Resurrection

Let’s get a post out of the way. What have I found in the last few days that is of interest to all you web-site designers out there?

• Most important is the Invent-A-Word tool at Steve DeGraeve’s site.
  This easy to use tool was incredibly useful in determining the domain-name I chose to use for my new word-press "journal"[1].
• I am sure this has been available for some time (date-stamping webpages would be great!) but I only recently discovered Exploding-Boy (aka Christopher Ware)’s page of "Free CSS Navigation Menu Designs".
  What makes these particularly good is that the CSS is internal, ie. it’s in the HTML. Go on, we all do it: "View Source" with your browser of choice to see how it’s all done.

Side Note:

If you are using Mozilla Firefox and have the Chris Pederick extension (or the latest version which installs with it pre-loaded):
Press "IMAGES" on the tool-bar (fifth from the left), drop-down to "HIDE BACKGROUND IMAGES". You will discover that most of the menu’s are basically the same CSS. What changes in each is what changes when in the a:hover, a:active and a:visited state.

• I designed my own navigation menu a few days ago.
  I cannot recall exactly from where I originally learnt – but I reckon it was AListApart. (Yes, my navigation is incomplete: The text on the subsequent a:hover sections of the image will be finalized shortly). Now I can code them in my sleep!

Most lists have at least 10 sites of interest. Two more and we are done for the day. What am I saying? Post two is already half written!

Are you Del.icio.us?

No, not your dinner, your bookmarks. Let me guess: You have a few megabytes of URL’s sitting in your browser’s "My Favorites" directory – and you can never find anything when you need it? And when you want to find something – it takes hours! Am I wrong?

Don’t fret over it anymore – get these free set of steak knives — wait, wait, wrong spiel: Put your bookmarks online. Now you can access them from anywhere around the world. You can assign categories and ‘tags’ to them, thereby grouping similar sites together. It also recognizes sites you have already added, therefore avoiding duplication! Then you categorize your tags – forming clouds of tags. I love it! Do you?

Still confused?

Then check out mine. I have integrated them into my site. It’s really not all that difficult once you get the hang of it. It’s all very self-explanatory and as simple as moving money on an ATM. Take your time, give it ago – you’ll never "bookmark" a site again.

• Need to find out how to get more people to leave comments? – and more than just "Good post"? These ten methods help Joe-Schmo to get return-readers and persuade those lurkers (ahem people like me ahem) to get involved.

Yes, I must say that I am one of those lurkers. I must really push up the traffic-statistics on all those sites on my bloglines list! When I recently removed my previous blog from the internet, I was forlorn for days on end – and it took me a while to work out why: I enjoy communicating online with people who share the same passion for web-design. When I stopped, I felt incomplete, withdrawn, and lonely. Metaphorically of course! I have enough real-world friends – but none of them have any real interest in web-design, nor even understand half of what I am talking about.

Therefore this post has been very helpful. Go have a read: Did it help?

Isn’t "stephentrenpeneur" just another blog filling up the internet?

Heck no! This is a journal, my journey in the world of web-site design and development. Which, of course, is a never-ending story.