I thought it’s about time I publish a freebie on this site.

All the 10 social media Icons were design in Illustrator CS3 and are all completely vector based. (i.e. you can resize them to any size without loosing quality!)

I have Also attached the Illustrator Source files.

So, for our Free Social Media Icon Set, you get:

• 10 Icons
  (Yahoo, Twitter, Stumble Upon, RSS, LinkedIn, Google, Flickr, Facebook, Digg and Delicious.)
• Illustrator CS3 Source File
• PDF Vector
• PNG 64×64

Disclaimer

You are free to use these icons for both personal and commercial use without linking back to us (however I would appreciate if you did!).

Please Note: You are not allowed to publish these icons on any site for others to download or link directly to them.

You may direct users to this page.

Free Social Media Icon Set

Download

Contains 64×64 PNG’s, PDF’s, Illustrator CS3 Source Files

Individuals

Yahoo: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Twitter: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Stumble Upon: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

RSS: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

LinkedIn: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Google: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Flickr: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Facebook: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Digg: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Delicious: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Credits

The Bamboo leaf’s you see in the background were designed from this tutorial at N Design studio.

Tutorial?

If you would like to see a tutorial on how to design these icons in Illustrator, let me know and I’ll write one!

Over the course of this year, I have worked with hundreds of websites and have seen some great first page Google rankings for them. However there are those few sites which didn’t rank too well until some minor changes were implement. Such small changes that most people would consider them to be worthless. In my opinion, priceless.

Note: This Article isn’t for the beginner in SEO. If you’re new to SEO, then head over to Web Designer Wall and read their SEO Guide for Designers.

Throughout this post, I’m going to use Just Search (http://www.justsearching.co.uk) as an example.

Many of you will wonder why I choose the company Just Search. Well, these guys must know the Google Search Engine quite well; Just Search is the highest ranking company in Google UK for the term SEO:

Brief History of Just Search

Just Search was founded in 2003 and has developed into the leading Search Engine Marketing Company in the United Kingdom. They gained themselves first page listings for many SEO related keywords and have also gained first page results for their clients.

Just Search was recently acquired by Get Updated – A Swedish Internet Marketing company who operate in Sweden, UK, US, France and Germany.

Their clients include the likes of Sports Direct.

Lesser known SEO Ranking Factors

1. Order of Keywords in the <title> tag

It has been noted from the SEO world that the positioning of the keywords in the <title> tag is important and sometimes is the missing factor to rank on page 1 of Google.

Other points to note involving the <title> tag:

• Try to keep this unique throughout the site
• Shouldn’t be too short or too long
• Some SEO experts consider the <title> tag to be one of the major factors Search engines look at to rank a site
• Google SERPs display about 65 characters from the title tag
• Place your most important Keyword at the beginning

Examples - Just Search:

• http://www.justsearching.co.uk/
  Just Search » Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) » Internet Marketing (10 words/58 chars)
• http://www.justsearching.co.uk/web_analytics.html:
  Just Search » Intelligent Web Analytics » Internet Marketing Solutions (10 words/61 chars)
• http://www.justsearching.co.uk/pay_per_click.html
  Just Search » Pay-Per-Click Advertising » Internet Marketing Solutions (9 words/62 chars)
• http://www.justsearching.co.uk/seo-agencies.html
  Just Search » Become a Just Search reseller » Internet Marketing Solutions (12 words/63 chars)

About 62 character and 10 words seems to be very good for the <title>. (A maximum of 90 characters is recommended).

2. Placement of the <h1> tag in a page

The <h1> tag should relatively be placed somewhere high in the HTML code and physically prominent on a page.

Example - Just Search:

Now this is a nifty trick! The <h1> seems to appear below the <h2>’s however if you look at the source code of the page or display the page with CSS switched off, you’ll see the <h1> in actual fact appears before the <h2>’s. (Uses a large CSS margin).

3. Number of IP address changes

Search engines take note of the IP address of the site, the number of times it changes and how often it changes. If the IP address of a site changes frequently, then this will lead to a loss of trust in your site and potentially a loss of rankings.

By submitting and verifying your site in Yahoo Site Explorer, you can get to know the IP history of a domain.

