A Tangled Web: Understanding the IRS's Stance on Website Design Costs

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Website design costs that aren’t costs of software are deductible in accordance with useful life. The time for deducting website design costs that are costs of portions of the design that aren’t software depends on the expected useful life of these non-software portions of the design. Thus, these costs must be amortized over the number of years that it is expected that the non-software portions of the design will be used in the business (except if it is expected that these non-software portions of the design will have a useful life of no more than a year, in which case the costs can be currently deducted).

Website content that is advertising is generally currently deductible; the treatment of other content costs will vary. Advertising costs are, generally, currently deductible. Thus, the costs of website content that is advertising are, generally, currently deductible.

Website content that isn’t advertising will be currently deductible, or amortized over a multi-tax year period, depending on its useful life.

The deductibility of some website costs that are business start-up costs is limited. Where website costs that would otherwise be currently deductible are paid or accrued before a business begins, the taxpayer can elect a current deduction for a limited amount (up to $5,000) of start–up expenditures in the tax year in which the trade or business begins.

However, this $5,000 amount is reduced (but not below zero) by the amount by which the cumulative cost of start-up expenditures exceeds $50,000. The remainder of the start-up expenditures can be claimed as a deduction ratably over a 15-year period.

The above principles, and others that affect the deductibility of website costs, suggest ways in which the individual or company launching the website can take charge of the treatment of website costs. For instance, an individual or company who contracts for a website design that qualifies as software, and who seeks the favorable tax treatment that applies to the costs of developed software, can, if acceptable as a business matter, include, in its written agreement with the developer/contractor, terms that will put the risk that the software won’t perform on the individual or company. Another example of a way to manage the tax treatment of website costs is detailed, descriptive allocations of costs, both in contracts and in internal records.

If you are considering launching a business website, we would like to discuss with you further—and help you implement—the above planning steps or others that will help you manage the tax treatment of your website costs.

45 free tools for designers

45 free tools for designers 

How To Prevent And Minimize Errors: Part III

As much as we might wish it weren’t so, we know errors are going to happen on our sites and in our applications. So far in this series of posts we’ve looked at the different types of errors that may occur along with some strategies for guiding users to take correct actions. This week we’ll finish up with a discussion of strategies designed to prevent errors and minimize the effects of errors when they do occur.


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Best Website Design Trends for 2011

Shuutervoice reports

Website design is the face of a website that tells the story about its body, previously it was done to stylize the site but with the advance of web technology, designing is a part of interface synchronizing the site with tabs and links. As the web technology is advancing with the invention and modification of languages, designing is getting a whole new role of improvising the website content with proper looks.

The changes are going to affect deigns in the coming future is the new languages and standards browsers going to adapt in the near future. Along with Apple, many of the web designers have deserted building animations in flash and instead they are using JavaScript which is far more stable and less buggy, another added advantage of JavaScript is the less size of application files unlike flash which takes time to load for slow connections. Designing in JavaScript has opened a whole new set of options which was not possible for any design in flash.

But as the time is moving ahead, programmers and designers are search for better productive solutions like CSS3 or HTML5 which has variety of rendering animation within the consolidated boundary of ethical designing but not limited to new definitions like advanced typography, in-built transitions and 360 degree virtual resolution. These new features are quite popular now in the beginning stage and have a bright chance to be adopted by the mass in the coming year of 2011.

Web 2.0 Design standards are popular now a day with glossy and shady outlook and may remain like that for some time until anything replaces that soon. Big texts with matching sets of color are fashionable for any website with proper navigation in the home page. Those days are gone when the introductory page of any site was made completely with flash and sometimes used to show loading resulting in keep the user waiting for a couple of minutes, speed and simplicity are one of the main criteria now and that is exactly why HTML5 standards are coming into main trend, its fast, stable and it can deliver in a wide versatile format.

Design with HTML5

Typical notebook type or column like designs are out of fashion and retro or magazine like design is going to take its place in the upcoming 2011. As the display are more being widescreen with LCD, TFT & LED monitors, single page designs are going to be popular where anyone can scroll their way to find anything interesting. Typography has always been popular with print style designs are will be developed more for its mat finished flair.

One of the changes that are going to be integrated into the designs of 2011 is that they are going to be less spacy, before time blank space was used to increase singularity of any topic but now a days space costs money so even the banners of the homepage are full of advertisements or related links designed perfectly so that does not look like the subject running out of space.

Browsers play a vital role in web which is racing to be faster and give more features to the customers within accustomed space, so designs are going to get lighter so that it takes only a fraction of second to load in any standard server, sloppy designs with huge animation or details are going to be totally out fashioned as they slow down the server while accessing. JavaScript came into action replacing Flash very recently but that also is completely refurbishing itself to meet the current standard of HTML5 which is a lot faster with added facilities over the Flash or JavaScript designing standard.

