December 4, 2008 – 6:23 pm
Re-designing a website is more than just giving it an improved new look. The successes and shortcomings of the existing site are invaluable in knowing how to truly improve the site and make the re-design worth the time, effort, and cost.
Like any site design/development, a clear set of goals and purposes should be established to direct the project. Without knowing specifically why the site is being re-designed or what needs to be improved, you may wind up with a better looking design, but it is unlikely to be more effective for the business or for the users.
I’m currently in the very early stages of re-designing a website for a client that needs a fresh look and some usability improvements. The client is a service provider and the existing site has been effective at attracting new business, but the site has ...
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December 3, 2008 – 10:36 pm
The people at FlashEff and Jumpeye Components are giving away 3 FlashEff Premium Unlimited licenses to readers of Vandelay Design! If you’re not familiar with FlashEff, it’s a great resource for quickly and easily creating Flash animation without coding.
FlashEff Premium is the first flash 3rd party AS3.0 component that is 100% compatible with both Flash CS3 and Flash CS4! FlashEff can be used by anyone who knows a little Flash from a total beginner to a Flash guru.
FlashEff comes with over 140 included patterns, including button patterns, text patterns, and symbol patterns. There is also an admin panel to make FlashEff easy to use. The Premium Unlimited License sells for $149, so this is a great prize to win! Besides the unlimited license, a one-month license and a six-month license sell for $39 and $99 respectively.
The Rules:
To enter the contest all ...
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December 3, 2008 – 9:12 pm
Whether it is for personal or business matters, you are going to need a web hosting company to host your first website. Web hosting is rather straightforward these days and certainly more affordable than it used to be. However, as your website becomes popular and the business continues to grow, there is a good chance that you will need additional sites to effectively market yourself. This would ordinarily call for you to purchase different hosting accounts for each unique site. Now all of a sudden, that low price of $6 or $7 per month quickly adds up and could eventually become too costly for you to handle. Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem - multiple domain hosting.
What is Multiple Domain Hosting?
Whereas previously most companies only allowed you to host one domain per account, the introduction of mini-websites has resulted in a number of providers offering multiple domain hosting, ...
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December 3, 2008 – 4:53 pm
Within the next couple of days, I'm upgrading my hosting plan. You may see some downtime, but if so, it is planned and for a good purpose. I will be back with news once the upgrade is complete - and I think that atleast a few of you will like the story. See you soon!
Updated a few hours later: Ok, that didn't take as long as I had expected. The upgrade has been made already, andreasviklund.com is now running on a dedicated server from SiteGround! It is a major upgrade in terms of features and performance, which at the same time reduces my hosting costs with $20 per month. I am typically wary about making changes to my hosting, but this was a fairly easy decision to make. And thanks to the great support team at SiteGround, the switch has been completely pain-free.
The upgrade is perfectly in line with my ...
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December 2, 2008 – 9:25 pm
Managed hosting describes an arrangement where a web hosting company “manages” and provides everything needed to run your website. This includes the server and network hardware, the software for building the site and managing email, an internet connection, upgrades, backups and so forth. In this situation, all you really have to do is design the web pages and promote the site.
The Faces of Managed Hosting
The scenario above pretty much describes your shared web hosting account, an arrangement where several customers share a single server and all its resources at one time. With shared hosting, the provider handles all the technical aspects behind the scenes. Dedicated hosting is the alternative, a service which is most often used to described managed hosting. With a dedicated server, you essentially have the entire machine all to yourself. In most cases, you have enough disk space and bandwidth to host multiple sites and generally have ...
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December 2, 2008 – 5:43 am
The color scheme of a website is obviously one of the most significant design decisions that needs to be made. When it comes to color schemes, there are all kinds of possibilities. Some use a bright, colorful scheme to create an attractive website. The sites that are featured in this post are using a simple color scheme of mostly black, white and gray.
Monochromatic color schemes can be used with any color, not just black and white, but we’ll be focusing on black and white here. Most of these sites use other colors sparingly, which can be extremely effective for making certain elements stand out. Also, because the element of color has been reduced in these designs, many of them rely heavily on typography and layout structure, as you will see in those being featured.
The New Yorker
Designing the News
The DECK
Frieze Magazine
Thom Bennett
The Morning News
Cheshire Maintenance and Development
Red Chilli
Romsound
DSGN + DVLP
David Airey
Coding ...
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December 1, 2008 – 9:31 pm
When it comes to an online business, choosing a shopping cart is one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make. In contrast to the brick and mortar business, your web pages are essentially the only thing you have to sway potential clients. The shopping cart is extremely critical as it deals with your visitor’s personal information and credit card details. Consumers are already skeptical about giving away their sensitive details over the internet. Therefore you need to earn their trust by proving that you are reliable company.
While there are several shopping carts available, there are primarily three types that you can choose from: merchant accounts, hosted shopping carts and integrated shopping carts.
Merchant Accounts
Most shopping carts call for you to have your own payment gateway and merchant account. The merchant account is similar to a bank account, allowing you to accept and process credit card payments. The gateway provides a means ...
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December 1, 2008 – 5:39 pm
One of the great things about the WordPress platform is the excellent community surrounding it. Whether you are looking for help with a specific problem or if you’re just interested in finding some blogs to follow for occasional tutorials, there are plenty of resources available. Here is a look at 10 of the best sites for WordPress users and theme designers.
Weblog Tools Collection
There is probably no better resource for staying up-to-date with theme and plugin releases than Weblog Tools Collection. Whether you want to find new themes and plugins from others or get some exposure for your own, Weblog Tools Collection is a great resource. In addition, it’s a great resource for general WP news.
WPCandy
WPCandy is one of my favorite sources of WordPress-related content. The blog publishes a lot of content that’s helpful for WordPress designers and users, and the site also includes a gallery of WordPress-powered sites, and a ...
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November 28, 2008 – 10:08 pm
Thanks to the flourishing industry of e-commerce, more individuals are looking to bring their business ventures online. With millions of people surfing the web each minute of the day, the number of potential clients is unlimited. Because the average person does not have access to a server and other network equipment, most of us rely on a web hosting to create our sites. The provider enables your pages to be served to the web, but a domain name is what helps to identify your site and brand your business.
Domains have been a hot commodity since the inception of the internet. Aside from giving people a way to label their website, some have actually been able to profit by selling domain names. Sound intriguing? Of course it does. Now you’re probably thinking of coming up with a clever domain, registering it and then keeping it under lock and key until someone ...
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