Image by soundfromwayout.

No matter what size mattress you have, it’s not going to fit in your washing machine, so you need to clean it where it stands. Strip the sheets and immediately blot up all the liquid you can with some thick towels. A Shop-Vac or handheld shampooer with a water extractor attachment is great for sucking out liquid trapped deep in the bed.

If that doesn’t work, housekeeping blog Home Ec 101 has an idea for a last-ditch effort:

As a last resort, for a mattress that is no longer under warranty, consider steam cleaning, but approach the job with care, try not to get the mattress too wet, and remove as much moisture as possible with the unit. Allow the mattress to dry fully before replacing the mattress pad.

Of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so once the ordeal is over, invest in a good mattress pad to protect your bed from future mishaps. Hit up the post for more tips on caring for your mattress and ways to keep it ship-shape year-round.

Do you incorporate mattress care in your monthly housekeeping routine or do you change the sheets and forget about it? Talk about it in the comments.

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As you can see in the screenshot, the thumbnail previews don’t include wallpaper—the background is just white, for better visibility—but they do show the icon and widget layout so you can identify which screen’s which. This type of screen-switching will be familiar to virtual desktop lovers, or folks who use Spaces on OS X.

Android continues to live up to its reputation as “OS by Easter Egg,” Jeff Jarvis’ description . If you don’t want to have to hunt down every egg yourself, here’s Android 2.1′s best features in screenshots.

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Are you concerned that people might be trying to read your text messages or e-mails while your iPhone is left unattended? As the saying goes, there’s an app for that.

iTrust (iTunes link) bills itself as the first keylogger for the iPhone or iPod touch. While it isn’t quite a true keylogger, it does employ a pretty nifty trick to track attempts to bust into your home screen.

Rather than try to explain how iTrust works, just watch this video clip:

Basically iTrust uses an image of your iPhone homescreen to fool other people into interacting with the device. It will then record where people touch on the image so you can see any attempts. Of course, iTrust does have one fatal flaw — if you press the home screen button after you are already on the page the app will exit and whoever is trying to peek at your mail can go right on peeking. Of course, they can probably delete all traces of using iTrust as well.

For $0.99, this is a cute idea. However, for the guy or gal who really is concerned with a significant other reading your text messages, we have two suggestions: 1) Use a passcode (that they don’t know) to lock your home screen. 2) Evaluate if you really want to be in a relationship with someone who likes to try to snoop through your text messages.

Have you ever spied on a current or former SO’s e-mail? Did you cover up your tracks? Let us know!

[via Gizmodo]

Tags: iphone app, itrust, relationships

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If you’ve visited Google.com since then you’ll see they’ve given up some home page real estate to highlight the tragic event. The home page now features the following sentence:

“Information, resources, and ways you can help survivors of the Haiti earthquake.”

The sentence links to an information page about how the public can help disaster relief in Haiti, complete with donate buttons for UNICEF and CARE, processed by Google checkout.

As well as using their popularity to spread the word, Google has announced they will be donating $1 million to the relief fund.

Not to be outdone, Yahoo and Bing also feature Haiti on their home pages. Yahoo highlights an article about texting to support Haiti as their lead story and also includes a small link for donation options. Bing features two small links labeled “How you can help Haiti” and “Get the latest earthquake news” below the fold, at the very bottom of the page.

If you want to donate to Haiti disaster relief, you can visit the Google link above or contact one of the many charitable organizations in the region directly.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How Google Helped Haiti

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Lifehacker reader Snecx calls Malaysia home and has a spacious living room there which serves as his home office. Over the last year he has been steadily revising and tinkering with the layout to meet his needs, starting with the scenic and simple workspace above and expanding towards converting the corner into a small office complete with multiple monitors and whiteboard. Check out his entire Flickr set to see all the steps in between.

If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.

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Sling Media has been producing one of the hottest gadgets of the past few years. Their humble looking set-top box, the Slingbox, when attached to your home TV, will let you view the content you record at home over the internet. Typically, one would view this content over a laptop or cell phone. Sling Media has shown off the Slingbox 700U, a model that would be sold through TV service providers.

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Silver PAC has announced a new smart thermostat with a detailed graphical display to manage both home temperature and energy consumption.  The Silver PAC SilverSTAT 7 provides a lush, graphic display of temperature and energy use data with a wireless connection for mobile management of your home’s climate.

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Sony announced a new fully-packed home theater cabinet that comes already filled with a bunch of high-end Sony AV gear. The cabinet comes with everything you need for high-def on the go, as it includes a Blu-Ray Player, a high-def projector, headphones, active speakers, and a 60-inch projector screen.

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D-Link took the covers off of two new routers at CES this year, the Rush, a powerful new wireless device that can boost the speed and connectivity of your existing home wireless network. The D-Link Wireless Pocket Router was also shown off, a new pocket-sized travel router.

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• The Best Times to Buy Anything, All Year Round
  You’re always hearing about off-season, post-peak times to save money on purchases and food, but it always arrives too late. We’ve compiled a timeline and lots of best-time-to-buy suggestions into one post to help you plan a more frugal 2010.
• Current Crop of Smartphones: A Cost and Feature Comparison
  Cost-comparison web site BillShrink hits it out of the park with a handy infographic comparing the cost and features of the current generation of smartphones: the Nexus One, the Palm Pre, the Motorola Droid, and the iPhone 3GS.
• Resolved: Keep Your PC Clean, Safe, and Backed Up in 2010
  It’s the start of a new decade, and while you’re busy making resolutions for yourself, you shouldn’t forget about your PC. We suggest making a resolution to keep your PC clean, safe, and backed up for 2010.
• Use Better Tools to Be a Better Student in 2010
  Despite the proliferation of laptops and netbooks, the vast majority of students still use their computers like $500 typewriters. Stop working so hard and be a better student by leveraging some clever computer tools to your advantage.
• Top 10 Mind Hacks for Making Your Resolutions Stick
  Nothing but the strength of your convictions can keep a self-improvement promise going for at least 365 days. You can, however, boost your chance at success and outwit your worst habits with some motivational devices and clever thinking.
• WineBottler Turns Windows Programs into Standalone OS X Applications
  Mac only: Wine has always been popular among Linux users for running Windows programs, but Wine is available for Mac, too—and now, free utility WineBottler can “bottle” Windows programs into separate application bundles that run as standalone Mac apps.
• What’s the Best Way to Share Files Across Multiple Home Computers?
  Dear Lifehacker, We’re a large family with several computers in our home. What’s the best way to share files across our home network rather than putting them on thumb drives and running from PC to PC?
• How a $530 Nexus One Might Actually Make Sense
  You’ve probably heard about Google’s Nexus One launch today, with a cost of $180 with a two-year T-Mobile contract and—wait, $530 without? Actually, that math might make sense, as blogger Ben Ferguson shows in his cost breakdown.
• Web 2.0 Suicide Machine Offs Your Online Identity
  Sure, joining Twitter and Facebook seemed like a good idea at the time, but maybe you’ve changed your mind and want your life back. Web 2.0 Suicide Machine erases your persona like you were never there.
• How to Survive a Job That Makes You Miserable
  The economy being it what it is, jobs aren’t exactly growing on trees. If you’re stuck in one you hate, here are a few ideas to make it bearable until something better comes along.

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But found a video and it seems that there are some silly stuff you can still try on your mobile device according to Sam of VideoJug.

1. Step 1: Open your car

   There is some dispute over how and when this works. It certainly depends on you having the right locking system on your car, and even the type of mobile you have, so give it a whirl and see if it works for you

   If you somehow lock your cars key fob in the car, phone someone at home who has the spare. Bare in mind it must be a mobile to mobile call. Get them to press the open button whilst pointing the fob down the phone. Meanwhile, hold your phone about a foot from the car. With a bit of luck it will open.

2. Step 2: Check for a faulty microwave

   Put a mobile inside your microwave and give it a ring. The oven is designed to keep microwaves in, so if it rings, you may well be leaking waves all over the place, and should get it checked. There is a small gap for waves to escape, but it should at least dramatically limit the signal.

3. Step 3: Mobile phone throwing

   Start training for the mobile phone throwing world championships in Sweden. This started in 2000, and marks are awarded for distance and creative choreography. 95.53m is the unofficial world record, thrown in England in 2007. The minimum weight is 220 grams, so don’t try and throw one lighter than this, as that would just be silly.

You don’t believe me? lol then check out the video below.

Cellular & Mobile Phones:
Stupid Things To Try With Your Phone

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Getting passed the fact that this Panasonic HDTV is a plasma TV, I still wouldn’t get one even if I had all the money in the world and the giant home to house such an impressive monster. After all, why get such a monstrosity when one could revert to a high-end projector instead?
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LaCie has been one of the leaders in the home digital media set-top box market, and at CES they’ve unveiled their newest creation, the LaCinema Mini HD – a new HD-ready digital media box for getting your digital content onto a big HDTV.

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Let me know what one you like the best. I think the Heinz empty bottle is one of the most creative. Also, I’m sure there are many other cool error 404 pages out there and we would love to hear about them. If you find any more creative ones, please drop us a comment!

Error 404 Compilation…

Heinz

* * * * *

Martin Korner

* * * * *

Suspended Animations

* * * * *

404 Train

* * * * *

Red Tag

* * * * *

Error 404

* * * * *

Renet Web

* * * * *

Error 404

* * * * *

404 Not Found

* * * * *

CSS Tricks

* * * * *

Home Star Runner

* * * * *

404 Error

* * * * *

24-7 Media

* * * * *

WP Beginner

* * * * *

Fotolia

* * * * *

Frye Wiles

* * * * *

Jack Fig

* * * * *

Fortune Cookie Error

* * * * *

iStock Photo

* * * * *

Apartment Home Living

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Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

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Today DivX and LG Electronics are announcing a strategic alliance to bring the new DivX TV Internet TV platform to the next generation of LG’s Blu-ray players and home theater systems.

Internet TV is a hot trend at CES 2010, with tons of manufacturers lining up to show off devices that promise to make it easier to connect to your content, whether it’s on TV, a computer or a mobile device.

Like Boxee and the Boxee Box, DivX TV aims to bring Internet content to your TV screen and allows you to stream local media from your computer.

Check out this video:

When DivX TV launches it will include a number of channels and partnerships for different video, movie and music services — plus social networking and photo-sharing sites. The current list of DivX TV partners and channels include:

Associated Press
blip.tv
Break
CNET
Roxio CinemaNow
Dailymotion
Diggnation
Pandora
Picasa
Revision 3
Rhapsody
TED
Tekzilla
The Street.com
Twitter
VBS.TV

As a media fan and a home theater buff, I’m thrilled that users are being given so many different options to bring all types of media to the living room.

