Thursday, February 21, 2013

Site From Scratch: Localmost (Part 1, Design) Horizontal and Vertical Centering Using CSS: A Beginner’s Guide News: DoFollow, Quick Tips, Upcoming Posts, and More! CSS Image Maps: A Beginner’s Guide Creating a jQuery Plugin: A Beginner’s Guide Fixed Header & Footer Layout: A Beginner’s Guide 10 Seamless Grunge Textured Stripe Patterns Create an Advanced CSS Menu Using the Hover and Position Properties CSS Background Image Sprites: A Beginner’s Guide

3:40 AM No comments

Source : noobcube[dot]com

How to speed up your website load times

2:19 AM No comments

Thumb Do you want your website to load blazing fast? This article will teach you how to make your website load faster than you ever thought possible.

In order to understand why having a fast website is important, check out these statistics: the average smartphone user will leave a website if it does not load within 3 seconds; Google now considers page speed a major consideration for search engine rankings; 75% of internet users agreed that they would not return to a website if it did not load within 4 seconds.

Having a fast website is extremely crucial for staying alive in the modern era of web design. There is simply no room for slow websites anymore.

Understanding website load times

The load time of a website is directly correlated to the demand made on the server to load the website. The more HTTP requests made to the server and the longer elements take to render, the slower a website will be.

Examples of HTTP requests are:

loading CSS style sheets;
loading scripts;
loading images;
loading HTML.

Another factor that plays into the load time of a website is the size of individual files and images. Large, high resolution images can take 10x as long to load as normal images and unnecessarily large files can drastically slow down page rendering.

The goal of making a website fast is to make the website more efficient. We can do this through making a series of adjustments to the coding, images, and layout of our website.

Tracking page speed

We can track our page speed scores through Google’s Page Speed Insights for search and Yahoo’s YSlow. Google also has a page speed plugin that works great with Firefox when Firebug is installed.

Sample website

Let’s take a website that is under development and use it as an example for this tutorial. Its initial Page Speed score with Google is 48 out of 100. It runs on the OS Commerce platform.

Starting Page Speed score: 48 out of 100

Step 1: compress images

Step number one is to compress all images for web-based quality. We can do this by using the default image compressor built into Google’s Page Speed plugin. Save the compressed version of the image into your local folder on your computer and re-upload the image in place of the uncompressed image.

Updated score: 61 out of 100

Step 2: scale images

After compressing images, we then need to modify our images so that they are scaled properly for the website. This avoids server lag needed to re-size images. You can scale images in Photoshop by adjusting them to the same pixel dimensions that they will be in your HTML code.

Updated Score: 72 out of 100

Step 3: utilize browser caching

Browser caching stores cached versions of static resources. This speeds up page speed tremendously and reduces server lag. To enable caching, you will want to add the following code to your .htaccess file:

# BEGIN Expire headers
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 seconds"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 2592000 seconds"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 2592000 seconds"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 2592000 seconds"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 604800 seconds"
ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 604800 seconds"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 604800 seconds"
ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 2592000 seconds"
# END Expire headers

Updated score: 78 out of 100

Step 4: combine images into CSS sprites

Images can be combined into CSS sprites in order to cut down the number of images loaded on a given page. CSS sprites are basically one large image that is made up of a number of smaller images. Combining 5 images into one CSS sprite is a fast way to speed up a website by allowing a browser to load one image instead of 5 images.

The easiest way to create CSS sprites is to use Spriteme.

Be sure to make the proper changes to your CSS after creating an image sprite. Also, pay attention to the installation instructions on the website. This program is used by accessing a bookmark through your browser.

Updated Score: 82 out of 100

Step 5: defer the parsing of JavaScript

Javascript that is located towards the top of an HTML document can block page rendering which slows down a page tremendously. In order to defer parsing of Javascript, it is best to call these scripts at the end of an HTML document rather than at the beginning.

You can also defer parsing of Javascript by using the defer attribute. The defer attribute is used in the HTML code to defer parsing of the javascript until the page is loaded. For example:

<script type="text/javascript" src="includes/general.js" defer="defer"></script>

Updated Score: 86 out of 100

Step 6: minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can all be “minified” or compressed to speed up their loading time. There are a number of resources on the web that minify these types of files, minifier is an excellent example.

Updated Score: 90 out of 100

Other adjustments and considerations

CDN’s

You can also consider loading static resources from your website on a CDN or “Content Delivery Network”. A CDN is another way to drastically reduce server lag by storing static resources on a network of fast loading servers. Notable users of CDN’s include ESPN and NBA.com.

Combining JavaScript and CSS files

Loading multiple JavaScript and CSS files can kill a website’s load time. Custom CMS based websites that utilize plugins and theme features can often have 15 or more JavaScript files and just as many Cascading Style Sheets. These Scripts and Style Sheets can be combined into one large file each. Doing this will drastically speed up page load time and will make your website visitors thrilled with your website’s fast load times.

Mobile website development

When building smartphone applications for smartphone users, it is important to stick within Google’s webmaster guidelines for smartphone applications. While mobile websites and app indexing is still a work in progress by Google, it is important to pay attention to Google’s requirements for smartphone development. Expect major changes in the next 5 years for how Google indexes mobile websites and mobile apps. Don’t be surprised if page speed is a major consideration in Google’s indexing of mobile website applications.

Conclusion

By making several adjustments to speed up our website, we nearly halved our website load time! This can literally be the difference between ranking on the first page of Google or the 5^th page. It can also be the difference between landing 200 customers and permanently losing 75% of your customers due to slow page load times.

