• 15 Design Decisions That Annoy Readers - i agree with most all these (hat tip dan)
• popuri.us - A tool to check at-a-glance the link popularity of any site based on its ranking (Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati etc.), social bookmarks (del.icio.us, etc), subscribers (Bloglines, etc) and more!
• LEGO Han Solo in Carbonite - awesome, totally awesome
• Web Page Technology Profiler - find out what a site is built with
• Search Engine Relationship Chart - still a classic
• Creating a Page Break - think i will implement this

Our Swedish friend Roger Johansson asks the question, “Are we designers or developers?“

“On the about page of this site I used to call myself a “developer/designer/occasional writer”. It’s a bit confusing, and I still find it hard to know what to answer when someone asks me what I do for a living. Am I a Web designer? A Web developer? A Web programmer? All of them? Neither? It really is a difficult question to give a simple answer to.” — Roger Johansson

Like Roger, I have struggled with this question. Then about two years ago I decided to just pick an answer and go with it; that way when the hair dresser asks me the question I don’t sit there and go “um…ah…er…developer” and they end up thinking I’m lying and I’m really a spy or something.

So my answer is: I’m a developer!

I decided to steal my answer from the home building industry. Someone who builds homes for a living will often choose to call them self by the generic term developer. They may be an architect or mason or a carpenter, but those are the more specific skills used on the job — they call themselves home developers.

They use architectural skills to ensure that the house is designed well; that it’s structurally sound. Then using masonry and carpentry skills they build the home.

This is the similar to building a website. You design the site using pencil, paper, Photoshop and your learned knowledge of what it takes to make a website “structurally sound” and then you develop the site using HTML, CSS, PHP and all the other tools that go into developing websites.

So in my mind we’re both developers — they develop homes and I develop websites.

What’s your take — designer, developer, programmer or other?

When someone asks what you do for a living, what’s your answer?

No I don’t want you to take a nap. I’d rather you took a little tour with me and explore the possibilities that the CSS z-index property has to offer. In a previous article I briefly touched on how to use z-index and thought now was the time to expand more on the subject. So wake yourself up, get your thinking caps on and follow me as we come to grips with z-index.

Try and hang with me during the technical side of things because we have a fun exercise at the end!

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to interview for a position at Google or Yahoo?

Well at another blog they shared some pre-interview questions from Yahoo for a PHP job. The only problem is they never provided the answers. So that’s what I’m going to do now.

Yahoo, if you’re watching, please check my answers and if they are right, I can start next week!

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• Jeffrey Zeldman: King of Web Standards - a good read (hat tip dan)
• 7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing - i didn’t know all of these!
• CSS: Specificity Wars - specificity has killed me more times than i care to count
• Dilbert - scott adams still kills me
• New elements in HTML 5 - new html elements include: section, header, footer, nav and more…
• Creating Light Motion Trails & Glowing Sparks - who’s tougher than veerle?

• Does your blog produce the results you desire?
• Do you have questions about monetizing your blog?
• Would you like others to critique your blog?
• Would you like to join a community of other bloggers to talk about all aspects of blogging?

Check out the new forum The Blog Experiment — run by bloggers for bloggers.

As someone who has worked with Flash for many years I have witnessed the love / hate dichotomy that circumvents the web. There’s one thing that stands out to me - Flash is the most misunderstood software platform around.

So I decided to contact three of the biggest Flash Gurus around and get some answers from them. We’ll meet our three Flash masters and then look at their answers to these questions: “What do you see as Flash’s key asset(s)?”, “What do you think is Flash’s biggest weakness?”, “If you could change one thing about Flash what would it be?”, “Has Flash’s popularity peaked?” and “What will Flash look like in 3 years?”

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