What do you think about the future of Internet TV? Let us know!

Tags: boxee, CES, CES 2010, DivX, divx tv, iptv, television

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Home Electronics giant Sherwood showed off the iNet 2.0, a powerful new iPhone dock that is filled with new features. The most noticeable thing about the iNet 2.0 is it’s big 8-inch touchscreen display. As an iPod/iPhone dock, it can play music off of your device with a bigger set of speakers, but the features don’t stop there.

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One of the best parts that I remember about working in an office is the relationships you build with others. We all spend so much time working; sometimes it is easier to see your co-workers more often than your own family.

If you are single, you might even take this to the next step. What if you have a crush on your boss? What do you do? It certainly isn’t professional or appropriate in most cases, but what if you want to take things a step further? This is the stuff that trashy romance novels are made of, and I think it is so much fun.

Enjoy this video on how to seduce your boss. These people at videojug are hilarious. The site says, “Seducing your boss is an ill advised activity. But if you are intent on picking up your boss, here’s our guide to seducing them.” Haha!

I just have two questions. First, does it work the same way if the boss is a male? Second, why did they have to use a guy that looks like such a tool?

Dating Humor:
How To Seduce Your Boss

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Ten years ago, my girlfriend flew home to celebrate new year’s eve in San Francisco, but I had to stay in New York to work, so we spent the turn of the millennium apart.

A friend of a friend threw a party. I attended, grumpily, as shown here.

Ten years ago, but it may as well have been a thousand. Everything is different now. Everything except that I am once again separated from those with whom I would most wish to mark the falling away of old things and the luminous beauty of new beginnings.

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That’s what squids (Squidoo users) call a FREE domain and website at Squidoo.

Very impressive, really.

And these sites are touted as perfect for affiliate marketing, and I think they are.

Just remember to pick the right offer and keywords.

Come to think about it, it’s a little like that everywhere. After all, there IS competition.

So, just for sake of example lets say you have picked an affiliate offer from clickbank and it’s for FREE home electricity from solar panels called Solar Panels HQ. It’s purely for example but in case you don’t know this is a fairly hot topic and it will probably grow.

One of the most popular ways affiliate marketers get traffic to their offer sites is by article marketing with good, traffic producing content and the automatic SEO improvement by means of keyword text links in the authors resource box.

It’s just a GREAT two-for-one!

But there’s a catch to the great free site and domains you can get at Squidoo.

The catch 22 here is that Google will usually only show one Squidoo site in the top ten results. Sometimes, but rarely, two.

In order for Google to show YOUR Squidoo lens you’ll have to make your lens the best one in your group.

Think of it this way…Typically, Google will only pick ONE squidoo lens and ONE Ezinearticles and ONE video.

Having the product name in the title is one of the best things you can do so that Google will want to rank the site for “Solar panels.” Now, we can check out our competition! which is just another way of saying find out who we are up against.

I typed in this search in the Google search box. Type in… site: Squidoo.com “solar panels” and you will see approximately…. �Results 1 – 10 of about 21,400 for site: Squidoo.com “Solar Panels”. (0.27 seconds)�

Gee. That’s a lot. 21,000 or more sites mention “solar panels.”

So how many Squidoo sites are actually targeting that phrase?

Type in allintitle: “solar panels” site:squidoo.com – Results 1 – 10 of about 466 from squidoo.com for allintitle:”Solar panels”. (0.17 seconds)�

Well. That’s less competition. but still quite a few.

Note: I picked one a few months back that came up with 775 in this search and I’m doing OK. But I would prefer LESS!

So I typed in “Home made solar panels” and got, with the allintitle search Results 1 – 1 of 1 from squidoo.com for allintitle:”Home Made Solar panels”. (0.16 seconds)�

DUDE!!! Only ONE COMPETITOR AT Squidoo for Home Made Solar Panels! Amazon (among others) has an affiliate program for solar panels! Some of you aspiring affiliate marketers might want to get going on this!

Checking further I went to Google keywords Tool (type google keyword tool into Google search – you can learn a TON from Google searches) and got 2600 searches per month for “home made solar panels” and “home made solar panel.” You can’t get it much more targeted than that! The best key phrase would have to be “buy home made solar panels” which is a strong indicator of buying intention.

I checked the page one Google results for those terms and I saw that the results were filled with PR3 and PR4 sites.

You can handle those guys! Competition? Nada! You would want to get a few links from .gov and .edu PR 5 and 6 sites and I think you’ll soar right past them with a well targeted Squidoo lens and find yourself with the Holy Grail of Internet marketing. Which would be FREE TARGETED TRAFFIC direct to your offer by way of Google and the other search engines.

It really can’t get much better than that.

This real plan is current at 5PM Dec 24th 2009.

You might want to get moving!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Squidoo – Squidoo Marketing Strategy For Increased Profits

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Gloria Joven, a product
designer at Hommu sent in this recently-completed packaging for a new Spanish brand of
decorative accessories:

"We try to offer a new concept in ‘eco-chic
personalisation’ of the home. It is all about suggesting ideas,
transmitting sensations and philosophies of a positive lifestyle during
these complicated times; something which it does through products
manufactured from 100% recyclable materials….

Hommu® decorative vinyl and packs are purposely packed in a recyclable
box with high quality design and finishing. We have taken the maximum
care in the presentation so that product is ideal to present as a gift,
an item for a special occasion or a special day, etc. At Hommu® we make a commitment to contribute to the work of making this
planet a sustainable, balanced and healthy home. For that reason, we
have decided to work only with those suppliers who manufacture
according to the criteria of environmental sustainability and social
responsibility. We only use top quality 100% recyclable material for
both our products and their packaging."

See a few more after the jump.

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Earlier in the week, we got wind of a host of design changes for Firefox 4. As it turns out, you can play an integral part in Mozilla’s design process as it pertains to the new Home Tab.

The new Home Tab is a pretty huge departure from the existing Home button, as it lives in Firefox instead of on the web.

As part of the Mozilla Labs Design Challenge, Mozilla staff want your answer to this question in video form: “The Home Tab – What are some interesting uses of a Firefox-hosted start page?”

The Home Tab’s new placement creates a wealth of opportunity for the browser-maker to improve upon the existing Home page experience. The briefing on the Challenge asserts that they’re not going for yet another iGoogle start page copycat.

The team writes:

“This page will have access to a lot more of the user’s information since it never leaves the browser — history, add-ons, bookmarks, and pretty much anything you can see in Firefox at the moment. This opens up a lot of possibilities, and we’d like to see what you can do with this new-found superpower.”

The challenge isn’t for the faint of heart, however, as you’ll need to create a video — no longer than three minutes — detailing your ideas with a mock-up of your Home Tab ideas. Mozilla has provided a few templates to help with the brainstorming. When you’re ready, upload your video online and tag it with “mozconcept,” and don’t forget to complete the submission form.

Participants have until February 14 to submit their video, at which time voting will begin. On March 15, 2010, Mozilla will announce the Best in Class honor awards for Innovation, Interaction Producible and People’s Choice categories.

[via GigaOm]

Tags: MARKETING, social media

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The definition of a Christmas miracle is pretty broad — most probably include either an undying belief in magic or rampant consumerism. Well, my friends who persist in lingering on the Internets on Christmas Eve, do I have a miracle for you.

Behold: The timeless holiday tale, Home Alone, told entirely via Twitter lists. Currently the project, which has been going on since December 22, only has 126 followers. You can get in on the action here. Put down the spiked eggnog and step away from the mistletoe, this is a real holiday treat.

At this point in what’s being called “The Home Alone Project,” we’re roughly at the part in the movie where Kevin (played by Macaulay Culkin) announces, “When those guys come back, I’ll be ready…”, signifying his intention to give the robbers a run for their money. Still, the tweets are coming in slowly (one every hour or so), meaning the movie still has a ways to go before the credits roll.

While we’ve seen online technology used to tell stories in unconventional ways before, this project has an air of teamwork to it that really gets us in the holiday spirit (provided there’re actually 22 Twitter accounts lending their typing talents). Kudos to the Nation design studio in London, England, for making this Christmas miracle manifest.

Tags: Film, home alone, humor, twitter

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iStopOver is the easy and safe way to save money by renting space in someone’s home as an alternative to hotels.

an inexpensive, comfortable alternative…

• Short-term, home-away-from-home, accommodations for travelers.
• B&B style accommodations, rent directly from the home owner.
• No agencies, no hotels.

http://www.istopover.com/

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Mozilla says it wants to find solutions that answer the question: The Home Tab – What are some interesting uses of a Firefox-hosted start page?

“In the upcoming releases of Firefox, we’ll move the Home button to be a ‘Home tab’ instead. We will keep the existing functionality where you can display a web page of your choice — or disable it altogether — but since we’re moving this page to live in Firefox instead of on the web, there are some interesting opportunities,” says Mozilla Labs. “This page will have access to a lot more of the user’s information since it never leaves the browser — history, add-ons, bookmarks, and pretty much anything you can see in Firefox at the moment. This opens up a lot of possibilities, and we’d like to see what you can do with this new-found superpower.”

Mozilla lists the following as important dates:

• December 2009 – Launch of The Home Tab – Winter ‘09 Design Challenge
• February 14th, 2010 – Submission Deadline
• February 15th, 2010 – People’s Choice Voting starts
• March 1st, 2010 – People’s Choice Voting ends
• March 15th, 2010 – Best in Class honors are announced

More information about the contest can be found here.

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The current plan for Firefox 4.0 is to move the home button down into the tab bar as a stand-alone and always-accessible tab. If that’s not to your liking, you’ll still be able to disable the home tab, or simply set it to a webpage as you might be doing now, but Mozilla is hoping to make the home tab a bit more powerful.

Pulling the “home” concept out of the menu bar and putting it in its own tab means that the page can access much more than just the web. It could, for example, filter through your history, add-ons, bookmarks — or pretty much anything stored in Firefox — and present that data in novel ways. What sorts of novel ways is the part that Mozilla is leaving up to you.

While some browsers are using the blank “new tab” page to display a gallery of thumbnails of favorite sites or recently-visited pages — Chrome, Opera and Safari do this –the dedicated “home tab” is a new twist on browser interfaces.

One thing worth mentioning: Mozilla isn’t looking for a My Yahoo or iGoogle-style start page. That use case is pretty well covered by iGoogle and its ilk. Instead Mozilla is interested in seeing what a browser start page can do with full access to your browser.

