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Image optimization is an art that not many people master. There are many good image editing tools that allow us to get the best visual result for a certain file size but “under the hood” a lot more optimization can be done.

Smushit.com is a service that goes beyond the limitations of Photoshop, Fireworks & Co. It uses image format specific non-lossy image optimization tools to squeeze the last bytes out of your images – without changing their look or visual quality. You’ll get a report of how many bytes you can save by optimizing your images and all the changed images as a single zip for download.

Smush.it comes in different flavours:

• Uploading multiple images via browser
• Mentioning image URLS online
• With the help of a Firefox extension

Website: http://smushit.com/

This plugin wraps the jQuery UI datepicker into an interactive component specifically designed for choosing date ranges.

Features and Updates:

Uses jQuery UI 1.6rc4:

The range picker now uses the latest version of jQuery UI’s datepicker, and allows passing of native datepicker options.

Date.js Integration:

We’ve integrated the fantastic date.js library to allow for easy preset development.

Optional Range Advancing Arrows:

Optional forward and back arrows allow a user to jump forward and backward by range duration.

jQuery UI CSS Framework-Driven:

Our range picker uses jQuery UI CSS Framework classes, making it ThemeRoller-Ready.

This plugin requires jQuery and jQuery UI Datepicker. It also uses the jQuery UI CSS Framework as well as one additional custom CSS file. All these can be downloaded from the official site, Checkout the demo below.

Website: http://www.filamentgroup.com/

Demo: Check out this faboulous Date Range Picker

Photoshop in stone age ? How does photoshop look if there is no computer system available…

Find some interesting art in the following pictures. A very good hand made model of Adobe Photoshop.

Click [It will open in New Window] on the picture to view it’s good resolution version.

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Simply put, usability is making your website easy for your visitors to find the information they need when they need it.

A common misconception about usability amongst web companies is that usability is expensive. Yes, there are multi-national companies that spend thousands of dollars on usability tests and research, but for an everyday company usability is achievable without the knowledge of usability experts or without expensive equipment for testing.

Web designers have an even easier job to do, just by reading usability articles they can accumulate a fairly good knowledge about usability basics and how to implement them on a website.

1. Include a Tagline

A tagline is a statement or a motto that represents a company’s, or in our case a website’s, philosophy and mission. It should be the most obvious element on a website’s front page and it should clearly describe the website in one phrase.

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OpenZoom is an open source framework used for creating zoomable user interfaces.

The power behind OpenZoom is Flex MultiScaleImage component, which is built on top of the OpenZoom framework.

Name and working of OpenZoom is Similar to Silverlight’s Deep Zoom control.

The component has built-in support for keyboard / mouse activities & supports Deep Zoom, Zoomify & OpenZoom images.

For now, OpenZoom can sound to specific, but considering its abilities & usage areas, we’ll probably be hearing more about it soon.

A Free Ajax/PHP Contact Form with validations.

Website: http://web-kreation.com/demos/LightForm/

Demo: http://web-kreation.com/demos/LightForm/

Download: http://web-kreation.com/?dl_id=8

Bad Usability Calendar is a calendar displaying “user interface design tips” with a sense of humor.

It has examples of exaggerated use of fancy Web 2.0 design, cover flow, personalization, pull-down menus and more…

Examples from the tips:

• Don’t require login if you don’t have to
• Offer personalization where it adds value

It is presented in multiple languages, various sizes & PDF format.

MephoBox is a website displaying quality website interfaces with a well-categorized presentation.

Some of the categories are:

• 404 errors
• Sick calendars
• Top headers
• Site comments
• Navigation menus & more

MephoBox is free to use but anyone can register & add new designs to the collection.

It is definitely a nice & growing inspiration resource for any web designer.

Website: http://box.mepholio.com/

Although there are lots of posts that evaluate different design blogs, I haven’t seen many that focus specifically on corporate websites.

Therefore, I thought it would be fun to take a look at the homepages of the Top 30 technology companies and assign them a PASS or FAIL rating based on the quality of their homepage design.

Click on the screenshots to check out each website.

1. Amazon.com: PASS

Although it may be a little cluttered for my taste, it would be short-sighted to say that the Amazon.com homepage is a FAIL.  Amazon has created a company that has landed at the top of the InfoTech 100, and the fact that one hundred percent of their sales are made online shows that they understand how to use their website to attract and retain customers.

2. Apple: PASS

As an Apple user, I may be a little biased, but I honestly don’t think that anyone could look at the Apple homepage and say that it fails in terms of design.  The homepage is uncluttered, provides easy to use navigation and gracefully showcases several of Apple’s products.

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