In our continuing pursuit to make web design easy for you, we have yet another great little tutorial on using CSS to insert background images into your web pages.
A little bit from the article:
CSS also gives us the tools to direct our background image how we want it. The default, as you can see, is that it repeats itself horizontally AND vertically to fill the entire background, regardless of size. Sometimes we might want the image appear only horizontally or vertically – and maybe not directly on the edge of the viewing area.
… Anyway, you get the idea. Just in case you missed the link, here it is again: background images with css.
We are busy at work here creating new videos and tutorials with the aim to make web design easy … so, I just wanted to mention a new CSS tip on csstutorial.net on:
It’s true: Your navigation items are really a LIST. Bread, Milk, Sugar, Coffee, Home, Contact Us, About, Cheese, Tomatoes, Sitemap. See, it’s a LIST!! And it should be coded and styled like a list. It’s easy.
Just another one of our growing collection of CSS tips.
One of the great things about web design is that you can jump into it with cheap hardware and free and next to free software. In a nutshell, web design is an affordable thing to learn and do.
Image editing on the cheap
There are cheap and free image editors that you can install on your computer. And now, there are image editors that you can simply run in a web browser!
Sure, they are not as powerful (today) as say Photoshop or The Gimp … OK, not nearly as powerful, but nonetheless, for simple image editing, they seem to do a good job.
David has had a knack for pointing the way, when it comes to the Web. In David’s new book ‘Pull’, he’s now pointing the way when it comes to the Web, business and perhaps even more. In the following interview, I try to get to heart of what Pull is all about.
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Mischook
An interview with David Siegel about Pull
1. What is ‘pull’ in a nutshell?
It’s the first book of its kind, describing the next 10 years of innovation online, where all industries will transition from a push model to a pull model. In the next few years, your customers will pull information, products, and sevices from you, and you’ll have to set up to be pulled, rather than pushing.
Sometimes change makes people nervous. I got an email from someone recently, who’s been noticing some changes in the web design world and had some fears. Check it out:
I been noticing more ads on the TV and the internet about web site building kits and companies set up to build web sites through the use of templates and prearranged page layout formats to choose from. Since this is on the rise I was wondering in me learning to become a web developer, will this occupation be a dieing breed given all the self help web template sites that are popping up. What are some of the pros and cons of going with a web template based company or a guy who can do it all from scratch like yourself. Any thoughts appreciated.
Best Regards,
Rich
So let’s hit the major points:
… will this occupation be a dieing breed given all the self help web template sites that are popping up
Good question. Short answer: no. Couple of quick points:
Many of those website building kits are very, very limited. Though they will satisfy some segment of the population, they only have a small place in the grand scheme of web design things.
Web Templates should not be looked at as competition, instead you should look at them as tools … a way to rapidly produce websites. That said, you will find that many clients will not want to use templates for fear that their website will look like it was built with a template.
I would say that you should be open to using templates and designing from scratch. Some budgets will require templates where other clients will want to spend the extra money on original design work.
In the end, if you want to be competitive, you ought to expand you skills into things like PHP, Javascript and blogs.
After weeks of being good and not eating much junk food, I decided to treat myself to a steak submarine – 14 inchs no less! Anyway, within a few hours, I started to get those creepy-crawly’s in my legs and this morning, after having a tea, I started to feel like gagging.
!!
Lesson learned: no more subs and junk food. OK, back to web design business …
In the following video, I go over why you should keep you website looking active and I provide five tips on how to do this. But, just in case you don’t have time to watch a video, here are the bullet points:
Keep the copyright notice up-to-date.
Add a last ‘updated note’ – for example: Last update February 21st 2010
Anyone who knows me, understands that I think learning and using WordPress is pretty much a must for web designers – WordPress is a key tool in the web design toolbox. That said, WordPress does have it’s failings (though not many) and one of them is the seemingly constant stream of upgrades.
What!? Aren’t upgrades a good thing?
Normally sure. But it seems to me that just as soon as you’ve gone through the trouble of installing the latest WordPress upgrade … you get another dashboard message saying it’s time to upgrade, again!
Of course these days, WordPress now has an ‘Upgrade Automatically’ button that should do it all for you … but I confess, I’m old-school and I’ve never used it. I do it the old fashion way and download the new WordPress files manually, upload them to my server etc …
All my complaining aside, one option is to not upgrade all the time.
This book’s title does not do it justice – it’s also a great book for intermediate web designers (just out of web design diapers) who want to take it a few steps further.
The book revolves around the redesign of a pretty bland looking web site. You are walked through the whole design process:
sketching out the design/layout ideas.
interacting with the clients.
how to choose colors and fonts for the web site.
designing a logo!
Then you get into the coding (HTML, CSS) aspects of the web design process:
Why develop with Firefox vs Internet Explorer?
Basics of CSS and handling specific CSS tasks.
Dealing with browser compatibility issues.
Accessibility and usability.
… And a lot more of course.
If you are a web developer or web designer who wants to learn how to put it all together, this book does a pretty good job walking you through the process.
