Nowadays the need for an easy way to add interactive charts becomes essential because we are shifting from pc applications to web application. jQuery and other libraries allows to make accessible data visualization in (x)HTML, giving us this needed functionality.

In this article we are going to present 5 chart libraries that suit different needs from simple charts to high complex charts. Most of them are free for personal and commercial use.

1. jQuery Visualize Plugin

jQuery Visualize Plugin is the perfect plugin if you have a table and want to generate a chart out of it. It offers different types of charts such as Bar, Area, Pie & Line charts.
Examples

Type of Charts: Bar, Area, Pie & Line.
Requirements: jQuery, excanvas (included)
Browser Support: IE6*, IE7*, IE8*, Firefox 2, Firefox 3.5, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9.
* HTML 5 canvas element is not supported by IE but Google maintains a library that translates canvas scripting into VML, allowing it to work in all versions of internet explorer.
Demo: http://www.filamentgroup.com/examples/charting_v2/index_2.php
License: MIT and GPL licenses

2. Highcharts

Highcharts is a really impressive jQuery Chart Library. In a few words Highcharts is compatible with most Browsers and even the iPhone; numerous chart types are supported; it is a dynamic plugin because you can add, remove and modify series, axes or points at any time after chart creation and you can load data from external files; tooltip labels are also supported which is great for detailed information in a point of a chart; zooming and last but not least all text labels can be rotated in any angle.
Examples

Line and column example

Columns with rotated labels

Type of Charts: Bar, Area, Areaspline , Pie, Line, Spline, Column & Scatter.
Requirements: jQuery or MooTools
Browser Support: IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 2, Firefox 3.5, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9 and iPhone!
Demo: http://www.highcharts.com/demo/
License: Creative Commons Attribution  Non-Commercial 3.0 License. Free for personal website, a school site or a non-profit organization. For a single commercial Website the license costs $80.

3. Flot

Flot is as the authors call it an “Attractive Javascript plotting for jQuery” which is true. The charts look simple and nice, it is easy to create charts and all settings are optional. Some key features of plot is turning series on/off, zooming, interacting with the data points and it integrates a simple tooltip feature.
Examples

Tracking curves with crosshair plugin

Type of Charts: Bar, Area, Point & Line.
Requirements: jQuery
Browser Support: IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 2, Firefox 3.5, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9 and Konqueror 4+.
Demo: http://people.iola.dk/olau/flot/examples/
License: MIT License

4. jQuery Sparklines

Sparklines generates small inline charts either inline in the HTML or via JavaScript. It is really good for displaying mini graphs notably because most of them just take 1 line of HTML or JavaScript code. Another great feature is it self-refreshing capabilities. You can see it in their Mouse-Speed demo which shows you the power of live charting.
Example

Type of Charts: Bar, Tristate, Bullet, Box Plot & Line.
Requirements: jQuery
Browser Support: IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 2, Firefox 3.5, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9 and Google Chrome.
Demo: http://omnipotent.net/jquery.sparkline/
License: New BSD License

5. jqPlot

jqPlot did not catch my eye at first glance but after further research I found it to be one of the best and free jQuery chart library. Numerous graphical options are available you can even add shadows and interact per drag&drop in the charts! It even automatically computes trend lines. We could compare it to highcharts in terms of features and functionality.
Examples

Type of Charts: Bar, Pie & Line.
Requirements: jQuery
Browser Support: IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 2, Firefox 3.5, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9 and Google Chrome.
Demo: http://www.jqplot.com/tests/
License: MIT and GPL version 2 licenses

Conclusion

As you may have seen from this 5 jQuery chart libraries they suit different needs. First Sparklines generates a small inline chart which is perfect for charts where the precision is not important. You look at the small chart and you should directly know what happened.

Highcharts, Flot and jqPlot are very powerful jQuery chart libraries. My personal favourites is Highcharts and jqPlot. The visual quality of Highcharts charts are better than jqPlot but the last one is free. I recommend you to test at least one of them and you will see that they are really powerful.

Finally jQuery Visualize is really easy to use and specially adapted if you want to create a chart out of a table, just like you would do it in excel. This can be convenient when you need a table and a chart to visualize your thoughts. Feel free to give your feedback via comments section.:)

In this Photoshop tutorial we’ll learn how to create a stylish and sleek-looking play station portable. This is very detailed, but advanced tutorial, so if you have basic knowledge and understanding about Photoshop you should be able to easily keep up and let me guide you through this PSP creation process. Each step is followed by screenshots to give you a better understanding. Note that you can always improve and add more details to such designs – it’s hard to understand at first when to stop and when less is more, but I am sure you will get those skills automatically after you’ve done several tutorials and some tweaking by yourself!

This is what we’ll be creating today! Looks good? Great – let’s get started:

Step 1

So at first, let’s create a New Document with sizes – 900×600 px. We will starting by creating the background.

Create a new layer (press Ctrl + Shift + N)  fill it (with any color).

Open the Layer Style window and apply this Gradient Overlay.

This kind of gradient you should get:

Step 2

I’m going to use guide lines to create the PSP shape, so let’s place all the lines that we’re going to need. (To activate the guidelines, you have to activate the rulers at first (CTRL + R) then what you do is click on the ruler, then hold and drag it into position).

For the Horizontal guidelines set: 250px, 280px, 510px, and  540px and for the Vertical guidelines: 120px, 200px, 660px and 740px.

TIPS:

• CTRL +  ; will hide or show the guidelines.
• Use the move tool to move the guidelines around.
• Slide the guidelines back to rulers to remove them.

Pick the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U), set radius to 10px and do the same like I did on the picture below:

Now do the same as I did in the next picture. I used another color so you could see better difference:

Step 3

Now create a new layer, set the Brush Tool to 411px and draw two rounded circles as seen in screenshot below:

Now set circled brush layer behind the other layer and erase the parts you don’t need:

Step 4

Create a new layer, make selection with Lasso tool(press L to get it) similar like in the screenshot below and fill it:

Duplicate it 3 times more and set the others to each corner of the shape. You can go to Edit, Transform, Flip Vertical and/or Edit, Transform, Flip Horizontal to help you rotate the shapes.

Now select all the (parts) layers (Hold Ctrl and click the layers), right click and select  ”merge layers” and add these Blending options:

Step 5

Now with your psp shape still selected let’s create a new layer, select the brush tool and choose white.

Set 35px for the brush tool and then select the Pen tool (P) and create a line like I did. then right-click and select “stroke path”, choose brush and hit OK.

After that click right click and click “delete path” and set the Opacity (of the layer) to 20%.

Create a new layer, set the brush tool to 16 px then select your Pen Tool and create something like this then right click and select “Stroke Path” – choose brush and click Ok. Right click again and click “Delete Path”.

Select the Eraser and erase the unnecessary parts:

Create a new layer, set the brush tool to 170 px and draw the left side to give it shining effect:

Then set the Opacity to 62% and erase the parts you don’t need.

Now select your Marque Tool (M) and move your selection using your arrow keys a bit to the right and inverse your selection (Ctrl + Shift + I) and press Delete. Finally press Ctrl + D to De-select your selection.

Step 6

Let’s create a new layer and create a circle using the Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) (hold down shift to draw a precise symmetrical  circle) and fill it.

Open the Blending Options menu and adjust the settings like in image:

Create a new layer and create a smaller circle to fill it:

..and add these Blending Options:

Step 7

Create a new layer and add a create a small circle like this,fill it:

Add these Blending Options:

Step 8 – Adding text and details

Now select the Text Tool (T) and type SONY with a dark color. I used the font Engravers MT, type UMD with the color code: (#a8a8ad)

..then create something like this using your pen tool (P) to achieve little perspective:

Set your Brush Tool to 2 px, then select your Pen Tool again and stroke it with a gray color (mine is #404041).

(you can duplicate it and set a darker one in its side like i did) ..then duplicate it (Ctrl + J) and go to Edit, Transform, Horizontal Flip and set the duplicated layer on the other side of the circle.

Step 9 – PSP Text

Now create a new layer and using your Pen Tool (P) let’s create the PSP.

Lets begin with the “P” – make sure your Brush Tool is set to 2px, select your Pen Tool again and create something like in the screenshot below:

Stroke it with a white color (right click on selection), delete the path.

Follow the same steps to do letter “S” as well.

..create selection, stroke it… and do the same with the third letter “P”.

Now add these Blending Options to letters:

Step 10

Create a new layer and now we will add a little bit more details in design. Create selection like in the screenshot below with your Polygonal Lasso Tool (L):

Fill it with white and set it below the psp shape layer. DONT DESELECT THE SELECTION.

Select your Brush Tool, set it to 42px, and brush something like I did from the corners to get some shadowing and 3D effect.

Okay, we are done with bottom side, now let’s get to the top.

Create selection like in the screenshot and set it below the PSP shape:

..like this:

Now set these blending Options:

We need the same effect on the other top side of ou gadget right?

Just duplicate the layer and go to Edit, Transform, Flip Horizontal and set it on the other side of the PSP shape. Let’s compare our outcome which is petty much finished, but we will add some more details to make it look really good:

Step 11 – Final Tweaking

You can brush with a black color at the bottom of the PSP like i did in the next picture to achieve more 3D like effect:

Select all the layers EXCEPT THE BACKGROUND (Hold down Ctrl), right click and select merge layers. Hold down Ctrl and click the PSP layer to make a selection, you should get selection like this using your Pen Tool (P):

Right..now set your Foreground Color to white, right click, go to Fill path… and hit OK then set the Opacity to ~ 36%, set your brush tool to a soft brush of 200px, set the Opacity of the brush tool to 50% and erase the parts you don’t need anymore like screenshot below:

Now Duplicate the PSP layer (Ctrl + J) and go to Edit/Transform and select Rotate 180 degrees, set it below the other layer.

Now lets add some reflection, shall we?

With the Duplicated layer selected go to Filter, Blur, Gaussian blur and set the radius to 3.8px:

Now set the Duplicated layer’s Opacity to 60%. Select your eraser and set it to a soft brush of ~185% set the eraser’s Opacity to 50% and erase like i did to achieve natural reflection:

Congatulations – you’re done!

If you have any questions about any of the steps, don’t hesitate to ask!

The role and purpose of icons is user interaction is very important these days.  Icons can enhance the user experience and user friendly icons are really appreciative but they should be unique and easy to understand. There are so many icon websites available on the web but what we are presenting here is only high quality and web2.0 free icon packs collected from various websites ,designers galleries and blogs.

In this icons series we have divided the icon packs in to three main categories. Web and user interface icon-packs, Social-media packs and other icon packs.You might have seen these icons somewhere, But we narrated here some of them you might have not seen. Not all icon packs are for commercial projects, you can use some of them for your private projects and for your personal use. Please see the usage license and derivation rules carefully before using any icons.I’m 100% sure you will love this Huge and Extensive collection of icons.

Web and User interface icons:

In this category you can download the vector,dock and some illustrator icons for your web design and development system and your CMS too.

1.Scalable icons

This set contains 25 scalable Illustrator format icons.
Disclaimer & Conditions: The set is licensed under Creative Commons License.Redistribution, Release for Download, use for commercial purpose or selling of these icons on an another site without permission is completely prohibited.

2.Free vector icons

Here are 30 free vector icons with an apple touch to it. The download contains the PSD source file.These icons can also be used as iPhone menu bar icons.

3. Diagona-icons

400 (200+200) icons are included in PNG format (10×10 and 16×16 pixel).To remove the attribution, please purchase the license.

4. Free web development icons

Free web development icons icon set is done in web 2.0.

