Groupon: Sound Investment or Risky Business? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Groupon‘s financial history hasn’t always been this precarious, but lately, the daily deal site seems to be teetering on a stock market tightrope.

In April, the company’s stock price plummeted on news that the SEC planned to investigate Groupon’s Q4 earnings restatement. Groupon claims that customer refund rates were higher… read more

Comic Book Artist: Bruce Timm

Although the initial dream of Bruce Timm was to become a comic book artist, he actually turned into the great animator behind the DC comics animated series for TV such as Batman Beyond, Batman Adventures, Superman and Justice League. Later he would do some comics based on the same series,… read more

3 Ways Companies Can Leverage Social Reviews

Ann Smarty is a search marketer and full-time web entrepreneur. Ann blogs on search and social media tools. Her newest project, My Blog Guest, is a free platform for guest bloggers and blog owners. Follow Ann on Twitter at @seosmarty and on Google+.

Testimonials can be powerful marketing tools. But… read more

Want Your Startup Name in the Dictionary? Choose Wisely

The English language is constantly evolving. Experts at Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary perennially add words that have been invented and accepted in our daily lexicons. The practice can be controversial, however, since it sometimes involves removing other, older words entirely.

For instance, the term “cassette tape” was recently… read more

Responsive Design 101

It wasn’t too long ago that designers didn’t really need to worry how websites looked on mobile phones and tablets. Phones weren’t yet really practical for web viewing, and before the iPad, tablets were more of a novelty than an essential.

Obviously, all that has changed and most tech… read more

Aspect-Oriented Programming in PHP

There’s a new player in town, and he brought new toys: The PHP World welcomes FLOW3, an enterprise application framework written and backed by the community of the TYPO3 CMS. FLOW3 can be used as standalone full-stack framework for your applications. It’s interesting, because it introduces some concepts of software… read more

Quick Tip: How to Create Folded Text with Adobe Illustrator

Today we will learn how to create text that is located in different planes. One very interesting trick with the Bounding box will let us do it without using 3D modeling. Find out more at the jump!

Step 1

Take the Type Tool (T) and create an inscription.

I used the Impact font…. read more

Dealing With Copycats

Is one (or more) of your competitors copying your idea? Congratulations! You are not alone.

As the co-owner of a niche publication, I look at copying as the best form of flattery—I have to! If I spent hours upon hours stressing out about having my ideas copied, I’d go crazy…. read more

Interaction Design In The Cloud

Interaction designers create wireframes in tools such as Adobe Illustrator, OmniGraffle and Microsoft Visio. Originally, these wireframes were primitive shapes drawn to represent various UI elements. Many of us cannot imagine life without them.

There are, however, reasons to consider moving to the cloud to do interaction design. In short, today’s… read more

Tictoc: Simple Time Tracking In Your Menu Bar

Keeping track of the time you spend during certain activities can be useful for many reasons. The most obvious one that comes to mind is if you are a freelancer that needs to bill by the hour, and therefore need some proof of how much time you spent doing certain… read more

Ask FreelanceSwitch: Intro to Freelancing and Contracts

In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, we look at an introduction to freelancing and contracts. Ask FreelanceSwitch is a regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.

Question… read more

Create a Radio App Icon Using Adobe Illustrator – Tuts+ Premium Tutorial

In this Tuts+ Premium tutorial, you’ll be provided with examples wood and fabric texture creation techniques. Also we will learn how to render the light play on the objects with the help of the Opacity Mask, Blend Tool and Art Brushes. Studying this tutorial step-by-step, you’ll get to know all… read more

30+ Examples of Facebook timelines

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You! Be Inspired! #0004 – History Comics, Fan Art, and Artist Workspaces

Despite having interesting topics to write about, there comes a time when whatever I type looks and feels uninspired. When that happens, I visit the online abodes of my favorite artists. The team stumbles upon new sites and artists often, and that’s what You! Be Inspired! is all about! We… read more

WordPress Plugins That Make Your Life Easier

Whether you’re a designer, a developer (or both), chances are you don’t have a lot of spare time. With that in mind, here are some of my favorite WordPress plugins that can help you get things done and move on to the next project.

