It seems the topic is very common among .NET professionals yet there are many convoluted ways to achieve it. Say you want to redirect all web traffic from NON-WWW to WWW or WWW to NON-WWW in IIS, or create search engine friendly URLs… It took me almost 3 months (off and on) trying to accomplish the task of EASILY performing 301 redirects on an IIS web server. 
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Sitefinity Admin Screenshot
This series was created to appeal to Web Designers who use or are considering using Sitefinity or seeking a good ASP.NET content management solution. There are some resourceful websites out there but none really focused at us Designers. That’s not to say I won’t offer Developer friendly tidbits here… just expressing the trials and successes I achieved and sharing knowledge from a Designers’ perspective.
WordPress.org Themes Gives Theme Designers Middle Finger
Be cautioned if you want to share that free WordPress theme you’ve worked so hard on and want to upload it to the WordPress.org Theme Directory because they don’t like Theme Designers. I say this because I want to share with other designers the email string I had with the moderator in my latest attempt to share WordTapp, a free WordPress theme by AndroidTapp.com.
My apologies to visitors and readers of my Web Design blog. I’ve cut down from 2-3 posts per week to 2-3 per month… if that.
I’m better managing my time and writing topics to hopefully crank out more frequently and completed series. Much time has been devoted to www.AndroidTapp.com, which is turning into a huge success (I’ll report more about that later).
I’m refocusing my topics here into series about the following:
Learning Web Design, A Guide for Beginners. Which will be a series from concept to completion how to design a professional website based on my own guidelines discussed in this series.
ASP.NET for Designers. Discussing techniques and tutorials on learning ASP.NET for Web Designers.
Sitefinity Design. A Content Management System (CMS) created by Telerik using their .NET controls. It is great for custom development, yet designer-friendly and even better for non-tech content editors. I wil explorer designing and developing on this platform as the resources are NOT plentiful than that of WordPress.
Produce more Free Themes & Templates. Everybody loves free stuff right?!?! I have a few free Themes & Templates out there that need updating, plus I will crank out more beautifully designed themes and support those as well.
The newly launched social network website AndroidTapp.com is giving away a new free T-Mobile G1 cell phone, the winner will be chosen at random. Utilizing various “Web 2.0″ methods to gain community participation in the promotion. Promotion starts Monday 11:59pm CST December 22, 2008 and ends Monday 11:59pm CST January 19, 2009. Participants can submit several entries by:
Part 2 of the “concept-to-completion” series focuses on the Design of a Professional website. In the previous article, Anatomy of Professional Website Design – Part 1, we discussed the Creative Direction, Sitemap & Sketches. The following series will focus on the Development and the Flash Animated Introduction.
Design – now we can crack open Photoshop!
Now that we’ve taken time and analyzed the scope of project, we have our creative direction, Sitemap, and sketches we can now crack open Photoshop. (See the before and after in the captions below)
(Right: Here is a screenshot of the original Photoshop design layout, notice the owners portfolio shot, it was changed towards launch as her clothing color scheme did not compliment the web page design. Left: Plan D Website Sketches gave me an opportunity to establish page structure, draft the homepage splash, interior pages, and other notes.)
I have not been able to post on my Web Design blog in a while because I’ve been crazy busy multi-tasking the launch of 4 new websites. One in particular just launched today called Android Tapp. Android Tapp is a social network website created to fill the void of many people wanting to see the Android App Market created by Google without having an Android powered phone like the T-Mobile G1. The Android Market is comparable to Apple’s App Store for the iPhone. With the Android Market having over 400 Apps (at the time of this post), users need clear help fishing through which are worth downloading. With that idea sparked many more:
- You can easily Rate Android Apps
- Read our concise Reviews about Apps
- Post your own Comments or Reviews
- Interact with rock-star mobile App developers, as they are interviewed
- Get Freebies like wallpapers, contest giveaways, etc.
- And hot-off-the-press News about the Android Market
The first interview on AntonioWells.com will start off with a colleague and good friend of mine Falaah Shabazz. Falaah is a Photographer, Graphic Designer and Marketer of Falaah Shabazz Photography. Specializing in commercial, fashion and concept photography and one hell of a graphic designer and marketing guru.
AW: Tell us a little bit about yourself?
FS:Well I was the, Son of a Share Cropper and… No, seriously, I am just a regular guy. I am a divorcee with three beautiful children and very single. Unlike a lot of individuals, I have a career that I enjoy and love. Photography allows me to be creative and provides me that much needed outlet to keep from going crazy. Being my own boss and having the ability to control all areas of business is also a plus.. I’m just big kid too, I love Nitro (gas) powered RC cars & trucks, all types of electronic gadgets and this new organic BBQ popcorn I’m eating! Ummmmm umm!
AW: Why did you want to become a photographer?
FS: In addition to being a photographer, I am a Graphic Designer. I was working on a project for a local band. The previous photographer was not available and I suggested that I shoot their photographs, for a small fee. I picked up the camera and off to the alley we went and amazingly, that is when my love affair with photography began.
Fresh is a clean and minimalistic 3 Column BlogEngine.Net Theme suitable for resource blogs or even a company website. Built for BlogEngine.Net Version 1.4.5+ and Widget Ready.
This theme originated from a WordPress theme converted into BlogEngine.Net (an open source .NET blogging project) and I will give it away to the BlogEngine.Net blogger community. I will give away the Theme files, source PhotoShop file, and offer support for the theme. (Showin’ luv to my .Net peeps 
)
Features:
- 3 Columns: Left Content, Left Sidebar, Right Sidebar
- Wigdet Ready Right Sidebar
- Clean Web 2.0 minimalistic color scheme
- Ads can be placed in the Sidebars
- Photoshop PSD file included (with some custom icons).
Download It. Get It. Use It!Downloaded 725 times
If you have downloaded Fresh or are using it, leave your website address in the comments…
This article will concentrate on the full Website Design life-cycle, from ”concept-to-completion”, of a Professional website I recently completed for NAMYnot Multimedia. The goal is to give other aspiring web designers the inside tips, tricks and processes they’ve been yearning for. This will be a 3 part series:
- Creative Direction, Sitemap & Sketches
- Design & Development
- Flash Animated Introduction
Project Synopsis: The anatomy I’ll be breaking down is the Plan D Real Estate website redesign. Plan D Real Estate offers professional services in Residential Sales and Buyers Representation, Residential and Commercial Interior Design Consultation, and Home Staging incorporating Green sustainable friendly materials in the Chicago Metro area. The client did not want a typical realtor website, instead desired a website that showcased the aesthetics of interior design and home staging, as well as a marketing vehicle for the real estate industry.
The scope requested a Flash animated introduction, photo gallery, blog engine, emailing list manager, and the client wanted the ability to manage the content themselves. This instinctively suggested to run the website on a Content Management System. CMS Made Simple, an open source PHP CMS software, was the CMS of choice as it offered all the capability needed natively, and the few features that were not included can be easily downloaded with 3rd party plug-ins. More about the CMS will be covered in Part 2: Design & Development.
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