9 Essential Elements of Design

Design plays a key role in any web design project. There are some essential elements of design like space, line, shape, form, texture, and color that every designer must know. These elements of design are very important for successful web design project. Here's the following:

1. Lines and line-work

These terms do not refer to pen-and-ink or pencil sketches, but to borders, frames and rules. Horizontal or vertical, thick or thin, regular or irregular, they help define and delimit spaces around various elements on your pages. Good line-work increases both the readability and "directionality" of the design as a whole.

2. Shape

Any enclosed area, form or contour in your design is a shape. Shapes in most layouts are square or rectangular, but nothing says they must be, and circles are useful, too. Importantly, a shape automatically creates a negative space around it. You can also use images to create other, regular or irregular shapes.

3. Texture

There are two types of texture; Tactile, or visual texture, and texture which you can detect with your five senses. Texture like grass sheets on a wall, or white pebbles embedded in a concrete wall gives a three dimensional look to the wall and a few of shades of its colors. Texture is the roughness of the surface of a material. Textures on layouts meant for broadcast or the Internet are visual only, but still key.

4. Color

Color is probably the element that most designers are at least acutely aware of, if not schooled in. However, color is not required in many designs, and some art educators suggest creating designs without any color first. The artist, in this view, should then add only as much color as needed to enhance or complete the design. Another school of thought holds that color should be one of the first elements determined. Experience and experimentation will help every artist develop a good color sense and strategy.

5. Direction

Effectively designed layouts, in magazines or on your computer screen, usually have a sense of motion. A good design will lead the reader's eyes through the design deliberately, using color changes, shapes, line work and copy placement direct viewers' attention to what the designer wants them to see.

6. Space

Space is the area provided for a particular purpose. It may have two dimensions (length and width).

7. Form

Form may be created by the forming of two or more shapes. It may be enhanced by tone, texture and color. Form is considered three-dimensional showing height, width and depth. It can be illustrated or constructed.

8. Value

Value helps with Form. It gives objects depth and perception. Value is also referred to as tone. Basically shading.

9. Type

Type is the use of letterform to add a message that would be otherwise challenging to create through the other elements.

Top 10 Ad Programs for Web Publishers

If you are a Blogger, Webmaster or a Web Publisher you always seeks to best ad programs for your website to earn good revenue. Running a TEXT or IMAGE ads is one of the most popular method. Text or Image ads are shown which match the content of the pages. Contextual ads are often displayed to the right or left of website, or as blocks within sections of the text.

Apart from Google's Adsense there are some good ad programs for Bloggers, Webmasters and Web Publishers. Here I am sharing some good and free ad programs for you:

1) Yahoo Publisher Network

Works very similar to Google's Adsense program. You design your own ads, choosing colors and formats, then paste some code on your page. You'll be paid per click. Advanced ad targeting and display capabilities can sometimes improve your results. You can choose to be paid via Paypal once your earnings are $50.00, or a check when you hit $100.00.

2) Adbrite

A variety of ad formats to choose from. You can run text ads, banners, inline ads or even full page ads. You can choose to approve or reject ads before they appear on your site. Pays monthly with the default minimum check amount of $100.00. Once your site is approved, ads will appear within 24 hours of your pasting the code. Adbrite has no policy against using other ad networks on your site at the same time.

3) Kontera

Contextually relevant ads and ad units which are linked to keywords on your web page. Ads displayed will match the content of your site. For your website to be approved it must be in English, be content rich with more than 50 words per page. You can run text, image, billboard, and video ads.



4) Bidvertiser

Display text ads on your website and let advertisers bid against each other. Ad formats are skyscrapers, banners, rectangles, buttons. They even have ads for your RSS feeds. Payout is monthly via Paypal once your balance is $10.00. This one pays on a cost per click basis.



5) Chitika's Ads

A full service online ad network which serves over two billion monthly impressions across more than 30,000 websites. Chitika ads are not contextual and can be run on the same page as Adsense. Twenty-four different ad sizes are available. Payment is via Paypal once your account is at $10.00, or a check when you reach $50.00.