License: These icons are free to use in any kind of project unlimited times.
Amount of icons: 80 , Icon Sizes: 24×24

Amount of icons: 60 Icon Sizes: 24×24

Amount of icons: 26 Icon Sizes: 16×16

Amount of icons: 32 , Icon Sizes: 16×16

Amount of icons: 26 , Icon Sizes: 16×16

5. Blogging icon set

Specially designed for bloggers. There are totally 12 shiny and modern icons for your blog. Sizes 24×24, 36×36 and 48×48 in png format. Blogging Icons Set is released under Creative Commons License, please feel free to use it on your personal and commercial projects.Designed by Blog perfume.

6. Go-green-minimalistic-icons

In this icon pack, there are 108 different icons. You can use for your websites, blogs or applications. These icons comes with e Commerce icons, social media, computer accessories, multimedia icons.These icons are available in 64 x 64 px and in transparent PNG formats.It’s a freebie from Dawghouse design studio.

7. Tango icons

It’s a revision pack of the previous release in Tango style.licensed CC BY-SA.

8. Function-icon-set

A consistent style with a glossy look with a set of 128 Free Icons for you to use in any projects,These icons are absolutely free! You can use them anywhere.

9. One bit icons

Icon set of 50 icons.
License: These icons are free to use in any kind of commercial or non-commercial project unlimited times.

10. Vaga icon sets

Set of 60 icons, semi-transparent .png icons (16 x 16) ready to use and available for free download.

11. Woofunction-web design icons

The Woo Function icon set includes 178 amazing web-related icons in a sophisticated and glossy design style. All 178 icons are available at 32×32 pixel PNG files.This is a classy icon set from woo themes.It’s a collaboration of wefunction and woothemes.This icon set is released on the GNU general public license.

12. WIP-Web-Iconset

A beautiful icon set for web designer’s personal use.
License: For non-profit use ONLY. Commercial(e.g. for company website, application interface etc.) use is strictly forbidden.

13. Iconic project

Iconic is a minimal set of icons consisting of 103 marks in raster and vector formats — free for public use.This set is currently licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.

14. Glossy Buttons

This set have clean and crispy look with consistency.The Glossy Buttons is a collection of 33 high-quality stylish icons ranging from 16×16 to 48 x 48 pixels.This icon collection is created for multiple uses.The icons can be used royalty-free by the license for any personal or commercial project including web application, web design, software application, mobile application, documentation, presentation, computer game, advertising, film, video.

15. Icons from iconblock

Snow pack

102 royalty free website & GUI icons in various formats that can be used for both personal and commercial purposes.

Blue Coral

More collection of 77 blue and grey rounded button icons designed for website use. These icons are perfect if your looking for simplicity and style as well as uniformity. A freeware release

Lingo

74 xp themed icons that will surely breath new life into your blog or website application.

16.ORB icons

Free to use,for more information contact the designer.

17.Mini icon collection

Here are 113 10×10 greyscale icons in .gif format. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 licence.

Just another mini icon set

Pretty small icons.Some rights reserved.This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

18.ColorCons icon set

ColorCons are 49 different icons available in 4 different colors.
Formats and sizes included in the package are.Terms of usage are in the  pack.

19.Sweetie–BasePack

The Sweetie family is cute and clean.And free! This set has been around for five years, but it’s still going strong.Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

20.Milky icon set-All in one package

This is another lovely set of simple but nice icons happily created by IconEden.com. The Milky set contains more than 131 icons primarily colored in green, giving an eye-pleasant look and prominent display on either dark or bright backgrounds.

21.Adobe-creative-icons

A special icons of adobe’s master collection.For license please verify in icon page.

22.Bright free icon set

This 148-icon set contains all crisp-shaped icons that are designed for wide use in web applications, multimedia and software.So you can use Bright! for free for your personal and commercial projects.

23.Hand pointer icons

Free icon set that includes 36 hand pointer icons of 6 different types with 6 color variants. Icon set also includes .psd source file.

24.Once from Delacro

You can use them on your personal blog. Just send me a mail and let.Non commercial use.

25.Webmaster icons-Dellipack 2.0

The DelliPack 2.0 icons are a high quality pack of developer icons and webmasters icons.

26.Designer icons

This set includes Adobe Graphic Icons, Designers Icon.For more information see in source page.

27.Icon pack by Psferox designs

Specifically these icons designed for designer’s use.

28.Free-Mobile-Berries

These icon sets are specifically made for mobile applications,websites and GUI designs.For license details please get more information from the source.

29.Free-iphone-icons

Specifically for i-Phone developers,Free for anyone to use under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada license. You may use or modify these icons in any way as long as you credit www.pixelpressicons.com.

30.Web standard icons

28 icons for web designers and blogger.

31.Vector arrow icons

Freshly made, tasty vector icon with 64 icons.They’re entirely free.

32.Glossy Vector icons

This particular icon set falls into the “window” category. Nothing to do with “Windows” the operating system, but the adjustment of windows, panes, and closure icons.85 shining icons ready for your next design.

33.Icons for your photo editing app

Image related icons.-Some smiling lips, a camera lens, some vortex colour, a crop tool, a TV icon, and plenty more.they’re free to download and use as you wish!

FYI : Social media icons will be coming in the next part of the icon packs after that other icon packs too.

Being a freelancer means a lot of freedom to plan your own days at work, but it also does require discipline and planning. Being your own boss, you need to be good at making the right rules to succeed. Most of these tips sound just like common sense, but actually remembering everything when it’s needed isn’t necessarily as easy as you would think.

Different rules work for different people. Having worked as a freelancer on and off for over ten years, I’ve created this list of my best tips on how to succeed. Maybe you already use several of these or versions of them, great! Hopefully you will also find a tip or three that can help you to succeed in what you do! :)

1. Make a marketing/business plan

This should be the first thing you do. Even though you have all the info needed in your head, putting it on paper will give many advances and definitely be worth the extra work. Not only will you that way be «forced» to think through important issues and possible challenges before they occur, but it can also be a lot easier for you to get the needed help from potential business partners or investors when you have a good business plan to show them.

2. Plan your days ahead

Allow yourself an hour or so at the beginning of each work week, or the last hour of the previous week to plan the upcoming week. Then it’ll be easier for you to plan how to spend your hours to reach the deadlines you have upcoming. The more ongoing projects you have, the more important this is.

Picture by Hilde Vanstraelen

3. Use free software

Starting up as a freelancer can be challenging economically, and by choosing from all available and good free software you can save a lot of costs without necessarily having to give up a lot of functionality. Free doesn’t have to mean it’s not good software, there are more and more options available every day so make sure you check out what can be used related to your business. When you buy a computer, camera, tablet or printer make sure to check out the software that comes with it as well. You may be in for a positive surprise.

4. Create an eye-catching logo

To look professional and catch those potential clients in a tight market, requires hard work when it comes to branding yourself. Creating an eye-catching logo (or getting someone to do that for you if you lack the skills yourself) can make you seem more professional and easier to see. The power of a good logo and actually using it on business cards, websites and such will give you that professional look which could be the extra inch needed to catch the attention of a new client.

5. Learn to say NO!

If you don’t have the time for another client at the moment, it’s important to be able to realize it and say no. It is the most fair thing to yourself, your existing client and the new ones that knock on your door. Worst case scenario is saying yes to too many and it having consequences for existing clients. You always want to make sure you have enough time to give your current clients the best service you can. A client too many could be the thing that lowers the quality of  all your work.

6. Make a blog/website

In this Internet age that we are, having a website of your own can mean a whole lot. Not only does it make you look more professional but it is also a gateway to new clients. Many do surf the net to find people for their next projects and if they can’t find you online they won’t know you’re there.

Picture by Claudio Sepulveda Geoffroy

7. Update your website regularly

Do you already have a website or blog? – great! But to maximize its value to you it’s very important to update it regularly. If new clients visit your site and see that you haven’t updated the content for a very long time, that might just be the reason for them to choose someone else instead. Updating regularly will require an hour of your time every now and then but can pay back multiple times rewarding you with new clients.

Picture by Ben Lancaster

8. Give your online visitors something free

Giving something extra to the visitors on your website always is a good thing. If you work as a designer you can for example consider putting up some free textures or buttons. This will give your site more visitors and potentially more clients for you. Or how about offering every visitor a percentage off on their first order with you? Again, this could be the extra thing needed to stand out to new clients.

Picture by Mario Alberto

9. Use social media

Social media is where many relationships are made these days. No matter which country you live in, using social media can connect you to potential clients and partners all over the world. Twitter is a must, and you should consider Facebook and also forums related to your business. If you are a designer consider having a look at deviantArt and YouTube aswell. In several of these media you can advertise for your own business as long as you make sure to not spam it too much.

Picture by Davide Guglielmo

10. Get allies

Having allies can mean everything. Connecting with people through social media or even spreading the word of your business through friends and family can get you just that word out there that you need. Also making relations with people who can do things for the clients that you can’t can help, you give the clients a more complete package of what they need. One day you are the one sending a client to an ally that can offer a more suitable service in that case, the next day you could be the one having clients sent your way.

Picture by Glenn Pebley

11. Save for rainy days

Even though your business may go really well, there can and probably will come a bad month or two every now and then. Being a freelancer is being vulnerable to changes in the market. My advice would be to save up a little bit of your income each month, save it in an own savings account so that you have it as a safety buffer for when times get rough. You sure wont regret doing that. It would be a shame if a couple of small bills would ruin everything for you in a bad month.

Picture by Marcelo Moura

12. Be creative

There are many ways to be creative, to get new clients or to make better use of equipment and office space. Some examples can be to upgrade an existing computer if you can’t afford a new one, redecorate a spare room if you can’t afford the rent for an office outside of your home. Add a new product or service to your current list or ask friends or family if they know anyone that may be in need of your services. The options are many, all you need is to try think a bit out of the box.

Picture by Ayhan Yildiz

13. Reward loyal customers

If the market is tight you need to do what you can to have your customers back a second and third time. Being friendly and service minded is always a must, but what about giving them a discount the second time? Or sending them special offers of various kinds. Use your fantasy and implement these things into your business plan. Make customers want to come back and you will have the best possible chance to survive.

Picture by Deb Walker

14. Treat every client as if he is the only one

Giving existing customers good offers as mentioned in the previous tip is important. But remember to be service minded. If a customer feels important that will make him more loyal as well. Use positive language when you talk or write to him. Don’t be afraid to say that you will go out of your way to make sure he is satisfied with the product/service he is getting. And remember to let him know that feedback is appreciated. That way you can keep making your services more and more attractive and get happier clients. Don’t forget that existing clients can be the best advertising you ever get!

Picture by Shlomit Wolf

15. Work when you are at work

If you have decided to work from lets say 8am to 4pm every day, then do so. If you have errands to run, private mail accounts to check, private phone calls to make and so on, these will quickly eat of your much-needed work time. Make a promise to yourself to only do this when you are not supposed to work, as in before or after work or during your lunch break. It may not seem that much to you, but I’ve seen several great freelancers getting their days completely messed up because they were not good enough at managing their time properly.

Picture by Zsuzsanna Kilian

16. Know when to start and stop

Just as important as actually working when you are at work, is starting when you should and stopping when you should. You may have to prepare yourself for working extra hours every now and then to keep your business alive, but it is very important that you have free time too. You need to recover and get your mind filled with other things or you will get burned out and ruin things for yourself. The more hours you work at once, the less productive you get. So remember to follow your own rules on when to start and stop the day at work.

