HTML

HTML5 Tags in IE8

2010-05-27T08:00:00Z

I'm now creating all new websites in HTML5. As always, IE is way behind in technology. This article explains how to get your html5 tags working just like they would in Chrome or Firefox.

You can get HTML5 tags working in IE8 by including this JavaScript in the head.

<script>
document.createElement('header');
document.createElement('nav');
document.createElement('section');
document.createElement('article');
document.createElement('aside');
document.createElement('footer');
</script>

So far this has covered all my needs, if you have more in depth explication I'd love to hear it. Please leave a comment.

Reference

Building HTML5 Pages

404 Resources

2009-09-11T08:00:00Z

There is a wealth of information on 404 pages, if you would like to read more I've posted my 404 resources here.

Here is my up-to-date list of 404 resources, they are mostly IIS or inspiration sites. Basically it covers anything I could fit in when I was writing my 404 week articles.

{loadposition del_404}

Free Web Design Template Sites

2009-06-13T02:08:36Z

Pre-made web design templates save both time and money. I've collected a list of websites who offer free (aka open source) web design templates.

Free web design templates allow me to offer my services at a reduced rate. This is because I don't have to get a graphic designer to create a design for the website. Also templates are already mocked-up in html so it is easy to fix up the mistakes and create a CMS template.

I've try to keep my list clean of sites which offer non-valid, crummy looking templates. Remember: you get what you pay for.

{loadposition del_free_templates}

Hand Picked Designs

I very often stumbleUpon articles which list an authors favourite Free CSS templates. I'd like to share those articles with you now. This should save you time from weeding through the above sites if you are not looking for something specific.

Choose A Good Domain Name

2009-06-01T08:00:00Z

In this article I will explain the steps you should take when choosing a domain for your organization. Domain Names are very important because they are what your customers, visitors or users will use to return to your website. In order for your site to be successful they will need to implement most of the following steps.

Keep it short

Sort domain names are easy for your users to remember, three-letter and four-letter .com domains so popular that none remain. Keep the number of characters to less than 24.

Remember you can't have spaces in your domain name only "-" (dashes), I talk about these further down. Domains with only one to three words are ideal such as your companyname.com.

Example: Amazon.com is a great domain and worth billions of dollars. FaceBook.com is a good two-word domain worth millions of dollars.

Make It Easy To Remember

Most web surfers do not use their bookmarks. Web Surfers tend to memorize the domains they favour and visit them frequently; therefore, if your domain is hard to memorize you will lose return visitors. Donâ€™t use hyphens Again people have been trained to just type everything into their browser address bar with no spaces or hyphens. Your users will forget where to place the hyphen and most likely visit a competitors site which don't use hyphens.

Make sure it is easy to spell

Unfortunately most of your visitors are not as smart as you and only have their grade 12 education (if that). Also if you want to appeal to foreign markets where English may not be a users first language easy to spell words are essential (remember the web is world wide).

Example: destinationOsoyoos.com is a great site if you know how to spell Osoyoos however most travelers do not. Buy more than one domain .com is the highest level of domain and the most popular. Advertisers have pounded into users heads to place a .com after what they are looking for. However is it very important to maintain your national domain as well as search engines which have localized search (such as google) will place your localized domain before .com.