Featured Article: What attracts me most about webdesign

My most recent article entails the reasons why I keep doing web design and what attracts me the most to continue doing it. Everyone has their story, and I have shared my experience about how I got started doing web design in previous articles, but after almost 8 years of doing web design, there is definitely times where I wonder why I keep going at it. There hast o be motivation, and in this article I share my reasons.

Feel free to comment on your reasons too! I would love to hear them.

Check out the article at:

http://www.acehighdesigns.webs.com/articles.htm

Thanks again for continuing to read my blog, you guys are great!

Featured Article: Jason's Top 5 Most LIked Websites

I dedicate A LOT of my time surfing the web. I think I am online most of the day everyday. It really does not matter what I am doing, I am always involved with the web somehow.

I have just created a new article called, "Jason's Top 5 Most Liked Websites", and it basically includes exactly what the title describes. Five of my most liked websites, a short review about them, why I like them, and why these five websites deserve recognition.

I encourage you to go check it out at my website:

http://www.acehighdesigns.webs.com/

Thanks for reading!

Interesting website: Hulu.com

I am a pretty big fan of television, and I try my best to watch a lot of it when I can... but there is always an episode that I tend to miss out on because I have other conflicts.

This bugged me for a long time because then the next episode would come along, and I would be lost in the season and would just stop watching the show. Well, thanks to today's technology, and webdesign in particular, we have the ability to go back to these shows and watch them!

The website is called Hulu and it is a website that houses episodes of television. Their database is stocked with episodes, and they are very quick to post new shows. I heard that they are ran by Google, but this has not been confirmed.

Check it out, I know you will like it:

http://www.hulu.com/

BannerSnack: A Banner Maker

Flash design can be a complex art for many people... you have to know code, a creative sense of mind, and a lot of technical expertise to make sure your banner comes out perfect. Most importantly, how you expected it to turn out.

I have personally experimented with flash design, and it is a lot of work. However, it has come to my attention that a website called "BannerSnack" is offering a way for someone to make a complex animated banner with ease! It uses flash technology, and looks just the way one would expect a banner to turn out.

Check out this easy-to-use program at the link below:

http://www.bannersnack.com/

Please comment on how you liked this program, I would love to hear your feedback!

The future of design and computers

This is more of a post about some things I found while searching one of my favorite video websites, YouTube. There has been a lot of talk about where computers and technology will be in the future. To me, I don't even think we can call these computers anymore because the technology is projected to do a full flip, and hardly recognizable anymore.

The first video is an "thought" of where technology will be in the year 2020.

Where computer's will be in the year 2020:



However, Microsoft has a much more sophisticated (and realistic) idea of where technology will be in just under 3-4 years!

Where computers WILL be in the next few years:



This is pretty scary! The technology looks advanced and very expensive. They project that these computers will be out in restaurants and other complexes in November of this year... wow.

I wonder what webdesign will look like?

Thanks for reading!

Featured Article: How the internet and webdesign is helping the recession today

It's an interesting topic, and most people (maybe not in the education industry) are feeling the wrath of the recession of jobs and the economy in general today. However, us webdesigners are feeding the community with nothing but good opportunity and praise.

This article defends that webdesign has grown to be one of the most valuable tools for businesses, as well as for unemployed persons today.

Go check the article out at my website:

http://acehighdesigns.webs.com/articles.htm

Enjoy!

Web Distortion: 20 Things to Check Before Going Live

One of the most difficult and stressful times I have is the moment right before I am about to release my website. I am somewhat of a perfectionist, and a lot of people think I might have OCD, because I literally go over thing a million times before I can even think about releasing something.

I know that there are others out there that have this problem (maybe not quite as OCD as myself) and so while surfing the latest in the webdesign industry, I came across a checklist that outlined 20 things to check before going live on any website.

Going live without a good first impression can be devastating to a website.. The cost you will have for not releasing with the best possible assets you can will be the deciding factor of whether you site succeeds or fails. It could be the deciding factor between getting a job or losing it.

Don't risk it! Check out Web Distortion's blog post about 20 things you should always check before going live on any website..

Here's the link:

http://blog.webdistortion.com/2008/03/20/a-website-checklist-20-things-to-check-before-going-live/

Good luck!

www.webdesign.fm: "10 ways to chase down your visitors"

Webdesign.fm wrote a pretty good article about the reality of blogging. It basically says straight out in the first sentence that your what you write DOES NOT MATTER. You could be thought of as the best writer in the world, but in reality there will always be someone that is better than you.

Writing blogs really isn't about your content, but your popularity and reputation in the online community. This blog feed gives 10 ways to chase down your visitors. It basically wants to stress the fact that you not only have to bring the best posts that you can to the table, but you also have to do other things as well. Examples really stress visiting your readers blogs, commenting on them, and getting as close to your visitor's as possible.

Here's the link:

http://www.webdesign.fm/10-ways-to-chase-down-your-visitors/

Really makes one think... is blogging about content, or is it about how popular the writer is?

Viget: 10 Things that make your developers go crazy

A recent post in the Viget suggested 10 things that make your developers go crazy. Personally, I found this post extremely interesting, and brought up a lot of good points.