In 2011, web designing is going to go through a moderate style change of how designs were done before, designers used to made designs by HTML or CSS but as technology advanced, newer programs came with better facilities, that’s one of the reasons flash is outdated in professional designing and the use of strong color has been abandoned as its hurts the eye. Gimmick or huge animation has left its place and professional light designs with navigations are going to take its place in 2011.

We will be watching the change closely and will be updating in the future for further changes in the field of web designing.

10 Android Apps Every Web Designer Should Know About

With the dominance of Apple’s iPhone in the recent years, Google’s Android OS seems to have been left in its shadows. However, this is only because the iPhone was released long before any Android device. Nevertheless, as the popularity of Android grows (and its growth is staggering) so does its range of apps.
In this article are the top 10 Android apps for people who make websites, enabling them to be productive whilst on the go.

1. AndFTP (free)

Do you need access to your web servers on your Android mobile device? AndFTP is just the app for the job. Capable of uploading, viewing, and updating files from anywhere, it can be a lifesaver if you need to edit your (or your client’s) site without a desktop/laptop handy. It also supports multiple domains from FTP, SFTP and FTPS connections and has an excellent user interface for a first-generation Android app.

2. SilverEdit (free)

A simple source code editor app, SilverEdit lets you code up full HTML, CSS, PHP files that you can save to your phone or send to your email account. Combined with AndFTP (above), you can build and push websites with your Android handheld device! At the moment, it still suffers from functionality problems on certain Android devices, but is getting more stable with each version release (version 3 is currently in development).

3. Photoshop (free)

Adobe brings the ever-popular Photoshop to the Android platform. Unfortunately–but as to be expected–it has limited functionality compared to its desktop counterpart, but does include the essential basic image processing functions such as crop, rotate, filters, and image saturation adjustments. It also allows you to share your work on Photoshop.com.

4. View Web Source (free)

If you come upon a mobile site that you want to study whilst you’re browsing the Mobile Web, View Web Source allows you to inspect and download the entire source code of the page to its text editor. It gives you the ability to edit and manipulate the code, make comments, and save the file on your phone (or send to your email account).

5. Mobile GA (free)

The trusty old analytics favourite–Google Analytics–is now available on the Android platform. Google Analytics is the best free web service (hands down) for studying your website traffic statistics. Mobile GA (Google Analytics) uses the Google Analytics API for securely transmitting your site data without the need for third-party intermediate servers, maintaining the privacy and safety of your data.

6. Dropbox (free)

A popular app for web designers and other creatives, Dropbox–the ubiquitous cloud-based file backup tool–allows you to access a remote folder with documents you have stored on the server. Simply save files on one computer and you’ll be able to access the saved files from any computer or mobile device. The free Android app gives you mobile access to your Dropbox account. It’s a must-have tool for those who work with files and documents that need to be shared across multiple computers and devices.

7. WordPress Mobile (free)

If you maintain a WordPress site, WordPress for Android is an open source app that allows you to write new posts, edit content and manage comments, all through the lovely WordPress UI. It’s great for blogging on the go.

8. Thinking Space (free)

As a web designer, you can’t turn off your magnificent creative brainpower and you’re always brewing up creative ideas for site designs wherever you are. Thinking Space is an Android app designed for recording brainstorms and for mapping out your garbled thoughts so that when an idea hits, you’ll have a structured medium to convey them in. An excellent feature of this app is the ability to sync with Google App Engine; this means you can upload your data to the cloud and access them from anywhere via your Android mobile device or through FreeMind (the open source desktop version of the app).

9. Typography Junkies (free)

Every designer should have a good typography source of inspiration; web typography is an important part of design. With Typography Junkies for Android, you can keep up-to-date with the very latest in font news by way of videos, images, social media and much more.

10. HTML Test (free)

Need to review your HTML prowess? HTML Test is a great Android app to have if you’re just starting out in this whole web design game. The app will test your knowledge about HTML, giving you multiple-choice questions that you have to answer within a predefined time.
If you’re an iPhone owner, be sure to check out a similar list called 10 iPhone Apps Every Web Designer Should Know About.

Web Design: Reboot, or Just Upgrade Instead?

Onextrapixel muses on the redesign question, enhance or start again?

When to Upgrade

The trend of upgrading a website is based around the concept of taking the existing time, money and effort that exists from a previous web design and making fundamental core changes which remove existing issues and integrate new functionality whilst retaining the general layout and design. With these upgrades, the method of distributing and applying said fixes usually occurs on a more frequent basis and an emphasis is placed on gradual and consistent upgrades that won’t confuse the visitor.