Picture by Nick Colomb

17. Keep your finances tidy

Keeping your finances tidy probably sounds easy, and it can be – as long as you keep an eye on them regularly. No matter how small a business you are running you will run into trouble if you only spend time on billing and accounting once or twice a year. Set up dates for when you pay your bills, when you send out invoices to clients and to make monthly budgets. Not only will this make it easier for you throughout the whole year but you will be able to fix errors quicker, do adjustments if needed and so on.

Picture by Michal Ufniak

18. Remember to breathe

Breathe you say? Yes ;) And by breathing I mean that you need to take care of yourself. You may be freelancing using a computer or two, a camera or other tools, – but the most important tool will always be yourself. And just like any other tool you will be in need of some defragging and polishing yourself. Remember to continue to spend time on your hobbies, friends and family even if you have a busy work schedule.

Picture by Alex Bramwell

19. Get out of the house occasionally (especially if you work from home)

If you have a home based office it’s important to get some fresh air. Book some of your meetings somewhere else, meet business partners for lunch, or spend an hour or two working from a library or coffee shop with your laptop if you can. The change of scenery may boost your energy level/creativity and give you a lot back.

Picture by Jesse Therrien

20. Make an inspirational string

Rough days come and rough days go. Simple as it may sound, having something around you to remind you of why you are working this hard can be what you need to get some extra energy on that one difficult day. Make your own inspirational string! Take a piece of string or use a cork board/whiteboard, whichever you have available. Add a picture of your kids, of the vacation spot you are saving to go to, or maybe a car you hope to be able to buy. Add some of your favorite inspirational quotes or pictures, whatever inspires you really. And there you go, your own inspirational string! Taking a look at it when you are close to giving up or when a day is extra stressful can work wonders for you. You should give it a try :)

Picture by Cristopher Bruno

21. Be humble

No one is born an expert or world champion. If things go well or you feel on top of things it can be easy to get a little bit too confident, which can be bad for your reputation and bad for the quality of your work. You should always aim to be humble, listen to your clients on what they want. Give them your professional opinion when needed but in the end it is the client that generates your paycheck. Also remember to willingly take advice from colleagues or others who have been in the market for a while.

22. Look professional, in every way possible

You have the logo, the website and so on and things are starting to look pretty good. Remember to also meet clients with respect, look presentable and be polite. Being your own boss doesn’t mean you can talk or act in any way and still keep your clients. Remember that.

23. Ask for feedback

Not only should you have comments enabled on your website but you should also ask your friends/family/allies for feedback on your work. And most important of all, after you have finished your project – ask the client what he thinks. Not only do you get a great chance to improve but the client also feels important. Getting someone else’s opinion is always good and this will help you to become even more successful.

Picture by Dominik Gwarek

24. Always carry a notebook around with you

It being a normal notebook, your iPhone or any other digital form of “notebook” you should carry it with you and remember to take notes. This is for many reasons. Not only can you unexpectedly run into a potential client or an existing one, but you may come up with valuable ideas when you are on the bus, on the plane or basically anywhere else. Several times have I had amazing ideas, not had a notebook, forgotten the ideas and seen them used somewhere else a year later.

Picture by Typofi

and last but not least

25. Take the time you need!

This is so important, it can’t be mentioned enough. Same as with the tip about learning to say no. Once you have said yes to a project you need to make sure that you take the time needed to do the best you can do. Handing over a project that is half done will not only give you a client who won’t come back, but it can give you a bad reputation. Your clients are your best references to show in the future and no one want a freelancer who leaves the work half-finished.

Picture by Kriss Szkurlatowski

That was my first article here on 1stwebdesigner, and I hope you enjoyed it and found the tips useful.
Feel free to leave your own tips or feedback using the comments, and good luck in the world of freelancers! :)

Twitter background design is one of the most important things, you can change in your account to attract new followers.  We only can change little things in Twitter so why we don’t put there the best we can? Let’s change our background right now, but before we do that – time for you to get inspired!

I hand picked those 50 Twitter backgrounds, while I was browsing through like 200-300 twitter pages – these all were the ones which caught my attention. Interesting to notice, not all of favorites are really colorful, but even subtle, clean and elegant but still stood out. In my opinion the best case is to create what suits you in the meantime thinking about usability and readability – but light designs with few colors included to make design shine seems to be the best case! What’s your case?

1. @nicholaspatten

2. @chrisspooner

3. @bongobrian

4. @bartelme

5. @abduzeedo

6. @boagworld

7. @cameronolivier

8.

9. @DesignerDepot

10. @digitalmash

11. @graphicidentity

12. @mmpow

13. @ArteWebdesign

14. @cheth

15. @KrisColvin

16. @marcelsantilli

17. @Ubikwitusrex

18. @rodneireiz

19. @just4theALofit

20. @Chryseiss

21. @oxygenna

22. @luciana_luz

23. @tonypeterson

24. @showcasemark

25. @XquiziteLizard

26. @HungryGirl

27. @elianarod

28. @davewilhelm

29. @nbawiileague

30. @LisaWorsham

31. @Go_Media

32. @Doubleolee

33. @theleggett

34. @Farrhad

35. @chadmcmillan

36. @myklroventine

37. @nullvariable

38. @Genuine

39. @imagedesigns

40. @marekuk

41. @Krftd

42. @ramesstudios

43. @rafalmeidaf

44. Pudny

45. @Alyssa_Milano

46. @andysowards

47. @binojxavier

48. @sharebrain

49. @Scarletbits

50. @nymphont

If your exclusive and unique background is not in this list, then feel free to share it with us in comments section!

Form is an important element in a website.The recent developments in web 2.0 scenario and the growing quantity of web apps has even make it more important. The most important point in building a form is the usability fact. Form should be easy to understand so that visitors can enter values into the form correctly without getting confused.

In this article we will explain the various techniques, tutorials, examples relating to the modern trends in building web forms to enhance the user experience.

Form Validation Techniques

when users enter values into the form, as the owner of the site must ensure that the value in accordance with the insert is expected, provide information on visitors to the validation before they are sent to the owner of the site

1. Live Validation

Live Validation is a small open source JavaScript library built for giving users real-time validation information as they fill out forms.

2. fValidator

fValidator is an open source (free) unobtrusive JavaScript tool for easy handling form validation.

3. Validation With Prototype

The basic method is to attach to the form’s onsubmit event, read out all the form elements’ classes and perform validation if required. If a field fails validation, reveal field validation advice and prevent the form from submitting.

4. Ajax form validation

This is Ajax form Validation, you can learning how to use AJAX to process and validate your forms.

5. jQuery inline form validation

6. sForm – Ajax Form Validation

This validation form is a real-time feedback to users, when they fill out the form, they will know what happened to see the color will appear. Fields that have not been properly will appear red and after validation is going to be green. This will facilitate the user when filling out the form

AJAX/CSS Forms Tutorials

7. How to make a password strength meter for your registration form

This tutorial will teach you how to make a password strength meter

8. AJAX Form POST/GET

With AJAX the browser page is not reloading, but the data is just sent to the server for processing. The server saves the data or calculates something and sends back the answer. The AJAX JavaScript either displays the answer (page) or does some action depending on the answer

9. Style Web Forms Using CSS

In this article you will look at step by step how you can use CSS to create attractive and usable forms.

10. Styling File Inputs With CSS And The Dom

This tutorial will explain stylish file upload inputs via clever use of js and css. This is great tutorial form Shaun Inman.

11. Degradable Ajax Form Validation

If you’ve ever confronted the task of validating data in a form, you know about choice. Whether it’s choosing between client side or server-side scripts, or the amount of information a user should see on the screen, the results should always give the user quick and meaningful feedback, while providing a solution for when things go wrong.

12. Fancy Contact Form

In this tutorial you will learn to make an AJAX contact form which leverages modern web development techniques. You will using PHP, CSS and jQuery with the help of the formValidator plugin for form validation and the JQTransform plugin, which will style all the input fields and buttons of the form.

AJAX CSS Form Online Builder

13. Form Assembly

This is A CSS Stylesheet Collection for Web Forms

14. Web Form Factory

Web Form Factory is an open source web form generator . They will automatically generates the necessary backend code to tie your form to a database.

15. JotForm

JotForm is the First Web Based WYSIWYG Form Builder. Create and publish web forms using your browser. Its drag and drop user interface makes form building doable for anybody that wants to do it

16. Wufoo

Wufoo is HTML form builder helps you create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect the data, registrations and online payments you need without writing a single line of code.

17. FormLogix

FormLogix is an online form builder tool for creating web databases and web forms. FormLogix is a WYSIWYG tool and it requires zero coding skills. It enables a user to easily create web forms and web databases such as: Contact us forms, Feedback forms, Events registration forms, Surveys, online Polls, Order forms, Invitations, CRM

18. Phpform

Phpform  is free form builder . You can create online forms quickly and there are many color options available form

19. Formspring

FormSpring’s is easy form builder that make companies and organizations an easy to create some form online to begin the integration with the web site and data collection

20. Icebrrg

Icebrrg can easily create any kind of online forms for websites and blogs – no programming skills or special skills needed.

AJAX CSS Form Best Examples

21. Masked Input Plugin

22. prettyForms

23. Ajax Contact Form with YUI

24. Ajax Chained Select – demo

25. Instant Edit

26. Anchor Layout with Forms

27. Uploadform

28. Textarea

29. CSS-based Form Template

30. Uniform

Feel free to share your tips and techniques using comments section.

Want to stand out? Buy a unique T-shirt! In this article you are going to find a lot of cool and creative t shirt designs from talanted artists.You can actually purchase almost all of them. Also it is interesting to look at them from proffesional point of view. Try to analyze and understand why and how interesting effects are achieved, how 3D effects are put effectively in use.

I would love to have all of these T-shirts! How about you, what’s your favorite?

1. Downtown by 7sixes

2. CMYK 2.0 by wisseh

3. Lights out by Brock Davis

4.Lions Are Smarter Than I Am by Keith Carter

5. Hearts with wings by lookinducky

6. Lillith Potsbottom by facefriends

7. Zaal Persian Legend by B.B. Hive

8. Breaktrough by FRESHFAUXX

9. The painter by sebasebi

10. FrequenCty by Dan Rule

11. ACIDorange by kiwie

12. BlueRoyal by kiwie 



 

13. FUN by kiwie

14. Paint La Skull by myargie22

 

15. That design we love by fansoption

16. Sketch T-F by JAGboards

17. Rockstar by reack

18. Adidas Originals by Philippe Intraligi

19. Aqua Earth World Pixel Map by winterrenaissance

20. From The Depths by cbass99

21. Tectonic Wormhole by Joe Van Wetering

22. Fight For A Better Tomorrow by Mike

23. Revelations 2 by jimiyo

24. Tranquility by Dina Prasetyawan

25. Ariel by Alice X. Zhang

26. Time To Say Goodbye by cbass99

27. Floral Explosion by AJ RJ 

28. Night Of The Dead by Mike

29. Chaos Theory by mathiole

30. Bird In Flight by zomboy

31. 5bugs “Cowboy” by PEACHBEACH

32. Coeur de voyou by zombiecorp

33. Surfing Space by gums

34. Friends from abyss by TheW_aka_Look

35. Funkmaster by short

36. Townshipfunk by Peachbeach

37. Vutterfly Leaf by Cib

38. Quality by Lars Wunderlich

39. Coloures by song

40. Breaking Down Barriers by gaunty

First I want to welcome you to my very first article for 1stwebdesigner. Today I’ll show you how to create a very nifty looking dynamic shadow with a few teaspoons of jQuery, a pinch of CSS and some transparent PNG’s as Base. I’ll explain every line of used code, so you can easily follow along and create your own awesome looking dynamic shadow powered by jQuery.

