Web design isn’t just a career for me, it’s also a passion. I like to keep up to speed with all the latest developments and techniques by visiting various sites, and If I want to learn more about a specific area I buy books.

What I don’t usually do is buy ebooks - up until very recently the only ebook I had ever paid for was Aaron Wall’s SEO book. But when I heard that renowned web design & usability pro, Ben Hunt had created an ebook called ‘Save The Pixel’ I was keen to find out more. I have been following Ben’s work for a few years and I visit his ‘web design from scratch’ website on a regular basis (It’s also featured on the wall).

Save The Pixel is a 100 page guide to designing simple, effective websites. It features over 20 real world examples presenting before and after screen shots, and explains in each case the problems with the old design and how the redesign was approached.

Ben’s design philosophy and indeed Save The Pixel has a clear and straight-forward message, the strive for efficiency and simplicity, In Ben’s own words - “When crafting a web page, I aim to use as few “things” as I need to achieve the purpose.”

Whether you are a web designer or a company looking to enhance your web presence, Save The Pixel is a must read.

Visit the Save The Pixel mini-site for more information…

PetStreet.co.uk is a social networking website, but unlike MySpace or FaceBook, PetStreet has a specific purpose – its members have a passion for the animals that share our lives. It’s free to use, every owner has a page and then can open pages, and upload photos, for all their pets. Once signed up, people can talk to people and pets can talk to pets and so ideas, information and experiences can be shared.

PetStreet was set up in January 2007 by Maurice Melzak. He has wanted it to evolve slowly, developing its own tone and ethos, whilst building its user base. With no advertising or promotion there over 2000 members, (90% female), over 4000 pets and over 60K unique visitors a month, so it is picking up. And there is a clear ethos of responsible pet ownership, anti any exploitation of animals and a real concern about the abandoned pets in re-homing centres. Gradually he does want the site to become more commercialised but only by associating with products that are ethical, organic, environmentally friendly etc.

I must admit that on my first visit to You Cubez I wasn’t to sure about the concept.

Advertisers buy a link to their website in the form of a colorful but otherwise generic looking cube which is then displayed alongside another few hundred similar looking cubes.

Nothing really compels a user to click on an individual cube as they have no visual clue as to what kind of site is behind the link, and as some of the cubes appear on separate pages (not the homepage) it is difficult to see the value.

However once I started to read more into how the site works I began to realize that there is actually a very clever concept behind it -

Advertisers can improve the value of their cube by linking to www.you-cubez.com from their websites, for each referrer more value is added to the cube - the higher the value, the better position the cube gets, which in turn improves the chance that the cube will be clicked on.

Cubes can also be sold on, so when you consider it only costs £1.00 to buy a standard cube the whole idea suddenly becomes much more appealing.

As people try to improve the value of their cube this in turn brings more traffic to the You Cubez website improving it’s visibility and adding value to other advertisers.

The design of the site is very good, it has a web 2.0 feel to it which is reinforced by the fact there is a certain amount of user interaction - when you buy a cube you become a member and there is also a forum where various topics can be discussed.

Please feel free to add comments on this website, I would be also be interested to hear from anyone who currently has a cube.

Today I added a couple of new flyers for Apple related sites to the wall -

Woz.org is the personal site of Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak.

And the Apple Blog is one of the best and most frequently updated Apple/Mac blogs out there.

Please share your favourite Apple related sites with me.

I recently added 3 new flyers to the wall, these are sites I visit on a regular basis -

Smashing Magazine is the ultimate web designers resource, whenever I need inspiration or ideas on how to do something this site has become my first port of call.

CSS Remix is one of the best CSS showcases out there, constantly updated and the featured sites are always of a very high standard.

Boagworld is full of articles offering advice on managing and building websites, it also has an associated podcast which I recommend listening to.

Please share your favourite web design and resource sites with me.

Not only is Your name on toast a very creative idea it also does some good - it’s profits go to charity. By purchasing a piece of toast you can have a short message displayed along with a link to your website.

The more you pay for a piece of toast the higher up on the page it gets displayed. At the time of writing this post prices started from $80.00 while the most money paid for a single slice so far was $444.44.

One of the most appealing aspects of this site is that the pieces of toast look fantastic, they appear to be real pieces that have been directly written on rather than being created in photoshop, this is complemented by a very minimal but effective site design.

Definitely worth a visit.

In theory the idea behind the Fifty Fifty web page seems quite good. An advertiser buys one of 96 text link boxes at a very reasonable price which can then be sold on to other advertisers, the profit from this is then split between the site owner and the original advertiser.

Visually the site looks quite slick, the blocks themselves have very bright colours which makes for quite a loud looking home page but I quite like it.

There doesn’t seem to be many purchased blocks at the time of writing this post, though perhaps this could change with the right marketing?

Pixelotto is a website created by Alex Tew - best known for his massively successful Million Dollar Homepage.

On first impressions Pixelotto looks like just another pixel advertising site, but what makes this advertising site different from others is that users have an extra incentive.

Registered users have the opportunity of potentially winning $1,000,000 just by clicking on the pixel adverts, which in turn is an incentive for any advertisers wanting to showcase and get hits for their websites.

At the time this post was written the prize fund stood at $152,000 - the site was launched back in December 2006 so perhaps it would be fair to say that the site doesn’t quite have the same buzz about it that The Million Dollar Homepage did, it’s still another great concept though, and it will be interesting to see how it develops over the next few months.

Although I currently work as a web designer, I actually studied fine art. I still have an interest in art and when I first came up with the idea for the flyer wall I thought it would be a good opportunity to promote some artists websites. While there are a couple of flyers for artists on the wall, it would be good to add some more - if you are an artist send me a link to your website and I will provide a free flyer.

I am pretty much a Mac Geek, my current collection includes a 24″ iMac, PowerBook G4 12″, eMac and an old (but still going strong) iBook Clamshell (indigo).

Recently I was looking for some Mac sites and it struck me that it would be good to create a resource of all the Mac related blogs, news, forums and download sites, so here it is - Mac Links - I have of course added a little flyer promoting it on the wall.