Ganeshnomicks

Moved to Ganeshiyer.net

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:01:00 +0000

Hey. This blog has moved to Ganeshiyer.net. Click here to read more

Ganeshiyer.net

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Sun, 24 May 2009 09:17:00 +0000

Thanks to the money I got from Text Link Ads I have bought myself a domain name and web hosting :) Thats right fellas http://ganeshiyer.net will be up and running soon. I chose Hostgator to host it as they accept Paypal and they had all the features I wanted.

I'll continue writing on ganeshnomicks about web designing and stuff and I'll preview my designs and codes on ganeshiyer.net.

Where have I been?

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Text-Link-Ads Pays

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:31:00 +0000

Yeah thats right...I received 40$ from TLA last month and another 40$ this month. I have been running their ads for a while and its great to get some money :)
Sorry for not posting...I have been busy with my studies and will be busy till June of next year...but still I'll try to write something :)

New Design : Ganesh02 - Aqua Reaction

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:44:00 +0000

I had made this design for a design contest which was held by Open Designs. Unfortunately the contest got canceled. So I thought that I should release this design on OD. I hope you like this design. I have decided to release this as the second design in my Ganesh## series. I guess this design is tailor-made for web hosting sites, but its very flexible and you can change the images to give it the look you desire. Good luck with your site and please make sure that you link back to me.

Download it from: Opendesigns

Safari 3.1 supports HTML5

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:16:00 +0000

I have never been an Apple guy. I remember using Safari on windows when it was launched in beta, and it didn't took long for me to figure out that it wasn't for me. But Apple has just rolled out Safari 3.1 on Tuesday and its looks kinda impressive.
It is blazing fast, has got a cool UI, new cool features but the thing that has really got me interested is the new features that have the potential to transform web design in the future. First is CSS animations. Yep you read it right, Safari supports CSS animations. Another interesting feature is font downloading. That's right, web designers no need not limit themselves to narrow set of 'web safe' fonts.
But still I guess I'll stick with my firefox because I am still not sure how stable this new version of safari is gonna be. But still I hope that other browsers will also implement html5 features...fast!

PS: I am sorry to have not posted any stuff on the blog. I was having my exams so I couldn't find time to write.

Create Awesome Text Shadows With Pure CSS

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:50:00 +0000

I love finding ways to use css to replace unnecessary usage of images. In this tutorial I will teach you to create cool text with shadow without using any images or javascript. Here is my end result

The CSS:

#title{
      z-index: 2;
      color: #333333;
      position:fixed;
      font-size: 30px;
      left:5px;
      top:5px;
    }
#shadow{
      z-index: 1;
      font-size: 30px;
      color: #C0C0C0;
      position:fixed;
      left:8.5px;
      top:8.5px;
    }

The HTML:

<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">

<html>

<head>
<title>Test</title>
</head>

<body>
  <div id="title">
      <h1>Test</h1>
  </div>
  <div id="shadow">
      <h1>Test</h1>
  </div>

</body>
</html>

This is done by using z-index property of elements in CSS. The shadow should be placed behind the text by assigning it a z-index lesser to that of the text. If you want to increase the distance of the shadow from the text then change the left and top properties.

So the next time you want to create a nice little text with shadow instead of jumping onto your Photoshop, use this technique.

Post in the commnets if you have anything to say about this technique, blog or want to show off your implementation of this technique.

Smart Linking and Wikipedia

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:40:00 +0000

Wikipedia is great for all research work. One thing I really like about it is the easy with which millions of links have been placed under it. The links are in totally understandable form. Many times I just type what I am looking for in the link itself and nine out of ten times I am taken to the correct page. It really amazes me that if such a gigantic site is able to keep their links so simple and clear, of course having an awesome engine like MediaWiki helps but I fail to understand why other small scaled sites aren't able to do so. So learn from wikipedia, if they can keep their links simple so can you.

