Last month, I did a sit-down interview with an aspiring web designer, fielding all sorts of questions and offering my own insights as I enter my fourth year in the industry. At one point, we hit the subject of the importance of web standards, structuring and coding layouts to work in every browser and future-proofed to an acceptable degree, and why tables should not be used to do layouts anymore.

This is where I heard a statement that kind of jarred me.

“Oh I know, I make MySpace layouts….” - it brought my brain to a halt.

It wasn’t anything personal with her, but it was the realization I had that there are likely 1000s of young people just like her also doing the same. Some people are even making a career / making money off making MySpace layouts.

So why is this harmful to impressionable minds?

For starters, MySpace was never designed with the intent that a user would be able to toss the site theme in favor of something of their own design. To make one, you basically have to unlearn everything you knew about HTML and CSS in regards to site layouts or themes. For those who haven’t done anything with websites before, learning all the ins and outs of how to get a myspace layout to work are filling their heads with useless crap. Other social networking sites such as Virb are designed to allow the user to apply their own stylings in a non-insane way. I was actually quite impressed with Virb because it also allows you to disable all custom layouts at your discretion- something MySpace can’t do.

My best advice to her was to ditch MySpace layouts all together, and purchase a cheap web hosting account with Wordpress. She would then at least have full access to change anything in the site layout while learning invaluable knowledge and design at the same time. That’s how I got started 12 years ago on Geocities (remember them?).

Could you imagine if there were sites that let you code your own add-ons, and it required you writing some screwed up PHP or Coldfusion that wasn’t accepted anywhere else in the world? How about a home builder who didn’t follow industry standards when building your home?

Can you believe some colleges still teach web design using tables and code generating software? Crazy isn’t it? It was like that when I was there and from what I’ve heard, not much has changed.

The thought of people having to do absurd CSS and table structuring just to make the myspace layout look a certain way just disturbs me. We have standards for a reason, and one of those reasons is to not repeat the sordid browser wars of the 90s which is where a lot of that mess stems from.

So for all you folks out there looking to get into web design, young or old, if you’re going to do something do it right. Refer to the giants: Zeldman, Meyer, Snook, Cederholm, etc… strive for greatness.

Regional web development company Inclind Inc announces the launch of a brand new website this week for DJ Hook of Hook Productions of Bethany Beach, Delaware.Randy Vanderhook (DJ Hook) grew up with an ear for music. He joined the school band in elementary school on drums and continued with them on up through high school marching band for Indian River High School. When he had a chance to guest DJ he jumped at the opportunity and has enjoyed every minute of it since then, and Hook Productions was born.

With a huge library of thousands and thousands of songs (over 60,000!), DJ Hook prides himself on being one of the best DJ’s on Delmarva. Most DJ’s quit learning after figuring out how to hook up their system to a PA (public address speaker system) and still carry around bags and bags of CDs and large heavy rack based rigs. DJ Hook is constantly researching new techniques and using the most cutting edge hardware available, such as a computer based setup with a digital catalogue (making his setup far more compact and smaller than competitors).

DJ Hook has played numerous places in the Newark, DE area including Klondike Kate’s, Kid Shellie’s and East End. He has also performed at many popular hang outs in the beach area including Harpoon Hanna’s, the Chalkboard, Mackey’s, Fagers Island, High Stakes, Mickey’s Family Crab House, Brew River, Magnolia’s, Lifeguard competitions and many other private events such as weddings, anniversaries, birthday parties, corporate events and much more.Their new website (www.hookproductions.net) running on Inclind’s content management system allows Hook Productions to easily update the public on availability with their event calendar and lay out the booking process in detail. The calendar also shows public appearances DJ Hook makes, so you can attend events he will be DJ’ing at like Harpoon Hanna’s famous deck parties in the summer.

To learn more about how DJ Hook can cater your next event, please visit their website at www.hookproductions.net or call (302)-757-HOOK (4665). For more information on custom website development, please contact Inclind Inc. at (302) 856-2802 or online at www.inclind.com.

At 3 PM today, Google released their brand new internet browser, aptly titled “Chrome”. (Chrome is a term that describes a viewing window of an interactive application). Based off of WebKit, a 100% standards compliant browser open source application framework which also serves as the basis for Safari and Google Android. Since its based off of WebKit, most developers, well, competent developers, don’t have to worry about their sites breaking in this new browser. With WebKit as its base, it guarantees a near 100% compliant site, if you did it correctly.

I myself was a skeptic and thought oh boy, another browser. It’s difficult enough with 4 browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera) to maintain a level of consistency and future proofing of your markup and javascript to not only work now, but work a year or two from that point. I was relieved when I found out Chrome is founded on WebKit and not some proprietary engine like Internet Explorer is, which would be quite silly.

I tried to benchmark the loading speed of the browser, and well, I couldn’t. This little baby is faster than Opera on a good day, and at worst, Firefox on a bad day (its a good thing). I made sure to clear out all history, cache, and cookies then tried again. Still lightening fast. I tried everything I could think of that would slow me down some from Digg to Scriptaculous to Design Melt Down to Ebay and CNN. Nothing. The sites loaded up before I could blink or release the Enter key. Even some javascript heavy sites didn’t bog down this browser at all. Major points in my book.

