Awesome Links of the Week: 2009-02-28

Okay, so I know as a blogger I really shouldn’t sit here and apologise for not posting over the last month, but I must so here goes: Sorry. To tell you the truth, my schedule at Bergan Blue along with preparing to launch a few side ventures has been a little tough, however it’s time to pull my finger out and get things chugging along here once again!

Moving right along, I’ve decided to start a weekly roundup of links which I have appropriately titled Awesome Links of the Week. Afterall, I am and these links are quite awesome. So, without further adieu, welcome to the first Awesome Links of the Week for the week ending 28/02/2009.

Awesome Design:

• A fresh new icon stock site where you can purchase either a single icon or a collection
• 15 Beautiful Web Designs Empowered with AJAX Techniques
• 100 Killer WordPress resources for blog designers and developers alike!
• 30 Most Wanted WordPress Comments Page Hacks - How can you improve on these?
• Web Design Trends for 2009
• Whats Your Favourite Colour?
• 50 Awesome Blog Designs - Part 1 - There’s more?! Awesome!
• Will the Future of the Web Be More Like the Present? Lets hope not!
• Learn Illustrator CS3 in 30 Days - Is it possible to learn Illustrator in 30 days? Probably not!
• 15 Ridiculously Good Graphic Design Portfolios
• Design a Fresh Blog Theme on the 960 Grid - See Development links below for more info on the 960 Grid
• 10 Great Photography Blogs
• The Slow Lingering Death of IE6
• 21 Stimulating Color Palette Tools For Designers

Awesome Development:

• Diving into PHP - A video series (Currently up to Day 10 - Click here for more!)
• Six Signs of Adaptive PHP - Some good advice in here and definitely worth the read if you’re a developer.
• 10 Useful Tips for Ruby on Rails Developers - Sure, I’m not a Rails fan, but there are people out there who are!
• The 960 Grid System - The premise of the 960 Grid System is ideally suited to rapid prototyping, but it would work equally well when integrated into a production environment.
• Semantics in HTML 5 - Although this could be placed under design, I figured developers would probably be a little more interested at this time!
• Code samples and code snippets for new php programmers
• 7 Interface Design Techniques to Simplify and De-clutter Your Interfaces
• Controlling Proxy Access with HTAccess - Interested in knowing how to Block Proxy Access using HTAccess? Click here
• 5 CSS3 Techniques For Major Browsers using the Power of jQuery
• jQuery’s DataTables zero configuration example
• 80 Excellent and Useful AJAX Solutions

And the Other Stuff:

• Bears, Beets and Battlestar Galactica T-Shirt - Awesome. Too awesome. For fans of The Office (US) and more importantly Dwight K Schrut, you’ll sure love this shirt.
• Wondering why your important tasks aren’t getting done? You probably aren’t managing your to-do’s all too well. Remember the Milk can help!
• 15 Tools for monitoring a website’s popularity
• 10 Excellent Open Source and Free Alternatives to Photoshop
• 5 Ways to Promote Yourself as a Freelancer
• Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don’ts of Sharing
• 7 Habits of Highly Innovative People
• 10 seeeeeriously cool workplaces

My #followfriday Twitter Recommendations:

• @marnieb - MarnieB is an Australian based graphic designer and business owner worth checking out! She’s also my wife!
• @db - Damien Basile is always up to exciting things and has a lot to post about.
• @damnpenguins - Web Dev. Consultant. Mad keen Rugby fan. Husband & Dad of 2 wonderful girls. Rails / Merb coder, Expression Engine dev. Front end code Ninja. Mac Geek
• @JohannaBD - Australian-based Writer and PR consultant
• @swhitley - Just a man, with a man’s courage. Into programming computer apps for HR and PR/Marketing types. Microblog Addict.
• @druey - Mr Twitter 2009, 24, Gay, Podcaster, Web App Designer, MCSA trained, EVE Player, Born/Bred Newcastle AU, Practically Married but looking for friends, 160 yet?!
• @steelkey - Australian-based Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Artist, Illustrator, Painter, WAHM
• @dictates - Tech at IBM Australia~Director of Dictate Australia Pty Ltd supplier of Olympus digital voice recorders
• @sarahjbray - Web designer slash writer. MaTweeps.com is my latest project. Go tweeps!
• @theleggett - 20 Year Old Blogger / Designer. Founder of Tutorial9.net. Co-Founder of UXBooth.com
• @wbaustin - Bill Austin Ramblings and News from Phoenix Arizona. SEO SEM Internet Marketing Social Media Advertising Public Relations Strategy Search Engine Optimization.
• @adellecharles - Principal, Creative Director at the Fuel Brand Group (fuelbrandgroup.com & fuelbrandnetwork.com) Designer & Editor of Fuel Your Creativity
• @transcribe - Director of Australian based outsource transcription business with clients located across Australia, USA and the UK. Married to @dictates
• @behoff - Graphic Artist, Blogger, Visual Communicator, Professional Mouse Clicker
• @ambermacarthur - Tech journalist. Web strategist. Professional speaker. Mom.
• @myinkblog - Designer, blogger, twitter’er, wordpress’er, silverstripe advocate & soon to be father!
• @dani - Web designer/front-end web developer who hugs trees, loves animals, and is totally addicted to social media.
• @andysowards - Professional Web Developer, Programmer (primarily PHP, Javascript and Actionscript), Family man, and All around advocate of all things Tech
• @nicholaspatten - Video editor - Graphic/Web designer
• @problogdesign - Web designer, specialising in blog design

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About Jon Bergan:

Jon is a passionate web and graphic designer and web developer from the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia. He is also the owner and founder of a small creative design firm named Bergan Blue.

For more information on Jon, please see the About page on this blog. You can also follow @jonbergan on Twitter to keep tabs on him or subscribe to his blog via RSS or email.