One example cited in the Mozilla Labs post is the About:Me extension, which shows you trends in your browsing habits — which sites you visit the most, where you spend most of your time and so on. As the Labs post says, “unlike mainstream portals like Yahoo and MSN, the locally hosted Firefox home tab can potentially offer users an experience that is innately personal.”

If you’ve got ideas and would like to participate in the challenge, create a short video explaining your idea(s). Be sure to include some sort of a mockup showing how your idea works — a wire frame, an image mockup, even a doodle on the back of a napkin. Once you’ve got your idea on video, upload it somewhere on the web and submit your entry using the design challenge submission form.

More details can be found on the Mozilla Winter ‘09 Design Challenge site. The deadline for submissions is February 14th, 2010. Winners, both “people’s choice” and those picked by Mozilla, will be announced in March 2010.

See Also:

• Mozilla Design Challenge: Reinvent Tabbed Browsing
• Mozilla Considers Copying Pieces of Chrome for Next Firefox
• Mozilla Mulls Design Makeover for Firefox 3.7

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• What is this site about?
• Where can I go next?
• What’s new here?

We’ll talk about each in detail in a bit. You can also think of 3 different types of people visiting your home page

• 1st time visitors
• Repeat visitors
• 1st time or repeat visitors reorienting themselves within your site

What is this Site About?

Answering this question is the primary goal of any home page. When a first time visitor lands on your site the first thing they want to know is if they’re in the right place. They’ve likely visited with some goal or task in mind and before spending any time trying to achieve that task they need to determine if there’s a possibility for success.

Naturally this is also more important for 1st time visitors to your site than repeat visitors, but before anyone can become a repeat visitor they need to be a 1st time visitor.

You can’t tell a new visitor everything that’s on your site in a single page, but you can at least let them know what they’ll likely find.

If you offer web design services make that clear immediately. If you blog about pet nutrition, make that clear immediately. What ever it is that sums up what you do, make sure that information is immediately obvious to anyone visiting your site.

An easy way to do this is through a logo and tagline. I’ll point to my own logo and tagline as an example. The site name is Van SEO Design. The last two words (seo and design) are descriptive of what this site is about. The tagline, “people friendly and search engine friendly web design,” expand on the description in the name.

Of course, there are other ways you can answer the what is this about question. Your pet nutrition site could have images of pets for example. You can also write a sentence or two telling people exactly what your site is about. If you design websites, tell people you design websites.

Don’t be afraid to tell people what the site is about, though don’t try to tell them everything. The goal is to quickly let the visitor know they’re in the right place. If your visitor can’t tell what your site is about in a few seconds they’ll be off to the next site.

One last thing to consider here is how well your site is branded. I’ve never been to Nike’s website, but I have a pretty good idea what Nike is about. As long as I see the name or the swoosh prominently on their home page, I’ll know I’m in the right place. Most of us though don’t have the brand of Nike and will have to do a little more. That’s one of the advantages of building a brand.

Where Can I Go Next?

The next question you need to answer is where can your visitor go next. This is important for both new and repeat visitors. Having determined they’re in the right place visitors want to find what they’re looking for.

Your home can only do so much. Your visitors are going to need to see more than your home page to decide to buy from you or hire you. You need to get them deeper into your site.

The main thing here for repeat visitors is to provide a consistent navigation across your site. Make it easy for them to get to where they want to go and otherwise stay out of their way. Search functionality may also help.

Consistent navigation and search can also help 1st time visitors, but even better on the home page is to quickly highlight main sections of the site. This helps answer the what is this site about question while also leading people quickly to where they can go next.

Think about who your visitors are and what they want to accomplish on your site. Find a way to highlight where the visitor can achieve his or her goal and get them there as quickly as possible. Don’t assume everyone will dig through your navigation to find what they want. Direct people to the places they want to go.

You can highlight sections of your site based on your business priorities, your visitor’s likely tasks, your visitor’s personalty types or ideally all three. Choose a primary, secondary, and one or two tertiary goals and direct visitors to them.

What’s New?

Answering this question will be most important to repeat visitors as they’ve been to your home page before and have already absorbed what’s there. Everything on the page is new to 1st time visitors, however, showing 1st time visitors what’s new lets them know the site is active and maintained.

Repeat visitors have been to your site and know what’s there and after a time know how to find things. Showing them “what’s new” increases their interest and rewards them for coming back

Presenting “what’s new” is similar to highlighting sections for 1st time visitors. You’re highlighting what may not have been there the last time they visited and helping them get there quickly. You might also highlight sections of your site that don’t seem to get visited as often as you’d like or that may not be as obvious to find.

You can take “what’s new” a step further and show your visitors “what’s coming.” This can help build anticipation and make another visit more likely. I can visit your site anytime and see what you’ve been up to recently. If you tell me that next Tuesday you’ll be offering a new version of your application or you’ll be posting something I’m interested in, I’m more likely to visit next Tuesday as opposed to sometime in the future.

If you sell products you might have a section for “featured products” or the month’s discounted items. Each rewards people for coming back to your site and gives them something different than the last time they visited.

Example Home Pages

I’ve shown three screen shots of home pages above and below in this post, the current home page here, the atebits.com home page, the apple.com home page, and the home page of Enviro Media Inc.

Van SEO Design

I pulled the home page here, because I tried to do everything I talked about above when creating it. I’ve already mentioned the logo and tagline. Right below both is the heading of the page, which is essentially a rewrite of the tagline. It’s clear in telling you what this site is about and it’s one of the first things you see.

Below this heading there are three boxes, one for my design services, one for my seo services, and one for the blog.

Moving to the right you see the sub-navigation for the section, which is connected to the main navigation for the site The far right is all about what’s new. There are icons to subscribe to the blog as well as popular and recent posts.

It may not be the best home page out there, but it does answer all three questions.

atebits

The atebits home page does a great job of directing visitors to any of the three products the site offers. If you’ve visited the site it’s likely that you’re there for one of those products.

Highlighting those products also helps make clear what the site is about. There isn’t any what’s new content on the page, but there is a link to the blog.

Apple

Apple’s home page is frequently changing. The basic look is always the same, but the content varies over time to emphasize one product or another. The design itself is set up to quickly direct you to one of these products.

The name of the site isn’t mentioned and the logo is hardly emphasized, serving double duty as the home page link. However Apple is a very strong brand and you’d likely already know you were in the right place landing on their site.

Still pretend for a moment you didn’t know the brand do well. The images alone would be enough to let you know what the site was about.

Envira Media Inc.

I discovered Envira Media Inc. by looking through some gallery sites and chose it here to see how quickly I could determine what the site was about and where to go next.

The name Envira does give a sense of something environmental.

The first thing you see is the text “We plant dreams and ideas. Then grow successful business models.” Words like “plant” and “dream” also convey an environmental theme and “grow successful business models” leads to thoughts of startups.

Reading the very first paragraph of the content we see:

Envira Media is dedicated to sustainability. We support and fund environmentally sound business models, as well as manage some of the best socially responsible sites online.

That’s very clear and in a matter of seconds we know what the site is about.

The site also uses consistent navigation and if you scroll down on the home page you see sections for Recent Events and Recent Launch, which I presume are updated periodically.

The home page answers our three questions well and quickly.

Are Home Pages Still Relevant?

Is your home page really the 1st page someone is going to visit? Can’t someone enter your site through any page? If every page of your site is potentially the 1st page a visitor sees, how relevant is it to have a dedicated home page?

In preparing this post I thought it would be interesting to check the stats for this site and see how often the home page is visited 1st and visited in general. The information below is for the last month.

• The home page was the 10th most popular landing page accounting for 1.52% of all landing pages
• The top landing page for the month accounted for 25.75% of all landing pages
• The home page was the 8th most visited page on the site accounting for 2.54% of all page views
• The most popular page on the site accounted for 21.15% of all page views
• Half of the top 10 pages in terms of page views were recent blog posts that have a lot of traffic for a few days before trailing off
• Page views to the home are relatively consistent from day to day
• If I remove the short term early traffic for blog posts the home page is the #3 most visited page on the site and the #4 landing page
• The home page has a low bounce rate, a low exit rate, and visitors spend a fair amount of time on the page on average

While my home page isn’t the top landing page it’s still a fairly popular entry point for this site. That it rises in popularity when looking at page views shows that many people entering on another page still click to visit the home page.

Some will argue that home pages aren’t that important since they aren’t the first page people see most of the time. I suspect that while they may not be the first page people see they might very well be the 2nd or 3rd page seen. How often have you visited a page of a site, liked it, and then immediately clicked to the home page to learn more about the site?

I’d also suggest that home pages serve to reorient people within a site. You enter a site on some random page and click around exploring. At some point you want to orient yourself within the site, which you do by visiting the home page.

Home pages are still very relevant, even if they are less likely to be the 1st page a visitor sees than in the past.

Every Page is a Landing Page

Since every page of your site might be the first a visitor sees, it’s important all your pages do some of the work that a typical home page does. It’s important for every page of your site to answer the three main questions a visitor has, especially the first question.

1. What is this site about? – This is why answering the question with your logo and tagline is such a good idea. Both will be present on every page. A brief intro sentence in your header can also work well here.
2. Where can I go next? – Consistent navigation across your site answers this question on every page. Additionally you want to add links within your page content to other pages where your visitor might go next.
3. What’s new? – You can add a what’s new section in your sidebar so it’s shows on every page. You could also customize your sidebar to show what’s new in the current section or highlight other sections of the site, featured products, etc.

Summary

Your home page needs to answer some very important questions, the most important being what is the purpose of your site. If you fail to answer this question expect very few repeat visits and very few visits that last beyond a few seconds.

Consider who your visitors are and why they’ve visited your site. Help them achieve their goals as quickly as possible and give them reasons to come back again. Stay out of their way on repeat visits and let them know what’s changed since their last visit and what they have to look forward to in future visits.

Home pages do not have to be hard to design or to choose what content should be on the page. Home pages are different (pdf) from the other pages on your site, though. You’ll find it easier to first design your interior pages, starting from the most specific content and working back to the more general home page and using the home page to direct people to those more detailed pages.

Above all understand the goal of your home page is to answer the basic questions a visitor will have when arriving at your site or visiting again.

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• What is this site about?
• Where can I go next?
• What’s new here?

We’ll talk about each in detail in a bit. You can also think of 3 different types of people visiting your home page

• 1st time visitors
• Repeat visitors
• 1st time or repeat visitors reorienting themselves within your site

What is this Site About?

Answering this question is the primary goal of any home page. When a first time visitor lands on your site the first thing they want to know is if they’re in the right place. They’ve likely visited with some goal or task in mind and before spending any time trying to achieve that task they need to determine if there’s a possibility for success.

