Cheesetoast

Brain Food for Web Developers

CSS layout design

April 15, 2012
by Graham
0 comments

Responsive Web Design – A 3 Column Layout

Now that mobile browsing is expected to overtake desktop browsing within the next few years, web developers have to think about how their sites will appear on mobile devices. This post will talk about future-proofing websites with responsive design. I’ll demonstrate an example of a 3 column front page design, complete with JQuery slideshow.
Continue reading

Twitterfeed

March 25, 2012
by Graham
0 comments

Automatically Post to Social Networking Sites From Your Blog

Use Twitterfeed to automatically update your social networking websites directly from your blog!
Twitterfeed is a social media publishing tool that can handle multiple social networking accounts on your behalf! It keeps a close eye on your blog’s RSS feed and posts new entries to your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. It’s easy to setup and you can create multiple feeds to different blog categories. Continue reading

CSS Folder

August 8, 2011
by Graham
0 comments

CSS3 Text Effects

Looking for ways to jazz up your website? With new CSS3 techniques it’s easy to add some nifty text effects that can make your site really stand out. What’s great about these effects is that they degrade gracefully; that is to say that, if a browser (in this case, Internet Explorer) does not support the new CSS rules, there is a satisfactory fallback.
Check out the demo of some text-shadows in action. Continue reading

HTML5 Logo

July 3, 2011
by Graham
0 comments

Writing HTML5 Forms

Although HTML5 is becoming more popular with coders, there are still those who are hesitant about adopting the latest markup for fear of the lack of support from older browsers. Luckily, there are some cool new HTML5 form attributes that degrade gracefully in older browsers (even IE6!).

This summary of some new attributes will discuss HTML5 autofocus field, placeholder text, form validation as well as new input types (email, numbers, URL, etc.).

Continue reading

Wordpress Folder

February 12, 2011
by Graham
0 comments

WordPress: Frameworks and Child Themes

Wordpress is a great way to develop webpages, no doubt about it. It allows you to quickly and easily add content and with the introduction of widgets there is even more customization available for designers. But what if you want that to take it that step further and design your own theme? This article will talk about using a Wordpress framework (specifically the Thematic framework) to design a child theme. Continue reading

Art

October 30, 2010
by Graham
0 comments

Aesthetics and Usability

If a web page is made more attractive, does that make it easier to use? Usability and aesthetics have been the topic of much discussion with designers. The word ‘aesthetics’ can be defined as the study of beauty and artistic taste. Unlike usability, aesthetic appeal is not something which can be easily measured or quantified as it is largely based on personal preference. Beauty itself is a combination of shape, colour and form and can be interpreted in a variety of ways. People like to see attractive websites because they are visually stimulated by them. What researchers are trying to determine is if visual attractiveness aids the usability of a site or if it acts as a distraction. Continue reading