New Design : Ganesh01 - Sunshine

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:01:00 +0000

A new opensource design by me is up for download. I used to use it for one of my blogs but I stopped using the blog so I have put it up for download.

It is a very special design because it marks the beginning of the "Ganesh##" design series, inspired by how Andreas had created the "Andreas##" series.

The design is public domain. If you use the design then please keep the "Designed by Ganesh Iyer" and the link to this site intact.

You can download it from : OpenDesigns

The Anatomy Of Liquid Layouts (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:59:00 +0000

Liquid layouts have been around for quite some time. Some while ago it was thought that liquid layouts are dead. But liquid layouts are far from dead. Designers have shown that when implemented properly liquid designs can look as beautiful as fixed width layouts.

What are liquid Layouts?
As the name suggests liquid layouts are fluid and flexible. In liquid layouts widths are defined in percentages instead of pixels. The characteristic which makes liquid layouts special is that the layout scales with the size of the browser. So if you resize the browser the layout will resize accordingly.

So whats the big deal?
Liquid designs are very helpful in making the site accessible. These days there are so many diverse ways to access a site. People use different screens, resolutions, browsers, operating systems and even devices to view websites. Liquid layouts ensure that the layout of a site doesnt distort even when viewed in different resolutions.

Fixed Width
Fixed width layouts are made keeping a particular screen resolution in mind. They have fixed dimensions The layouts can at times look undersized over oversized if viewed from different screen resolutions. For example a site designed for 1024 x 768 px would distort when viewed from 800 x 600 px resolutions.
There are many advantages of using fixed widths, which make them so popular. They give the designer more control over the structure of the site.

This is the Part I of this post. I am working on the part two of this post which will feature the implementation of liquid layouts and some other stuff :)

Orkut: Send Scrap(Spam) To All

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 23:29:00 +0000

I agree that Orkut doesn't stand against Myspace or Facebook, but still it has been my social network of choice because most of my friends are on it.

In Orkut, friends can write stuff to each other in the form of scraps. Over the past few weeks some people have unofficially implemented a "scrap all friends" feature. The problem with this feature is that they just made life easier for all the spammers on orkut. Over the past few days I have received all sorts of spam scraps, ranging from buying used laptops to getting free domain names. Plus these scraps come with an advertisement to make people join the community of the creator of this feature.

If Orkut is not going to come up with an official version of this feature then they shouldn't allow these to spring up.

Beginning Ruby On Rails

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:52:00 +0000

I have been developing sites using PHP and MySQL for the past 2-3 years. But lately the upsurge of Ruby On Rails has turned my interest towards it. I have started learning ruby from various sources. I have joined a course by Ruby learning , I would like everyone to check it out because I guess its a great way to kick start rubying. Although it doesnt teach rails but still I think getting the basics of ruby is very important bef0re jumping into rails.

Big Backrounds aren't that BIG

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:19:00 +0000

Many of the so called design gurus, I guess, have started a new trend in the web design. Here is a small list of sites which follow this "big background" trend.

These designs certainly "look good". But the main purpose of web design isn't making sites "look good". The main purpose of web design is to assist the user in meeting the his objective from the site. Many a times, attractive looking backgrounds may not be as handy as a simple plain background and many times it is.

Every site has an objective. The main purpose of web design is to help the user meet those objectives with relative ease. For example the main purpose of a portfolio site would be to show off the persons skills. But a blog or a news portal may not have the same objective. The purpose of these sites is the content.

My opinion on these abstract-big-backgrounds depends upon the kind of page they are used on. Sites in which content is the objective, the background should blend beautifully and not strike out. Because if it does so then the content wont be the priority instead the background would become more prominent. On a portfolio page, the content isn't the prime objective of the designer, its a means for him to show off his work and so a decorated background certainly makes the design look beautiful.

What do you think of this trend? Post your opinions. I would love to hear from you all.

