Tag Archives: internet

My Top Ten Sites

So I’m going away for a couple of days and won’t be able to post and I came up with the idea of sort of listing my top 10.5 sites. Not necessarily the best on the web but the ones I use the most frequently and find the most useful. Perhaps you might find something you like.

10.5: BogeyWebDesign.com – not even rating a full number, but I’m always updating my site. I’d be surprised if the number of (non me) page views was over a dozen a week, but maybe you’ll find a template or idea you can steal.

10: Smedlock.com – I’m a geek, I admit it. I play Magic the Gathering. And this is one of the best sites to pick up cards on the net and I have never had any problems from them.

9: MySpace – I almost hate to put this one up here. I probably use WordPress more, but I like the fact that you can share information easily with you friends. Not many of my friends have/read blogs or are into CSS and web design. But most of them have a MySpace.

8: Open Source Web Design – A huge, free collection of open source templates from beginners to experts. Stick to XHTML with CSS and you’ll find tons of great designs you can just plug your information to and have an amazing site. For free.

7: Web Developer’s Handbook – A huge collection of resources from Web 2.0 sites, to CSS and HTML tools and all the way down to color pallette generators and free stock photography. Awesome tool for designers.

6: CSSPlay – One of the best collections of CSS on the web. Anytime I need something neat, I look here first. The only problem is that anytime I think I’ve done something original, I usually find that he’s already done it.

5: MeyerWeb – The King of CSS. Enough said.

4: DilbertBlog – Scott Adams’ Dilbert is one of the funniest comic strips out there, especially if you’ve ever worked in a cubicle. The only thing funnier is Scott Adams himself.

3: CssZenGarden.com – The single greatest collection of CSS on the net in my opinion. If I had half the skill of some of the people that have designs on here I’d be all right. Hopefully, one day, I’ll make one and have it accepted.

2: Del.icio.us – This is my new obsession. I love the fact that I can store all my bookmarks in one place, categorize them easily and even share them with my friends. Awesome.

1: Digg.com – I am constantly checking this site for interesting stories, great deals or even some useful CSS and web design stuff. I have yet to post or get an account, but I may yet when I have more time.

Hopefully you found something interesting that you had not seen. I just realized most were design sites, but that has been my main focus the last year or so – so I guess that makes sense. I’m sure I’ll have a revision down the road. What is your top 10.5 sites?

Random Tidbit: Want to get to know me a little more? Of course you don’t. But I’m gonna toss my MySpace up here anyways. Logon and check out my weasel – my ferret Mugsy. She gets top billing because she’s cuter and works for Skittles.

Royalty Free Photos and Palette Generator

So lately I’ve been searching for a little inspiration and I’ve found two tools that when used together are very interesting.  One is Free Stock Photography.  They have tons of high resolution, royalty free images that are interesting as potential backgrounds.  Even just cutting a small portion of some of the landscapes and using them to create a pattern might be interesting.

The problem is when you find an image, figuring out what color scheme to use to best fit the images you have or get from the site.  Well, I found a nice Color Palette Generator that takes in a 600px or less image and gives you a matching palette.  Pretty neat.  I’m hoping to use this to generate some template sites very soon.

That’s all for now.  Been pretty busy at work and updating my site when I get home.  Hopefully I’ll have something to show soon.

Random Tidbit: If you haven’t checked out del.icio.us yet, do it.   Basically, it’s a social bookmarking site.  Meaning you can bookmark neat sites you find and share them with your network of friends.  In addition, it allows you to organize them with tags.  If you’re like me, and most designers, you have a large number of local bookmarks – at work, on your various computers – and no real cohesion.  This allows you to import them from your browser and save them all on there.  So you can have access to your entire bookmark collection and organize them very simply so that you can easily find what you are looking for.  I keep a great deal of mine private, but I’m going to start changing that as I go through mine in the next few weeks.  Feel free to check out my public ones – and send me a network invite if you want.  At the very least, use it.  It’ll save you a lot of time and it’s a cool site to boot.

Designer’s Block

So I mentioned the other day that I’m trying to design a horizontal main style sheet for my site.  I got the idea from the CSS Zen Garden and specifically the pret-a-porter design.  I’ve seen several other ones like that but that one is the most interesting.  It’s not the type of design you usually see online, it’s more of a print based design – and in fact that’s where he got the idea for his from.  But widescreen monitors have taken off on laptops (which is what I usually program on, especially since my desktop problems) so I thought it was viable.  Plus, since you’re using absolute positioning it’s challenging and different them my other designs.

The problem is that I also wanted to use some drop shadowed graphics to try and create depth – a good example being Zunflower.  I think the combination of the two elements would be a striking addition to my portfolio.

The problem?  My seeming inability to get Photoshop to do what I want it to do.  Everytime I tried to create the graphics the other day it was fine until I tried to save for the web and use it on my template.  Then everything broke down – specifically the drop shadow went ‘wonky’ (a highly technical term, look it up).  After several tries I finally gave up.  In talking with a graphic designer friend he suggested I try adding the background to the graphic, but I’m still not sure how that would help.

So now, stuck on this, I’ve spent the last few days ineffectively trying to get back to the design.  I have managed to do a few other odds and ends around the site, but most of those haven’t made it off my local platform and onto the web.  I’ve hit a virtual wall.

I’m hoping the freedom of the weekend will help and get some creative juices flowing, motivating me to get some work done.  I would like to get that finalize so I can get some templates cranked out.  I would like to offer them on some open source sites soon – I’d love to see others use my work.  But only time will tell.

Random Tidbit: It was awesome seeing Big Papi crank a ‘homah’ on the Indians to win it the other night.  I knew the minute he came up the game was over.  In Beantown we spell clutch B-i-g-P-a-p-i.  Hopefully this season will finally convince people that regardless of him not playing the field he should be the MVP (as he should have been last year).  Winning games – with your glove or bat – is winning games.  Period.  It was also good to see Tom Brady stand up for his teammate Deion Branch.  I have faith in Belichick, but come on, he’s a top 5 receiver and he’s making something like $1.5M this year.  We ask so much of them, we gotta give a little back.