Hi. I’m Andrew

How do you answer the Internet Explorer 6 question?

1. Design for better browsers, then design alternative solutions to handle IE6 bugs?
2. Write a remedial IE6 stylesheet to address layout issues?
3. Use JavaScript to bootstrap CSS support in IE6?
4. Make your site look exactly the same in IE6 as in any other browser?
5. Develop to better browsers and spend no development time or testing for IE6?
6. Block IE6 users from seeing your site's styles?

Using CSS 2.1 pseudo-elements to provide up to 3 background canvases, 2 fixed-size presentational images, and multiple complex borders for a single HTML element. This method of progressive enhancement works for all browsers that support CSS 2.1 pseudo-elements and their positioning. No CSS3 support required.

• Demo: Multiple Backgrounds with CSS 2.1
• Demo: Multiple Borders with CSS 2.1

Support: Firefox 3.5+, Safari 4+, Chrome 4+, Opera 10+, IE8+.

How does it work?

Essentially, you create pseudo-elements using CSS (:before and :after) and treat them similarly to how you would treat HTML elements nested within your target element. But they have distinct benefits — beyond semantics — over the use of nested HTML elements.

To provide multiple backgrounds and/or borders, the pseudo-elements are pushed behind the content layer and pinned to the desired points of the HTML element using absolute positioning.

Cufón has been growing in popularity among designers as an alternative to sIFR. I have personally used it on a couple website designs for clients now, and I have to say, it’s a great tool to add creativity to your website without cluttering it with a huge amount of image tags.

I went through the interwebs and scoured for hours upon hours (ok, maybe just 2) to find a showcase of some of the creative uses of the Cufón font replacement in action. Below are those websites. If you know of one (or you own one), feel free to drop a comment and let us know. :)

The Visual Click ↓

Press 75 ↓

Newlife Uniting ↓

IceArt ↓

International Rugby Association ↓

Phoenix Web Design ↓

Thinking about what’s next online is fun because everything you wish to come true will come true. While commercial products obey to the laws of the market, which in part are influenced by the resources needed to create these products, the web is defined by the user. If the user wants something he will either get it or create it himself. To see beyond today’s limits of the web all we need to do is see what is needed.

Conclusion:

Technology often develops from primitive to complicated to simple. The web develops faster and more client focussed than traditional technologies. Web development is cheaper, more flexible and most importantly: everyone can contribute to its development.

In concrete terms: Better interaction design, less graphic design. Better user experience, less debates about taste. Faster technology, more reliable design standards.

While there are a number of technological and social trends that confirm that movement, there are a number of countertrends that keep things interesting. As it becomes much easier to develop web designs with the upcoming browser generation, there is more functional liberty and more visual standardization in web design.

I really like this article. I have to admit, doing this technique requires high expertise to be able to achieve.

Find your strengths and excel above the rest

So many web developers claim to know all when it comes to web, but when put to the test someone that can write “hello world” doesn’t meet the standards the client expected when they said “Do you know PHP?” All developers whether primarily front-end or back-end, should know at least a C level amount in both. To be an awesome back-end developer you need to be able to structure your content in something other than tables or invalid HTML, and to be an awesome back-end developer, you should at least know how to make simple variables and includes to make your job quick and efficient, rather than copying/pasting your doctype and head information on each page. If you want to do well in the next few years, then succeed by being a GURU in at least two of the following:

• XHTML and CSS – with clean and valid markup that works in FF, Webkit, and IE7+
• Flex and ActionScript – flash/animation/design are a huge plus
• JavaScript – with and without frameworks, jQuery or MooTools knowledge a plus
• PHP – cakePHP or codeignitor frameworks will take you to the next level
• .NET – IIS and server administration a plus
• Ruby – Rails will take you to the next level
• JAVA – desktop publishing knowledge a plus

Learn new and trendy technologies

While following trends isn’t always a good idea, trends that have been around for more than just a year and have high demand are usually worth taking a second glance at. In the past 5 years, there are a few major trends that are really growing. I highly recommend picking one of the trends and learning as much as you can about the technology on the side of your current studies and work..

And here's my Demo using Bodedo Typeface

Image Zoom and Popup

Lightbox

You’re probably very familiar with Lightbox — a light Javascript used to display overlay images on the current page. The original Lightbox was released in 2005. Since then, there are many scripts released with similar features using different approaches and Javascript libraries.

jQuery lightBox Plugin

This is exactly the same as Lightbox JS, but written on top of jQuery library.

Thickbox

Thickbox is a jQuery plugin that is very similar to Lightbox, but comes with more features. It allows you to display: single image, multiple images, inline content, iframed content, or content served through AJAX in a hybrid modal.

Note: Web Designer Wall uses Thickbox to display the gallery images and tutorial demos.

Highslide JS

Highslide JS serves the same purposes as Thickbox, but it has the zoom effect and allows you to drag the overlay window.

FancyBox

FancyBox is a jQuery plugin that is designed to replace the overused Lightbox. It has similar features, but better transition effects (the design is Mac-like).

jQZoom

jQZoom allows you to show a magnified image of the thumbnail. This technique is commonly used in eCommerce websites (check out the Gap site for a sample).

 

Gallery and Slideshow

Slideshow 2! for Mootools

Slideshow 2! is a javascript class for Mootools 1.2 to stream and animate the presentation of images on your website.

SmoothGallery

Using mootools v1.11, this javascript gallery and slideshow system allows you to have simple and smooth (cross-fading…) image galleries, slideshows, showcases and other cool stuff on your website.

jQuery Galleria

Galleria is a javascript image gallery written in jQuery. It loads the images one by one from an unordered list and displays thumbnails when each image is loaded. It will create thumbnails for you if you choose so, scaled or unscaled, centered and cropped inside a fixed thumbnail box defined by CSS.

