Jquery is a great library used by many. Those who are just starting out can become a bit confused by the jquery selector format. I want to take some time today and give you a primer and some examples on using selectors in jquery. Using them effeciently can save you time and headache. If you aren't familiar with unobtrusive javascript techniques, now would be a good time to brush up. If you create your javascript in an "unobtrusive" way, this means that you keep your javascript code separated fr.... read more

Over the last year, the online marketing community has been abuzz with talk about using negative press to boost one's rankings in search engines like Google. It all started with a New York Times story about a man whose horrible customer service skills and illegal actions had supposedly boosted his rankings in the search engines. The general proposition was that links are good for search engine rankings, and making people extremely angry is one way to get them to link to your site. The issue a.... read more

So you've decided to look in to creating a website for your business. You've looked at various options, met with multiple designers, and been quoted a whole range of prices. Chances are, the expense is likely to be one of the considerations you will take in to account when selecting your firm. This is understandable. That being said, one thing I tend to hear a lot when speaking with perspective clients is, 'We had a designer, but he was extremely cheap, and well, I finally figured out you get wh.... read more

We recently launched a used restaurant equipment site call Restaurant Equipment Listings. The site engages Luna's listing manager technology which allows restaurant owners to quickly post their used restaurant supplies for free or for a fee. Features of the site include the ability for users to post their old commercial restaurant supplies and equipment without the need to know html. Visitors can also search the front end of the website to find restaurant counters, refridgerators, pizza ovens .... read more

Fact: Internet searchers judge a website within five seconds of visiting it. This means that your site has to snag the attention of your audience the first time they see it. You may have the best looking website on the planet, but knowing what makes your audience tick can make or break a potential conversion. Ask yourself this question: Exactly who is your online audience? Mothers? Middle-aged men? College students? Is your site something this audience would find attractive? The Breakdown.... read more

Downy screwed up! If something is going well with your product line, you don't have to change it. Downy recently changed their "original" fabric softener only to find that customers are upset with the change. What's worse, instead of just making a new product to test the market with, they replaced the original. I think they could have learned from other brands like Pepsi and Coke, that you just don't mess with the original that loyal customers are used to. I would call Downy the the ma.... read more

There has been a lot of hype around HTML5 in recent months. I have heard individuals singing the praises of it without really knowing what it is. First HTML5 is not the end all for Flash and Javascript. Both mediums still have their appropriate uses and will continue to live on. Second HTML5 still a little "half-baked". There is not a single browser that supports all of the new features in HTML5. It isn't expected to be completed until 2014. Third HTML5 is not an all new programming langu.... read more

Websites Tend To Be Big The average website contains around 273 pages. Out of all of those pages how do we know which ones have the content we are truly looking for? Even a smaller web site with 50 -100 pages can seem like a lot of information to wade through. Though some websites seem to have an infinite number of pages, most of them are there to support just one main idea or a small handful of ideas. Your Users Need Direction No matter how large or small your website is, your users will .... read more

The CSS text shadow property has been around since the release of CSS2, but has not been supported by mainstream browsers until recently. The level of support is still limited, but with time we will start seeing it more and more.Basically text shadow allows you to render text with a blur, glow or off-set shadow without using an image. Benefits of this include: The ability to allow text to be searchable by popular search engines like Google or Yahoo. Reduce load time by eliminating image file.... read more

In an age of high resolution phone displays and widescreen desktop monitors, it is important to have quality images on your web site – but don’t make them too big. The amount of time it takes for a page to load can have an effect on your website’s credibility with search engines as well as drive away users if it is slow. Luckily there are some easy ways to make your images look great on the web without sacrificing quality. Most photo editing software gives you ability to ea.... read more

You may be asking, "What is measure, and why is it important when it comes to typography?". Those who understand and use typography know what leading and kerning is, but measure is an element that is often forgotten or overlooked. A simple definition of measure or "the measure" is the width of a block of text. Considering this when designing, especially for the web, is important because it has a major affect on how legible the text is to the user. Common mistakes involving measure include. T.... read more

