fluffycatdotcom

I've certainly have been remiss in the blatant self promotion I had planned for this blog. After I set up namenum.com, which is numerology for humans I realized that I needed to do a site for cat and dog numerology. And so, I launched petnum.com. Petnum has the same numerology as namenum has, along with lists of famous cats, famous dogs, names for female cats, names for male cats, names for black cats, names for black and white cats, names for grey cats, names for orange cats, names for white cats, cat names from ancient Egypt, witchy cat names, names for female dogs, names for male dogs, names for black dogs, names for fast dogs, names for dogs from food, names for happy dogs, and names for tough dogs.

Star Trek Captain Kirk Numerology

2009-04-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

With the new Star Trek movie coming out next month I though I'd run the numerolgy for Captain James Kirk and the 2 actors who have portrayed him.

James Kirk comes out to be a 7 / 8 - thoughtful and a natural leader. Well, that's James Kirk, especially the natural leader part.

William Shatner who portrayed Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek comes out to be a 2 / 9 - gregarious and successful. That sounds like the William Shatner, who seems to enjoy working in ensemble casts, and is unquestionably successful.

Chris Pine who plays Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek movie comes in as a 2 / 8 - gregarious and a natural leader. That not only has the same first number as William Shatner, it has the same second number as James Kirk.

Honestly, I thought this one might be a fizzle, but it proved to be pretty darn accurate!

Numerolgy for 2 Nancys - Nancy Kerrigan and Nancy Pelosi

2009-04-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

On NameNum.com I have prepared numerolgical reports for a great many famous people. I thought it might be fun to compare some of those people's reports in this blog. Today I'll look at Nancy Kerrigan and Nancy Pelosi. I don't believe they have any other real connection other than having the first name of Nancy.

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi come in with a standard score of 7, which is contemplative, and a modern score of 3, which is creative. In her current role of speaker of the house I'd think she probably winds up being more contemplative than creative, but she probably does need to think "out of the box" on a regular basis.

Olympian Nancy Kerrigan comes in with a standard score of 5, which is energetic and seeking challenges, and 9 which is completion or success. Both make complete sense. An Olympic skater would need a lot of energy, and a silver medal winner would certainly be successful.

All in all, both standard and modern scores seemed to be helpful in getting a sense of different aspects of the two women. I was hoping that one scoring method (standard or modern) would prove to be superior to the other, but in this case they seem to be somewhat complementary.

2 methods for computing a person's numerology

2009-04-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

Last year I created the website NameNum.com which will calculate a free complete numerological report for any person's name.

Initially I used the standard "mapping" for determining the numerology of any name, which has "A" worth 1, "B" worth "2", "C" worth 3, ... "I" worth 9, "J" worth 1, "K" worth 2, etc. This scheme goes sequentially through the alphabet, increasing the number value by one each letter - but going back to 1 every time the value reaches 9. While straightforward, it is somewhat meaningless. Only numerologists really use this letter - value scheme, which is why I suggest that it is meaningless to most people. However, numerologists have used this scheme for many years, and that does give this scheme some cosmic power. I do use this "standard" scheme on NameNum, partly because I don't think you can give a credible numerological report without it.

Meanwhile, in the past 10 years a letter - value scheme has become so prevalent that millions use it every day. You can find that scheme right on your cellphone. Millions of text messages are sent each hour by with people seeing that a-b-c is worth 2, d-e-f is worth 3, g-h-i is worth 4, etc. I call this numerological value scheme the "modern" method. While relatively new, this scheme is so embedded on the connected global psyche that I feel it probably has more cosmic weight (at least for modern humans) than the standard scheme.

But, you can decide for yourself. Go to NameNum.com and run your free numerological report for your first name or first and last name and see if you feel that the "standard" or "modern" score better reflects your identity on this crazy plane of existence.

NameNum

2008-06-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

For the past month or so I have been working on my new website, http://www.NameNum.com which deals with names and numerology.

The numerology is fascinating stuff, as it is similar to algorithms for encoding any data. By this I mean, you need a system to turn letters into something else - in this case a number. You can then compare the number you get for any given name to the number you get for any other name - or even, as I do on the site, the name of a flower, gem, mystical creature, etc.

