I just discovered the photoshop slice tool. Before this I was manually cropping each image I needed from the layout. To think how much time i wasted……..
Design:
- Clean and simple
- Nice colors
- Easy interface
Code:
- Organized
- DRY
- Clean URLs
- Site functional with javascript disabled
User Interface:
- Minimal and simple
- Javascript/AJAX integration
- Unobtrusive notifications
Advertising
- Sponsored search results only
- No banners
- Minimal and unobtrusive
- Free advertising credit available for submitting resources
The most important part of a website (assuming that you have memberships available) is logging in to the website and - even more importantly - signing up.
So first lets handle the sign up. You need to attract users to the sign up page. This is usually done by having a unobtrusive link to the sign up page at the top of every page.
Now onto the actual sign up page. You want as little fields as possible; let people fill in personal information later. Only do the required forums if you can. Aim for 4-8 fields. The less the better.
You want the sign up page to be uncluttered also. All you need are the sign up fields, nothing more.
Now what if the desired username is already taken? They just waited a few seconds after clicking submit to find out they have to try again. So this is a perfect chance to use AJAX. Use some totally advance javascript, so after they fill in a username (make sure to wait a few seconds just in case they aren’t done typing) and send an AJAX request to the server. Then tell the user if its available or not.
Try to avoid email confirmation if possible, only use it if absolutely necessary. Also have the user automatically logged on after registration.
Now onto the login form. First off, try to have it integrated into the page with AJAX so they don’t have to leave the page to log on. Of course, reload the page when they’re done logging in.
That’s it for this article!
This is the first of my “Web 2.0″ blog series. It’ll be a series of posts describing how to make your website Web 2.0.
The words “Web 2.0″ were coined by Tim O’Reilly, the owner of O’Reilly Media. According to him, “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.” In my opinion, this is the way of saying that Web 2.0 is the new age of internet usability, accessability, and user interaction.
Current posts in the series:
<rant topic=”flash”>
I hate flash. I’m serious. Flash is good for some things: Games, animations, video players, etc. That’s what it was made for. But people start going way overboard:
- Logos
- Navigation
- Forms
- Intro Videos
- Advertising
- Entire Sites
And nearly all of the sites that use flash don’t have alternates for people who don’t have flash - and search engines. Talk about bad SEO. And then they have music, special effects that get really annoying. Ugh! And now I’ve heard that Google is going to start indexing flash. This is going to result in an excuse to use more flash and keyword abuse.
</rant>
I registered the domain ResourceFish.com today. I was planning on purchasing hosting later, but it turns out GoDaddy is giving me it for free! Guess that purchasing all my domains from them paid off! Of course, the support will be a piece of shit - they will be glad if I cancel my account. :P But its good enough for testing and stuff. I’ll probably get a new host (ICDsoft.com probably) when I get ResourceFish open for business.
I don’t know if you read my previous post, but Google beat me to the awesome idea I had and was going to do with my Uncle. I haven’t heard any word from him, but most likely its going to get the good ol’ trash bin.
If life gives you lemons though, make lemonade. (Or as I like to say, throw them at somebody!) So I have another project now.
It’s called ResourceFish. I’m planning on purchasing resourcefish.com as soon as I get word from my Uncle. (Or maybe even before that.) It’s a site with resources for everything. Links, articles, tutorials, and more on ASP to zepplins. What do you think?
The idea I was making with my Uncle - a multi-application text message system - turns out to be taken by Google. This really sucks. Not sure what I should do now.
Well, at least I have another idea up my sleeve….. Still, its not as good as this one…..
*sigh*
Over the past few months I’ve been developing a CMS called Project Pygmy. About a month ago I completed it, but only enough to have bare minimal functionality. Now, as I use it more and more, I’m realizing how much there is to be done. But I have to quit working on it because of the thing with my Uncle.
In addition, I have another pretty cool idea involving online resources. But can’t start it now. *sigh*
It sorta sucks that I have so much I want do, but so little time to do it in.
There are three major alternates to gasoline transportation: Ethanol, hydrogen, and electricity. I’ll be discussing each one, the advantages and disadvantages.
Ethanol
Ethanol is a combustable type of alcohol made from plants such as corn or sugarcane. It has decreased emissions, but isn’t very efficient to make. For each gallon of gasoline used to create corn-based ethanol, only the equivalent of 1.3 gallons of gasoline are produced. In addition, it uses up a lot of space to grow the corn or sugarcane - something which we are rapidly running out of - and is thought to be a major cause of the rising food prices.
Hydrogen
Hydrogen can be combined with oxygen to make water using a fuel cell, and in the process output electricity. It has no emissions and hydrogen is very common and inexpensive. Unfortunately, if we were to convert every car in the world to hydrogen, there would be no more platinum - an metal used in the creation of fuel cells - left on the planet.
Electricity
Theres always been a dream of a “labtop car.” A car where you plug it into the wall and drive off in the morning. Although the means to make the electricity to charge the car may offset the advantages of having no emissions from the car, the rapid advance in renewable energy in the recent years may change this. Unfortunately, the cars batteries remain very unefficient, but there is still hope: the spur of battery research should yield an answer.
Final Thoughts
So all these technologies have advantages and disadvantages, with none being a clear winner. Hopefully with research we can find a solution that has no downsides.