If you don’t yet know about SOPA, and the laws about banning IPs and copyright issues online going on, you should google it.
There are many sites that are going on “blackout” mode today as protest, thankfully WordPress is one of them. If you are a Canadian and want to speak out against SOPA, go here: openmedia.ca/SOPA. I’ve signed already, get on board! Speak up now!

Doowah is changing its web work and moving to WordPress and looking for someone to do freelance web work for them.
They are interested in talking to people, although they must be aware that this is freelance work and Doowah often work under tight deadlines. They can see resumes, but they’d really like to see working sites.

If anyone is interested please contact me (ildyck@rrc.mb.ca) directly and I will pass you on to Steven.

An excellent blog and resource for any web designer,  Above the Fold Blog — written by Brian Miller, author of  the book Above the Fold, is worth a look or two. His articles are well written and this one in particular illustrates a very good (and important) point to consider if you are in the web design field. The war on templates. Are you for or against them? I am all for taking a template and customizing it completely to suit a client’s specific needs. I would never use a template as is without having done a design for the client first. Design must come first. I use wordpress templates so that I don’t need to rebuild functionality and it saves me time coding things that can easily be plugged in and tweaked. The question for me is “Why reinvent the wheel?”. I believe you should take the wheel, make it bigger and better – build on top of it and take it to the next level… What are your thoughts on using templates in web design?

Ultimately, I believe that this theme trend devalues the work I do as a Web designer. Clients no longer expect to pay what they once did for a Web site…

Like with every other trend in this ever-changing industry, it’s the designers who adapt that survive. So perhaps in the future you’ll see a line of “Above the Fold Themes,” but I’m not ready to make that leap just yet. I believe there’s still a dire need for brand-specific ideas that make companies more memorable and connect with their audience more effectively.

There are some really great articles on this site including a Freebies page that has wordpress themes, plugins, illustrations, inspiration… Also some great tips and tutorials for everything from photoshop to motion and web design. Enjoy!

Here are some killer tutorials and from the Theme forest blog which cover the basics of the languages that I currently teach (HTML, CSS, PHP and jQuery). If you’re just starting there are some really excellent beginner videos and source files. Jeffery Way is the man!