You may also like…
… read more

The Smashing Book #3 “Redesign The Web” Is Out!

The new Smashing Books have finally arrived—freshly printed, neatly packed and ready to be shipped to you, our dear reader. We believe this is by far the best book we’ve produced so far. We are very proud and excited, and the initial verdict has been thoroughly positive, yet in the… read more

The Art of Rock: Legends of the Album Cover

When we say rock and roll, we automatically conjure images of rebellious and non-conformist teenagers. Of course, that’s what the media constantly shows us, so it stuck. But thanks, too, to media rock and roll and its children reached the right audience – the rebels, the creative fellas, and the… read more

2 Essential Corrections to Know When Post Processing Underwater Photos

With the market today providing an assortment of underwater casing options, more and more of us are beginning to bring our cameras under the surface to explore this fascinating world. From the more affordable soft casings for our DSLRs to the simple waterproof coverings for our smart phones, underwater photography… read more

OS X 10.7.4 and Safari 5.1.7 Released

In another routine update, Apple has pushed out new versions of both OS X Lion and Safari, bringing them up to versions 10.7.4 and 5.1.7 respectively. However, those who were expecting some new nifty features are likely to be a tad disappointed, as it seems that these two updates are… read more

Snowy Evening: Sophisticated and Simple Issue Tracking

With any development project or something in which bugs are required to be fixed constantly, it can be a real pain to manage what needs to be worked on. Developers need to know exactly what’s wrong to ensure that they can release fixes in a swift turnaround and prevent any… read more

Ticksy: Simple Customer Support, with an Envato Twist

Customer support is a core part of business, and good customer support can be a fundamental way to keep customers loyal. Take a company like Apple, for instance. Their customer service is chiefly thought of to be top notch, and for many, that alone can justify higher prices and keep… read more

Dealing With Your Ego as a Designer

A fundamental difference between programming intensive web-development work and graphic-focused web-design is that everyone – client to business associates – has an opinion and an alternative vision for the latter. The technically-steep learning curve of coding, whether it be the front-end or server-side configuration, tends to elicit few… read more

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX20V Review

First there was the HX5V, then HX9V … now the HX20V. So we’ve gone from a 10x zoom camera to a 15x, and finally a 20x zoom compact digicam.

I happily use the earlier HX5V as an everyday camera, for holidays and occasionally for shots of review cameras. A good all-rounder… read more

Free App Store Deals This Week

Hot off the presses, here’s Mac AppStorm’s weekly picks of the best (and free) deals on the App Store for this week.

Enjoy!

Super Date

If you’re sick of the default date and time view on OS X, then you can change it easily using Super Date. The app features more date and… read more

Over 55 Beautiful Folder Icons for OS X

Today, our computers and mobile devices house many stunning icons that often influence our desire to use a certain application or open a folder. The icons in our machines are practically part of our lives as we see them almost everyday. It is never a bad idea to customize these… read more

jCSML – A New Cross Platform Animation Library

With mobile access and tablets, cross-platform media compatibility has become one of the most important features for new web technologies. With Adobe Flash not being supported on iOS and HTML5 not being native to earlier versions of Internet Explorer, the jCS Media Library has arrived just in time.

The… read more

25 (More) Free And Useful Photoshop Actions

Here is a collection of 25 truly amazing and wonderful Photoshop actions for you. Different types of Photoshop actions are high in demand because Photoshop actions make automating the common sequences easy for the designers and thereby increasing their efficiency and saving their precious time.

In this compilation, we have put… read more

Social Media Etiquette

I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been hearing about some pretty serious social media snafus that have been so bad that people have lost their jobs over them.

