8 Jul
With WordPress 3.0 being released only a few weeks ago, many great resources have been put together! With all major releases there were some minor teething problems but with this round-up of well written resources you will learn about what 3.0 has to offer, from WPMU integration to custom post thumbnails.
Here is a round-up of our favourite WordPress 3.0 tutorials, resources and videos.
Read the rest of the story at Nenuno
31 Mar
Online converters always come in handy when you don’t have a certain program. Once you need to perform some operation with your files, they can save your time achieving the same results online, without installing some specific software, and most usually for free. Some of them are quite specific tools aimed for developers, but some are common “all-rounders”, which manage to convert almost every format to a more popular one. Using them, you can generate .pdf-documents out of images, images out of texts or RSS-feeds out of web-sites. You can also convert any audio and video files immediately – the results can be received via e-mail.
So what can you use? What should you use?
All Around Converters
Media-Convert
Media-Convert can deal with many formats. Most important are Text, HTML, XHTML, Microsoft Word, RTF, PDF, PS, Open Office, Star Writer, CSV, dBase, Microsoft Excel, Pocket Excel, Lotus 123, Quattro Pro, Star Calc, Open Office, MathML, Open Office Formeln, Powerpoint. Besides: Video and Audio-formats.
txt2tags
This tool generates HTML, XHTML, SGML, LaTeX, Lout, Man Page, MoinMoin, MagicPoint and PageMaker-documents out of a single plain text-file with minimal markup.
Zamzar
Zamzar supports conversion between a wide variety of different file formats. Many conversion options, among them 11 document formats, 8 image formats, 9 audio formats and 12 video formats.
HTML & CSS
CSS HTML
Converts CSS-code to HTML and HTML to CSS-Code.
HTML2TXT
Converts HTML in plain text.
HTML -> PHP, JavaScript, ASP
This program let you convert your HTML in various scripting languages such as: HTML to PHP, HTML to Javascript and HTML to ASP
Draac.Com’s Html To Javascript
Type or paste your Html codes into the text box below, then press the button and convert your Html coding to Javascript.
HTML to JavaScript Convertor
This tool takes your markup and converts it to a series of document.write() statements that you can use in a block of JavaScript.
Development
HTML Converter
The tool converts HTML to PHP, Javascript or ASP
HTML To JS/PHP/Perl
From HTML to JavaScript or PHP
HTML to Perl
From HTML to Perl
Binary to Hexstring Encoding
Generates SQL quieries.
Response.Right
Converts Text/HTML to PHP, ASP (VBScript and JavaScript) and JSP.
ASP Translator
Converts ASP to PHP. Registration is required.
Color
Color converter
Converts HEX-colors to RGB & RGB to HEX.
Draac.com Color Converter
Converts HEX-colors to RGB and Web Safe Colors.
Graphics
ConvertIcon
Convertts ICO to PNG and PNG to ICO.
FavIcon from Pics
Creates Favicons out of images – automatically.
ASCII-O-Matic
Converts JPG-images to ASCII-text – doesn’t work in all browsers.
TEXT-IMAGE
Converts images to HTML, ASCII or Matrix Green Text
PDF
HTML 2 PDF
Converts HTML and whole sites to PDF
Online PDF Converter
You can generate plain text, .jpg-, .png-, .gif- or .tiff-images out of .pdf-files.
PDF Conversion
PDF -> Text.
Show PDF
PDF -> HTML.
PDF Online
Converts MS Word (DOC), MS Publisher (PUB), MS Word (RTF), MS Excel (XLS), MS PowerPoint (PPT), HTML (MHT), MS PowerPoint (PPS), Text (TXT) and JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, WMF, EMF, GIF to PDF online. The .pdf-file is sent via e-mail.
RSS
Feed43
Generates RSS-feeds out of web-sites
RSS2GIF
This tool converts RSS-feeds to images.
RSS/RDF
RSS -> JavaScript.
RSSxl
Converts web-sites to RSS 2.0.
Anything Else
X2V
Converts hCard to vCard
CSV Converter
Converts tables: from CSV to HTML or WikiMedia-format.