Noobslide

NoobSlide is a MooTools class that lets you create timed slideshows and sliding panels. Visit the website to view the demos.

Product Slider (demo)

This shows a demonstration of a slider widget from the jQuery UI library used to create the product slider as seen on the Apple - Mac website.

 

Carousel

jCarousel

jCarousel is a jQuery plugin for controlling a list of items in horizontal or vertical order. The items, which can be static HTML content or loaded with (or without) AJAX, can be scrolled back and forth (with or without animation).

YUI Carousel Component

The carousel component manages a list of content (HTML LI elements within a UL) that can be displayed horizontally or vertically. The content can be scrolled back and forth with or without animation. The content can reference static HTML content or the list items can be created dynamically on-the-fly (with or without Ajax).

DynamicDrive - Carousel Slideshow

Carousel Slideshow is a fabulous DHTML script for the showcasing of images on your site. It displays images in a 3D, carousel fashion.

iCarousel - MooTools

iCarousel is an open source (free) javascript tool for creating carousel like widgets. You can use iCarousel as news ticker/scroller or image gallery slider.

 

Panel Slider

Coda Slider Plugin

Coda Slider is a jQuery plugin that imitates the panel sliding effects as seen on the Coda website.

jQuery Coda Slide Tutorial (demo)

This is a tutorial from jQuery For Designers to show you how to create the Coda panel slider.

Sliding Tabs (demo)

Sliding Tabs is a mootools 1.11 plugin which adds a pretty neat effect. It’s a clone of something seen on Panic Software’s Coda site, which in turn was very similar to a widget used in the iTunes Music Store.

 

Tabs

jQuery UI Tabs

jQuery Tabs is a powerful and flexible jQuery plugin that lets you create customizable tab navigation (highly recommended).

jQuery Tabs Tutorial (demo)

Another awesome tutorial from jQueryForDesigners.com to show you how to create a basic tab navigation with jQuery.

MooTabs

MooTabs is a tiny(3kb) class for MooTools. As the name suggests, its main purpose is to help out with the creation of simple tab navigation.

Sliding Tabs Tutorial (demo)

A tutorial from Nettuts.com to show you how to create a sliding tab with jQuery.

 

Scroll to Anchor

jQuery ScrollTo (demo)

A very flexible jQuery plugin that lets you create scrolling animation to any position of a web page with customizable erasing and speed options.

SmoothScroll (demo)

A simple MooTools script that creates smooth scrolling to anchors on a web page.

Animated Scrolling with jQuery

Learning jQuery shows you how to create an animated "scroll to anchor" with just a few lines of code.

 

Tooltips

jTips (demo)

A customizable jQuery plugin that displays tooltip popup — with either static html text or Ajax content.

jQuery Tooltip Plugin (demo)

Another nice Tooltip plugin.

Tooltip and Image Preview (demo)

A very simple jQuery script that displays tooltip and image preview (I use it on Best Web Gallery).

 

Accordion

jQuery Accordion (demo)

This plugin creates an accordion menu. It works with nested lists, definition lists, or just nested divs.

Apple.com Sidebar Accordion (demo)

jQueryForDesigner.com shows you how to create the accordion slider as seen on the Apple website.

MooTools Accordion

The Accordion gives you a fancy way to show only the content you really need.

MooTools Image Menu

Image Menu is a MooTools plugin that creates the horizontal accordion image menu.

 

Flash and Image Text Replacement

sIFR 3 (demo)

sIFR is meant to replace short passages of plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems. It accomplishes this by using a combination of javascript, CSS, and Flash.

jQuery sIFR (demo)

A jQuery plugin that does the sIFR for you.

FLIR (demo)

Facelift Image Replacement is an image replacement script that dynamically generates image representations of text on your web page in fonts that otherwise might not be visible to your visitors. The generated image will be automatically inserted into your web page via Javascript and visible to all modern browsers.

 

CSS Stylesheet Switcher

A List Apart - Alternative Style

The original stylesheet switcher by Paul Sowden. Believe it or not, this trick was invented in 2001 (not a modern trick after all).

Switch Stylesheets with jQuery (demo)

Stylesheet switcher with jQuery.

MooTools Styleswitcher (demo)

CSS stylesheet switcher with MooTools.

 

Form Styling

FancyForm - MooTools (demo)

A MooTools plugin that replaces the browser default checkboxes and radio buttons with custom styles.

PrettyCheckboxes - jQuery

Same as FancyForm, but using jQuery library.

jQuery Selectbox Plugin (demo)

A simple plugin that allows you to replace the form select list with custom styles.

Custom Checkboxes, Radio Buttons, Select Lists

Give your form a complete makeover with this Javascript and CSS.

jQuery Form Input Example Plugin (demo)

A jQuery plugin that gives user hints on what to enter in the input fields.

Unobtrusive Slider Control V2 (demo)

This script lets you create custom slider controls associated with input fields.

More Form styling links at Noupe.com/css/form-elements…

Form Validation

jQuery Validate (demo)

A very plugin that allows you to build client-side validation and Ajax form.

MooTools Validate

A MooTools form validation plugin (similar to jQuery Validate).

JSValidate (demo)

JSValidate is a form validator that utilizes aspects of prototype and scriptaculous to bring you a simple to execute, non-intrusive javascript form validator. With minimal setup, your forms can be processing clean data in no time at all.