4. Google can read basic JavaScript Links

Using basic JavaScript to display links so Page Rank will be preserved for other pages doesn’t work anymore. Google can read and follow basic JavaScript links.

One option is to use some complex JavaScript to encrypt links from the Search Engines.

5. How often a page changes affects SEO

Changing the contents of a page in large chunks frequently can lead to search engines loosing trust in your site. This only applies to content that generally stays untouched (such as an About page or Welcome text).

Example - Just Search:

All the content on the Just Search homepage is static and seems to remain untouched with the exception of the two blog feeds above the footer.

6. Page Download Speed / Content to Code Ratio

A theory amongst top SEO’s is that the page download speed is going to become (or already is!) a ranking factor for sites. One proof of this is the fact the Google and Yahoo have both released a Firefox addon to measure the page download speed:

Google Page Speed
Yahoo! YSlow for Firebug

I personally haven’t used both in much detail but I am aware Google’s Page Speed optimises the images and CSS for you automatically!

• Stick to minimum code
• Keep CSS and JavaScript files external
• Avoid using HTML <table> tags unless you have to

Just Search have a good tool to measure the code to content ratio of any page.

Example - Just Search:

Running the Just Search homepage through their code to content tool:

Seems like Just Search are doing fairly good here!

7. Social Media

Social media is really kicking off like it has never been and there is so much information that can be gather using social media. Due to this, many SEO’s think social media will become a major ranking factor in the near future.

It has recently been noted in the SEO world that if a fresh story/page on a website gets very popular, Google will rank it high for a short period.

(There was a recent story on the Guardian website regarding BBC & SEO that gained a lo of popularity in a short time span and so was ranking at position 11 in Google for the search phrase “SEO” for a short period!!)

Example - Just Search:

Just search have some nifty looking web 2.0 Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn icons:

And on their blog, a Sphinn and TweetMeme button:

8. Contextual Backlinks have more value than standalone ones

A link to your site that appears within a related paragraph is better than a link on it’s own.

Example - Just Search:

Well, the link in this post to Just Search is a good contextual link!!

9. First Anchor text only

If there are two links pointing to the same page on your website, then Google will only value the first Anchor text. If you nofollow the first, then Google will use the second.

Example - Just Search:

The first and second link to http://www.justsearching.co.uk/seo.html is:

Learn more about SEO

More on Search Engine Optimisation

Google will place more relevance on the first and thus the Keyword SEO

10. Geo-location of the host

A site hosted in the UK trying to rank high in Google France would be better hosted in the UK.

Four situations can arise:

We assume you want to rank for Google UK

1. TLD of a URL is the same as the country where a site is hosted
   a .uk domain hosted in the UK
2. TLD is right but the Geo-location of host is different
   a .uk domain hosted in Germany
3. TLD is different and the Geo-location of host is right
   a .de domain hosted in UK
4. Both TLD and Geo-location of host is different
   a .cn domain hosted in China

Google places more importance on the TLD than the host.

If you are looking to rank in the UK then a .uk domain is highly recommended. If the TLD is right, the host is not too important but still recommended.

If you don’t have the TLD but the host is right then you should ideally get a new domain otherwise register on Google Webmaster Tools and set the Geo-location of your site to the country you wish to rank for.

For situation 4, the best solution is to purchase a new domain and move host’s to the UK.

Example - Just Search:

Flagfox is a Firefox plugin that shows the country where the host is located.

We can see Just Search have a .uk domain hosted in the UK:

11. Position of text/links on a site

Keywords that appear in the sidebar and footer have less value than those appearing in the main body and centre of the site. So if you want to rank for a particular keyword, be sure it appears high in the centre and primary sections of your page!

Example - Just Search:

Just Search have some very good content at the outset of the site:

Conclusion

The best time to begin SEO is before even a site has been designed.

We can see from the Just Search website, the design of a site is important in terms of SEO.:

• Where is the content going to be placed?
• Social Media icons?
• <h1>/<h2> tags?
• Location Blog Feed?

These are just some of the questions to ask when it comes to designing a new site.