Excel to CSV
Converts Excel-documents to CSV
If you know of any others that just have to be used by all, leave the url in the comments. Let me know if this list was helpful. Thanks for reading.
18 Mar
Keyboard Shortcuts are keystrokes used to quickly invoke a command. As well, shortcuts usually (but not always) involve a modifier key such as Ctrl/Cmd, Alt/Opt, or Shift. For example, instead of choosing Select » Deselect from the menus, you could simply press Ctrl/Cmd+D.
Keyboard shortcuts can improve your efficiency, and in some cases, they can even invoke commands that might not otherwise be available (e.g., zooming while a dialog box is open, or inserting a Select forward layer command into an action).
One of Photoshop’s strengths is that it makes extensive use of keyboard shortcuts; but, there are so many that it’s difficult to remember them all. So, I’ve created a “cheat sheet” that’s organized by menu, as well as alphabetically by key. These “cheat sheets” are available in the following flavours (thanks to Trevor Morris.
Plot points and manipulate bezier curves faster by using keyboard shortcuts for common actions while using Illustrator. Learn a few new shortcuts each day and you will greatly improve your efficiency while using Illustrator.
In computing, a keyboard shortcut or hotkey is a finite set of one or more keys that invoke a software or operating system operation when triggered by the user.
Keyboard shortcuts are typically an alternate means for invoking one or more commands that would otherwise be accessible only through a menu, a pointing device, different levels of a user interface, or via a command console. Keyboard shortcuts generally expedite common operations by reducing input sequences to a few keystrokes, hence the term “shortcut”.
Some keyboard shortcuts require the user to press a single key or a sequence of keys one after the other. Other keyboard shortcuts require pressing and holding several keys simultaneously. For simultaneous keyboard shortcuts, one usually first holds down the modifier key(s), then quickly presses and releases the regular (non-modifier) key, and finally releases the modifier key(s). This distinction is important, as trying to press all the keys simultaneously will frequently either miss some of the modifier keys, or cause unwanted auto-repeat. One exception is shortcuts involving the Esc key, which almost always requires pressing and releasing the Esc key before pressing the next key.
Enjoy the post and let me know of any other shortcuts I missed out on or should know about.
20 Feb
In this photoshop tutorial you will learn how to create a blog design from scratch using a combination of gradients and selections. Here is a .psd of the final to compare your final with. You can download the .psd here. Let me know your thoughts and feelings on this project in the comments below and as always, enjoy!
Here is a preview of what we will be creating:
1. Lets begin by creating a new Photoshop document – File > New with a width of 900px and a height of 1200px.
2. Choose your Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and put in the following options below. Feathering to 0px, then choose the drop down menu and pick Fixed Size. Set the width to 900px and the height to 120px as this will be the width and height of our header.
3. Click above the document and a selection should appear. Move the selection to the very top as shown in the demo below if not already in place.
4. Now create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer…) Name it Header. Select that new layer in your layers pallet and go to Edit > Fill and in the first drop down choose color… Add in the hex code #c7dba9. If you are on the background image we could have issues later on. Press ok and it should fill your selection with a light green.
5. Next we are going to add some shadow to the bottom of the header. Keep the header section selected. If it’s not go to your layers palette where all of your layers are stored and Command + Click (mac) Control + Click (PC) on the thumbnail of the Header layer. That will bring up a selection of that layer. After the selection is made create a new layer in your layers pallet and grab your gradient tool (G). Make sure in the gradient picker you choose the Foreground to Transparent gradient.
6. With the selection active and black set as your foreground color start about 20 pixels below the header and click and drag up while holding down the shift key (makes a straigt line) release the mouse button at about halfway up the header. Rename this layer Header Shadow. Change the blending mode to soft light and adjust the opacity as you see fit. I set my opacity to 75%.
7. Text tool (T) and pick Arial, Bold, 50pt, white and click near the upper left side of the header type in the title of your blog in this case “Blog Title”.
