About.com

Poll: Do you prefer moderated comments on blogs?

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:38:43 +0000

One great way to increase community involvement is to allow comments on your blog and articles. People like to discuss things online, and comments are a great way to get that started. Of course, once you open up comments, you also open your site up for spammers. You can use tools like Akismet spam blockers, but they don't catch everything. Of course, using moderated comments is a pain both for you (because you have to moderate them) and your readers (because their comments don't go live right away). What do you think of moderated comments? Share your thoughts in the comments, which may or may not be moderated. :-)

Time is Running Out for Nominations

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:26:01 +0000

Time is quickly running out for the nominations for the About.com 2012 Readers' Choice Awards. The nomination period ends tonight at midnight EST. After that I'll begin tabulating the nominations and will select five finalists from each category for you to vote on starting next week. If you've already nominated, you can always nominate in other categories, and if you haven't then you should do so today, as there are only a few hours left.

Nominate for the Readers' Choice Awards

HTML5 Design Gallery - Beetle.com

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:03:05 +0000

This is a very fun and interactive site using HTML5. One of the things I love about it is how scrolling the page has a completely different effect than you might expect. Whether you love or hate the car, this website is something to be inspired by.

Have you built an HTML5 site? Or do you know of one that does a great job with HTML5? Submit HTML5 site designs to be featured on this site.

Use a Generator to Make Building CSS Faster

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 03:47:44 +0000

Building CSS is difficult, there are a lot of properties to remember and hundreds if not thousands of ways you can design your pages. These CSS generators help take some of the memorization out of building CSS. You just plug in what you want in your design and the generator makes the (often cross-browser compliant) CSS for you.

Read the full article: CSS Generators

Learn CSS

Get Started with HTML5

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:32:48 +0000

HTML5 is no more difficult to write than HTML 4. This article explains how to create an HTML5 document using sectioning elements and tools to help older versions of IE display them correctly.

Read the full article: Build Your First HTML5 Document

HTML5 Tutorials and Tag Information

Welcome Alexander!

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:35:43 +0000

In addition to Kim, I am pleased to announce that Alexander Peev has joined the team as an intern for this Spring and Summer. Some of you may recognize Alexander as a regular on the forum and comments in the blog, but he also has been working for a while as a professional web designer/developer and is studying to get a Computer Science degree from the Business Academy Aarhus in Denmark. I would like to welcome Alexander to the site and I'm sure you will enjoy his articles.

There is more to your pages than what shows on the browser screen

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

I've been writing a lot about semantic HTML and including information that computers can understand inside your web pages. Most semantic information is stored in the HTML for the computers to read, but there is a section of HTML that doesn't affect the content displayed to the customers, but is still very important—the HEAD element. Understanding the HEAD element will help you write better HTML and better web pages.
Read the full article: What is the HEAD Element For?

Help with Header Tags

Only a Few Days Left for Nominations

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:21:48 +0000

There are only a few days left for me to accept nominations for the various categories. If I don't receive enough nominations in a category, I will not be able to set up voting for that category. Are there really NO Facebook or Twitter accounts you read about Web Design and HTML? And interestingly, the only nominations I've received regarding mobile apps aren't even apps at all, but rather the Guidelines for building apps. Seriously, am I the only person who uses my smartphone to do work on?

Please Make Your Nominations!

Nominations will be accepted between January 18, 2012 and February 15, 2012. The voting will begin on February 22^nd and the winners will be announced on March 30^th.

On the Web Design/HTML site I will be hosting the following categories:

Best Web Design
Best Windows Web Editor
Best Macintosh Web Editor
Best Mobile App for Web Designers
Best Website or Blog for Web Designers
Best Facebook Page for Web Designers to Like
Best Twitter Account for Web Designers to Follow
Best Hosting Provider

Find out more about the Web Design categories and then nominate the sites, products, and pages that you think represent the best resources for web designers: 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards for Web Design/HTML

Poll: Where do you include character set information in your pages?

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:11:12 +0000

It’s important to specify the character set for your web pages because that tells the browser what characters are valid on the web page. But more importantly, if you don’t specify the character set, your page can be hacked. In fact, if you don’t put the character set tag e.g. as the first line of your HEAD element, your page can be at risk. HTML5 makes it easy to add the character set, as I showed, with a very short “meta charset” tag. But many designers don’t ever define the character set. Where do you define the character sets for your web pages?

Welcome Kim!

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:17:44 +0000

I am pleased to announce that there is a new intern for the site: Kim R. West. Kim is a full-time student at the Tennessee Technology Center studying web design and development. She will be writing articles for the site for the next few months. I would like to welcome Kim to the site, and I look forward to her articles and the fresh perspective she will bring to the site.