Introduction

When I first published my jQuery shadow experiment, I got a huge response from the community and a lot of people asked me, how I achieved this effect and if I’m going to write a tutorial for it – So here it is now!

If you want to follow along with the source files, you can download them by clicking here (*.zip archive). You can also take a look at the final demo here.

Step 1: Creating the transparent PNG’s

First we need to prepare all PNG files we’re going to use. We’ll need following image elements:

1. The on/off switch (needs two states)
2. The light source (in this case, a sexy light bulb – also with two states)
3. The object which is going to drop the shadow (here it’s going to be a logo)
4. and last but not least, the matching shadow of our logo

We’re going to use the CSS sprite technique for reducing HTTP requests. So we’ll need 3 images (otherwise we would need 6 separate images and twice as much HTTP requests).

1st PNG Image: The Light-Switch Sprite

2nd PNG Image: The Light-Bulb Sprite

3rd PNG Image: The Logo Sprite

I’m not going to explain how to create those images, as I’ll concentrate on the source code. If you want to use your own images, just make sure to save your images as PNG 24 , so your transparency gets saved too.

Step 2: Preparing our HTML, CSS & JS files

To make your files well-arranged, we’re going to create following folder structure for our files now:

The root folder (dynamicShadow) will contain our index.html with all layout containers inside of it. Inside of the img folder, you should put all three PNG image files you created or copied from step 1 above. Inside the css folder create a file named style.css. There we’ll style all layout elements we used in the html file. And the magic will happen inside of the js folder. There we’ll create a file named script.js. It will contain our jQuery JavaScript code.

If you have done those two steps above, we are now ready to go on and finally let the magic happen!

Step 3: Writing the HTML file with all containers we will use

First we need to include the files we created in the previous step, into the header part of our HTML.

First our stylesheet file:

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.css" media="all" />

Now we’ll attach the latest version of jQuery itself and jQuery UI from Google’s AJAX Libraries repository:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

Last but not least we need to attach our JavaScript file (script.js):

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

Our header should look something like this now:

<head>
	<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.css" media="all" />
	<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="js/script.js"></script>
</head>

We can start with the body part of our HTML now:

We’re going to need following div’s with the same id’s for the next step, where we are going to style our containers.

<body>
	<div id="switch"></div>
	<div id="light-bulb" class="off"><div id="light-bulb2"></div></div>
	<div id="logo"></div>
	<div id="logosh"></div>
	<div id="infobox"><p>Please activate JavaScript!</p></div>
</body>

For explanation:

1. “switch” will be our element, which is going to turn the light bulb on and off.
2. ”light-bulb” and “light-bulb2” are our containers with the actual light bulb (I’ll explain later why we need it twice). Just make sure you don’t forget to add the “off” class to the outer light-bulb container.
3. ”logo” is our element which is going to drop the shadow.
4. ”logosh” will contain the appropriate shadow for the object.
5. ”infobox” is just a bonus and not mandatory for our effect. It will contain some status messages. Additionally it contains a message for all (bad, bad) users, who are visiting your site with deactivated JavaScript. You can write them a message there. Take care at your diction, don’t be too evil to them ;).

Step 4: Let’s get some colors into our HTML file!

Now we’re ready to style our HTML with the CSS file we included into our header.

We will start with the info box. If you have chosen to include it, here is a styling suggestion:

body {
background:#3B4D61 url(../img/bg.jpg) repeat 0 0; }
#infobox {
	position:absolute;
	width:300px;
	bottom:20px;
	left:50%;
	margin-left:-150px;
	padding:0 20px;
	background:rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
	-moz-border-radius:15px;
	-webkit-border-radius:15px;
	z-index:999;
}
#infobox p {
	display:block;
	color:#D1D8DF;
	font:bold 15px/10px Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
	text-align:center;
}

For body, an image is used to enhance the effect of shadow.For the #infobox we are using some CSS3 to make it prettier. The background is black and 50% transparent with the awesome rgba attribute and the corners are rounded with a 15px wide diameter through the Mozilla and WebKit specific attributes. The box will be 340 pixels wide (300 + 2 x 20) and placed centered on the bottom of our page. With the z-index set to 999 it will be the topmost element in our page so it does not get covered from our logo, the shadow or the light bulb.

Next is our switch:

#switch {
	position:absolute;
	bottom:50px;
	left:50px;
	width:80px;
	height:120px;
	background:url(../img/light-switch.png) -80px 0 no-repeat;
	cursor:pointer;
	z-index:100;
}

It will be absolute positioned to the bottom left corner of our page. The backgrounds X position is set to –80px. There we are using the CSS sprite technique the first time. The cursor is going to be a pointer, so the user knows that he can click it. z-index to 100. The logo, the shadow and the light bulb must get a higher z-index, so they don’t disappear behind the switch.

Now let’s style our two light bulb containers:

#light-bulb {
	position:absolute;
	top:20%;
	left:70%;
	width:150px;
	height:150px;
	background:url(../img/lightbulb.png) -150px 0 no-repeat;
	cursor:move;
	z-index:800;
}
#light-bulb2 {
	width:150px;
	height:150px;
	display:none;
	background:url(../img/lightbulb.png) 0 0 no-repeat;
}

The backgrounds X position of the main light bulb container is set to –150px. This is the “turned off” state of our sprite-image. The “inner light bulb” (light-bulb2) is set to “top left” (0 0), so it is the “turned on” state of the sprite. Later we will animate the opacity of it from 0% to 100% and create a smooth blend effect from the on to the off state and reverse. z-index to 800: It will be above the switch, above the logo and above the shadow but behind the info box. The cursor attribute is set to “move”. This way the user will get a nice, OS-based cursor which tells him he can move this object around.

Our last two containers are the logo with his shadow:

#logo {
	position:absolute;
	top:40%;
	left:20%;
	width:450px;
	height:150px;
	background:url(../img/logo.png) 0 0 no-repeat;
	cursor:move;
	z-index:700;
}
#logosh {
	position:absolute;
	width:450px;
	height:150px;
	display:none;
	background:url(../img/logo.png) 0 -150px no-repeat;
	z-index:600;
}

The main logo containers gets also the “move” cursor and the background position is set to “top left” again. This will show the main part of our logo sprite. z-index to 700. It’ll be above the shadow and above the switch, but behind the light bulb and the info box.

The shadow container gets z-index of 600 and the backgrounds Y position is set to –150px. It’s the shadow part of our logo sprite-image.

If you came this wide, your index.html file should look something like this in your browser (of course only, if you used the same image files of this tutorial):

Now let’s get this party started and add some spice to our page. We will write some JavaScript now!

Step 5: The magic starts to happen now!

Ok now let’s go with the interesting part of this whole tutorial. First we start with the jQuery’s main function:

$(function(){

});

This is the short hand code for jQuery’s document.ready(). Our whole script needs to be inside of this function, so it gets loaded, as soon as the DOM is ready.

Next we’ll define some variables and set the default text of our info box. The descriptions are inline as comments:

// shadow offset
var shadowOffset	=	1.08;

// the light switch
var lightswitch		=	$("#switch");

// outer light bulb
var lightbulb		=	$("#light-bulb");

// inner light bulb
var lightbulb2		=	$("#light-bulb2");

// center of light - X-axis
var lightCenterX	=	parseInt(lightbulb.width()/2);

// center of light - Y-axis
var lightCenterY	=	parseInt(lightbulb.height()/2);

// logo container
var logo			=	$("#logo");

// light and logo containers
var lightAlogo		=	$("#light-bulb, #logo");

// center of logo - X-axis
var logoCenterX		=	parseInt(logo.width()/2);

// center of logo - Y-axis
var logoCenterY		=	parseInt(logo.height()/2);

// shadow container
var logoshadow		=	$("#logosh");

// center of shadow - X-axis
var logoShdwCenterX	=	parseInt(logoshadow.width()/2);

// center of shadow - Y-axis
var logoShdwCenterY	=	parseInt(logoshadow.height()/2);

// info-box text container
var statustext		=	$("#infobox p");

// info-box default text
var defaulttxt		=	"Drag the light-bulb or the logo!";

// info-box text for hovering switch while state is "off"
var ontxt			=	"Let there be light!";

// info-box text for hovering switch while state is "on"
var offtxt			=	"Switch off the light!";

// set info-box text to default text
statustext.text(defaulttxt);

// start our main function (will be used later)
moveShadow();

For now, you can comment the last line out. moveShadow(); will be our main function which will change the position of the shadow.

Now let’s get dynamic and let us make the light bulb and the logo draggable. We’re going to use jQuery UI’s draggable interaction element to keep things easy.

// making the light and the logo draggable
lightAlogo.draggable({
	drag: function(event, ui){

		// change the statustext to "dragging + element id" state
		statustext.text("dragging " + $(this).attr("id"));

		// our main function which will move the shadow
		moveShadow();

	},
	stop: function(event, ui){

		// switching to default text when stopped dragging
		statustext.text(defaulttxt);

	}
});

While dragging, we’re going to set the status text of our info box to “dragging” + the id of the current element. So in our case it will be logo or light-bulb. When we release the mouse and stop dragging the current object, we revert the text to our default value.

Our two objects should now be draggable! Isn’t it easy with jQuery UI? :)
(There comes the “write less, do more” from, which is jQuery’s slogan.)

Again you can comment out the moveShadow(); function for now, if you want to try your code in the browser. This will be the main function which makes the dynamic shadow moving, while you drag either the light bulb or the logo.

With the following function, we’re going to change the default text of the info box to our on or off text when hovering:

// changing the info text when hovering the switch
lightswitch.hover(function(){

	if(lightbulb.hasClass("off")){

		// when lightbulb has the class "off" show this text
		statustext.text(ontxt);

	}else{

		// otherwise show this text
		statustext.text(offtxt);

	}
},function(){

	// hovering out will show the default text again
	statustext.text(defaulttxt);

});

If the light bulb has the class “off”, then show the “on text”, else show the “off text”. When hovering out, the default text will be shown again. Still easy, right?

Next is our function for calculating the opacity of our logo shadow, according to the distance of the light source. In our case the light bulb:

// calculating the shadow opacity according to the light bulb distance
function setOpacity(getDistance){

	if(lightbulb.hasClass("off")){

		// if the lightbulb has the class "off", opacity = 0 (no shadow)
		return 0;

	}else{

		// otherwise we calculate a suitable shadow opacity with this formula
		return (1.2 - getDistance /1000);

	}
}

If our light bulb has the class “off”, we’ll return “0″, which stands for zero opacity. No light, no shadow. Sounds logical, right? More interesting is the “else” part, where we’re going to use this formula “1.2 – getDistance / 1000” to calculate a shadow which will look quite good. getDistance /1000 will just move the decimal point 3 points to the left, giving us a usable number for the next calculation, where we are going to subtract it from 1.2 (which would be 120% theoretically).You can experiment with this value, if you are not satisfied with the results.

The next what we are going to do is to assign the things which should happen, when the user clicks on our light switch:

// assign the things, which should happen, when clicking the light switch
lightswitch.click(function(){

	// when the light bulb has the class "off" do following:
	if(lightbulb.hasClass("off")){

		// first remove the class "off"
		lightbulb.removeClass("off");

		// change the background position of the CSS sprite
		lightswitch.css("backgroundPosition","0 0");

		// showing the shadow of the logo with a fading animation
		logoshadow.stop().fadeTo(750,setOpacity(shadowDistance));

		// fade in the inner light bulb container (light is turned on!)
		lightbulb2.stop().fadeTo(750,1);

		// changing the status text to the "off text"
		statustext.text(offtxt);

	// else do following:
	}else{

		// adding the class "off"
		lightbulb.addClass("off");

		// move the background position of the switch back to original position
		lightswitch.css("backgroundPosition","-80px 0");

		// fade out the logo shadow
		logoshadow.stop().fadeTo(750,0);

		// fade out the turned on light (no more lights now)
		lightbulb2.stop().fadeTo(750,0);

		// changing the status text to the "on text"
		statustext.text(ontxt);

	}
});

A few things are happening now. Let’s get through it line by line.

