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January 14 2010 SpriteMe Makes Life So Much Easier
Every once in awhile you come across a web development tool that you can't believe you were living without. Think Firebug or CSSEdit, tools that work great and make building websites so much easier. Today I found the perfect tool for combining background images into CSS sprites. SpriteMe is awesome.
Background images have always been a quintessential aspect of website design. The problem is that each background image used on the page is an extra HTTP request, even if the images are just tiny rounded corners. Minimizing HTTP requests is Rule #1 when it comes to speeding up your website. Combining background images into a CSS sprite is the preferred method for reducing the number of image requests but creating sprites has traditionally been hard and usually requires lots of trial and error.
SpriteMe is awesome because it does all of the hard parts automatically. Specifically, SpriteMe will:
1. Identify all of the background images on the current page
2. Automatically group the images into a suggested sprite
3. Generate the sprite
4. Recompute CSS background-positions
5. Inject the sprite into the current page so you can make sure its pretty!
Once SpriteMe has done its magic, its up to the developer to save the sprite image and integrate the CSS changes back into code. The effort has basically been reduced to cutting and pasting. I love it! Finally free to reap the benefits of sprites without having to obsess about them along the way. Try it yourself, follow along with the SpriteMe demo. -
January 08 2010 Million Dollar Dream Links
Strategic link acquisition is a vital aspect of Search Engine Optimization. To rank in the top echelon of search results, you must garner links from the highest ranked and most trusted websites in the world. It is no secret, links from some websites count much more than links from others. Here is my list of million dollar dream links (worth it, if you can get them).
1. Wikipedia
A Wikipedia article with a link to your site can be a huge boost to your overall popularity. The reward for taking the time and effort to come up with an angle to make the story stick will be worth it.
2. Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla.org has millions of backlinks resulting from browser download links, its affiliate program and overall good will. You can build a Firefox Add-on and submit it here.
3. Photoshop
Building a Photoshop plug-in will generate a link from adobe.com, which is very well linked domain. Don't forget, Adobe has millions of backlinks from flash and PDF plug-in download links.
4. iPhone Web Apps
Probably the only way you'll be able to get a link from Apple is to build a quality web app. Don't bother submitting something shoddy, only the best web apps are listed on Apple.com.
5. Yahoo Directory
Directory submission costs $299 per year for commercial websites. The is one quality link that you are, in fact, allowed to buy without penalty.
6. Open Directory Project
Submission is completely free but there is a major catch: you have to be patient. DMOZ is run by volunteers and its almost guaranteed that your site will not get listed for months, maybe years. You will need to contact them every 2-3 months until it gets listed.
Lou Mintzer
I'm Lou Mintzer, a web entrepreneur, programmer, designer and product builder. My blog is about website design and Internet technology.
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