10 free website chat widgets

sixrevisions.com has a great collection of chat tools free to use for your website.
The author Phong Thai Cao, covers these chat plugins:

Chatango
Meboo.me
JWChat
CBox
Mibew Web Messenger
Ajaxchat for WordPress
Ajax chat - Javascript version
phpFreeChat
iJab
Ajax IM

23 SEO Blogs

blog.hubspot.com reports on 23 Awesome SEO Blogs Everyone Should Read



Search engine marketing is constantly changing. Like social media and other aspects of online marketing, search engines are working to deliver better results for their users. To do this, they are focusing on new areas like localization and social search. As a marketer, it is important to keep up with all of this news, so here is our reading list of search engine optimization (SEO) blogs that will help make you a better marketer. 
1. SEOmoz Blog - SEOmoz has become the gold standard for SEO information and how-to articles. Its team of contributors offers an article per day to help expand your SEO knowledge.
2. Marketing Pilgrim - Andy Beal and his team of talented writers break search engine and internet marketing news and discuss major industry trends impacting marketers.3. Search Engine Land - This is one of the best search engine blogs for in-depth news and analysis of the search marketing industry.

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6482/23-Awesome-SEO-Blogs-Everyone-Should-Read.aspx#ixzz0y5UAfDzt

15 Portfolio websites to showcase your web design

via Dzineblog

Creating a portfolio website is a must for any designer. No one out there will know about you unless you market yourself as a brand. And this is precisely what a portfolio website does for you. You can easily design your own portfolio website if you are an artist. What really is more important is marketing your portfolio website.

We have listed below 15 websites that are ideal for you to showcase and brand your design portfolio. All these websites are popular among your prospective clients and your presence in one or more of these websites is surely going to give you a massive business mileage.

1. 50up.net

50up.net is perfect for new designers and students. It has an attractive layout that is devoid of any online advertisements and gives you ample space to showcase your work. It is one of the simplest websites to use and manoeuvre through and is completely free. There is no limit to the number of images and videos that you can upload on this website. 50up.net also refreshes its Fresh List every now and then so that they can highlight the best works.

2. CargoCollective.com

If you are creative then CargoCollective.com gives you a great opportunity to show your creativity to the world. This is another ad free website that is simple in design and is easy to use. This website offers you superbly designed portfolios and also gives your prospective clients a “Follow” feature through which they can track of all their favoured designs.

3. PimpArtworks.com

For those who love photography and street art, one of the best places to showcase their work is through PimpArtworks.com. You can use this website for free for your portfolio pages and you can even use the social networking feature available on this website. This website can also be used for selling your art work where you pay a base price for the production.

4. Coroflot.com

From all creative artists to all print designers, the one website that you simply cannot do without is Coroflot.com. This website is supposedly the biggest and oldest of all the websites in this domain. You can create your free portfolio and use the networking features to reach out to thousands of visitors to this website. Everything is free and you get unlimited uploads thrown in for good measure.

5. FigDig.com

When you need high definition resolution to really make your illustrations to stand out, the website you should look to use is FigDig.com. This website uses a 1224×792 HD resolution to make your work stand out. This website also allows visitors to download samples of your work in PDF format. And the amount of publicity that you get when you make to their Hall of Fame is simply unmatched.

6. DeviantArt.com

For those of you who are into 3D graphics and fantasy art, one of the best looking portfolio websites to use is Portfolios.deviantart.com. Here you also get your personal URL so that you don’t need to share space with others and this is an absolutely free service. You can also use their four free galleries that you can use for uploading as many as 18 images.

7. Vimeo.com

Vimeo.com is ideal for those that are into motion graphics. This website stands out due to the clarity and simplicity of its design and its original content. You can upload various file formats up to 500MB a week. You can also make use of the oEmbed and API tools that can be used both by novice and advanced users.

8. Flickr.com

Flickr.com came into the limelight when it was acquired by Yahoo. This website gives you all that you get from Yahoo. You can use the website for showcasing your graphic designs and photography, online image editing and tagging. This website is massively search engine optimized and helps you publicize your work using the huge social networking platform. The flickrSLiDR API also helps you embed your Flickr portfolio into your personal website.

9. Behance.net

Behance.net gives you a platform where you can collaborate with other designers of any art category. This site also has a very clean look and you can use its popular social networking platform. You also get ample support due to the website’s “members only” rules.