First we need to differentiate if the lights should be turned on or off. For this we will check once again if the light bulb has the class “off” or not. If it has it, we’ll do following:

1. We will remove it right again.
2. Then we make use of our sprite image of the light switch and move it to the “on” position, which is “0 0″ / “top left”.
3. After this we are going to fade in the shadow of the logo. We are doing this with the setOpacity function, described before. For now you have to change “shadowDistance” to “1”, if you want to try it. We will get the variable “shadowDistance” in the next function.
4. Last things to do is to fade in our inner light bulb which is positioned via our CSS to get the “energized” part of the sprite image
5. and change the status text to the “off state”.

If the light bulb has not a class named “off”, we will do the opposite of above which is following:

1. add class “off” to our light bulb
2. move the image of the light switch up by 80 pixels, so it is turned off again
3. fade out the shadow
4. fade out the inner light bulb (the lighten up one)
5. and changing the status text to the “on state”

The last function we need is finally the one, which will move our shadow (and probably the most interesting one):

// the main function - our shadow mover
function moveShadow(){

	// save the current X position of the light bulb
	lightX			=	parseInt(lightbulb.offset().left) + lightCenterX;

	// save the current Y position of the light bulb
	lightY			=	parseInt(lightbulb.offset().top) + lightCenterY;

	// save the current X position of the logo
	logoX			=	parseInt(logo.offset().left) + logoCenterX;

	// save the current Y position of the logo
	logoY			=	parseInt(logo.offset().top) + logoCenterY;

	// save the value how far the logo is away from the light bulb on the X-axis
	distanceX		=	logoX - lightX;

	// save the value how far the logo is away from the light bulb on the Y-axis
	distanceY		=	logoY - lightY;

	// calculating and saving the value of the square root of those two distance values
	distance		=	Math.sqrt(Math.pow(distanceX, 2) + Math.pow(distanceY, 2));

	// calculating and saving the shadow distance with the offset we defined in our variables
	shadowDistance	=	distance * shadowOffset;

	// preparing the CSS value to put into the "left" attribute of the shadow container
	shadowPosLeft	=	(distanceX / distance * shadowDistance + lightX - logoShdwCenterX) + "px";

	// preparing the CSS value to put into the "top" attribute of the shadow container
	shadowPosTop	=	(distanceY / distance * shadowDistance + lightY - logoShdwCenterY) + "px";

	// finaly using the results of all above calculations to position our shadow and set the opacity
	logoshadow.css({ "left": shadowPosLeft, "top": shadowPosTop, "opacity": setOpacity(shadowDistance) });

}

This may looks a little bit weird and strange to you on the first sight, but it’s really not so difficult to understand and I used only some basic math formula for the calculations which I will describe you now.

Let’s get through it, line by line again:

1. lightX: Getting the current X position of our light bulb
2. lightY: Getting the current Y position of our light bulb
3. logoX: Same like 1. only with the logo container
4. logoY: Same like 2. only with the logo container
5. distanceX: Calculating how far the logo is away from the light bulb on the X-axis
6. distanceY: Calculating how far the logo is away from the light bulb on the Y-axis
7. distance: Calculating the square root of distanceX and distanceY using the Math.sqrt(); function and for the two values the Math.pow(); function, which stands for exponential power. The first parameter, in our case distanceX or distanceY is the parameter for the base and the second parameter stands for the power. For making it clear: On the paper you would write: distanceX² and distanceY²
8. shadowDistance: Multiplying the actual distance with the offset we defined at the top of our script where the variables are defined. We used this variable on click function of the light switch. So if you changed “shadowDistance” to “1”, you can now change it back to this variable.
9. shadowPosLeft: Making the left offset of the shadow ready, to use it in our last line.
10. shadowPosTop: Making the top offset of the shadow ready, to use it in our last line.
11. logoshadow.css(): finally we are changing the CSS of our shadow container so it gets correct positioned and has the proper opacity

That’s it!

The last thing you need to do is to uncomment the moveShadow(); function twice (only if you have commented it out). At first at the variables section and at last in the jQuery UI’s draggable function.

Your shadow is now dynamic positioned and also has a cool looking dynamic opacity, depending on the distance and position of both: The light bulb and the logo.

I hope you liked this tutorial and could follow it step by step. If you’ve done everything correctly, you should have ended up with something like this: DEMO.

If you had some troubles with any step or need further instructions or help, feel free to write your question into the comments section of this post so I can take a look at your question and help you out!

Thanks for reading and have fun trying and using it in your next project!

Having worked as a project manager at several companies and having to monitor my own projects there’s a certain list of things I do to check on often (and I still do). Some of the things are SEO related, some are tech tasks, some help to achieve the marketing goals. Some of the things are just general but still it’s very convenient to have the nice set tools to perform the actions that you do on a regular basis. Today I’m going to write about Firefox add-ons that I have added my browser options (yes, I’m an addicted Firefox lover) as a project manager and just a human. All the add-ons listed help me in my daily work and I don’t know how much time I would spend if I had to search from all the information they give to me manually. I decided to divide this list into 2 sections-  the add-ons that I use as a usual human being and the add-ons I find extremely useful for the project management. So here we go.

The Add-ons for regular Internet Surfers

1. The WOT Add-on (Web of trust)

Web of Trust warns you about risky sites that cheat customers, deliver malware or send spam. Never in my life did I have a problem with some serious viruses infecting my computer until about a month ago. Suddenly my browser got frozen and in about 5 minutes all the programs and applications on my computer stopped working while the antivirus software that I had (kasperski) haven’t showed any thread which surprised me tremendously. Having restarted the system I trying at least something I was continuously getting the notice that I have to send a sms to some address and buy the security code that should unblock my computer or something along that line. I had to reinstall the system on my pc but this was not the end yet.

On the next day I found out that I got the virus on my server that have infected all the .html and .php files. I knew from the server logs that the virus got there from my computer and thanks God I had files backed up.
Doing my daily job I visit hundreds of website and I had no idea where I could get such a deadly virus from. That’s when I started thinking that I need in some way to exclude the potentially dangerous websites or at least know what websites have low reputation. Now I’m a happy user of the WOT add-on. It works very simply and graphically clear.

Next to every link and in the browser address line you will see the circle that changes the color from green to red depending on website trustworthiness, green being safe and red very poor. They gather this information from website visitors using the WOT and you can also rank the website for several parameters like trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy etc. You can also leave a review if you say got infected from this website and want to warn the rest of the community. In case you get to the dangerous website they will show you a big pop-up with the warning before actually prompting you to the page, where you can choose where you want to see why the page is considered as dangerous, ignore the warning and go to the page or leave the page. If you have children there is also a children control option where the websites will adult content will not be available for browsing. You can get additional info on WOT add-on here.

2. Read It Later Add-on

Read It Later allows you to save pages of interest to read later. It’s very simple but very useful, at least for
me. Browsing tens of interesting pages daily I often don’t have time to read them right away. I used to add the pages I wanted to read to the bookmarks and then was totally forgetting about them or couldn’t find the pages I needed and finally I ended up with the long-long list of bookmarks cluttered with stuff of any kind one can ever imagine. Read it later add-on allows you to add the page to the read list in one click. You can right-click with the mouse anywhere on page you’d like to read later and choose an option “read this page later”.You can also copy the link and add it to the library clicking on small yellow arrow on the top right cornet of the browser.

3. Ad block Plus

A simple nice add-on that blocks add-on the pages. Once installed it will show up in a red hexagon in the top right of the browser window. Nothing special to say about it but it makes my life easier.

4. AddThis

AddThis is a nice add-on making sharing and bookmarking simple. The list of social icons will be added to your
browser toolbar area as well as to right-click mouse options. You just click on the icon, the application connects to your social network account and posts the update there. Here’s the sample how it looks in Twitter:

Though I use AddThis I still have a separate toolbar for stumble as this is one of my favorite websites and I love to have the options to leave a comment, thumb up or just view some cool stuff directly from the toolbar. You can install this add-on here.

Add-ons that I use in my work of a project manager

If you are starting the career of the project manager in some company or just have a start-up project I do recommend you to add this add-ons to the browser as they can not only make your life easier but help you choose the right direction in your marketing campaign as well as provide help to the customers if they run into some problems with the website.

1. Fire FTP

This might be one of the most Firefox add-ons. This plugin allows you to upload files to the server as any other FTP client but you don’t have to install it separately on your computer. The interface is quite intuitive. On the left you will see list of files on your computer and on the right once connected to the server you will see the files on the server. When you start the files upload or download you will see the how the process flows in the bottom area, the connection errors will show up there as well. You can choose the mode for files transfer (binary, ASCII and automatic) and whether to show or not to show the hidden files.

I started using FireFtp after my website files on the server were infected. Before that I was using Total Commander for years which I had to reinstall as well and since I didn’t want to get used to any other similar programs I decided to give a try to Fire FTP.

It’s not perfect and the websites in the other tabs and windows start working slower when FireFtp is working and there are now usual hot keys but it’s not bad at all. I like the error reports and I like when the program says ZZZZ when it’s connected to the server but not command is performed. This can be actually the only reason why I’m using it :)

2. HTTP Fox

HttpFox monitors and analyzes all incoming and outgoing HTTP traffic between the browser and the web servers. In simple words it shows you how the website interacts with the server and if any errors occur you can get the details of the error without having to check the server log files. I used to work for the company who developed a cool CMS system running on php and flex. Working with the customers, uploading files to their servers and helping them to actually manage the website I was facing some php or flex errors pretty often but the problem was that these were the errors the admin area was showing and I had no idea how to handle that. I’m neither a programmer nor a flash developer and this was a real nightmare for me. One of my friends recommended me to install the HTTP Fox plugin and there hasn’t been a single problem I couldn’t fix on my own.

I guess things would still work for me much easier if I had a better php knowledge. The way it works now- I start HTTP Fox (toogle HTTP Fox as they call it in the application), get the error description, go to google to type it there and then check for solutions how the error can be fixed on the php and flash forums :) With the HTTP Fox add-on you can also check whether some website will save a cookie on your computer as well as get some other useful info.

3. Fire Bug

Fire Bug is a great add-on that will be of a great help not just for a project manager but an advanced develop as well. The number of features is enormous but in my daily work I use just a few. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. I used Firebug multiple times to customize and make small changes on the WordPress themes, to get info on the images and embedded videos and flash files and get info about properties of the page elements. You can call the application from the Tools section of the browser or just right clicking on some elements on the page.

4. SeoQuake SEO extension

SeoQuake extension is a must if you perform any type of work related to SEO, links exchange, online advertising etc. It gives you a profound info about the website, helps you study your competitors and potential partners. At one glance you can see the page PageRank, the number of pages from the domain name indexed in Google, Yahoo and Bing, Alexa Rank, the age of the domain name and the direct link to the whois info. There’s information about internal and external links on the page as well as the information on the keywords density ( you can check what main keywords your competitors use and how often and where on page).

The SeoQuake extension has another cool feature- so called Yahoo links- showing the number (and the list) of external URLs pointing to the page and domain name. Extremely useful when you need to check who’s linking to your competitors.

