A lot of people give suggestions on how to improve your website or blog. Whether it is via SEO or design suggestions. Not many tell you what is going to destroy your website. I may be a little extreme but there are several pet peeves (as do many in the web design world) have that can truly turn your site from great to lame. There may be a couple of these that are straight forward but when dealing with clients it can become very obvious that some of their ideas on how a website should function are modeled after MySpace and the ilk.
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Popularity: 11%

There are a lot of different ways to organize your HTML to ensure that others, and yourself, are able to easily navigate their ways around your code. One of the best methods for helping to order your code for others is using comment tags to show where certain tags end. The best tag to use this for are divs, at the end of each div assigning a <!-- divName --!> to show that it is ending here can help others to understand what is going on and where it is ending within code. This becomes even more helpful when you are dealing with dynamic sites (as most of us strictly deal with), especially those in content management systems.
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Popularity: 10%

We all know the blood, sweat and tears we have put into countless hour of development specifically for Internet Explorer 6 since August of 2001. Now it looks like we may be coming to battle with another problematic browser from software giant, Microsoft. The IE8 team is deliberately making up their own rules again and now adhering to the organizations involved with standards even though they are (seemingly) active members of the respective groups. You would think that with the budget that the team has to develop a decent browser that they would be able to product something worth-while. Unfortunately for the rest of the world that because IE comes pre-installed on Windows machines most consumers don’t know the difference.
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Popularity: 9%

It looks like IE8 is about to be released for beta, there is a Microsoft site up that has various links for downloading the beta of the upcoming browser. None of the links on the page currently work but there are several versions looking to be made available very soon. With SXSW just around the corner it looks like they may be releasing it to the public for beta testing within the next week or two (hopefully sooner). With their announcement also that the browser will work by default in standards mode things are looking good for Microsoft’s next browser version. Once IE8 is released I will update this page with the news. Until then just keep checking back here and on the link to see if it is available for download.

Update: IE8 beta Is now available for downloading!

Update2: I’m not impressed so far, lots of sites are broken on it (this site, CNN, HP, etc). It also does not in fact pass the acid2 test like Microsoft had previously claimed. So far it is a big let down in my opinion. They have added a few features that are irrelevant if it doesn’t render web sites properly. I’ll have a better write up after some testing.

Popularity: 7%

There are a lot of ways to get the attention of various social networks, none of which involve gaming the system. You may get a little temporary attention from some of the social networks if you try to game the system. But that is missing the point of social networking which is to spread interesting content and images of cats. Some of the ways you can create compelling content for the digestion of social networks are going to be straight forward. It is important to note these methods so if you can spin an article in a certain direction— you are going to get more attention from social networks which will significantly boost the readership of the article.
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Popularity: 11%

A buddy of mine Amine has launched his to-do list web app for public use. It is extremely simply and similar to tada lists. I like this one better due to the simplicity of the project. It is very easy to use, no clutter or other things in the way of organizing the things you have to do.

It allows you to create multiple lists with multiple items on the list. You can easy check them off and they fade away until you delete them. It is pretty cool,  leave a comment about what you think. I’m sure he would be interested to hear them.

Popularity: 6%

I haven’t been writing as much lately and when I came across this article it really hit home. It is about what you don’t publish on your blog defines your blog. Basically, if you don’t have anything good to say or write about at the time don’t just publish some regurgitated nonsense that has been heard 1000 times on other sites. It is good to wait until you have something really worth while to say (or share).

Granted, you probably don’t want to take it too far. You have to post content to keep your blog worth reading. Expect things to get back to normal for this site next week. I’ve had two people really close to me pass on within a few days of each other so I haven’t had much time or motivation to write anything.  Next week, expect crazy good articles though.

Popularity: 6%

There are a lot of social networking sites out there that can help you network with other people on the internet. Some of them are there to share stories, images or video. LinkedIn is there to help you share yourself with other professionals. You can get endless amounts of work on LinkedIn if you simply sign up and add people that you already know to your network. Understanding the importance of LinkedIn and how LinkedIn can help you become a more networked and well-known industry professional is impossibly helpful for everyone.
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Popularity: 11%

When it comes to voting for the future president of the United States, or even for the primary election to choose which candidate your party will choose, the decision can be difficult. There is health care, the war in Iraq and the economy amongst major issues for the 2008 presidential election. One of the major issues probably isn’t whether their web site’s design looks good or has valid code. However, most of us visiting this web site are probably at least curious. I know I am. I would totally run a poll to see who thought which web site’s design was best amongst the presidential candidates— but we all already know who has an obsessed and loyal following on the internet. Needless to say, the results would be a little skewed.
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Popularity: 15%