This pretty little infographic takes us through some of the most common server header responses encountered by our browsers behind the scenes daily. Just what exactly is a server header response, and how do we tell apart a 200 from a 404? What object is the internet shaped like? Look below to find out…

Website designers know the importance of CSS application that can transform any drab looking website into an attractive and secure one. CSS has now come up with an upgraded version- the CSS3 that can be used to organize the layout and style of the web page. CSS3 comes with a treasure trove of exciting new features and capabilities to make your website look more appealing.

Here are some of the exciting capabilities of CSS3:

Easy and User-friendly

The capabilities of CSS3 can be used in an effective way in design and development of a website. The primary objective of CSS3 is to make web designing easy and user friendly. Therefore, major complications from the earlier version of CSS have been removed for facile operability. The new changes brought about in CSS3 need to be seen to be believed. It makes sure that a web page now appears exactly the way a web developer had envisaged and designed. Moreover, using CSS3 can add great speed to the processing of the website.

Cleaner HTML Codes

One of the major advantages is that CSS3 is capable of giving better search engine results. The HTML code becomes much cleaner, resulting in easing the load off the search engine crawler. The real content can be located easily and you can put any content in any corner of your website, irrespective of the number of pages in your website. This has made web designing much more simplified, since you can apply styles to your entire website from the same CSS3 files.

Light Coding and Faster Loading

Another plus from the CSS3 series is the light weight coding. Website development has become a child’s play even for a novice who can now use CSS2 codes and make the website lighter and load faster. CSS3 does away with the table layout format due to which the site requires lesser memory and a faster loading.

Better Control Over Website

Website designing makes it essential for you to validate the site in all formats of the browsers. By using CSS3, you can gain better control over your website by incorporating more compatible style elements. Fonts, line heights and formatting become much easier and faster. Developers having certain disabilities can use the CSS3 to design a website. Additional functionalities such as crafting specific CSS files for printing and for mobile devices have been made available on the CSS3 platform. Thus websites can be made compatible with all applications supporting multimedia.

Individual Modifications

With the advent of CSS3, changes and modifications can be now made in individual and isolated modules. The CSS3 format allows developers to segregate structures from presentation. In doing so, you separate the presentational characteristics in style sheets and define document structures in a separate heading. This simplifies the maintenance of a web page and increases efficiency and comfort of developing a website. Thus, with the new CSS3, website designers have a lot of more liberty in developing web pages.

The new CSS3 is such a complete package in website designing, that once you use it, you get hooked to it. The old style sheets tag now seems to be a thing of the past. CSS3 has come and conquered the style sheet arena with a big bang.

HTML5 is still under development, but web designers and developers have already started to learn and adapt to what is already becoming the new web standard. HTML5 is the result of proposals presented by two major developers of web browsing technology: the Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software. The W3C is expected to adopt HTML5 as a future web standard, and new versions of Opera and Google Chrome browsers have been designed to showcase the new markup language.

Web designers are strongly advised to start learning a few practices that are essential when designing documents in the new HTML5 markup. The first thing to consider is that HMTL5 is intended to perform on backward compatible rendering software, so it is safe for developers to change their existing pages to HTML5. The new declaration begins as follows:

<!DOCTYPE html>

The new doctype declaration of HTML5 works on existing browsers.

Using Cascading Style Sheets

Here’s an example from the W3C working draft on HTML5. It features CSS, and it displays a page that displays yellow text on a blue background:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title"HTML5 Best Practices"/title>
<style>
body { background: navy; color: yellow; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1"This is a sample HTML5 page with CSS"/h1>
<p"How does it look?"/p>
</body>
</html>

The sample page above does not include the new HTML5 elements, which are discussed below:

New Elements of HTML5

The focus of HTML5 is on structuring web pages in a manner that is clean and easy to interpret. To this extent, HTML5 makes use of elements rather than complex div tags. For the purpose of adopting best practices, the HTML5 elements can be categorized into block level, canvas, inline, and media elements.

Block Level Structural Elements

Block level elements define page structure. The <header> and <footer> are wrapping elements, and they work just like they did on previous versions of HTML, but they no longer need to be preceded by div. In fact, <header> and <footer> aren’t needed in simple pages like the code sample above.

The <section> element declares structural layout serves to hold other elements within. The <nav> element makes reference to links used for site navigation, the <article> element is a placeholder for content such as text and graphics, and the <aside> element can be used for sidebars.

