50 Powerful Time Savers For Web Designers

admin    Website Designing    

House of Buttons²
A growing collection of various buttons spotted in the wild by Jason Long. Very nice and useful collection, and submissions are welcome.

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25 jQuery Image Gallery Tutorials and Plugin

admin    Website Designing, Website Development     Image Gallery, jQuery, om net solution

Create an Image Rotator with Description (CSS/jQuery)

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Review of Popular Web Font Embedding Services

admin    Freebies, Website Designing, Website Development     Font Embedding, Popular Web Font Embedding, Web Font

Typekit

Typekit, Inc. is a popular web font service from Small Batch Inc and founder Jeffrey Veen. Typekit was one of the first services on the scene and is currently one of the most widely adopted services on the market.

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Free PNG Credit Card, Debit Card and Payment Icons Set

admin    Freebies, Graphics Designing     Credit Card, Debit Card and Payment Icons, Free PNG Icon, Icons

Today we are glad to release a Payment Icon Set, a set with 18 payment icons in PNG format, in the resolutions 32×32px — 128×128px. This set was designed by Phil Matthews and released especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

The icons are inteded to be used on e-commerce websites where you can show what types of payment the shop accepts. Each icon comes in curved and straight edge variations. As usual, the set is free to use in private and commercial projects — no credit is required. read more

Transparent CSS Sprites

admin    Website Development     Advance, CSS, css Sprites

The Benefits and Potential Problems

CSS Sprites have become a de-facto way of improving the speed of your website or web application. Merging multiple images in to a single file can quickly reduce the number of HTTP requests needed on a typical website. Most browsers only allow for two concurrent connections to a single domain so although individual files can be large, the overall request and response times are considerably lower. Combining images with similar hues also means the colour and compression information is only need once, instead of per file, which can mean an overall reduced file size when compared to the files individually.

The benefits of reduced file size and HTTP requests are often publicised, but potential problems are rarely ever discussed. One of the main techinical issues with CSS Sprites is memory usage which is explained in the article “To Sprite Or Not To Sprite”. Another issue is the maintenance of the sprites, the images and the CSS, both of which can become rather complicated.

A Technological Solution

A common practice in solving slow-down in computing seems to simply throw in more hardware. We all know hardware prices are dropping all the time, so this seems like a reasonable solution. However, I feel there is a fundamental flaw with this philosophy and ingrained mentality. Developers have access to more computing power and as such they code their applications to be handled in these environments. With each new feature the application becomes slower and slower, but this problem has already has a solution — upgrade your hardware. This is an endless cycle.

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Important CSS Declarations: How and When to Use Them

admin    Website Development     !important CSS, CSS

When the CSS1 specification was drafted in the mid to late 90s, it introduced !important declarations that would help developers and users easily override normal specificity when making changes to their stylesheets. For the most part, !important declarations have remained the same, with only one change in CSS2.1 and nothing new added or altered in the CSS3 spec in connection with this unique declaration.

Let’s take a look at what exactly these kinds of declarations are all about, and when, if ever, you should use them. read more

How To Build A Mobile Website

admin    Website Designing, Website Development     Build A Mobile Website, Mobile Website

Source: Nielsen Study, Image credit

The mobile web reintroduces several issues that have been largely ignored in recent years. First, even with 4G networks, bandwidth becomes a serious issue for mobile consumers. Additionally, mobile devices have a significantly reduced screen size, which presents screen real estate issues that have not existed since the days of projection monitors. Combine these issues with cross-platform compatibility problems, and it isn’t hard to see how mobile development is a lot like ‘stepping backwards in time’. So let’s tackle these issues one at a time and create a road map for mobile web development:

• How To Implement Mobile Stylesheets
• What To Change With Mobile Stylesheets
• Beyond Stylesheets
• Special Concerns For iPhone / iPad

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