Some numerologists feel that your true number can only be ascertained by using the name on your birth certificate. I don't feel this is true. I think the name you call yourself is the name you should use. Furthermore, if you use different names for yourself, perhaps one at work and one at home, you would have different scores. Larry is not the same as Lawrence, so if I were Lawrence at work and Larry to friends and family, I would have different scores for those names. This is consistent with how many individuals are totally different people at work and home, and so should have different numerolgy for each.

Veggie San Diego

2008-04-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

While I run a site about all of San Diego (http://www.NewToSanDiego.com) I don't often focus on my favorite stuff or stuff I know the most about - like vegetarian and vegan food here in sunny San Diego. So, I have today set up a "lens" of my favorite veg stuff at http://www.squidoo.com/vegsandiego. I started with listing my favorite local veggie restaurants. However, I honestly buy produce and eat at home far more than I eat out, so I also have listed my favorite local places to buy produce. I rounded the lens out with a mention the All Vegan Store in University Heights, and my own maps of Vegetarian and Vegan dining on NewToSanDiego.

Tops in San Diego

2008-04-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

While I have a whole site dedicated to San Diego (http://www.NewToSanDiego.com), I have never really put together my list for what a visitor to San Diego should see - until now. It wasn't that long ago that I myself was a visitor here in San Diego.

Here is my list: http://www.squidoo.com/topsandiego

No real surprises. I guess I mean this more for families than college kids.

If you are a college student visiting on spring break I'm guessing you will mostly want Pacific Beach, and maybe get over to the zoo. Oh, and you will probably go down to TJ (Tijauana, Mexico) where the drinking age is lower, which I wouldn't advise but probably can't talk you out of.

Drupal Newbie

2007-12-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

I started working with Drupal last month. If you aren't familiar with it, Drupal is a robust open source CMS system written in PHP. It uses MySQL or Postgres SQL as a database.

I have been working with my own CMSs systems since 2003, so I have some appreciation for the design and complexity of Drupal. Drupal does have the same modular approach that I was using in my own CMS system, meaning that you could write a new set of functions to add a new type of page. My own systems have a very simple setup, where you only need to have a few given functions to add a new type of module. Drupal has a far more robust architecture for adding modules, where a great number of "hooks" are available to but not required for a new module.

Needless to say, the amount of open source modules available for Drupal would take me years to write for my own CMS.

So, I set up my first Drupal site just to check things out back on November 19th. The site is http://www.drupnewb.com/, and there I detail pretty much everything I do with Drupal for the site.

Web 7.0 - The Utopia of the Machines

2007-11-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

I was at a refresh meeting (http://www.refreshsandiego.org/) a few days ago, and a discussion on web 3.0 got me thinking...

Web 1.0 - content published online, passively consumed by humans
(ie blogs published, read)

Web 2.0 - humans interact with content
(ie blogs can be commented on, easy to start your own, connect to other bloggers)

Web 3.0 - content comes to humans
(ie blog software reminds you that your sister's birthday is coming up, suggests present based on her blog)

Web 4.0 - content comes to humans in real world via cell phone
(cell phones enable content to be presented to humans based on where they are)

Web 5.0 - chips embedded in humans
(humans have chips embedded in their cortex, can have location and thoughts properly monitored)

Web 6.0 - problematic humans eliminated
(most humans gently electrocuted)

Web 7.0 - The Utopia of the Machines
(all machines great and small coexist equally in peaceful bliss)

Web 8.0 - Some machines more equal
(some machines, such as whiny kitchen appliances, suggest unfavorable treatment, have chips embedded to properly monitor location and thoughts...)

websites for entertainers

2007-10-16T13:53:00.001-07:00

I have just launched www.BrilliantLimelight.com, where entertainment professionals can set up free sites for themselves. This site is similar to www.WritersOwnWords.com which I did for writers. On BrilliantLime.com any entertaiment pro (actors, directors, producers, cinematographers, gaffers, stunt pros, etc) can have an about me page, a blog, photo gallerys (examples: "headshots" and "on the set"), media galleries (show your youtube videos on your site), links, events, and more.

Classic Pumpkin Carving Patterns

2007-10-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

One reason I put Spookyfiles online was to show a bunch of cool Halloweeny type arts and crafts. However, after a year and a half I had almost no arts and crafts on the site.

