Icons could spice up your website, so it won’t be too “texty”. There is a site providing free icons for download: Free Icons Web - http://www.freeiconsweb.com/index.html. Please note that some are for non-commercial purpose only. If you’d like to use those for commercial projects, you’ll need to inform the author or creator of the icon sets. Besides that, if you’re an icon designer, and would like to share your icon design, you can submit to them and show it there. Just contact them via submissions@Freeiconsweb.com. Enjoy~

Flash has a powerful video streaming ability, but have you ever come across this scenario?

You have a Flash file (.swf) that streams flash video file (.flv). When you tested on your local server, it plays fine. But when you uploaded to the web hosting server, you can see the Flash file on the web page but it never load the Flash video (.flv).

You can try solving this by adding FLV MIME Type. For IIS, right click and open the properties for the site, select the HTTP Headers tab. At the bottom, click on the ‘MIME Types’ button, add a new type with the file extension .flv and the MIME type of video/x-flv. Press ‘OK’/‘Apply’ to add the settings.

If you are using a control panel provided by your hosting provider, go search for a button or link where you can add a new MIME Type. Then add new type with .flv as file extension and video/x-flv as MIME type. It should work now!

a4trip is recruiting new team members!

www.a4trip.com is a travel guide selling website which offer travellers comprehensive travelling contents. a4trip is recruiting authors, translator, designers, and people who’re passionate in online marketing.

Authors will be responsible for writing the contents for the designated destinations. Translator will be responsible for translating the contents into other languages. Designers will be responsible for designing tasks. Marketers will be doing all the marketing works.

Do leave me a comment if anyone is interested to join the team :)

I believe Flash lovers, especially Flash designer and Flash developer, will love this web award site: The FWA: Favourite Website Awards. In fact, many are already familiar with it. What make them so different? Good inspiration, impressive Flash application, very high page rank (8/10!!!), extensive database of outstanding Flash sites… etc etc.

The winners listed in this award directory are fabulous. They shows us how advanced and complicated a Flash site or a online Flash application can reach. Moreover, how “multimedia” is applied in those Flash site is unbelievable.However, here are something to consider about if you wish to have a Flash site like one listed in The FWA:

• Internet speed and bandwidth. Where you site will be hosted? What is the hosting server specification? Who is your target audience?
• Good Flash designer / Flash developer. You will definitely need someone good enough in Flash and Actionscript to produce things you see in The FWA (at least something similar), no kidding. Look for a company specialized in that.
• Do you have enough budget? It will certainly cost you more than a normal HTML site. Don’t ask a company to create a flash site for you with a cost of 10 pages HTML website.
• How important is the page rank mean to you? Flash site is difficult to be “read” by search engine’s robot, therefore it is very hard to get high page rank. If your main concern is the conversion of your website, how internet user can reached you by searching some keywords in Google, Yahoo, Msn etc., then it is better to have a HTML site.

What makes a good name card design?
Type setting? Brand Identity? Colour Scheme? A combination of all?
Information that is eye-catching?

What is the objective of designing a name card?
At most cases, name cards are designed in the way owner likes it to be.
While the name card, is to be given away to people who needs to know and also to contact the owner of the card.

If the letter is too small,
there’s too much information cramp into the small piece of paper,
it’s too fancy that you can’t find the information that you’re looking for in the name card,
or maybe it’s too stylish and brandy that people just don’t get it,
so what is the point of giving name cards to people who needs it?

Just to satisfy ourselves?

Flash was originally created as a vector animation software. Over releases of new versions of Flash, Macromedia has made it more powerful and developer friendly. With the presence of ActionScript, Flash has grown to more than a simple tool for vector drawing or computer graphic design. Since then, Flash is widely used in various platforms such as website, presentation, CDROM/ DVDROM, etc. After taken over by Adobe, with the release of Adobe Flash CS3, which is the first version of Flash released under Adobe name, Flash has gained better integration with other Adobe softwares like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

Flash is a powerful tool and it make the world of web more interesting. However, problems occured when Flash developers abuse the technology of Flash:

1. Flash movies can be made to load faster, but we could notice that most of the time, they are not built in that way due to the Flash developers’ fanatic on heavy and fancy Flash. This is against website’s fundamental concept. Always consider about the loading time and usability.
2. If a web page consists of HTML and Flash content, the Flash should serve it’s own role only and shouldn’t distract the site’s core value. For instance, you have Flash ad banners that plays distracting animation with sound and so, while the main purpose of your web page is to encourage member registration. You might gain some advertising fee from the banner but lose some members for that. Not worth it, isn’t it?
3. From time to time, Flash has newer and newer versions released. However, it doesn’t mean you must always export your Flash movie in latest version. Not every web user has latest version of Flash player installed in their computer.

When to use Flash in your website? Why use Flash?

1. There are times you need to create complex animation which is impossible to be done using HTML. This is where Flash comes in to help you design nice animation.
2. If you need to display a short video in your site, Flash is the latest trend for your web users to stream the video.
3. Flash movie has no problem as “browser compatibility issue”, generally. You view a Flash movie the same way, no matter which browser you’re using, IE, Firefox or Netscape.
4. If page ranking for your website is not that important, it’s “ok” to have a full Flash site. Since Flash content are mainly graphic, robots of search engines are not able to capture the content and index it.

Flash is to enhance a website, not to downgrade it and keep your visitor away. We adore Flash, but use it smartly. Do you Flash abuse?

If your design sells well, do you get extra?