Web Worker Daily

A flowchart can be crucial for explaining certain tasks or ideas. SlickPlan’s goal is to make sure that you can put together a flowchart quickly, no matter where you are. The web-based application also enables you to put together site maps and interact with your existing designs. It was created with web designers in mind, but anyone can quickly learn to use SlickPlan’s flowcharts. Read the rest of this entry »

When you’re trying to pull together all of the elements for a website, having a tool that can help you to build a mockup or wireframe in a matter of minutes can make a world of difference. Mockingbird is such a tool: You can drag and drop user interface elements onto a page, rearranging and resizing as you go. You can even link together the various pages within your mockup so that anyone you share it with can immediately see how a user might navigate through the site. Read the rest of this entry »

37signals’ Haystack promises to make finding a web designer easy, offering a simplified way to search for clients looking to hire a professional. While it’s a useful tool for someone with a web design project, it can also prove useful for web designers. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a tip for anyone who wants to get any web working done while you’re traveling and/or in transit for any reason. If you’re going to be in areas of questionable network access, you’d better have the ability to get work done offline at your disposal, and you should also be ready to dig in for extended periods of time without a connection.

For some tasks, you absolutely need network access, but for others, a rich and varied stock of offline-accessible information and research resources should provide plenty of fodder for getting things done. Your iPhone or iPod touch can be a great supplemental resource for exactly this kind of thing. Here’s how to turn your device into an offline road warrior. Read the rest of this entry »

You wouldn’t be reading this post if it weren’t for web designers. It’s web designers who help make it possible for us to have the best and easiest web experience possible. Web design is a large and growing field; despite the downturn, Dice.com currently lists nearly 1,000 vacancies for web designers. Demand for skilled web designers is only likely to increase in the future.

Could becoming a web designer be a good career move for you? Read the rest of this entry »

Who doesn’t like to get something good for free? The open source community offers all kinds of resources that go beyond free applications, including free books on mastering the top open-source applications.

In this post, I’ll cover an excellent book about Blender, available for free online. Blender is a robust 3D graphics and animation application that can help you create eye-popping graphics for web sites, blogs and documents.

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Yesterday saw the launch of $2000 Website, an intriguing design shop in the Bay Area that describes itself as a “self-service” design agency, offering to design, code and publish a custom website within a two-week period.

Users begin by completing a short online questionnaire to help tease out their requirements. The dialog is largely focused on the strategy and goals of the client, rather than technical requirements: questions range from site’s goals, to the company’s “personality”, required calls-to-action, and some simple audience demographics, along with your aesthetic influences. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook is a great tool for web working. It makes networking simple, offers loads of opportunities for promotion, and it boasts a massive user base. Still, it’s not designed to foreground your work, and sometimes it can be a little difficult to draw attention to the things you want people to take notice of using only your basic profile options and Facebook’s native Page and Group tools.

My Web Portfolio is a Facebook application that’s designed to help web designers at least strut their stuff on the popular social network. Just as the name implies, it allows you to build and share a portfolio of your web sites and share them with other Facebook users.

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