Due to its popularity in current webdesign I put together a collection of 31 impressive ‘hand drawn’ fonts.

Whilst the all-time favorite Helvetica font provides a clean and sharp look, ‘hand drawn’ fonts give your website a more personal and sometimes more interesting touch. They can be used for various elements in web as well as print design.

Most of the fonts are available under a Creative Commons License. But please make sure to check the details before using the fonts for commercial projects.

Sketch Block

Mia’s Scribblings

Rock Show Whiplash

Peixe Frito

3Dumb & 2Dumb

Bearpaw

FFF Tusj

Against Myself

The Quiet Scream

WC Roughtrad Bold

Pointy

Pee Pants Script

Karabine

Sketch Rockwell

Waste of Time

Tire Shop

scrubble

Estrya’s Handwriting

Fail

HandVetica

Grutch Shaded

Clementine Sketch

Fh Scribble

My Turtle

Jump Start

MyCoy – Hello Lori

Oh Ashy

Love Ya Like A Sister

Aguzlo

Barnes ERC

JamaiStevie

These days every blog has something to share or bookmark and the best way to get attention is with remarkable icons. But you don’t have to spend a lot of money to find the right icons – the best creations are free!

Here is a collection of my favorite social bookmarking icons.

Set of Social Icons

Set of Social Icons No. 2

Hand-drawn Social Media Icons

3D Social Bookmarking Icons

Web 2.0 Origami

Cheers: a set of 12 “social” glasses

Handycons + Handycons 2: hand drawn social media icon sets

Rivet Social: 14 riveted brushed steel icons

Social Media Icons Pack

Function: Unique Set of Social Media Icons

Heart: A free social icon set

Socialize Icons

Social Icons Made of Wood

Social Media Icons Pack

19 Social Icons by webtoolkit4.me

Leaves Fall: A Social Icon Set For Bloggers

6 Free New Social Icons – Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon…

Social Icons hand drawned

Social Bookmark Iconset Part 1 and 2

30 Social Icons

34 Gradient Social Media Buttons

Circle Social Bookmark Icons

Hand Drawn Doodle Icon Set For Bloggers

At first what does Ajax mean?

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), is a web development technique used for creating interactive web applications. Ajax is asynchronous, in so far as extra data is requested from the server and loaded in the background. This is intended to increase the web page’s interactivity, speed, functionality and usability. Ajax function calls are usually made in Javascript using the XMLHttpRequest object. The asynchronous content doesn’t need to be formatted in XML.

Scripts for your Website

As quite every modern website makes use of at least a bit of Ajax you may want to have a few of those cool effects for your page. So I collected the best scripts for you. All of them are free to use and easy to install.

Lightbox 2 – Lightbox is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. It’s a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers.

Thickbox 3.1 – ThickBox is a webpage UI dialog widget written in JavaScript on top of the jQuery library. Its function is to show a single image, multiple images, inline content, iframed content, or content served through AJAX in a hybrid modal.

Glider – This script makes it easy to create a sliding carousel component like the one seen at www.panic.com/coda.

TableOrganize – This script basically allows you to re-organize the rows or columns and browse the table using the up/down arrows.

Clickheat – ClickHeat is a visual heatmap of clicks on a HTML page, showing hot and cold click zones.

Reflection.js – allows you to add reflections to images on your webpages. It uses unobtrusive javascript to keep your code clean.

AjaxIM – ajax im (“asynchronous javascript and xml instant messenger”) is a browser-based instant messaging client. It uses AJAX to create a near real-time IM environment that can be used in conjunction with community, intranet, and social websites.

Relay – An Ajax directory manager that works and looks like the familiar one of windows and mac systems.

SWFUpload – is a small JavaScript/Flash library to get the best of both worlds. It features the great upload capabilities of Flash and the accessibility and ease of HTML/CSS.

NicEdit -NicEdit is a Lightweight, Cross Platform, Inline Content Editor to allow easy editing of web site content on the fly in the browser.

Vuzit – Vuzit is a web based document viewer you can embed in any web page. It’s fast and it’s free!

flot – Flot is a pure Javascript plotting library for jQuery. It produces graphical plots of arbitrary datasets on-the-fly client-side. The focus is on simple usage (all settings are optional), attractive looks and interactive features like zooming.

