The Happy Pixel http://www.thehappypixel.com/ en Copyright 2008 Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:00:33 -0600 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss My Favorite Newspaper Websites I spend a lot of time browsing through and analyzing newspaper web sites. There are a few sites that I visit daily and I would like to share them with my readers:

The Globe's site is my absolute favorite newspaper website. It provides a nice blend of clean design, semantic mark-up and unobtrusive ad positioning. I would love to hear about your favorite newspaper sites so please leave a comment.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2007/09/my_favorite_newspaper_websites.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2007/09/my_favorite_newspaper_websites.php Mon, 10 Sep 2007 23:00:33 -0600 40 Unusually Useful Websites I stumbled up this ridiculously useful website that highlights 40 amazing web sites that serve a unique purpose. Of the 40, I found the following web sites to be the most interesting:

  • BugMeNot – instantly get disposable login details for any popular website that forces you to register.
  • DailyLit – read your favorite books by email (on your PC, mobile, etc.)
  • Google SMS – provides mobile users with a quick access (via SMS) to a wide range of practical information and tools (i.e. business listings (pizzerias, shops, etc.), weather, movie listings, driving directions, currency converter and lots more.
  • ListenToaMovie – lets you ‘listen to a movie’, i.e. stream the audio part of various movies and some TV-shows.
  • IQzone – post your classified ad to a number of online and print classified networks directly from your mobile.
]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2007/09/40_unusually_useful_websites.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2007/09/40_unusually_useful_websites.php General Sat, 08 Sep 2007 09:48:53 -0600 Don't Make Me Think | A Must Read During the Christmas break, I decided to begin reading a couple of books that have been itching at me for quite some time. The first book that I decided to tackle was Steve Krug's, Don't Make Me Think. One of the best things about the book is that it practices what it preaches.

Don't Make Me Think is such a quick, easy read, that you can polish it off while on a short flight. Although most of what it covers is common sense, it is really nice to have it front of you in plain English.

I got the most out of the book from the following sections:

  • Navigation
  • Home Page Design
  • Usability Testing
]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2007/01/dont_make_me_think_a_must_read.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2007/01/dont_make_me_think_a_must_read.php Web Design/Development Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:54:50 -0600 Web Directions North I thought it would be a good idea to mention that the Web Directions North conference is fast approaching… I can't wait. With speakers such as Cameron Moll, Kelly Goto, Jeremy Keith, Dave Shea and many others, it is going to be a very informative experience. The early bird price of $895 has been extended to January 14 so I recommend you sign up now.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2007/01/web_directions_north.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2007/01/web_directions_north.php General Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:50:33 -0600 See You Later 2006 | It's been a Blast I have to say, the year of 2006 is one for the books. I've managed to get married, buy a dog, buy my first house and land my dream job all in one shot.

2006 has been a very busy year for the web industry as well. Web 2.0 is in full swing, Microformats are becoming standard and XHTML/CSS has obtained more acceptance than ever. Things are going great!

I'm really looking forward to seeing an even bigger growth in 2007. One of the technologies that I am really hoping to see more of is SMS. When the blockbuster movie "Snakes on a Plane" used Samuel L. Jackson's voice to call people to force them to go to the movie, I immediately saw the power of SMS. Since then, I have been able to pay for my parking, check movie times and find restaurant locations.

As a final post for 2006, I want to leave you with a list of the sites that I visited the most:

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/12/see_you_later_2006_its_been_a.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/12/see_you_later_2006_its_been_a.php General Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:57:35 -0600 The Key to a Successful Website | Project Management I have been spending so much of my recent attention dealing with Search Engine Optimization that I feel like I have neglected Project Management. Without a doubt, Project Management is the glue that holds every web project together.

A properly managed project takes a lot of extra effort but in the long run it pays off big time. Simple procedures such as site maps, wireframes and detailed content inventories make project budgets and timelines a less daunting process. It helps to keep you on track and ultimately leads you through to a less stressful launch date. In fact, I feel that if a site isn't properly managed and if information architecture isn't executed properly that the site will be unsuccessful and will eventually flop.

The good news is that there are a handful of resources that can immediately set you on the right track. The first thing that I would do is read Avoid Edge Cases by Designing Up Front, an amazing article that was recently posted on Alistapart. There is no doubt that this article will blow you away and you will run to your local book store to pick up a copy of Web Re-design 2.0. This book is created for re-design projects but it is just as useful for new projects.

If you have any other questions or comments, please feel free to contact me or leave a comment.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/12/the_key_to_a_successful_website.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/12/the_key_to_a_successful_website.php Project Management Tue, 19 Dec 2006 21:51:08 -0600 Firefox Extention | Firebug A couple of years ago, I, along with every other web developer on the planet fell in love with Chris Pederick's Web Developer Toolbar. This amazing extension does everything but code the site for you. Features such as easy access validation, outlining and live css editing help to ease the struggle of developing under tight deadlines. Needless to say, my projects wouldn't be the same without it.

Until recently, I couldn't fathom the idea of another Firefox extension taking title of being the ultimate tool for web developers. Then, I found Firebug.

