The business of building websites is one of constant change, adaptation and strategy. The way designers and developers build websites is often informed by the methods of others and their own trial and error. In light of this, we can draw a number of parallels — some philosophical, to a certain extent — between Web professionals and one of the oldest and most popular board games of all time (counting traditional and digital games). This game is chess.

In this article, we’ll explore the relationship between the game of chess and the Web industry. We’ll learn fundamental lessons from the pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen and king, and we’ll highlight the factors — both offline and online — that determine best practices. The game is beloved by many professionals, so it seems fitting to apply its great strategy and elegance to the digital age; certain practices might help you lead a more successful working life.

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 10.10 beta.
Codenamed "Maverick Meerkat", 10.10 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.buntu 10.10 Desktop Edition and Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition continue the trend of ever-faster boot speeds, with improved startup times and a smoother, streamlined boot experience. Ubuntu 10.10 Server Edition provides even better integration of the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, with its install-time cloud setup. Ubuntu 10.10 Server for UEC and EC2 brings the power and stability of the Ubuntu Server Edition to cloud computing, whether you're using Amazon EC2 or your own Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. The Ubuntu 10.10 family of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Mythbuntu, also reach beta status today.

They say the first bite is taken with the eye. If so, these appetizing restaurant websites succeed in whetting our appetites, inviting us to a savoury next bite. In these designs, color scheme and introductory copy show vastly different aspects of the restaurant experience. Moody warm tones create atmosphere, vibrant greens underscore freshness, and earthy colors communicate a relaxed, friendly attitude.

Because customers are increasingly using mobile browsers to make decisions on the spot, restaurant websites are doing a better job of communicating core information quickly. Similarly, full Flash websites with no mobile alternatives are seeing some decline. Especially interesting is how these businesses are improving their online menus by replacing PDF-only downloads with Web-optimized alternatives that are more readable and easier to navigate.

Today we are glad to release iCandies Icon Set, a set with 60 high quality icons in 64×64px, 48×48px and 32×32px, available in .EPS, .AI and .PNG. The set is designed by the talented folks from IconEden on a sole purpose of giving your projects a sleek and geeky style or provide crisp, attractive icons for your modern and fashionable-looking interfaces. All the icons in this pack — 60 icons in total — are designed in Round Rectangle shape.

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed or rented. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

In celebrating the merits of free software and the excitement over this radical networked production method, an important truth is left unspoken. Networked collaboration shines in the low levels of network protocols, server software and memory allocation, but user interface has consistently been a point of failure. How come the networked collaboration that transformed code production and encyclopedia-writing fails to translate to graphic and interface design?

The following is an investigation into the difficulties of extending the open-source collaboration model from coding to its next logical step: interface design. While we'll dive deep into the practical difference between these two professional fields, the article might also serve as a note of caution to think before rushing to declare the rise of "open-source architecture," "open-source university," "open-source democracy" and so on.

Hello, I trie the uc_color_attirbute and I found some bug. My problem was that I'm using "dp_" as prefix of my drupal's tables and uc_color_attribute module doesn't use this.

So i made some changes in some files to solve this:
-- uc_color_attribute.install
7c7
My version: < db_query("create table {uc_color_attribute}( `aid` int(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL , `oid` int(10) NOT NULL , `hexValue` varchar(7) NOT NULL , PRIMARY KEY (`oid`));");

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Albany weather radar

Satellite cloud map

Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months. And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we’ve decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn’t it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?

This post features 75 free desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free.

Please notice:

• all images can be clicked and lead to the preview of the wallpaper;
• you can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our desktop wallpaper calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

So what wallpapers have we received for September 2010?

Renowned Online Publishing Company looking for a Senior Drupal Developer to join them for an immediate start.

• CBD Location
• Very, very interesting projects
• Up to 110K + super

About the company:

My client is a well-known online publishing company and throughout the last 7 years, they’ve grown the company from 3 people working on one website to over 30 working on 3 big websites. They now have over 15,000 paid subscribers and send around 20,000 emails per day. The foreseeable future is brighter than ever and it’s time for them to consolidate their IT department with a Senior Drupal developer.

