Have you ever wondered how websites change the color of their input fields when you click on them? Here is an easy to use method you can implement in less than Five Minutes!”All you need to do is add the following code to your style sheet and change the colors to match your what ever you what.”rnThat’s it!”rninput:focus, textarea:focus, select:focus { “border: 1px solid #666;”rnbackground:#ff9;”color:black;”}rn

Have you been trying to add a progress bar to your contact form? Me too. After several days of searching Google and trying several different solutions, I finally found a great AJAX contact form that anyone can implement. “If I were a javascript and ruby expert I’m sure this would have been easy however, at this point these are not my areas of expertise. There are several solutions available if you have more programming experience but, the one I used was done by Jeff Pipas and his well explained example can be found here. He has all of the files you need to do this yourself and a very detailed explanation of all of the parts. “”The only problem I ran into was in the sendmail.php file. In the send mail function the first two variables were using single quotes. …

I’ve always loved the page transitions in flash but, being a devotee of tableless CSS, I’ve never used them in my own, or my client’s sites. In steps AJAX. There are many ways to fade object in AJAX, but how do you apply that to your web page? Here is a simple technique that anyone can use.”To illustrate the concept, click on any link on my site and go to the next page. The idea is a simple ul li hover class on the link going to the next page, which uses a simple AJAX fade technique. The key is to use the same color for the rollover and the incoming page fade. “rnThe combination makes for a smooth webpage transition, and gives a clear indication to the reader that the link connects to the content. This could be a …

On a recent project I found a need to apply a single style rule to Safari. Initially I turned up a great link to dithered.com which has all known CSS filters. Unfortunately, I could not locate one that filtered for Safari only. “After quite a bit of searching all I turned up were several posts looking for the same thing or even a few that said filtering for Safari was impossible. After a few more pages of search results I came upon a link to gunlaug.no which had an article titled ”CSS Filters – not recommended but…”. This turned out to be an excellent system (hats off to the author) which isolated Safari perfectly! “”Be sure to read the article carefully as the entire top of the hack needs to be there to filter for Safari and not affect …

In the city, who doesn’t love their corner store? For me it’s Pops, or as it’s officially known, “The Moscone Deli”. I seem to stop in there every day or so for something I desire for that evening. When I first moved into this space in SOMA, I wandered out of the back of my building looking for some food. Right around the corner I happened onto the Moscone Deli. I was looking for some bread and cheese, and their selection was rather small by my former suburban supermarket standards, but I found what I wanted and headed to the counter.”There stands the original Pops or, as he was later dubbed, “Cool Pops”. Why so cool you ask? Well let me tell you, this cat was cool – mid sixties, black wrap-around shades, Armani Exchange jacket, small driving hat and …

When I first moved to the heart of the web world in SOMA a year ago today I wasn’t really thinking too much about the boom and the bust that had gone on out a few years ago. I was fresh from freelancing in New York, and as an independent had not suffered the bust. I had several contracts with bigger firms and the work just kept coming. “From my eleventh floor perch I can see Organic, Six Apart, Adaptive Path and Frog Design out my live/work loft window. When I walk outside it’s a different world. My neighborhood and most of San Francisco has a very large population of homeless. There are over 14,000 on any given day, so it’s a very common occurrence to run into a lot of homeless on a daily basis. “rnOn my first morning …

It resizes, it transitions, it fades in and out and it’s not flash! The new AJAX slideshow on the homepage of my site comes to you courtesy of Scott Upton at Uptonic. This smooth, easy to use delight, is a great toolbox addition, for anyone who considers themselves part of the new breed of AJAX designers and developers.”Download the slideshow here.”This outstanding AJAX script was originally coded by, Travis Beckham of Squidfingers. Updates were made by Scott, and made available to us all via his example at Couloir. I’ve found it very easy to use however, at this point I don’t have it hooked up to my blog for auto-updates. I’m working on this now, and will post when it is done. “This is one of those AJAX apps that clients will love and it is very easy to implement. …

As a web designer I sometimes work with bad photographs (from clients) every day. After doing this for nine years I’ve come up with three simple suggestions that someone who wants to shoot photographs can try.”
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The Rule of Thirds – This technique is popular amongst photographers and artists. It works like this: Imaginary lines are drawn dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. You place important elements of your composition where these lines intersect.

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Find different heights to shoot from

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Make sure the sun is at your back

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“These suggestions are not end-alls, and many great photographs are taken that completely ignore one or more of these techniques, but if you haven’t given them a try yet, why not?rn

Remember the page curl? How about graphical rounded corners, and of course the current omni-present background gradient? Well, here comes the fade. While this is not a new subject since Basecamp came out but, the The Fade Anything Technique (FAT) will make this very interesting technique accessible to everyone who designs websites. “While Jason Fried of 37 Signals came up with The Yellow Fade Technique (YFT) my new favorite is FAT. This great app was developed by Adam Michela of Axentric. You can read his great post about it here. I’ve started using the technique on my own site and it is currently being used on several of my client’s beta projects. So far we have had great feedback from our clients and beta testers. Give it a try and enjoy!rn

Whether your cabbie has a shaved head and is playing loud smooth jazz, or he just came back from Greece and is giving you a diatribe on the Iranian nuclear issue from the European perspective, you must love SF cabbies. “As a transplanted New Yorker the cabbies in San Francisco are a breed among themselves. In New York, most of my day time cab drivers never spoke to me at all, almost as if it was an unwritten rule note to speak to busy looking patrons during sun-time. Except of course if you found yourself going from Manhattan to Brooklyn in a Yellow Cab. In that case you had better have your own detailed instructions on how to get to your designation, or you will find a very chatty driver. “”San Francisco cabbies are the polar opposites. I’ve rarely had …