Control.Tabs – creates a tabbed interface from an unordered list of links/anchors that point to any elements on your page that have an id attribute.

IE7 – is a JavaScript library to make MSIE behave like a standards-compliant browser. It fixes many CSS issues and makes transparent PNG work correctly under IE5 and IE6.

Resources for more scripts

Scripteka an extensive library of Prototype and Script.aculo.us based extensions/plugins.

At AjaxDaddy you can see Ajax examples, javascript scripts and web 2.0 demos in action.

MiniAjax, a showroom of nice looking simple downloadable DHTML and AJAX scripts.

And have a look at more than 1000 Ajax examples at AjaxRain.com

Talking from web2.0, you think of fade effects, live form validation and other nice and often practical effects. But how are these things realized? Is it something that only professional programmer can assemble?

The only thing that would be helpful is a general understanding of Javascript and HTML. Many of the effects you may have in mind are realized by using open-source libraries or other freely available code snippets. You just have to integrate a few Javascripts and call a few functions to have a beautiful web2.0-ish effect for your website.

In my view the best library is script.aculo.us in connection with prototype.js. They are easy to understand, have a large documentation and a good community. Other libraries worth mentioning are jQuery, Dojo, MochiKit, mootools and YUI. After installing the libraries, it’s so easy to create. Make a few Ajax calls, fall back on entire functions, get some groove effects – and your code is much lighter than before! So why not try to use one of these libraries, after a bit practice you will thank yourself for taking this step.

But even if a library can’t provide you the effect you need, there always is a better way than writing everything on your own. Use some ready-made code snippets. You find them everywhere on the Internet. Snippets for some common problems are Lightbox and ThickBox, which make it possible to overlay an image or other content on the current page. Sometimes the snippets make use of a specific Javascript library. But be careful that not all libraries work well together.

To sum up, I can say that both JS libraries and code-snippets will save you a lot of time (and maybe money). So have a look at them and don’t let the complexity awe you.

Cool Wallpaper for your Mac, made by Ben Adamson. Available in 1024×640 and 1920×1200.

Conquer the Universe Background. A galaxy wallpaper with Apple logo to honor the great birth of Leopard. Offered in 1920×1200, with and without the Apple logo.

Stylish Simpsons Wallpaper with a hungry Homer and a sweet Apple.

Free and Customizable Leopard Wallpapers. The wallpapers currently come in the following dimensions: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×960 and 1600×1200. Each of them suits a different mood.

Leopard (Red) and Leopard Server (Blue) Aurora Wallpaper. Both come in 1024×640 and 2560×1600.

30 Apple related wallpapers (Apple logo, MacOS, iPod) that are definitely worth a look.

Retro Apple logo but with a glassy modern look. The Wallpaper comes in 3 big sizes (1280 x 1024, 1600 x 1200, 2560 x 1600) from which you can create all other common resolutions.

Mark Zuckerberg did it and many others! They build successful websites and applications, and you can do the same! The first and most important thing is the idea. If your idea has potential then why not give it a try! Many people haven’t thought of becoming famous and rich by their websites but they were wrong.

What do you need to start your own website, blog or web application?

The idea – it’s the A and O to be successful! Are there already sites that do the same as yours? Is it possible to make money with your idea (sell premium content, banner advertising) or do you just want to be popular?

The website – do you master (x)HTML, PHP and JavaScript and maybe another language like Java? The point is – make yourself clear what is possible with your capabilities and what not. Maybe hire a professional programmer, but keep in mind that they are very expensive. Also nowadays it’s essential to permanently keep an eye on your sites’ security.

The design/layout – in the internet you find millions of examples of good web-designs. You can also find a lot of guides and tutorials that will help you step by step.

The server – how big is your project? Do you think you need a server right from the beginning? Or is a Shared Plan enough for a few weeks? If you have a heavy-load online application, calculate your budget carefully. Nothing is angrier than having the ultimate website but not the resources to host and operate it.

The breaks – After your project is running and even during the building time – take breaks! Turn off and do anything apart from thinking about your website. It’s a very important, maybe the most important thing you should take care of unless you want to lose the view on the whole.