About the role:

Primarily responsible for the redevelopment and the maintenance of their different websites, you’ll play a crucial role in the organisation across different levels. As a key member of the organisation, you’ll be involved on a strategic level and will be THE man when it comes down to the technical aspects of the business. As a consultant, you will advise the board and the upper management on what to do next and how to improve and enhance the quality of their offering. Acting as the Web Development Manager, you’ll also be responsible for training staff and mentoring junior developers.

To be considered for this role, you’ll need to prove:

• Outrageously good knowledge of Drupal, from implementation to custom module development.
• Proven track record of working on big Web projects, from documentation through to delivery.
• Implementation strategy
• Superb skills in PHP and MySQL
• Good understanding of Legacy systems in Lotus notes.
• Experience in Front End development – HTML, CSS, JQuery, Javascript etc.

Further to this, you will also have:

• Amazing communication skills and the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical colleagues.
• The ability to plan at a strategic level
• A positive, entrepreneurial attitude. Have a great idea? Talk about it, get it approved, get it done!

This is a great opportunity for someone who possesses the skills listed above but also for someone who understands the potential and the flexibility of this role. There are no boundaries! Your expertise and talent will be rewarded with a great salary and with the opportunity to bring your ideas to life. If you want to hear more about the role, please call Julien 03 9935 9409 or alternatively, send your resume to enquiries@10collective.com.au quoting ref: M2186. And you also follow me @julienviard

The next Brisbane Drupal meetup is here!!!

This month we're covering another topic related to DrupalDownunder.org development. Tony will be covering the process he used when developing the Drupal Downunder theme from scratch (that's right, without Zen!!) and the decisions he made to keep the theme as simple as possible.

Same time (6pm for a coffee/meal and 7pm for the discussion), same place:

Looking forward to seeing you there!

As our community grows, it is imperative that we preserve the things that got us here; namely, keeping Drupal a fun, welcoming, challenging, and fair place to play. The new Drupal Code of Conduct (DCOC) states our shared ideals with respect to conduct. Think of this as coding standards for people. It is an expression of our ideals, not a rulebook. It is a way to communicate our existing values to the entire community.

Our friends at Ubuntu have blazed a brilliant trail in this area. They use Drupal as their CMS, and in turn we have embraced their Code of Conduct. This code of conduct is essentially identical to that used by Ubuntu, except that the name of the project has been changed, and the conflict resolution process has been removed since we don't have one.

The DCOC has been under discussion for several months on groups.drupal.org and discussed further at Drupalcon Conpenhagen. Folks who are interested in talking more about the DCOC should do so in the Drupal.org Policies group.

The short version:

1. Be considerate
2. Be respectful
3. When we disagree, we consult others.
4. When we are unsure, we ask for help.
5. Step down considerately.

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As our community grows, it is imperative that we preserve the things that got us here; namely, keeping Drupal a fun, welcoming, challenging, and fair place to play. The new Drupal Code of Conduct (DCOC) states our shared ideals with respect to conduct. Think of this as coding standards for people. It is an expression of our ideals, not a rulebook. It is a way to communicate our existing values to the entire community.

Our friends at Ubuntu have blazed a brilliant trail in this area. They use Drupal as their CMS, and in turn we have embraced their Code of Conduct. This code of conduct is essentially identical to that used by Ubuntu, except that the name of the project has been changed, and the conflict resolution process has been removed since we don't have one.

The DCOC has been under discussion for several months on groups.drupal.org and discussed further at Drupalcon Conpenhagen. Folks who are interested in talking more about the DCOC should do so in the Drupal.org Policies group.

The short version:

1. Be considerate
2. Be respectful
3. When we disagree, we consult others.
4. When we are unsure, we ask for help.
5. Step down considerately.

read more

A few years ago, you might not have pointed out during a meeting with a potential client that you maintained a blog. Over time, though, blogs have evolved from the being a personal hobby to a serious work tool. In fact, today, web designers are supposed to know much more than just how to design and build websites. Customer's expectations have increased, and unless you are in position to choose your favourite clients, meeting them requires hard work.

Hence, it's important to keep learning about the variety of design-related fields every single day — be it marketing, psychology, business, copywriting, publishing or blogging. This article doesn't cover "traditional" web design discipline as we know it, but goes a bit beyond it, exploring various writing, blogging and online publishing strategies. Apart from that, we present some useful writing style guides that may help you educate your clients on their copy for their upcoming project.

