Web Developer: If you haven’t been using the Web Developer add-on for Firefox, you have been missing out on a truly amazing tool.  This add-on has so many features that it adds an entire menu to your browser.  Normally, add-ons that do this turn out to be a waste of space, but in the case of the Web Developer add-on, this is definitely not true.

Although I could write an entire post about this one add-on, I’ll stick to some of the key highlights for designers, which include the ability to manipulate style sheets (such as disabling them completely), displaying rulers directly in your browser and numerous options for dealing with images in the browser.  For anyone who isn’t using the Web Developer add-on yet, you really owe it to yourself to give it a try.

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If you are a freelance web designer, your actual design skills are only half of the equation required to find success. In order to be a successful freelance web designer, you not only have to possess top notch design skills, but you also need to know how to get top of the line clients. Whether it’s not going after the best clients or wasting your time on clients who are never going to do anything other than drain your resources, successful client relations are a vital skill in themselves.

Although this is an area where most freelance web designers learn through trial and error, I would like to give you a handful of tips that can help you get on the right track and hopefully help you avoid the pitfalls that far too many freelance web designers have been forced to endure.

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Regardless of how experienced or talented you are in the different areas of web design, there are always times when it is useful to have reference materials at your disposal. Although you may have books or manuals that you consult from time to time, there are situations where you don’t need this detailed of a reference. Instead, you simply need a simple but useful cheat sheet to trigger your memory and help you remember (or discover) what you need to know in order to complete a specific task.

Since most web designers spend their time working in a variety of different knowledge areas, I have gone through the most common subjects that web designers need to know and put together a list of the best cheat sheets for these topics. While you probably won’t need to refer to them all the time, I can guarantee that there are situations where one or more of these cheat sheets will prove to be invaluable to you.

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In the early days of the Internet, the title “web designer simply” referred to someone who made a website look good, as opposed to a website that was nothing more than plain text and hyperlinks. However, as the Internet has evolved, the role of the web designer has changed. While there are still web designers who cling to this early definition of the job, the best web designers are taking a more holistic approach to their work. They realize that designing a great website requires more than creating something that looks pretty. In order to create a truly great website, I firmly believe that web designers need to take the following six elements into consideration:

Why are you creating a design?
Before you fire up Photoshop, you need to take a step back and think about why you are creating a design. If you don’t take time to identify the purpose of your design, I can guarantee it won’t be as successful as if you did take the time to understand the true purpose(s) of the website you are designing. If you are doing a re-design, this stage of the process is just (if not more) as important.

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As the web becomes a more interactive medium, many bloggers are making the transition to include more multimedia elements into their blog, such as photos and videos. While the majority of bloggers still use text as their primary communication medium and simply supplement it with the other multimedia elements, there is a small but growing percentage of bloggers who are making the complete transition to video.

Whether you call them videobloggers, vloggers or simply bloggers, these people are using a different method to connect with their audiences. Therefore, it seems logical that they would want a theme with different features than a standard blog. Whether you are just getting into the world of video blogging or have been doing it for some time, I’ve gathered the five best free themes for any blogger focused on video. You can use one of these themes to launch a new video blog, or to give your existing vlog a fresh look.

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As anyone who has spent time playing with the WordPress platform knows, it is extremely flexible and can be used to achieve a lot of different purposes. One use of WordPress that has continued to gain popularity is creating a photoblog. Whether you are a professional photographer or just a photography enthusiast, WordPress makes it easy to publish and organize your photographs.

Although photographs can be added to a blog with any theme, I’ve tracked down the best free themes for individuals who want to use WordPress to create a true photoblog.

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