Web Sites

UrbanDirty

Besides the name being awesome.  The site is pretty rad too.  Some gratis textures plus link to other similar sites.

BestTextures Flickr Group

Again pretty cool site. Same reasoning; people sharing and willing to enlighten the novice (->self<-).

Torley Textures

Getting even better.  This site is way cool.  The authors provide bundles of textures they have selected for compatibility.

A t this point, I will provide the websites which are rad and free.  Thank Dr. Simon. Here are the final excellent sites you can visit and learn more about texture and design:

From here the Web sites are more about information than style.

GrungeStyle

This is about the evolution/popularity of grunge style in web design.  It is funny how art in general is reflected across expanses of media.  90′s grunge music being a upheaval against pretty clean music/musicians.  Grunge styling web elements a reaction to clean sterile web 2.0.

Photoshop Tutorials – Textures

Name says it all. The same site where we learned we could get free basic CSS templates gives instruction on PhotoShop texture design.  I’ll be lucky if I can get a white background to turn black, PhotoShop is pie in the sky at the moment.

2007 Web Design Trends (psst check out d url. rubbish = trash. which is funny b/c they are trying to convince us they know trends)(i get my styling info from we know everything about good clothes there website  is weknowrubbishaboutgoodclothes.com.  LOVE IT)

Love #2, #3,#6.  LOVE em!  Swirls, etc are lovely and poetic.  Broken borders are delicious, they make you forget you are sitting at a computer.  The rich colors with gray background is my starting point.  I personally think this is workable awesome.  I started my blog using this theme and want my site to be in a similar vein. The appeal of the others notwithstanding.  If I can create a simple #6 for a hypothetical small biz.  I will be all over these other styles.

Web 2.0 Tutorials Round Up

Um, OK.  I accidentally signed up for like their demo. I hate that.  I cannot give a good opinion about this site based on that.  I find it hard to trust after guile is deployed.

Screen Resolution WW

Well.  Mostly I am human and myself.   Therefore, I think and type.  — This is an informative bit about the importance of screen resolution. I 100% comprehend its importance. I had a computer with where the font was barely discernible after getting a new monitor.

MacDONALD

Ch. 11: Attracting Visitors

We are instructed to build, launch, and perfect our sites.  Also, some free promoting by reciprocal linking to selective sites which draw similar crowds.  I love the straight forward “shameless self-promotion.”  This is achieved by many a variety of ways. One balanced method given was to visit boards/blogs with like-minded people, give helpful advice/knowledge, politely sign and put your url tastefully with your name.

I cannot wait to apply a Favicon.  I am obsessed with them and had no idea they had names and average guys and gals could make and use them.  I hope I can actually do it. Theory v. Application. My never-ending battle.

More about getting seen.  Putting yourself in directories and search engines.  I like the directory Open Directory Project (OPD) and Google.  They seem like the best bet for people just starting out.  It is a little creepy that Google finds your site by itself (eventually).  But my paranoia is superseded by my workload; thus, one less task I have to accomplish on my own.

I love Google more and more as I realize how much they contribute to the education of the masses.  And so it is a tiny gripe I share about the Google Analytics.  I cannot get it to work for my Blog. No matter what I do it will not work, nor does it give me any reasonable (basic) notice for why.  The single link which keeps popping up says Google Analytics not active . . .select  . . .  Analytics Profile . .  (.)  I click the link believing it will lead me to resolve the issue and nothing whatsoever happens.  I am not redirected to a new page and nothing new appears on the current page.

I guess you truly cannot have it all.

Ch. 12: Letting Visitors Talk to You and Each Other

A bit light.  It espouses the need to involve you visitors.  Creating chat boards, blogs.  Using XHTML to build nice and tidy forms people may use to Subscribe, Join, and/or Post questions. Google Groups is apparently a fairly easy way to set up a personal group for your own purposes.

Beaird

Ch. 4: Typography

There are about 9 fonts recognized by the two major OSs.  Boring, boring, snooze.  When dealing with elaborate fonts, consider using a text editor like GIMP to take a image of the font and use it within the site.  This work fine for static small pieces.  For the large non-static fonts JavaScript is suggested.  To keep the text from odd formatting stay monitor text wrapping and column widths.  Some places where free fonts may be downloaded are: 1001fonts; dafonts; wantedfonts