http://www.websitewriters.co.za Standards Compliant Web Design in South Africa Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:29:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The next tutorial in the Web 2.0 style graphics series deals with badges or violators. Don't ask me why they're called "violators" but anyways... Get out your trusty copy of the GIMP (I'm using version 2.4, but all the functions I use are in 2.2 as well), and let's get started! http://www.websitewriters.co.za/design/2008-03-24/web-20-style-graphics-badgesviolators/ So you want to be cool and have a Web 2.0 style site? How do you make those fancy graphics? Quite simply, really, and all you need is the GIMP, an open source graphics tool. For this tutorial, we'll run through how to make a cool button background image. Using this ... http://www.websitewriters.co.za/design/2008-01-02/web-20-style-graphics-cool-buttons/ (Opinion) It is my personal opinion that Dreamweaver breeds bad design. I have enough circumstantial evidence for that. Too many web "designers" use Dreamweaver, and although you can produce standards compliant designs, too many designers rely heavily on the WYSIWYG part of Dreamweaver. And this means that we get Internet ... http://www.websitewriters.co.za/accessibility/2007-01-26/the-dreamweaver-syndrome/ Indeed. Standards are not just about good markup and good content. It's also about making a site usable to everyone who visits your site. In this day and age of multiple devices, we're starting to use cellphones and PDAs to surf the net. Just a few weeks ago I was browsing ... http://www.websitewriters.co.za/accessibility/2006-12-20/standards-include-things-like-usability/ One of the things that is encouraged when designing standards compliant sites is correct naming of id and class selectors in your stylesheet. http://www.websitewriters.co.za/xhtml/2006-05-08/css-making-sense/ Or, how to make your PHP scripts run faster. If you're running a site of any decent size, you know that one of the many concerns you have is that your site is fast and smooth to navigate. Below I'd like to detail a few tips on how to make your ... http://www.websitewriters.co.za/development/2006-03-30/optimising-your-php-code/ Ok, it's not "long-lost" but I had to think up a nice title, ok? And besides, it's more in reference to the method of doing the multi-column layout. Although that's not "long-lost" either... Ever since I saw a guy do a presentation on usability of web sites, I've wanted to see ... http://www.websitewriters.co.za/xhtml/2006-03-28/the-long-lost-multi-column-layout/ Many South African websites host their sites in the US or anywhere else bandwidth is cheaper than hosting in South Africa. A great way to save on hosting costs but not so great when search results are filtered by location. Would you rather pay less for hosting internationally but be removed from ... http://www.websitewriters.co.za/seo-tips-tricks-help/2006-03-21/where-your-website-is-hosted-and-google-search-results/ Q: What do pronouns and synonyms have to do with SEO? A: Everything. What are pronouns & synonyms? According to wikipedia... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. The replaced phrase is normally the antecedent of the pronoun, but can also be precedent. Synonyms (in ancient ... http://www.websitewriters.co.za/seo-tips-tricks-help/2006-03-14/granny-smith-golden-delicious/ An update on the previous Helpful Tools post. For SEO purposes the most helpful tool I've come accross is the Quirk SearchStatus Extension. For every site you visit using Firefox or Mozilla, SearchStatus lets you view its Google PageRank, Google Category, Alexa popularity ranking, Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links and ... http://www.websitewriters.co.za/seo-tips-tricks-help/2006-03-14/helpfull-seo-and-web-devleopment-tools-for-firefox/