6) Text-Link-Ads.com

Once your site is approved, you insert the code on your page and they sell simple text ads that appear on your site. You have final say over any ads being published. Payments are made via Paypal or Clickbank. You receive 50% of the sale price for each link they serve up. This ad network is acceptable to be run on the same page as Google Adsense as this is not considered contextual advertising.


7) Quigo.com

Quigo offers content-targeted advertising to those with strong traffic. Publishers with 500,000 or more monthly page views are encouraged to apply. Once approved, simply copy and paste the code.




8) Miva

Miva offers a wide variety of ad formats to choose from: content ads, inline ads, search ads. You'll be paid on a per click basis. Payments are made monthly by check or Paypal once your balance reaches $25.00. You can also block competitor ads from appearing on your site.




9) AffiliatesGarage.com

A different type of ad network which allows you to display affiliate ads in an "Adsense Style". You can run Clickbank and Paydotcom text ads on your site or blog and earn up to 75% commission.





10) AmaSense Ads

AmaSenseAds is a service that allows you to create Google AdSense styled ads for Amazon.com products (see our example below). It is super easy to use and you can sign up for free. AmaSenseAds allows you to market Amazon products in the most proven ad style format.

If your websites or blog are mainly based on information, network advertising is an excellent option for you to earn an income with little effort on your part. No matter if you use Adsense or another service, it just makes for good dollars and cents.

Do you have any opinion, leave a comment.

5 Handy tips to fix space beneath floated elements

When two elements are floated in a div, chances are parent element no longer contains it because the float is removed from the flow. Here I am sharing five quick tips to fix this problem.

Tip 1

Remind the containing block to wrap its children using the overflow property. Example code where #inner is floated:

<div id="outer">
<div id="inner"><p>big floating contents</p></div>
<p>Main Content</p></div>

Set the outer's style to:

#outer {

overflow: auto;
height: 1%;

}

Tip 2

In the CSS:

.clearfix:after {content: "."; display: block; height: 0; font-size: 0; clear: both; visibility: hidden;}

.clearfix {display: inline-block;}
/* Hides from IE5/Mac \*/
* html .clearfix {height: 1px;}
.clearfix {display: block;}
/* End hide from IE5/Mac */

XHTML:

<div class="clearfix">
<div class="floater">This text won't extend past the bottom of the "clearfix" div.</div>
</div>

No non-semantic XHTML. Just some clever CSS rules.

Tip 3

<div class="spacer"></div>
div.spacer {clear: both;}

This should work, and as DIV has no intrinsic height you can style it to have as much or as little vertical space as you like. But, IE5 and IE6 have several nasty bugs that can appear when a DIV is used to clear floats. They appear only if various conditions are met, so they may or may not occur on your page. Also, Gecko does not render empty divs, so this will not always work. Sticking a non-breaking space in there, or a comment, may help, but not always.

Tip 4

br {clear: both;}

This is safe and reliable, but BR also carries some default behaviour of a certain amount of vertical space that you cannot alter. You can always create classes of BR's, and each could behave differently.

The following are good styles to apply to a br or div element to make it take up no space when clearing:

.clearfloat {clear:both; height:0; font-size: 1px; line-height: 0px;}

Tip 5

CSS:

.newBFC {overflow: hidden;
_overflow: visible;
_overflow-x:hidden;
_height: 0;
}

/*\*//*/
.newBFC {display: inline-block;}
/**/

XHTML:

<div class="newBFC">
<div class="floater">
This text won't extend past the bottom of the "newBFC" div.
</div>
</div>

This solution creates a new block formatting context in all browsers which should assure a similar display across the board.

Do you have any opinion, leave a comment.

Source:http://css-discuss.incutio.com

9 Important XML Syntax Rules You Must Know

XML became a W3C Recommendation on February 10, 1998. It has been amazing to see how quickly the XML standard has developed, and how quickly a large number of software vendors have adopted the standard. The syntax rules of XML are very simple and logical. The rules are easy to learn, and easy to use.

1. All XML Elements Must Have a Closing Tag

In HTML, you will often see elements that don't have a closing tag:

<p>This is a paragraph
<p>This is another paragraph

In XML, it is illegal to omit the closing tag. All elements must have a closing tag:

<p>This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>

Note: You might have noticed from the previous example that the XML declaration did not have a closing tag. This is not an error. The declaration is not a part of the XML document itself, and it has no closing tag.