The <aside> element will probably be used in the future to hold information boxes, infographics or other elements that are traditionally separate from the main content. Of all the new elements, <aside> is bound to be the most misunderstood. The best way to think about it is to think about the infographics that made the print versions of National Geographic, Time Magazine and USA Today so effective. Those infographics were true sidebars that, while related to the main content, stood well on their own. An even better example of putting <aside> to work would be the ubiquitous text advertisements by Google AdWords.

The <section> tag can be further used for nestling content; for example, an <article> element can have its own set of <section> tags. Notice that the terms element and tag are used interchangeably for now, but in the future it will be easier to refer to them exclusively as elements. The <article> element is more suitable for content that stands independently on its own, while <section> refers to content that is either structural or related to the <article> element.

Headings are now handled by the <hgroup> element, which precedes and follows headings numbered <h1> to <h6>. In the CSS yellow on blue example above, there was no need to use the <hgroup> element as only one heading was displayed. Should the page require <h2> through <h6> headings in the future, then they should be encapsulated by <hgroup> element declarations.

Image content in HTML5 is declared by the <figure> element, and a caption can be added by the <figcaption> element. While it isn’t necessary to use the <figure> element, the new HTML5 paradigm calls for meaningful web page design, and thus the <figure> element helps web designers to call attention to images related to the <article> or <aside> content.

The block level elements of HTML5 should be included in the CSS file to allow browsers to support, interpret and render them appropriately. For the Microsoft Internet Explorer family of browsers, a script known as htmlshiv enables HTML5 when it is called up at the time the page begins loading. It is a JavaScript code that should be inserted before the <body> element:

For more information on htmlshiv, please visit its official page: http://code.google.com/p/html5shiv/

Non-IE browsers can be enabled to support HTML5 elements with code that indicates the semantic elements and their use. For example, to indicate the block elements the following code can be added to the CSS file:
article, aside, figcaption, figure, footer, header, hgroup, nav, section
{
display: block;
}


Canvas Elements

The Web 2.0 concept of the web as an application platform gave way to user-generated content, online social networking and collaboration. HTML5 is aware of the emphasis on participation and collaboration, and to that extent the <canvas> element calls for a blank space on a web page where users can congregate and collaborate, particularly by drawing. Flash and Shockwave technologies already offer such functionality, but since Adobe has decided to discontinue Flash development in favor of HTML5, it is possible that in the future the <canvas> elements will be concentrated around Java.

It is important to note that HTML5 and the course that web design is taking will favor the use of <canvas> over Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), although some design trends are calling for the use of large SVG images for branding.

Inline Elements

The new <mark> element is used to call importance to text content within the page. The <time> element can be used to display date or time. Other inline elements include <summary> for the details header, <datalist> for drop-downs, and <meter> to define the range of a measurement.

Media Elements

The media elements of HTML5 do not currently offer wide browser support, as HTML5 is still in working draft mode. The <audio> and <video> elements are clean and simple. They are used to embed media files that can be played according to the codecs installed and supported in different browsers.

The best practices that apply to <audio> and <video> in HTML5 involve the inclusion of multiple media sources to allow the browser to try them one by one before running out of options. Should this be the case, a message indicative of the lack of support must be included in the code. For example:

<audio controls="controls">
<source src="bestpractices.mp3" type="audio/mp3" />
<source src="bestpractices.ogg" type="audio/ogg" />
The audio file "bestpractices" cannot be played as this browser does not support the element.
</audio>

Digital Rights Management is not currently supported by HTML5.

HTML5 and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

There has been some discussion among SEO practitioners as to whether HTML5 will boost page ranking on Google search. Google has already indicated that its crawler engine does not discriminate between different markups, it rather looks at substantive content.

This does not mean that SEO-conscious web developers and designers should forgo learning and implementing HTML5, but it does give web professionals enough time to learn about the future face of the Internet.

A good mascot logo design can enhance the image of your brand and might bring some luck into your business. In this post we’ve collected 24 creative mascot logo designs for you inspiration. Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog for latest updates.