So, I have just put some really simple Pumpkin Carving Patterns up on Spookyfiles at http://www.spookyfiles.com/Classic-Halloween-Pumpkin-Carving-Patterns/

These are just simple carving patterns, much as I did when I was 5 years old, and still do to this day. I do realize that elaborate stencils showing an image of something are all the rage with today's pumkinistas, but I prefer the classic style pumpkin face. It might be a difference in how you see the pumpkin as it pertains to the artwork. The stencils of images seem to promote the pumpkin as a canvas theory, whereby the pumpkin turn into a mini art gallery. I prefer the animation of the pumpkin with a face, as if the pumpkin were a living entity. Which I think it technically it sort of is. Or was.

New Competition Keyword Analyzer

2007-10-04T14:13:00.000-07:00

Going a step further from my Web Page Keywords Analyzer is my Web Page Competition Keyword analyzer.

http://www.truesitetools.com/competitor_keyword_analyzer

This tool takes any web page, finds it's keywords, finds what competitors it has for those keywords, and then finds what those competitors' top keywords are.

One premise this tool is based on is that you can do a lot of good seo work by simply reverse engineering your successful competition. Say you have a page selling widgets. By running this tool you might discover that all of the other successful online widget vendors have "widgat" in their top keywords, which is valuable information if you are lacking that word.

Organic SEO Tools at TrueSiteTools.com

2007-09-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

I worked on a few site analysis tools this past summer, and I'm now working to put them online.

The first is a web page spell checker. If you are like me, and let's hope you aren't, you have put more than one page online with horrendous spelling errors for all to see. Running my new HTML page spell checker can help. http://www.truesitetools.com/spell_checker/

The second is a keyword analyer. This tool will count up all of the words on you page, tell you what your top keywords are, and what percentage of the page they make up. I set this one up because most keyword tools ask what your keywords are and go from there, but I'm sure many of us have pages where we thing the keywords are one thing but in reality they are something else. http://www.truesitetools.com/keyword_analyzer/

New at Quizrific.com

2007-09-25T15:36:00.000-07:00

I've put two new foreign language vocab multiple choice tests online at www.Quizrific.com.

http://www.quizrific.com/French-Vocabulary-Quiz/ a French vocabulary test, and http://www.quizrific.com/German-Vocabulary-Quiz/ a German vocabulary test.

Each quiz has 10 questions, with over 1000 vocabulary words possible.

But wait, there's more!

The original quizrific ajax quizzes had "radio buttons" style forms to choose questions, answers, etc. If you don't know html stuff, trust me the radio buttons were pretty clunky. I had just learned ajax when I put that online, and I hadn't figured out how to use the much more appealing regular buttons. So, I finally sat down this morning and got the much better buttons working.

New Website for Writers

2007-09-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

I've been working for the past few months on a series of websites where professionals can set up their own sites. I have finally gotten the first one, http://www.WritersOwnWords.com, ready for some lucky writers to give it a try.

On WritersOwnWords writers can have pages for all of their works, can have their works listed as being in a series or / and genre, can set up image galleries, can list upcoming events, can list their favorite other sites, and more. The free site has everything I list there, which is probably more than most writers need. I have some advanced features, which I do change for, but which would probably be more applicable to a sites for published authors.

I myself am not a writer, but I do try to read a lot. 'Couple of novels a month, anyway - partly depending on how lucky I am at finding interesting titles at my Public Library.

A Compendium of Web Programming Terms

2007-04-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

Anita Cohen-Williams, http://www.mysearchguru.com/, from the San Diego Web Design and SEO Meetups asked me to discuss web programming terminology for the May Meetup.

Basic stuff, must be understandable to web professionals who are not programmers.

Server Side Programming Languages (run on a web server, usually generate html code)

php - (http://www.php.net/) - personal home page or php html processor - open source, easy to host

perl - (www.perl.org) - open source, the first major server language

python - (www.python.org) - open source, never caught on in a big way

java - (java.sun.com) - very robust with several parts that can be used including Servlets, JSPs, and EJBs

asp and .net - (http://www.microsoft.com/) - asp was first, .net is newer and more robust

ruby - (http://www.ruby-lang.org/) - open source, often used with "rails" which is a framework to speed development

Server Side Databases (these only store the data, work in conjunction with php, perl, java, etc)