Whether your Facebook page is set to private or not, nothing is ever really private on the Internet. It’s not… read more

How To Build A Real-Time Commenting System

The Web has become increasingly interactive over the years. This trend is set to continue with the next generation of applications driven by the real-time Web. Adding real-time functionality to an application can result in a more interactive and engaging user experience. However, setting up and maintaining the server-side real-time… read more

10 Jaw-Dropping Sites Featuring a Background Video

Websites with full page backgrounds are pretty cool, there’s no doubt about that. Whether you’re using Flash to achieve your full page background, media queries in CSS, or simply setting your height and width to 100% and not particularly caring about the quality of the image, the outcome is usually… read more

Facebook Timeline – Friend or Foe?

It cannot be denied that Facebook is now a large part of most people’s lives. For many of us, its use involves catching up with friends, organising events and sharing our experiences of the world around us. With over 900 million members, there is no doubt that Facebook is the… read more

Interview with Von Glitschka

Our guest today is a famous designer Von Glitschka. Von is also famous because of his books, which are devoted to vector graphics. “The best way to improve your design as a creative is to improve your drawing skills. The more you do it, the better you get” – he… read more

Easy Page Layouts With Swift Publisher

Mac is a dream platform for designers. Depending on how many complex features are needed to get the job done, there are a myriad of apps available for designers. It goes without saying that a designer has to handle everything from an exciting new mobile app interface to a boring… read more

How To Begin Your Creative Dream Job – Today

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Maybe this scenario sounds familiar to you: A few years ago I found myself working an office job that was ok. It paid ok, I liked the work ok, I liked the people I worked with ok, and I was pretty ok at what I did…. read more

Kickstart Guide to Breaking into Freelance Illustration

A career in Freelance Illustration is much more than drawing pretty pictures. While as much as you’d like to spend the entire day sitting in front of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or your other favorite tools, like most freelance professions is is more about selling yourself, keeping your portfolio fresh… read more

The Complete Guide of Retouching Photos with Human Subjects

There are tons of magazine covers with models, females and males that amaze the onlookers with their bodies or faces. The perfection expressed by these models conducted to deviated behaviors, many young women attempting to look similar to these and many times the effects were disastrous. The tabloids encouraged the… read more

Posting a price list on your web site: does it work or fail?

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McMarketing: McDonalds Marketing And Advertising Hits And Pits

It’s not good for you but every now and then, we all hit the drive thru for something quick and easy. The golden arches are the most recognized brand in the United States, if not the world. When my family moved from Brooklyn to St. Louis, my three-year old son… read more

Creative Fuel #5: Free Social Media Icons, Star Wars Portraits & Type Pairings

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Creative Fuel is a periodic collection of design and creativity awesomeness found around the web. Find out about new apps and services, the best freebies, and other significant news from the design community!

Design Goodies: Basic Social Media Icons & Transparent Flip Clock

First up, we have this great… read more

The Art of Typographic Flourishes: Vintage Typography Design Inspiration

A quick Google search using the term “flourish” gets different types of results. The word can refer to an extravagant gesture that’s meant to attract attention. Sometimes it can also pertain to an ornamental embellishment in writing. We’ve discussed the subject of typography with our articles on movie intertitles and… read more

Need IT Help? Startup Offers Tech Answers On Demand

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: AnswerQi

Quick Pitch: AnswerQi provides on-demand tech help.

Genius Idea: A TaskRabbit for technology problems.

Maybe you need your… read more

14 Incredible 3D Printing Creations

1. Nanolet Watch

Keep your Nano nearby with this snug wrist case.

Price: $22.71

Click here to view this gallery.

3D printing… read more

Bloopers to Wins: Animated GIFs Perfect for Any Social Media Moment

What Should We Call Social Media

When someone tells you they don’t have a Facebook, then you realize they… read more

Many Social TV Companies ‘Will Disappear Over the Next Year’

The evolution of social TV for consumers, content producers and advertisers continues to move at a breakneck pace.

Several second-screen-experience insiders recently gathered at Mashable Connect in Orlando to weigh in on those shifting dynamics in the television industry.

With their cautious eyes set on the future, panelists Randy Shiozaki,… read more

Twitter Debunks Reports of 55,000 Hacked Accounts

Hackers claiming to be affiliated with the hacktivist group Anonymous claimed this week to have accessed and published the details of about 55,000 Twitter accounts.

