I Want to Start a Web Comic

by

Other than blogging about web design and development, I’m pretty hooked up on several web comics. As much as I used to love reading Spiderman, Superman, Fone Bone, Garfield and a whole lot of other offline comics, I’ve found several web comics that tickled and made me have anxiety attacks to what happens next.

And the thing about web comics is that it can be started by anyone. I know of an architect turned comic artist and their comic is really really doing well. How many of you haven’t heard or read Megatokyo before? You have no idea what are you seriously missing especially if you like reading romance comedy genres.

Read more

User Testing Your Web Design

by

Web design comes in several packages ranging from the out-of-the-box to the fresh-out-of-the-oven. Difference between the two is that ones catered to be visually astounding while not user-friendly and the other is highly user-friendly while strikes balance between its aesthetic value. However, I’m not saying that out-of-the-box or fresh-out-of-the-oven web design can’t be a total failure as well.

So what’s one of the best ways to find out if you have succeeded? It’s called user testing. While very uncommon to many Malaysia agencies and teams, user testing is all about…your users.

Read more

New Breed of Web Agency

by

I’m not sure if many web agencies, designers, developers and freelancers noticed this but there’s a new breed of web agencies today. Traditionally (old school and conservative) in Malaysia, a web agency set up here would take on projects from all walks of the Internet. They tell customers we service web design and development from small 1 product businesses to large corporations with branches all over Malaysia.

Well, it looks like this path is about to change soon. The agencies are branching out from the tree and becoming more specialized. They’re targeting niche markets and have become really professionals in that area.

Read more

Out of the Box CSS Layout

by

A List Apart author Alan Pearce recently shared his development work to solve one of the most common problems in CSS layout. Some of us web standards designers would remember this being called the “holy grail”.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Alan has finally found the grail and it uses little to no hacks whatsoever to successfully achieve equal height column bliss.

Read more

Categories or Tag Clouds

by

Let’s talk about something of old and something anew. Clearly, usage of categories are really old. We categorize related information into their appropriate sections. For instance, the location map could be categorized into the Contact Us page.

I believe due to the existence of blogs, there was a need for a more complex and detail way of sorting information. When you write about the company, is it the history? is the vision? or is it the team of the company?

Read more

Air Asia Vista Gadget

by

Or the leading Malaysia budget airline company calls it; AAVG. Sounds like the AVG antivirus, doesn’t it?

Not long after the release of Microsoft Vista, Air Asia made its own wave of headlines along side Microsoft promoting its new customer oriented feature called the “gadget”. I only found out about this feature via the paper media today and had several thoughts come to my mind.

Read more

Why Will I Not Use Windows Vista?

by

The ‘Wow’ starts now. Or so it seems.

Recently Microsoft launched its much awaited and anticipated operating system, Windows Vista. It has been roughly 5 years since the release of Windows XP by the Bill Gates company. Vista was and has been the most talked about operating system (other than Mac OS X) in the market.

Read more

How Much For a Website Like That?

by

Being a website designer, this is one of the more familiar phrases heard from potential customers. The culture here in Malaysia practices price before value. Even for a rich, high society member sometimes question the high price of a product in regards of its value.

The number of designers or developers asked that same question doesn’t get tiresome by the customer. Reason is that he’s judging the best bargain and perceived value he thinks the website reference is worth. Not the value and results he is aiming.

Read more

RSS Not End-User Friendly

by

If you’re a blogger or Internet-savvy user, you might have heard of RSS or better known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Site summary does give a clue on its own but coupling that with the word Rich in front, it’s a whole new jargon in the IT world.

So what exactly is Rich Site Summary about? Well, if you ask any technical person or blogger, they might mention more jargon like XML and how it’s a technology used to pull headlines and other content on the Internet.

In layman, RSS is the ability to access or keep track of vast amounts of content easily.

Read more

Donald Trump's Advice to Entrepreneurs

by

Business and marketing might not be a passion for me but I’d call it an interesting hobby. I don’t know why and can’t understand why business seems like magic. It isn’t like a cycle you see happening in forums or a website that becomes old due to its design or its technology.

In my blood and upbringing I’ve asked the question before, “Why do I like business and marketing?” Is it a genetic thing (though my parents aren’t business people) or is there something intriguing about the whole subject?

Read more