1. Antartica

2. Animadness

3. iBox man

4. ClockingBird

5. Mailchimp

6. Airomo

7. Beast Media

8. J.U.G.S

9. Joey Pepperoni Pizza

10. Tuna

11. Ninjava

12. Monster Pizza

13. Gatto Picante

14. BabyCrab

15. Mariolle

16. Mariachi Restaurant

17. Zujava

18. Canina

19. Zoorganic

20. Ruben’s Nuts

21. Moovies

22. Milwaukee Bucks

23. Archery Center

24. The Daddy Do

The thought of building a website from scratch and then trying to get people to visit it might be daunting for a novice. There’s a steep learning curve to climb – design, code, domains, hosting, security, SEO. This is probably why more small businesses are now putting more time and attention into their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts or other social media profiles. These channels are easier to master and out your business in front of people on sites they use everyday. Its not for everyone though – this infographic, produced by online website builder Basekit helps illustrate the thought process involved with deciding whether or not you actually need to build a website.

(click on the image for bigger view)

Protecting your privacy while browsing online is very important, especially when you consider that most of the time you may not know the site that you’re connected to. There are many malicious websites that are set up to retrieve information from innocent users. The information they retrieve can be used for many reasons ranging from simple general phishing to harmful identity theft. Taking steps to protect yourself will ensure that your privacy is kept hidden at all times.

Step One

The first step is to just be smart while you’re online. Don’t automatically give out your information just because a website is asking for it. If a website is asking for your name and address then you need to consider whether or not there’s a legitimate reason that they would need it.

Example: If you happen to be buying something then it would make sense that your address would be required, however if your address is needed to get to the next page then chances are you might be at a malicious website and you should back out of it immediately.

Step Two

Take active steps to manage your cookies. Cookies record information such as usernames and passwords and activity while you are at different websites and store them on your computer. In order to combat this you should make sure that you delete all cookies each day and erase all browser history. If you don’t want to manually remove everything you can also use a cookie and history cleaner.

Example: Tracking cookies virus in example are a part of computing these days. The worst thing about it is that running anti-virus software sometimes doesn’t help against them. What you should do is remove cookies regularly through your internet options.

Step Three

Avoid downloading everything. There are some great free trials for software and games that are tempting. Unfortunately this is often a route that is used to get into your valuable private information that is stored on your computer. To avoid this only download from trusted sites, if the download sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

Example: Many times the download is actually fine, yet it can be attached to other programs that you accept without realizing it during the install process. In the case that you just have to have the download being offered, make sure that you read every line of the user terms before fully accepting. Reading reviews of the download is also always advised prior to downloading.

Online privacy is a growing concern for many individuals and businesses. As a result there are many great software programs available to help protect your privacy, unfortunately there are also programs that aren’t actually what they claim that they are. Take a moment to research any program or site that you’re visiting or considering installing. Use these steps to arm yourself against untrustworthy sites and protect yourself from unnecessary frustration and pain.

By taking an intelligent an active stance in protecting yourself while you’re online you’ll have the advantage of being one step ahead of would be online criminals. It’s very tempting and easy to just bounce from site to site carelessly; unfortunately people and companies with inappropriate intentions are aware of this fact and are waiting to latch onto anyone who is careless with their information. Don’t let your information get grabbed up, always be on guard while you’re online.

Titanium

Titanium is sometimes confused for an HTML5 framework. It is a java script-based interface with native code modules that are included in the framework. It translates web skills into native apps that act as if they were written in Objective-C (iPad and iPhone) or Java (Android). Titanium contains a thriving developer community and over three-hundred APIs. This is the help you need when building apps that are more convenient, interactive, extensible and social.

M-Project

This application is a HTML5 JavaScript framework for creating (writing) cross-platform mobile applications.

• Hosted in a git repository: https://github.com/mwaylabs/The-M-Project
• Checkout the new version of The-M-Project and replace it with the version that is included in Espresso
• Contains all Core and UI files in building jQuery Mobile-based mobile applications
• If you are feeling lucky, feel free to check out the development branch: detox

Sencha Touch

Sencha Touch is one of the first HTML5 mobile web application frameworks. Sencha Touch lets you develop mobile web applications that look and feels native on Android and iPhone devices. If you are creating an application filled with visual interactions, Sencha Touch is the best choice. It contains a powerful,experienced support team and is thoroughly documented.

jQuery Mobile

jQuery Mobile is Touch-Optimized Web Framework for Tablets and Smartphones. It has an unified user interface system and is widely popular with mobile platforms. It is built on jQuery and jQuery UI foundation. It’s open, lightweight code was created with advanced enhancement. It also contains a tameable design.

