gio’s WeBlog

If you are thinking of building a website the fast way, then you should use a pre-built content management software (CMS). There are many content management systems available today, some of which are very expensive but some are also free. Generally CMS systems are extremely pricey and somewhat complex to use. One of the most popular content management software today is Joomla. Joomla is an open source software and it’s free to use.

I’ve found Joomla to be quite easy to use but the template is somewhat difficult to customize. Searching the internet on how to make Joomla templates, I came across with ClubTVK. ClubTVK is a 91 page e-book on how to create your own Joomla template. It’s a complete package for beginners which also comes with free 40 templates and a Tag Cloud module. You don’t need to to be an expert in programming, html or php to make your own Joomla templates, just the willingness to learn.

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Creating a custom logo for your company is an important element in establishing an online identity. It’s an essential part of marketing any brand. Having a good custom logo will not only provide you a professional brand for your company, but will greatly help any marketing campaigns.

An example of a good logo design si BMW’s logo. The logo design represents strength, durability and elegance of BMW’s product, company that produced aircrafts during World War 1. Being a Bavarian company, in their logo design BMW choose the color of blue, which not only represents sky but is also the traditional color of Bavaria. Stylish use of the white color represents the blades of the aircraft engine. Both colors used alternately showing the airplane propeller spinning through the sky.

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Designing a good website is just another way of search engine optimization along with link building. It consist of designing an easy navigation menu for users. AllWebMenus is a powerful web menu builder you can use to easily create create DHTML or JavaScript menus for website navigation. It requires absolutely no DHTML or Javascript experience so you can build web menus right away. AllWebMenus is a cross-broswer, cross-platform application that supports all the major browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Mozilla, and all Macintosh based browsers including Safari.

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XHTML coding which was released back in 2000, has become the most popular web standard today. We all know that designing a website using valid XHTML coding has many benefits. One important advantage to using xhtml is the strict nature of valid documents which contains no errors. Documents or web pages with no errors are both search engine friendly and browser friendly. Users viewing XTHML pages loads faster because browser can parse them easily thus performing much efficiently. Also, search engines can easily crawl valid documents and can index them faster. When I completed validating this whole site/blog, I started to see some positive changes in my traffic and I also noticed googlebot loves to crawl my site.

Although there are many schools that offer web design or online graphic design degrees, most of them do not encourage you to use valid XHTML documents. But what’s the difference between XHTML Strict and Transitional? XHTML Strict is stricter of the two flavors of XHTML. This means that it separates the structure from the presentation elements and does not allow presentational elements and attributes that have been deprecated while Transitional allows it. The Strict mark-up is a bit harder to implement especially with large complex sites that is why is a good idea to use Transitional mark-up first then later on to Strict.

No matter how hard the Strict mark-up is, it is what we should aim for because it’s “future proof”.

Are you one of those webmasters who struggle to find a sleek looking WordPress theme? Then this resource will certainly be useful to you. Romow directory offers a carefully chosen collection of free WordPress themes. The featured WordPress themes are all hand crafted by professional designers, and boast of elegant and stylish designs.

If you want to make your phpLD directory more professional looking, but do not have budget to order a custom template, try one of those free phpLD templates, also available from Romow directory. I’m sure the professional look of these templates will help attract more customers to your directory business.

These two template resources are regularly updated with new themes and templates. So you better bookmark them for regular visit.

Why type design matters

Whenever you make or arrange a physical object in a particular way, you are ‘designing’ it. Whether you are deciding the length of a bracket to support a bookshelf or arranging a vase of flowers, you are practicing design. If the shelf falls down or the flowers look a mess you clearly aren’t designing very well you need to refer to some established principles to help you get it right.

The same goes for the design of text.

No matter how much, or how fast, technology changes, the human eye and habits of perception do not. Over a period of 425 years, practices have been established which are intended to help the reader to receive the message off the page as quickly and directly as possible. Of course there have been changes in fashion from time to time but these are, by nature, ephemeral and do not alter the underlying principles which are concerned with legibility and readability.

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In this article you will how to use the 3 must used tools in Photoshop (Magic Tool, Move Tool and the Crop Tool) and once mastered you’ll never be with out them.