5. Search Status

That’s a good alternative to SeoQuake but I prefer using them both. By default the Search Status add-on options will show up in the bottom right corner of the browser alone with the traffic stats from Alexa (alexa rank), Compete and mozRank by SeoMoz. Earlier I was using Alexa stats from the SeoQuake and had a separate Compete add-on installed and now I have them all in one place. Some of the other features Search Status add-on include: no follow links analysis, general page’s link report, stats about indexed pages and keywords density, whois info etc. There’s almost the same features as in SeoQuake and some additional ones but they are not convenient to use. I prefer clicking on an icon in the toolbar rather than going to the footer, clicking on the icon and only then getting the list of options available. It would be perfect is someone could combine these two.

That’s it, I’ve listed all the add-ons that I use daily. I’ll be glad to hear what add-ons you use and how they help you in your work. I still have a place for two or three until my browser stops working so do let me know :)

Power of “CSS” is to Change the appearance of hundreds of Web pages by changing just one file and CSS represent an enormous step forward for the Web.And it’s mostly used to improvise the presentation (that is, the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language.It has structure and rules to follow.

Seven main advantages for using CSS are

1. Flexibility (In content submission and a web page that is well structured, allows for flexibility ) .
2. Rendering (For browser).
3. Accessibility (Build accessible websites./blogs)
4. Separate the content from presentation (Publication of content).
5. Consistency (Instead of inheritance and cascading, a global style sheet can be used to give effect and style elements site-wide).
6. Bandwidth ( Cache matters).
7. Page formatting (Ability to change).
8. If you want to be a CSS master you have to follow some more principles and tricks.

Here we are presenting the showcase of “Stunning CSS websites” By CSS masters.

1. Davidjonsson

In their caption of the website itself they have declared creative intelligent design and they used creative images for their pages. Website about a freelance graphic designer,he love to design logos and illustrations.

2. Delibarapp

Delibar is a full featured client for Pinboard and delicious

3. Digitalmash

A mash of work from Australian designer

4. Sketchen

Elegant yellow design.Web development agency

5. Madebytinder

Simply beautiful design in seven colors

6. Osvaldas

Just another freelancer’s website.Used some AJAX techniques

7. webdesigncompetition

8. coocoocore

Designer website.It’s Pretty cool and creative design one page website.

9. Atebits

Mobile software website.Color sense is very good in this theme

.

10. Weloveicons

We Love Icons is a project by designers Dan Wiersema and Nando Albuquerque. They started they Love Icons because, well… we love icons!

11. Alkhnsaa-world

Design by mimcomp.com.

12. Atombicycles

Atom Bicycles Ltd. is the creation of Joel, a passionate cyclist. It all started over 20 years ago, when Joel and his friends decided to try what was then a new sport: mountain biking. Customizable design.

13. Designadept

Standards compliant web design.

.

14. Alexswanson

Interactive media and web designer “Design’s portfolio”.Clean layout.

15. Fresh-canned

Jar Design is an XHTML/CSS website custom designed and built for Vermont-based logo, print, and packaging designer Lis Gerber.

16. Musicthoughts

17. Cromulent Design

A fun, unique website that allows visitors to choose a different layout based on their mood while displaying their work for potential clients.

18. Ignatynikulin

Ignaty Nikulin, European web designer and developer, Focus on designing high quality and custom created web solutions for inspiring projects.

19. Designdisease

Design Disease provides cost-effective Web design services focused on usability, accessibility and Web standards.

20. Arbel-designs

A beautiful portfolio website by

Idan Arbel.

21. Guerra-creativa

22. Nineteen-eighty-four

An online personal portfolio website of a Graphic designer having outstanding layout and theme.

23. Pixel-Blog

The Pixel – Award Winning Creative Design Agency.

24. Robocatapps

25. Workawesome

WorkAwesome is a resource for the worker. It’s a blog for people who want to be awesome at work. It’s also a blog for people who want to find work, or simply quit work.

26. Ormanclark

27. Desigui

Desigui is an interface design studio that creates unique, well designed and optimized interfaces web applications.

28. Eyebridge

A vibrant web design from India.

.

29. Nineflavors

30. Thecolorcure

Creative team based in the Philippines. specialize in web, identity and print design.

31. Joy project

32. Beautiful2

Beautiful 2.0 is proud to showcase the best Web Design, CSS and Flash artistry for all to view and admire.

33. Cookmateapp

34. Upstruct (Design studio)

35. Yodaa

Yodaa is a San Jose based Web Design Agency that images brands through it’s creativity and simplicity.

As a great cms platform WordPress has many examples for every work  like blogs, companies, portfolios, galleries etc. Magazine/Newspaper style themes are one of the most wanted WordPress themes and they are very useful for managing lots of posts on a page.

This type of themes are mostly liked by small and medium-sized teams who can produce actual content every day. It is easy to show many thumbnails and sliders on a page so you can push up your page views easily. But you need to choose right theme for your visitors. For example if your visitors are generally looking for galleries check out a more visual one, otherwise take a look for most text-based ones.

Premium newspaper style themes have great features and other professional ones are really satisfying. Here are mixed 28 new great Magazine/Newspaper style WordPress themes.

1. Transcript – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Transcript is a multi-purpose and stylish news/magazine theme.  Some features are

• A nice ajax support for featured entries
• Built in Banner Management
• Built in Media Gallery Module …

2. Eventina – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Eventina is a flexible magazine style theme.  Some features;

• Built-in Social Addon
• Featured Posts on Homepage
• Featured Posts in the Header …

3. Technologic – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Technologic is a flexible and unique magazine style theme.  Some features;

• 5 Color Styles
• Threaded Comments
• Featured Slideshows on Homepage …

4. HotGoss – Premium Magazine Style Theme

HotGoss is a magazine/news style theme which is easy to modify. Some features:

• Major Browser Compatible
• Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional
• Valid CSS Level 2.1 or 3 …

5. SportState Theme – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Sportstate is a cool magazine/news style theme for good-working publishers. Some features;

• Integrated Content Rotator
• Optional Jquery Dropdown Menu

6. ColorMatic Theme – Premium Magazine Style Theme

ColorMatic is a variety of magazine/news sites theme. Some features;

• Four (4) effective website layouts
• Built-in Blog Navigator Widget
• Advertising management …

7. Magazine WordPress Theme – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Magazine WordPress Theme is a good designed magazine style theme with good features. Some features;

• 2 or 3 Columns
• Theme Options
• Threaded Comments …

8. The Theme Wars Magazine – Premium Magazine Style Theme

The Theme Wars Magazine is a good magazine style WordPress theme with a large featured-area on the homepage. Some features;

• Powerful Theme Control Panel
• Featured content sliding gallery (optional)
• No custom fields – built-in post extras …

9. LifeStyle – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Arthemia Premium is a detailed magazine theme. Some Features;

• 2 or 3 Columns
• Theme Options
• Threaded Comments …

10. Arthemia – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Arthemia Premium is a powerful magazine style wordpress theme. Also it has a free version. Some Features:

• Cross-Browser Compatible
• Analytics and Feedburner
• Banner & Adsense Management …

11. IndoMagz Magazine – Premium Magazine Style Theme

IndoMagz is a new style Magazine theme. You can choose one of many templates with different colors. Some Features:

• 1, 2 or 3 Column Templates
• RTL Text Direction
• Post Thumbnail Support …

12. Arash Theme – Free Magazine Style Theme

Arras Theme is designed for news or review sites with lots of customisable features. Some Features:

• Widgets Ready
• 5 News Layouts
• Alternate Styles Ready …

13. Obscure – Free Magazine Style Theme

Obscure is magazine wordpress theme. It build in any site niche and best fit for community based site.  Some Features:

• Built in Featured Content Gallery
• Feedburner RSS Subscription Ready
• Twitter Integration …

14. WP-Clear – Premium Magazine Style Theme

WP-Clear is a clean, minimalist design theme. It can be used as an online magazine or newspaper. Some Features:

• 2-Column or 3-Column Layout with Widgetized Sidebar
• Home Page Magazine Layout
• Featured Content Glider …

15. WP-Smooth – Premium Magazine Style Theme

WP-Smooth is a dark premium WordPress magazine theme. But it comes multiple color options and layouts. Some Features:

• Gravatar Integration
• Banner Ad Integration
• Built-In Post Thumbnails …

16. Hamasaki – Free Magazine Style Theme

Hamasaki is a white wordpress theme. It is really useful and good designed. Some Features:

• Page Comment Templates
• Contact Page with CAPTCHA Support
• Widget Support …

17. Ndadap – Free Magazine Style Theme

Ndadap is a uniqe Magazine Style theme. It contains minimum configuration to make it work. Some features:

• Auto Re-size Image
• Grid Based Layou
• Built in featured post area …

18. Advanced Newspaper – Premium Newspaper Style Theme

Advanced Newspaper is an exclusive Newspaper Style theme. Some features:

• Multilevel dropdown
• Category based advertisement
• Unique newspaper layout …

19. Zenko Magazine – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Zenko Magazine is a flexible magazine style theme. It is stylish & colorful. Some features:

• Threaded Comments
• Ads Management System
• Featured Posts on Homepage …

20. Yamidoo Magazine – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Yamidoo Magazine has a simple layout and can be easily styled to create the perfect look for your blog.  Some features:

• Feedburner & Google Analytics Ready
• Featured Content Section
• Ads Management System …

21. Inuit Types – Free Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Inuit Types is a very useful theme for e-magazines. Some features:

• Multiple Layouts,
• Fully Widgetized,
• Excerpted Content …

22. Mimbo Pro – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Mimbo Pro is another premium Magazine style theme. It includes an image carousel and seems great. Some features:

• Animated Dropdown Menus
• Image Carousel With Variable Speed
• Image Thumbnail Resizing …

23. Newsport – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Newsport is a professional Magazine style theme with some unique features. Some features;

• 4 Widgetized Areas
• 5 Custom Woo Widgets
• 11 Great Colour Schemes …

24. HeadLine – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Headline Magazine style theme has s a flexible layout with lots of features. Some features;

• Featured jQuery Tabber/Slider Area
• Author Box Widget on Single Posts
• 15 Stylish Alternate Colour Schemes …

25. Studio Press News  – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Studio Press News theme is a simple and smart Magazine Style theme . Some features;

• 2 or 3-columns
• Fixed Width
• Threaded Comments …

26. One Theme  – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

One Theme is Magazine style wordpress theme which has a 4 different versions. Some features;

• Numbered Comments
• Custom Control Panel
• Three Homepage Layouts …

27. WP-MediaMag  – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

WP-MediaMag is a modern Magazine style WordPress theme. It is designed for publishers who like to upload media. Some features;

• Video Integration
• Theme Settings Page
• Featured Content Glider …

28. WP-Magazine  - Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

WP-Magazine is another professional and simple WordPress theme. Some features;

• Featured Article Glider
• Built-In Banner Ad Blocks
• Built-In Site Guide in Right Sidebar …

If you can not find a good one for you, look for the first post: 60 Free, Yet Premium Quality Wordpress Magazine News Themes

Looking for a place to create a free website?  There are plenty of resources that allow you to create you own website, blog, wiki, or social community without having to know any programming language.  These free website creation sites allow you to easily create a site, customize the design, add content, and use a custom URL.

Take a look at 45 best web builders to create a free website.

Google Sites

Hey its Google and they are letting you create a free site….so do it.  As usual, Google makes it extremely easy to build a free website with cool integration features like Google Docs, Google Calendar, and RSS.

