Comments on: Six Useful Tips for Web Designers and Developers

By: Goyal

Goyal — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:51:20 +0000

what is the benefit of aliasing table name as books b. does it speed up querying process? what exactly are its benefits?

By: Web Host Right

Web Host Right — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:31:09 +0000

Thanks, i especially took note of the alt tip.

By: Vinayak

Vinayak — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:41:12 +0000

Nice article …. although I have to use some hacks for the application to work on IE ( IE 6 especially) and hence it becomes difficult to validate . I mean its ok if your client is fine if the thing doesnt work in IE 6 but majority of the people who surf the web tend to use IE so I think web developers should take that into account while making web apps .

By: Aneslin

Aneslin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:51:24 +0000

thansk a lot bro
very usefull for me.

By: James Fenton

James Fenton — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:03:51 +0000

I think if the image adds something to the content then alt text should be used to interpret that image for those who cannot see it, however if it simply for decoration or the like, then to leave blank alt="" is fine. A screen reader will simply ignore it and continue to read the document without interruption.

Really you should never need to leave the alt blank, because if the image is purely part of the design it could be added using CSS.

Hope this make this point a little clearer

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:32:07 +0000

YES mate, definitely alt tags should be used for Google bots…they are highly important in SEO point of view as Google and other search engine bots seem to be blind in case of images!

By: emain26

emain26 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:51:02 +0000

Nice thread and good read! Thanks for sharing!

By: Jim Fenton

Jim Fenton — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:45:57 +0000

I would tend to put needs of real user's far above those of google bots. Certainly if you want an image to be found by bots then use the alt attribute, though the way you word the alt text should be carefully considered.

By: Charlie Pitt

Charlie Pitt — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:49:08 +0000

YES mate, definitely alt tags should be used for Google bots…they are highly important in SEO point of view as Google and other search engine bots seem to be blind in case of images!

By: Yannick

Yannick — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:50:45 +0000

Image headers in table based HTML Emails:
I use table img {display:block;} to fix the issue that is often generated on Hotmail or internet explorer. the other solution is to compress the white space in table cell containing only images.
Normally it does the trick but often one has to resort to a combination of them to satisfy the wide range of email client.

By: Dinu

Dinu — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:59:01 +0000

Agree with Keith. It's a useful post, but not of the calibre I would expect of ThinkVitamin.

By: Jim Fenton

Jim Fenton — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:55:02 +0000

My apologies for referring to the 'alt' attribute as an 'alt tag' – I hang my head in shame

By: Wolf Boy

Wolf Boy — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:22:06 +0000

shouldn't you be using the alt tag for the benefits of google bots?

By: Diety

Diety — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:57:37 +0000

I can't imagine being blind and using the internet the way I do now. I mean sure it's possible but I'd be missing out on 90% of the content.

By: Troy Peterson

Troy Peterson — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:16:12 +0000

I agree as well… shortening a SQL statement does nothing but confuse other developers or yourself if it's a large application.

By: LeapGo

LeapGo — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:13:12 +0000

Chalk me up for being a fan of YSlow. It definitely takes a lot of guesswork out of speeding up load times.

By: keith

keith — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:50:53 +0000

What a random and painfully basic group if "tips"..

I expect better from you guys

By: FettesPS

FettesPS — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:23:34 +0000

I agree with Rob, shorter is not better. If I just quickly scan over your second example I dont know what field comes from which table unless I manually cross reference it with the FROM statement. Makes it less readible as far as I'm concerned.

For me the imporant part of writing readible SQL is making sure field names are lower case and the SQL itself is capitalized. I also make sure each statement gets its own line. Nothing worse than a 500 character long SQL statement that's crammed into one line and is all lower case.

By: Dave Smith

Dave Smith — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:37:45 +0000

I would suggest that in the case of Email HTML newsletters the best technique is the v-align method.

This is because display: block is not supported by Outlook 2007 (major headache!).

Ref: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/

By: Dave Smith

Dave Smith — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:37:00 +0000

I would suggest that in the case of Email HTML newsletters the best technique is the v-align method.

This is because display: block is not supported by Outlook 2007 (major headache!).

Ref: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/

By: Dave Smith

Dave Smith — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:31:33 +0000

@Pete Roome I have found that using display: block on img tags also fixes the v-align issue.

By: Enrique Ramírez

Enrique Ramírez — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:21:28 +0000

"Image headers in table based HTML Emails"

Vertical align is one way. I simply use and it's solved too.

Email newsletters are a bitch.

By: Enrique Ramírez

Enrique Ramírez — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:21:00 +0000

"Image headers in table based HTML Emails"

Vertical align is one way. I simply use and it's solved too.

Email newsletters are a bitch.

By: Six Useful Tips for Web Designers and Developers | Think Vitamin

Six Useful Tips for Web Designers and Developers | Think Vitamin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:14:25 +0000

[...] here to see the original: Six Useful Tips for Web Designers and Developers | Think Vitamin Share and [...]

By: Six Useful Tips for Web Designers and Developers | Think Vitamin

Six Useful Tips for Web Designers and Developers | Think Vitamin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:44:20 +0000

[...] post: Six Useful Tips for Web Designers and Developers | Think Vitamin Share and [...]

By: Ben Darlow

Ben Darlow — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:42:32 +0000

Care to explain what an “alt tag” is?

By: Suzie

Suzie — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:23:32 +0000

I can vouch for "YSlow (developer.yahoo.com/yslow/) req. FireBug"

I have used this on my website, and it does wonders. It lists 20 details, and shows each of how slow and why, plus how to speed it up (too many images, caching not working properly, too many queries or queries can be slimmed down, etc.).

By: The Best Web Design Links Of The Day 10/06/09 | D-Lists

The Best Web Design Links Of The Day 10/06/09 | D-Lists — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:55:29 +0000

[...] Six Useful Tips for Web Designers and Developers via Think Vitamin [...]

By: Richard Conyard

Richard Conyard — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:52:21 +0000

Greg, but for many people it covers the areas that they will be asked to cover in a single day… thus is the definition of a web designer / developer!

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:29:52 +0000

What an odd collection of things!

Basic SQL syntax, HTML accessibility, a simple Photoshop effect, browser plugins and jQuery? If you've any experience with any of these technologies, 'your' tips should hardly qualify as news.

At least over on Smashing Magazine, one finds "X Y's of a homogeneous Z", and X >> 6.

Sorry, weak. Not as good as the usual fare.