Baney Design Blog

Hundreds of FREE Professional Fonts!

Adam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:00:21 PST

What a find! So many free, professional fonts! These were found at fontsquirrel.com. Here are a few of my favorites to get your mouth watering…

How to Work Better…

Adam — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:05:59 PDT

I found these 10 simple work habits a while back and saved them in a folder on my hard drive. I think these are great for everyone to hear, so I will share them with you. These work habits are simple, but very logical and useful. They pretty much sum up customer service/customer handling. Here they are:

Do one thing at a time.
Know the problem.
Learn to listen.
Learn to ask questions.
Distinguish sense from nonsense.
Accept change as inevitable.
Admit mistakes.
Say it simple.
Be calm.
Smile!

What is a Gravatar?

Adam — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:52:08 PDT

A “Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog.” – Gravatar.com. Gravatars also help to differentiate your posts on blogs and web forums from the other comments.

How does this work? Start by registering at Gravatar.com. Enter your email address and upload an image. Now, every time you make a comment on a website blog, your Gravatar image is shown next to your comment (if the Gravatar image is enabled in the website’s blog). You can always log in later to the Gravatar website and change the image if you wish.

Now, you may be saying, “This sounds a bit frilly”. But, think of it also as a way of advertising. Someone sees your Gravatar image on a website blog, it peaks their interest, so they click on the link (either your name or Gravatar) which will take them to your website (or Facebook page). So, actually, this is clever. :) Everyone should have a Gravatar.

Iron Man vs. Bruce Lee

Adam — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:26:20 PDT

All right, this isn’t design related, but we need to take our minds off work every once in a while…

Iron Man vs Bruce Lee from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

What’s the Use of Twitter?

Adam — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:49:58 PDT

I am a skeptic. Personally, I don’t yet see the usefulness of Twitter. So, naturally, I set up a Twitter account to find out why so many people use Twitter. So far, I have followed a few people, a few people have followed me, and I have made a few “tweets” (Tweet! Tweet!). I still don’t see the use…yet. I could still be wrong… What do you think? Do you use Twitter? Know someone who does? I want to hear your thoughts on the usefulness (or worthlessness) of Twitter.

Update Your Browser!

Adam — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:32:31 PDT

Don’t worry, I’m not upset (not with you, anyway). I am upset that Microsoft can’t code a web browser to work properly, a.k.a. Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) – ahem, IE7 and 8 aren’t the best either. I stumbled across a website today that was so kind, objective, and straight-forward when it comes to alerting web “surfers” about the browser that they are using. Not only that, but the site lists alternative browsers to download and use instead.

IE6 is an outdated 8-year-old browser which does not support the way that modern websites are coded. On top of this, IE6 is not secure! This is why this website I came across is so useful. You (designers/coders) can place a simple JavaScript call in the <header> portion of a website template and voilá! A simple non-obstructive message calls the visitor’s attention. Check the site out!

www.updateyourbrowser.net

Website Navigation

Adam — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:32:13 PDT

When it comes to finding one’s way around a website, the navigation is the starting place for most visitors. All too often websites overdo the navigation, making it hard to read or even locate! A website’s navigation should flow with rather than blend in with the site.

For added direction, many websites make use of an additional navigation which is located at the bottom of each page. This way, if a visitor has scrolled to the bottom of the page, they don’t have to scroll all the way back to the top just to click on another navigation link.

As a designer, one must be constantly conscious about how others will react to the design while designing. This is especially true also for navigation.

IE6, Still a Thorn in My Side

Adam — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:52:21 PDT

Internet Explorer version 6 (or IE6) is one of the most widely used web browsers today. Why? Because nobody knows any better. They just use what comes with their computers. Only when people realize how terrible a browser Internet Explorer is – and more specifically IE6 – will they switch to a better, more professionally developed browser such as Firefox or Safari.

Every time I design a new website, I cringe as I code the new site for IE6. I endure the looooooong and painful process of re-coding the style sheet of my already beautiful, functional website for this poorly developed web browser. I literally waste time doing this. Averaging 5 different trusted sources from the web together, I calculated a sobering average (as of March 2009) that 22.1% of all web browsers are IE6. According to the sources, this percentage drops a little each month.

IE6 was made in a time when “web standards” were not used. Why didn’t Microsoft (MS) not look ahead to the future or toward progress? Why would translucent PNG images ever want to be used on the web? After all, Microsoft is not and has never been web-designer-friendly… they don’t think with the right sides of their brains. Not only this, but IE6 is notorious for its instability and is a major security hazard to your Microsoft-based PC.

For those of you who still use IE6, please reconsider! IE6 came with Windows XP, so if you have XP, you probably have IE6. If you installed or upgraded the browser, you will have either IE7 or IE8. You can check which version of IE that you have by clicking on this link (opens in a new window): http://www.thismachine.info

I am pleading in this post that you will realize how terrible IE6 really is, and that you will download and install a different browser. Here is a list of widely used, smooth, secure, and standards compliant browsers along with links to their download pages:

Firefox – http://www.mozilla.com
Safari – http://www.apple.com/safari/download
Chrome – http://www.google.com/chrome
Opera – http://www.opera.com/download