My Linkworth experience and Why You Should Stay Away From It?
Many business owners choose the marketing portals to build better profit. Unfortunately, some websites are known for defrauding people just to rob them of their hard work, and such sites should be avoided so that the faith over the internet must be restored. I was once an advertiser of a well-known website called Linkworth where it connects advertisers and publishers through various types of link advertising. Be careful guys, Linkworth can destroy your effort by refusing to make payment. When I started partnering with Linkworth, I put trust in it and attracted quite a number of paid publishers. Sadly, Linkworth is here to fool the advertisers. They only care about collecting payment from the publishers and keep the full payment for themselves. Initially, Linkworth did fulfill the payment. After partnering for an extended period, they stop paying any amount. I tried to contact the company via their contact page but there wasn’t any response at all from them. See the request below: While searching throughout the web, I found out that even other advertisers were experiencing the same problem of non-payment. This article is served to warn all advertisers out there to stay away from this fraudulent company. If you are also one of the victims of Linkworth, I suggest you to report them to Scamwatch and BBB to raise awareness and prevent others from being the next...
Read More11 Dapper Web Designs from the Best in the Biz
Inspiration comes in many forms and fashions. For me, envy is often the trick. I see a great piece of writing and actually become offended that the ideas didn’t come straight from my mind. Such spiteful jealousy drives me to improve my craft. I read and write more and more every day, and in turn get more jealous of the excellent content being produced by the talented professionals that proliferate within my field. It’s a vicious cycle. Vicious, but productive. In an effort to share “my process” (which is a nice way of saying “mental illness”) with the world, I thought to write an article showcasing examples put forth by some of the most affluent web designers/design firms around. Even if you don’t get quite so green at a glance of something far beyond your talent level, as I do, you can still draw inspiration and motivation from any and all of the following. 1. Jason Santa Maria – A List Apart It seems fitting to start off the list with A List Apart, seeing as it’s a go to resource for web designers of every color and creed. Designer, Jason Santa Maria showcases his trademark use of blank spaces and prominent typography to present the day’s most relevant content for A List Apart’s designer audience. 2. Ablysoft – Xopso Well to do design firm, Ablysoft, really strikes an aesthetic chord with the Xopso website. With unifying musical imagery throughout, and trendy flat design highlighting interactive menus and graphics, Xopso is a visceral treat. 3. Hudson – Sky IT Group Hudson studios aims to impress with a high quality corporate website designed for Sky I.T. Group. Impressively sized drop down menus respond to your mouse hovering, bold contrasting colors warm the experience throughout, and a sticky bar assures easy navigation regardless of your location within the site. 4. Cuban Council – Epitaph Records Cuban Council is a big name in the industry with many A-list credits. Among these is Epitaph records which enlisted CC to design and develop its web presence, which prominently features artists under the label’s umbrella with a nifty media player prominent featured, and various important content pieces interspersed throughout an uncrowded grid layout. 5. Happy Cog – Annie E. Casey Foundation Happy Cog, the firm founded by the incomparable Jeffrey Zeldman, designed AECF.com with smooth, subtle animations which enhance the site’s content without overshadowing it. I particularly enjoyed the image slider on the homepage, which colors the featured image while fading the other images on the slider into greyscale. 6. Information Architects (IA), Supertext Information Architects is the brainchild of Oliver Reichenstein, an extremely affluent designer perhaps best known for his “Good Design is Invisible” philosophy. IA’s design for Supertext, an online copywriting firm, echoes that idea quite nicely. By economically utilizing bright colors among tons of white space and black lettering, the Supertext website’s design emphasizes what’s most important to those seeking high quality copy: text. 7. Imageworks Creative– Providea A full screen image is always fun, add 5 to a slider and the aesthetic value multiplies. A semi-transparent menu and logo sit unassumingly at the top of the page, while a triadic color scheme lures users into a state of comfort and increasing interest. 8. Meng To, HeyZap Freelance designer, Meng To, proves that you don’t have to work for a big firm to make big designs. HeyZap’s website is an artistic marvel. Using whitespace, a fixed navigation bar, flat design, embedded video, and high quality vector graphics to pepper the front-page with trendy appeal, HeyZap is a masterful work of design savvy....
