Matt’s got some great tips on freelancing. Many of them apply to me, as well, even though I’m not a freelancer. Now that I’m working from Kansas City, at home and away from the Blue Flavor office, I’ve found many of the same things to be true; in particular, “dressing for work,” and have a clean, organized workspace. I admit I don’t really dress in work clothes, but I do get up, shower, shave, and put on clean, fresh clothes. It really makes a difference, compared to sitting around in your boxers with greasy hair the shadow you got at five ‘clock — a week ago. Visit site »
Good advice on how to get the most out of conferences and other web events you might attend. Personally, I would have added, “drink a lot more alcohol than normal at night, and a lot more water than normal during the day,” — but what do I know? :) Visit site »
“From Sunny 16 to Moony 11, 8, and 5.6, these facts, formulas, and photographic rules can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will.” Good stuff. Visit site »
A great post from Matt over at 37signals about how to get publicity. I’ve had a few people write me asking how they can get their blog “out there” — I’d think all of these tips apply equally well to individual bloggers as they do to companies like 37. Visit site »
Another nice piece like Lea. Why can’t I write about stuff like this?! Visit site »
Paul Boag has some great tips on how to get you designs approved by your client or boss. Visit site »
Garrett doles out some great tips for developers at the Blue Flavor blog. As it turns out, every single one of these could also be applied to web designers. Great stuff. Visit site »
WebFaction, my wonderful web host, gives you some pointers on how to keep Django memory usage down. A few of these tips are WebFaction-specific, but many of them apply to Django anywhere you run it. Good stuff. Visit site »
Having been on a few panels now, I really have come to respect that the quality of the panel is almost always directly related to the quality of the moderator. Good tips from Derek here. Visit site »
Really good stuff here. They never taught me any of this in design school, either. But that may be because I never went to design school. Visit site »
Rich Skrenta has some great ideas here. I only disagree with number five, which says, “forget interface innovation.” I disagree in large part because I agree with number six, seven, eight, and nine — which are all about interface innovation. But aside from that little inconsistency, these are great tips on not just how to beat Google in the search area, but how to approach your competition (i.e. how you should be similar and how you should be different) for any web product. Visit site »
These are all written in a “do what I say or else you suck, no questions asked” kind of manner, but the messages are generally good. I wish people writing this stuff would understand that there are no absolutes — it’s just inaccurate to say, “there is never a reason for an all-Flash website.” But, there are good rules of thumb that apply to at least 90% of cases, and this is a pretty good list of them (even if the writer thinks they apply to 100%). Visit site »
Great tips here. Visit site »
A nice list of CSS tricks and tips. Some are quite old, an you’ve probably seen a lot of them before, but it’s still nice to have them all in one place. Visit site »
Keith has a really great post on how to handle the design review process when you’re selling your designs and working with clients to gather feedback. This process can really, really suck if all parties don’t understand how it is supposed to wok — and Keith’s got it all figured out for you. Visit site »
Apple tells you how to make a great podcast. Nice. Visit site »
Aside from the suggestion that all web designers on in-house teams really want to be freelancers (I know I don’t), this is a nice list. Well done. Visit site »
Jakob’s ten most egregious offenses against users are mostly the same things he’s been railing on about for years. As with most Nielsen musings, his ideas are largely good, but his writing style, attitude, and absolutism are annoying at best and offensive at worst. Visit site »
Calling your FastCGI script dispatch.fcgi instead of django.fcgi solves this problem, which seems to be common on some Dreamhost servers. Works for Rails, too. Awesome. Visit site »
Luke’s got some great tips here on design strategy. Number Seven: “Everyone wants to be an armchair design ‘quarterback’- let them play fantasy football by helping them make better decisions. ” Visit site »