Got a new computer for Christmas? Are you worried about all the spyware horror stories you’ve read? You should be. I’ve heard varying numbers, but it’s said that putting an unprotected computer on a high-speed connection results in getting infected within a few minutes. I just read that the time is getting longer, but that’s not much comfort. By all means you should have a router if you’re on a high speed connection. A router provides some protection, but is only the beginning. Ok, now the new machine is booted up the first time and ready to go. It’s on the net. In this order, here’s what to do.

read the rest of the article @ http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/index.php?p=733

Roger Johansson has compiled 456 Berea Street highlights of 2005. This is an end-of-the-year summary of readworthy articles that he wrote during this year. Read, bookmark, enjoy!

Our classroom web server failed yesterday when the techs took it offline. They are working to get the server running again, but I don’t really know when it will be running again. If it’s offline more than a day or two I will upload the site to my test server so that you can get to your assignment sheets, etc.

Meanwhile, you may want to visit the new classroom forum David and I have been posting some resources and articles.

Hope you’re having a wonderful holiday!

These desktop wallpapers are stunning!

http://www.joejoe.biz/joejoe/walls/index.php?spgmFilters=

Seems that web design and development trends for 2006 is the hot topic in blog land. Both Cameron Moll and Andy Budd have posts about the web development trends in the new year.

There are also several articles and posts on fonts and typography surfacing lately. SitePoint offers The Anatomy of Web Fonts which is a good article on typefaces for the web; the only drawback is the lack of discussion of scalable fonts.

The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web is a companion site for the book Elements of Typographic… Both the book and site are devoted to typographic style on the web.

Mark Boulton blogged Semantic Typography: Bridging the XHTML gap - links and patterns between typographic theory and Web Standards.

The Beauty of Simplicity describes why making things simple is the new competitive advantage.

I love this! http://www.pingmag.jp/2005/12/09/the-website-development-process/

After our discussion on Pixelated Color Palettes in Photoshop yesterday, Nina showed me another method of picking colors for a web site from a photo.

Open Photoshop

Click File > Open and navigate to the file that you want to use as a starting point for a web site color palette. Double click the file to open it

Click File > Save for Web

In the Save for Web dialog box set the Optimized File Format to Gif

Set the Color Reduction Algorithm to Restrictive (Web)

Set the Colors to 8

In the color table you will have a nice palette of colors to work with. Hover your mouse pointer over any of the color chips to display the Hex value of the color

Christmas Globe

A Christmas Story in 30 seconds as told by bunnies

Both of these links use Flash and both have sound.

If you enjoy the bunnies visit http://www.angryalien.com/

Ten reasons to learn and use web standards - The title really says it all. Another wonderful article from 456 Berea Street.

Anatomy of a Document - a deconstructed, annotated XHTML document.

Rachel Andrew has an article at 24 ways on CSS Layout Starting Points - I think this is a great example of CSS layouts for beginners.

Image Map for Detailed Information - love this CSS technique!

You can find some interesting demonstrations of using CSS for Bar Graphs at Apples to Oranges.

Totally off-topic, but the New York Institute of Photography has published How to Take Great Photos of Holiday Lights. I thought it might be fun for you to try these techniques over the holidays.

As a follow-up to our class discussion on Search Engine Optimization, SEOmoz.org has a Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization. What a great resource!

You may also be interested in browsing highrankings.com forums. This is a forum devoted to search engine optimization. This is an active forum with wonderful advice and resources. While you’re there be sure to check out the rest of the high rankings site for even more useful articles, newsletters, and information.

You may also find the discussions at Search Engine Forums, SEO Chat, and Search Guild helpful.