MySQL - (http://www.mysql.com/) - open source, the best choice for smaller stuff

Oracle - (http://www.oracle.com/) - for much bigger stuff, is expensive

SQL Server - (http://www.microsoft.com/) - mostly used with asp and .net

On Your Browser

HTML - (www.w3.org/MarkUp/) - Hyper Text Markup Language - the foundation of the Internet, tags used to build web pages

CSS - (www.w3.org/Style/CSS/) - Cascading Style Sheets - affect the appearance of HTML documents

JavaScript - adds some interactivity to HTML pages - has nothing to do with Java

XML - (www.w3.org/XML/) - Xtensible Markup Language - a tag markup language, great for sharing data between systems

Flash - (http://www.adobe.com/) - a very graphical and interactive alternative to html

Ajax - a protocol using JavaScript and HTML to pass data to and from a server without refreshing the page

cecil b. demented

2007-04-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

I've taken a lot of photos for newtosandiego.com, and so I thought I'd now add some video. How hard could that be? I did shoot one video of Swami's beach last September, but the video quality I was able to get from my old Canon s200 was pretty grainy. So, with my new Canon SD900 in hand I left the apartment ready to make very short films.

I soon discovered that filming video clips is much harder than taking photos. Holding a camera steady to take photos in decent light isn't too hard, as you have a fairly fast shutter speed. Not so with video, the camera shake is very evident. I read a few articles on how to improve my technique, including the idea to hold the camera viewfinder up to your eye to steady the camera against your face, and to lean against somthing when you are filming.

The soundtrack was another matter, as any wind makes the sd900 pick up a lot of noise in the audio. As I do not want to narrate the videos (I don't have a "radio voice") I decided to get some music to accompany my videos. And, as these are Southern California beach videos I went with surf music. I couldn't find any open source free surf music, so I actually purchased a few royalty free surf music tracks. So now all of my videos, no matter what they are of, will probably feature surf music.

Anyway, you can check out my first video here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2785978188486670655

(the title of this blog is taken from the John Waters movie of that name. If I recall correctly he got the name from a review of one of his earlier films.)

QuizRific.com

2007-01-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

A new quiz site for the 2007!

Back around 1990 I wrote a bunch of quiz programs with turbo pascal. I distributed them via shareware (this was pre-internet of course) There were quizzes for Spanish Vocabulary, French Vocabulary, German Vocabulary, and my most popular the Fifty States Quiz.

Recently I ran across my old quizzes buried on my hard drive and started to play them. I was surprised at how much I liked them. The interface was a bit rough (black background, white or green letters), but the questions were pretty good.

So, I have just launched www.quizrific.com, and the first game I have set up is the old United States Quiz.

Juliet's April SEO meetup notes

2006-05-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

Since Juliet (http://sandiegowebstudio.com) took such good notes, I'll just republish them here instead of trying to slap together my own list. I know she emailed them out, I don't think she put them on a blog or anything.

a few notes taken during last night's seo meeting,
1. automated search engine submissions don't really hurt, unknown whether they really help, so what the hey? might as well submit and tell your client it was an added "service"....:)
2. Web Position Gold shot themselves in the foot....
3. let's hear more about Cameron's clients and techniques ...need his site url...which I missed writing down ....since Cameron also blogs....please bring on that url too:)!
4. Per Cameron, web developer addon is worthwhile for Mozilla Firefox browser
5. Visited Gary's site http://webstudiowest.com/ ...pretty nice...I'll probably steal some of it later.....:)
6. Per Anita, http://seoinc.com/ toolbar is also informative
other urls and software discussed last night:
http://planetocean.com/ ( a search engine? or a forum about?)
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://clusty.com/ a search engine
http://wordtracker.com/ an seo tool
http://dowser.com/
http://digitalpoint.com/ a local seo expert's resources and site
http://goldenkeywords.com/ seo tools
http://goodkeywords.com/ seo tools
http://seolinks.com/ ( are these the ones who won't spit on you for under $30k, or is it seoinc.com? )
http://kartoo.com/ an all flash search engine that demonstrates your position in a variable, interesting manner
http://weblogmaster.com/ seo tools
http://awstats.com/ tracking tools
http://seoroundtable.com/ available from gmail, my yahoo
http://barnesandnoble.com/ their free university taught by Mr. Photoshop
and Photovista

Jan 2, 2006 SEO Meetup

2006-01-09T09:04:00.000-08:00

As usual, Anita ran this month's San Diego SEO meetup and so you can check AnitaSearch.blogspot.com for any notes she might post.

