I’ve just launched my new website design and I’m pretty excited with how it turned out. It was in desperate need of a renovation as the design had not been updated since I graduated from college over 2 years ago. I’ve learned a lot about design in those 2 years in the real world, and more importantly, furthered my skills as a web developer and this new site design showcases my skills and my design abilities much better. Take a look and let me know what you think!

I swore up and down that I didn’t need another networking site or another site to post on and keep up with.. I guess you can never have enough networking resources But Twitter sounds like it’s pretty fun and you can gain valuable resources, contacts and info from! So I joined Twitter! Follow me if you like, but since I’m new, if I see you following me, I might decide to follow you too.

“Internet Explorer 6 will be SEVEN years old on August 27th. It came out a few weeks before the Twin Towers fell. It came out before the Nintendo GameCube. It came out before the first iPod.”

That is far too old for a browser, especially a non-standards compliant one. As a web developer, I feel the pain of trying to get around the quirks of a browser that just doesn’t support a lot of common things. Everything works great until you test it out in IE6! For those that aren’t familiar with why many are against IE6, here are a few resources to check out:

Save the Developers
Stop IE6
Campaigns to kill IE6

I’m still not quite sure why it’s such an issue for people to switch, there are many many options for a more secure, standards-compliant, and user-friendly browser out there. It doesn’t render images or text nicely and it makes life hard for all of us developers, so do us a favor and switch.. even upgrade to IE7!

FREE browsers that are great!
Download Firefox
Opera
Flock

A funny quote I found recently: “As bad as we may want IE6 to lay six pixels under, the truth is it’s far from dead.” So true.

What are your thoughts on this old browser?

I’ve found a few great designer humor links and videos that are just too good not to share.. enjoy! And share some of your favorite designer humor stuff too!

College Humor video

Small Talk with a Web Designer

25 reasons you might be a hardcore graphic/web designer

You know you’re a graphic designer when…

You may be a design redneck if…

The unspoken rules of graphic design

Google designed with Comic Sans

Are you a web designer/developer? Take this survey! http://alistapart.com/articles/survey2008

So I get it, people don’t like change. If they grew up using PC’s, or at least learned how to use a computer on a PC, they don’t want to learn a new system. But come on, Macs are better for multiple reasons (I could go on and on). Here’s an page on Apple’s site that gives you lots of reasons why YOU should buy a Mac:

http://www.apple.com/getamac/whymac

Here’s my personal list of why the Apple computer experience is just better, not because I’m biased, although I will admit I am biased (I love Apple!), but it is simply a better machine.

• Technically speaking, the components that make up an apple computer are better made and composed of higher quality components than PC computers
• Although some might argue on the contrary, Macs are more user-friendly. Here’s an example: a brand new mac, out of the box, can be set up and running in minutes. How long does it take a PC? Quite a bit longer.
• Macs are attractive machines, the Apple brand is known for being sleek, modern and classy.
• They are now more green – The Mac Book Air has no mercury, no arsenic, low-wattage, less packaging, it’s PVC and Bromine-free, and the new aluminum case is very recyclable.
• Viruses are not a problem because the hard drive is way more secure, which is a VERY big deal if you’ve ever been on a college campus

I’m not trying to put down PC’s, they have a lot of good qualities too, and they have come a long way since the invention of computers. Apple is quite the innovative company and I’m happy to see they are gaining more popularity in recent years, yay for Apple!

Which is your preference, apple or pc?

I love to learn new things and lately it’s been some javascripting with jquery and mootools. It’s amazing what you can find on the internet, and these days you can get tutorials on pretty much anything you want. It is hard to find good ones when you want them though! I collect good ones when I see them, or things that I feel would be useful in my work, so I decided to share my list of good tuts out there, what ones can you add to my list?

jQuery

• jQuery Tutorials – The official jQuery site has some really good stuff, especially for beginners.
• Noupe’s List of the 51 Best jQuery Tutorials – Noupe puts together some pretty rockin lists, and this one is definitely worth checking out.
• Web Designer Wall’s jQuery Tutorials for Designers – These tutorials are awesome, very easy to understand and implement.

mootools

• The Mootorial – There is some good stuff in here but be prepared to read a lot!
• Mootools for the non-programmer – This site provides some great easy tutorials for people that don’t want to read some lengthy explanations (me!)
• 10 Resources for Learning Mootools – Great resources and more links here

CSS Effects

• CSS Swap Hover Effect – This is a fun way to create a hover effect on images
• One pixel notched corners – Round your corners with css, cool stuff
• CSS Page Loader – CSS Tricks tutorial on how to create a page loader when you know you have an image that takes a while to load

Great Tutorial Sites

• nettuts.com – Great tutorials and tips on everything on the internet, lots of jquery and mootools lately! Sister sites with great stuff as well include: psdtuts.com and vectortuts.com
• css-tricks.com – Great CSS stuff here, and he frequently covers other relevant web developer issues as well.
• noupe.com – Not a tutorial designed site, but they have some great tutorials on here for lots of different things.

What have you been really into learning lately, and what are some of your favorite tutorials?