Background Repeat Gives Big Visuals Without Load Lag

Sometimes you want to give your site more visual pop, but don't want art to add to the load time of your site. Images have a lot of information and can cause impatient viewers to bounce before they load. Recently I was reviewing my site in order to change the look a bit.

It was okay, but I knew it could be better. I decided that I wanted a linen look to the background...something that would further the theme of a deskpad or wallboard. I found a nice jpeg, used the slice tool and saved a slice that was 16 by 800 pixels. Then added it to css under body.





body {background-image: url(../images/Linen_05a.png); background-repeat:repeat-x;}



Since the slice was long and thin, I had it repeat horizontally. If your slice is wide and short have it repeat vertically by using "repeat y" in the command. If you are dealing with an image that is short and thin, you would repeat both x and y by just using the command "repeat".



With minimal effort and no load drag, the site went from ordinary to interesting.

You can find pictures of textures that lend themselves to slicing and experiment on your own site. It gives a little extra flair to the look, and is easy to remove if you don't feel it works.

Slideshow

Winning with Wordpress

Sometimes a client wants a level of interactivity that requires more than Dreamweaver and Jscript. If you want to provide an agile site in a timely manner, consider using WordPress. It is no longer just a blog platform. WordPress has grown into useful contact management software which gives designers the utility of Php without requiring them to speak that language.

They have a variety of themes to choose from and with a little time and effort; you can use a minimal template to pretty much call your own shots. What it gives you in return is a quick, effective way to provide blogs, static pages, forums, videos and easy interface with third party software. The amazing thing is that it’s free!








While it may take some effort to feel conversant, it is more intuitive and user friendly than straight HTML and CSS. Practice makes, if not perfect, at least palatable, and there are tons of tutorials and troubleshooting pages that address most anything you may want to know.

Recently I was working on a website which needed to look like a regular website, but include a blog, forum, donation page and gallery. I knew that WordPress would have the answers I needed, and it took only a short time to discover under Reading in Settings, you can make the home page a "static" page and your blog page in blog "loop" format. See the image below.

The forum was provided by a plug-in called Mingle Forum which can be uploaded in zip format to your WordPress site. There is other forum plug-ins out there, but this looked very compatible with WordPress and proved to be so.








The point is, WordPress is a wonderful tool created to be compatible with a world of widgets that make a designer's life so much easier and productive. While I love Dreamweaver, WordPress is earning my respect as a fine content management tool which gives wings to my designs.

Review and Revise

In the excitement of making a website, it is tempting to be carried on the euphoria of the right-brained creative impulse. It was this intuitive brain mode which caused me to ignore accepted concepts which tell the web designer that less is more:  less curlicues on the font (san serif), concentrated content, less colors. I was infatuated with the end product of a less than analytical approach to my personal website, and published it.

After the initial flush of infatuation wore off, I could see that my site was overstuffed and too wordy. The golden seconds in which you either catch your viewer's attention or cause them to bounce had been squandered on self-indulgent excess. I needed to cut the fat.

Replacing the fussy serif font with Verdana, trimming the text, coordinating font colors and bringing the right column flush with the top of the middle column streamlined the look. Cutting the word count allowed me to make the main body a larger font size making it easier to read.

To see the transformation page for page check out this slideshow:Revision

Server-Side Scripts and Other Dark Arts

Website Development is sometimes divided into two camps: the design afficianados who love to make wireframes, wield Photoshop and choose fonts; and the code wizards who have crossed the divide from XHTML, CSS even Jquery and Jscripts and have journeyed to the borderlands of PHP, ASP and server side scripts.

To some of us, coders are an obscure lot, clothed in mystery and arcane knowledge. Their incantations protect against SQL Injection Attacks, conjure variables from contact forms and deliver the contents to Webmasters' emails.  Since it is based on C, it allows its creator to go beyond server-side scripting, and create client-side GUI applications that work on most platforms. For many of us it causes the knee-locking terror usually saved for advanced math.

Recently, I needed to implement a reliable contact form along with a form processing script. Unfamiliar with the shadowlands of php, the project held all the appeal of a root canal. Anyone who knows me will affirm that I am not a quitter. I think of this as a positive trait: perseverence. My friends and family, though tend to describe it as obsessive compulsive disorder and find it annoying...The bottom line is, that I read blogs, took tutorials, scanned scripts, wrote and tested and pulled out enough hair to contribute to Locks of Love. In the end, I produced a contact form that not only functioned properly, but fit well into the website I was working on.

