Monday, January 07, 2008

Best of 2007: CSS Design

Before 2007, I didn't know about complete CSS Website Designs. I used only <TABLE> tags and CSS classes in my projects. But in between of 2007, one of my friend Adipti Gupta asked me to design a website in complete CSS without using <TABLE> tags. I didn't know how to make it.

After that I tried to learn and get the information from websites and my friends. Now, I learned lots of things in CSS. Today I am working as a CSS Developer. I would like to thank to all my friends.

In the year 2007, I have seen a lots of websites designed in CSS. Here is a list of the websites hand-picked from Best Web Gallery.

Capture the Valley


Beautifully designed single page site.


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Squawk Design


Impressive design by a graphic arts student, Dominik Lenk.


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Holiday To Go


Love the red color applied on the tinted background.


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Team Green



The torn paper and grunge effects are nicely put together. If you like my previous artistic design collection, you will like this site.


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Radiant Plumbing


How can a plumbing website be so artistic (check out the header artwork)? If the contrast on the text area is higher, it would be a perfect design.


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Alex Buga


Love the semi-transparent effects applied on the wood texture.


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Burnett Dairy



Very cooperative, yet friendly.


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Variable


Another artsy site.


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Pixelmator


A Mac application site with nice icons and layout structure.


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Jon Tan


Good use of web typography and grid layout.



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Scrapblog


A beautiful web-app frontpage.


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Marius Roosendaal


Single page portfolio site of Marius Roosendaal. Don’t forget to check out both "Day" and "Night" theme.



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Trale


I particularly like the details spent on the typography of Trale.


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Sarah Hyland


Very well-done on the header design.


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Eye Candy


Mmm yummy… both the design and chocolate bars. Another good design site powered by WordPress.



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RealaSponse


Nice 2-column homepage.


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Flame Digital


Very unique layout structure and nice background images throughout the site.


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Tickerville


I like the design a lot, but I’m not sure if this design/style work for a financial related site.


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Webstock


New Zealand’s web conference website.


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Cabedge


Simple, clean, and comfortable layout.


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I Love Typography


A blog by John dedicated to typography.


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Shylands



Simple, large bold font, great color contrast…


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Superawesome


Very unique illustration style and color theme.


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Happy Cog


A classic beautiful site.


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Free People


One of my favorite ecommerce sites. The amount of details spent on this site is incredible.



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Wish Tree


The wish/tag cloud in the background is simply creative!


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Biola Undergrad


Another artsy design.


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Viget Labs


Nice use of Javascript and CSS (I mean the scrolling effects).


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Svenigson



Very clean and boxy layout.


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Stuff and Nonsense


Site of Andy Clarke.


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J R Velasco


Designed by Miguel Ripoll (one of my favorite designers). He has great sense of web typography. The layout looks very chaotic, yet the content is organized.


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Explore Cascadia



One word, beautiful.


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Yellow Stone Park


A very nice design within the box.


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Elliot Jay Stocks


A design blog by Elliot Jay Stocks. He is a very talented designer with great personality (based on my personal conversations with him).


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Freelance Switch



Good design and great content (freelance related).


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Knoxville


Retro style in collage form.


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Electric Pulp


I’m loving the watercolor effects.


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Vivabit


I’m not a big fan of liquid design, but this is a good one.



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Surfgarden


Nice and clean 2-column blog design.


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Tanya Merone


Another great example of single-page site.


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Matt Brett


A nice design blog by Matt Brett, he is a designer gamer.



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Larissa Meek


A beautiful blog design by Larissa Meek, formerly a model, now she is an art director at AgencyNet.


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Noodle Box


Nice use of color contrast.


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Kineda


A blog by Terry and Tami Ng (celebrity and entertainment news).



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Pod3.tv


Another nice design blog.


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Kev Adamson


Another sketchy design.


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Eleven3


Another retro/collage approach.


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Turbo Milk



Nice icon.


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Veerle’s Blog


Another classic beautiful blog.


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31three


Blog and design portfolio of Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain.