New Design : Pulse Exhiliarated

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:26:00 +0000

Pulse Exhiliarated is a design that I had created for a design competition hosted by a site called whatpulse about 5 months ago in June. I wanted to upload it but due to my studies and stuff I never got the time. Nevertheless its now up for you all to download. It follows the web standards. Now go ahead and download it and put it on your website :)

Some of its cool features are

Valid HTML 4.01 and CSS.
Tabbed navigation
Great support for tabular data
Beautiful Forms
Support for blog-like interfaces
And many more...

You can download it from : OpenWebDesign

Create "Smart Links" that dont suck

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:15:00 +0000

How many times have you come across a link like:

http://example.com/Stuff?id=dcv668&act=8v_20dsf23

Let me ask you something, can you get any idea of what the link is about? Can you type the link by yourself? I am sure most of you will answer 'no' to both the questions. Clearly these links 'suck' and so as webmasters its our duty to create 'smart' links.

The rise of dynamic sites has made it convenient for new users to create their own sites. These dynamic blogging platforms and other CMS(like Wordpress and PHP-nuke etc.) have made the option of building a site open for those, who don't know much about web development.

I have nothing against these CMS as they are only making the net a better place but I think one big inconvenience these sites create is the automatically generated senseless links created by such sites. These links are really confusing, they use weird characters(+, ? etc) and numbers which make no sense. The user has no idea what page he is being sent to till he actually reaches it and he wouldn't dare to remember or even type it as they are sooo big. And seeing the rate at which the Internet is expanding, there is a need to make cleaner links to reduce the complexity that may arise due to large volumes of sites and links.

In my opinion links should be self-explanatory for the convenience of the user. They should be

Descriptive of the content
Easy to remember
Guessable
And if possible short
Sans unnecessary usage of symbols and numbers

These are the characteristics of what I call 'smart links'

New Design : Opaque Green

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:24:00 +0000

Good news. I had uploaded one of my old designs "Opaque Green" on OpenDesign it has been approved and can be downloaded. I had made the layout more than a year ago for my personal site but never used it. Some of its features are:

Accessibility
Valid Code
Cross Browser Compatibility
Light weight
Easy to edit

You can download it from:
OSWD
Open Design

My other design hasn't been approved yet because there was some problem with the design queue on Open Designs but I'll put it here as soon as it is approved.

Whatever happened to Open source Designing

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:07:00 +0000

I guess you must be knowing about Open Source Software. Taking a leaf from the open source movement, during the last five years or so the open source web designs have been making their marks on the net. Open Source designs aim to provide web templates free of charge.

I entered the Open source web design movement with OSWD. I became really active with the forums and even contributed with some designs. But after some time I had been inactive for 4 months or so and when I came back the front page didn't show any change and its been that even today.

Then I thought of entering openwebdesign(OWD). I had been a member but never really used the account much. I am really dissatisfied with the functioning of OWD. I tried to upload a design but it wont allow me to do because I guess there is a bug in the uploading system. And its really shabby and has many other bugs.

So finally I found open designs, a site which I had been registered with right from some time after its launch but never really used it. At least it allowed me to upload my design and I am really happy that it has a good community. It is not that big yet but it is growing and I hope more people join it and support the open source web design movement.

Know any good open source web designing communities? Have an opinion on the Open Source Design movement? or have anything else to say about the topic then post it in the comments section.

And yes you'll get to see my latest Open Source design soon :)

Exam Time

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:27:00 +0000

Hey guys,

Well I am having my mid term exams which will continue till the 26th of this month. So I wont be able to post much stuff on the blog till then :( I'll try to update it if I get any time.

Hello World

noreply@blogger.com (Ganesh) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 07:14:00 +0000

Hey people,

This is my first blog post on my new blog. I have thought of giving blogging another try, my previous two attempts were quite all right but I had some hosting problems...so I decided to use blogger so I wont be having hosting problems ;)

I generally write about web2.0, web design and web application development, AJAX and much more!

I am really excited about this...So wish me luck and bookmark this page because there is lots more that you are gonna see on this page :)