Read More20 Best Selling WordPress Themes from ThemeForest
Have you been planning on creating your own WordPress theme? Well, then you probably may choose to install a pre-built WordPress theme to quickly setup your website. You can easily find plenty of premium themes available online, however, selecting the most suitable theme out of the sea of options can be a time-consuming and strenuous. But, you can save your time and find an appropriate theme easily, by searching for the best selling WordPress themes. It’s obvious that the theme that sells the most is well-liked by the users, and will certainly help you come up with a winning website. Below are 20 of the best selling WordPress themes that you must have a look at: 1. Avada Avada has been the top selling WordPress theme on Themeforest of all time with more than 150,000 purchases. The theme developers call it as the “Swiss Army Knife” of WP themes since it provides endless possibilities in creating a winning website design. It provides beautifully-crafted and professional looking demos that make it super easy for users to set up a complete WordPress design of any style – without having to code. 2. The X Theme The X Theme comes bundled with expanded demos that can be used to build a site of any particular niche. It helps in creating web pages with the help of WordPress popular “Cornerstone” page builder – that makes the process of creating website prototypes faster. The best part about this theme is that it enables to make edits to the theme style in real time. In addition, it helps in editing the content of the site on the fly. 3. Enfold It’s the most user-friendly theme that enables to build beautiful looking WordPress sites at a blazing fast speed – in just 2 minutes. Enfold features an awe-inspiring responsive and retina-ready layout that easily adjusts to fit the screen size of the visitor device and look great irrespective of the size of the device screen. The admin area of the theme is powerful yet simple to use. You can study about the theme features, by going through its comprehensive documentation and video tutorials. 4. uDesign This is an excellent theme that is ideal to be used by both experienced developers, as well as, non-technical users without any coding knowledge. The uDesign can help you build your website based on your preference with minimal time and efforts. The best aspect about this theme is that it is mobile-ready and can be accessed across all the devices, regardless of the screen size and resolution. 5. Salient Salient is the best selling WP theme in terms of aesthetics. It comes with unique designs that will help you showcase your brand in a distinctive manner, giving you an edge over your competitors. The theme is optimized for mobile devices and looks stunning on different screen sizes and resolutions. It’s retina-ready, contains a drag and drop page builder, is WooCommerce compatible and so on. 6. The7 Do you want to create a WordPress site based on iOS 7 or material inspired design? In that case, The7 theme is exactly what you want. It is the most advanced theme that features a responsive, fluid and retina-ready layout. The theme offers tons of customization options – that renders the ability to make any changes to the look and feel of the theme. 7. Karma The theme is trusted by over 26,000 users and is perfectly-suited for beginners. It features exceptional design that will help you stand out from the rest. Besides this, it provides automatic updates, unmatched customer support and unique shortcodes. Karma...