Then comes the development of the new site:

• Are you going to use a CMS? Ensure it fulfilled all your SEO requirements
• Content to Code ratio
• SEO friendly URLs
• Make sure the test site doesn’t get indexed!
  (Disallow: /)
• No hidden text in any form (such as black text on black background!)
• Avoid keyword stuffed alt tags

Then the ongoing, continuous, SEO:

• Unique <title>’s and Meta Descriptions throughout site?
• one <h1> on every page?
• Duplicate content?
• Quality Backlinks?
• Updated XML Sitemaps?

The 11 items mentioned above are not known to many and take time to master but once perfected, results will be great!

Bonus

Here’s an RSS icon I designed in Illustrator just for fun:

Download: Illustrator | PDF (vector) | JPG

Use it however you like. Although do let me know what you think of it and if you would like more!!!

HI Guys! I thought it’s about time I give you an update on how Web Designer Online (WDO) is progressing.

WDO was launched on the 9th of July and so it’s been around a little over 4 months.

General Progress

The site is doing great and much better than I expected!! I’ve had to upgrade my hosting package to cater for the increasing traffic.

Thanks to you guys, of course!

Popular Posts

Many of my posts have proved to be very successful in the web design world. Here’s a few of them:

10 Advance jQuery Scripts to take Your Website to the Next Level

This has been my most popular and was very well received. Current stats:

• Gained first Page on Delicious
• 435 Delicious Bookmarks
• Page Rank – 4 (Contact me if you’re interested…)
• First page on Google for “jquery scripts” and many other Keywords
• I think it even got first page on DesignMoo

Subscribe to 75+ Awesome Design Blogs in 2 minutes with this file via your RSS Reader

This was another popular post which attracted the top members in the design community and was tweeted by the likes of @creattica @FreelanceSw @ilovetypography @FreelanceFolder etc.

Subscribers

We’re almost at about a thousand subscribers!

Looking for Writers

I would like to offer all of my readers quality articles very often and I cannot do this without your help.

If anyone is interested in writing for Web Designer Online, please get in touch and we’ll figure something out.

What’s Next?

I have some big plans for Web Designer Online. Many new features will materialise soon.

• In terms of posts, I’ve got some great ones lined up!
• Great Competitions
• More user interaction and functionality
• Maybe a forum and member profile pages?
• Further Social Media enhancements!

If you have any suggestions for improvements, be sure to let me know!

Daily, we see blog posts written on WordPress Themes that 327 people have featured, 974 people have linked to 34,883 times. I’m sure you get the idea!

Well, it may seem we’re doing the same!!?! No, we’re not. Here, we are featuring 16 themes and plugins that can be applied to your WordPress admin interface to improve functionality and usability! We all know the standard look and features of the WordPress admin interface and it can be good to spice it up a little. With the following, you can do just that!

16 Awesome WordPress Admin Themes and Plugins

Fluency Admin 2.1

For WordPress 2.8.x

WP Tiger Administration

For WordPress 2.0.x

JS Style

For WordPress 1.5.3 – 2.0.3

Leopard Admin

Compatible up to: 2.5

WPhone

Requires WordPress Version: 2.1 or higher

Phone / Mobile Admin

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.2.2 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.3

Baltic Amber

Ability to change colour scheme (even randomising it!).

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.5 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.6

Planet X7

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.1
• Compatible up to: 2.3

Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

Requires WordPress Version: 2.8 or higher

Lighter Menus

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.5 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.6.5

Retro Dashboard

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.5 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.5.1

Simple Tags

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.3 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.8

WordPress Admin Bar

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.7 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.8

Admin Management xtended (Scroll down for English version)

The plugin requires Wordpress 2.5+, supports 2.6 and 2.7 (from plugin version 2.0).

Allows you to edit certain post/page properties without going into them.

Pop Menus for WP-Admin

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.7 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.8.3

Custom Login Page

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.0.2 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.8

Most people in the web development world are under the impression that phpMyAdmin is the only MySQL client out there for websites. Going a step further, some users are aware of alternative however assume that phpMyAdmin is the best.

Now, I agree that phpMyAdmin is one of the best out there and is is very user friendly. I myself also used phpMyAdmin much until recently… I got introduced to another program which within an hour became my favourite and also this led me to research others out there. Thus, this post!