Naturally this is also more important for 1st time visitors to your site than repeat visitors, but before anyone can become a repeat visitor they need to be a 1st time visitor.

You can’t tell a new visitor everything that’s on your site in a single page, but you can at least let them know what they’ll likely find.

If you offer web design services make that clear immediately. If you blog about pet nutrition, make that clear immediately. What ever it is that sums up what you do, make sure that information is immediately obvious to anyone visiting your site.

An easy way to do this is through a logo and tagline. I’ll point to my own logo and tagline as an example. The site name is Van SEO Design. The last two words (seo and design) are descriptive of what this site is about. The tagline, “people friendly and search engine friendly web design,” expand on the description in the name.

Of course, there are other ways you can answer the what is this about question. Your pet nutrition site could have images of pets for example. You can also write a sentence or two telling people exactly what your site is about. If you design websites, tell people you design websites.

Don’t be afraid to tell people what the site is about, though don’t try to tell them everything. The goal is to quickly let the visitor know they’re in the right place. If your visitor can’t tell what your site is about in a few seconds they’ll be off to the next site.

One last thing to consider here is how well your site is branded. I’ve never been to Nike’s website, but I have a pretty good idea what Nike is about. As long as I see the name or the swoosh prominently on their home page, I’ll know I’m in the right place. Most of us though don’t have the brand of Nike and will have to do a little more. That’s one of the advantages of building a brand.

Where Can I Go Next?

The next question you need to answer is where can your visitor go next. This is important for both new and repeat visitors. Having determined they’re in the right place visitors want to find what they’re looking for.

Your home can only do so much. Your visitors are going to need to see more than your home page to decide to buy from you or hire you. You need to get them deeper into your site.

The main thing here for repeat visitors is to provide a consistent navigation across your site. Make it easy for them to get to where they want to go and otherwise stay out of their way. Search functionality may also help.

Consistent navigation and search can also help 1st time visitors, but even better on the home page is to quickly highlight main sections of the site. This helps answer the what is this site about question while also leading people quickly to where they can go next.

Think about who your visitors are and what they want to accomplish on your site. Find a way to highlight where the visitor can achieve his or her goal and get them there as quickly as possible. Don’t assume everyone will dig through your navigation to find what they want. Direct people to the places they want to go.

You can highlight sections of your site based on your business priorities, your visitor’s likely tasks, your visitor’s personalty types or ideally all three. Choose a primary, secondary, and one or two tertiary goals and direct visitors to them.

What’s New?

Answering this question will be most important to repeat visitors as they’ve been to your home page before and have already absorbed what’s there. Everything on the page is new to 1st time visitors, however, showing 1st time visitors what’s new lets them know the site is active and maintained.

Repeat visitors have been to your site and know what’s there and after a time know how to find things. Showing them “what’s new” increases their interest and rewards them for coming back

Presenting “what’s new” is similar to highlighting sections for 1st time visitors. You’re highlighting what may not have been there the last time they visited and helping them get there quickly. You might also highlight sections of your site that don’t seem to get visited as often as you’d like or that may not be as obvious to find.

You can take “what’s new” a step further and show your visitors “what’s coming.” This can help build anticipation and make another visit more likely. I can visit your site anytime and see what you’ve been up to recently. If you tell me that next Tuesday you’ll be offering a new version of your application or you’ll be posting something I’m interested in, I’m more likely to visit next Tuesday as opposed to sometime in the future.

If you sell products you might have a section for “featured products” or the month’s discounted items. Each rewards people for coming back to your site and gives them something different than the last time they visited.

Example Home Pages

I’ve shown three screen shots of home pages above and below in this post, the current home page here, the atebits.com home page, the apple.com home page, and the home page of Enviro Media Inc.

Van SEO Design

I pulled the home page here, because I tried to do everything I talked about above when creating it. I’ve already mentioned the logo and tagline. Right below both is the heading of the page, which is essentially a rewrite of the tagline. It’s clear in telling you what this site is about and it’s one of the first things you see.

Below this heading there are three boxes, one for my design services, one for my seo services, and one for the blog.

Moving to the right you see the sub-navigation for the section, which is connected to the main navigation for the site The far right is all about what’s new. There are icons to subscribe to the blog as well as popular and recent posts.

It may not be the best home page out there, but it does answer all three questions.

atebits

The atebits home page does a great job of directing visitors to any of the three products the site offers. If you’ve visited the site it’s likely that you’re there for one of those products.

Highlighting those products also helps make clear what the site is about. There isn’t any what’s new content on the page, but there is a link to the blog.

Apple

Apple’s home page is frequently changing. The basic look is always the same, but the content varies over time to emphasize one product or another. The design itself is set up to quickly direct you to one of these products.

The name of the site isn’t mentioned and the logo is hardly emphasized, serving double duty as the home page link. However Apple is a very strong brand and you’d likely already know you were in the right place landing on their site.

Still pretend for a moment you didn’t know the brand do well. The images alone would be enough to let you know what the site was about.

Envira Media Inc.

I discovered Envira Media Inc. by looking through some gallery sites and chose it here to see how quickly I could determine what the site was about and where to go next.

The name Envira does give a sense of something environmental.

The first thing you see is the text “We plant dreams and ideas. Then grow successful business models.” Words like “plant” and “dream” also convey an environmental theme and “grow successful business models” leads to thoughts of startups.

Reading the very first paragraph of the content we see:

Envira Media is dedicated to sustainability. We support and fund environmentally sound business models, as well as manage some of the best socially responsible sites online.

That’s very clear and in a matter of seconds we know what the site is about.

The site also uses consistent navigation and if you scroll down on the home page you see sections for Recent Events and Recent Launch, which I presume are updated periodically.

The home page answers our three questions well and quickly.

Are Home Pages Still Relevant?

Is your home page really the 1st page someone is going to visit? Can’t someone enter your site through any page? If every page of your site is potentially the 1st page a visitor sees, how relevant is it to have a dedicated home page?

In preparing this post I thought it would be interesting to check the stats for this site and see how often the home page is visited 1st and visited in general. The information below is for the last month.

• The home page was the 10th most popular landing page accounting for 1.52% of all landing pages
• The top landing page for the month accounted for 25.75% of all landing pages
• The home page was the 8th most visited page on the site accounting for 2.54% of all page views
• The most popular page on the site accounted for 21.15% of all page views
• Half of the top 10 pages in terms of page views were recent blog posts that have a lot of traffic for a few days before trailing off
• Page views to the home are relatively consistent from day to day
• If I remove the short term early traffic for blog posts the home page is the #3 most visited page on the site and the #4 landing page
• The home page has a low bounce rate, a low exit rate, and visitors spend a fair amount of time on the page on average

While my home page isn’t the top landing page it’s still a fairly popular entry point for this site. That it rises in popularity when looking at page views shows that many people entering on another page still click to visit the home page.

Some will argue that home pages aren’t that important since they aren’t the first page people see most of the time. I suspect that while they may not be the first page people see they might very well be the 2nd or 3rd page seen. How often have you visited a page of a site, liked it, and then immediately clicked to the home page to learn more about the site?

I’d also suggest that home pages serve to reorient people within a site. You enter a site on some random page and click around exploring. At some point you want to orient yourself within the site, which you do by visiting the home page.

Home pages are still very relevant, even if they are less likely to be the 1st page a visitor sees than in the past.

Every Page is a Landing Page

Since every page of your site might be the first a visitor sees, it’s important all your pages do some of the work that a typical home page does. It’s important for every page of your site to answer the three main questions a visitor has, especially the first question.

1. What is this site about? – This is why answering the question with your logo and tagline is such a good idea. Both will be present on every page. A brief intro sentence in your header can also work well here.
2. Where can I go next? – Consistent navigation across your site answers this question on every page. Additionally you want to add links within your page content to other pages where your visitor might go next.
3. What’s new? – You can add a what’s new section in your sidebar so it’s shows on every page. You could also customize your sidebar to show what’s new in the current section or highlight other sections of the site, featured products, etc.

Summary

Your home page needs to answer some very important questions, the most important being what is the purpose of your site. If you fail to answer this question expect very few repeat visits and very few visits that last beyond a few seconds.

Consider who your visitors are and why they’ve visited your site. Help them achieve their goals as quickly as possible and give them reasons to come back again. Stay out of their way on repeat visits and let them know what’s changed since their last visit and what they have to look forward to in future visits.

Home pages do not have to be hard to design or to choose what content should be on the page. Home pages are different (pdf) from the other pages on your site, though. You’ll find it easier to first design your interior pages, starting from the most specific content and working back to the more general home page and using the home page to direct people to those more detailed pages.

Above all understand the goal of your home page is to answer the basic questions a visitor will have when arriving at your site or visiting again.

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If you’re not yet a WDL Premium member, you’re missing out on a great deal. Sign up here.

Click the image for a live demo.

Quick Links Action Bar

Place your custom quick links on the innovative deNovo actions bar on the home page below the header. Professional call-to-action buttons let your users easily access your most important content pages.

Button Shortcodes

deNovo offers you a powerful tool to spice up your website content. The theme lets you easily integrate buttons in your post and page content. Handy shortcodes make it incredibly simple to include professional-looking buttons.

Full Feature List

• Featured content slider on home page. Displays recent articles, featured posts or even pages.
• Full slider control (effects, timer, content and more)
• Customizable quicklinks in actions bar on home page below header
• Customizable home page content. Displays recent articles, featured post or even pages.
• 1-column or 2-column layout for home page and archive pages (like category)
• Custom color scheme and button styles
• Custom background pattern
• Handy button shortcodes
• Custom widgets: deNovo About, deNovo Comments, deNovo Contact Info, deNovo Flickr, deNovo Get Started, deNovo Newsletter, deNovo Recent, deNovo Twitter
• Support of threaded comments
• Multi-level dropdown menu
• Menu control (exclude home link, categories and/or pages)
• Automatic image resizing
• Custom search template
• Page templates: full width (no sidebar), archives
• Built-in jQuery lightbox plugin prettyPhoto (see plugin page)
• Javascript comment form validation
• Javascript search form validation
• CSS styles for WP-PageNavi plugin – activate and you’re done (see plugin page)
• Theme options page
• Post / page settings
• Included PSD files: logo.psd, get-started.psd (widget button), default-avatar.psd

Download deNovo

About this Partner

Themeshift is a WordPress theme shop operated by Simon Rimkus. His themes are beautifully designed and of the highest quality.

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I Have A Dream

Working from home has its benefits and many will spout a million different possible ‘benefits’. In my opinion, there are only 2 that are worth taking serious note of:

• It is cheap – low fees / overheads.
• It is convenient – the dream working lifestyle.