In this post we release a yet another freebie: Academica WordPress Theme, a free WordPress theme designed specifically for educational websites such as universities, schools etc. It's a flexible and versatile free theme that can be easily customized and branded for any university, academy or non-profit organization. The theme is designed by ProudThemes (the server is currently not working) and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. As usual, the theme is free to use in private and commerical projects.

The theme was developed for WordPress 3.0+, allows enabling/disabling of a jQuery-based content slider on the homepage for showing your photos, has 9 sidebar widget areas and 3 custom widgets, 3 custom page templates and 2 custom post templates and provides dynamic image resizing (TimThumb script). The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish.

To mock-up the user interface of a website, software or any other product, you'll need some basic UI elements. And this is where wireframing kits and UI design kits come in handy. When you want to create a low-fidelity prototype for your projects, you can use these kits to give your idea a certain shape, keeping it abstract and not losing yourself in details.

In this post, we've prepared an overview of useful web and mobile user interface kits, handy PDFs and resources that you can use in your projects. We've carefully selected the most useful kits and resources to get you going in the early stages of a project.

Recently, A/B testing has come under (unjust) criticism from different circles on the Internet. Even though this criticism contains some relevant points, the basic argument against A/B testing is flawed. It seems to confuse the A/B testing methodology with a specific implementation of it (e.g. testing red vs. green buttons and other trivial tests). Let’s look at different criticisms that have surfaced on the Web recently and see why they are unfounded.

Jason Cohen, in his post titled Out of the Cesspool and Into the Sewer: A/B Testing Trap, argues that A/B testing produces the local minimum, while the goal should be to get to the global minimum. For those who don’t understand the difference between the local and global minimum (or maxima), think of the conversion rate as a function of different elements on your page. It’s like a region in space where every point represents a variation of your page; the lower a point is in space, the better it is.

jQuery plug-ins provide an excellent way to save time and streamline development, allowing programmers to avoid having to build every component from scratch. But plug-ins are also a wild card that introduce an element of uncertainty into any code base. A good plug-in saves countless development hours; a bad plug-in leads to bug fixes that take longer than actually building the component from scratch.

Fortunately, one usually has a number of different plug-ins to choose from. But even if you have only one, figure out whether it's worth using at all. The last thing you want to do is introduce bad code into your code base. The first step is to figure out whether you even need a plug-in. If you don’t, you’ll save yourself both file size and time.

What do corporate websites have in common with other people's children? Three things: they have their charm, like finger-paintings on the refrigerator; they can be useful, if infrequently; they are usually admired only by the people who created them.

While designers know that a user's experience on a website has a large impact on the way that customer will interact with them, impressing that concept on the corporate establishment has taken a very long time. Trends in design are making their way into corporate web, albeit slowly; with patience and a little luck, businesses will soon start to consider carefully coded and appropriately functional design as important as their mission statement and recent sustainability reports.

One unfortunate fact is evident above all else: despite having plenty of money at their disposal, many corporations are lost in sterile MS Word-esque designs that are more stagnant than a museum exhibit… though at least museums have dinosaurs and mummies and stuff. Here's hoping we all will get new corporate clients soon.

Below, we present some interesting corporate websites, although the insight they offer may not be immediately apparent. This review is not about aesthetics or visual appeal, but rather about the design solutions the sites exhibit. In fact, corporate websites aren't as visually arresting as you might think, so if the appeal isn't immediately apparent in the previews below, take a moment to visit and interact with each of them.

Hi All,

We are Digital Marketing group based in Brisbane (however we are happy to work with developers through-out Australia) and are looking for a Senior Drupal Developer to assist with a new client, who is looking to build a user-generated, online publishing portal. The platform itself will be quite an intensive project, encompassing polls, forums, directories, editorial across a wide range of products and we envisage a team of developers would be required to get through it all - however this is completely the call of the Senior Developer when selected.

If your interested, we have a detailed brief available - please email kate@kpdigital.com.au for more information.

Thanks!
KPDigital

Today we are glad to release a yet another freebie: Polaroid Magento Theme, a professional design skin for the shops powered by the popular open-source ecommerce web application Magento. The theme was designed by eCommerce-Themes and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. As usual, the theme is absolutely free to use in private and commerical projects.

The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish.