Website Designers and Webmasters

If you still are using Internet Explorer, let me share with you the best internet browser, bar none:

Firefox

There you have it, go get it. More secured browsing, and more capabilities. For example:

Have you noticed how ANNOYING the banner ads have been getting? They are freaking annoying. Like those “true” commercials on myspace… annoying. Well have no fear, Firefox is here with the sweetest extension ever!

AdBlock Plus

With this extension, just about all knows banners disappear! (Select the first option after installing it, and it will use a continually updated list to keep you protected from annoying banner ads!)

-The Internet is Friendly again… okay maybe not friendly… but at least bannerless…
-Ashton Sanders

If you need a good laugh along the same lines of my recent annoyances with Century Tel Problems, it looks like AOL is even worse than Century Tel! I don’t know how that is even possible, but check out this:

Vincent Ferrari called AOL to cancel his AOL account, and it took 21 minutes, which isn’t really that impressive, but what is really amazing is the four minutes of recorded dialog with the customer service representative.

Check it out here:

Cancel AOL in 21 minutes

SOOO FUNNY!!!

Hahahah! That is a a very vivid horror story with AOL.

-Where has Customer Service gone?
-Ashton Sanders

On the subject of how to get things done as quickly as possible, here is the first Speed Tip.

Increase Speed while copying text

The web is full of tedious work, from having to manually input eight thousand products into a database to converting a site into a new format. Yes, it is totally impossible to work on the Internet and not end up having to do some extremely tedious work at one time or another.

Take today for an example: I had 70 straight HTML pages that I was converting into a PHP-included layout where the page’s title, meta description and meta keywords were all variables. So I had to go to the page source, copy the title, go to my new page, and paste the title… go to the page source, copy the meta tag… etc., etc., etc.

While selecting text (the “<title>” for example), you normally have to go the start the line (right after “<title>”), drag to the end of the line (right before “</title>” and then copy.

Heres the Speed Trick
If you double click on the first word, it will automatically select that entire word. If you hold down that second click, you can drag to the last word, and select each word at a time (; not each letter at a time). This way you only need to go to the first word and drag to the last word to make your selection.

“Whoa.. big whoop… save twenty pixels of mouse movement….” No, it’s better than that, you don’t have to waste time trying to get right to the front of the word. It gives you a much larger target, and thus it takes less time to “aim.”

-Ashton Sanders

Regardless of your profession, your speed and ability to get things done quickly will make or break you. This is especially the case in the field of website design and development where almost everyone has a story of working with a “really slow” website designer, web master, etc.

At Websites in a Flash, I always am working on improving my speed no matter what the project.

“But you get paid by the hour. Who cares how long you take?” – Lazy

An sloppy and unethical business man will have this opinion, but a website designer who’s goal is to create high-quality, professional websites on or before the targeted completion date won’t care.

I feel that speed is one of the most important factor (seconded only by quality). That is why I call my business Websites in a Flash!

-Keep it moving
-Ashton Sanders

This is what I call CSS tip in 30 seconds:

It is very useful to be able to put your navigation bar or side bar at the bottom of your HTML, and absolute position it to appear up on your site where you want it to go. This is actually pretty easy.

If you just want it to be along the left side of your screen and lets say 100 pixels from the top (for your header), this would be your code:

#leftnav {
position:absolute;
top:100px;
left: 0;
}

If you want your navigation bar to go along the right, obviously you would replace “left” with “right”.

Here is where it can get complicated: What if your layout is a fixed width, centered layout? Then you cant just align the navigation bar off to one side, because that would not stay inside of your layout, it would jump all the way off to the side. Here’s what you would do for a 1000 pixel width and centered website layout:

#leftnav {
top:100px;
right: 50%;
margin-right: -500px;
}

Quick Explanation: “right:50%” causes the right side of your navigation bar to be exactly in the middle of your screen. It doesn’t matter what size screen you have, it will always be right in the middle. Then the “margin-right:-500px” moves the entire navigation bar 500 pixels to the right. So in essence, the navigation bar will always be 500 pixels to the right of the exact middle of your browser! That way it looks permanent, and won’t move as you shrink your screen.

Another Note: If your navigation bar is going to the left side of your screen, here is another option: If you leave the side bar or navigation bar without the absolute positioning, and it appears directly below where you want it, then if you leave off the “right” or “left” in your CSS (leaving only “top:100px”) your navigation bar will move straight up to the top of the screen, and stay where you need it to be.

-CSS in a Flash!
-Ashton Sanders