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Source: http://www.webdesignerwall.com

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Best of 2007: Most Popular Music Artists

Britney Spears

More than any other single artist, Britney Spears was the driving force behind the return of teen pop in the late '90s. The blockbuster success of the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys certainly paved the way for her own commercial breakthrough, but Spears didn't just become a star -- she was a bona fide pop phenomenon. Not only did she sell millions of records, she was a media fixture regardless of what she was (or wasn't) doing; among female singers of the era (many of whom followed in her footsteps), her celebrity star power was rivaled only by Jennifer Lopez. From the outset, Spears' sex appeal was an important part of her image; the video for her debut single, "...Baby One More Time," outfitted her in full Catholic-school regalia, and sent her well on the way to becoming an international sex symbol.
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Alicia Keys

Her official website says she possesses an "old soul," and the hard facts seem to back up the implied claim of wisdom and experience that transcend Alicia Keys' youth. Barely in her twenties, Keys was responsible for an extremely hot debut, Songs in A Minor. The release, which she wrote and produced for Clive Davis' J Records, blends diverse influences, including R&B, hip-hop, classical, and jazz. The day the album went on the market, it sold more than 50,000 copies. Label executives confidently predicted similarly favorable numbers for the first week's tally.
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Rihanna

Rihanna established herself big-time in summer 2005 with her debut smash hit, "Pon de Replay," and continued to demonstrate her smash hit potential in subsequent years (e.g., "S.O.S.," 2006; "Umbrella," 2007). By the time of her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), she was a full-fledged international pop star with a regular presence atop the charts, from Germany to Japan. Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados, she always exhibited a special quality, winning beauty and talent contests as a schoolchild. But because she lived on the fairly remote island of Barbados in the West Indies, she never foresaw the sort of stardom that would later befall her.
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Beyoncé

Born in Houston in the fall of 1981, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles started performing at age seven. From dance classes to singing in the church choir, Beyoncé was a natural. She and cousin Kelly Rowland met Latavia Roberson during this time, and the trio formed a group with Letoya Luckett. Mathew Knowles, Beyoncé's father and Rowland's legal guardian, signed on to be the girls' manager. This situation would ultimately lead to the formation of one of the most popular female R&B groups of all time -- Destiny's Child.
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50 Cent

In many ways the ideal East Coast hardcore rapper, 50 Cent endured substantial obstacles throughout his young yet remarkably dramatic life before becoming in early 2003 the most discussed figure in rap, if not pop music in general. Following an unsuccessful late-'90s run at mainstream success (foiled by an attempt on his life in 2000) and a successful run on the New York mixtape circuit (driven by his early-2000s bout with Ja Rule), Eminem signed 50 to a seven-figure contract in 2002 and helmed his quick rise toward crossover success in 2003. The product of a broken home in the rough Jamaica neighborhood of Queens and, in turn, the storied hood's hustling streets themselves, 50 lived everything most...
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Sunday, December 23, 2007

Why do people kiss under a mistletoe?

THE LEGEND OF MISTLETOE

Mistletoe also known throughout history as the golden bough has several different legends associated with its beginning and its meaning.

Starting back as far as the Celtic Druids you can find more than one story concerning the mystical mistletoe. One such story is their belief that the plant held the soul of the host tree, which was the “holy oak”. During a ceremony, the Druid priests would harvest the mistletoe with a golden sickle to ensure the mistletoe never touched the ground, as it would lose its magical powers. The powers would quickly be absorbed back into the earth. Once the mistletoe was harvested, the priests would have the branches out to the people for them to use against all kinds of evils.

In England, mistletoe at one time was placed over the doorways for good luck. They believed that only happiness could pass underneath the mistletoe, therefore, enemies would hug and seal their peaceful intentions with a kiss of friendship.

The ancient Norse people have a wonderful legend centered on the mistletoe. In their legend, the god Odin and his wife Frigga had a son by the name of Balder. Frigga loved her son very dearly. She took steps to ensure that nothing would ever harm him by way of earth, fire, water, or air.

The mistletoe did not fit into any of these categories, so an evil spirit by the name of Loki created an arrow out of mistletoe and gave it to Balder’s brother, Holder. Holder was blind and Loki held onto his hand and shot Balder in the heart with the mistletoe arrow. Balder died.

From this moment on, the legend is told differently in various stories. One is that Balder is brought to life. In another one, he had a Viking’s funeral and was sent to the Otherworld on a burning ship. He was to remain there until it was time for him to come back to earth to start a new era.

From that day, forward, Frigga stated the mistletoe would never harm anyone again and made it a symbol of love and made the promise to bestow a kiss upon everyone who passed beneath it.