7 Free WYSIWYG-HTML Editors You Should Try

August 28th, 2009

Being a freelance web designer you for sure are always looking for tools that can simplify and speed up your work. I already gave you the list of text editors useful for programmers, developers and designers. Today I’m going to share WYSIWYG HTML editors with you. WYSIWYG means What You See Is What You Get, these editors are easy to use and what is most pleasant about them – they all are completely free. Note that if you are looking for more features and need extra flexibility there are some very good editors for a reasonable price.

Xinha

This is an open source community-built WYSIWYG HTML editor. Xinha supports all the major browsers as Internet Explorer 6+ ,Safari 3+, Opera 9+ , Firefox 1.5+ (PC, Mac)

Nvu

Very good free WYSIWYG editor. Features advanced CSS support, XML support, built-in validator, full site management and color coded XHTML editing.

Trellian WebPage

This great editor offers not only the WYSIWYG functionality but also image editing within the software. Besides, you can use Photoshop plugins for customization.

SmartMarkUP

This powerful JavaScript library allows to turn any text area into a markup editor. HTML, CSS, XML, BBCode and other markup languages are easily configured. Supports all the major browsers.

PageBreeze

This free HTML editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and source mode, thus you are able to check your HTML.

Selida

This free WYSIWYG web page editor for Windows is appreciated by many web design professionals. Selida offers a great number of really good features.

WYMeditor

This standards compliant, web-based WYSIWYM XHTML editor produces XHTML-CSS compliant code. WYMeditor is JavaScript, it is easily integrated into your CMS and is also multilingual.

Well, what is your favorite HTML editor?

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Top 5 Hosting Website Templates

August 26th, 2009

Web hosting is a rather profitable business. There are hundreds of new websites launched every day, each and every of them needs a reliable hosting solution. If you plan to start your own hosting company or need a new design for your existing one these small chart will be of special interest for you.

Hosting Co CSS Template

This hosting company website template is designed in a fresh blue color palette. Simple navigation and plain design make it a great solution for your hosting business.

Web Hosting Photoshop Template

This simple HTML template is created with the use of calm red, gray, blue and white colors. The simple and plain navigation as well as the overall design create an impression of a reliable hosting company website. Your clients will be satisfied.

Web Hosting CSS Template

This CSS web design is a perfect solution for any hosting company. The white background, properly used bright colors and good fonts will make your hosting company website attractive for your clients.

Hosting Provider Web Page Template

This CSS template is a brilliant example of a fresh and stylish design aimed to suit your reliable web hosting company. You’ll especially like the handwritten elements of this web design.

Communications Company HTML Template

This is a very bright and vivid solution for a webhost. Your clients will love this design performed with the use of citrus green and orange on the white background.

What webhost do you use for your websites?

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Top Web Design Tips

August 19th, 2009

Nowadays world of strong competition in web design requires exceptional skills and deep knowledge of the trends and basic rules. Being a freelancer you for sure know how hard it is to create a design that will become a successful website. Here are some simple tips that will help you achieve the goal and create the most successful websites. Make sure you are doing everything right and your clients will be satisfied.

* Do not use huge images. Everyone knows how awful a slow website is, even if it is exceptionally beautiful. Thus, try to use images that are not bigger than 10-12KB. The latest trend of minimalism in web design is your best friend here. The less pictures you use the better your website looks, and the better it functions.

* Hold on to the standards. Being different isn’t always good, 3 column layout is that popular because it is actually simple to use and navigate. Though don’t be afraid to experiment, just know when enough is enough.

* Use easy on the eye, common fonts. Always remember about the people that will visit your websites when you design them. Imagine how your own eyes would react on this or that font. Using common fonts you guarantee that your client’s visitors will see the site correctly. Try to use matching fonts that won’t disturb the visitors.

* Never forget to test everything twice, or thrice, or even more. Make sure that every single thing at your website works properly at every major browser.

* Remember that the customer is always right. Being a freelancer you for sure know how hard it sometimes is to deal with clients. They may be wrong, very-very wrong, still, they are right and you’ll have to deal with that on a mature level.

Keeping up with these simple tips you’ll get one step closer to the top of web design Olympus.

Do you have your own web design tips? Do share them with others in the comments below.

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Useful Tools for Freelance Designers

August 13th, 2009

Every freelance designer knows how hard it is sometimes to get everything done when you are a freelancer. You have to manage every single thing from emails to SEO all by yourself. You have to deal with clients, promote your own portfolio website, read the latest industry news as you have to keep up with the technologies and be aware of the latest events, you have to deal with many issues connected to running a business as finances, bills etc. All these things take time, attention and effort. So, how and when do you do actual designing and development? Here is a short list of useful tools and resources that will help you cut down the time and effort spent on things that have nothing to do with actual design and development.

Finances

Invoices Made Easy Very good and easy to use tool for sending invoices and accepting online payments.

Bill My Clients Lets you send invoices both via email and regular mail.

Less Accounting Created especially for freelancers this tool will help you easily manage your invoices and accounts.

Xero This online accounting system gives you an access to all your financial figures like invoices, bank transactions etc. anytime you need them.

PayPal The best and thus the most popular online payments service out there.

Managing your contacts

Being a freelancer you need to organize your customer base, these tools will help you do the task:

Big Contacts Lets you easily organize the information about your clients.

Zoho CRM Another good tool to manage your business activity.

These online communication tools will make it fast and comfortable to solve issues with your clients:

Skype Great choice for online communication, lets you make phone calls and have video chats.

Yugma Online video conferencing tool.

Promotion

I’m sure most of you use Twitter as one of the main promotion tools. If you do you’ll like these services and applications:

Tweet Later This great service lets you to set time when you want your tweet published.

RTweeter Another tool to schedule your tweets.

Tweetdeck is of great help when you have hundreds of followers. The tool lets you filter the users into groups, thus you won’t have to look through all the tweets to find what the user you are interested in is doing.

Well, this is for sure not the full list at all. What tools are you using to simplify and speed up your non designing activities?

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Website Templates Membership – More than Cheap Templates

August 10th, 2009

Being at the market of website templates for quite a long time already LayoutsPack had proven to be a reliable resource of quality web products.
Offering you a membership package we give you an outstanding opportunity to immediately download hundreds of high-grade website templates. You won’t find CSS templates, Flash templates, WordPress themes, HTML templates and other web products of such a high quality for the price that low anywhere else, of that I’m sure. Letting you save on website templates without saving on their quality we give you an extra chance to boost up your creativity.
Well, just in case you are new to LayoutsPack, or just to remind you if you are our long-term client, I’d like to give a small overview of the web products we create.

* HTML Web Templates
Simple and plain, these website templates are your creative solution if you need a reliable and informative web page.

* CSS Templates
These clearly coded and SEO friendly web templates are the best choice for a business website.

* Flash Templates
The most vivid and creative solution for a personal page, business website or any other type of web presence. There also are Flash animated website templates in our collection, which are simple HTML templates with flash elements and Flash XML Templates that will surprise you with the ease of modification and maintenance they provide.

* Web Templates Set 4 In 1
These are the best solution for those who like the design but can’t decide which platform they’d like to use. Web Templates Set 4 In 1 is one design delivered in 3 popular CMS solutions – WordPress,
Joomla! and Drupal, plus HTML. So you can choose a design and be sure that you’ll get it in the most comfortable platform.

So, is website templates membership just a set of cheap templates?

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