The Fonts That Computers and Other People Are Using

By Bud Kraus | Published: June 23, 2011
Code Style

Until downloadable webfonts become a mainstream practice (who can say when that will be!), it is important for web designers to know which fonts are likely to be installed on most users’ systems. Knowing this is also part of best practices in web site development.

A great resource which keeps track in real time of what fonts are installed on various operating systems is Code Style. Knowing which fonts are out there should help you get beyond the same old boring fonts we’ve all been using for years. Me included.


 

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WordPress Premium Themes For Designers (Part 1 of 2)

By Hallie Schiff | Published: June 16, 2011
Hallie Schiff Portrait

I’m a freelance print designer looking to create a website and portfolio. I’ve done a lot of research on what options are the easiest and best solutions for us newbies looking to put up a website. In all of my searching for a fabulously designed, fully-customizable, easy to code option, the one tool that came up the most was WordPress. It’s awesome. Plain and simple.

The set-up is easy, and the back-end is equally foolproof. You can download a theme, install it, and be up and running in no time. There are some themes you can download that are offered on wordpress.org. In my experience, they are usually somewhat boring, limited, and downright ugly. (Sorry, but I’m a major design snob.) However, there are countless other third-party sites that design and sell (or offer for free!) well designed themes. I’ve found some amazing themes in the past which I had to tell you about.

I’ll start with the Premium Themes. In my next post I’ll give you my recommendations for the Free Themes.

Premium Themes

These themes require the payment of a small license fee. Premium Themes are normally more robust, interesting, flexible, and better supported than the Free Themes (which I’ll talk about in my next post).


 

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Will There Be A Web 3.0?

By Bud Kraus | Published: May 17, 2011
Web 3.0

For reasons not even known to me I got interested in Web 3.0. Mind you, I haven’t even heard of 3.0 but I figured since I now sort of understand what Web 2.0 is, a 3 must becoming.

My hunch was right but before I did much checking I thought I would try and figure out what Web 3.0 is likely to be.

1. Logical Find

In the web to come I want answers to my questions. I see computers assembling, perhaps in a crude way, real answers to real questions from various sources and not just serving up links that might contain answers to my questions.

If I ask, “How many planets are there in the universe” or “How many times have the New York Yankees won over 90 games in a season” or “I have a $5,000 and I want to go To Prague. What’s the best way to spend my money?” I want answers to questions which require, dare I say, “thought.” I’m tired of a regurgitated list of pages that might answer a query.

I suppose I’m drawing on the promise of Ask Jeeves. This time it’s time for Jeeves to give us meaningful answers. What we need now is not Jeeves but Watson. And if you saw Jeopardy a few months back you know this technology is coming to a computer near you. And probably sooner than you think.


 

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Posted in Fonts, Search, Uncategorized, Web 3.0 | 2 Comments

Essential WordPress Plugins

By Bud Kraus | Published: May 4, 2011
wordPREss Plugin logo

Today I start an intermittent series on great WordPress plugins. Some of these plugins will be mainstream and used by millions. Others will be more obscure but fun, useful or indispensable none-the-less.

A plugin works a lot like an app for an iPod or similar device. It allows you to extend a system’s core (default) functionality. Most WordPress plugins are free. All have decent documentation on how to install and use them. Some have good troubleshooting advice and still others have support from the plugin author.

If you have WP running on a server just go to the Plugins section in your Admin menu to seamlessly download and install any plugin. Otherwise you can get any plugin at the Plugin Directory section of the WordPress Mother Ship.

Here are some of the plugins that I love and I think you will too. Some of these are absolute musts. I don’t know why they are not part of the WP core.

Akismet

This plugin comes with WordPress out of the box, but you need an API key to turn it on. The key costs $5 a month and is worth it.

Once your site is up and running, you will get a fair amount of spammy comments. Spammy comments are comments from people who just want links from your site to theirs because inbound links are so valuable. Akismet will trap those worthless comments so you won’t have to read and trash them yourself. Don’t be scared about the API Key. It’s just a one time copy and paste operation.


 

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Posted in Uncategorized, WordPress, WordPress Plugins | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Web Life In Plain English

By Bud Kraus | Published: April 25, 2011
In Plain English

I’m told that I speak and write in plain English. I think I’m pretty good at making complicated things easier to understand. So much of what we run across these days is needlessly complicated.

Recently I came across a series of plain English videos on YouTube. I was stunned at how direct, simple, and quick they were in explaining topics that are a little difficult to grasp for a lot of people – including me.

Here are a few of them that I think you will love!! Note the illustrated animations which strike the right chord with the message of each video.

I have to thank Lee LeFever of commoncraft.com for producing these videos that have been viewed by millions.

Twitter in Plain English

So, what are you doing?

It took me a while to get the hang of Twitter. I thought it was just a load of junk talk. To be sure, there’s plenty of that on Twitter, but there are also plenty of ways to turn Twitter into a useful business tool. Not long ago I was ranting about something concerning lynda.com and within minutes someone from that company was responding to my rant.

Oh yeah, follow me and you won’t get junk talk, I promise.


 

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A Blog About The Web
And Web Design

I live on the technical side of web design so I tend to see things in black and white. As a promoter and practitioner of web design standards I love reaping the bounty of doing design the right way. I love the goodness of good web pages.

Each post attempts to deliver a topic of interest to web designers, developers, producers, creators and everyone else who's curious like me about how web sites are - or should be - made.

Things I write - and will write about in the Joy of Code Blog:

  • developing and building a small to mid-sized web site
  • search engine optimization
  • web standards
  • HTML5 and CSS3
  • web authoring tools like Dreamweaver
  • content and blogging systems like WordPress (which I use for this site)
  • online development tools
  • navigation interfaces
  • the user experience
  • information design

But sometimes I'll surprise you and go off-topic as I just don't always sing that same old web design song.

Want to learn web design? See my online HTML, CSS and WordPress classes.

Each post is short and leads to information, resources, services, tutorials and other good stuff all designed to help you make web sites.

Why do I do this? I'm one of those people who has to share what I've learned with my students - past, present and future - and everyone else.

Who am I? I'm the Friendly Web Design Instructor, Bud Kraus, creator of online web design classes.

This is a lot like my old Joy Gems Newsletter but it's now a blog and you can add your two cents here -- and I hope you will!!