There seems to be confusion among web designers when to use the img tag vs the CSS background-image property. Both tags are frequently used improperly. Usually this isn't revealed until it comes time to give the site a facelift or update photos. Really it isn't difficult to keep your images inline. Read below for a couple helpful tips. Use the img tag when the image is not related to the stylesheet. These are photos that need to display no matter how the look and feel of the site changes..... read more

In today's world, users turn to the web to get up to date information about everything from the latest industry news to who won the big game. Because of this, simply having a company website is no longer enough. Your website is your chance to make a first impression on your perspective clients and with that in mind, here are a few simple tips to help you to create the ultimate user experience. Know what users want - It seems simple, right? Not so much. You know users want information so many .... read more

I love the "free" services that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter bring to the table...but "free" doesn't mean you don't pay a price. Some companies (including our own) have turned to social media as a real means to market our services. It's a way to extend your brand and informally communicate with an audience. If you depend on communicating with your audience with one of these tools and suddenly it's not there for you - you're out of luck. As I logged into Twitter today after researching some re.... read more

Honestly, when looking for a smart phone, it's always been about the operating system, storage space and speed. The features for which buyers are looking, may be highlighted as ports, screen resolution and the like, but when was the last time Adobe Flash 10 was the main feature of the phone? Well since the iPhone, iTouch and iPad have been really phenomonal successes, a slight debacle on their part that has allowed marketers behind Google's Android-based phones to gain an edge, is the lack of A.... read more

Have you ever noticed how many websites come across as being a bit impersonal? You have seen things like: The text feels too scripted, The photos are obvious stock photos Personality is often lacking. All of these things can be a major turn-offs to potential customers. If they don't feel a connection to the product or service being offered, the less likely they are to purchase the product or enlist your services. Here are a few tips you may try to engage customers with only a few sim.... read more

Gap certainly learned a hard lesson this week when consumers revolted against their newly redesigned logo, causing the popular retail chain to pull the re-design less than a week after its debut. What hapened to the Gap is not an isolated incident. The actual product and packaging aside, the logo is the thing that will shape the consumer's attitude and perception toward you as a business. More than ever before, consumerism is all about choices. When a consumer commits to a specific brand, they .... read more

I'll just put it out there: I am addicted to my iPhone. Directions? Done. Finding restaurants in my general vacinity? No problem. Transforming in to a private island in addition to a jet that will fly me there? Well... not quite... but if you're a smartphone user, you know how valuable this device has become. I wasn't always an iPhone user, but the only thing I could say once I succumed to temptation and purchased my first iPhone (3G S, thank you very much!) was, 'Why didn't I do this so.... read more

The latest software release for the iPhone contained a little nugget that most people have overlooked. They introduced an HDR setting for the built in camera. For those of you who are unfamiliar with HDR it stands for High Dynamic Range. High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos contain a wider range of luminance. I am sure you have noticed when you take a photo it just doesn't look totally right. This is because the intensity levels are decreased because of the limited range the camera can capture in on.... read more

How do you create a website that is full featured while remaining simple? This is a question many companies ask theselves at one point or another. A few simple tips can help you to streamline your site and take it to the next level. Limit bells and whistles.  Provide your users with features (bells and whistles), but keep them relevant.  A feature in this case is a tool or enhancement to an interactive piece of your website.  When you provide your users with valuable tools (fea.... read more

You can have the most beautiful site in the world. Maybe you spent hours poring over images, backgrounds, color schemes and you have achieved what you think is a masterpiece of web work. That's all well and good, but it means almost nothing if you haven't put just as much thought, perhaps even more, into making your site usable. Users may be impressed at first, but they won't be fooled for long once they realize they have to put work into figuring out where you have hidden your products or servi.... read more

