TONI ZOVA

It’s good to see good people int he world doing things simply to help others. I don’t do enough good but I try. Just saw a few bloggers raving about a company close by in Rhode Island and how they’re involved in a $100,000 + scam and people claim that there’s an investigation under way.

What’s interesting about this, and you can read about the Tango Pix Scam here, is that this is a relatively small local company so for them to have that much pull and scam people for that much, can’t help but wonder you know?

If small companies are now managing to pull 6 figure scams, what are the big companies doing? It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out and how Tango Pix handles this situation.

Again, it’s just really nice to see that the so called under dogs don’t get away with this sort of thing.

If you’re a web designer then you know how bloody annoying and time consuming it can be to do some of the most simple things like tweaking the CSS, editing little typos in your code, measuring stuff and then slipping the figures into your style sheets etc. I mean, we waste so much time doing little bits and bobs that it’s ridiculous, but I, as perfect as I am, don’t waste a second. I use Add-ons to make my life easier while coding and you should too.

I’m going to go through a list of the Add-ons I use and explain what each does, trust me, at first, once you have a good 5-10 or even 15 Add-ons strapped into your browser, you might be a little overwhelmed, but trust me, it’s worth it and you’ll get used to utilizing these extra browser features!

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One of my all time favorites is the Firebug Add-on. Quoting them right off the source;

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Firebug gives you full control over the CSS, HTML and JavaScript of any page that you choose. Inspect and edit HTML, Tweak CSS to perfection, Visualize CSS metrics, Monitor network activity, Debug and profile JavaScript, Quickly find errors, Explore the DOM, Execute JavaScript on the fly, Logging for JavaScript. Best of all, every change that you make is done live and instantly, so you can quickly test out different changes and see the results of those changes instantly.

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Another great Add-on is the CSS Validator/HTML Validator Add-on.

CSS Validator is a Firefox extension which Validates a page using the W3C CSS Validator. Adds an option to the right-click context menu and to the Tools menu to allow for easy validation of the CSS of the current page. Opens the results in a new tab. Will only work on pages that have a CSS file associated. For example it will work with http://www.w3.org/ as the URL has a CSS file. When using the HTML Validator, you can choose to validate directly in the browser (where any errors are shown as a status bar icon), show the source with explanations of errors after the validation or a validation with proposed solutions to any errors.

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For those annal about screen resolution etc, here’s one that will make your day, the Browser Window Resizer add-on. As simple as this add-on is, it’s def a nice help to quick check out your site in dif screen resolution settings.

The Browser Window Resizer is useful tool for testing different screen sizes. It accurately resizes your browser so you can test to see if the web page you’re working on looks right in all of the standard resolution sizes. This will allow you to see if your design is going to look good to visitors who aren’t using the same resolution as you. The best thing about this add-on is that if you are using it in conjunction with the other add-ons in this list (specifically Firebug), when you see that something isn’t displaying properly, you can instantly make adjustments to your code and see if that fixes the problem, all without ever leaving your current browser window. Browser Window Resizer add-on resize your Firefox window to 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024 and 1600×1200 resolution sizes.

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Here’s a nifty Add-on for you guys, the CSSViewer Add-on!

With this extension you can view CSS properties of related page elements. Very handy, when You got large CSS file with styles overlapping each other, to analyze why something is not displayed in the way You wanted.

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I also suggest you take a look at the JavaScript Debugger, FirePhp and the Palette Grabber Add-ons. There are tons of others so feel free to drop by the FireFox Add-on Archive.

And I know, a short list but I hope this is more of an introductions to FireFox Add-ons for you, really, step out of that plastic bubble ok? Smell the fresh air and see what all the big boys are playing with

So I’ve been a member of LogoPond for a few years, and I do enjoy it there. It’s a source for logo inspiration, it’s also full of drama queens (guilty as charged) but in all honesty there are some talented folks over there, and some really good people. What I want to touch base on here is LogoPond as a community, what it is doing to help/hurt the general design community and how we, as Logo Designers contribute to both.