The obvious, clear and undeniable advantage is that working form home is virtually free. It is a marginal percentage of the fee that often comes with a rented space. One big concern of any freelancer is cash-flow; signing onto another monthly bill is a prospect that appeals to few of us.

Getting up at 11am , having a long chill-out, starting some work at 1pm… stopping, going for a walk, watching day-time TV, then doing a little more work at 8pm.. sounds like a dream? To most, its nirvana. This is the romanticized version of the freelancer lifestyle – the idea of working when YOU want to work.

What A Waste Of Money

Many see paying for a rented working space as an unnecessary expense. However there are clear advantages to a dedicated working space:

• Prestige
  Meeting clients at a business address.
• Psychological
  ‘I am going to work’ and ‘I have finished work and am going home.’
• Professional Environment
  Your possible office space might be around other creative professionals.

Having a rented place gives you the psychological uplift of having somewhere to head to in the morning. When you get there, you know you are there to work. There is a mental lift when inviting clients to meet and discuss projects and there is an image of a truly professional outfit. Starbucks and little cafes aren’t everybody’s cup of tea. It also helps you to separate your work life (freelancing is a job!) from your social life with a distinct line that helps you know when to stop.

One of the things that we often overlooks as freelancers is that we need a routine to be productive and efficient. Rented space; because you’re paying for it – is an incentive towards establishing a working routine. Of course the obvious disadvantage is cost. Others include the fact that many freelancers are freelancers to escape being cooped up inside a space whilst working.

Decisions, Decisions

Taking those I know as a sample, I think its fair to say the vast majority of us work from home. Maybe as freelancers, we are motivated enough to work hard in the comforts of our houses. Also, the negatives of saying ‘I work from home’ are not as taboo as they once where a decade ago. It is almost ‘trendy’ to say so now.

Either way, making the right choice for you is important; where you work is one of those overlooked factors that could be the thorn or spur in your success!

Where do you work?

It’s your turn. Let us know where you work by leaving a comment below. You can also share with us the reason why you rent an office or why you have decided to work from home. We’d love to have an interesting discussion about this subject so feel free to contribute to the discussion. Thank you for reading the article. You can follow the Design Informer on Twitter here.

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Is it possible to accept feature creep as a natural (or at least inevitable) process?

Many websites begin to fail when their goals change or their scope expands.

Feature creep sets in when a client asks for one tiny adjustment that takes only a minute… and then never stops making requests.

Accepting feature creep as a natural process requires an ability to distinguish between a genuine need and a run-away imagination or “Wouldn’t it be great if…”

Clients naturally want to squeeze as much work from a budget as they can. Sometimes, designers and developers must say, “No, that’s beyond what we agreed on.”

But not all requests for change are penny-pinching; and like the web, projects and businesses change over time: stores have seasonal sales; businesses develop new products; online services refine their processes; publications release fresh content. Change happens.

Avoid Solution-Creep

Clients may know their business, but they hire web experts for their web expertise. Feature creep sets in when clients forget that and treat designers as tools instead of problem-solvers.

Being able to explain to overly enthusiastic non-web folks which techniques and technologies are not appropriate for a given website is a tedious war of attrition.

But designers presenting themselves as problem-solvers, and not mere coding monkeys, is vital to their relationships with clients.

The key is to make the client bring problems, not solutions. Say the client learns about Twitter. It’s all the rage, they’re told. So they want it. Now.

In the long run, the effort of writing tweets will prove frustrating unless the tweets create measurable benefits. Instead, ask the client whether they need a Twitter account that posts to the company blog or simply need higher-quality blog posts?

Here are some examples:

“I want a vibrant design” is a solution, not a problem.
“What would make the website look vibrant?” is a design problem.

“I want a search tool” is a solution, not a problem.
“Customers aren’t finding our products” is a design problem.

“I want an RSS feed” is a solution, not a problem.
“What means of communication are visitors to our website most likely to expect and use?” is a design problem.

“I like this other website’s design” is competition-envy, not a solution.
“You’re not them,” isn’t an adequate response either.
Rather, “How do you want customers to perceive your business or organization?” would get the conversation back on track.

If your question, “What do you think of this logo?” is followed by uncomfortable silence, then turn it around with a one-two punch: “How do you want customers to view your brand? What visuals would your customers associate with those qualities?”

In each case, the feature creep can be handled by turning “I want” into a question for the designer, not the client, to solve.

Question Everything Up Front

Learning to ask seemingly unrealistic questions is important and, with some practice, surprisingly fun.

For example, when would a website need more than one home page? Or what if a coffee shop started selling videos?

Such questions only seem ridiculous if you’re thinking about immediate problems.

Consider multiple home pages. Returning visitors might not need the full introduction that newcomers would. In that case, a home page that shows recent highlights would work alongside a home page that has a general overview.

Google’s Website Optimizer helps track which of your home pages generates more meaningful traffic.

One strategy is to triple your highest expectations. Imagine three “Contact us” pages, thirty categories instead of ten, and three levels of navigation instead of one. Or how would you handle a page of content if it became three times as long?

Another strategy is to cut everything by one-third. What if you wanted to design web pages for mobile devices? How could a 960-pixel-wide design fit into a 320-pixel-wide screen? What if the website generated only ten sales per month instead of one per day? How would the “About our team” page change if the staff of 15 were cut to 10?

Before signing any contract, scan for these crucial words: “a,” “an,” “the” and “one.”

Before: “The website will have a list of services.”
After: “The website will have several lists of services organized by topic.”

Before: “The contact form will send an email to the owner.”
After: “The main contact form will send emails to the owner and, depending on the subject, facility coordinator, technical support or lead salesperson.”

Before: “The header will be orange.”
After: “The home page header will be orange. Inside page headers will be half as tall to emphasize the content.”

Before: “Membership profiles will include a phone number and email address.”
After: “Membership profiles will contain contact details, including phone numbers (office, home, other), fax numbers, email addresses and three open fields for mailing address, Twitter and Facebook accounts and the like.”

Before: “The blog will be organized by date.”
After: “The blog’s default screen will show posts by date. Posts will be organized with tags; the page will be designed not to look empty when it has only five posts; and visitors will be able to browse at least 500 posts.”

The best plans aren’t limited to a specific design but account for a range of parameters. Problems are only ridiculous when you’re handed one at the deadline.

Genuine Needs

No system can account for every scenario.

Most can adapt to small, incremental changes over the website’s lifespan, but when band-aid solutions outnumber the initial problems, it’s time to bring up the word that no client ever wants to hear: “rethink.”

When starting from scratch is more efficient than fixing the changes that solved earlier problems (but broke other things), the biggest hurdle is convincing everyone involved that drastic change now is better in the long run.

Then you need another word: “cost-effective.”

Patching code or tweaking layouts appeals to designers, developers and clients because it’s quick. They scratch an itch with minimal effort. And the more people cringe at fixing a website that breaks with the slightest touch, the less likely anyone will suggest a bigger headache.

But that’s a sure sign that change is necessary. Draconian feature creep happens when technical folks and designers genuinely dread making changes. You know the project: the one with the case history with its own filing cabinet, with the owner whose voice makes people shudder, and the rambling processes that require user manuals that no one has the time to write.

Such projects cost more than money. They’re morally draining resource hogs that sap attention from newer, nimbler projects and cause enough teeth-gnashing to carry dentists through the recession.

War against this type of feature creep begins by defining problems, including the problems that arose from the symptom-solving solutions.

Approach complete rethinks by looking long-term, both into the past and future. The website was great back then, but things have changed. Technology has improved. The client’s products or services have evolved. Customers are more (or perhaps less) sophisticated or have different needs.

Devise a plan to make this transition practical. The details depend on the nature of the website but amount to the same thing: convincing the client that the drastic cure is no worse than the current chewing-gum-and-bailing-wire course. This is psychological war as much as it is technical problem-solving.

It Will Happen

Most feature creep takes two forms: an itch that a client wants to scratch and a genuine need for change.

If you can phrase the demand as a question, then you position yourself as a decision-maker, rather than someone who follows the client’s every ill-informed whim.

Realize that change will happen. A website that never changes is a black pit.

Ben Gremillion is a freelance web designer who has learned that clients respond well if you can keep your temper when they lose theirs.

How do you deal with feature creep?  Please share some of your experiences with us…

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Originally posted at The Digital Home

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Remember back in September when I blogged about Google increasing the size of the search box? Well it turns out that Google have been experimenting quite a bit with the layout and design of their home page, playing around with different versions of it, visible only to a handful of guinea pigs in their control group and users of a few select data-centers.

A major feature of the home page testing (and one that exists in the final launched version) is a fade-in effect where the content on the page “fades in” over a few seconds. I had noticed the fade-effect a couple of times during October and wondered if it was a glitch. TechCrunch noticed too and blogged about it quickly.

With the testing period over, Google officially launched their new home page across all datacenters and most regional Googles this month. When the page first loads, it shows only the Google logo, buttons and the search box. The remaining links appear only once the user moves the mouse over the page.

Google’s VP of Search Products Marissa Mayer says this design provides a focus on site usability:

“For the vast majority of people who come to the Google homepage, they are coming in order to search, and this clean, minimalist approach gives them just what they are looking for first and foremost. For those users who are interested in using a different application like Gmail, Google Image Search or our advertising programs, the additional links on the homepage only reveal themselves when the user moves the mouse.”

Google hopes that the minimalist page will soon become second nature to users and encourage them to use the home page features more efficiently.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Google Home Page Turns Minimalist

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Say, is your home stereo system $1000 under budget and you can’t get the quality where you want it? If so, then the LessLoss Blackbody may  be for you. LessLoss, a manufacturer of audio equipment and cables, has begun selling the very ominous Blackbody, a device that will allegedly improve the sound coming from your stereo equipment by modifying the ambient electromagnetic phenomena inside your audio gear’s circuitry. Uh, what?

(…)
Read the rest of LessLoss Blackbody Annouced [LessLess annouces new audio enhancment accessory, highly expensive, usefulness questioned]

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Up until recently, I like many was juggling part-time freelancing and part-time design/photography. The client base wasn’t there and I didn’t have the confidence to make a proper jump to full-time freelancing. However, there are plenty of clients and opportunities in Edmonton and abroad; projects kept coming in, clients kept growing and eventually it made sense to make the leap and go full-time.

With going full-time, Andy & I decided that working from home would be best. No office rent overhead meant it would be easier on us, and lower overhead means a cost savings for our clients too! But working from home, despite what my friends might tell you, isn’t all Call of Duty, pajamas and getting up at noon. Nope – in fact, it takes a lot of discipline both to work from home efficiently and to not let your work consume your life. Thus, I bring to you 6 Tips for Working from Home – hit the jump for some great practical info!