10 great Alternatives to phpMyAdmin

Adminer (formerly phpMinAdmin)

A full-featured MySQL management tool written in PHP. Does more or less everything phpMyAdmin however consist of a single file only that is ready to upload to your servers and connect to the DB.

Navicat

This, in my opinion, is the best MySQL client out there. It does everything you want from a very user friendly interface. However, it doesn’t come free. There is a small price tag to it but is well worth it!

Sequel Pro

One for the Mac users.

SQLWave

SQLyog

BlueSQL

Free web based DB management tool.

SQL Buddy

DBDesigner 4

SQLGate

HeidiSQL

Conclusion

Navicat and Adminer are probably the only other MySQL Clients you need in addition to phpMyAdmin. The rest? I’ll leave them to you to discover which is best suited to you.

I’m going to skip the long introduction to CSS Sprites as they have been discussed in detail (see ‘Detailed tutorials’ below) many times across many websites.

This post is primarily here to only showcase websites that use CSS Sprites.

What is an Image Sprite?

Basically, an image sprite is one big (master) image that contains many smaller images. Part of this master image is then used in different places on a webpage.

Ok, so why should I use this? Basically, it helps load web pages quicker as the server only needs to make 1 image request to the server as opposed to 27, say.

It’s tough to implement and not needed for a small site however for the larger ones, it’s strongly recommend.

You’ll have to see the showcase below to fully understand them.

CSS Sprites showcase

Please note: I was going to display the image sprites on this page but due to their large size, thought it best to link to them directly.

Google

http://www.google.com/images/nav_logo6.png

AOL

http://euhp4.aolcdn.com/os/repos/p/skn/blue_v1/12-blue_skin.png
http://euhp4.aolcdn.com/os/repos/logo/1-uk_logo_sprite

Microsoft

http://i3.microsoft.com/en/shared/…/cspSearchComponent/sprite2.png
http://i3.microsoft.com/en/shared/…/cspMscomNewsBand/NB_ltr.4.png

Yahoo!

http://d.yimg.com/a/i/ww/met/gsprite_071309.gifhttp://d.yimg.com/a/i/ww/met/pa_icons/uk_pa_sprite_063009.png

Xing

http://www.xing.com/img/v/header_r3.png
http://www.xing.com/img/s/button_r3.png

Apple

http://images.apple.com/global/nav/images/globalnavbg.png

CNN

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/img/2.0/global/icons/share_sprite.gif

Digg

http://digg.com//img/menu-current.gif

Dragon Interactive

http://dragoninteractive.com/lib/i/navigation/sprite.jpg

Bing

http://www.bing.com/fd/s/a/j.png

Amazon

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/gno/…/navPackedSprites_v12._V222883957_.png

YouTube

http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img/master-vfl117997.png

MySpace

http://x.myspacecdn.com/modules/common/static/img/header/searchBg.gifhttp://x.myspacecdn.com/modules/common/static/img/header/header001.png
http://x.myspacecdn.com/modules/splash/static/img/cornersSheet.png

BBC

http://wwwimg.bbc.co.uk/home/release-34-2/img/bgsprite.gif

Firefox (Thanks to Esteban)

http://www.google.es/images/firefox/sprite2.png

If you know of any other, please post them in the comments!

Detailed tutorials

CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death
The Mystery Of CSS Sprites: Techniques, Tools And Tutorials
CSS Sprites: What They Are, Why They’re Cool, and How To Use Them

CSS Sprite Generator

Please don’t complain, I’ve never used any of these!!

http://printf.ru/spritr/

You can upload multiple images using this tool and then generate the CSS code for the sprite.

http://www.floweringmind.com/sprite-creator/index.php

This tool is awesome. Upload your CSS Sprite image and then create the code for the various areas. (Difficult to get pixel perfect though)

http://spritegen.website-performance.org/

http://www.csssprites.com/

Conclusion

The big question. Should you use CSS Image Sprites?

For most people, the answer is NO. It won’t make a difference to most websites and will only waste your time.

