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There's a simple basic rule in any kind of marketing - Creative marketing creates success. The top products in the world are the result of creative marketing, new ideas and better ideas applied to all aspects of marketing from advertising to merchandising. Everything from web design to discounting deals forms part of the creative marketing process.

In this article, we will give you insight into the marketing world and maybe show you how to get a good head start into it.

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On first glance, this topic may seem extremely simple and obvious. You have to balance quality of the image and file size of the media to suite your site and its audience. Duh. However, this idea in itself is surprisingly not understood or practiced well on most websites. Certain small and unimportant graphics will have too high a resolution and file size while more prominent graphics will appear to not have enough. A lot of this boils down to the small details of file properties and how they are compressed or represented digitally.

Image Preparation

Before we even go over saving or file types, I'd like to cover a couple details you should understand about web graphics. Images made to be viewed in browsers should be formatted in RBG. CMYK is traditionally reserved for print. This is because RGB is an additive system (the more colors added, the more the image turns white) while CMYK is a subtractive system (the more colors added, the more the image turns black). Think of CMYK as if you're working on a sheet of paper; without any colors added, the sheet is just white. RGB is the exact opposite.

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In any profession you will need to display your skill set. If you have a website, I present you with a colorful and simple way to display your skills to your visitors that will not only stand out among a crowd but is very easy to implement. I found a few promising designs, but unfortunately I could not find a good tutorial that would show me how to create a design that would do what I wanted it to without having to update it often....so I designed one that suited my needs and i decided to let other people use it on their site.

Our design implements CSS and PHP to create a colorful, turn key solution for your needs. You can use our design and modify it to meet your skill set. You only need to change the skill and what year you started learning the skill and the PHP and CSS code will do the rest. I designed this to display on our contact page but you can use it for pretty much any job that you offer. Even if your skills are not related to website design a skill set is still applicable.

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One of the first steps in any web development project is design. Since design is more than just the graphics or a functionality spec you must take a well rounded approach if you plan to be successful with your web project. It is also the information architecture and matching the end business goals with the right technology solutions.

It is often that the actual business goals and intended audience are not fully considered upfront with a cohesive strategy. This is usually because of two reasons; one, that the there is no research available and you are going off instinct or experience, or two, that it is simply just overlooked.

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When you make the decision to get your brand online you need to decide on Domain Names, Web Hosting, and even Email Hosting. To some, this is a daunting decision because you need to know where you want your site to go and how you want to get there. Fortunately for most people there are simple solutions for this everyday predicament. There are numerous web hosting companies to help you get started....just Googling the term returns 241,000,000 results.

How do I know where to go? Well, it really depends on your taste and what you want to give or receive. Most companies will either give you unlimited accounts for a higher price or you can settle for cheaper companies like GoDaddy but have limits imposed. Some companies will give you free months for signing up other people.

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How many older generation geeks have played Nintendo games when they were kids? Probably almost every visitor to this blog. You have played and loved your old NES system and regularly think about it again....but alas, you probably threw it out to replace it with the new systems that all the cool kids had to have. I kept mine for many years after I first played my brand new PS2. It wasn't because I thought it was a collectible or because I didn't like my PS2. It was because my NES kept me busy as a kid with great adventure games that were nearly impossible to beat. Everyone who played NES can remember spending the weekend sitting in front of the TV playing TMNT or Battletoads and never really beating the game. Hell, I still know people my age that NEVER beat those games. That was the thrill of it though.

For so long, I have wanted to break out the old system or go to Ebay or Amazon and purchase a used one just to hook up and play the weekend away. Maybe I could beat my old scores on Tetris or Bomberman. Probably not since I am so far out of practice and I have been so used to online gaming and the feel of the newer XBox 360 and PS3 controls. My young self would laugh and destroy my old self. It would still be fun tough.

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If you have ever designed a website, you know about the need to track the statistics of your visitors. There are many paid and open source web analytical software packages to choose from that will suit your needs. You have Google, Statcounter, Yahoo, and PiWiki just to name a few. I currently use Statcounter, Google, and an open source, freeware application you can install right on your site (unlike Statcounter and Google) call Open Web Analytics. Keep in mind, this is not a paid advertisement, just a review of a great product.

Benefits to Open Web Analytics

The benefits of having the data hosted on your site, at least for me, is the fact that I control the data. I can show the data however I see fit using my own custom graphs and charts. You cannot do that with Google and Statcounter. Trust me, I m not knocking Statcounter or Google....they are great, but I love Open Web Analytics because it does a few things that the others cannot do for me. For example, you can record your visitor's sessions to see what they did while they were on your page. So, basically, they are not just a number anymore....they are a real live visitor. The data remains on your server so you never have to worry about your data being sold to advertisers, the site going down for reason outside your control (Gmail??).

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Do you want to get benefits from a software testing profession? This is a good question....firstly you should find out if you have a certain type of personality to complete software testing. You need to be organized, logical and thorough. You will be writing test cases determined by business and functional requirements.

Once you've implemented those tests - often repeatedly your aim would be to ensure that no software goes out to your customer without all the bugs found. It is rarely achievable, but it should be your main goal. I always prefer to believe your 2nd goal is always to have every developer hate you because you keep finding bugs within their code.

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After much debate I have decided to open the flood gates and allow for guest posts on my blog. I want my visitors to learn everything they can even if it does not come from me. I know I do not know everything and I hope that someone out there is wiling to write content that grips the viewer and entertains them at the same time. this will be a great way to get your blog out there to my ever growing visitor base, so its a win-win for both of us. Become a guest contributor and get backlinks to your site that can be followed.