2. XML Tags are Case Sensitive

XML elements are defined using XML tags.

XML tags are case sensitive. With XML, the tag <Letter> is different from the tag <letter>.

Opening and closing tags must be written with the same case:

<Message>This is incorrect</message>
<message>This is correct</message>

Note: "Opening and closing tags" are often referred to as "Start and end tags". Use whatever you prefer. It is exactly the same thing.

3. XML Elements Must be Properly Nested

In HTML, you might see improperly nested elements:

<b><i>This text is bold and italic</b></i>

In XML, all elements must be properly nested within each other:

<b><i>This text is bold and italic</i></b>

In the example above, "Properly nested" simply means that since the <i> element is opened inside the <b> element, it must be closed inside the <b> element.

4. XML Documents Must Have a Root Element

XML documents must contain one element that is the parent of all other elements. This element is called the root element.

<root>
<child>
<subchild>.....</subchild>
</child>
</root>

5. XML Attribute Values Must be Quoted

XML elements can have attributes in name/value pairs just like in HTML.

In XML the attribute value must always be quoted. Study the two XML documents below. The first one is incorrect, the second is correct:

<note date=12/11/2007>
<to>Tove</to>
<from>Jani</from>
</note>

<note date="12/11/2007">
<to>Tove</to>
<from>Jani</from>
</note>

The error in the first document is that the date attribute in the note element is not quoted.

6. Entity References

Some characters have a special meaning in XML.

If you place a character like "<" inside an XML element, it will generate an error because the parser interprets it as the start of a new element.

This will generate an XML error:

<message>if salary < 1000 then</message>

To avoid this error, replace the "<" character with an entity reference:

<message>if salary &lt; 1000 then</message>

There are 5 predefined entity references in XML:

&lt;	<	less than
&gt;	>	greater than
&amp;	&	ampersand
&apos;	'	apostrophe
&quot;	"	quotation mark

Note: Only the characters "<" and "&" are strictly illegal in XML. The greater than character is legal, but it is a good habit to replace it.

7. Comments in XML

The syntax for writing comments in XML is similar to that of HTML.

<!-- This is a comment -->

8. White-space is Preserved in XML

HTML truncates multiple white-space characters to one single white-space:

HTML:	Hello           my name is Tove
Output:	Hello my name is Tove.

With XML, the white-space in a document is not truncated.

9. XML Stores New Line as LF

In Windows applications, a new line is normally stored as a pair of characters: carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF). The character pair bears some resemblance to the typewriter actions of setting a new line. In Unix applications, a new line is normally stored as a LF character. Macintosh applications use only a CR character to store a new line.

Do you have any opinion, leave a comment.

Source: w3schools.com

4 Nice way to Convert HTML to PDF Online

Today I would like to share a some free online tools to convert HTML document into PDF. Using these free online tools you can publish your Web page as PDF instantly. All tools I have shared here do conversions online. You also don’t need to worry about the compatibility issues. Here's the following:

1. Web2PDF Online is a free HTML to PDF Conversion service for your websites and blogs that allows your visitors to quickly save useful information in your blogs and websites to PDF files. All you need is to sign up for an account, and set the conversion options: paper orientation and margins (top, bottom, left, and right). After that, simply input the URL of your web page and click the Convert to PDF button, and then the PDF file is created. Now you can view the output PDF file after saving it on your computer.



2. Htm to PDF is a converting tool that converts webpages directly from the browser. All you need is to input the URL, and then click the CONVERT button. Minutes later, you will see the converting has completed. Click the DOWNLOAD button, you will view the PDF file and could save it on your computer.



3. PdfonFly is a pdf conversion service that allows you to convert you web pages and reports and images to adobe pdf files. It serves valid urls of your html, asp, php, .Net, cgi, jsp pages and jpg / jpeg, gif, png files for conversion to pdf files. There is no need of installing or porgramming anything. A simple link is enough.



4. Tabbloid is a converting tool that turns feeds into a PDF file. If you are a fan of RSS reader, it’s the right tool for you. Just add a feed URL and click on the email confirmation, and then it can convert your favorite RSS feeds into a daily or weekly PDF file. Finally, the PDF file will be delivered to your email inbox.