8. Now onto the blurb below your title. With your text layer selected hold cntrl and press J (cntrl + J) to duplicate the type layer. Now use the move tool (V) and once you do this hold shift and press your down key 4 times. Now the text tool (T) again and set to 25pt and type in your “blurb”.
9. After you finish typing right-click on the Blog Title layer and choose Blending Options… Add a drop shadow with the figures from below. Continue on your blurb layer as well with the same settings.
10. Lets start off by bring in some guides. Your rulers must be out to do this (cntrl +R). Bring a guide in from the top to about 2 pixels underneath your logo. Then drag in a guide from the left and have it stop right at the 6 on the top ruler of your document. Drag out another guide from the left and increase each one by 1.25 inches which means this time it will stop at 7.25 the next one will be 8.5 etc…until you have five boxes for your navigation to go into. See the screenshot below.
11. After you have the guides in place get your text tool (t) and choose Arial, Regular, 16pt, White and type Home in the first box. It should be positioned just like in the screenshot above. Finish the rest of the navigation items which are Tutorials, Freebies, Trends, and Contact and make sure they all fit in their boxex.
12. Highlight all of your navigation items and press Command + G or Control + G to group them together. Name the group Navigation so we remember what it is.
13. Now we are going to give our site its main background color. Head to the very bottom of your layers palette and find the layer called background. If it has a lock by its name double click the lock and then press ok. Then go up to Edit > Fill… > Color… and put in the hex code #65754d.
14. We are going to add a highlight at the bottom of the header so that it gives the header a subtle separation from the body background. While selected on your background layer create a new layer. Then grab your Single Row Marquee tool and click inside right underneath the header. The correct selection should look like below.
15. Fill that selection with #f3ebe0 and you should get something like the below screenshot.
16. First thing we want to do is clear all of our guides. So go up to View > Clear Guides. Now lets create two guides that will help us align our content correctly. Go back up to View > New Guide… choose Vertical and give it a value of 25px and hit enter. Repeat that process except this time put in 875px. This gives us 25px of “padding” on each side. Also make a horizontal guide set at 150px. This will give us 25px of “padding” from our header as well.
17. Now I can draw out my sidebar using the rectangular marquee tool set the rectangle marquee to the fixed size with a width of 275px and a height of 430px.
18. Make a new layer and fill it with any color. Double click on that new layer in your layers pallet and give it a stroke of 1px filled with hex color:#000000 and opacity set to 10%. Now select gradient overlay and use the settings shown below.
19. Now we will give our sidebar a header. Set your Rectangular Marquee to 275px by 60px. Make a new layer and fill it with hex color:#546140.
20. Now use your Rectangular Marquee and set it to 275px by 1px. Make a new layer and fill it with hex color:#f3ebe0. This will add a highlight section to our side bar.
21. Select the 3 sidebar layers and group them (cntrl+G) and name it sidebar. Now duplicate that group to make a second sidebar.
22. Mave another vertical guide 25px to the right of the sidebar as shown below.
23. Now we are going to make our main content sections. Use Rectangle Marquee on fixed width set to 550px x 280px. Create the header for this main content the same as you did with the sidebar. You can copy the layer styles and paste them to stay consistent.
24. Copy the main folder 2 more times and make the 3 main content sections. See below:
25. Grab your rectangular marquee tool set on normal and start 25 pixels below last post and select the rest of the canvas. Fill it with #546140 and it should look like the screenshot below. P.S. I had to adjust the height of the second sidebar in order for it to be lined up with the last post.
Now its up to you to add the content. Have fun with it and I hope you learned some things about designing a professional clean looking site. Let me know what you liked in the comments.
9 Feb
All of a sudden the site you have been working on for months is approved and the client wants it live. However, things can still go horribly wrong if you are not prepared.
We’ve all been there.
After months of development, meetings, conference calls, protracted arguments over typography, photography, colour ways and copy. All of a sudden the site is approved and the client wants it live.
By no means is this an exhaustive list. Neither is it presented in any particular order. Your own checklist will be very much tailored towards your own individual clients and the type of project you are delivering.- BoagWorld
Print this list out and use it. Make sure all your checks and balances are in order and you will end up with a happy client and a check in the mail. Leave a comment if you find this post helpful. Cheers!