When to start your website? – Now. Don’t lose time.

Good Blogs and Sites for more information

• OnStartups, Advice for Software Startups. Invaluable guides for entrepreneurs.
• DoshDosh, Internet Marketing and Social Media. Many tips and tricks on how to make the big money with any kind of website.
• Mashable!, The Social Networking Blog. See the ideas of other people and learn from them.

This week I will present you 5 extraordinary fonts from deviantart.com, an outstanding community for art lovers.

Advent – This font features 7 weights (regular, light, extra light, regular oblique regular rounded, bold and extra bold) of advent along with carefully adjusted kerning. Unless written approval by the author Andreas Kalpakidis only personal usage of it is allowed.

Sliced AB – The typeface includes many of the key elements you need in a font, upper and lower case, as well as numerals and punctuation. Created by Alex Banks.

Bobel – by Chris Pitney. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Manu – Both, Oktober and Manu, are fonts designed by Alen Stojanac. The author grants permission to use, alter and distribute them, either commercially or non-commercially.

Oktober

See our Font Tests
If you want to see these fonts’ appearance before downloading them, have a look a our Font-Tests (.pdf) – Font Test with 8px, Test with 12px, Font Test with 14px, Test with 18px and Font Test with 26px font-size.

Please follow the license agreements, they can change from time to time.

Nowadays quite everyone uses stylesheets to make their sites more beautiful – colored tables, customized lists and cool tag clouds. If you know the right tricks nothing is impossible, but there is one problem.. do you know which browsers your visitors have? Of course not! And speaking from usability not only standard conform stylesheets and (x)HTML structure is necessary, but also a browser-spanning steady behaviour.

CSS3 is in the works, while CSS2.1 still isn’t completely integrated in all the common browsers. Some even have problems with CSS2 specifications. So what to do..? At first if you want to know how good your browser renders the different CSS commands, have a look at the Acid-Testpage. This week a new test, including a lot of CSS3 commands, has been published. While no final-version of the most popular browsers achieves more than 50 percent, some nightly builds obtain good results. This doesn’t mean that it is impossible to create equal looking sites for any browser, but it shows you how different they interpret/not interpret each command. Always the best thing is to compare your sites in different browsers and if necessary make use of some hacks.

Here you can find more help with CSS and standards:

• Quirksmode.org, CSS compatibility list with many examples
• Noupe.com, 7 CSS Hacks for pixel perfect design
• W3.org, the official site for Cascading Style Sheets specifications

Internet Explorer 8
This week the first official beta version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 has been released. It covers a lot of new features like eBay integration, better AJAX support and standard compliance. Explicitly the last point, standard compliance, is a hot topic when it comes to the IE. All past versions had pretty much problems with displaying CSS correctly. So the announcement that IE8 passes the Acid 2 test was a big surprise.

Desktop wallpapers express the individual style of everybody. In this post I want to show you the best and most creative digital art wallpapers!

I must admit that I am not the guy who frequently changes his desktop wallpaper, but sometimes everyone needs a new and fresh one. So here you see a collection of websites which offer high quality art wallpapers.

Or do you want to make your own wallpaper? Then have a look at these pages:

• gimp-tutorials.net – Tutorial for a Mac style wallpaper
• tamilia.deviantart.com – Vector-Wallpaper tutorial
• webdesignerwall.com – Chroma wallpaper tutorial

Art Wallpapers

Iunewind – 51 stunning and colorful wallpapers

Desktopography – Many dreamful nature wallpapers

Endeffect – A lot of stylish and dark wallpapers

MyBestDesktops – Many beautiful photographys and digital art

Pixelgirlpresents – Hundreds of awesome digital art wallpapers!

Vladstudio – Very popular designer with a huge collection of free desktop wallpapers.

Ndesign studio – 18 great illustrator works

Dlanham – Simply amazing drawings as desktop wallpapers

From now on we will present you a lot of amazing free fonts every month. No matter you are a designer or writer – everyone needs the right typeface. This month I have choosen 3 really well-made and different fonts.

1. Delicious

2. Yanone Kaffeesatz

3. Lacuna - Comes with two full versions and a full character set.