Instead of going through all of the cool features available is this wonderful little utility, I urge you to watch the screen cast and download the extension. I'm sure that you will agree, Firebug is a welcome addition to any web developer's tool kit.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/12/firefox_extention_firebug.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/12/firefox_extention_firebug.php Web Design/Development Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:01:49 -0600 CMS Search | Strike Two For the past three weeks, I have been trying out text pattern as a CMS. I want to clarify my headline by saying that text pattern is a great cms/blogging tool. It's just that it isn't the right tool for the project that I am working on.

Installing and configuring textpattern was an absolute breeze. I found a ton of support groups and modules that I could use to get the most out of the cms. Standards support and css customization was extremely easy to implement on this open source application.

The biggest problem that I ran in to was the inability to create sub sections. For example, I needed to have /site/books/drama/something.html and all that was available was /site/books/something.html. I'm sure their is a way around this, but I didn't want to get in to the whole, I have a new CMS tool that I love but have to customize it to meet my needs. This road block gave me an immediate bad taste and I decided to code the CMS myself.

In the end, I have to say that text pattern is my new favorite blogging tool and I will probably use it for smaller sites. If you are working on larger news sites or are creating a website that requires a relatively deep site structure, look elsewhere.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/12/cms_search_strike_two.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/12/cms_search_strike_two.php Web Design/Development Thu, 07 Dec 2006 21:34:44 -0600 CMS Search | Strike One Through out the past few weeks I have been searching high and low for a scalable, accessible, standards based CMS. I really thought I hit a home run when I stumbled upon Live Story Board. This CMS had everything that I was looking for. It was cost efficient, hosted, and best of all, standards based.

After speaking with the less than professional representative at Live Story Board, I realized that this was too good to be true. My test demo was ignored twice and they stopped responding to my emails. This could have been the dream CMS that I was looking for but I will never know because the Customer Service was so bad. If you are looking for a new CMS for your upcoming project, be sure to avoid Live Story Board.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/11/cms_search_strike_one.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/11/cms_search_strike_one.php Web Design/Development Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:52:09 -0600 SEO Myths I came across an interesting page that lists some of the myths associated with SEO. Take it for what its worth, but don't read in to it 100%.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/11/seo_myths.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/11/seo_myths.php Search Engine Optimization Thu, 23 Nov 2006 21:16:53 -0600 Matt Cutts: Google SEO Tips Matt Cutts, a Search Engine Optimization professional from Google, provides really useful information on Google site rank/SEO in few different videos:

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/11/matt_cutts_google_seo_tips.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/11/matt_cutts_google_seo_tips.php Search Engine Optimization Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:45:53 -0600 The Proof is in the Pudding - SEO put to the test For all of you that don't think Search Engine Optimization is a viable means to market your product/service, have a look at Five SEO Excuses. This site proves that SEO actually works and argues the five great myths opposing SEO.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/10/proof_that_seo_does_work.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/10/proof_that_seo_does_work.php Search Engine Optimization Mon, 02 Oct 2006 10:59:48 -0600 Google Site Maps I would like to take the time to talk about Google Site Maps. This amazingly useful tool provided by Google gives web folk such as myself a way to make my site more "Google friendly".

With the ability to see where your site ranks with Google, webmasters are given the opportunity to strategicly plan and optimize there website and take control over their keyword campaign. At the very least, you can make sure Google has access to crawl your site. The Google Webmasters Tool help page provides a great overview of the available features.

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/09/my_new_best_friend_google_site.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/09/my_new_best_friend_google_site.php Web Design/Development Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:07:01 -0600 <![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization & Dynamic URL's]]> If you are creating a dynamic website that is search engine optimized, it is very important to be considerate of the URL's that your code is generating. For example, if you have a page on your website that has a URL of http://www.site.com/test.php?cheese&id=3&foo=ha, search engines are sure to miss out. As a gerneal rule of thumb, search engines will not be able to see a URL 3 parameters deep and may even ignore two paramters.

For those of you that are coding with PHP on an Apache server, you are in luck. Apache comes with Modrewrite, which allows you to use regular expressions to rewrite your Dyamic URL's in to a cleaner, more search engine friendly URL. The important thing to keep in mind is that Modrewrite doesn't re-direct your users, it simply renames the URL's

There are numerous tutorials on the Internet, but I found the following to be the most useful:

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/07/search_engine_optimization_dyn.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/07/search_engine_optimization_dyn.php Web Design/Development Sun, 02 Jul 2006 15:14:14 -0600 <![CDATA[Using & Configuring Google Maps with XML]]> Through out the past couple of weeks, I have been working endlessly on implementing the Google Maps API in to a xhtml strict website. At the beginning of the project, I decided that I wanted the application to be fully customizable via an XML file. Everything from the icons, locations & info windows needed to be accessed and modified from one central location.

When setting up the Google Maps API, it is very important to pay attention to the version. I wasted a good day trying to follow XML.com's "Hacking Google Map's" tutorial, only to realize that their method of using marker.openInfoWindowXslt to access an xsl file was no longer supported.

The main advice that I can give for anyone that wants to add Google Maps to their site is to use the following two pages as a resource because they are the best :

]]> http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/06/using_configuring_google_maps.php http://www.thehappypixel.com/2006/06/using_configuring_google_maps.php Web Design/Development Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:10:24 -0600