WORD - 23 Websites with Full-Screen Photo Backgrounds

Always push boundaries when developing content for the web.  Create websites with unique backgrounds that complement the site (and not distract the audience from the content its presenting).  One effective style developers like using  includes full-screen photo backgrounds.  Check out this link to 23 Websites with Full-Screen Photo Backgrounds.  Take the time to seek great designs to gain better insight of what techniques work well.  If you’re not sure how sites like this are created, “right-click” the web page and “view source” to see the code that makes it all happen.

WORD - Adobe Muse

Have you heard of Adobe Muse?  Muse is currently still in its beta stage, but you can download it for free to play around with and learn about how websites can be constructed with minimal use of code.  Muse uses design features similar to those in InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop.  It’s meant to be an easy way to layout webpages and add content meant to be displayed on browsers.  I personally think that you should still spend time learning HTML and CSS code (because you’ll have more freedom in what you can create), but Muse offers non coders an easy and visual way to create sites for the web.  Check out this article called, Under the Hood:  Three Websites Built with Muse.

WORD - Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Programming

ActionScript 3.0 is an object-oriented programming language, but do you really know what that means?  There are many other programming languages that are object-oriented.  If you familiarize yourself with what object-oriented programming languages are, then you’ll easily be able to understand other OOP languages like JavaScript as well.  Check out the great resources that Michelle Yaiser (Sr. Content & Community Lead at Adobe) provides for explaining the fundamentals of object-oriented programming.

WORD - Using CSS3 for Mobile Web Design

With smartphones like the Iphone and Android devices so popular now, you’ll definitely want your websites to be presented well when viewed on a mobile device.  CSS3 offers media queries that can help you quickly adjust your designs for mobile.  Check out this article called, Use CSS3 Media Queries To Create Mobile Version of Website.

WORD - 45 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

Want to catch up on the latest Digital Media buzz?  Check out 45 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed!  This is a link to a bunch of trending articles from Mashable.com.  There’s plenty of useful information to read on that site while you’re enjoying your holiday break.

WORD - HTML5 Cheat Sheets

There are so many new features with HTML5 coming out, that it’s tough to keep track of them all.  Check out this link to a bunch of random HTML5 Cheat Sheets that you can reference when building a HTML5 website.

WORD - Creative Google+ Business Pages

Have you jumped on the bandwagon and created a Google+ account yet?  The business pages are a completely new feature on Google+.  The sooner you start experimenting with them, the soon you’ll know how to make Google+ business pages work for your company.  Check out how a few companies are already getting creative with Google+ Business pages.

WORD - Affiliate Marketing

Have you ever heard of affiliate marketing? Did you know that you can make money on the web by helping sell products that you never have to own, stock, or ship? Read up on how affiliate marketing can help you generate some cash! You’ll definitely need to have a website with all sorts of traffic coming to it for you to make some money, but why not try it out? Check out the following two links to learn more about this lucrative opportunity:


http://www.affiliatetips.com/
http://www.cj.com/

WORD - Fancy Drop Down CSS3 Menus

Have you been learning web design and CSS lately?  Do you constantly go online to see what’s new and what’s changed with the coding languages?  If not, you should!  Web languages are always evolving.  Do your best to keep up with the rapid changes of the web.  Check out this cool link to fancy drop down CSS3 menus.  There are many awesome resources out on the web that can help you learn and stay ahead of the curve.

WORD - Survey Your Audience

How often do you survey your target audience when working on a project? You should always keep your audience in mind when working on anything that’s for a specific market. Use tools like Survey Monkey or Poll Daddy to help you get some valuable data that can help drive the effectiveness of your projects/designs.


Check out this poll: http://mikerosik.polldaddy.com/s/w-o-r-d-survey

WORD - Flash Preloader Museum

When working on a Flash project, you should always consider adding preloaders to your files so that your project’s content will load completely before your audience starts clicking around through your creation.  People often add a visual progress bar with a percentage before displaying the entire project.  Try to go above and beyond and create a preloader that has more of an aesthetic appeal that works with your project’s overall theme.  Check out http://prettyloaded.com!  It’s a website that serves as a preloader museum curated by Big Spaceship (Ad Agency).  It will give you lots of inspirational ideas for creating custom preloaders.

WORD - Social Media Saftey Infographic

Social media has grown exponentially over the past few years.  Many people are jumping on the bandwagon while not realizing the security risk that they’re facing when they publicly post information.  Make sure that you don’t publicly post information that can be harmful to yourselves.  Check out this infographic, Does Social Media Use Compromise the Security of Your Home?

WORD - What I Learned From Four Days With the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs

Do you consider yourself an entrepreneur?  Intensity plays a huge role, but many say that kindness and empathy are fundamental to entrepreneurship.  Check out this great article titled, What I Learned From Four Days With the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs.