Thought I’d share a useful tool I’ve been using for quite some time now. I find that when working in CSS, I get pretty messy. I indent some of the time, type it in inline, and sometimes I just get too anxious and just type it in anywhere and save. This leaves me with quite a messy looking CSS file. There are several CSS optimizers out there, but I find Clean CSS the best and quickest. Just paste it in and process!

Why Optimize?

Well for two reasons mainly. It helps you get smaller CSS file sizes and better written code. The way the optimizer works actually lets you decide how much compression you want. From super compressed (virtually unreadable and editable by a human being) to visually pleasing. I prefer the standard setting because it gives you a little of both.

Another cool feature is that it helps you with shorthand coding. I am by no means an expert at CSS. I do not have all the shorthand methods memorized (yet!). For those of you using Dreamweaver, like myself, you’ll find that it likes to use longhand code. By this I mean putting each seperate rule on it’s own line. This can get tedious copying and pasting it make a small change. A lot of that stuff can get consolidated into one line, like backgrounds and borders.

So your main reasons for wanting to optimize are to make sure your CSS files are clean. There is a certain art form in clean and concise code. And I’m not even a programmer and I can see that. I’m an artist, so this tool really helps speed things up.

I recently FINALLY found a decent alternative to Basecamp. Allthough Basecamp is a very robust and well made system, it costs quite a bit (even $12/month can add up for a poor boy like me). ActiveCollab has almost all similiar features, and has updates on the horizon that will make this a definite change for me.

activeCollab is an easy to use, web based, open source collaboration and project management tool. Set up an environment where you, your team and your clients can collaborate on active projects using a set of simple, functional tools. 100% free!

Found this link on digg.com. A great site with many great logos to view for inspiration and ideas. I’ve been looking for a site like this for a while. A well designed logo gallery that is described as “A Place To Fish For Ideas”.

Go here

The new WordPress Theme Viewer has been launched. This has been long awaited as there has been no solid way to submit and host themes anywhere lately.

Some Features:

• Test run blog
• Flawless theme handling
• Automatic theme snapshotting
• Theme creators can upload their themes
• Download counter
• Comment and rating
• Advanced sorting options
• Searching
• Tagged themes
• Theme zip structure automatically fixed

Rendr is a live CSS and HTML rendering tool. It displays what the page would look like as you type, making it great for rapid testing of page designs.

read more | digg story

Found a really good article online about SEO and Wordpress.

So you think you’ve got the hang of the usual SEO. Links, content, usability. But what about WordPress?

There’s a lot of amazing SEO power built into WordPress. Unfortunately it doesn’t all come by default, and you might not know what’s best when it comes to templates and options.

This simple, easy to follow article will outline many WordPress SEO tips which people often forget to implement (even the most famous bloggers), or haven’t yet arrived at for some reason or another.

Article found here

Joost de valk, who brought the CSS3 preview page, has just put online CSS3.info, a site dedicated to information about CSS3. So if you are interested in learning more about CSS3 dig this link.

read more | digg story

Found these really cool CSS tools. Check out the second link. Very helpful if you want to optimize and clean up your CSS after a project.

• Em Calculator estimates Em size equivalent to px size. Could become useful since more standardistas are adpoting use of Em sizing (vs. px sizing) to define the max width of their layout, a technique which I intend to investigate more thoroughly.
• CSS Formater
• Clean CSS — yet another CSS cleaner/optimizer.
• CSS Tweak — another CSS optimizer from cssdev.com
• westciv’s complete CSS guide
• MODI — Another amazing bookmarklet from Slayer Office. MODI is a mouse-over DOM inspector.
• W3C CSS Validator
• I Like Your Color via Red Alt — Type in the URL and it grabs the interface colors and display them in hex. Freakin’ Awsome!
• XHTML Semantic Generator — The XHTML Semantic Generator is a system designed to help developers prototype and test URL’s to ensure they contain basic accessibility and usability features present in modern web technologies, and to automatically implement them if possible.
• Special Characters List via manicalrage.net
• Online CSS Optimizer
• 4096 Color Wheel
• ColorCombos — Yet another online color pallet tool.
• COLORlovers — nice collection of user-picked colors & palettes with hex code.
• Weelstyled.com’s color scheme generator
• CSS Hacks Browser Support Chart
• CSS Compressor — squeeze the snot of that CSS.