Read More5 Effective CSS Preprocessors to choose from for your next website project
With all the hype that has been created by the CSS preprocessors, it isn’t surprising to find web developers who are using them for speeding up their web development cycle. With the idea of preprocessing being around since a few years, there have been regular debates about the best CSS preprocessors that can be chosen for a specific type of web development venture. Continue reading this post as I’ll be offering you a helpful insight on the significance of CSS preprocessors and their five types which can cut down the additional time that’s consumed in writing lengthy CSS. So, let’s get on! What’s the need of using CSS preprocessors? While initially presumed to be an extra layer of complexity in the development cycle, CSS Preprocessor is just not that. The reality is that using a CSS preprocessor can actually turn fantastic for your website development project. For instance, if you want to apply a specific type of styling to multiple elements, you’ll be required to type in the same CSS for nearly half a dozen times. It is a CSS preprocessor that comes handy under such a situation. It not only eliminates the need for writing CSS repetitively but also allows you to define global styles using functions, followed by enabling you to re-use them throughout the CSS using a single line of code. Now, let’s get to know about six absolutely stunning CSS preprocessors for you to choose from Less.js Popularly known as Less, this is a CSS Preprocessor which extends CSS syntax via the use of variables, mixins, rule-set looping and nested style rules. Loaded with multiple techniques for making the CSS more maintainable, extendable and themable, Less is the CSS preprocessor which runs inside Node, within Rhino and in the browser. Moreover, there are multiple third-party tools which allow you to compile the files and keep a watch over any changes performed to the same. For example, by using LESS, the below CSS @base: #f938ab; .box-shadow(@style, @c) when (iscolor(@c)) { -webkit-box-shadow: @style @c; box-shadow: @style @c; } .box-shadow(@style, @alpha: 50%) when (isnumber(@alpha)) { .box-shadow(@style, rgba(0, 0, 0, @alpha)); } .box { color: saturate(@base, 5%); border-color: lighten(@base, 30%); div { .box-shadow(0 0 5px, 30%) } } will compile to this: .box { color: #fe33ac; border-color: #fdcdea; } .box div { -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); } CSS-Crush CSS-Crush comes loaded with all the features that a contemporary CSS preprocessor is expected to have. Some of the most important ones include: mathematical operations, auto-vendor prefixing, property inheritance via nested rule sets, variables and many more. One of the greatest assets of CSS-Crush which make it one of the most preferred CSS preprocessors is that it is being implemented in PHP- a popular scripting language that’s being used in recognized platforms like Magento, WordPress and Drupal. As compared to other preprocessors, CSS-Crush doesn’t expect you to configure Node.js or Rails for being able to avail its multiple features. Here’s an example of how you can define device widths using CSS-Crush syntax: @set { smartphones-width: 320px; tablets-width: 768px; laptops-width: 1680px; 4k-monitors-width: 3840px; } Sass Sass has been regarded as one of the most recommended CSS preprocessors which comes with two different syntaxes as mentioned below: Ø Sass– this is the original syntax Ø SCSS– this is a new syntax that’s similar to the native CSS You can define and use variables in Sass syntax in the following way: $serif-font-stack: “Georgia”, “Times New Roman”, serif $monospace-font-stack: “Cousin”, “Courier” body font: normal 18px/22px $serif-font-stack pre, code font: 600...
Read MoreDivi vs X Theme: Battle of taking over WP universe, which side you are?
Choosing a perfect theme for your WordPress website could be a tedious task, especially when you have unlimited options but not sure which one would be the perfect one for your website. From the pool of thousands of themes, theme frameworks, it is inevitable that you may go for a poor option if you haven’t done your research properly. We are in an era, where responsiveness of website is as mandatory as other performances like lesser load time, robustness and seamless support to different functions. To make all these available for you in a single package, most preferable options are either Divi Theme or X Theme. Both of them are power packed, function rich and extendible themes. It would certainly be wise decision to cross check their detailed features to compare them based on your requirements. Well, in this post, we will put forth some facts about the two WordPress themes: Divi and X Theme. Here we will try to get hold of most important sides of both of them. We will discuss their good sides and later compare them in one to one round to help you decide which way you should go. The X Theme X Theme is one of the popular WordPress themes, used to create an eye-catching Website. It comes with different responsive styles and includes a page builder for developing custom pages. This theme is way too popular among developers and DIY admins because of its flexible structure and abundant options. Since its release, X has introduced many attractive features, and that’s why it is gaining popularity on the market. Once the theme installation and activation is complete, you should get registered with its official website to avail other addition benefits like prebuild plugins/addons to extend the capabilities of your theme. I would recommend you to install the demo content because it will help you view what X Theme can do for you. It will give you an idea how your site will look after adding X Theme. In other words, the demo feature develops the WordPress theme customizer and allows you to perceive what can be accomplished by using X. Cornerstone: A Page Builder of WordPress Cornerstone is the WordPress Page building extension that is included with X. It allows you to customize things on the front end as it works in the front end. The page builder is used with blog posts and pages. This page builder offers 49 unique elements such as Google Maps, Audio, Video, Image Sliders, Post accordions, etc. You can add new rows/sections, and then take a decision on the column structure. You can drag and drop any element into the portion of your content. You can easily improvise the size and looks of column and rows. In fact, you can change the background colors and also define margins, borders and padding. The WP theme customizer X Theme enables you to change elements of your Website design by making the use of the WordPress Theme Customizer. However, there are not many design options as compared to WordPress themes, but still, it offers some exciting options. You can also modify elements such as page widths, blog, portfolio, typography, your header and footer, social media sharing and many more. Further, the WordPress theme customizer allows you to see any changes that you make in real time. X Theme Includes Four Amazing Designs X includes four different types of designs that are also known as “Stacks”. You can select any one of them in the WordPress theme customizer. Option for all stacks is represented beneath the stack selection box. Let’s overview...