First off I just want to say that the owner, David, while he’s someone I respect and enjoy bitching back and forth with, the guy really does try, he’s providing us all with a resource to not only get inspiration from but to also showcase our work and that helps designers get much needed exposure. For starters, he hasn’t banned me from LP yet, although we’ve exchanged emails and all, he really should have booted me off years ago, i’m an asshole, but, he chose to keep me around, deep down he must love me! But seriously, over the past few months, almost year, I’ve watched LP drop a little on that cool scale. The traffic might be the same if not more, users are submitting more stuff perhaps, but a couple things just scream to be addressed. Some of the crap being featured, and then brandstack. Those are the 2 main issues I have with LP and in all honesty seem to be the 2 factors that sort of hurt the logo design industry in general. Let me elaborate…

We all know I don’t get along with BS (brandStack), and i’m not going to yodel too long on that subject, Wes might have another cow and feel obligated to send me one of those “I hate you so much and wish a death by way of flaming-cow-shoved-up-ass upon you a thousand times over” emails, but come on. I get they’re paying to grab an ad slot on LP, or are they? But what the fuck David? You’ve explained your stance, noted that you would not favor BS for sale logos over regular truly inspiring logos when it comes to featuring them, but I just see that as a way out. I’d respect you a whole lot more if you just came out and said, well yeah BS pays me, so I’ll do what I want, it’s my site. But to pretend like you’re not favoring their shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit?

Ok, BS rant over, onto quality of some of the featured work and how either comments are being overlooked when complaints are made or intentionally ignored. I for one think they’re ignored because the second I tell someone to piss off on there, I get emailed or a forum thread goes up announcing how I’m the devil in tights being mean and picking on poor designers (it’s always indirect, you’d think these guys have balls to speak their minds). Give me a break, judge for yourself, tell me how these logos are feature worthy…how they are worthy of inspiring people, representing the best at LP, read the comments too, on some, people LINK to sources showing the logos in some instances as not even original, right down copies…

Some Featured logos on LP:

Eh, check this out…his excuse for using this and claiming it as his own was:

Thanks for feedback guys.
Ok, I necessarily that having whole different, I have a licence for this, and this VECTOR designed by my friend.

Now, this vector sold to INDIAN YOGA CLUB.

FAQ Center

I have no fucking idea what he’s on about either…nima is a nice kid, don’t get me wrong I’m sure he’s talented, but little back handed BS like this only does one thing, hurts our industry. I did something similar to prove a point a while back, while I couldn’t get my message across because people are so think sometimes, I honestly like to think that we could have a bit more pride and dignity when it comes to what we do for a living, no?

Here’s another,

Here’s where he got it from

So yeah, obviously over inspired? Yet it got featured, I’m betting that font is not even custom. His response? silence….and this says what to the rest of those kiddies out there running around popping out $15-$25 logos to clients? You not only get pocket change for this shit but you might also get rewarded, some recognition and hey hey, a feature spot on LP and other showcases!

I could go on, and on, really, but instead of making this a rant, it already is isn’t it? yeah, well I want to hear what you guys think about LogoPond in general, drama queens like me (have to say that so none of those fuckers think im personally attacking them) and the quality of work on there and what it represents.

CSS Galleries keep popping up all over the place, I mean, I probably run into a couple new ones every few days, it’s ridiculous. What’s worse is the number of decent, moderated, up to date CSS Galleries out there, there aren’t many. So instead of pulling one of those top 20 lists out of my ass and just shoving links for you all to follow, I’m going to share some of my personal favorites, a few I have bookmarked and i’ll comment on them and then throw in a couple that in my opinion, did you read that? IN MY OPINION…are way overrated, seriously overrated, you know what, a better term would be ‘crap’.

So to start things off, one of my personal favorite CSS Galleries has got to be, CSSDRIVE. Why? Well I don’t even have to be biased here, it’s frequently updated, has a mixture of featured CSS sites while also showcasing some nifty, unique menu designs and boasts a cool news section that I love to spam with controversial Bull when I can, just to get people interacting and venting a little. It’s run by a really nice down to earth bloke who truly cares about the design community, and also pays me for these kinds of posts, that’s a joke, come on, i’m not trying to say George paid me anything to mention CSSDrive as my favorite CSS Gallery, that would be wrong, and unethical, and just, dirty, and we all know I’m a saint eh?

