I’m sure we’ve all read the posts on digg.com about the “Best Web 2.0 Designs” or “Top 10 Wordpress Templates” or “Kevin Rose Sucks and I hate him, but I love these designs”. All of these typically have a long list of website designs that the author thinks are the best in the world and all other site should copy to be cool. They typically end the butt kissing with text they says all designers should bow and worship these templates the same way Tom Cruise worships male Calvin Klein ads. But I refuse! I’m pushing back! I say “Most Web 2.0 Designs Suck!”

The problem I have with the 2.0 designs is that they have almost become cookie-cutter designs. Designers take an existing template and tweak it by changing a bullet color and call it their own. What this has done is given us 10 original 2.0 designs, and 3,416,204 crappy ones “inspired” by the few good ones. It’s also caused people to reject the idea of doing it on their own and instead use templates out of the box. Problem is, these templates are the most boring bit of nothing ever created. Gay colors are “in”, I get it!

Look at this design: Gracious Magenta. Is that not hideous? It also looks strangely familiar. Kind of like Orange Glow.

The point of this post isn’t to piss people off, but instead to push them to be original. Try something yourself. Don’t copy, don’t go for the template. Try something new, try something out of place. Try something original!

I’ve seen a lot of posts about HTML mistakes, but some of them were too advanced for some people just starting out. So here are some easily avoidable HTML mistakes that you can use from day 1.

1. Not formatting source code.
   Source code is the life of your website, and being able to easily update, change, and manipulate it is essential. Too often I’ve seen sites that have their source arranged in a jumbled mess. There’s no need for that. Take the extra 30 seconds to properly format your code and you’ll save yourself tons of time down the road.
2. WYSIWYG = BAD!
   Yes I know there are a lot of programs that claim to be professional that use a WYSIWYG editor to allow you to simply move things around visually and save out a webpage. My advice, DON’T USE IT!

   WYSIWYG editors are known for their bloated code and ability to make your site load incredibly slow because they rely on page formatting that is unneeded and methods to adjust the look of your site that should never be used. Plain and simple, the site make look pretty, but the code and strain on your bandwidth is fugly.

3. &nbsp can be the death of you
   I know that using &nbsp will push things over and let you believe you are properly stylizing your site, but that’s not the right way to do it.  Just because adding spacing will move things to the right doesn’t mean that’s how you should do it!
4. Tables are only for data!
   Tables were nice when they were the only thing in town to let you build the design you wanted, but with CSS now running the show you should only use tables for your data and nothing more.  There is nothing sadder than seeing a beautiful  site and looking at its code to see 5 nested tables controlling the thing.  What bloat!  What unneeded bloat.  My advice to you, learn the power of div and CSS combination.  You’ll never look back.
5. Close your tags
   This one should seem obvious, but I’ve seen it a lot.  p tags need to be closed.  li tags need to be closed.  divs, spans, lists, body, they all need to be closed.  It seems that a lot of people fly by the idea that if it looks fine then all is well.  If you’re taking the time to make the site, at least take the time to make it properly.
6. IE isn’t the only web browser
   Far too often I visit sites that tell me they will only work in IE.  Why do they need to tell me this?  Wouldn’t it be obvious to me when the site didn’t work?  Why do sites only work in IE?  Is it because they use custom IE coding that other web browsers can’t handle or is it because the designer was simply too lazy to properly test in FF, Safari, Opera, etc?  The only thing that IE can do better than those other browsers is suck.  Plus the point of a website is to gain traffic, not to push it away.  Why deny 10% of your visitors simply because they made a different browser choice?  Sonic doesn’t serve burgers to everyone except Volkswagen drivers,The movie theater doesn’t show movies to everyone except Converse All-star shoe wearers.  Why not offer what you have to everyone?
7. Don’t assume everyone is running Windows
   I know Windows users love their machines and OS, but just so you know there are alternatives out there!  Mac OS X, Unix, Linux, there are alternatives to XP and Vista out there, so don’tassume that because your cool flash navigation works in XP that it’ll work for everyone.  I use to run Ubuntu on my iMac.  I found out within seconds that most websites I visited wouldn’t work for me because there is no flash for Ubuntu for PPCs.  So no Google Analytics, Youtube, Last.fm, etc for me.  I couldn’t see the whole site for them because they assumed everyone has flash!  If you decide to use flash, don’t use it for primary navigation!

7 things, that should be good for now.

I was born in 1983, which makes me 23. In my short time here on Earth I’ve encountered many things, and can remember “old ways” things were done. Here are some things I remember.

I remember when people who judged by race were called racists and not airline employees.

I remember when Music Television had Music on Television.

I remember when Saturday mornings had cartoons.

I remember when I use to buy cds in a store.

I remember when DVDs came with paper inserts and booklets.

I remember when I respected actors/actresses.

I remember when the radio had good music playing.

I remember when Walmart claimed is was Made in the USA!

I remember when I thought I was a Republican.

I remember when murders were put in jail and not given more Iraq contracts.

I remember when it was okay to call a cult a cult and not get sued by Scientology.

I remember when America had a sense of humor.

I remember a time when terrorist was a word I only heard in Back to the Future.

I remember when hatred, fear, and war wasn’t forced down my throat by the media.

I remember when I use to respect America.

I remember when I was proud to be an American.

Political Correctness has killed us as Americans.  It has caused us to become afraid of our own thoughts and forced us to second guess ourselves in our actions to ensure we don’t offend others.  I purpose we don’t care about what other people think, because it’s none of their business what I do, say, feel, and think.

The best example I have is in regards to race.  You have white people, black people, Asian people,  illegal Mexican people, etc.  Notice I said Black.  I didn’t say African American.  I don’t call myself English American, so I refuse to use the term African American.  It’s idiotic to believe the term black offends others.  Even if it did, too bad, that’s how I speak so deal with it.

Plain and simple, too many people are scared to offend others, so they water down their messages and lose their own personality.  If you want to offend others, do so!  If you want to just be yourself, do so!  I’m sick and tired of hearing people getting mad at others because they said something “wrong”.

Recently the cast of Grey’s Anatomy was up in arms because Isiah Washinton used the word fagot to refer to a gay co-star.  Guess what, if he’s gay then he is a fagot. Plain and simple.  No beating around the bush here, that’s what you call gay people.

People need to stop worrying about what people think about them and focus more on things that actually matter.  I think our nation would be better off if everyone worried more about themselves than their public image to others.

Okay. I fixed the IE 7 display errors. IE 6 is almost perfect, but I don’t care enough to put anymore time into fixing it for an old browser.

So I think I can finally lay back and think about my next project to work now….

The basic index page is complete. All this leaves is the individual page template.

I suppose I should fix the display bug in IE, but screw it. I refuse to bow the M$’s crappy browser!

It is so wrong for Christians to listen to secular music?

Arg!  It’s so sad.  I’m a web designer, yet I have never liked my personal website design for more than a day.  Why can’t I just design something and leave it?  Why must I alwasy have to go back and update and change all the time?

Perhaps instead of focusing my mind on the site, I should focus on something else, like actually posting stuff, or making new videos, or cutting the grass.  Okay, screw the grass one.  I don’t want to do that one.

The problem seems to come in the interaction between my mind and the keyboard.   As in, there is no interaction.  I have ideas all the time, yet I can never seem to actually do anything with them.  Perhaps I should simply start posting my ideas and you readers (a.k.a. coworkers) do something with them.  At least some progress will be made then.