If you are looking to desktop tools, you may want to try these ones Click to Convert, Universal Document Converter, and PDF Converter.

Do you have any opinion, leave a comment.

Mozilla releases Firefox 3.5 Preview for beta users

Mozilla Firefox unveiled the Firefox 3.5 Preview for Firefox 3.5 beta 4 users on June 8, 2009.

The 800,000+ users of Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 will be receiving an update to a “Firefox 3.5 Preview” release in order to assist us with further testing and feedback. If you're a user of Firefox 3.5 beta, you would be able to update by selecting “Check for Updates…” in the “Help” menu. This update contains many fixes for stability bugs, correctness fixes for our JavaScript engine, and improvements to our built in support for open Ogg based video and audio playback.

If you’re not yet a Firefox 3.5 Beta user, we recommend that you wait for the upcoming Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate, which should be in the next 1-2 weeks. If you’d like to become a beta tester for Firefox 3.5 and subsequent updates, please install the latest available beta and install any offered updates.

Developers should also read the Firefox 3.5 for Developers article on the Mozilla Developer Center.

Please note: This Firefox 3.5 Preview is intended for developer testing and community feedback. Users have to wait for the official Firefox 3.5 release, which is coming soon.

Download:Firefox 3.5 Preview

Source: mozilla.com

10 Free Graphic Apps for Windows Mobile Pocket PC Users

If you are a Windows Mobile Pocket PC User then this post is just for you. Here I'm going to share most popular Graphic Application softwares with direct download link to my readers. Hope you will like it.

Ρhotos2Resize v2.0.1

An easy to use image resizing tool for free is just what the world needs when the digital camera revolution is here. Now when storagecard is cheap, it is great to be able to use the Pocket PC as a mobile Ρhoto album. With this software you can batch process all your digital camera Ρhotos from your PC to your PDA.



Download Ρhotos2Resize v2.0.1

JPeg2Pdf v1.01

JPEG2PDF allows to create ----- albums in pdf format, starting from jpeg pictures. All this directly from you PDA! JPeg2Pdf is a must have application for all the lovers of digital photography.



Download JPeg2Pdf v1.01

AB Draw Lite 2.0

AB Draw is a Pocket PC application which allows you to draw using basic shapes (lines, rectangle, ellipses and text). The documents are stored in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/). This is a XML standard for storing graphics.



Download AB Draw Lite 2.0

Image Stack v1.0

Show your favorite digital pictures with your Pocket PC to your friends. When meeting with friends, how do you pass around your digital images? It's easy when printed on paper, but jpegs? If you have a mobile device with Windows based Pocket PC 2003, you can pass around this:
- Open the image folder.
- Your friends can shuffle through all pictures just by pressing the left arrow key.



Download Image Stack v1.0

Screen Capture v1.0.0.1

Capture the Mobile screen and store it in an bitmap file. Two types of capture are available one is automatic capture based on timer and another is manual capture based on hardware key assigned by the User.



Download Screen Capture v1.0.0.1

ShortCAD

ShortCAD is a free software for Pocket PC that reveals the simplicity of well known CAD products just onto the palm of your hand! ShortCAD brings basic concepts of drawing creation to your Windows Mobile system.



Download ShortCAD

S2V v0.20

S2V is a stylus-free picture viewing application. It can also be used to set up the wallpapers for S2U2 (0.97 or later).



Download S2V v0.20

Image Explorer LE

Open image files with ease using Image Explorer. Supported file formats are Windows Bitmaps (2bp, bmp), all GIF formats (gif), standard and progressive encoded JPEGs (jpeg, jpg, jpe) and X-Windows bitmaps (xbm).



Download Image Explorer LE

PocketPicture v2.2

PocketPicture v2.2 is a new version of the popular free graphic editor for PocketPC. PocketPicture allows you to turn your pocket PC into canvas and easel and be creative everywhere. It is useful to draw small icons as well as painting or editing rather big images (scrolling and zooming is supported).



Download PocketPicture v2.2

Blender Pocket v2.42

Blender Pocket is a port of Blender (complete open-source 3D package) for Pocket PC. It is for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production. It requires some time to learn but its possiblities are unlimited! For people wanting to make 3D everywhere, Blender Pocket is for you.