But Twitter said Tuesday those claims are largely bogus, and that the group mostly posted duplicate information or username and password information for suspended spam… read more

Facebook: Social Reader Usage May Be Down, But Engagement Is Up

The media, forever a navel-gazing industry, worked itself into a fever earlier this week after evidence emerged that usage of Facebook’s social reader apps is declining.

In an article designed to further dramatize The Washington Post‘s recent tension between its editorial and financial divisions, Jeff Bercovici at Forbes pulled up… read more

Cameras for the Comrades: 4 Soviet Era Cameras That Are Worth Checking Out

Like many people, my path into photography came from a Soviet SLR, in my case a Zenit 11. For my 16th birthday I had the choice of an Olympus Trip or the big clunky Zenit with lots of buttons and dials. Even in those days I was a budding gadget… read more

This Is Crazy: Harvard Athletes Perform ‘Call Me Maybe’ [VIDEO]

Harvard University pitcher Conner Hulse threw the Internet a curve ball this week by uploading a video of his teammates lip-synching and dancing to Carly Rae Jepsen’s viral hit “Call Me Maybe.”

Packed into a van during a road trip, the baseball players take turns silently reciting the catchy tune… read more

Advocacy groups asks ‘Why Kardashians?’ on Twitter

President Barack Obama’s joke at the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner — “Why am I telling knock-knock jokes to Kim Kardashian? What is she famous for, anyway?” — had many people laughing. Now, a social activist group is using the attention to stir a more serious conversation about media, politics… read more

Spotify Who? Pandora Surges Past 150 Million Registered Users

Pandora now has more than 150 million registered users, the company announced on Tuesday.

Even as the online radio company faces increased competition from music streaming services like Rdio and Spotify, its numbers of both registered and active users have increased 50% since the beginning of the 2012 financial year…. read more

Follow Tuesday’s Primary Elections on Social Media

It’s primary day in Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia, and politicians, journalists and voters are all over Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media posting about the elections.

Mitt Romney has all but locked up the Republican presidential nomination with the exit of former rivals Rick Santorum and Newt… read more

How to Optimize Your Headlines for Google and Humans

Jonathan Rick is a director at Levick Strategic Communications. He contributes to Levick’s Bulletproof Blog. Follow him @jrick.

Why do search engines always rank certain websites so highly? Sure, their content might be great, but their search engine optimization is definitely awesome. Indeed, for many sites, the search-engine spiders that… read more

Watch What Happens Live: Behind the Scenes of Bravo’s Most Social Show

Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live studio is not your typical live studio audience setup. Visitors walk through an open floor plan office, where staffers are hard at work, to arrive at the pint-sized studio. There is enough room for about three chairs on its living room-styled stage.

There’s a bar too,… read more

MySpace Faces 20 Years of Gov’t Scrutiny for Privacy Violations

Should MySpace last the next 20 years, it’ll have at least one close observer: the federal government.

MySpace’s privacy practices will be kept under close watch by a third-party observer for two decades as part of a settlement related to an investigation of the company’s advertising sales strategy, the FTC announced… read more

U.S. and China Team Up to Stop Cyberattacks

In an unexpected announcement, the U.S. and China have announced they will be working together on matters of cybersecurity, despite many cybersecurity experts’ assessments that China is the main source of digital attacks against the U.S.

The partnership was announced after a Monday meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and… read more

7 Secrets Every Aspiring Street Photographer Should Know

A Guest Post by James Maher

Street photography ain’t easy. It’s a fast moving world out there and it takes a lot of practice to be able to capture it well.

However, it’s not just about practice. Every seasoned street photographer has a bag of tricks to make their lives easier… read more

Visit the Pyramids of Giza With This Interactive 3D Site

If you’ve ever dreamed of visiting the Great Pyramids of Giza, you can hold off on purchasing the plane ticket. An online experience now brings Giza to you, transporting you across the world — and through time — to the land of the Pharaohs.

