15 Key Elements All Top Web Sites Should Have | Freelance Folder | The Blog For Freelancers And Web-Workers

Any of you that know me know I’m a big fan of the WordPress blogging platform. The platform is so flexible and so widely adopted that labeling it as a blogging only platoform is no longer valid.

For many people, extending wordpress is a daunting task. The idea of writing a plugin or knowing how to code their own theme is a bit too much for them, even though that’s exactly what they would like to do. Well the group over at http://themetation.com have written a comphrehensive article on how to design you own theme. Take a look, it will walk you step by step through what’s required and how to do it.

How To Create WordPress Themes From Scratch Part 1 » Themetation

Spend any time with me at all talking about building and designing websites and Firebug will come in the conversation, I promise. Firebug is a killer plugin for Firefox focused on inspecting and modifying html/css/javascript code in the browser.

If you haven’t used Firebug, the group over at Webmonkey have put together a tutorial. Check it out.

Nice to see some good articles coming from Webmonkey. I used to hit the site almost daily, but haven’t been back for a while.

Build Better Pages With Firebug – Webmonkey

Hey, all you firefox users check this out. When putting together your wireframes or GUI designs try using the new tool from “Pencil Project”. It uses the Mozilla engine, it’s lightweight, and loads quickly.

Instead of firing up illustrator, visio, or photoshop give this a try.

Home – Pencil Project

Great list of sites for templates and general inspiration. I’ve been a big fan of OpenDesigns.org ever since I saw them mentioned in a HOBO screencast.

Readers’ Pick: 16 Sites for Web Design Inspiration – Six Revisions

Yeah, the firebug addon for firefox3 is almost available. I’ve found that I’ve become very dependent on this little tool and it’s not being available in firefox3 is one of the things that has stopped me from upgrading. It looks like the guys at http://getfirebug.com have almost got this working. Nice work guys.

Firebug – Web Development Evolved » Blog Archive » Firebug 1.2b1

his is very cool. For all of you that might not be aware, there’s a great site on the web called Etsy. It’s kind of like Amazon for hand crafted items.  I buy stuff from there often, because A) I like to support individual artists and B) a lot of there stuff is so much cooler than the stuff you find in stores. I get so bored seeing the same things at 5 different places.

Check out this item. I saw it first on the blog, DaddyTypes. This is genius. The artist CraftyHedgeHog has created a disected frog that she knits out of yarn. This is too cool.

Etsy :: CraftyHedgehog :: Knitting in Biology 101

Wow!! I’m really excited about this one. Nicolas Belmonte has created an awesome javascript library that focuses on visualizations. This uses JQuery as the base engine and so far I’m pretty impressed. Nicolas apparently wrote most of this library from scratch, and so far I’m very impressed and having a lot of fun with this. I had done something similar to this using flash, but I never got close to doing anything like this in javascript only.

Great Job!!! Check it out if you get the chance or have a need.

Nicolas Garcia Belmonte
JavaScript Information Visualization Toolkit (JIT) at noumena

For all you would be site designers who have that amazing PSD of the site you’d like to have, but just aren’t quite sure how to go to the next step. Of if you don’t have a design yet, but would love to work through the steps of creating your photoshop wireframe and then converting it into a working site. Check out this great tutorial. At the bottom of the photoshop tutorial, there is a link to another tutorial about converting your new photoshop image into html.

PSDTUTS – Photoshop Tutorials and Links – Create a Sleek, High-End Web Design from Scratch

For all of you that have been following the “You suck at photoshop” series the two guys behind it have finally been revealed. Some people thought it was Dane Cook. While that would have been interesting to see another side of that guy, I didn’t think it was very likely. If you haven’t had a chance check out the series you really ought to.

The Photoshop Guys Revealed! – TIME

Here’s a link to episode 1