Download Blender Pocket v2.42

Do you have any opinion, Leave a comment.

Source: freewarepocketpc.net

10 Free to Download GIF Animators

Now a days making a Gif Animation is very simple with small sized Gif Animators. Number of softwares available on the web to download. I'm going to share some good Gif Animator Softwares with download links. Hope you will enjoy.

Let's understant Gif Animation quickly: An animated .gif file comprises a number of images or frames to be displayed successively, each described by its own GCE (Graphic Control Extension), preceded by a header whose content by default applies to all the frames.

1. Advanced GIF Animator

Advanced GIF Animator is a powerful tool for creating animated GIF images. Industry experts named it number one software in its class when considering cost, performance, number of options and ease of use. The program works under Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista operating systems.

Download: Advanced GIF Animator

2. Ulead GIF Animator

Ulead GIF Animator is the industry's most robust and affordable tool to create animated GIFs. Easily create fast-loading animation for your Web site and PowerPoint presentations. Apply various text effects, ----- effects, transitions and even Photoshop compatible filters.

Download: Ulead GIF Animator

3. CoffeeCup GIF Animator

CoffeeCup GIF Animator allows you to easily create or edit animated GIFs for your Webpages. Just open the software, and it guides you through making great animated GIFs in just a few simple steps. It's so easy... anyone can do it.

Download: CoffeeCup GIF Animator

4. Easy GIF Animator

With this animated-GIF editor, you can create and edit animated pictures, banners, and buttons. You can use special features to add stunning visual effects and prepare your animation for publishing on your Web page. Easy GIF Animator supports all types of GIF animation.

Download: Easy GIF Animator

5. EximiousSoft GIF Creator

EximiousSoft GIF Creator is a very powerful animation tool that can create professional class GIF animations with high quality effects in minutes. You can import any GIF, BMP, JPG, PNG, TIFF, PSD, TGA, EMF, WMF or ICO image file then edit it using built-in image editor.

Download: EximiousSoft GIF Creator

6. IconCool GIF Animator

IconCool GIF Animator offers to you a complete package of tools for creating eye-catching animated GIF banners, buttons and pictures to make your websites more impressive. Creating animated GIF banners, buttons and pictures with this tool is very simple.

Download: IconCool GIF Animator

7. GIF Movie Gear

GIF Movie Gear is a very easy to use application to edit, modify or create gif animations. Good for handling icons in PSD, PNG, BMP, and JPEG formats, as well as for creating AVI animations from the GIF original files. 24-bit colors supported.

Download: GIF Movie Gear

8. DigiCel FlipBook

FlipBook 4.5 is an animation tool that offers very easy user interface. FlipBook is based on frames that can be edited independently. It has a series of still images creates an animation, however this is strategy of every movie files.

Download: DigiCel FlipBook

9. Microsoft GIF Animator

Microsoft GIF Animator lets you easily create and customize animated GIF files for your Web site.GIF animations are based on the GIF89a file format, which stores timing information to create the illusion of animation like a cartoon "flipbook". With GIF Animator you can make your animations loop, spin, fade in and out; set the size and transparency of your images; and control a wide range of other options.

Download: Microsoft GIF Animator

10. Artful GIF Animator

With Artful GIF Animator, you can create from scratch, import from AVI, edit and optimize your animated GIF images to develop state-of-the-art animations for web sites.

Artful GIF Animator lets you import and export multiple graphic formats. With its easy-to-use interface, you can drag and drop JPEG, BMP, GIF, ICO and even AVI files into the program and then edit and preview frames on the fly - while you are editing a frame, it animates the resulting picture.

Download: Artful GIF Animator

Do you have any opinion, leave a comment.

Submit Design Related Links to TutorialFeed

Please use the form on this page to submit a link for inclusion on TutorialFeed. Make sure you enter valid URL and an adequate title (basically, fill all the required fields). Only submit articles that are relevant and useful to the design community, otherwise it will most likely be rejected. Also, do not submit links to your homepage, include the direct link to the article instead.

Before submitting your news links, please read this carefully:

1) Submit only links to original posts and latest post.