10. Society6.com

Another great website to showcase your illustrations is Society6.com. You can create simple to look but effective portfolios on this website for free. This website uses similar templates like the way Flickr uses and there are no advertisements to take the visitors’ attention away. You also become part of the website’s community where everyone takes pride in promoting others’ works.

11. NOTCOT.org

NOTCOT.org displays one image of yours and then provides visitors a link to your personal portfolio. This format is very useful for the visitors because when they show some interest in a particular image, they can quickly visit your profile page and get to know more about you.

12. Mojizu.com

For character designers like you, Mojizu.com helps you create your own personal profile. You can also create your Avatar and use it to combat other Avatars.

13. Carbonmade.com

Carbonmade.com gives you ease of use to set up your portfolio that the visitors can easily browse through. This website features more than 72,000 portfolios divided into 45 categories. This is ideal for those into photography and illustrations.

14. Flavors.me

Flavors.me is slick and is a platform for gathering information from Vimeo, Netflix, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter. You can make a great impression on your prospective clients using the various colour combinations, backgrounds and font styles.

15. Squarespace.com

Squarespace.com offers you more than 60 templates with navigation options and varieties of designs. You can also manage your work with ease and use the analytics report that is available 24 by 7.

Free UI kits, wifreframing, PDFs and resources

Smashing magazine lists a huge collection of resources in their article "Free Wireframing Kits, UI Design Kits, PDFs and Resources"

Heavy on content for smart phone app development, it offers amazingly generous resources from a variety of resources.

Academica free WordPress theme released

Smashing Magazine has written about the release of Academica free WordPress theme

Features


The theme was developed for WordPress 3.0 (compatible with 3.0.1)

Modern, three-column clean design

Setting up Academica Theme is easy and takes just a few seconds. The theme can be uploaded directly from the Dashboard > Appearance > Themes page. No need to edit any files — everything can be done from the Theme Options page.

5 built-in icons to share and link to your profiles on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube

The theme allows enabling/disabling of a jQuery-based content slider on the homepage for showing your photos

Academica Theme uses a jQuery-based drop-down menu with a fade-in effect

9 sidebars (widget areas) and 3 custom widgets developed for this theme

3 custom page templates and 2 custom post templates

Dynamic image resizing (TimThumb script)

Support for Custom Menus (WordPress 3.0+).

Choosing good fonts for web design

the Google Fonts API is a great free service which lets you use any of the fonts in their directory for free. All you have to do is add a header link to your HTML to import a style sheet, and then you can use the font. Only it costs, but they have a way bigger and better selection of fonts. You can sign up and use their service to legally and easily embed fonts on your site
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Precautions to be taken while Selecting an Internet Marketing Firm

[article directory submission - possibly for self-promotion]

Are you serious for promoting and marketing your online business? Have you decided to hire an internet marketing firm to do this job? Then you must be aware of certain facts to get your project done in right manner and proper direction to produce targeted results. These companies hire skilled and experienced professionals who can give valuable suggestions and techniques for maximizing your sales. However there are certain things related to internet marketing that should be avoided so that your online business does not get affected adversely.

Read story in full Precautions to be taken while Selecting an Internet Marketing Firm

How to: create portfolio layout with seamless textures

Graphstocks "Create a Sleek Textured Web Layout Portfolio in Photoshop"
Includes full instructions and downloads (56k, reasonable amount of graphics)

Google improves blog search

Improved Blog Search


With the proliferation of specialized blogs all across the web, you'll often find great content on blogs—whether you're planning a trip to Florida, looking to bring home a new golden retriever or learning how to make a delicious Italian dinner. Recently, our blog search team made it much easier to find full blogs about your query, rather than single posts on the topic. This is especially useful if you're looking for bloggers that post on an ongoing basis about the subject of your query. Try it with one of your search queries by clicking "Blogs," then "Homepages," in the left-hand panel of your search results.

A new home for Realtime Search
When we think about relevancy, often what you're looking for may have just happened. It's been more than nine months since we first announced our real-time search features, and this week we gave it a new home at www.google.com/realtime as well as some great new tools to you refine and understand your results. You can use geographic refinements to find updates and news that's happening right near you or in the area of your choice. We also added conversations view, so you can follow a discussion more easily by browsing a full timeline of tweets and seeing how the conversation evolved. And in Google Alerts, you can now create an alert specifically for "updates" to get an email the moment a topic of interest shows up on Twitter or other short-form services.


Realtime Search and updates in Google Alerts are available globally in 40 languages, and the geographic refinements and conversations views are available in English, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

Web design cost - perspective

Revo Software has a Standard web package $1585 offers you 6 pages, up to 15 images and up to 10 external links plus a 'Custom design to suit your business identity'