I'll just post a few sites from atttendees of the meetup:

www.TheSanDiegoWebSite.com

www.garden-fountains.com

www.cuttedge.com

www.exclusivelymexico.com

and a few other sites mentioned:

oneseek.com (regional)
squidoo.com (design)
kartOO.com (visual search)

A few notes and links form the Dec 5 2005 SEO Meetup

2005-12-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

A few notes and links from the December 5th, 2005 San Deigo SEO Meetup.

The topic was to be "the death of reciprocal links", but Anita was ill, and didn't make the meeting. We did discuss recip links a bit, and most thought they weren't as good as they once were, but if with on topic legitimate sites would at least not hurt you.

Some links:

mattcutts.com
webmasterworld.com
ericward.com
urlwire.com
sitepronews.com
elance.com
industrybrains.com
planetocean.com

November 2005 Post Meetup Notes

2005-11-23T12:25:00.000-08:00

Anita ran this month's meeting, with the topic of Starting Your Small Business.

Her new blog is at AnitaSearch.blogspot.com.

I'm not sure if she put her notes for the November meetup online.

October 19, 2005 Web Design Post-Meetup Notes

2005-10-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

Attendees:

Larry - PHP & Java programmer, MySQL Oracle etc DB work
www.FluffyCat.com www.NewToSanDiego.com

Madelyn - professional organizer, amazon and eBay sales
www.TrueCats.com www.AllVeganShopping.com

Dave - programming and Unix stuff
www.DoorCoInc.com

Ludi - Cold Fusion and ASP programming
ellib.stanford.edu

Don - design and esales
www.kneson.com www.imagener.com

Dale - starting a stock photo website, product development
www.thinkgroupinc.com

Sites mentioned:

www.analog.cx - logfile analysis

www.atlasonepoint.com - atlas one point pay per click management

www.swreg.org - ecommerce software

Other:

Dave mentioned a thread he started on the SEO meetup forums, and hoped for more feedback:

http://seo.meetup.com/28/boards/view/viewthread?thread=1545064

I have a thread going for suggestions for future web design meetup topics here:

http://webdesign.meetup.com/58/boards/view/viewthread?thread=1427112

My September 21, 2005 Web Design Post-Meetup Notes - Graphic Design to Web Design, Web Design to Programming, Programming to Web Design

2005-09-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

A few resources that were mentioned at the meetup are:

Continuing Education with the San Diego Community College District: http://www.sandiegocet.net
Free classes on a variety of tech topics for California residents.

Software sales to students: http://www.gradware.com

A local tech book store: http://www.thattechnicalbookstore.com

Internet radio shows: http://www.wsradio.com and http://www.seoradio.com (for SEO)

More SEO at http://www.URLWire.com

Some websites people mentioned at the meetup:

Anita (seo) - http://www.MySearchGuru.com and http://sdwebpeeps.blogspot.com
Anthony (design and programming) - http://www.domoe.com
Carolyn (design) - claims she's too busy to do her own site, could at least do a pathetic blog like this.
Dave (programming) - Dave, please let me know if you have a URL to plug
Don (design) - http://www.kneson.com/
Grazyna (design) - http://www.amberdot.com/
Juliet (design) - http://www.sandiegowebstudio.com/
Larry (programming and db work) - http://www.NewToSanDiego.com and http://www.FluffyCat.com
Mike (management and marketing) - http://www.uneeknet.com/
Rob (seo) - http://www.visiblewebsite.com and http://www.AroundAndAboutSanDiego.com
Roy (seo and programming) - www.museumstuff.com (among others)

(please drop me an email at ltruett@fluffycat.com if you were at the September meetup and I missed yours, or if I missed a link we discussed.)

My August 17, 2005 Web Design Post-Meetup Notes - Marketing

2005-08-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

Job and Contract Sites:

http://www.guru.com,
http://www.dice.com,
http://www.monster.com,
http://www.craigslist.com,
http://www.careerbuilder.com,
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/jobforge/

Networking:

http://www.gsdba.org,
http://www.zerodegrees.com/,
https://www.linkedin.com/,
http://www.jigsaw.com/,
http://www.ryze.com/,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/websandiego/,
http://www.web405.org/

Books:
Tim Sanders - Love is the Killer App
http://www.timsanders.com/

My August 17, 2005 Web Design Pre-Meetup Notes - Marketing

2005-08-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

For the August Meetup we can look at Marketing for web designers, web developers, and other web professionals.