JQuery mobile framework allows you to write less while achieving more. Instead of having to write various applications for OS or mobile devices, the jQuery mobile framework lets you create a single, high-branded and fully, customized website application. The app works on all common tablet and smartphone platforms.

jQtouch

The jQuery plugin for mobile web development on the iPod Touch, iPhone and other devices proves useful and tremendously innovative. This framework proves heavy on the CSS and light on the JavaScript.

NimbleKit

NimbleKit is one of the faster ways to develop applications for iOS. You do not need to be familiar with iOS SDK or the Objective-C. The only thing you need to know is how to write an HTML page with JavaScript code. NimbleKit easily installs in Xcode without any complicated configurations. It also provides a new “NimbleKit Project Template”. Simply select the template, choose if you want to build for iPad, iPhone, iPod or some other common software. Add your JavaScript, Images and HTML to the project. Click “Build and Run” and your app immediately launches in the iPad/iPhone simulator.

Wink

Wink is a mobile JavaScript framework that develops mobile web application on iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android.

Ever wanted to create your own wiki cms? Now you can easily make one with using one of these 14 free content management systems for wiki.

1. WikkaWiki

WikkaWiki may not be known due to its modest feature set, it is one of the swiftest CMSs coded in PHP to date. Its speed and ease of use are remarkable, and if you plan to create a small wiki site that may not require heavy CMSs, you should consider WikkaWiki as an option. It uses MySQL databases to store information.

2. JAMWiki

JAMWiki is a JAVA clone of MediaWiki. Thus, it uses the same syntax as MediaWiki and is one of the leading wiki CMSs coded in JAVA.

3. ScrewTurn Wiki

ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia.

4. Foswiki

Foswiki is a wiki, so you and your team members can collaborate and edit pages directly in the web browser. For advanced collaboration, Foswiki lets you enter macros to automate pages and build entire applications from within your browser.

5. MediaWiki

MediaWiki is used by Wikipedia as well as many other projects of Wikipedia’s parent organization Mediawiki Foundation. If you’re looking for a CMS for your wiki website, MediaWiki should be your safest bet! Not only is the CMS powerful, it is also very versatile and is ideal for any sort of wiki website.

6. Zoho Wiki

Encourage individuals to participate and share information. Create workspaces for teams, projects and ensure everyone stays on the same page.Keep information private or share it with your group or organization.

7. DokuWiki

DokuWiki is a standards compliant, simple to use Wiki, mainly aimed at creating documentation of any kind. It is targeted at developer teams, workgroups and small companies.

8. Twiki

TWiki is a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise wiki, enterprise collaboration platform, and web application platform. It is a Structured Wiki, typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet, extranet or the Internet. Users without programming skills can create web applications.

9. Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware

Tiki is a powerful, web-based application, created by a large team of contributors. Tiki is the ideal tool for you to build and maintain your Website/Wiki/Groupware/CMS/Forum/Blog/Bug Tracker or any other project you can imagine running in your browser window.

10. PhpWiki

PhpWiki is another versatile wiki CMS. Unlike DokuWiki, it uses databases to store the information and is therefore, a slightly bulkier CMS. If you are looking for a nimble wiki CMS, PhpWiki might not suit your purpose. However, overall the CMS is a worthy competitor to all the others in the game.

11. Canvas ColdFusion Wiki

Canvas is a ColdFusion Wiki built to allow for community-based editing of content. It follows basic Wiki standards by allowing anyone to edit content, while keeping careful track of the history of each document added to the Wiki. Canvas was built using Model-Glue.

12. XWiki

The XWiki project offers both a generic platform for developing collaborative applications using the wiki paradigm and products developed on top of it. All XWiki software is developed in Java and under the LGPL open source license.

13. Enterprise Wiki

14. MoinMoin

MoinMoin is an advanced, easy to use and extensible WikiEngine with a large community of users. Said in a few words, it is about collaboration on easily editable web pages.

Vintage and retro logos have really been taken to the fore recently, with many companies adopting the old style of image for their company. Vintage logos create a certain feel of nostalgia and adhere for our need for a time when things weren’t as fast-paced and goods weren’t thrown away and psychologically create an impression of value.

There is also an element of the cool and stylish to them, which creates a similar impression of a company.