So, while I had trepidation last night about the arrival of yet another browser, Google really has a homerun product here. With a stripped down browser like this, organized fairly well, it should do great on the market and generate a lot of buzz. Chrome will be replacing Firefox for me at home, and if it continues at this pace, I’ll use it as my main at the office as well. Somewhere, Steve Ballmer is exploding in anger.

Learn more about Chrome »

Inclind Inc has launched Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library website. Utilizing our powerful content management system (CMS) publishing platform, managing their website is quick and painless and allows them to get their important message out. Their objective is to supply a book a month to children aged 12 months to 5 years to promote literacy at a crucial time in the development of young minds. Opportunity and education are cornerstones of our country and its great that foundations like this exist to help future generations get a head start.

How Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Started

Dolly Parton started this program in 1996 in her home county of Sevier, Tennessee, as a way to give back to her community and to promote literacy. She personally paid for each newborn child to receive a new board book, “The Little Engine that Could” by Watty Piper. Those children were also sent one new hard back book each month until they were five years old. On their fifth birthday, they received their last book, “Look Out, Kindergarten, Here I Come” a diploma, and a personal letter from Dolly for completing the program.

Here’s How it Works

A community must make the program accessible to all preschool children in their area. The community pays for the books and mailing, promotes the program, registers the children, and enters the information into the database. From there The Dollywood Foundation takes over and manages the system to deliver the books to the home.

Since 2001, the Dollywood Foundation has helped individual communities provide millions of books to children across America. The Imagination Library now provides books to children in over 700 communities, nearly all 50 states and two other countries including Canada and the UK.

About the Books

Penguin Group USA is the exclusive supplier of all of the books for the program. The free books are carefully selected to help develop a child’s literacy and vocabulary skills through age appropriate, developmental reading materials. There is a national committee of individuals who meet each year to review the Library. The committee is composed of representatives from Parents as Teachers National Center, the International Reading Association, the University of Tennessee, Rutgers University, and the teaching profession. New titles are introduced each year so younger siblings will not receive the exact same books as their older siblings.

Visit Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Website »

I’ve been using Google Mail since around 2004 when it was invite-only. After the first few emails, I was hooked. I killed my existing Hotmail, Yahoo! and other random accounts laying around. They simply provided few features, and demanded money for features that are basically standard in any mail client like Outlook. I email pretty frequently, so it is important that I have a feature rich service available to me anytime, anywhere.

So why Gmail? For starters, its really simple to import existing contacts into your system from your other accounts. Gmail also supports POP3 and IMAP- for free. This means that you can use any email client like Mozilla Thunderbird (also free) from any desktop and connect to your email. Last time I checked, Hotmail and Yahoo! both charged an annual fee to do this which is ridiculous. It isolates customers who don’t want to be tied to a web interface all the time. My storage cap at that time was like 250 MB, a ridiculously small amount. So it was no contest to switch to Gmail, who offer 6 GB to 8 GB per account, almost enough to last a lifetime (I have 7000 email conversations in my inbox).

Included with Gmail is Google Docs, Google’s online alternative to Microsoft Office. It is a lightweight application for basic word processing or spreadsheet creation. You can also share access with other Gmail clients (coworkers, friends, employees) by putting in their email address into the access list. They can then access the files and make revisions without ever having to connect to a server or downloading / uploading files, its all done from the web interface. And if that isn’t enough, Google Talk is embedded into the mailbox sections loaded with your contact list. If they also use Gmail, you can IM directly through Gmail instantly through the power of AJAX.

For those that are tech savvy like me and own an iPhone or iPod Touch, Gmail is supported fully either through Safari or the device’s Mail application- which to me is even more addictive than the Blackberry (Crackberry).

All of these reasons alone are enough to cut ties with other email services and sign up with Google. If that wasn’t enough, check out this article detailing 10 Reasons To Switch To Gmail.

RAPA Scrapple

RAPA is the number one selling brand of Scrapple in the United States. Being a local company, they needed a trustworthy development team close to home to handle the overhaul on their RAPA Scrapple website. Powered by Inclind CMS (our content management system) RAPA has full and complete control to edit any of the content on the RAPA website, manage store locations where product is sold, manage photos and banners and even produce quotes for people wishing to order scrapple online through UPS with the UPS Shipping Tool. The UPS Shipping Tool integrates UPS Web-based shipping with our enterprise application(s) such as Inclind CMS (our content management system) and Inclind Commerce.

View RAPA Scrapple website »

The Dental Group

The Dental Group is committed to providing exceptional dental care in a relaxed, caring and professional enviroment. Continuous improvement in all aspects of our practice is essential to making each experience comfortable, pleasant and rewarding. We strive to build long-term relationships with an emphasis on trust and integrity to best serve the oral health needs of our community. They service some of our employees as well, helping us to have the bright smiles we have. Props Dr. Kuon. Powered by our powerful Inclind CMS (our content management system), their staff can easily update any portion of the website at any time, post Adobe PDF forms for new/existing patients, and create web forms like a contact form.

View The Dental Group website »