Used under Creative Commons- link to shooter's flickr.

SET A SCHEDULE

You’ve heard it a million times, and that’s because it’s the single most important part. Make a schedule and stick to it. This differentiates “work time” from weekends or off-time, and helps you keep track of how much work you’re actually doing in a day. For example, our basic schedule is as follows:

7AM – rise & shine!

8AM – at the computer and at work.

Noon – lunch.

1PM – back to work.

5PM – shut it down.

We have your pretty basic work day, but it really helps to set that schedule out. Of course, if something needs to get done during the day that doesn’t involve work, we’ll go do it. If a client absolutely needs us to work past 5pm, we will do it. But more or less, we stick to the above schedule.

DRESS THE PART

There is a big psychological part to working effectively at home, for me anyways. I need to feel like I’m at work – like I’m supposed to be doing work. If I feel that way, then I will work effectively. Part of that is “dressing the part”. Now, I don’t mean rocking a suit while you sit and design a logo or website – that’d be silly. What I mean is don’t just wear pajamas and not shower. Odd to say, I know, but I hear the question “So do you just wear pajamas?” ALL the time.

Admittedly, if I have a cold that normally would have put me out of commission, but some extraneous circumstance is making me work, perhaps I’ll wear sweatpants or something. But that instance aside, I get up, shower, and put on decent clothes that I a) feel comfortable in, and b) that I could go to a short-notice client meeting in (usually that involves a nice pair of jeans, and some sort of shirt/cardigan or plaid shirt). It’s practical and dressing the part reminds me that I’m here to work, not sit in my pajamas and look at LOLcats all day.

GET A BUSINESS PHONE LINE

A big part of working from home, and enjoying working from home, is being able to “quit” work at the end of the day. When you work at an office, it’s easy to go home and forget about work. But when your work is beside your kitchen, like in my case, it’s a little more difficult. Thus, it helps a lot to be able to have ways to “quit” work so you don’t find yourself on the phone or emailing at 9pm.

One great way to do this is to get a business phone line. Now I know nobody likes additional costs, but you don’t need to have a guy come in and install an actual, physical phone line. Chances are your landline provider offers something like a SmartRing service. Ours does, and essentially what this means is that we can have two separate phone numbers with different ring tones on the same line. So we give out one line for business (which has a double-ring, pause sound) and we have another number – same line – for personal (your standard ring).

A few reasons why this is great:

a) it’s cheap.

b) it looks more professional than having your home number as your listed business number

c) you know immediately, thanks to the ring tone, if it’s a business or personal call, and because of that,

d) you can stop answering business calls after a set time.

Andy and I made a decision to stop answering the business phone after 6pm, unless there is an explicit reason why a client might be calling. This helps us separate work & home, which is important to us.

GET A BUSINESS EMAIL ADDRESS

Yes, this is important because you don’t want an email address like hotguy@wickedabs.com on your business cards – but it’s another way to separate your work & personal life. If you use the same address for everything, there’s no separation. You’ll be checking your email on weekends and see a request for a quote – chances are that’ll be on your mind or you’ll be working on it that weekend.

Part of working from home effectively is not burning out, and not having time away from work will burn you out. So get a business email. Another tip – have it forward to a different account. Nobody likes the web host’s webmail interface – it’s always terrible – so we have ours forwarding to an easier client (be it Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook or Mac mail). But if you have it forwarding to your personal email, you’re back in the same boat I mentioned above.

The way I combat this is to use Yahoo for my personal mail, and have my business mail forward to my Mac mail program. This is great for two reasons: it separates personal & business, and I can quit Mac mail as a program at the end of the day/week, leaving me free to do my personal work on the computer without seeing work-related emails popping up until I want to see them.

LEAVE YOUR HOUSE

Yes, an important part of working from home is actually leaving your house sometimes. I have to be very conscious of this, myself, because I can be somewhat of a homebody. But leaving your house provides you with a number of benefits, including:

a) the opportunity to find local business clients

b) fresh air!

c) thwarting of cabin fever

d) inspiration

If you become a serious homebody, your home-based business will suffer. We all poke fun at the standard office setting, but the truth is that having other people around provides opportunities for brainstorming, inspiration and the like. So make an effort to get outside & meet clients for lunch; meet friends for a post-work drink; or just go for a walk. It’ll help.

MAKE YOUR IDEAL WORKSPACE

This is the most fun part of working from home – you can make it the space you’ve always wanted to work in. Love to work with an epic Hans Zimmer score playing in the background at 100dB? Do it up! Always felt the need to have a Ricky Martin Miley Cyrus Scarface poster for inspiration? Hang it up. The point here is, working from home IS fun. Sure, you have to be aware of certain issues and it’s important to find ways to work effectively, like I’ve mentioned above. But you got out of that office and cubicle for a reason, so enjoy it.

Me, I enjoy working with some instrumental music in the background (be it mellow like the Album Leaf or more aggressive like Pelican) in a nice, well-lit working space with my two cats running around like idiots.

So there you have it – 6 Tips for Working from Home. Hopefully the practical ones are ones you can put to use, and the others will get you thinking. Hope you enjoyed!

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One of the promises of Google’s Android operating system has always been that it need not stay confined to powering cell phones. That’s already starting to come to fruition, with an Android netbook on the way from Acer and both the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Spring Design Alex eReaders also launching soon with Android under the hood (thought apparently it’s no accident the latter two devices are so similar).

Now there’s another Android device on deck that’s not a phone, dubbed Vega. Made by Seattle-based company Innovative Converged Devices, the Vega is a tablet-like device with a detachable stand to prop it up, running Android 2.0 (the same version used in the Motorola Droid).

The device, slated to launch in the first half of 2010, will actually come in three sizes: 7, 11 and 15-inches. It will support connectivity via Wi-Fi as well as 3G, and be available at reportedly “low cost” (read: subsidized) from major carriers throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Designed to be put to flexible use throughout the home, the Vega will feature high-definition entertainment and a touchscreen along with a webcam, Bluetooth support, accelerometer, 512MB RAM and storage via microSD. The brain of the machine will be NVIDIA’s Tegra processor, a high-powered combination CPU and graphics chip that was designed for low power consumption and long battery life.

There’s no word on what that “low cost” price may be, and it may end up varying by carrier as well (no word on whether you’ll be able to buy it outright without 3G yet, either). Nonetheless, the Vega is certainly an interesting entrant into the once again nascent tablet device playing field, with the Apple Tablet and the Microsoft Courier being the two hot tablets that no one will admit are real yet.

Check out a few more images of the Vega below. Do you see a place for these tablet devices in the home? What would the price need to be for you to pick one up? Would you rather it run Android, Mac OS X, Windows, or something else?

[via VentureBeat]

Tags: 3g, android, ICD, Tablet, vega

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The move comes as the retailer continues its aggressive efforts to win over more holiday bargain shoppers. Last week Walmart announced it would let customers pre-order 10 of the most popular upcoming books for as little as $10 each, sparking a price war with Amazon.com.

Customer will be able to pro-order popular titles online including "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," "Star Trek," and "Angels and Demons."

"This will be a challenging holiday season for our customers, and we recognize that more of them are choosing Walmart.com every day as the website with the lowest prices," said Raul Vazquez, Walmart.com’s CEO.

"We’re excited to offer our Top 10 pre-order DVD movies titles for just $10 as well as free home delivery on our entire assortment of DVD and Blu-ray titles. This is yet another example of how we continue to help our customers save money online at Walmart.com during the holidays and beyond."

It will be interesting to see if Amazon.com and other retailers follow Walmart’s lead.

Related Articles:

> Amazon And Walmart Engage In Price War Over Holiday Book Shoppers

> Amazon Shows Interest In Twitter Referals

> Amazon Introduces PayPhrase

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The Sprite Image

This is a great example of an efficient, useful sprite image.

The HTML

<ul id="nav">
	<li id="home" <?php echo $current == '' || $current == 'home' ? 'class="current"' : ''; ?>><a href="?home">Home</a></li>
	<li id="about" <?php echo $current == 'about' ? 'class="current"' : ''; ?>><a href="?about">About</a></li>
	<li id="services" <?php echo $current == 'services' ? 'class="current"' : ''; ?>><a href="?services">Services</a></li>
	<li id="contact" <?php echo $current == 'contact' ? 'class="current"' : ''; ?>><a href="?contact">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

My code mostly mirrors the original ALA post’s code but I’ve chose to use IDs instead of CSS classes.

The CSS

#nav { width: 401px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat; position: absolute; top: 100px; left: 100px; padding:0; }
#nav li { display: inline; }
#nav li a:link, #nav li a:visited { position: absolute; top: 0; height: 48px; text-indent: -9000px; overflow: hidden; z-index: 10; }

#home a:link, #home a:visited { left: 23px; width: 76px; }
#home a:hover, #home a:focus { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -49px; }
#home a:active { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -98px; }
#home.current a:link, #home.current a:visited { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -147px; cursor: default; }
.nav-home, .nav-home-click { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 23px; width: 76px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -49px; }
.nav-home-click { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -98px; }

#about a:link, #about a:visited { left: 100px; width: 82px; }
#about a:hover, #about a:focus { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -49px; }
#about a:active { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -98px; }
#about.current a:link, #about.current a:visited { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -147px; cursor: default; }
.nav-about, .nav-about-click { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 100px; width: 82px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -49px; }
.nav-about-click { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -98px; }

#services a:link, #services a:visited { left: 183px; width: 97px; }
#services a:hover, #services a:focus { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -49px; }
#services a:active { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -98px; }
#services.current a:link, #services.current a:visited { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -147px; cursor: default; }
.nav-services, .nav-services-click { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 183px; width: 97px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -49px; }
.nav-services-click { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -98px; }

#contact a:link, #contact a:visited { left: 281px; width: 97px; }
#contact a:hover, #contact a:focus { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -49px; }
#contact a:active { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -98px; }
#contact.current a:link, #contact.current a:visited { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -147px; cursor: default; }
.nav-contact, .nav-contact-click { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 281px; width: 97px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -49px; }
.nav-contact-click { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -98px; }

Unfortunately there’s plenty of CSS. That’s generally the one downside of using sprites but the payoff comes with less requests to the server. My CSS differs from the original ALA post in that I accommodate for my IDs.

