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Friday Focus #26

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In the midst of Reader Appreciation Week comes Friday Focus #26. This is a much smaller Friday Focus compared to next week’s, because next week we will showcase all of the submitted designs from the Refresh contest as well as the usual weekly three. So without further a due, here we go.

Sites of the Week

RocketSurgeon is a great looking, simple one page portfolio. They have done a lot of nice work, definitely worth a look.

RocketSurgeon

Next up is Dara’s Garden. I was wholly impressed with this site, and I think it looks absolutely superb. An excellent job was done mixing flash and rollovers with a simple layout, and it all leads to a very impressing result.

Dara’s Garden

And rounding out this weeks top three is the Habitat for Humanity youth site. A fun and colorful site, with a good purpose behind it. Also features some minor use of Flash.

Habitat For Humanity

Digg Weekly

Design: 7 Things You Don’t See in Websites Today
A list of 7 things you don’t see in websites these days, with a few added extras based on user comments. And I agree with some of these things listed here, I’m glad we don’t see them anymore!

Programming: 10 Tips for Optimizing MySQL Queries (That Don’t Suck)
Ten ways you can speed up your MySQL Queries to help ease the load on your server and the wait time for visitors.

Submission Deadline Reminder

Just a reminder for all of our Refresh contest participants, the submission deadline is Monday, April 16, 2007. That does not mean you have to wait until then to submit if you have already finished. Please make sure your submission is in PSD, ZIP, PNG, JPG, or GIF format, and remember to keep a PSD handy (unless you went straight to code and didn’t use a psd, as is sometimes the case). A question that has come up is, can I use the work as part of my portfolio? Of course you can! Whether you win or not, we want you to showcase your hard work! And as stated about, all submissions will be showcased in next week’s Friday Focus as well.

Another Color Picker

Some of you may remember our review on Colourlovers. I recently stumbled upon another color picker that can be downloaded or used online. It shows schemes and different variations of colors based on whatever original color you pick. It’s called Genopal, so give it a look if you’re struggling with selecting colors for your next project.

R.A.W. – Day 1 Featured Site

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The first Reader Appreciation Week featured site is Kokopelli, a personal weblog. Coming in at comment number 324, KP features a seemingly two column layout (split between black and white), with each side pulling it’s own different posts. It’s powered by, what else – WordPress, my favorite blogging / cms system around.

Kokopelli

Be sure to check back tomorrow when we’ll feature someone else!

Reader Appreciation

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Yes, Reader Appreciation Week officially kicked off yesterday. While I was thinking about what I could do to honor all of you, I finally had an idea late last night. Since this is a web design and development resource, I decided throughout the rest of the week (and Saturday, since I missed a day yesterday), we will be showcasing a random member’s site each day? How exactly? If you’ve ever commented here, you’re already in the mix. I’ll be generating random numbers based on the total number of comments, and matching the selected number each day with that number commenter. So long as that commenter used an actual link and their site is online, it will be showcased. So if you want the chance to get featured and steal a bunch of our traffic, please comment (something useful!) on one or more of our fantastic articles.

I’ll be doing other things here and there this week to honor you, the reader, so stay tuned!

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