Windows Live Spaces

Webs

Google Knol

Google Knol came out about 2 years ago and even though it has not gotten the same praise as Wikipedia, it is still a valuable resource that you should take advantage of.  Free easy to create your own free knol and help position yourself as an industry leader.

Jimdo

Jimdo is a new free website builder that is very clean and easy to use.  As you can see in the screen-shot you can create your own url and add text, photos, and custom design.

AngelFire

Edicy

Squidoo

One of my favorite places to create a free webpage is Squidoo.  Not only do these pages tend to rank well in the search engines, but you can monetize them by adding amazon affiliate products and links, share easily through Facebook and Tweetmeme buttons and much more.

Yola

Tripod

Wetpaint

Wetpaint is the place to go to create your own free wiki in a matter of minutes.  Similar to the other website builders out there, however like a wiki anyone can add, edit, and remove content from the page.

WikiSpaces

Blogsome

Weebly

Wix

I personally don’t have a lot of experience with Wix, but it seems like a very neat way to create free flash websites.  They have separated themselves from the rest, since most of the free site builders only let you create html pages.  Would love to hear from anyone that has used Wix.

Hubpages

Hubpages is very similar to Squidoo, in the fact that you can build free pages and they tend to rank very well in search engines.  You can also make money by adding affiliate products, links and adsense in your hub.  It has all of the cool features that you would need including adding images, videos, ratings and reviews, and the ability to comment.

Piczo

Webnode

Moonfruit

Let’s Eat

For anyone in the restaurant industry, Let’s Eat is for you. Let’s Eat lets you create your own restaurant website where you can add information about your restaurant, menu, hours, location, and more.

Sauropol

GoGoFrog

Launch Splash

Nexo

Roxer

Viviti

Ever

DevHub

SnapPages

SnapPages is the easy drag and drop website creation service.  No need to know css to position your site!

350

WebStarts

BlinkWeb

Thoughts

ClutterMe

DoTemplate

ComfyPages

Moogo

GetShopped

Groupie Guide

Hyper Web Enable

Notanent

Blogetery

Blogster

Flooha

FreeWeb

We have tired our best to include all the great services which allows you to build free websites. Don’t forget to give your thoughts about the article via comments section or tweet us at @1stwebdesigner . We always love our readers feedback.

To handle a blog these days can be quite difficult if you are not well-organized and you don’t spend enough time managing it. That’s why there are plugins for WordPress. They literally make your job lot easier and if you work well with them you can put them to work for you.

Sounds cool I know, but you have to know which plugins are ment for your blog and when to use them. In my opinion, the administration plugins have one of the most important roles in your blog because they are the ones that help you to get: statistics, help you manage content and help you to generate content.

There are tons of plugins designed to do the job I’ve just mentioned and is pretty difficult to find the plugins you really need. That’s why, in today’s post I’ve selected some of the most powerful administration plugins I know. You should also check out the great article by Saad Bassi about WordPress plugins to change the outlook for Administrator Dashboard .

Keep in mind that you have to save lots of time in order to become more effective and I’m sure that using these plugins right will save you a lot of time.

1. FireStats and FireStats Charts

Firestats is without a dub my favorite plugin for gathering statistics about the traffic that comes to my blogs. It has a powerful monetization system so that you can get info about: user country, ip, browser, operating system and many more. Firestats and Firestats Chart can work separately as well, but I recommend you to use both of them in order to get a better idea about the traffic that comes to your site.

2. Custom Admin Branding

Many people consider this plugin not very useful, but I consider that once with your blog evolution there will be more people to write for you or just more people logging in to your blog and if you are like me you want your own logo to be the one that dominates your creation.

3. Post Video and Photo Galleries

Being able to create photo galleries and adding videos to your WordPress blog is just perfect for any type of blog you manage. This plugin helps you to easily do that and also integrates a small button in the visual editor of your post writer.

4. Login with Ajax

The combination between PHP and Java Script has always a good impact for your visitors. The Ajax Login system brings great login effects which will determine more people to register.

5. Google Analyticator

If you are a Google Analytics user this plugin saves you a lot of time but if you are not, than you should definitely go and start using it because is the best option for your website traffic statistics.

6. Admin Management Xtended

To save more time, Admin Management Xtended brings new Ajax forms to automatically change or add content to your blog without having to reload the page and lose time.

7. Admin Menu Editor

Easily customize the Admin Menu as you like.

8. Database Size WordPress Plugin

Displays a small and non disturbing message text which contains information about the size of your WordPress blog database.

9. Hide Admin Panels

If you are running a collective blog, this plugin will help you to restrict some permissions for different types of members of your blog. You choose who sees what.

10. Favicons Chooser

We all know how important a first impression is and without a dub, the favicon you have on your website is vital and probably the one that remains in your visitors head. Favicons Chooser helps you to easily add or choose a Favicon.

11. Post Ideas

This plugin stores your ideas about what you would like to write in the near future. When you are ready to post about one of your ideas in the “Post Ideas” just click on it and you will be redirected to the writing page.

12. Broken Link Checker

Is pretty messy to find out that the post or page you are looking for is missing or is broken. Broken Link checker helps you to solve this problem and warns you when you should change links.

13. Digital Raindrops Style Sheet

The admin can easily change the style sheet of each page from the theme directory.

14. AdRotator

Helps you to add any type of ad banner anywhere you want and also it helps you to keep a statistics page for them.

15. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a must have plugin for any respected website or blog. It generates static HTML pages for your every page and post so when you have tons of traffic the bandwidth will handle it and you will not have any problems.

16. Genki Pre-publish Reminder

This is very useful if you are that kind of guy who forgets what to do before posting a new article. If you forget to post an a category for your article or just need to add SEO tags you just have to add those into the Genki Pre-publish reminder.

17. WP Grins

Automatically adds clickable smileys for administrator area and also for users comment form.

18. WP Super Editor

Get more control over the styles of your blog and also emoticons and layouts.

19. Plugin Installer

This plugin helps you to get the content of other plugins and automatically installs it. All you have to do is to point the Plugin Installer to the source of the plugin and it will do the rest.

20. Batch Categories

Automatically adds a new page to category management which shows what posts are in that category so that you will be able to easily transfer them to other categories.

21. Ajax Spell Checker

One of the most powerful Spell Checkers created for Wordpress.

22. Custom Write Panel

This plugin helps you to select the way that your WYSIWYG panel looks like and choose what elements to show and which not.

23. Google Sitemaps Generator

Automatically generates xml and gz extension sitemaps for your blog which is very important for indexing your pages by Google.

24. Share This

Adds the social media links for every posts and pages.

25. Site Unavailable

Displays a message which alerts your visitors that your website is unavailable. The message is customizable.

26. Fluency

Changes the whole User Interface in Wordpress and creates a great experience for every user.

27. Simply Tags

Helps you to easily manage batch tags so that you will be able to save lots of time.

28. Adminize

Compress and hide unnecessary items in your wordpress blog.

29. Quick Menu

Create and customize your own menu in Wordpress Admin Area. You can add all kind of quick links in the menu section like: Google Analytics, Adsense account or just a simple other page.

30. Admin Notepad

Adds the Notepad in your Wordpress application. The Notepad panel can be hide or displayed by clicking one simple button.

I’ve personally tested all of these amazing plugins and I can confirm that they are great for every type of blogger. Hope it will help you too and stay with us to get more interesting articles about Wordpress and blog management tutorials.

I bet you all are a little bit tired of classic list posts so this time I really spent my time to bring some value into this inspirational article. I gathered here 40 really unique and trendy web designs from Deviantart, all of them are fresh, created in February, 2010. But this time instead of just listing them all, I did a step forward – I tried to analyze and criticize each design, point pros and cons you should give some more attention to. For me design never is complete, there is always space for improving, but it takes serious experience to notice those small mistakes.

If this idea will raise some discussion and attention I am sure I will make more comprehensive research so we all could improve ourselves actually in the meantime.  I am quite excited, how about you? Let’s get started!

You may take a look to our other Deviantart Inspiration based articles made in past as well:

• 55 Trendy Web Design Interfaces From Deviantart
• 60 Trendy Web Design Interfaces Created In October
• 46 Outstanding Web Layouts From DeviantArt: September 2009
• 48 Trendy And Fresh Web Interfaces From Deviantart: August 2009

1. World Comics magazine by RadziuPL

Interesting blog using brown, red and few more subtle tones. I like overall design, nice mouse over effects – to main navigation, to RSS button, but something seem a little bit strange to me. For example that bird in header and funny icon in “Comment/ Continue reading” section in post. While blog is created for world comics, I think all icons (RSS,newsletter,search icons) should be funny, logotype maybe too?

And yet again some good points – notice all polished buttons, sections, little embossing, glossing effects, which make design look really professional.

2. Sense Design V1 by webdesigner1921

Design home page for germany web agency. Could turn out as amazing Flash page, great photomanipulation type website.

3. Sense Design V2 by webdesigner1921

Second version of Sense Design website – beautiful 3D effects just buy me to love this website! I don’t even dare to criticize here, fell in love with colors! Which is your favorite design?

Okay, if I need to tell something then I think white color is too bright in second screenshot. I understand on bright background it’s hard to put readable text, but this isn’t the best case. On text I would try slightly darker monochrome color as well as darker box behind the text. What about navigation?  Maybe something bright and big text could get attention to the right place as well?

Would love to hear your opinions, this is a really hard case.

4. Company Portfolio Web 2.0 by princepal

Interesting, yet clean and professional website design. I like especially header where featured slideshow is beautifully executed from original design point of view. Only I think company will definitely need to update their logo to fit it with this beautiful design.

5. MobileSoup by yehsper

Very fresh and trendy designs using just blue and black color variations throughout whole design. Close to simple perfection, though not aligned “Attention please” note confuses a little bit and footer should need more tweaking I think.

6. Designer portfolio by preet618

Site uses green as main bright color to get attention, black color is used just to define navigation and footer, but I don’t quite like black to white gradient in background of slideshow. Also logo looks quite good, but typeface used with it I think isn’t quite suitable.

I love this design, but it’s interesting to analyze and find some little points which could take this design to even higher level!

7. Empati Tasarim by SencerBugrahan

This artist also has full gallery of amazing works – very dark website yet great for image based website. Notice also beautiful 3D effects, glossing and shining borders. I am confused only about background stripes – resembles web 2.0 type designs a little bit and footer lacks little white stripe which all other blocks have.

8. WhitePress by SencerBugrahan

One more great design using only light, subtle colors. For me the most succesful seems header and left content area. I would love to have something similar on my own blog. From marketing point of view though I would like to have bigger RSS and Twitter buttons, also no one would buy sponsor ads if they would lie so far from “Above the fold”.

It’s very hard task to create successful blog design and yes, I see countless bad design executions in my own site as well.

9. HeyU by yehsper

I wanted to bring attention to this design as well! Seems everything put so random, but in the same time here you will find great color and alignment hierarchy! Check out also cool looking left sidebar with nice embedded effects. I would only find some confusion in header, logo face seems to be too small and main branding item simply disappears in whole loud design!

10. TwoPulse by jk9o

Simply pointed – less is really more, perfect color harmony. I just love blurred contours at the back of logo and little innovative text on the main circle.

11. LimoTaxi by VictoryDesign

No comments, simply amazed about interesting and unique design though while it looks good I am not sure if it will not hurt text readability and usability as whole.

12. Producer Portfolio Business by designresource

Wow, for this design I simply couldn’t find words to tell any critique. Beautiful accent in above the fold field (featured slideshow), light design, perfectly aligned and executed. I am watching and learning.