For example, think of all the different changes webdesigner's make to designs to make them look and appear better on a daily basis. I know for the several websites that I worked on that had developers, there was so many times that I changed things without letting the developer know.

This post says that developers go crazy when we webdesigners changed things without them knowing. This can halt the functionality of their work, and is a pet peeve to many.

There are 9 other's I think you should read, I personally found them all pretty interesting..

Here's the link:

http://www.viget.com/inspire/stop-driving-your-developers-crazy#continue

Did you know?

I thought this was one of the most inspirational videos I have ever seen. It is related to Information Systems, which is my major and minor. Webdesign has a lot to do with information systems, because that is primarily what we do... we manage information and create the system, and in the end we really do solve business problems!

This video basically shows people how simple data can be changed into complex information. Without this information, our world would be in trouble, and we would suffer as a world because of it.

Watch the video below:

The good news about this economy

The economy is suffering, company's are downsizing, but webdesign is still on the up and up. Even though this economy is hurting right now, it is still important for companies to recognize that their responsibility to promote themselves via their website is still crucial to their success.

Information in companies are vital to be able to manage. Information systems does not suffer as much in a hard economy as other jobs. Information systems is not expendable. Part of information systems is organizing information to solve business problems. When companies are downsizing they look to people in Information Systems to make a downsize possible. In a way, computers to the work for the workers.

This is good news for us, but no one likes a poor economy. Let's hope it gets better soon.

Music Downloading: Have they stopped?

Over the last few years, news about online music downloading has been pretty frequent. Napster was the introduction to a whole new world of P2P music downloading, video downloading, and anything else you can pirate online.

However, I just ran into a friend the other day who lives in Iowa, and goes to University of Iowa. His campus is one of the biggest offenders, and he recently told me that the record company's have actually backed down from seeking people who download music, because they are actually losing money doing it.

Personally, I can see the reason why downloading music is not right. Like how we all build websites, imagine a person coming along and ripping the design out of your fingers. The infringement on my virtual property would make me pretty angry.

However, so many people do it, and there are other ways record company's can go about this other than skipping right to the legal stuff, that I think that they can do.

Just some food for thought.

Google Chrome

When will we finally see the day when the only browser is a single browser? I mean, I can see where people get the idea that different browsers fit certain people's needs, but browsers seriously have an effect on webdesign and being compliant in different languages.

I personally like Mozilla Firefox, but Google Chrome is now out (http://www.google.com/chrome) and Google is a great company. I am debating whether I try out Google Chrome, but I am afraid that if I do, I will find out that half my websites that I am building do not look right.

Every good webdesigner has their eye out for cross-browser browsing, and knows to make their design look good in any browser. I am hoping that one day we can put this all to an end and just make a universal browser language or something.

Thanks for continuing to read my blog!

Webdesign: A Neverending Story

I have been designing websites since I was 13. Something that I want to express to my fellow webdesigners, or people who may be interested in getting into webdesigns, is that your website is never done.

Every website has an infinite amount of information that could be placed on it, and even if you think that you have completed your webdesign, you are in for a surprise, because no one is ever truly finished.

It is somewhat of a relief but at the same time, it is very stressful to think about this. On one side, you can never expect to have a perfect webdesign, on the flip side no matter how much work you put into the design there is always more you could be doing.

Database articles pending!

I have several articles out pending on www.ezinearticles.com, in which I have given a description of below! When these articles get approved I will be sure to link them on this blog!

Personal opinions of the future of web-design...

Almost every day there is a new website out with a new design, with new content. Have you ever wondered how long society can go updating websites like this? I certainly have. So much that I have formed several opinions about the direction of web-design, and how we will handle this as a society in the years to come.

The Pros and Cons of Flash Websites...

I have experimented with a lot of programs to create websites, and have gotten into my own niche of which programs I prefer to use over others. One program that I have come across has been Macromedia (Adobe) Flash. As a stand-alone program, Flash works great and how it is said to work is pretty much exactly how it works in actuality. However, if you have ever used it yourself, you will probably agree with me that it is not best used in some situations! Read this article to find out my thoughts about why Flash is not the best program to use to create websites. Am I wrong? I would love to hear your feedback and experiences.

Some basic code to make your content more appealing using HTML...

Running a Fraternity Chapter website, I know what type of consequences that giving people the ability to post whatever they feel like can bring! My Chapter website, located at http://www.pse-isu.org/ has a back-end administration system to post to the website. Someone could potentially type a paragraph into a textbox, and whatever is typed in that textbox is fairly easy to automate onto the website. This textbox accepts HTML code in its final result. However, very few people I know even understand any HTML, which greatly affects the visual appeal to the website. Which brings up the main reason for introducing this article… learn some basic code to make your content more appealing!

Stay tuned!

Featured Article: The evolution of technology in my seven year experience of web

It's crazy how technology has evolved over the last few years. Going from basic to more advanced, I really never was expecting the internet to get so complex. In an article I recently have written, you will find personal experiences that I have seen change over the last few years.

Even though it is hard to keep up with the times, the best web-designers keep up with them anyways.

Read this article if you are curious to know my thoughts about how I have seen technology change in just the last seven years!

Here is the link, go check it out: http://www.acehighdesigns.webs.com/articles.htm