Modern vintage styles, if that isn’t some sort of oxymoron, are generally clean and minimalist, but use certain matte colours and vintage lettering to give the impression of the old-fashioned style.

Modern vintage styles, if that isn’t some sort of oxymoron, are generally clean and minimalist, but use certain matte colours and vintage lettering to give the impression of the old fashioned style.

Modern vintage is displayed well in these examples

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Texture can also make a huge difference in logo design. Look at the texture of the paper here, it has a real old world feel about it that creates a lot of the vintage feel of the logo.

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in a similar way, look at this texture

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The stamped feel of the West Center logo also adds to the feel and gives it a real pre-digital age look. And it has the same effect here

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Whereas the lithograph style here does a similar but very different job and has a very different effect, which is equally as appealing

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The less is more effect also works well here and the retro logos look great when bare but clear

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Like with all logos, vintage logos still look great with symbols or associations. This is a beautiful logo for a music night in Holland

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Indie, or slightly witty humour is also a part of these logos and reflects the style and feel of the companies that use them.

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as does this one for graphic design – a bit of self depreciation never goes amiss

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Or a retro 50s robot

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Of course creative, cute and funny all go together to excellent effect and this logo really manages to pull all three together wonderfully

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Characters, especially strong stereotypical characters also look well with this advertising as they were used widely at the time and provide a certain impression. Look at this butcher – reliable, strong friendly local meant man?

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Or, look at this dapper chap

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This logo for a classic restaurant creates an impression of sophistication also through association

This one certainly pays homage to the Japanese Empire and Art Deco influences, but looks great andadds up to fantastic effect

So, as can be seen the vintage logo works on association to an extent, but can also be used as it is timeless and adopts many of the basics a good logo should follow. Old logos make it easy to be unique from competitors as there is that many for inspiration out there. They are often quite minimalist and get the message across through clarity and also usually work well in black and white because of this. Add the fact most are quite simple and can be scaled up or down in size without problem and you have a winner from a tried and tested formula.

While you’re spring-cleaning your home, why not give your website an overhaul too? Even if you love the design, there’s probably technical things that can be improved. Does your site load quickly? Does it have any broken links? When was the last time you updated the CMS? It’s always a good idea to give your site a health check – broken links, insecure plugins, and slow loading times can cause all kinds of headaches for your business – damaging your reputation, reducing your search engine rankings, and putting your customer’s private data at risk.

Here’s a few tips to help you get your site in good shape:

1. Check for broken links: This is one area where Google’s webmaster tools can be invaluable. If you find any broken links, fix them immediately. Also, if you don’t have a custom 404 page (that will be displayed when a user tries to visit a page that doesn’t exist), set one up. You’d be amazed how many visitors type the wrong URL, but will stay on your page if you present them with some interesting links on the 404 page.
2. Check your loading times: The YSlow plugin for Firefox is useful for identifying problems that may be making your pages take a long time to load. People are impatient these days, so the quicker your site loads, the better.
3. Update your CMS: If you use a standard CMS (rather than something custom written), then you should keep it up to date at all times. Patches don’t just add new features, they also fix bugs and include vital security improvements.
4. Validate your code: Use the W3C validator to test your code and fix any errors that crop up.
5. Check your Meta tags: Good Title and Meta Description tags will help your site to look more appealing to visitors coming via popular search engines. If you’re not sure what you should put in your Meta tags, or how to change them, ask an expert at a search engine optimisation agency for some tips.
6. Proof-read your content: Spelling mistakes are a huge red flag to customers. Even if you had your content proof-read when it was first put up, look at it again to make sure no mistakes went un-noticed last time.
7. Hire a search engine optimisation agency: Once you have a fast loading, error free site, you’ll have done the ground work that will help an online marketing company to improve your search engine rankings. Don’t just rush straight to this stage – make sure your site works well before you promote it.
8. Add social features: Your online marketing company will probably do a lot of social work. If you add social networking buttons to your site it will be easier for your visitors to continue up-voting/sharing/talking about your site.
9. Show, don’t tell: Start using more pictures in your content. Make sure you use accessibility tags so that your site will still work with screen readers, though.

10.  Check your calls to action: If your pages aren’t converting well, make sure you’re telling your customers what you want them to do, and showing a compelling reason for them to do it. Don’t just say “we have a new mailing list” – ask them to “sign up today for advance notice of special offers!” You should see a huge improvement in conversions if you do this.