If your website receives hundreds of thousands of hits daily then you should consider using CSS Sprites to ease user experience.

For web design agencies, I would say it’s a must to attract large contracts.

Well, in the end, it’s your choice. It probably good do use CSS Sprites at least once to get a good feel for it.

This post is primarily aimed at Freelancers however will be just as useful for those working in the web design industry who speak to clients on a daily basis.

What is it?

Web conferencing allows anyone, anywhere to instantly share their desktop and ideas online with other users simultaneously.

• Real time collaboration (Including mouse and Keyboard sharing)
• Synchronise live presentations, webpage’s and whiteboard
• Educate and train (Very useful for showing clients how to user their new CMS etc)
• Record and playback your webcast
• Host live seminars

Why use web conferencing?

List below will vary depending on the app.

• Become more productive
• Save money on travelling costs
• Save time
• No hassle
• Browser based (No installation required)
• Suitable for a 2 person meeting or a 200 people meeting
• Generally FREE for up to 20 users forever
• Quite cheap for premium service
• “The next best this to meeting in person” – Abode.

8 Web Conferencing/Meeting Apps for Freelancers for Real-time Collaboration

DimDim

Yugma

VYEW

Cisco webex

VIA3

GoToMeeting

Microsoft Office Live Meeting

OK… This is probably not in the budget of most freelancers however if you have the full Microsoft Office Suite then you can probably do some bargaining with Microsoft…

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro

Pricey. But if you’re a big time freelancer, this is probably the one for you.

Conclusion

Some of the above are awesome products. The free limitations are more than enough for freelancers and most web design agencies also.

By making full use of them, you clients will no doubt be impressed. Not only this, but you’ll save a huge amount of time throughout the year. I’ve been in the situation of a 2 hour phone call explaining how to use the basics of Wordpress will I could have done this in under an hour using web conferencing!

What are the factors that increase the monetary value of your website? This is what I’m going to discuss here.
You may have tried a hundred times and failed or your very first site may have sold for a very high price?

If you’re not earning from your site and maintaining it is costly, then it’s very important to ensure you are able to sell your site for an amount which would reflect the time spent on it. This is because maintaining a popular site can go beyond ones budget and lead to the site going down and many months of hard work following closely behind.

The Domain Name

This is very important. The better the domain, the greater the value of your site. A good domain name on its own is worth a lot (such as toys.com which the company Toys ‘R’ Us recently bought for $5.1 million).

• Age
  An older domain name which has a history adds lots of value from both SEO and monetary value.
• Length
  Generally the shorter domain name is worth more than a long one. There are many reasons for this which I won’t go through in this post to stick to the current topic. The only cases where a long domain name is worth lots is where you have a perfect keyword/brand/name match such as:
  • http://www.mobilephones.com
    A perfect Keyword match – Such a keyword is searched very frequently and brings the industry millions of pounds a year.
  • http://www.justsearch.co.uk
    A perfect match to the company name.
• TLD
  .com is best. .net and .org follow behind .com. Country specific TLD’s will be valued in their country such as the .co.uk for the UK.
• Simplicity
  Is the domain simple to remember and type? (Such as www.bing.com).
• Page Rank
  The higher the Page Rank (PR), the greater the value of the domain.
• Alexa/Compete Rank
  Higher Rank = Higher Value

Number of RSS Subscribers/Twitter followers

Basically, if  you have a couple of thousand subscribers to your site and 10,000+ Twitter followers then that tells a person your site is very popular and liked by hundreds of thousands of people. Thus, gaining lots of loyal visitors who return often.

One important point to note: A site can have 100,000 useless Twitter followers. What’s important is the number of genuine (and thus quality) followers.

Social Media

• Has your site been featured on the front page of Digg? Delicious? Design Float? etc.
• Is your site discussed on other sites and forums?
• Number of Bookmarks via Delicious?
• How often is your site retweeted?
• number of tweets per post

Number/Quality of updates over the last few months

The more updates your site has had over the last few months will very likely add value to your site. However, this only applies if they’re quality updates and have been very popular.

Google Rankings

• Is your site ranking on page 1 of Google (even better – Number 1) for its main Keyword(s)?
• If so, is the Keyword Popular? A site ranking well for “Photoshop Tutorials” will be more valuable than a site ranking for “Photoshop Text Tutorials” simply because the former is searched much more that the latter.

The Design

A great looking site (such as www.webdesignerwall.com) will add thousands…

Ads and Income

Does your site have a source of income (through ads and sponsors etc.)?

Number of Registered Members

If your site hosts a community/forum, then the number of registered members is a very important factor. If you have a couple of thousand followers, this can potentially increase the value of your site by thousands.

Newsletter/Email subscribers

Gaining high number registered newsletter subscribers is very difficult. Users are more reluctant to give their email address than to subscribe to an RSS Feed and so to have a large amount of email subscribers shows you and your site is a trusted one.

Number of unique visits/page views

This is probably the first thing a potential buyer will want to see and is the biggest selling point of a site.

If a site has a low number of monthly unique visits, then it will probably be the first and last thing a potential buyer will look at. Sometimes, just this will be enough to put a price tag of hundreds of thousands of pounds on your site. (The buyout of YouTube is a good example)

CMS Powered?

If your site is very well organised and built using a modern framework (PHP, ASP/X etc.) and CMS (Wordpress, Drupal, Magento etc.) then it will attract a lot more people and increase the base value of your site quite a bit.

The reason for this is that most people are not masters of PHP, ASP/X and the different CMS’s out there! If you built your site using pure OOP (or no OOP at all!) then it will be very difficult for someone to become fully conversant with the code. By using popular packages such as Wordpress, the buyer will have the peace of mind due to the very large community out there.

The Industry

The bottom line is that some Industries are worth more than others. Two sites may be equal in all factors except the industry.

For example:

A website on Photoshop tutorials will generally be worth more than a site on a site about cups…

Running costs

• Is your site expensive to run?
• Do your ads and sponsors bring in enough to cover hosting costs?
• Do you advertise anywhere elsewhere? If so, how much?
  If this is a high figure then the value of your site will be lower.

SEO/Social Media Optimised?

• Is your site optimised for the three major search engines?
• Have you registered your website on all the social media sites relating to your industry?

Original files

• Do you have the original PSD’s and template files for your site, logo etc.

If you have a record of all changes to your site/emails/documents/registrant certificates etc. then it would earn the trust of many potential buyers and thus you can add another zero to the price… OK, maybe not another zero but definitely a good amount!

History/Email’s documented?

Is the history of the site recorded in detail (such as previous hosts, etc.)? If so, then this would also add lots of value to the site.

Competitions/featured

A site that has won many competitions (especially the difficult ones) will have its value increased considerably. Similarly, if the site has been featured on other (good quality, authoritative) sites will return a similar benefit.

Offline Recognition

As soon as your site is recognised offline, you have reached the next level. This is very difficult to attain and can take a good few years of very hard work. However once achieved, will add amazing value to your site.

Some of the places you can be recognised on are:

• Magazines relating to your industry
  E.g.  This site being featured in the UK based Web Designer magazine.
• A national/international newspaper prints an article you wrote on your site
• Your work being featured in museums and events

It all depends on your industry!

Conclusion

The points mentioned above are only some of the major ones. If you gain high marks in all of them, you can be sure your site is worth a fortune and there will be many out there who would be waiting for the sign (for sale) to go up!

However, if your site is worth a high figure, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to leave it anyway!!!

Hope you enjoyed this article. If you think I have missed anything, be sure to shout out!

There have been many posts recently showcasing the top design blogs out there that every designer should subscribe to. Due to these lists being quite large many users click through a few and subscribe to a few.

I thought it would be a good idea to gather them into one XML (OPML) file that you can download and import directly to your favourite RSS Feed reader.

The blogs chosen cover all areas of web design and development including the following:

• Inspiration
• Design/Development
• Tutorials
• Freelance
• Blogging
• Usability
• Logos
• Typography
• Industry News

Well, here it is:

You may need to right click and select save file/link as.

NOTE: I have only tested this in Google Reader.

I will have missed many great blogs out there – If you have any recommendations, be sure to mention them in the comments below and I’ll add them.