Magic Wand:
The Magic Wand Tool (W) selects areas of similar color You can change the tolerance (how close the color values should be to the sampled color in order to be selected) of a Magic Wand selection, and choose whether you want the selection to be contiguous (pixels that are touching) or not (in which case, matching colors across the entire document will be selected)

Tips and Shortcuts for the Magic Wand:
Hold the Shift key to add another selection to the first.

Hold the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) to subtract your new selection from the first.

Hold Shift-Alt (Shift-Option) to select the intersection of your first and second selections.

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Always Streamline and organise your Layers palette by creating and labelling groups of related layers. Layers are powerful tools, but things can get confusing if you don’t keep them under control by labelling them and placing them in sets.

When layers appeared back in version 2 of Photoshop, designers wondered how they had ever managed without the facility to create artwork on multiple editable layers.

Although we now take layers for granted, there are some useful management options that many users may not be taking advantage of. Working smarter with layers means labelling them for a start; this saves you having to scroll up and down the Layers palette, trying to guess where a particular element is stored.

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The trend of outsourcing web design, software development and Internet marketing projects or part of IT departments activities gained an extreme popularity in the e-commerce domain – even if you are a small or middle size company you can easily gain benefits outsourcing.

Case: A customer want your proposal on a web site development and that’s what you do best – except for an element of the project – you are not proficient in this specific web technology. But this element is required to win this contract. What should you do in this case? A dead end: you can’t lose this contract but its unacceptable for you to hire a new employee. Or another scenario, when you need some programming for your own site but can’t spare any time to it at all. Its best for you to focus on your core competencies that generate revenue for you.

So much technology, so much competition.

Web development is an immense domain with multiple technologies involved – hardly a small development company is able to encompass everything. However, without qualified designers and developers ensuring omni-faceted expertise, it will be almost impossible for small firms to win contracts due to a lack of required expertise.

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One of the most important factors in establishing an online business is a web site. Often times we need a way to start up the web site development really fast and this is where web templates come in handy. Ready-made web templates are very useful if you want to speed up the development of your web site. Just make sure that you personalize it. Both your product or service, and basic Search Engine Optimization should be considered during the planning of any web site. And the best time for implementing good SEO is during the initial design stage.

There are good companies that offer professional web designs like http://www.elegant-templates.com/ which has lots of web templates to choose from like logo templates, flash intros, flash templates, wordpress themes, and many more.

Graphic designers consider the adobe photoshop as a very important tool in their trade. The program offers a lot of help in creating special effects and in manipulating photos and other designs. This program is virtually a must-have for every web designer who wants to be the best in his trade.

The more advanced designers however desire a more upbeat program that can be easily manipulated by designers and with additional features. The good news for graphic designers is the introduction of the new Photoshop CS2 program which is a very welcome improvement of the old adobe photoshop program.

There are a lot of things that a designer can only wish for in the old adobe photoshop program and which are now available in the CS2 photoshop program. Those who already know adobe photoshop like the back of their hands can just dive in and use the program with a little adjustment.

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Designing a website and choosing the right company is very crucial for business owners in establishing their online presence. It’s the single most important thing that you should do first before starting to promote or market your business online.

There many new online business owners who take for granted the value of custom web design. A good web design is not just about getting your website live and running. It’s about designing every aspect and structure of your website from the search engines stand point which will eventually lead your visitors to the ultimate goal, a conversion or a sale.

If you are looking for a web design company it can be very confusing trying to pick the right one especially if there are tons to choose from. Try to look through the Yellow Pages and you’ll find a long list of web designers. Search the Internet and you’ll discover even more.

Website Pros can do all the hard work for you with a complete web design and online marketing services to jumpstart your business right away. Website Pros is a leading provider of full-service custom web development, website marketing and consulting services dedicated to small to medium-sized enterprises and especially to new online business owners.

Cascading Style Sheets (or CSS for short) have slowly but surely become a website design standard over the past few years. It was not that long ago when people used Frames to layout their content across their web pages and Tables gradually replaced this. Many low-end website developers are still very comfortable with Tables, as it ‘does what it says on the tin’. However, more and more people are now moving over to CSS, as virtually all the layout options can be achieved using the code. If you are just new to CSS, you can visit CSSChat to learn and participate with members of this forum. If you are serious about design, there are also great colleges like Collins College which offers design training course.