2) Submit only posts about web design, web programming, tech news, free resources for web designers, resources to get inspiration, website showcases.

3) No Advertisements or Spamming please.

4) If you have any problem submitting your news, please send me an email.

Thanks!

IE 8 Perk: Access Multiple Gmail Accounts

Good news for Gmail users, Internet Explorer 8 lets you to access multiple Gmail accounts. It provide users to access multiple Gmail accounts simultaneously and independently.

This is accomplished via the New Session option, which makes it possible to log onto Web sites that track your identity across different tabs--like Gmail.

If you use Firefox, for instance, you can't access multiple Gmail accounts open in multiple tabs or Windows. If you sign into a second one, you'll get signed out of the first one when you try to do anything or If you sign in and you want to sign in with different account in new tab you can't do this.

Though IE8 has removed this hurdle by adding New Session feature.

Here's how to utilize this IE8 feature:

1. Open Internet Explorer 8 and login to your Gmail account. Make sure the Remember Me option is unchecked when you sign in.

2. Press Alt-F, I, and then hit Enter. This will open a new Internet Explorer session (which for all intents and purposes is the same as a new IE window).

3. Open Gmail and sign in with different account, again making sure to uncheck Remember Me.

You are done now!

Conclusion: In my opinion if you prefer Gmail to remember your username and password from one session to the next then Firefox is best for you, otherwise IE8 is the best alternative for whom want to use two different Gmail account simultaneously.

Do you have any opinion, leave a comment.

Best of TutorialFeed

Today I would like to share Best of TutorialFeed posts. These posts are very useful for Web Designer and Developers. If you have missed my previous and famous posts, now this time you can bookmark your favorites posts. Here's the following:

15 Favorite E-Books for Web Design and Development

If you are looking for free e-books for Web Design and Development then this post is for you. Here I have shared some very useful e-books with direct download link. This is my favorite collection of e-books for helping Web Designers and Developers.

Ten important things to know about CSS

There's no need though as you can use this CSS shorthand property:
font: 1em/1.5em bold italic small-caps verdana,serif Much better! Just a couple of words of warning: This CSS shorthand version will only work if you're specifying both the font-size and the font-family.

Understanding CSS Units of Measure

In this post I'd like to share some facts about CSS units of measurements for Length units, Percentage units & Color units.

12 Excellent Thumb Image Styles for Web Designers

In this post I would like to share some ready to use modern thumb image styles that you always looking for. These images created in Photoshop by me and free to use for all my readers. I am here sharing a downloadable psd file to help you. Web Designers who use Photoshop can easily use this file according to their needs.

10 Great Contest Sites for Web Designers & Developers

If you are a Designer or Developer then it is very important that you should get full reward and recognition of your hard work. If you have a really great designing skills then this post is just for you.


10 Great CSS Selectors you must know

Selectors define which part(s) of your (X)HTML document will be affected by the declarations you’ve specified. Several types of selectors are available in CSS. Note that some of them are not supported in all browsers.

How to allow your visitors to switch between alternate CSS Styles / Themes

Switching between alternate CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and themes is very interesting topic to share with you. So lets focus for ten minutes only to learn this trick. It is very handy and very easy to learn.

CSS EXPLAINED: 6 Excellent tips to become a Master in CSS

I’m going to share that how to write CSS in perfection. This is explained version of CSS found to be very useful.

10 Free Forms for Blogger & Websites

If you are looking 'how to put a any form in a blogger' then this post is going to help you. Putting a form in blogger is very easy.

25 Smart Ways to Spice Up your Blogging.

As you all know Blogging is a very powerful platform to publish your blog. It’s free and with some features which you can customize how you prefer, without limits.

Thirty "Nice-To-Have" Firefox 3.0 Add-ons

In my earlier post I had shared '9 Must have IE and Mozilla add-ons' with my readers. I got tremendous feedback from my readers. Now I going to share some more useful Add-ons to help Web Designers and Developers.

Photoshop Tutorial: How to create Shiny Starburst Effect

In this post you will learn how to create shiny starburst effect by using photoshop. Following the simple steps to create a shiny starburst effect.

Do you have any suggestions? Leave your comment.