Eric Meyer has posted his reset styles CSS for the public on his blog. The CSS will help you to reduce browser inconsistencies like different margins, padding and line height. It’s a good idea to use a reset CSS file any time you are creating a new site or page.

Check out the reset styles CSS.

Smashing Magazine offers another great roundup of 53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without

CSS is important. And it is being used more and more often. Cascading Style Sheets offer many advantages you don’t have in table-layouts - and first of all a strict separation between layout, or design of the page, and the information, presented on the page. Thus the design of pages can be easily changed, just replacing a css-file with another one. Isn’t it great? Well, actually, it is.

Over the last few years web-developers have written many articles about CSS and developed many useful techniques, which can save you a lot of time - of course, if you are able to find them in time. Below you’ll find a list of techniques we , as web-architects, really couldn’t live without. They are essential and they indeed make our life easier. Let’s take a look at 53 CSS-based techniques you should always have ready to hand if you develop web-sites.

Continue reading 53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without

While you’re visiting Smashing Magazine, check out 10 Principles Of Effective Web Design

SitePoint has a new CSS Reference site that you may find useful. It includes the following topics:

1. What Is CSS?
2. General Syntax and Nomenclature
3. At-rules Reference
4. Selector Reference
5. The Cascade, Specificity, and Inheritance
6. CSS Layout and Formatting
7. Box Properties
8. Layout Properties
9. List Properties
10. Table Properties
11. Color and Backgrounds
12. Typographical Properties
13. Generated Content
14. User Interface Properties
15. Paged Media Properties
16. Vendor-specific Properties
17. Workarounds, Filters, and Hacks
18. Differences Between HTML and XHTML
19. Alphabetic Property Index

If you haven’t checked out the rest of SitePoint’s site, do it! They have tons of wonderful tutorials and resources!

Noupe has a wonderful roundup of 101 CSS techniques.

CSS has fundamentally changed web design, it has provided designers with a set of properties that can be tweaked to make various techniques to make your pages just look right.

Today we are presenting a round-up of 101 CSS techniques designers use all the time. Definitely worth taking a very close look at!

This is a two part series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Internet Explorer 6 isn’t perfect, far from it, but unfortunately while the user base for the outdated browser is still high, it’s in our best interest as designers and website owners to ensure that our sites work correctly for the majority if not all of our users.

There are bugs and problems with Internet Explorer 6 (and even IE7) but you may be surprised to hear that for myself, ensuring a website is compatible with IE6 adds next to nothing to development time.

Read the rest of this great article at Dave Wood’s site

1. There is a terrific list of freeware software for Web designers over at TechnoTarget. There are descriptions and screen captures of each application.
2. Smashing Magazine has links to 100 Excellent WordPress Free Themes including a screen capture for each theme. You should definitely bookmark this site since we discussed WordPress yesterday and will work with it more over the next month.
3. Smashing Magazine also offers Frameworks Round-Up: When To Use, How To Choose?. This article includes links to frameworks for JavaScript, CSS, PHP, Ruby, and more.
4. For those of you who would like to learn more about Photoshop, Smashing Magazine has the article Adobe Photoshop Tutorials - Best Of
   .
5. Don’t leave Smashing Magazine quite yet….While you’re there check out Smashing Highlights 2007 for even more terrific articles and resources.
6. Looking for more Photoshop? Try The Best 80 Photoshop Text Effects on the Web for tons of tips on creating cool text effects in Photoshop.
7. Tutorial Blog offers Links for Web Designers : December - A GREAT roundup of Web resources for designers. While you’re at Tutorial Blog check out the other terrific Web resource lists they have compiled. There are so many goodies on this page you could easily spend the day at their site.
8. Web Hosting Keys has numerous compiled lists including: Best Web Hosting, Web Hosting Coupons, Best Free Photo Hosting, Best Free Web Hosting, Best Free File Hosting, Best Free Forum Hosting, Best Free Blog Hosting, Cheap Domain Names, Best Online Backup Services, & Best DNS Tools.
9. Freelance Switch has an article on 7 Things You Can Do TODAY to Kickstart Your Freelancing Career - It’s a good time to start thinking about these things if you plan to start your own business.

Since we just discussed using frameworks in class I thought Frameworks for Designers was a good article for you to review. It discusses the benefits of developing a framework and goes into some detail on how to develop your own.

Vitamin, a site for designers and developers, has a great feature article on Creating Sexy Style Sheets which outlines 10 tips for writing well structured and easy to understand style sheets.

While at Vitamin, take a look at the article Make Your Site Mobile Friendly which offers great tips for writing and testing CSS rules for handheld devices.

Yesterday in class I mentioned the new CSS unit using CSS: The Missing Manual. This will be a required book for all new students entering the program and an optional book for students who are currently enrolled.

I have to say that this is an outstanding book on CSS. It is an excellent introduction to CSS and also a great read for those who are experienced with CSS. The techniques discussed are very current and it even discusses issues with Internet Explorer 7. One of the things that I really like about the book is that as it demonstrates techniques it also discusses the pitfalls and solutions in different browsers, especially Internet Explorer 6 and earlier versions. The book is also filled with hands-on tutorials for practical experience.

I have started to develop the assignment sheet for this book; it’s available at http://www.jobskillsnow.com/webdes/cssmissing.htm

We will be selling the book in class, meanwhile you can order CSS: The Missing Manual via Amazon for $23.09.

Also, many students have asked about Flash/USB drives for storing class work. Flash/USB drives are available at any store that sells electronics and you can also find them at Amazon. These are very portable devices that allow you to store and transfer small and large files from one workstation to another. They’re quite handy and very easy to use; much easier than having to burn CDs of your classroom work. Some students even use these drives to store and run software programs that they like to use in class.

The Firefox extensions that we installed yesterday will help you to develop your own web sites. They will also help you to analyze other web sites.

These are sites that showcase CSS design. Take a look at some of the sites, the source code (XHTML) and the CSS. Remember that you can use the web developer toolbar in Firefox to view the CSS (click the CSS button and select View CSS)

CSS Zen Garden - http://www.csszengarden.com/
CSS Beauty - http://www.cssbeauty.com/
Stylegala - http://www.stylegala.com/
CSS Drive - http://www.cssdrive.com/
CSS Vault - http://cssvault.com/