Dassault Systèmes created a 3D model of… read more

Great Science Education Starts With Inspired Teachers

Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, is president and CEO of Sally Ride Science. Each summer her organization hosts the Sally Ride Science Academy Brought to you by ExxonMobil, a teacher development program to strengthen STEM education in the United States. Follow her @SallyRideSci.

Thank you,… read more

Yahoo Director to Quit Over CEO Vetting Scandal [REPORT]

The Yahoo director in charge of vetting CEO Scott Thompson is planning to resign from the board after questions emerged about Thompson’s resume, according to a report.

Patti Hart (pictured), whose own background was also called into question, will “not stand for reelection” at Yahoo’s next annual meeting, according to AllThingsD,… read more

Witty Paintings by Hillary White

Pop culture is the inspiration for many great artists. From music to movies, all of it provide great amount of ideas for people to do great, even witty pieces, like these, by American painter Hillary White.

Hillary came up with these fun pop-reinterpretations of some famous paintings, really worth checking out…. read more

Congratulations To The Winners Of DesignModo’s Impressionist UI Pack

Thanks to all of the participants of contest in which DesignModo’s Impressionist UI Pack (The World’s Biggest User Interface Elements Pack) were givingaway. We ran the MySQL random query and selected these comments to give them DesignModo’s Impressionist UI Pack.

Winners of DesignModo’s Impressionist UI Pack

Lucy Martin (Developer License)
Matiss (Personal… read more

10 Super Useful Apps For Working with PDFs

PDF has become a worldwide document type standard and you no doubt deal with these documents fairly regularly. Because the file tpye is so common there is a plethora of applications available to work with them.

It can be a bit tricky to wade through the large number of choices though,… read more

Weekly Poll: What File Sync Service Do You Use?

What file sync service do you use primarily?

There’s dozens of ways to keep your files in sync, from the old standby Dropbox to Google’s new Drive app. We recently did a roundup of the best sync services, and many of you chimed in with your other favorite sync services… read more

Atlantic Media to Launch Free Digital Business Publication, ‘Quartz’

Atlantic Media announced the name of its forthcoming digital-only business news publication, Quartz, Tuesday.

Quartz is the first publication in the business category designed to be consumed largely via tablets, smartphones and the web, competing against more established entities like The Economist, Bloomberg Businessweek and The Financial Times. Unlike those entities,… read more

Presiding as Editor over your own Design Magazine

WordPress has made it easier than ever for a web designer to setup their own blog. This system allows you to add content into your website and publish in a number of different ways. But with the ever-advancing Internet we are seeing posts transform into articles and webblogs… read more

Amazing Paper Typography

I love it when two art forms collide and something beautiful emerges. Paper typography is one such type of art that has fascinated me since I was little. Maybe it’s because I learned about origami in grade school, and now also have a love of typography. So when I see… read more

Marketing Your Mobile App

Want to make money on that app you created? You’ll have to spend money and time on marketing your app outside of app stores for success, according to a recent study conducted by App-Promo, a mobile app marketing company.

The First Annual Developer Survey was created to help understand how… read more

uSnap.us: Crowdsource Your Wedding Photography

Weddings are some of the most memorable occasions we attend, whether you’re participating or merely in attendance and, if it’s your special day, you’ll likely want to save the memories of the day forever. Lots of people hire wedding photographers to capture these moments officially but friends and family will… read more

Kitabu: An Alternative to Kindle for Mac?

Though I’m not quite ready to jettison my bookcase full of real paper books, ebooks have definitely won me over and convinced me of their worth due to both their portability and the fact that historical, classic and other copyright-free texts such as Leo Tolstoy’s complete works or Homer’s Iliad… read more

How To Create a Vector, Wooden Axe

In this tutorial you will learn how to vector an execution axe from a reference. Discover essential techniques that you need as a vector artist, such as creating different types of shadows, specular and non-specular highlights, bitmap textures for surfaces, gradients for metals, and more. Let’s get started.

