David Appleyard
David Appleyard helps to build fun things for the design community, including Design Shack, Creative VIP, and Themelantic.
Articles / 5 May 2008
Changing for the Better
First of all, a huge thank you to the hundreds of people who responded to our survey – we’ve had some great suggestions of improvements to the site. The survey will be running for the next few days before we announce the winner of the contest so if you haven’t filled it in yet, please do!
Articles / 25 Apr 2008
10 Website Statistic Tools
Keeping track of visitors to your website is vital, and these ten tools can allow you to monitor and review traffic in different ways. Some are free, some require a small charge – all of them will help you optimize your website and know exactly who is passing eyes over your design.
Articles / 24 Apr 2008
Express Submission
We have been testing a new way to submit your site to Design Shack recently, and it has been very well received. Express submission guarantees a 24 hour review of your website, and we will provide a personal response via email. The price was $10, and is now only $7. If you’re looking for a way to have your website reviewed quickly then this is it!
Please feel free to let us know your thoughts on the new service, we always appreciate feedback.
Articles / 22 Apr 2008
Ruby on Rails Intro
You’ve probably heard about Ruby on Rails by now, but it might not be something you have ever really got to grips with. A List Apart have published two great articles as an introduction to Ruby On Rails.
Articles / 18 Apr 2008
Coding With Springloops
A common problem I encounter when designing a site in a team is the lack of a tool to easily allow us to collaborate and co-ordinate our work. There are several tools available to manage workflow and tasks, but few to actually help with the problem of overwriting someone else’s code.
Competitions / 9 Apr 2008
NuBlue Hosting Discount
In celebration of a new hosting package, designed specifically to support the Magento eCommerce application, NuBlue are offering a 25% discount for all Design Shack readers. Simply use the discount code ‘sh4ck’ when signing up for an account. NuBlue are one of very few UK hosts that are currently supporting this application and this discount is a great way to get started using Magneto.
Competitions / 26 Mar 2008
Spring Giveaway
To celebrate the arrival of Spring, Slice ‘n Dice are giving away a free project and a Gooey Carbon Bundle from GooeyTemplates.com. It looks like a great contest, something to make your spring coding a little easier!
The project up for grabs is a one page XHTML design with a three day turn-around – a value of $249. All designs are cross browser tested, with fully commented code.
Articles / 26 Mar 2008
Top 10 CSS Navigation Menus
Creating navigation with CSS is one of the most crucial elements of website design. Get the navigation right, and people will feel welcomed and at home. Get it wrong, and it can spell trouble for your website. This is a great collection of 10 CSS navigation examples and tutorials to get you in the creative mood.
Articles / 19 Mar 2008
Developer Tools in Safari
Open the safari preferences window, click on the ‘advanced’ option and then select the box entitled ‘Show develop menu in menu bar’. Straight forward! The result is a new field in the top menu which looks like the following:
Articles / 12 Mar 2008
10 CSS Form Examples
Forms can be greatly enhanced with a touch of CSS, making them more usable and far more visually attractive. Follow some of the examples below and you’ll be creating stunning CSS forms in no time at all.
Accessibility / 7 Mar 2008
Cross Browser Testing (PC)
A sure sign of a rock solid, well coded CSS layout is that it displays consistently across browsers and platforms. A look at recent global browser stats shows that, while Internet Explorer continues to be the most popular web browser in general use, its user base is fairly evenly split between versions 6 and 7.
And although other browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Safari have a relatively small share of the browser market, it would be unwise for any web designer or developer to ignore them when testing their work.
Articles / 4 Mar 2008
One Thousand Designs
We today passed the mark of 1000 CSS designs featured in our gallery. Thank you to all those who keep submitting their websites and to our loyal readers looking for inspiration. Here’s to hitting the 2000 mark next year!