Freeing us from our desktops & laptops the proliferation of iphones, androids and tablets mean we are browsing in a whole new way. And so web design must respond to this change. As always, the most respected and cutting edge names in design have already responded to the challenge. Ethan Marcott posted one of the first important articles on this topic over a year ago on the A List Apart site and since then responsive design has been creeping into our consciousness and drawing admiring intakes of breath when seamlessly executed.

And so more and more respected designers are making their own sites and client sites responsive to the range of screen sizes and viewing conditions from desktop to smartphone. Trent Walton’s thoughts on the topic are well worth reading. While you are there, check out how beautifully his site responds when you drag the screen in. For someone so passionate about typography and layout, things had to be right for him to feel happy. And he also tested it out while redesigning the Do Lectures website. Another convert is the talented Mr Simon Collison, who has switched his own site to responsive design.

We are at the start of a big change. Creases are to be ironed out and experiments will be made to how content is structured and laid out. But one thing is sure, responsive design is here and will soon be more apparent and prolific.

Useful related links:
Less Framework
Fit Text

Sites Responding Well
EdenSpiekermann
Mr Simon Collison
Do Lectures

Data and information is collected at the start of any presentation, can be visualised as a female triangle being produced from a point; Then the designer hacks and structures to take it back to a meaningful concise point–the male triangle. This extracting/refining is what is lacking the most on the net and where the design actually takes on meaning.

In graphic design, nothing is what it actually is. Everything other than content is representative of something else. Additionally, much of the content is also merely representative of something other than what it actually is.

Above quote form a great article–The Design Lesson: 1 of 1 (Andy Rutledge )

Dropbox has a free account option (2GB) and a premium account (up to 100GB). You have a folder that sits on your desktop and files dropped into it can also be accessed from any other device that you sync it to. You can send an invite to people you want to share files with and when you drop a file into this shared folder, you both have instant access to it.

Here are some features of Dropbox
Watch a video

The Compass system is an open-source and uses Sass to help with worflow and organises stylesheets Compass/Sass framework offers the ability to add variables, mixins, and nesting whilst writing CSS.

Implementing thse into projects allows a more flexible workflow and also smaller and your web site easier to maintain. It’s CSS with intelligence!

Video below gives an introduction to Compass from Lorin Tackett on Vimeo.

And you can test Sass directly online! (Sass and Compass are installed through RubyGems and run on the command line)

Lexus Cars

Russell Brand

Myspace Developer Platform

Ben & Jerry’s France

The offical site of the Prime Minister

More famous brands using WordPress
Celebrity WordPress users

Cool Tricks

Email address with your domain name — So you can have yourname@youbusiness.com instead of yourname@gmail.com. Nifty feature to help your business look more professional.

Get driving directions with Google — Got an email from a client with a meeting time and address? Google detects the address and automatically creates a link to Google Maps.

Forgotten attachment detector — You’re about to send a message with an important attachment, but you’ve forgotten to attach it. Gmail detects phrases such as ‘see attachment for more details’ within your email and reminds you when you click send. Similarly, Gmail has an undo send facility – a cool feature that gives you 5 seconds to stop a mail after you’ve clicked ‘send’.

Organisational Tools

Get free IMAP and POP Mail —Gmail supports IMAP and POP mail which means you can easily fetch mail from your other email accounts centralizing all your mail in one with Mail Fetcher.

Google Docs — lets you create and share documents through your Gmail account. Which means you can access them from wherever you have internet access. You can convert Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML, text (.txt), and Open Office (.odt)) files.

Collaboration

Google Apps — With Gmail comes access to Google Apps, a powerful messaging and collaboration system. For individuals and businesses alike, even the free option offers such features as: up to 50 custom accounts, shared calendars, Google Docs and Google Talk. Schedule events, share online docs, presentations and spreadsheets.

Vids about Google Apps:
Quick tour
Google Apps and small businesses

Space this will scroll down the page

Shift + Space will take you back the page

Controlling the browser

Backspace go back in the browser

F5 will refresh/reload the page Ctrl + F5 for hard refresh

alt + D will set focus to address bar

Controlling the tabs

Ctrl + T open a new tab

Ctrl + Tab will switch you to next tab

Ctrl + Shift + Tab will switch to your previous tab

Ctrl + 1 can switch to different tabs (1..9)

Ctrl + W will close your current tab

If you are using chrome check out ‘Keyboard Navigation’ extension

Ctrl and click the links to open in a new tab!