Thuiven Notebook

The FreelanceSwitch Freelancers survey - the results!

Dor Dan — 13-February-2008

After about a year of waiting, Freelanceswitch has released their results of the freelance survey. Check this from the site:

There are millions of freelancers around the globe, but for most, freelancing is something done in isolation. What do other freelancers charge? Do they quote or estimate? How many hours a week do they bill? These and many other questions are what we set out to answer in the Global Freelancer Survey of 2007. 3700 people took part in the survey from 6 continents and 10 industries. The results revealed...

C.S.I in XHTML and CSS coding.

Dor Dan — 8-February-2008

Lets start with the idea that code is design by itself - in some way. It needs to be organized, optimized, and above all it needs to have a decent and uncomplicated browsing layout.

The following technique I only started to work with on recent client works and realized it was the best method for me to code large CSS and XHTML files in order to keep them organized and easily managed anytime needed. Because as well all know its never fun to search for a particular selector in such big mess.

I called it CSI coding ...

Black n White snow photography.

Dor Dan — 31-January-2008

On Thursday, the 31 of January, snow has fallen down on the Capital of Israel, Jerusalem. Snow in Jerusalem is a very rare view - especially when it reaches to about 15 centimeters. So I thought it was an excellent time for me to go outside a bit with my little 7 year old brother and the camera and start shooting some photos - the results are shown in the following link:

Black & White snow photography.

Enjoy!...

8 signs to when and why you need to redesign your portfolio website.

Dor Dan — 3-December-2007

Portfolios are very essential in any business since they are the doors for new and potential clients. They determine your unique style and if you are the right person for the job. Its important to keep your portfolio site updated and built to its best. But what if you portfolio is old and useless?

Have you ever thought of redesigning you website someday but never actually knew when? Here are 8 tips that might help you understand why you might need to get a fresh redesign:

1. When your portfolio isn't actually a portfolio<...

Sleeping for creativity.

Dor Dan — 22-November-2007

It's almost 3 AM in the morning, and you are not tired. But what really is "tired"? Do you think being "tired" is just physically speaking? Do you think when you go to sleep you're doing your body a "favor"? Did you know that during the night, the human brain is very active and tends to think much more than during the day?

How many times have you being trying to find a solution for a problem during late nights, when doing the same in the morning after a good n...

Emails, IM programs, and phone calls: Advantages and disadvantages.

Dor Dan — 19-November-2007

Whats the best way to communicate with your clients? Is it IM programs, emails or simple phone call would do? Communicating with your clients is very important, thats why you have to make sure you are both comfortable with the way you are communicating, thats so you both understand each other well.

Emails

I bet you wont (or at least have difficulties) finding a person from age 12 to 50 that doesnt hav...

6 things (you might want) to avoid in web design!

Dor Dan — 16-November-2007

There wasnt, there isnt and there will not be a perfect website design, ever! On the hand, reaching an almost perfect website design is certainly possible. In order to reach a good design, you might want to avoid some obstacles on the way.

There are lots of things to avoid in web design, but I am going to go over 7 of them:

1. Pop up windows:
People tend to use pop ups for important information, why? Probably because of its sound and meaning. Why not? It POPS up your face!

Pop...

Poll: Most important elements in web design

Dor Dan — 9-November-2007

Here is a fast poll regarding what people (mostly web designers) think are the most important elements in the issue of web design. Please choose your 3 top ones and if possible explain (briefly) why you chose the ones you chose, why are they so important?

1. Thinking and testing different concepts ...

35 website footer designs, trends and styles.

Dor Dan — 18-October-2007

As you might already know, good web design - in most cases - should contain basic elements such as easily used (yet beautiful) navigation menus, attracting headers, well written content, and for last, footers. In this post I would like to talk more about the last element that is becoming a very fascinating issue these days - the kinds and styles of footers.

In a lot of sites, footers are no longer a single line copyright text and/or a simple secondary navigation; nowadays they are more complex than that. They count as a factor every web designer needs to pay attention to wh...

Retouching portrait photos - mainly eyes

Dor Dan — 28-September-2007

I have been using this effect lately for some of my portrait photos and thought of sharing one of the methods I use to improve those kinds of photos. I mainly want to focus on the eyes, but I'll go over some other extra quality touches as well. So let's start, uh?

1. First let's start by bringing up a portrait style photo into Photoshop. It can be obviously anyone, but try to get a photo that its main focus are the eyes. For this tutorial I will be using a photo of my little brother as an example. (If you wish to use this photo as well, please contact me and I'll send it t...

What does it mean to be a ?professional? web designer?

Dor Dan — 28-September-2007

I don?t usually go crazy on articles, but this one really got me amazed. Jeff bascialy shares his point of view on the situation of our design industry and what are the differences from begin a professional and a hacker. He makes his points well enough and persuading. This article is simply incredible and so true that every web designer should read. Additionaly, I contacted Jeff in order to give me the permission to translate his article into hebrew, so the Israeli web society would also be enjoying a good read ;)

Hello World!

Dor Dan — 27-September-2007

Hello World!
After lots of decisions and work, we finally decided to release the brand new Thuiven site to the net! Yes, yes, we know, we still have some more stuff here and there to get done, but hey, we are working on it, believe us. Let's just say it's Version one so far, so we still need to get to version 10, so just imagine how it will look then! (I was just kidding on this one)