment, not all of these adjustments are appropriate for every project. If you’re interested in a good example of all these steps put into play, check out Marketcircle’s website.


Content Source : http://buildinternet.com

Regular expressions can be scary…really scary. Fortunately, once you memorize what each symbol represents, the fear quickly subsides. If you fit the title of this article, there’s much to learn! Let’s get started.

Section 1: Learning the Basics

The key to learning how to effectively use regular expressions is to just take a day and memorize all of the symbols. This is the best advice I can possibly offer. Sit down, create some flash cards, and just memorize them! Here are the most common:

• . – Matches any character, except for line breaks if dotall is false.
• * – Matches 0 or more of the preceding character.
• + – Matches 1 or more of the preceding character.
• ? – Preceding character is optional. Matches 0 or 1 occurrence.
• \d – Matches any single digit
• \w – Matches any word character (alphanumeric & underscore).
• [XYZ] – Matches any single character from the character class.
• [XYZ]+ – Matches one or more of any of the characters in the set.
• $ – Matches the end of the string.
• ^ – Matches the beginning of a string.
• [^a-z] – When inside of a character class, the ^ means NOT; in this case, match anything that is NOT a lowercase letter.
• 
  

Yep – it’s not fun, but just memorize them. You’ll be thankful if you do!

Tools

You can be certain that you’ll want to rip your hair out at one point or another when an expression doesn’t work, no matter how much it should – or you think it should! Downloading the RegExr Desktop app is essential, and is really quite fun to fool around with. In addition to real-time checking, it also offers a sidebar which details the definition and usage of every symbol. Download it!.

Section 2: Regular Expressions for Dummies: Screencast Series

The next step is to learn how to actually use these symbols! If video is your preference, you’re in luck! Watch the five lesson video series, “Regular Expressions for Dummies.”
Read the full article here