• Three is the number of the most popular operating systems (Windows, Macintosh & Linux)…
• Three is the number of the most popular browsers (Internet Explorer, FireFox & Safari)…
• Three is the number of the most popular screen resolutions (800×600, 1024×768 & 1280×600)…

Three (3) is no 96,432

Ninty Six Thousand Four Hundred and Thirty Two scratches the surface of possible combinations your website might be subjected to. Different operating systems which each have different web browsers installed viewing at different screen resolutions.

It’s impossible to cover them all but you can see how a website looks in several combinations.

Viewable with any Browser is an awesome campaign to have non-browser specific website design. While idealists can hold their, er… ideals, currently web designers attaining this perfection surpasses difficult.

Browser Shots is a web designer’s answer. Browser Shots allows you to see screen grabs of your website in combinations that you choose. Do you want to see what your website looks like in Konqueror viewed at 800×600, or possible FireFox 1.5 at 1600×1200? Under the desired operating system check boxes next to possible browsers and use the drop down for Screen size, Color depth, Javascript (Enabled, Disabled, & 3 versions), Java (Enabled, Disabled, & v. 1.6), and Flash (Enabled, Disabled, & player 9).

List of Operating Systems | List of Web Browsers | List of Screen Resolutions

The Web Design Scholarship Contest

Alas, this poor blogger (and I mean poor monetarily) is unable to compete in this contest. Of course, being good enough to win would also be a requirement.

You must be a full time post-secondary student to compete.

I don’t have much to say about this except to check it out.

It’s $5,000 dollars!

Their list of Tools and Resources is beyond extensive.

I’ve already used their Web Page Analyser to test my sites. It’s a great tool. Everyone can check the rest out for themselves.

SEO Tools

1. Keyword Research Tool
2. Keyword Analysis Tool
3. Search Position Checker
4. Link Popularity Checker
5. Search Engine Simulator
6. Meta Tag Generator
7. Web Page Analyser
8. Top PPC Bids Checker
9. RewriteRule Generator
10. Link Appeal
11. Class C Checker

Web Utilities

1. Ping
2. Dig
3. DNS Query
4. NS Lookup
5. .htaccess Generator
6. Link Checker
7. Link Extractor
8. IPS Tag Checker
9. Cron Generator
10. HTTP Header Viewer
11. Mime Types List
12. MX Record Lookup
13. Spam Block List Checker
14. Regional Proxy
15. IP Address Locator

Domain Tools

1. Domain Name Checker
2. Domain Name Generator
3. Domain Typo Generator
4. Expired Domain Checker

HTML Tools

1. HTML Entity Chart
2. Websafe Colour Tool
3. Frontpage Code Cleaner
4. Dreamweaver Cleaner
5. CSS Menu Generator

The article covers 1) Intros, 2) Navigation, 3) Colors, 4) Crossbrowsing, and 5) (White)space & Proportions.

As the article is fairly short, there is not a lot of information and nothing really groundbreaking. However, if you need to look back at some basics or just want to make sure you’re not doing what they warn against, check it out.

On their homepage, they also have some very interesting images of cool advertising ploys.

The author of this article has certainly been forced to deal with some difficult customers. Unfortunately, because much of what we “computer people” do is magic and mystery to others, it has the appearance of being easy. Watching a professional welder lay down a perfect bead looks simple, but my efforts never seem to mirror theirs.

This article presents the demands on the architect as being completely laughable and absurd; however, all to often such demands ring true for web designers. I have been incredibly fortunate thus far in dealing with understanding clients who appreciate my labor of love and have made, primarily, reasonable requests.

So, go read on and enjoy, I know I did.
http://biznik.com/ published the article If Architects Had To Work Like Web Designers.

Some of the tips are pretty basic, but if you did not know any of them, they should all save you time.

On a personal note for this site.

I’m not sure if I really have readers of this blog or not, I don’t have much community feed back, but if you are a reader I would like to talk to you for a little bit.

I am a web designer, if you have read my About Section, or if you know me personally and are just reading my blog, then you know this already. I am planning on generating content based mostly on Web Design, as well as posting good articles – like the above – that I find.

However, I also post advertisements. I know this may be annoying, but I’ve got to make a living as well. Please be understanding that a little extra coin in anyone’s pocket is always helpful. I have labeled all of them with the Advertisements category, so just ignore those if you want.

I hope to offer good content for any readers I’ve got, and build my blog. Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,

E. Benus

I’ve been thinking about robots replacing us for a long time. Thinking back to the first time I watched Back the the Future, Part II and the Cafe 80′s waiters were TV monitors.

Working as a car hop at Sonic, a bank teller at FNB, and many other careers, I contemplated the possibility of replacement by machine.

I’m not paranoid or delusioned. I know that machines will probably never be creative or free thinking, so as long as I stick to fields that require those talents I need not fear replacement by machine.

I used to beat myself up over the fact that I was not the best web designer, or graphic designer. But the reality is, no one is the best anything. I’m good enough, and better than many. Not to mention that I have several other talents, such as communication ability and writing talent which competitors lack. I just hope I can capitalize on them.

What does this have to do with the fact that “You are not a robot”? Nothing. But it’s my blog and I can write what I want.

Anyway, I appreciate Kahn for pointing out Web Designers experiencing a lack of respect and explaining we are not production line items churning out Widgets 1000 per minute.

Web Designers… We are creative entities, generating value on a global medium, presenting far ranging content, with a refined pallet of skill sets, not to be assembly lined.

If you like the above article, you might also like Framework for Designers, also on A List Apart, which I just blogged about as well.

This is a great article which discusses the benefits of creating a framework, “a set of tools, libraries, conventions, and best practices that attempt to abstract routine tasks into generic modules that can be reused” for web design.

Personally, this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. I currently have only one website I’m working on, free lance, but my goal is to do it full time. Thus, I need to maximize my time and efforts in relation to my revenue. Why re-invent the wheel, if the first one I made will work for multiple applications (not computer applications)?

One thing the article does not cover is the consistent use of the same tags and classes. I try to use the same DIV ID’s for every website I design. For instance, I make sure to use ID’s like section01, section02, etc… instead of leftnav, rightnav, center, etc… This allows me to create websites quickly and easily instead of having to think about my naming convention.

Jump over to A List Apart, it’s a great website with a plethora of good articles all dealing with web design.