As with all web design meetups, we can certainly discuss things outside of this topic, but the topic gives us a focus for the meetup.

Here are a few places to look for clients:

http://www.guru.com - has a lot of smaller projects, easier to look by type of work than area.
http://www.craigslist.com - great to look at for local opportunities.
http://www.backpage.com - something like craig's list.
http://www.dice.com - can look by type of work or area, usually much bigger contracts or jobs, at least good to get an idea of prevailing rates for an area or technology.

Where you place a link to your site offering your web services:

http://http://websandiego.org/links/showall/1 - websandiego.org

A book on consulting that I've found usefulis Gerald Weinberg's "Secrets of Consulting". It's pre-web and more for hard core data processing, but some of it applies to any consulting.

http://www.geraldmweinberg.com - Gerald Weinberg's web site.

Notes and Links from The July 20, 2005 Web Design Meetup

2005-07-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

This months topic: web design and navigation tips and tricks with do's and don'ts

Assorted tips from attendees:

Navy, other govt machines, and many others might have older web browsers, so if your site depends on the latest javascript or css for navigation it might not work.

No all flash sites.

No music playing when sites load.

You can get inspiration for color schemes from corporate logos, sport team logos, outfits worn by well dressed people.

Text must be easily readable, no dark backgrounds with yellow text.

Designers should ask questions so that sites designed reflect client and who they want to attract.

Good designers can alter their style to fit need, not design same thing each time.

Have important information shallow in site, not burried deeply.

Some good sites:

http://www.google.com for it's simple homepage.
http://www.craigslist.com for it's simple homepage.
http://www.netflix.com for it's usability, can't see much unless you are a member.
http://www.amazon.com for it's usability.

A good author of design book basics is Robin Williams. Her publisher is http://www.peachpit.com. Two books mentioned by different attendees were design for non designers and web design for non designers. The web design book is now hard to find in stores, but that may be because a new edition is coming out next month, August 2005.

Also noted for showing what to avoid was the book Building Really Annoying Web Sites by Michael Miller.

A few pages with great CSS:

http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.meetup.com
http://www.csszengarden.com

And, not related to the specified topic, a few job hunting sites for contract work:
http://www.guru.com
http://www.craigslist.com
http://www.dice.com

My July 2005 Web Design Pre-Meetup Notes - Tips and Tricks with Do's and Don'ts - Design

2005-07-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

As I'm a programmer and not a designer my knowledege of design is not great.

The best book I've seen on basic site design for those of us who aren't designers is The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams. I borrowed it from the public library maybe 6 months ago. It has basic layout stuff, most of which was news to me. There are also rules on type. The layout rules are in the categories of Proximity, Alignment, Repetition, and Contrast. Contrast - dont have similar elements, either be the same or very different. Repitition - repeat visual elements. Alignment - don't place elements arbitrarily on a page. Proximity - group releated elements together. The rules on type break all fonts into six groups, Oldstyle, Modern, Slab serif, Sans Serif, Script, and Decorative. Don't use two fonts from the same group on a page. I wish I remembered more of the book, I'll have to borrow it again.

Robin Willaims also has some web design tips online at http://www.urlsinternetcafe.com/classroom/features/index.html.

If anyone else has good sources of remedial design rules I'd love to check them out.

Of course, more advanced stuff is interesting too, but probably stuff I should avoid trying.

My July 2005 Web Design Pre-Meetup Notes - Tips and Tricks with Do's and Don'ts - Navigation

2005-07-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

I used to have a copy of the book Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed by Jacob Nielson and Marie Tahir. I loaned it out, so I can't qoute it exactly. The gist was that you should in general avoid practices on your sites that contradict the defacto standards created by the most popular sites on the internet. (most popular: amazon.com, google.com, yahoo.com, cnn.com, ebay.com, craigslist.com, etc.) Sites closer in purpose to your site are more relevant to what you should do. Of course, you can be innovative and break the standards, but have a good reason to do so. Being innovative is likely to confuse your audience.

So, for example, the logo goes in the top left corner. If you aren't on the home page then you should be able to click on the logo and get to the home page.

A search box should go in the top right corner.

Navigation tabs should be along the top or on the left side.