Tutorial Assets

The following… read more

The Starving Writer’s Quick Guide to Finding Good-Paying Freelance Blogger Gigs

Are you sick of seeing job ads for blogging that only offer $20 a post or less? Scanning the online job boards, you might think there are no good-paying blogging gigs.

But there are. I know because I’ve earned as much as $300 a blog post, and often get north… read more

The Smashing Book #3 “Redesign The Web” Is Finally Released!

The new Smashing Books have finally arrived—freshly printed, neatly packed and ready to be shipped to you, our dear reader. We believe this is by far the best book we’ve produced so far. We are very proud and excited, and the initial verdict has been thoroughly positive, yet in the… read more

Essential Tools for Crowdsourcing Answers to Your Questions

These days, you can ask everyone, anywhere anything, anytime.

Since the advent of the social internet, gone are the days when seeking advice required thorough investigation of forums, IRC channels, and databases. Now, we have the power to ask anyone, anywhere anything, anytime by using crowdsourcing question and answer tools. Crowdsourcing… read more

Smashing Book #3: Redesign the Web

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How to Use Textures in Your Designs the Right Way

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Textures are a wonderful tool to use for all kinds of design. Not only can textures make something look more interesting, they also add a sense of material realism that people can connect to. There are very few materials in the “real world” that do not have… read more

Faded Glory: A Showcase of Low Saturation Photography

There are many photographers who aim for vibrant explosions of color in their work. Using these bright hues to connect with and move the viewer. Though there are some who take a different path for reaching their audience, however color still plays a part. They actually process the photos to… read more

Weekly Design News – Resources, Tutorials and Freebies (N.131)

This is our weekly column were we share our favorite design related articles, resources and cool tidbits from the past week. Enjoy :)
If you would like to receive our daily updates and keep up to date with the latest and greatest articles and resources from the… read more

Trying to Find the Best File Sync Service

When Google threw its hat into the cloud storage ring a few weeks ago with Google Drive, it added another good service to a quickly growing niche. With Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, Skydrive, Amazon Could Drive, and more, it’s tough to choose which is the best. Dropbox is the long-time… read more

A Photographer’s Guide to the Gorgeous Colours of Venice

It’s romantic, beautiful and a photographer’s paradise yet Venice can at times be a hard place to photograph. It is one of the most visited cities in the world and as such you can have a frustrating time trying to capture its beauty. In this short guide we will show… read more

Color Psychology: What Color Says About You

There’s a reason you see a smattering of women in red business suits in the crowd when you watch the State of the Union address on TV. Red is a power color, and these are powerful women!

The colors you choose to wear and even brand yourself with say a… read more

Make Saving Fun with SmartyPig

Finances and dealing with money has been something that I have always enjoyed doing, not for work, but in general. I am always looking for better ways to save money and now with our first child, even more so, do we have to money conscious.

That is why I got really… read more

Beauty and Portraits on a Budget

White V-Flat as fill behind

If you have ever had any interest in beauty or portraiture, but found yourself frustrated not being able to afford expensive lighting, studio space and more – fear not! With a quick visit to a local signage or art supply store you can buy the right… read more

How Web Developers and Designers can Work Together

Within any field of application production you often find the workload split between design and development. It’s a simpler process to let the designer handle creating the user interface while the developer codes it into reality. This is the case for desktop applications, mobile apps, and especially websites.

In this article… read more

Refining Your Design In Adobe Fireworks

While certainly not as well known as Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks is a great tool for creating user interfaces, website designs and mock-ups, wireframes, icons and much more. However, most designers who have been using Photoshop for years may find Fireworks a bit awkward at first. Fireworks does have a slightly… read more

7 Screaming Red Flags That You’re Not Cut Out for Freelance Writing

Have you been wondering if you could be a freelance writer?

