This past weekend we launched the redesign of our website webdev2.0. With the new design we wanted to address certain issues and improve upon the existing design. We kept the same color palette and used a very similar layout.

First off we wanted better social networking integration. We put the links to Twitter, Facebook, RSS Feed, and newsletter in the header and footer so it would show up on every page and easy for our readers. We also have the Feedburner reader count near the title of every page. On the website profile pages we used the SexyBookmarks plug-in for WordPress and each page has a Facebook fan box and Twitter widget.

The second issue we wanted to address was placement of ads. We wanted consistent placement that was above the fold, but we didn’t want them to be overly intrusive. We’ve also reduced the number of ads to 3 per page.

We wanted to show more competitors for each site. We now show 9 instead of 3.

For the front page, we wanted to highlight the highest rated sites. On the previous site it was in the sidebar on the individual pages. We think promotion to the front page will showcase the highest rated sites better and it should get more views on that page.

We’ve also included our latest blog posts in the footer of every page and we hope to use that feature of the site more often. In the old site it was mostly hidden away.

So how did we do? Do you like the new design? What could we do to improve the site? Take a look at the site and let us know. We look forward to hearing from you.

For those of you in the design/development industry getting started with Twitter, following influential Tweeters will put a wealth of knowledge right at your fingertips. I’ve found that using Twitter and RSS feeds gives me a good solid collection of daily resources that would take me hours to find otherwise. It also takes a lot of my time, but I feel like if I’m reading quality content then it’s productive time and not wasted time.

Colorburned has a great list of people to start following and I’ve been following quite a few of them for some time and they’re a wealth of information. With all the lists like these posted you see a lot of the same people all the time as well as some fresh faces to follow. As always feel free to follow our company and also feel free to follow me personally. Our company will always return the follow. I use my personal account more interactively so don’t be offended if I don’t follow you back there. I can’t keep up with the few followers I have now so I’m a little more selective.

Twitter is a powerful tool. Some say it may be one of the biggest web tools of 2009. I hope you sign up and enjoy the benefits of using the site.

Update: Naldz Graphics posted a list of 300+ active twitter users.

Ever since I’ve started creating XHTML/CSS for the most part have always started with a Photoshop PSD and chopped it accordingly to create a valid layout.  I initially purchased two full version copies to cover the licensing of my own machines which has a pretty large initial fee.  Over the years I have purchased lower priced upgrades in order to keep up to date and compatible with my latest Mac OS X machines/operating system.

For the most part, Photoshop continues to be the industry standard as far as graphic/web design goes and PSDs are usually what is delivered to be from a graphic designer.  Sure there have been times where I might get an Illustrator or a Quark file, but that’s usually not the norm.  It does a great job for what I need to do which is mostly resizing, measuring, and pulling pieces out of layers.  I could have a graphic designer send me the cut up images from ImageReady, but that doesn’t always give me the best results.  I’m much more comfortable having the designer send me the PSD and do my own cutting and optimizing for what I feel best fits the code/layout for the web.

I’ve always tried to look for alternatives that are better suited for my needs.  This lead me from Dreamweaver to SubEthaEdit to Coda which I use exclusively for development.  I was never really happy with Dreamweaver, but got the job done.  I am much happier with what Coda has to offer and it feels like it’s built for Mac OS X.  Also it’s cheaper at $99 vs. $399 ($199 upgrade).  When smaller companies develop the software it seems like there’s quite a bit more free updates before a full upgrade which also tends to keep price down.  Price is a small factor, but if a program is much better than I would consider paying more for it.

This is one of the reasons I’ve stuck with Photoshop for so long.  I followed the same progression with the graphics tools as I had with the development tools.  When Pixelmator first came out, it just didn’t have enough of the features that I needed for web development.  It probably had a good amount of graphic tools to help graphic designers, but wasn’t enough for my daily tasks.  The software has been out for a little while now and they are soon to release their 1.3 version which I’m currently using in beta mode.

They’ve done a much better job as far as adding features to get me to switch.  For the most part I am able to the work and it seems to run quite a bit faster than Photoshop.  Some things still make it a little difficult for me to use.  For example if you zoom and image it’s hard to tell what percentage you are actually at.  In Photoshop it shows a percentage at the bottom of the window.  Also if the image is larger than the screen, it doesn’t really do a great job of fitting it around the tools, it just puts the tools on top of the image.  I almost always have to resize the image to fit an open spot inside the tools.  When I’m cutting the PSDs I like to use the Marquee tool to cut my images for the web and sometimes like to crop there.  There’s a crop tool in Pixelmator, but at times it’s a little difficult to position.  It does however let you edit the crop area before actually cropping.  I would also like to see a live preview so I could compress the images as small as possible without losing too much quality.  Right now it’s more of a guessing game.

I’ve been using Pixelmator for about two weeks now for normal tasks.  I haven’t really had to do really complex PSDs.  I mostly just have basic layouts or image resizing for different sites.  I think I’ll have to use it for a little while longer and see if I run to any trouble with it.  For right now using Pixelmator and keeping CS3 on the back burner will keep me from upgrading to CS4 next month.  What’s more important to me right now is if I can be more productive.  Right now I think I’m just as productive, and if this keeps up at a lower cost.

Facebook has a new layout they’re testing and if you have a facebook profile and haven’t checked it out point your browser to http://www.new.facebook.com/.  My first impression is a like it a lot.  Facebook has always have a clean and simple, easy to use interface which was one of the main reasons why I switched from Myspace to Facebook.
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