Sites included in the download

2experts Design – Web Design and Graphic Design Blog
A List Apart
Abduzeedo | Graphic Design Inspiration and Photoshop Tutorials
BittBox
Blog.SpoonGraphics
Colorburned
CrazyLeaf Design Blog
Creattica Daily
CSS Globe | Web Standards Magazine
CSS-Tricks
David Airey, graphic designer
Design Newz
Design Reviver
Design Shard
Design was here
Designers who Blog
DesignFlavr – Inspirational design served daily | Resources
DesignM.ag
DevSnippets
Dzine Blog
Flashtuts+
Smashing Apps – Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers
FreelanceFolder
FreelanceSwitch
Fuel Your Creativity
Function Web Design & Development [ Blog ]
GoMediaZine
Graphic and Web Design Blog – Inspiration, Resources and Tools
Graphic Design Blog – An Ultimate Resource for Graphic Designers
Guerrilla Freelancing
hongkiat.com
i love typography, the typography and fonts blog
In the Woods
Inspired Magazine
instantShift
Line25
Logo Design Love
Minervity
Minty-Fresh Posts from PSD Vault
MyInkBlog
Naldz Graphics
Nettuts+
Noupe
Outlaw Design Blog
Photoshop Lady
Pro Blog Design
ProBlogger Blog Tips
psdfan.com
psdlearning.com
Psdtuts+
PSDVIBE – Tutorials and Resources
Script & Style
Sharebrain | Sharebrain »
Six Revisions
Skelliewag.org
Smashing Magazine
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Following my previous JavaScript article on jQuery – 10 Advance jQuery Scripts to take Your Website to the Next Level – Where I showcased some awesome jQuery scripts, I thought it good to do the same with MooTools.

I could have called this post “50 Advance MooTools Scripts” but kept it at 10 as otherwise you would lose interest and many of the scripts would have been useless. Thus, 10 is the special number today!

MooTools

MooTools is a compact, modular, Object-Oriented JavaScript framework designed for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript developer. It allows you to write powerful, flexible, and cross-browser code with its elegant, well documented, and coherent API.

Similar to jQuery, MooTools is another very popular JavaScript framework to help do more with less code. I have selected some awesome MooTools script you can use to help outshine the your industry!

Advanced Mootools

Calendar (to input dates)

A cool looking calendar by which you can easily select dates.

• Style-able and semantic XHTML
• Highly configurable use of inputs and selects
• Future/past restrictions
• Multi Calendar Support
• And much more!

mParallax

SIMPLY AMAZING.

Turn’s a selected element into a ‘window’, or viewport, and all its children into absolutely positioned layers that can be seen through the viewport. These layers move in response to the mouse, and, depending on their dimensions (and options for layer initialisation), they move by different amounts, in a parallaxy kind of way

Complicated, I know… See the effect in action and you’ll understand in a second!

FancyUpload

An elegant upload script:

FancyUpload is a file-input replacement which features an unobtrusive, multiple-file selection menu and queued upload with an animated progress bar. It is easy to setup, is server independent, completely styleable (is that a word?) via CSS and XHTML and uses MooTools to work in all modern browsers

FancyForm

Not your standard checkbox.

TableGear

Just click any field and start editing it. As soon as you move away from the field, it regains all of its formatting.

• Designed for PHP/MySQL. (Works with other also)
• Degradable to work without JavaScript
• Very customisable

MooScroll

Customise scroll bars beyond your imagination. Strictly for the Geek only…

MenuMatic

Nice horizontal/vertical menu effect.

Slider with Range Indicator

Select a maximum and minimum value using a slider. You can customise the look how you like!

Horizontal Image Menu

Very nice! (With quite a few options!)

Kroppr – image cropping script

Impress all your users with this fine script. An image cropping tool that is able to rotate, zoom and move the image in the real time without using plugin’s – such as flash or java.

It’s very simple to implement also!

Conclusion

Who said jQuery was the only JavaScript library that’s cool. MooTools can be cool too!

If I was asked to recommend one above the other, I wouldn’t give a definite answer. It all depends on what your requirements are. Thereafter, you need to research both scripts and see which would be best for you in the long term!

Useful Links