Well, despite all the rah-rah you hear on many freelance sites about just going for it, and all the excitement about the pluses of the freelance life — no boss, set your own hours, a variety of work —… read more

Quick Tip: How to Draw an Apricot with the Mesh Tool

Follow this simple but detailed quick tip and learn how to draw an apricot using the Mesh Tool. It includes step by step instructions about how to create all the mesh points and lines plus all the color shades used so you can draw a realistic apricot from scratch…. read more

26 Resources for WordPress Tutorials Themes and Plugins

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Freelancing seems like one of the most lucrative job titles. And it’s true that setting your own hours and working on interesting projects can be a lot of fun. But there is also the matter of looming deadlines and touchy clients you need to keep satiated.

One… read more

Tablet Story – Making A Website Tablet Friendly, Known and The Unknown facts

Remember the joy and happiness when you first got your hands on the magic iPad. Yeah, iPad has undoubtedly changed the way we used to browse the web. It is slim, sexy and simply irresistible and therefore, it is no wonder it is admired and adopted by millions of people… read more

Decibel: Lossless Audio and Beyond

Like many among us, I am not accustomed to paying for a music player. I am happy with iTunes and Winamp in both Windows and Mac. Still, if you are looking forward to pushing the boundaries in playback quality and revolutionary user interfaces, there are a handful choices available in… read more

Freelance Freedom 257: Over Inspiration

Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive?

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14 Reasons Why Nobody Used Your jQuery Plugin

With so many folks developing jQuery plugins, it’s not uncommon to come across one that just plain – for lack of better words – sucks. There’s no examples or documentation, the plugin doesn’t follow best practices, etc. But you’re one of the lucky ones: this article will detail the pitfalls… read more

Adobe CS6 Available For Purchase, Creative Cloud Coming May 11th

Adobe has announced the immediate availability of Creative Suite 6, the next reincarnation of its popular graphic and web design software. The company’s official store has been updated with all the new products and users can either purchase the software outright ready for download or upgrade from previous versions of… read more

How to speed up your website

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50 Fresh and Free Texture Packs To Spice Up Your Designs

All designers should have a healthy collection of resources in their toolbox. Always ready for any possible scenario. So, just to help your collection we have for you today 50 fresh, free and fantastic texture packs that are freely available to download.

You may also like:
50 Fantastic… read more

World of Watercolor: Beautiful Watercolor Effects in Web Design and Tutorials

Using watercolor in web design is not a new thing that designers are implementing, by any means. In fact, it has been used in web design for years. In no small part due to the fact that digital watercolor effects are inspiring and attention-grabbing, and on top of that, easy… read more

30 Very Useful Illustrator CS5 Tutorials

Tutorials can often be your greatest source of inspiration when trying to design that project you have been putting off. In this post, I have rounded up an amazing collection of high quality Adobe Illustrator cs5 Tutorials from around the web. You’ll find everything from How To Create a Grainy… read more

Huntsy: A Smart Dashboard for Your Job Search

Ask any job seeker, and he’ll tell you that looking for a job is, in and of itself, a job. It’s time-consuming to prep your cover letter, tweak your resume, follow up and plan your interview, especially when you’re applying for multiple positions. Sure, you could make an intense, color-coded… read more

3D Printing Gives Amputees Custom-Designed Legs [VIDEO]

A San Francisco company called Bespoke Innovations is using 3D printing and modeling technology to give prosthetic limbs new life as custom-designed, wearable pieces of art.

Here’s how it works: First, the company 3D scans both customers’ natural and prosthetic legs. A 3D computer model is created, maintaining as… read more

What Photographers Must Know About Using Extreme Wide Angle Lenses

Many photographers dream of owning one of the super wide lenses. Not a fisheye but a lens so wide it verges on fisheye. However as well as being expensive, there are some steep learning curves to overcome when using such wide lenses. In this brief article we will discuss a… read more

Klout CEO Hints at Redesign, Local Feature, Brand Page Update

Klout has had a busy few weeks, unleashing an iPhone app, brand pages and a new API. But more changes are on deck.

Klout CEO Joe Fernandez hinted at those developments on stage and backstage at Mashable Connect in Orlando.

The San Francisco-based startup will announce this month four more partners… read more