Photoshop Resources

Like many people, I started out using Macromedia Fireworks and eventually took the plunge and migrated to Photoshop. Although the switch was difficult at first, I quickly became accustomed to the differences between the two programs and now rely on Photoshop for about 95% of my design now.

I thought I would share some of the links I frequent on a regular basis looking for new tutorials, ideas, trends, etc. Enjoy!

http://www.templatemonster.com (mainly for ideas)

http://www.photoshoplab.com/

http://www.photoshoplab.com/

http://www.cameronmoll.com/

SEO friendly sub navs made easy - Infinite Menus

I found a very nice tool today (it's free by the way) that gives you a GUI interface so you can make subnavs.

So for example, a lot of sites have a main nav element called Products. This tool will help you create a subnav so that when you put your mouse over Products, another menu opens up giving you more options.

http://www.opencube.com/imenus.asp

The tool is free and does not use Flash or Javascript so everything is SEO friendly.

Client deadlines

I spoke with a guy at church today who said he got a website done but it has never gone live because he just hasn't gotten around to writing the copy. In fact, he said it's been about a year and a half since the site's been done!

I wanted to post a question: what should be an acceptable deadline to receive copy for a website? 2 weeks, 1 month, etc. What is the norm in the industry?

I've always found that this is the biggest slow down to site development - waiting on copy from the client.

Anyone else have this issue? How did you resolve it? Is there an industry standard for dealing with this?

Keyword density

As I peruse the online plethora of "how-to's" on the web about how to rank your website higher on search engines, I keep running into the 'keyword density' enigma.

No one seems to know what the magic percentage or number is as far as how many times to use a certain keyword/keyphrase on a webpage.

You don't want to repeat them too much or you might be considered spamming the search engines; but then you want to make sure you use them enough or you don't get your point across. It's a mystery. Google certainly won't give any hints about it, so how do we know what's acceptable and what's not? Should I repeat the same keyword 5 times? 10 times?

Anybody got any clues?

Pinging the popular blogs

I set up a blog for my company the other day (http://www.avalive.biz/blog/blog.html) and was showing it to a friend. He asked me if I was pinging Technorati when I made updates. I was like, 'Techno -who?'.

He said you can set it up so that whenever you made changes to your blog, you notify other popular blogs of your changes. Fortunately, Google's Blogger does that automatically for you.

Technorati is very popular right now so you want to make sure you ping them.

I did some research and found this site the other day:

http://www.pingoat.com/

This service lets you ping multiple blogs at once. It's free, easy and they also have some other great tools like a webpage keyword analysis tool, a spider simulator tool and email anti-spam generators.

Flash photo gallery in minutes

1. Download Simpleviewer - http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/
2. Download Picasa2 - http://picasa.google.com/download/index.html
3. Create a folder on your desktop to hold the gallery.
4. Open Picasa
5. Create a new web album, select the folder that contains your pics, select the Simpleviewer template, select the destination as the folder on your desktop and voila - you're done.

One of my clients, Ryan Curtis uses this method on his website:

http://www.curtis-photo.com/

Just click on one of his gallery links to see an example.

Christian Surfers Jaco, Costa Rica site in progress

Another project for a non-profit organization is in the works.

Last May a couple of buddies and I went to Jaco, Costa Rica for a surf trip and stayed with the local Christian Surfers in Jaco.

Upon returning from the trip, Daniel Looman, the local chapter director, asked me to help redesign their new site.

The design phase is complete and now we are busy integrating all the content and pics into the site pages.

This site will probably be done before 2007 so check back soon for the release date.

New Surfrider Site to Launch in 2007

We have been busy redesigning the local Surfrider chapter's website that is set to be completed in early 2007.

Check back around January to get a final release date.

You can view their current site at:

http://www.surfrider.org/capefear/

Impulse Web Solutions Launches New Site: Propapa

Last year I was doing some computer work on the side for a gentlemen named William Casey here in Wilmington NC.

He is part of a non-profit organization called Propapa which sends different types of teams to Honduras to minister to the people who need help. The types of teams they send there are:
dental teams, eyecare teams, construction teams and medical teams.

Casey asked me if I would help out with the site which in the end will help the people of Honduras by creating an informative sight that is easy to use and bursting with different opportunities for people to help, volunteer and donate.

http://www.propapa.org/

Impulse Web Solutions Launches New Site: Blue Ridge Surfboards

I met 'Bob' on the wblivesurf forum when I saw his current site - man was it ugly.

Anyways, at the time I was trying to build up my portfolio and I was also looking to progress in my surfing by moving down from a huge 6'8 king fish to something smaller.

'Bob' and I worked it out where I could do the entire site in exchange for a new custom made board.

His main concern was that he wanted the ability to upload/mange his board inventory whenever he wanted. So I built him a backdoor where he has the opportunity to upload pics of his boards and load information about those boards such as price, dimensions, fin setup, etc.

I also wound up using some Lightbox/Javascript technology so that when you view a larger image of the board thumbnails, the larger image expands and adjusts to the size of the original image. Also, the rest of the page sort of fades to black and the larger image sort of jumps out at you. If you have no idea what I'm talking about you can see an example here:

http://www.blueridgesurfboards.com/boardPics.php?boardType=shortboards

Just click on the board pic and you'll see what I mean.

Anyways, if you're looking to support a local shaper and get something custom made, 'Bob' is your man over at Blue Ridge Surfboards.

To see the board he made me, go here:

http://www.blueridgesurfboards.com/boardArt.php

Mine is the Blue Rising Sun, top line, far right. He did a sick job - I love this board!

Impulse Web Solutions Launches New Site: Ryan Curtis Photo

My friend Heath over at http://www.mtgotraders.com/ referred Ryan to me a couple months ago. Ryan and I eventually made contact through http://wblivesurf.com 's forum and we discussed developing a site for his photography business.

I believe Ryan is still in high school but already he is producing high-quality work both on land and in the water.

Here is his homepage: http://www.curtis-photo.com/

And here is his gallery page: http://www.curtis-photo.com/gallery.html

I tried to create something a little more professional for him and once I figured out how to use the splash coconut pic on the bottom, everything else just flowed from that.

For the Flash galleries I used a free program called SimpleViewer in conjunction with Picasa2.

Here's a snapshot of his homepage:

Impulse Web Solutions Starts New Blog

Impulse Web Solutions of Wilmington NC is starting it's own blog courtesy of Google's Blogger.

The purpose of this blog is to discuss up-and-coming technologies in the world of web development and to inform site users about what's new with Impulse Web Solutions.

Enjoy the blog!

http://www.impulsewebdesigns.com