Next up I’d say has to be CSSBeauty, just because it’s honestly a great site, full of great CSS related news, announcements, a Gallery and more. It’s something I have fed into my own RSS Feed Aggregator but I do have a couple things to bitch about. The bloody adsense slots. I can’t count how many times I’ve accidentally clicked on those bloody ads, while that’s great ad placement on their behalf, it’s as annoying as fuck. So annoying I stick to the feeds and don’t visit the site itself as often, and the color, kind of annoying too. But other than that, content is well worth keeping an eye out for.

Ok, CSSCreme, creme de la creme, I’m sure I butchered that attempt at being smart but yeah, CSSCreme is a must bookmark or must have fed through your Aggregator. If you’re a nooblet, or not, CSS Creme has a pretty nice collection of tutorials, Inspirational articles, news posts and a relatively updated gallery. I also have to mention the new free to download font gallery they have, very cool stuff.

The Design Inspiration is inspiring, buuuuuut it’s rather boring. I mean, they have some nifty sections, like inspirational articles, logo showcase, CSS Designs, Art, Fonts, and they even feature Photography and slip in a pattern download showcase, wait, ok i take the boring part back. Just typing all that got me excited, DOWN BOY, yeah, TDI is worth bookmarking too, damn it, another good site!

[[no banner...ha suck on that CSSMania]]
CSSMania, lame. While I know many of you have CSSMania tattooed across your ass, and that you have the cross out and are ready to crucify me, I gotta say, what a pointless site. A CSS Gallery should not ONLY showcase CSS Websites, but should really provide more, in my opinion, CSS Mania almost feels to me as if it leaches it’s featured content from somewhere else, not to spark controversy here, because, that would be like, the end of the world, but it really is a pointless site. Wow, I sound like a hater, I dont’ think i’m even going to link to css mania, not that they need my backlink, but the amount of respect I have for that site is far too little to get me to link to them. Yes, boycott CSS Mania. (they didn’t pay me enough to be nice, see, it sucks to be on my shit list…)

Creattica is S.E.X. Simple, Elegant and….Xylophone..? I don’t know it was either that or Xray, (and my attempt at humor fails again) but yeah, Creattica is a great source of inspiration and their CSS Gallery is unique enough to feel hand selected not randomly picked off other galleries to feature, so I give them a thumbs up! They’ve also featured some of my stuff in the past without me submitting it, so, I have to give them props for that, they obviously know their stuff, right? Because, well they could tell my work was too awesome to not feature. Yes that’s it.

Dear CSS Elite, your sites logo is crap. Please, hire a professional to redesign it, feel free to contact me, I’ll go easy on you and charge you the bare minimum. If you disregard their hideous logo, they’re just another CSS Gallery really, only difference is it’s constantly updated, so that’s 1point. Yeah, 1/10…

Last but not least, styleboost, Ive been checking them out for a while and am still on the fence about them. While some of their so called reviews are in place, for the most part, they’re just rants, much like this one, which honestly is a waste of time to read you know? SO yeah, check them out and decide for yourself.

With that, I hope you don’t hate me enough to hunt me down for wasting like 5min of your time, I just felt like sharing these CSS gallery resources/links with you guys and provide my honest, semi-biased opinion on them too. If anything, feel free to drop me a comment to let me know how much you hate my face, because really, any comment makes me feel loved

((any and all references to bribes received for noting the above galleries were jokes, I genuinely mean everything.))

Don’t get me wrong, I respect Ross, and I think CrowdSPRING is doing its thing, that’s all great, but I could not help but notice something about their logo…it just hit me a while back and I remembered it today. I can’t help myself, I need to share this just to get your opinion…

Their logo obviously represents something completely different than what I see, but i’m not going to even bother figuring our what exactly. it’s one of those logo fails that are quite frankly, hilariously ironic.

So yeah, I’m sorry but that doesn’t look like a spring. It looks like a screw, and if your take their concept and apply it to what I see, then it’s pretty obvious, a designer being screwed. Yep. Pretty much represents their service if you ask me.

What else can I say? I love pointing out the obvious