It is easy for web designers to just jump into a design without knowing the specific goals of the website. The "message", as i like to call it, is what the website is all about. It encompasses the goals, target audience and main objectives. Knowing this information before you start to design is critical. It will influence the graphics, layouts and calls to action. This is an important step that must not be skipped during the design process. If you don't take the time to discuss this with the cli.... read more

Mobile computing is hotter than ever right now. Touch screens have become a staple of many people's lives. Many people are migrating away from the traditional desktop or laptop computers in favor of using these devices as their primary source for web content. As web designers we must keep this growing segment of the population in mind when we design and build websites. I have found myself turning to my iphone more and more to get quick answers, look up the status of an ecommerce order or check u.... read more

When you're shopping around for web design it may be tempting to go with that company that offers you a fantastic website for very little money. The thing you should keep in mind is just what that money is for, where they might try to add in extra fees, and whether you are actually getting a quality site. More often than not you really do get what you pay for in the world of web design companies. Be sure to ask plenty of questions right from the beginning and know exactly what you are getting a.... read more

It seems nowadays everyone has a smart phone. Getting information on the go is easier now than it has ever been and as technology advances smartphones are able to handle more complex applications and websites. The question facing many businesses is how they can profit off of this latest trend. One big question is whether to create a mobile version of their website. There are a few different factors that a website owner should consider before making this decision. The first thing to think about .... read more

As interest in HTML5 and CSS3 heats up, you may be wondering when you'll finally get to implement them in your own code. They can seem almost unusable right now due to cross browser support issues. Many of us are still stuck supporting IE6 and can't imagine trying to code with new standards that are iffy in even the most recent browsers. Wide support is coming, though it may take a bit of time yet. On the bright side there are people out there with the goal of making CSS3 usable right now. The .... read more

We've always felt that buying links seemed formidable. Now we know so as Matt Cutts of Google has come right out and said it will not help you, especially with human manual reviews. Again - new unique content, blog posts, forum posts, relationships with industry partners who have quality sites, press releases, articles, etc. are what will help with page rank. Good links that are not paid for as a way to manipulate PR are ok. Paid links is against Google's terms of service. Not all paid links a.... read more

It would be a true statement to say 95% of all websites use Sans-serif fonts. They are everywhere Arial, Trebuchet and Verdana have become the go to font for web designers for years. There is good reason the web has gone this direction. Sans-serif fonts are very professional, they render clean in Windows and Mac, and they have a modern feel. With the benefits come some disadvantages, they can feel rigid, color can look odd on them, and everyone else on the web is using them. In the last year we .... read more

This week I've learned a nifty little trick having to do with .htaccess and site redirection. I'm sure you know that you can reach a web site with the normal www. or you can leave it off. The end result is no different to you. sBut it is to Google. The search engines considers each address version a different site, and there's a lot of duplicate content there. .htaccess can force your site to always redirect to www. Toss this little bit of code: RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^your-do.... read more

When you mention a logo redesign to any business owner most of them begin to get a little nervous. Everyone understands how powerful a brand can be, and businesses are scared to touch that brand. In many cases they are justified in their fear, but there are many advantages to giving your logo a face lift. One of the main advantages is to improve an outdated or a downright ugly logo, but even logos that may be considered "good" can sometimes use an overhaul. Over the last two years I have been no.... read more

There's a piece of me that enjoys researching investment opportunities. I especially find myself delving into short term investments with quick turn over possibilities. These types of investments usually require a bit of capital - but the return can be substantial if you play your cards right. One type of investment that has always been difficult to get into is the bank owned forclosure market. I know for a fact that banks loose money for every day a foreclosed home sits on the market. So why is.... read more

There are limitless possibilities with the web nowadays to get your name out there. Traditional forms of branding (although important and valued) should be complimented with online marketing efforts including social media. For example, Coca Cola, has a FaceBook page. Pepsi brands itself through viral videos on YouTube.com and pays content producers (users) to plug their product. You can write a tantalizing snippet on just about anything, and if you garner the interest of your audience you'll g.... read more