Having a fast website is mandatory for success on the web. As a general rule, it’s a good idea to maintain a page speed score of 80 or higher on all pages within a website.

How much time do you spend improving website speed? What tips would you share? Let us know in the comments.

Featured image/thumbnail, speed image via Shutterstock.

Source
Source : internetwebsitedesign[dot]biz

Build Your Own Website » Lesson 1 » Intro to HTML & Bluefish » Spin Your Own Web!

1:42 AM No comments

This tutorial will teach you quickly and easily the basics of HTML, the computer code websites are made of. We’ll also be working with Bluefish Web Editor, a powerful and free web editing program. Hope you enjoy the tutorial, and thanks for watching! You may wish to consider watching this explanation of “How Web Pages Work” to orient yourself before this tutorial: www.youtube.com Ever wanted to make your own websites? Through easy-to-follow video tutorials, the Spin Your Own Web! video series teaches web design in a simple but powerful way. In no time, you will have the power of the internet at your command. Watch Lesson 2, Anatomy of an HTML Page, here: www.youtube.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Source : scriptnuke[dot]com

Color of the Business – Use of Blue in Website Design

1:39 AM No comments

Why so many designers prefer to use blue as a core color for creating business-like website designs? There are a lot of reasons. For example, blue is a color that responds for such emotions as calmness, tranquility, stability, seriousness thus blue is definitely have a positive impact on visitors. Another good reason is that a color of the sky goes perfectly well with white and dark colors; moreovre it can be easily combined with other rainbow colors. Сertainly, you have to be accurate in mixing them since sometimes, for example red and blue together can look a bit creepy, but you can do experiments with different shades in order to succeed. Also blue color does not strain your eyes and very easy to perceive. Сut a long story short, blue is a color for establishing strong and serious relationships between you and your users.

Today I have picked up good examples of amazing professional website designs that were built with blue color in mind.

1. White Paper Clip

2. Beer Festival

3. Juan Reyes

4. Tilde Inc.

5. Transcreation Agency

6. Tweet Map

7. How much water did you drink today?

8. MailChimp 2012

9. The Lost Phone Experiment

10. Rainbow Nursery

11. Digital Marketing Agency

12. Made for Humans

13. Webdesign Limburg

14. Quazar

15. Send Me To South Pole

16. Ayre Hoteles

17. Meinpraktikum

18. Alfama Web

19. Wish List

20. Qustodio

21. Cleevio

22. La Yogurt Probiotic

23. Glorm

24. Mobile Tuxedo

25. Pixel Stadium

26. Wabeo

27. Goodtwin

28. Animartec

29. Mogreet

30. Beoplay

Source : land-of-web[dot]com

Typeahead.js – A jQuery Autocomplete Plugin By Twitter

1:19 AM No comments

Twitter has open sourced a very nice project named Typeahead.js for building smart auto-complete form fields.

It comes as a jQuery plugin, shows suggestion as-users-type and can feature top suggestions with the help of styling.

The plugin can work with both local or remote datasets and it is optimized for speed as it can prefetch the dataset, store it on the client-side and run the queries quickly.

Typeahead.js simply converts any textfield into an auto-complete field, accepts JSON as the data source and has various settings for optimizing remote requests (rate limiting, maxConcurrentRequests, etc.).

Source : internetwebsitedesign[dot]biz

The Difference Between Good Fear and Bad Fear

1:10 AM No comments

I was terrified when I made the decision to leave my previous job to launch our resume writing and career services business on a full-time basis.

But I suspect that it was good fear because the stakes were high, we were marching into the unknown and we weren’t 100% sure if the business would be a long-term success. Under those circumstances, it’s perfectly normal and appropriate to feel a few butterflies in the stomach and occasionally wonder if you’ve made the right decision.

It would have been bad fear if I had allowed these concerns to stop me from making a bold decision about our future.

As I reflect on these feelings, I can see a few circumstances where we can either experience good fear and take action or allow bad fear to rule our lives, severely limiting our effectiveness.

It’s OK to feel a little bit afraid before you step on stage to deliver a message. That’s good fear.

It becomes bad fear when you don’t get up at all.

It’s OK to feel a bit nervous before a job interview. That’s good fear.

It’s bad fear if you allow it to stop you from applying for jobs and advancing your career.

It’s OK to get nervous on your wedding day. That’s good fear.

It’s bad fear when you don’t take the risk to commit to someone special for life.

It’s OK to hesitate before sharing your ideas and opinion in a meeting where you know that not everyone agrees with you. That’s good fear.

It’s bad fear when you feel as though you can’t make your valid and needed contribution and say nothing.

Fear is a normal and primal emotion that everyone experiences.

We feel it sometimes when we are doing something that we’re not used to and on occasions when the stakes are high.

Nelson Mandela once said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

Those who seem fearless still experience fear, but they are able to redefine it as good fear and don’t let it stop them from doing what they think matters.

Don’t let it stop you either.

Good fear and bad fear, which one do you experience the most?

Source : betterlifecoachingblog[dot]com

35 Awesome Swirl and Ribbon Photoshop Brushes

12:49 AM No comments

Just like fonts, when it comes Photoshop brushes, you just cannot have enough of them! In fact, the Brush tool in Photoshop is, quite unarguably, the designer’s best friend.

Today, we bring to you an amazing selection of 25 awesome swirl and ribbon Photoshop brushes. So go ahead, check them out, and get ready to add some style to your designs!