13. AVG – SkyRide by AntoniaVG

“The site focuses on skydiving, hot air balloon rides, hang gliding, gliders, warbirds and biplanes.”

Designer tries to put really big amounts of information here and I think he did great job! Great inspiration where successfully are added several photographs in background. Only confusion for me is left top section “Welcome to 1800Skyride” – all other sections has it’s own boxes but here text is just lying in the air. I am not sure – maybe it’s good thing, welcome text got my attention, but main text is a little hard to read. Analyze this site design yourself, you’ll find many more beautifully executed small things.

14. C.E. – Flash Layout by detrans

Interesting approach to hybrid/futuristic type of design. I am curious to see how this site will look live in Flash, notice all little points, glossing, gradients, shine.

15. Paper Portfolio by deadlinesdesign

No comments from my side is needed here – very unique and very well executed website design idea. Notice importance of well picked typeface, size and color as well, red color is used very well to get necessary accents – lovely.

By the way did I mention, designer is only 17 years old?

16. Design Creator Blog by deadlinesdesign

Interesting blog execution. I just love light designs and this structure would be great for small blog, though if content amounts grow in future, there would be problems with categories and sidebar, where I would add more choices for visitors to click.

17. Box – Web Layout by detrans

Trendy design, very good colors for easy reading and interesting idea about boxes opening while navigating between different business plans.

Notice also unique “more” button and how navigation is emphasized with really subtle effects. I have one confusion though – why “Login” button on top right side isn’t in the dark field, but somewhere in the middle? Small point, but I am sure just inattention mistake. Interesting to find little points right?

18. Rigid Modeling by alighandour

Eye candy – modern colors and execution.

19. Colormix by gdnz

Very unique website, everything is tied together literally! I don’t know for what purpose this website is created but could turn out great portfolio or css (or whatever) showcase site!

20. Oxymore by miko434

Maybe not one of the most user-friendly websites, but you cannot deny – definitely grabs attention! Exercise for yourself – what’s so special in this design, what makes it to look professional, not cheap? I think this is great solution for product based websites where you don’t need to deliver big amounts of information.

21. Watercolor Blog by deadlinesdesign

I just keep finding more hand-drawn type trendy webdesigns from this author! Great inspiration to look how you can create modern yet a little bit playful type of design. I don’t know why, but only thing I would like to fix in this design is that dark border around featured images in articles. From my point of view more brighter or exactly opposite – lighter color would suit there a lot better.

Notice beautiful watercolor header and cute RSS, Twitter icons.

22. Design Development Firm by manujg

Professional, perfectly aligned website using subtle white and blue colors. Could turn out as great corporate website, by the way it is for sale.

Now, cons I am noticing is – I love that popular mac window, but description under “Mission Statement” is simply unreadable don’t you agree? I also don’t understand why “Twitter Feeds” section has icon, but all other ones have not? Design would look a lot better with icons on each category I guess.

Put your attention to header navigation, which is very interesting and eye catchy, phone icon also get good attention, exactly how it was intended.

23. Freedom Church by alivepixel

Just beautiful design – I was surprised there are so many colors used –  blue, orange,brown,white, green, even red, but it all together looks just outstanding! Here’s some impressive inspiration!

24. New Portfolio by dustinstreeck

Very interesting retro type web design in the meantime looking very modern. I enjoy the use of subtle textures and monochromic colors – just plain black and white!

25. VoiceKraft by pcholewa

Well executed design showing how to display huge amounts of information in good way. Impressive 3D effects work throughout whole design, only I think company now definitely needs a new logo design.

26. Shop Layout by razr-designs

Extreme website, T-shirt shop design executed in really good way, I think it’s very relevant, colorful, in the meantime looking very harmonic and aligned. Logotype is great and those stitches throughout whole design are relevant to T-shirt (stitches in fabrics) and give design it’s uniqueness.

27. inFocus Wordpress by designresource

This website is very polished, I suggest to visit it as great inspiration. By the way this theme is on sale in Themeforest, where you can actually see live version of this website. Great work. Check out live demo on Themeforest.

28. Beauty salon 2 by webdesigner1921

Very interesting design concept, great for product/image based websites. This one is for SPA salon.

29. Mood Template by badboythemer

Website for sale by the way and what I like in this template to so much is colors, logo approach (though typographic template one, but still nice) and placement. Interesting concept behind mood template – light grey at the header and pitch black at the footer.

I am not sure though about gradients in buttons, they seem to disappear and become blurred in design, and yes – concept is good, but for me that pitch black gradient seems to be too strong. White text on black background isn’t the favorite color scheme for eyes.

30. Eshop Template by Honya

This design caught my attention with it’s unique and interesting top navigation. While website should require a lot of tweaking to work as real sale shop, color scheme and item placement is really great.

31. New Grunge Portfolio by misht

Trendy and unique website design, I enjoy all the arrows to point and get smiling attention to necessary sections. While header, sidebar and content section are very polished at least for me footer looks too short, text in footer too big to be harmonic. Other than that – great design concept!

32. CompanionFinder.eu by luqa

Website design for company CompanionFinder – Adult friend finder. Girl definitely grabbed my attention, so header is purposely and well done I presume. Color selection is interesting and very harmonic and easy for eye to look at and read.  Polished site, my attention grabbers were header with girl, and then textures in background making look design transparent and professional.

33. AIQOON by kaan-arts

As I mentioned several times before already, it’s really hard task to process huge amounts of information in user-friendly and harmonic way. One more great inspiration with good concept and well thought through small section placements.

34. World Creative by mhmoodzaidan

Simply great eye-candy. No more comments needed here I presume.

35. Blue Portfolio by ParadigmTradition

Interesting color contrasts – site is using just blue and monochromic colors to achieve everything. Definitely grabbed my attention as unique design.

36. Mazikeen by QwibbleDesigns

Great corporate website design, actually for sale. Click to image to see it full view, many small details are nicely done there.

37.Misz.com by misz000

Simply amazing, very clean and professional design here!

38. WordPress – IcePress Theme by detrans

Amazing water/ice type theme – I would love to see how this design would look as live blog! Very refreshing!

39. 96 Artist Magazine by PanthereNoire92

Interesting magazine type theme, we all know how hard is to view a lot of information in transparent way. I am not sure about background though, other than that – simple and professional!

40. Artcase by alexdesigns

Beautiful choice of colors, AlexDesigns is very talented designer and this work doesn’t dissapoint as well! Eye candy and surprisingly I cannot find anything I don’t like in this design!

This is my first time doing such research, review and critiques so you can be harsh too. Point out to my mistakes, you don’t agree with, add your opinion – I would love to hear it. Critiques for us, designers, is the best way how to improve, would love to hear your thoughts here.

I am even thinking making this advanced feature, analyzing some fresh, popular redesigns, pointing out tools and techniques how specific effects are created in design and maybe even create some fresh tutorials. Now is your time to talk, I did mine!

Hey everyone! It seems that we have recently lost touch with the magic of Photoshop Layer Styles, until recently that is. So, in lieu of this, we have complied the ultimate roundup of 750+ style sets for you! Layer Styles are a great resource, and can really save heaps of time when designing something. They provide a great base of styles that are easily editable later on. It doesn’t stop there, don’t forget that they can easily create web buttons, icons, and Web 2.0 Text Styles.

Don’t forget to check out our previous post on Photoshop Gradients: 36 Color Gradient Sets For Photoshop and Resource Sites: Part 1.

Vista Glass Style by ~lost–in–thought

This style is a great base for replicating a Vista-like look in your piece.

220 Amazing Free Photoshop Layer Styles

We personally used these Photoshop styles for a project, and they really surprised us!

Color Candy photoshop style

These styles look very nice for a Web 2.0 effect.

Fibre LayerStyles – GVL by ~gvalkyrie

These fiber styles would really add a unique punch to a web layout.

Chrome Text Style by =nonlin3

This chrome text effect will put a new spin on boring text! Great for anything with metals.

Gold text style by ~CorouD

This gold text effect is simple, but really works! Would be nice if used as a button or other element as well.

Spice up your design with 56 Photoshop layer styles

This unique variety of Photoshop Layer Styles will really spruce up any project!

Glass Styles

This simple set of two styles, instantly creates a wonderful glass or transparent effect!

SimpleStyles

This is a truly unique set of six photoshop styles!

Free Photoshop Styles

This set looks really clean, and especially great for a Web 2.0 Effect in web design! They would work really well for buttons as well.

PS Styles Pack I by ~Royks

First in this set, these styles look sure to promise an amazing addition to whatever you may be working on.

PS Style Pack II by ~Royks

Bringing twenty in this second set, these styles are sure to bring even more design goodness.

Ultimate Web 2.0 Layer Styles

Although predecessor this set, these are still amazing photoshop styles!

Style glass by ~Lucifer017

This colorful set of glass styles will add that extra oomph you’ve been waiting for!

Chameleon Style no.1 by ~Ashung

First in this series, there is a lot of variety between the sets of two 90 layer styles.

Chameleon Style no.2 by ~Ashung

The second in a series, these layer styles seem really promising!

Styles serious

6 great cute looks for website designs!

42 Photoshop Layer Styles for Button Design – Free Download

This set of glossy styles make for a great web 2.0 button or website.

Glowing PS styles by ~Sultan-Almarzoogi

These text styles make the perfect addition to a dark layout, especially with the variety!

Dark Orb LAYERSTYLES by ~gvalkyrie

These layers styles provide a unique spin on a simple circle, transforming it into an orb suitable for use as web buttons! While searching for this article, we tried to include all the best layer styles available for free download. Let us know if we have missed something and we will update this post.:)

This is a little bit different inspirational selection from the ones you are used to seeing here! Kind of different art, but very cool and creative skateboard design solutions you will see here. It’s just amazing what you can put in such small and limited place in the meantime making it look good the way somebody would want to buy it. Definitely masterpiece artworks here! Enjoy!

1. D.I.E. by kiwie

2. FUN by kiwie

3. Places You Can’t Imagine by nopattern

4. MWM 2020 – Cold by MWM Graphics

5. Watch your mouth by spaceknuckle

6. Close Your Eyes by Go Media

7. Bold Is Beautiful by Go Media

8. Tank by vault49

9. VHS Heroes by Hollis Brown Thornton

10. Apple by Diogo Parrinha

11. Skateboard decks by Karoly Kiralyfalvi

12. Hollywood by Nils Carlson

13. Skull #1 by Silent Skateboards

14. Gorilla Monsoon by Calavera Comics

15. Lichen by Tavish

16. Lil Rob face by Wildgrinders

17. Colourful graffiti design by Martine.A.Eisenlohr

18. Graffiti Skateboard Deck by sk8terdude234

19. Asymmetry by gtran

20. Black Sheep by Libertymaniacs

21. Truckin chimp by extrapoint

22. Lucky In Love by billoneil

23. Rooster by extrapoint

24. Origami Madness by afewselectedworks

25. Toyhippo by Undertow Design

26. UK Dirty Vintage by Ricaso Decks

27. Birds Deck by koivo

28. Safari by Nod Young

29. Mosaic by Anthony Dart

30. Skateboard Artwork by Nathan Matthews

31. X Design Serie by juanangeldibuja

32. Jart logo by juanangeldibuja

33. Funny Finger by MrJuanPollo

34. Yes Fly Zone by Ovrbored

35. Japan Design by Taylor Pemberton

36. Zoo York & Makeset Decks by Damien Correll and Mike Perry

37. Revenge Saved My Life by Patrick Carter

38. Alai Skateboards by Ruben Sanchez

39. Skate Decks by Jesse Sanz

40. Savage Series by Jonathan Sherwood