Some of the sites I found useful were:

NFriedly Tech Blog, Daaq net, YouTube, New Think Tank, and the W3CSchools. A little spin on your favorite search engine will reward you with numerous sites willing to share: information, free downloads and troubleshooting. In my opinion, it is worth taking the time to sift through the piles of information to gain a foothold in Php. I hold with the old saying :


    Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

Life is What Happens

"Life is what happens when you're busy making plans" is often ascribed to John Lennon. Some cognoscenti said it predates Lennon, but that isn't as important as the message the phrase conveys. A lot can slip by when you are focused on other things.


I know this, because it has been months since I have posted to this blog. Granted, there was a lot going on in my life then, but rather than charting and steering the course, I was swept down the raging rapids. When I finally reached still water, I was amazed at the time and opportunities lost.


In Web Design and SEO it is particularly important to not only make plans, but also to implement them. Success in this arena requires juggling many projects, with diverse steps and keeping each one moving forward as if it were the only one.


Since Web Design and SEO are both science and art, it is not a surprise that many of us can be seduced by the creative, right-brained tasks where our only constraints are the borders of our imagination. Time and project management can suffer as a result. Remedies can include project analysis, careful scheduling, and a realistic take on our capabilities and limitations. While it is tempting to schedule based on best case scenario, it is better to plot some time for the unexpected.


Project management software can take some of the work out of moving diverse projects forward, but are only useful when they are given the proper weight in our work plan. Take 20 to 30 minutes at the start of the day to get an overview of all projects to see that they are scheduled properly. Then we can devote our attention to the more right-brained tasks which give our work that signature style. Remember to factor in unexpected interruptions. Allow for callbacks and customer contact. Acknowledge the fact that there will be times when the answer isn't as clear as first thought. Then, remember that we are getting paid for doing what we love, and resolve to do what it takes to make it shine.

The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of

People claim that Michaelangelo said that his great sculptures were already inside the marble he carved, that he just got the extra stone out of the way. There is genius in that statement. Every work of art is a fusion of materials, subject matter, artistic inspiration and even random experience in the artist's life.

The purpose of art is to communicate...an emotion, an idea, whatever. Creative works are not static. They are changed by the interaction of the viewer. The audience brings their own interpretation of the work.

Though I do not presume to say that what I do is high art, it is influenced by works that I have seen, heard and experienced. I often seal out the noise of the real world by a set of ear buds and my favorites on my MP3. What I listen to often influences my work, and I gear the music toward the project at hand.

Sometimes a photo catches my fancy and spins my site construction in a whole new direction. Recently my impulsive inclinations turned my format of a personal blogsite into a Southern Gothic nightmare. In my defense, I had 6 hours sleep and nothing to eat for13 hours.

People I know and respect tried to give their advice in a gentle way. They used the calm, quiet voice usually reserved for a rabid animal. It was then that I had an "out of body" moment, seeing the careful impassivity of their faces which were glistening ever so slightly, I realized that I was turning into the crazy aunt in a Southern Gothic novel, and it was time to return to sanity. I scrapped the florid graphics and jungle-wild format for something closer to conformity. After all, the content was shocking enough.

SEO Charting Your Path

Well designed websites require more than attractive composition, graphics and fonts. Designers must write with clarity, speak with authority and read clients’ minds. We are wizards with XML and Photoshop and Dreamweaver. And we can craft deathless prose that would charm the scales off a sidewinder. It is sometimes difficult not to be blinded by our own shining abilities.


What we may fail to recognize, is that a website without traffic is like the Mona Lisa in a closet. If Shakespeare hadn't actually presented his plays to an audience, or published his sonnets, he would be just another anonymous rube of Renaissance England. The most beautifully crafted website would be just another unfulfilled promise if no one clicked on the site. So, although aesthetics rank high in the world of Web Design, having that design show up on page one of a search engine is even more imperative.


Search engine optimization is the step that brings buyers and their bank accounts to the site. It cannot be an afterthought to be dealt with once the important work is done. A successful design must integrate SEO from the word go. It requires a thorough understanding of the industry showcased by the site. It has its own magic spells. Key words should be used early and often. Content should be organic to the industry. The result should be like a Nakashima table: design drawn from the essence of the medium.

The marketplace on the World Wide Web is an interconnection of virtual communities. It helps to have a reputation because there are no secrets in cyberspace. There is no instant answer that can take the place of relationships built on positive interaction. You can, however, shine your web presence by doing a little pro bono work. The hour spent on an informational site which educates readers, also builds credibility and repays the worker many times over.

Image Above: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net