The MooTools Javascript

(function($) {
	window.addEvent('domready',function() {
		$('nav').getElements('li').each(function(li) {
			//settings
			var link = li.getFirst('a');
			//fix background image
			if(!li.hasClass('current')) {
				link.setStyle('background-image','none');
			}
			//utility div
			var div = new Element('div',{
				'class': 'nav-' + li.get('id'),
				opacity: 0
			}).inject(li);
			//background imagery
			li.addEvents({
				mouseenter: function() {
					div.fade('in');
				},
				mouseleave: function() {
					div.fade('out');
				},
				mousedown: function() {
					div.addClass('nav-' + li.get('id') + '-click');
				},
				mouseup: function() {
					div.removeClass('nav-' + li.get('id') + '-click');
				}
			});
		});
	});
})(document.id);

My MooTools version is less code and slightly more efficient as I’m not creating and disposing of the same DIVs over and over as the user hovers over each menu item. The menu has original, selected, hovered, and mousedown states. Awesome!

Do you use sprites for any of your menus? Share a link to a few — I’d love to see what you’ve done!

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and be sure to visit Script & Style for the best Javascript and CSS articles around!

Sponsor the David Walsh Blog and get your brand in front of several thousand users per day!

Create a Sprited Navigation Menu Using CSS and MooTools

Related posts:

1. Create Snook-Style Navigation Using MooTools
2. Fancy Navigation with MooTools Javascript
3. Creating & Using CSS Sprites
4. Create a Download Package Using MooTools Moousture
5. Facebook-Style Modal Box Using MooTools

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"Now is the time to clean up the mess on the Web — people need less clutter and less hassle to find what matters most to them," said Erik Jorgensen, corporate vice president, Microsoft. "Microsoft is uniquely invested in search, media experiences and technical innovation. Combining these assets to deliver our new MSN home page is a tremendous win for customers and advertisers."

What do you think of the new design? Share your opinions here.

The new design pays significant focus to local, Bing, social networks, and news. Coinciding with the announcement of the redesign was the unveiling of MSN Local Edition. This is a section of MSN that gives you local news, weather, sports, movies and events, restaurants, gas, traffic, a directory, lottery numbers, etc.

The Bing integration with the new MSN is deeper. It’s now used as the core search technology throughout the home page in areas like shopping, travel, and local. It is also used as a way to highlight hot topics, trends, and people.

There is a clean integration of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as Microsoft’s own Windows Live "What’s New," which aggregates up to 50 web activities from various places like Yelp, Flickr, Pandora, etc.

"Customers told us they want the latest information from their favorite sources, their friends and the breadth of the Web — and the new MSN home page delivers via a fresh new look and new features," Jorgensen said. "Today is an important transformation for MSN, and it’s just the beginning."

There is also an emphasis on de-cluttering the home page. Microsoft says there are 50% fewer links than on the previous version. Here’s what the whole thing looks like:

The design is not live on a wide scale yet. It will be rolling out gradually over the coming weeks. It is, however available as a preview here.

On a related note, Microsoft is finally launching MSN Music this week. The launch has been postponed since July.

Related Articles:

> MySpace, MSN Now Said To Be In Talks

> Microsoft Partners With Advance Internet On Local Ad Deal

> Bing Gets More Mobile Features in The US

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How important are on-demand services for your? Would you buy a certain product for your home theater only if said product will come with support for on-demand entertainment? Well starting today Best Buy has something totally new for you. The giant electronics retailer has inked a deal with Sonic Solutions which will bring a new on-demand movie and entertainment service to Best Buy customers.
(more…)

See: Best Buy to Offer On-Demand Entertainment Services [Best Buy & CinemaNow to Offer Content to Connected Devices in 2010]

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The new design is beautiful, clean, organized and well-structured. It invites the eye to scan and find something interesting with the goal of clicking through to another page.

The previous design was somewhat cluttered and not very inviting; the content looked liked it was being forced into an unstructured space. The new layout is very different and embraces a number of modern web design and usability best practices and trends.

So, let’s look in more detail at not only the notable improvements, but some of the questionable design and usability decisions.

Grid-Inspired Layout

I’m using the phrase “grid-inspired” because the new design seems to be based on a grid, but the precision alignment of elements is not exactly there.

Taking a cursory look at their primary stylesheet, they appear to have loosely based their style and grid on the Blueprint CSS framework.

Their CSS reset bears many similarities to the Blueprint framework, and the word “blueprint” is included at the top, so this would be a logical assessment based on my own limited knowledge of Blueprint.

After analyzing a screen capture of their home page, I’ve concluded that if they based the new layout on a grid, the specifics of that grid would be: 16 columns, 50px per column, with 12px gutters (the space between columns), totaling 980px in width.

Below is a visual representation of my grid estimate, as a Photoshop mock up:

Even though the elements on the page do not follow the kind of alignment and balance that would customarily be expected of a grid layout, there is a noticeable improvement in this layout over the previous design, shown below:

The new layout keeps all page elements inside the 980px-wide container — unlike the clunky-looking previous design that had a fluid-width header that spanned the entire page above a fixed-width content section.

Also, while the old design couldn’t seem to decide between rounded corners and square, the new design consistently features square corners with subtle bevel effects separating appropriate elements, as shown in the image below.

Although the format is grid-like, it is, as mentioned, not a strict grid format, and the sections below the fold stray quite a bit in structure from those above.

Drastically Improved Header Section

One of the most apparent improvements in the new design is the header section.

The horizontal navigation bar is modern, clean, and clear. The search box, signup option and login link are in the top-right corner, where they should be.

And, although it is not customary in modern design to center the site logo, in this case it works. It creates a very dominant, vivid, brand experience that is not easily forgotten.

Another nice feature of the navigation bar is that it indicates by means of color and graphics which links are primary, which are secondary, and which will open in micro-sites or sister sites. The latter are indicated by right-pointing triangles (”Money” and “Sports” — more on this below).

Effective Use of Space

On the right-hand side of the page, below the primary ad unit, they’ve included an accordion-style content switcher, allowing the user to view previews, in a relatively small area, of content related to a number of different topics.

Emphasis on Video & Story Popularity

In the previous design, video had fairly strong emphasis, featured in a box on the right side. In the new design, video is a major category in the primary navigation bar, given virtually the same visual importance as the “Home” link.

Video stories are featured throughout the site, and are clearly indicated by the customary “play button” link on photos that link to video content, as shown below:

Another category given the same importance as “Home” and “Video”, as shown in the image above, is the “NewsPulse” section, which is new and still in beta.

This section displays news stories by popularity (which seems to be calculated by total page views, not comments), and allows the reader to filter the results by category or story type.

Strong Category Pages

The main category pages (”U.S.”, “World”, “Politics”, etc.), accessed from the primary navigation bar, work similarly to the home page.

In fact, if you didn’t know what page you were on, you might think you were on the home page. The “U.S.” category is shown below:

Each of these sections conveniently displays top stories, latest news, and other items related to that category.

The black and white captions below images, also featured on the home page and on article pages, are eye-catching and easy to read, without the use of overly-fancy graphics or font styles.

Strong Article Pages

The article pages, for the most part, maintain the vivid branding of the home page. Body text is nicely displayed in 14px Arial with a very readable line-height.

Although some elements on the pages seem somewhat small, I personally like the way the font size of the article body stands out on the page, so the reader can stay focused on it.

Also, on the left side of each story, there is a section called “Story Highlights” that summarizes the current story in a few bulleted-list points. This shows that CNN’s designers are aware of the online tendency of users to “scan” lengthy material.

Information Overload

Of all the negative aspects of the new design, probably the first problem that is immediately evident is the overload of links and information on the home page — although it is more structured and organized, as discussed earlier.

The home page is about two and a half screens long, and includes sections that duplicate items in the main navigation bar, with about a half dozen sub-links under each category. These sections appear below the fold and are shown in this image:

Since CNN is one of the most popular sites in the world (38 million unique visitors each month), these sections will receive considerable traffic in comparison to other sites, however, because they appear so far below the fold, and because there are so many links, the relative amount of traffic visiting those links through the home page would likely be quite low.

Important Sections Buried?

As pointed out above, a lot of information on the home page appears well below the fold. And, significantly, it appears that some important content is completely buried at the bottom of the home page, more than two full screens below the header.

For example, a section entitled “Hot Topics” appears near the bottom, on the right side, just above some promos and ads.

It seems to make more sense that this section would replace the accordion content switcher, or else be incorporated into the accordion.

The ads and promos that appear below the “Hot Topics” also appear to be more important than their location reveals. Again, although such a high traffic website would receive many clicks on these areas, the click-through rate in comparison to the sections and ads above the fold would likely be drastically different.

Of course, CNN’s producers know what content is most important, and they understand their users’ habits better than anyone else — but these layout and usability challenges are helpful to analyze should other developers face similar decisions.

Usability Mysteries

There are a few elements on the new site that may not be designed for optimal usability.

One example is the right-pointing triangle that appears on each of the micro-site links. At first glance, I wasn’t sure what those triangles were for. They appear to indicate some sort of a JavaScript slider section that would pop up.

Some users not paying full attention may even mistaken them for downward-pointing arrows that produce drop-down menus.

Is there a better way to indicate a same-window micro-site link? I’m really not sure. Maybe something similar to the well-known Wikipedia icon would have sufficed — but then that would present the problem of users assuming that the links opened in a new window, which in this case is not true.

The accordion content switcher, discussed earlier, also has a few usability problems. First, when JavaScript is disabled, the accordion is rendered useless and doesn’t display any content.

It should expand by default to display all content, or else display one of the items. Also, the hyperlinked headers for the accordion sections should still link to their respective sections, but they don’t.

Another problem with the accordion content is that, since the text it contains is so small, it is not always clear what is clickable inside the accordion. This makes the links less distinct from the rest of the accordion content.

In the image below, the red arrow I’ve drawn is pointing to two bulleted list items. The text in those list items is hyperlinked, but this is not obvious at first glance.

Some Sections Still Reflect Old Design

As will be the case with any redesign of a site the size of CNN’s, some sections will still reflect the old design until all pages are fully integrated.

This is usually the case with older content that won’t be visited as often, but in the case of CNN, some important sections still have the old skin.

Two examples are the about and contact pages.

Small Typography

One particular design issue that does not conform to modern web design trends is the use of small text and small typographic elements.

The small size of the font in the accordion content was discussed earlier. There’s also the “share” toolbar that appears on article and video pages, the “Latest News” section on the home page, the “Sign up” and “Log in” links in the header, and the text links below the fold on the home page, to mention a few.

Would the “share” toolbar, shown above, be more effective with bigger typography? What about the “recommended” section, shown below, or other sections with smaller type?

Conclusion

The new CNN.com site has added a number of features not discussed here that relate more to their news services and customized content. The first link below contains a video presented by CNN that discusses some of the new features.

I definitely think the new site presents a much more beautiful and interesting user experience than the old, and aside from the weaknesses in the accordion content switcher, the drawbacks to the new design are not really that significant.