Read More15 Essential UX and UI Tools and Resources Which Designers can’t afford to miss
UX and UI tools are great help for designers to speed up their work with easier designing solutions. The competition and high demand of innovative designing has made these tools essential which also has become the reason of the huge list of tools available in the domain. Finding UI and UX tools that fulfill all the requirements of the designers and come in their budget can be a difficult job. To reduce the hassles we have made a list of the tools that every designer would love to work with. 1. Proto.io Proti.io is one of the most popular and widely used UX and UI tools with prototyping and collaborative features. The tool provides all the basic features that any UX and UX tool should have, however, the thing brought it in the list is that it offers a much faster and easier prototyping with a great collaboration feature. Feature check list Prototypes and collaborating websites Testing tools Websites offering free templates Design blogs websites 2. Pidoco Pidoco is also one of the most popular UX and UI tools that offers all the essential feature a designer might seek, for example, prototyping, collaboration, wireframes, templates and testing etc. The highly attractive feature of this tool is its prototyping and its ability to simulate the look. And, in case you lose control of your position in the middle of the design approach, the tool offers a solution by positioning a design templates on global layers. Feature check list: Prototypes and collaborating websites Testing tools Websites offering free templates Design blogs websites 3. InVision InVision has all the core and essential features of a UI and UX tool and what makes it stand out of the list is the ease of use. The tool provides real time collaboration and a powerful prototyping. The tool has great collaboration feature as well as the task management, both features can be the USP of InVision. Feature check list: Prototypes and collaborating websites Testing tools Websites offering free templates Design blogs websites 4. Firefly Upload your design with any number of updates and the tool will track and store all the versions, or collaborate with your team in real time or keep the control of the configuration while working with the rapid prototyping, Firefly is a tool that fit in the expectation criteria of any designer. Feature check list: Prototypes and collaborating websites Testing tools N/A Websites offering free templates Design blogs websites 5. UserTesting User testing is a UI and UX testing tool that brings a whole new advanced testing method for your projects, either the website design or mobile apps. The tool also provides the videos and metrics to get the insights of the users using the products you have created and let you share the results within your team. Feature check list: Prototypes and collaborating websites Testing tools Online courses websites Design blogs websites 6. Notism Notism offers prototyping as well as the collaborative features. The UI and UX tool is more popular for its collaborative capability than any other features, however the feature that put it in the lime light is the real time video collaboration feature, to communicate your ideas and information to your team. It provides the ability to create interactive prototypes and share them with your team along with the notes or any information or sketches etc. Feature check list: Prototypes and collaborating websites Testing tools Websites offering templates Design blogs websites 7. Prott The tool provides a rapid prototyping feature for instantly shaping and sharing your ideas. Prott is mainly a rapid prototyping and collaborative tool...
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