How Your Web Presence Affects Your Reputation

I've had arguments with various people about what makes or breaks the reputation of an individual or group. Given my personal experience I'd say, hand on heart, it's conduct, i.e. what you actually do. That said, other factors play a part and tonight I'm going to look at the role played by your web presence.

Windows 10: I'd Think Twice Before Considering Upgrading If I Were You

Windows 10 has been getting mixed reviews. Some say it's the best OS Microsoft have ever made while others decry it as malware with a pretty face. I've held off on commenting on it till the hue and cry died down. Now I'll tell you what the fuss is about and why I decided not to go ahead with the upgrade.

So You Want To Be A Web Designer: What You Should Know

I've been fooling about with HTML, CSS, and PHP for years as an amateur, setting up small specialist forums, then moving on to galleries, blogs, and other CMS (Content Management Systems). I even had a go at setting up a ZenCart ecommerce site but the owner wanted to tack on some pages and a gallery as well. The result was a multi-platform site that I could probably have done better on WordPress. When temp work dried up and I had to claim benefits, the benefits advisor suggested I turn my hobby into a business. This is what I learned.

Alternative Browsers: Seamonkey, Maxthon, And Opera, Oh My!

Well you'd have thought that the browser wars had already ended and Firefox declared the winner, but on the internet, it's never really over. When the browser I've been championing for years, Cometbird, let me down by going all slow all the time for no apparent reason I decided to wait and see what the developers would do about it. The answer, it seems, is either "Wait for Firefox to sort it out" or "Lose interest and quit." I'm unwilling to put up with bad service so I tried some other browsers out. This is how I fared.

The Ten Web Design Commandments

And lo, it came to pass that word came to Wendy Cockcroft of the advent of Web 3.0. An angel of the internet came down and declared, "Blessed art thou, Wendy, for thou hast sought out the web design blogs of knowledge of good and evil, and hast partaken thereof. Now take down these ten commandments of web design and development, and go forth into the world and preach them unto the multitudes."

Fancy Font Effects: How To Make Them Look Good In IE

An issue came up in a Design Shack post about fancy font effects: the tutorials offered by the poster don't work in IE. The good news for designers is that there is code that we can use so IE users aren't stuck with plain, boring font effects.

Why Websites Look Different On Various Browsers

Okay, you've rounded your corners, you've added the shadows, you've cleared unwanted swathes of colour to create your tranparencies...

...why does it look so dreadful on Firefox/Explorer/Opera/etc.?

Is W3C Compliance Necessary?

Web designer Valerie Manlick recently started a discussion on the importance of W3C compliance on Facebook, in which she basically asked whether style was more importance than substance :

Cross-Browser Conundrum: Web Design No-nos

I went for an appointment with a local company last week. It's taken this long to get around to blogging about it because I experienced a massive paradigm shift that changed the way I think about web design. This is what I learned.

How To Create A Custom Search Box

In my last post, I spoke of my frustration at being able to find a variety of solutions, most of which either require putting up with intrusive ads or having someone else, i.e. Google, host the results page on their website. Of course, you'd have to pay to remove the ads. However, after doggedly continuing my search for a way to embed the results on my own site without a revolting result, I'm pleased to announce that I've finally found a solution that works for me.

Cross Browser Complications: Why I Hate Internet Explorer

You're supposed to check your website in different browsers to make sure it works. But I only checked the index page, didn't I?

CometBird: A User's Review

I'm getting used to the new layout of Cometbird. It still loads like greased lightning and does all the things I love it for. Since adapting is what my profession is all about, I'm going to tell you all why I love Cometbird and promote it even though I'm not being paid to.

Hand Coding Or WYSIWYG HTML Editor?

I like to keep up with the latest news on certain websites I'm keen on, and to that end I've added their feed to Google Reader and put the widget on my iGoogle so I can see at a glance if the webmasters or contributors have made any new posts. www.thesitewizard.com has got an interesting article I'd like to comment on here.