It looks like a lot of time and planning went into the design of the new CNN.com, and I think web designers and those interested in improving usability on their own sites would do well to consider and try to learn from some of the changes presented on CNN’s new website.

Further Reading

• Welcome to the New CNN.com (Video on CNN.com)
• The New CNN.com (First Screenshots on TechCrunch)
• New CNN.com Goes Live: What Do You Think?

This post was written exclusively for Webdesigner Depot by Louis Lazaris, a freelance writer and web developer. Louis runs Impressive Webs where he posts articles and tutorials on web design. You can follow Louis on Twitter or get in touch with him through his website.

What do you like or dislike about CNN’s new site design? Share your comments below.

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CSS sprites are all the rage these days. And why shouldn’t be? They’re easy to implement, have great upside, and usually take little effort to create. Dave Shea wrote an epic CSS sprites navigation post titled CSS Sprites2 – It’s JavaScript Time. In his post he outlined a method for enhancing the CSS sprite menu with jQuery. I loved his post so much that I converted his jQuery CSS sprites menu to MooTools.

The Sprite Image

This is a great example of an efficient, useful sprite image.

The HTML

<ul id="nav">
	<li id="home" <?php echo $current == '' || $current == 'home' ? 'class="current"' : ''; ?>><a href="?home">Home</a></li>
	<li id="about" <?php echo $current == 'about' ? 'class="current"' : ''; ?>><a href="?about">About</a></li>
	<li id="services" <?php echo $current == 'services' ? 'class="current"' : ''; ?>><a href="?services">Services</a></li>
	<li id="contact" <?php echo $current == 'contact' ? 'class="current"' : ''; ?>><a href="?contact">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

My code mostly mirrors the original ALA post’s code but I’ve chose to use IDs instead of CSS classes.

The CSS

#nav { width: 401px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat; position: absolute; top: 100px; left: 100px; padding:0; }
#nav li { display: inline; }
#nav li a:link, #nav li a:visited { position: absolute; top: 0; height: 48px; text-indent: -9000px; overflow: hidden; z-index: 10; }

#home a:link, #home a:visited { left: 23px; width: 76px; }
#home a:hover, #home a:focus { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -49px; }
#home a:active { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -98px; }
#home.current a:link, #home.current a:visited { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -147px; cursor: default; }
.nav-home, .nav-home-click { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 23px; width: 76px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -49px; }
.nav-home-click { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -23px -98px; }

#about a:link, #about a:visited { left: 100px; width: 82px; }
#about a:hover, #about a:focus { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -49px; }
#about a:active { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -98px; }
#about.current a:link, #about.current a:visited { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -147px; cursor: default; }
.nav-about, .nav-about-click { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 100px; width: 82px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -49px; }
.nav-about-click { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -100px -98px; }

#services a:link, #services a:visited { left: 183px; width: 97px; }
#services a:hover, #services a:focus { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -49px; }
#services a:active { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -98px; }
#services.current a:link, #services.current a:visited { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -147px; cursor: default; }
.nav-services, .nav-services-click { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 183px; width: 97px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -49px; }
.nav-services-click { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -183px -98px; }

#contact a:link, #contact a:visited { left: 281px; width: 97px; }
#contact a:hover, #contact a:focus { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -49px; }
#contact a:active { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -98px; }
#contact.current a:link, #contact.current a:visited { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -147px; cursor: default; }
.nav-contact, .nav-contact-click { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 281px; width: 97px; height: 48px; background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -49px; }
.nav-contact-click { background: url(sprites-blue-nav.gif) no-repeat -281px -98px; }

Unfortunately there’s plenty of CSS. That’s generally the one downside of using sprites but the payoff comes with less requests to the server. My CSS differs from the original ALA post in that I accommodate for my IDs.

The MooTools Javascript

(function($) {
	window.addEvent('domready',function() {
		$('nav').getElements('li').each(function(li) {
			//settings
			var link = li.getFirst('a');
			//fix background image
			if(!li.hasClass('current')) {
				link.setStyle('background-image','none');
			}
			//utility div
			var div = new Element('div',{
				'class': 'nav-' + li.get('id'),
				opacity: 0
			}).inject(li);
			//background imagery
			li.addEvents({
				mouseenter: function() {
					div.fade('in');
				},
				mouseleave: function() {
					div.fade('out');
				},
				mousedown: function() {
					div.addClass('nav-' + li.get('id') + '-click');
				},
				mouseup: function() {
					div.removeClass('nav-' + li.get('id') + '-click');
				}
			});
		});
	});
})(document.id);

My MooTools version is less code and slightly more efficient as I’m not creating and disposing of the same DIVs over and over as the user hovers over each menu item. The menu has original, selected, hovered, and mousedown states. Awesome!

Do you use sprites for any of your menus? Share a link to a few — I’d love to see what you’ve done!

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Create a Sprited Navigation Menu Using CSS and MooTools

Related posts:

1. Create Snook-Style Navigation Using MooTools
2. Creating & Using CSS Sprites
3. Fancy Navigation with MooTools Javascript
4. Create a Download Package Using MooTools Moousture
5. David Walsh on NetTuts: Create a Twitter-Like “Load More” Widget

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1. Homegroup

Homegroup is one of the most interesting new features in Windows 7. Setting up a home network has always been a rather tricky task, and Windows 7 is out to change that. Now, there’s no pain involved in setting up file and printer sharing between computers. Simply choose what you want to share from the PC, take the Homegroup password, and plug it into your other Windows 7 machines. You can choose which PCs get to use which files, give read-only access, and allows media streaming if you want (more on this below).

2. Taskbar

The taskbar has been part of Windows since Win95; but now, it better than ever. Hands up if you ever wanted to re-order the applications you have open; that’s what I thought. Now, you can pin applications to the taskbar as well; no it’s not quick launch. The quick launch toolbar has been retired because the whole taskbar is now quick-launch-like.

3. Aero

Aero was introduced in Windows Vista; you know, the transparent window borders. Windows 7 takes it all a step further. You can now hover over those taskbar thumbnail pop ups to get a view of that window only; that’s called Aero Peek. Then, you can drag individual windows to the top to maximize them, or left or right of to snap them to exactly half the screen: Aero Snap.

Aero Peek is also part of the “Show Desktop” button; forever, “Show Desktop” was part of the quick launch toolbar and could be removed if you didn’t want it. Now, it’s built into the toolbar, at the far right side.

At first you might think this was a bad move, but I would argue otherwise. Once you figure it out, you’ll know where to go for that button. And until you try, you don’t know how easy it is to throw your cursor into the corner; no eyes necessary. And you don’t even have to click it. If you just hover there, Aero Peek will show your desktop temporarily; once you slide off the button, you’re back to work.

4. Libraries

Libraries is one of my favorite features. How many people actually use the Documents folder (and only the Documents folder) to store your documents. Not me! Libraries lets you bring all your preferred folders together in one view; of course, you can choose which folder is the default save location. One of the sweetest parts is that you can add folder from other computers on the homegroup or network. Then, when you search the library, you get results from the other PCs as well. And it’s a cinch to share a library on the homegroup.

5. Jump Lists

I love jump lists too, because they’re all about saving you time. Right-clicking on a taskbar icon will bring up a small menu of options, recently / frequently used files (for that app) and tasks. To be honest, part of this has to be baked in by the program’s developer, but if you’re using the right pieces, you’ll at least get the recent / frequent files. And you can pin a file to any application, making it super easy to open regularly used files.

Bonus for Gmail users: check out Gmail Notifier Plus, a nice little app that lists your unread messages for you.

6. Enhanced Security

One of the biggest beefs with Vista was User Account Control. Yes, for the third time: I know I want to [insert action here]. Windows 7 makes this intrusive security feature much more friendly: you can choose your level of notification, from never to always.

For an extra layer of data security, Windows 7 offers BitLocker. Yes, it was there in Vista, but it’s now much improved and easier to use; simply right-click a drive to enable it. New to Windows 7 is BitLocker To Go, which allows you to easily encrypt portable devices like your easily lost USB keys; now you don’t have to worry about storing your sensitive data on a thumb drive.

For corporate situations, Windows 7 offers other security features like Domain Join, which easily connects you to your PC to your company network for easy working from home.

7. Media Streaming

This nifty feature turns your PC into a kind of media server. You can easily share media between computers on the network, deciding which computer gets to hear/see what. It’s simple to play your media on other devices, like a home stereo system, using the Play To feature. You can even play your media over the web. Simply enable internet access to to home media. You’ll need to install the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant, and you’ll need a Windows Live Account, but that’s not much. It took me less than 3 minutes from start to finish to set this up (that includes downloading and installing the Assistant). Then, you can access your media from any Windows 7 PC with streaming enabled.

8. Performance Increase

Overall, Windows 7 is a leaner, meaner operating system. Memory usage is much better than in Vista. Search is speedier. USB devices are available faster than you can say “Plug and Play.” Windows 7 wakes up from sleep mode much quicker than previous versions. I definitely noticed a huge jump in the time it takes to get back on the network; it’s now almost instantaneous. I just restarted my PC to see how long it took to start up: ~40 seconds to get to the desktop and ~48 seconds for the complete boot.

9. Touch

Yes, Windows had support for touch screens before Windows 7, but now it’s bigger and better. With a better built-in keyboard, great finger gesture support, and more, using a touchscreen computer is easier than even. One example of this is jump lists: to bring up a just list on a touchscreen, simply press an icon and drag upwards. (This works with a mouse too; and give it a try if you’ve got a laptop with a touchpad!)

10. Simplicity

Sometimes the test of an OS is just as much what it doesn’t come with as what it does. No longer does Windows come with things like Movie Maker or Outlook Express. No, Microsoft has decided (at least in this area) and the customer knows best. If you want their software, you can get the Windows Live Essentials pack, or you can go for your own favourites. Also, you can now uninstall Internet Explorer if that will give you a hint of satisfaction.

11. Federated Search

Search in Windows 7 is much improved, but now you’re no longer limited to your own PC’s (or network’s) content. A new feature called Federated Search allows you to search other websites and servers. Any search engine that returns in an RSS feed can be turned into a search provider. The Windows 7 Forum offers quite a few search providers and shows you how to make a search provider for any website.

12. Perks

Windows 7 comes with many other perks:

• Aero Shake
• Action Center
• Calculator (sounds lame, but it’s now pretty powerful)
• Snipping Tool
• Sticky Notes

Look them up and get excited!

That’s it for Now!

I hope this whirl-wind tour has excited you about Microsoft Windows 7 has revved you up! So what’s the verdict? Are you upgrading?

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