Since this is fairly new for me and my Website Design blog I will be very picky about the content I want my readers to read. If you think that you can write something that will benefit my readers then please use the list below to make sure that your article meets the requirements I will be looking for and you can add content to our blog. If you have what it takes, then I will provide a do follow link to your blog with a relevant link title. Please do not spam this or your email and your websites will be blacklisted and your great content may never been seen. I will email you if I approve the article and you should start seeing visitors coming from your blog post on my site.

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When you go to a Website do you type WWW or do you leave it off and go straight to the domain? If you are a frequent user of the Internet you probably said that you do not use the WWW. You are not alone. Many experienced users do not include the WWW just because it is quicker. This may seem like an easy answer, and technically it is, but beyond web programmers and developers the real reason behind the use of WWW is not well known.

When you design a site you need to account for the use of the WWW or the WWW-less URL. According to many developers around the world, the WWW is depreciated. There is no need for the WWW anymore....I am one of those developers that think like this, so I may be biased to which one I prefer. While the URL may look the same to a typical user, it is not to a search engine. Some search engines can treat the WWW as a sub domain and it may knock your Website down a few notches because of duplicate content. For example, while I was doing research for this blog post I found a site that listed Digg as one of the offenders...so it is not limited to small websites. Even the big boys get it wrong occasionally.

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Forget Everything You Know About Freelancing

I am sure by now that you heard that freelancing means that you will have short hours, long breaks, and many vacations. Well, sorry to say this, but you are way off. Of course you could do all of that, but then you would never get any work done and you would not make it as a freelancer for very long. Freelancing takes commitment, a skill at multitasking, and the eagerness to learn new things. Most of the time, you never even have a real day off because your clients call you all the time or you are constantly working on new projects to stay ahead of the game.

Once you start working as a freelancer you will soon realize that only crazy people would do this. If you have made it far enough to think that, then most likely you would be considered one of those crazy people. Not just crazy, but someone who truly loves what they do and despite everything they have to put up with, are a generally happy person. Even though you can now make your own hours and you don't have a boss anymore you may now be lacking things that you took advantage of when you had a "J-O-B" like insurance, tax breaks, and a steady paycheck. You health insurance will start costing an arm and a leg (no pun intended), you will be paying probably what your last employer paid in taxes, and your paychecks can come and go.

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Icons have become a easy way for graphic designers to show their skills to potential buyers or clients. They can be an easy way to spice up your blog post or help E\/OLVE the look of your desktop. However you use them, they make a difference and result in a better crafted project or they just provide some eye candy to you on a daily basis. We know that there are millions of icon sets on the Internet so we took the liberty of finding the best of the best on putting them all in one place.

In order to help you save time we have gathered the best FREE icon sets we could find and complied them into our Top 15 Free Icon Sets blog post. We have included social media icons, RSS icons, programming icons, and even stylish icons for use anywhere. The icon sets are free to use but please check with the icon set designer, usually listed at their site, for the specifics about their fair use.

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Photoshop is probably, hands down the best graphic design software ever invented....or maybe that is just my opinion but I am sure that a lot of people will agree. Adobe developed Photoshop in the 90s and have released new versions that never disappoint. Graphic designers use Photoshop everyday to earn a living but they earn that living because they know what they are doing. It took a long of practice and studying to learn to accomplish some of the things that you see online. For some it may have been easy but for most, Photoshop is known to have a steep learning curve that makes the new designers run for easier to use software like Gimp or Corel. Well, I for one can tell you that Photoshop can knock the socks off of the competition if the designer really knows that they are doing.

How did people get so good at Photoshop if there is such a learning curve? First off, it took time....don't expect sell your artwork of design a Website because you now have the tool to do it...it takes practice. Lots of hours spent in front of the computer screen learning and ever E\/OLVING to keep up with the competition. In this article we save you some of the time it takes to find good tutorials that do not look like they were drawn by a 12-year old on Photoshop 1.0. We have complied a list of the Top 10 Photoshop Tutorial Sites in order to give you the edge and save your time of creativity.

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The attraction of local clients is one of the most important things that a freelance business can try to accomplish. This goes for all walks of life from your web designers, graphic designers, programmers and many more businesses. Pretty much any business you can start needs to have a strong local presence. If you are trying to start up a freelance business then I suggest you start small and work with the people who may know you or know people that know you. Local people fit this bill.

Starting locally has many advantages. you can get away with more word of mouth advertising to get your name out there, you can meet your clients (one of the things that I think the clients likes the most....someone to put a face with, you can read more about the importance of this in our Simple Design Process blog article), you know where and how you will be paid so that you are less likely to be stood up, and lastly you are more likely to get a great position on Google, Yahoo, and Bing using your home town as a keyword. For example, Zero 3 Computers has a much higher rank for "Mississippi Website Design" or "Biloxi Website Design" then we do for "Website Design" just because the competition is lower, thus the keyword has more value.

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Software development has come a long way in the past few years and has allowed typical computer users to easily learn how to use a computer, design basic web pages and start businesses online with little or no previous experience. Usually a little software company can give small businesses what they need with custom software but most of the time, it is the big corporations like Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Google, and Adobe that provide the world with intelligent, usable software that helps revolutionize how people use computers and the internet. Trust me, I am not saying it is easy to design a website from scratch because it isn't, by any means, but tools have been developed to let normal computers users develop simple, template based websites with ease.

I will be the first to say that I am mostly self taught. I started with learning how to style a web page with tables to using only style sheets to do the same thing. I began with Dreamweaver building most of my code to now writing most of the code in notepad with no WYSIWYG editor. It just feels natural, but I started with software that help me blaze the path.

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