Google announced last week that they had aquired the web-based photo-editing app Picnik . Picnik started in 2005 and was one of first online photo-editing sites. It’s a very busy site, with almost 40 million visitors each month. On the company blog , a clearly very excited staff member (and why wouldn’t they be?) said: What does this mean for you Picnikers? Nothing is changing right away, but Picnik now has more potential than ever before.... 

Opera has one of the most rapid browser release schedules and 10.5 is now available — just in time for Microsoft’s EU browser choice screen . You’ll need to download it from Opera.com , although automatic updates from previous versions will appear shortly. Opera 10.5 is a significant update — other browser vendors would have bumped up the major version number. Here’s what you can expect: excellent W3C standards... 

The new logo for the 2014 Commonwealth Games which will take place in Glasgow, was revealed today. The logo was designed by Glasgow-based design agency Marque and according to reports , is said to have cost £95,000. The design is based around numbers associated with the games. This is the 20th time the games have been held, there are 17 sports represented, and it takes place over 11 days of competition and 1 host city.  Read More →

Monday morning means back to work, ready or not. It can be difficult to shake off the weekend and get back to the grind, particularly if you’re still tired, overwhelmed with work, or just had a really great weekend that you aren’t thrilled to leave behind. I’ve found that the harder you push for extra productivity during the first hour or two of back-to-work overwhelm, the easier the rest of …  Read More →

Here are just a few of the design-related tweets that crossed my laptop this week. Darren Hoyt asks an interesting question on his blog about whether designers should “design over a period of years in a consistent, signature style” or be versatile enough to change their style with each new job.  Read More →

The “best” way to use social networks is always subjective because what works for me may not work for someone else. So I’ll say up front that this post is entirely based on my own preferences and experiences, although I suspect that there are others out there who feel the same…or maybe you think some of the things I do on Facebook are highly annoying. Weigh in with a comment below and maybe we can create an outline of best... 

Episode 51 of The SitePoint Podcast is now available! This week your hosts are Patrick O’Keefe ( @ifroggy ), Stephan Segraves ( @ssegraves ), Brad Williams ( @williamsba ), and Kevin Yank ( @sentience ). Listen in your Browser Play this episode directly in your browser! Just click the orange “play” button below: Download this Episode You can also download this episode as a standalone MP3 file. Here’s the link: SitePoint Podcast #51:... 

by Kevin Yank On the SitePoint Podcast #51 this week, we discussed what Sexy Web Design author Elliot Jay Stocks had to say about designers who don’t know their CSS from their elbow: Honestly, I’m shocked that in 2010 I’m still coming across “web designers” who can’t code their own designs. No excuse. Stocks went onto outline his position in a lengthy blog post . Here he mentioned how learning the HTML and CSS necessary... 

Recently I wanted a simple, CSS method for adding a beveled effect to images. It’s easy enough to create a sense of depth just with normal outset borders ( below left ), but what I wanted is something that would actually look like part of the image , as though it were a bevel on the image itself ( below right ): In the end I found four different ways of doing it, each with different levels …  Read More →

Last month, I spoke at a conference about social networking for professionals, and many attendees were full-time employees. During the session, there were a number of questions raised about managing time on social networks when you have a full-time job, and best practices for dealing with the merge of personal and professional lives on these sites. It was a great discussion, and while it didn’t produce any definitive solutions, it certainly... 

Configuring PHP is easy. You can change almost any aspect of the interpreter within the php.ini configuration file, e.g. modify error handling, increase memory usage, etc. Unfortunately, problems can occur when you move your application to a live hosting environment or are distributing the code to customers. ISPs usually lock down the php.ini configuration file — especially on shared hosting. This could cause your application to fail.... 

As part of my series on starting a business , this post will cover some of basic legal considerations you’ll want on your radar when you start a business. Forms of Ownership Likely at the same time you are exploring names for your business , you may be thinking about the structure your business will take. This is an extremely important decision, and it’s wise to…  Read More →

In this series we’ve looked at pretty much every color in the rainbow and it’s use in design. In this post, we’re looking almost at an absence of color because today, I’m writing about the color gray. Gray is a balanced, neutral color and it is very popular in web design. It doesn’t evoke particularly strong emotions (except maybe a bad mood) in the same way Red , Orange or Purple might. It’s not as definite as black, but a very... 

The inset or letterpress look has been popular on the web for a while now. The logo on the Postbox site is just one example of the use of this style on the web. The effect is really easy to create and a handy one to have in your design toolbox.  Read More →

We all know what it’s like. You need to finish that blog post/copy/presentation but the inspiration just isn’t hitting you. Before you know it you’ve wandered off to your Twitter feed, spellchecked the title three times and answered some email. Well, if you happen to be using Jeff Printy’s Write or Die , there may be very good reason not to stick to the task at hand. Write or Die is an anti-procrastination writing tool,...