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Web Design


The top 5 dumbest things Web developers do today

Saturday, March 24th, 2007 by Chris Jason

The Web is certainly much different in 2007 than it was in 1997 when I created my first Web site. There were things back then that were really annoying (under construction .gifs, blinking text, and ugly frames)… I certainly contributed to the ugliness. But 2007 has its share of terrible Web practices too. That got me thinking: what bothers me the most about Web pages today? Here’s my top 5 list of the poorest things Web developers are doing in 2007.

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What’s the difference between HTML and XHTML?

Sunday, July 16th, 2006 by Chris Jason

If you’ve mastered HTML, you’re 90% of the way towards using XHTML. They’re actually very much the same thing—tag-based markup languages used to display Web pages. The difference is only seen by the people creating the pages (Web designers, programmers, etc.) and focuses on “forgivability”— HTML allows for some ugly code (mixed case tags like <BoDy>, improperly nested elements, and unclosed tags), while XHTML does not. If you write HTML, it’s probably a good idea to start using XHTML practices anyway. It will take 5 minutes to learn, and it’s just a better way of doing things.

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What’s the difference between <span> and <div> tags?

Sunday, January 15th, 2006 by Chris Jason

<span> and <div> tags both allow a Web designer to style text and add other formatting attributes to their Web page. They are not interchangeable tags, though. <div> tags are block-level elements, whereas <span> tags are not. This article explains this, and other differences, between <span> and <div> tags.

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Prevent files from being indexed with robots.txt

Monday, December 5th, 2005 by Chris Jason

It is common to publish Web pages, images, and other files on your Web site that you do not want everyone to see. By using robots.txt, you can make broad declarations about which files are browsed by robots (and potentially found by users) and which files are hidden (unless you tell someone exactly where they are!).

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.GIFS vs. .JPEGS: Which image format should I use?

Monday, September 5th, 2005 by Chris Jason

This question arises often for web designers and developers, but can also apply to anyone using a graphics program to produce compressed images.

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What display (screen resolution) should I design my website for?

Sunday, August 21st, 2005 by Chris Jason

A nice web design is worthless if it can’t be seen by, in an ideal world, EVERYONE that accesses your website. A common question often asked by new web designers is, “What dimensions should I make my design?” Currently, the answer is simple: slightly less than 800 x 600 pixels.

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Web design: audience is everything

Thursday, August 11th, 2005 by Chris Jason

British researchers recently found that men and women have distinctly different tastes when it comes to “good web design.” Are any of the study’s results useful to web designers? Maybe. But the study does serve as a good reminder of what constitutes effective web design. Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your next site.

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