Continue reading this post on Boag World
3 Feb
Despite the glamorous reputation, freelance design is no walk in the park. It takes an incredible work ethic, significant entrepreneurial prowess, and a little bit of insanity to pull it off effectively. This article will discuss how to effectively make a living as a freelancer (designer or otherwise). Since we are in fact a design blog, I’ll scatter in some well-designed freelancer sites along the way for inspiration.
3 Feb
Google now holds a 70% market share of the search engine game and increasing your visibility in Google Search is key to gaining new clients. In addition, you may have noticed that Google now displays 7 local listings and a map when you search for a local business or service. Guess what? Graphic design is a service and a business. You can immediately increase your visibility to potential clients in your area by registering yourself in Google’s Local Business Center.
3 Feb
Guest articles (articles written for a website other than your own) are popping up all over the place. Web design websites are rapidly growing at a rate that would not be possible without the help of guest articles. Many websites are delivering quality articles on a daily basis. It is hard to imagine one person, or even a couple of people, in charge or producing all of this quality content daily. Chances are they are not the only ones and have the help of guest authors.
30 Jan
We’re all creative, there’s no doubt about that. Nobody is born without creative tendencies and abilities; it’s just that some people are better at putting their ideas on paper and relaying them to other people. A lot of it is to do with confidence. If you’re confident that your ideas are great, other people will think so too!
Freelancers in the creative industries frequently find that staying in a creative mindset, day in day out, can be a real challenge, especially if they’re tired or working on multiple projects simultaneously. For all these people, we’ve compiled 15 tips for improving creativity and staying creative for longer.
13 Jan
Usability is key for your readership. Here are some tips to keep you on track with keeping your blog in order. Let me know which ones you liked in the comments section. Thanks!
It is key to ask for comments in your posts. How often do readers just scan through your post and bounce? If you remind them to comment they just might. It makes sense.
How often have you commented on a blog post expecting a response and been denied that? Your readers expect a response in a timely manner and do get offended when they don’t get one. Make it your first priority to get back to your readers or they will leave your blog in the dust.
If someone likes reading your blog, chances are they are going to want to subscribe to it. Making it as easy as possible to accomplish this is key. I suggest placing your rss icon in the upper right corner of your blog as this is a very common place to find the subscribe section. Remember, most people on the net are like sheep, they look in the same place on every site for what they are used to and the upper right corner is the standard place for the rss icon this day in age.
When you start your blog I’m sure you will have a topic you are interested in mind. Make sure you stick to that topic as this is what your readers are interested in. Writing about what you are passionate about will also lead to great posts because you have really know what it is you are talking about.
People are visual beings and images speak to them. Your readers will find interest in what you write, but can grab hold of the topics of your posts better with visual aids. I’d suggest one or two images per post, but more might be in order depending on your topics.
If you know you have written about a topic before, link to it in your present post as it’s something your readers will be interested in and will directly correlate to what you are writing about. This tactic keeps your readers interested in your blog and its good for the search engines too.
This is the same concept as linking in your post, except these usually are found at the end of your article. There are several plugins that do this for you “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin” is a great one and the one I use on this blog. Scroll to the end of this post to see it in action.
Make sure you have a contact us page on your blog whether you use a contact form or just leave your contact information for your readers to find easily. This allows your readers to contact you privately with any matters they would like to discuss, like advertising or personal comments they have for you that they don’t want displayed publicly in your comments.
A popular post section is a must on any blog. Make it easy to find for your readers. I place mine in the footer, but most place this top post list in the sidebar. This lets your readership know what others find interesting on your blog and they just might find it interesting as well.
There are tons of plugins that will auto-create a site map for you. A site map is the navigational structure of your site and helps the search engines index each page you create. The plugin I use is the “Google XML Site map Generator“
I hope these tips help you in creating and running your blog. If you have more usability tips be sure you leave them in the comments.
Recent Comments