Basket World specialize in creating unique designed gift baskets that leave lasting impressions and features delicious quality chocolates from world-class chocolate vendors. Quality is always guaranteed and never compromised. The Gift Basket designers at Basket World work very hard to ensure that your gift basket is well received and enjoyed!

Basket World currently have 3 locations is Great Vancouver area: Vancouver, Surrey, and Pitt Meadows. We take pride in offering reliable shipping for all of our gift baskets all across Canada as well we do local delivery to many cities around the Great Vancouver Area, including: Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, Langley, Surrey, Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge. No order is too big or too small for us at Basket World.

Basket World offer its customers the ability to order secure, fast and convenient all types of gift baskets online and by phone at 604-339-4574. Go ahead and browse the gift baskets category for the perfect gift.

Basket World – Gift Baskets Vancouver

All you need to do is use the code THANKS when you check out and you’ll save 25% on anything and everything at StudioPress.com. This deal ends promptly at 7:00 pm Pacific time on Monday, November 28, 2011. Hurry up and claim your new WordPress theme before the code expires!

Here are the details you need to know:

1. The discount code is THANKS
2. The code will apply a 25% discount to the customer’s entire purchase
3. The code will be activated on Tuesday, November 22, 2011
4. The code will expire at 7pm Pacific time on Monday, November 21, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving

..So You Too Can Catapult Your Subscriber Rate And Sales Conversions By As Much As 300%!..

In the Graphic Design Masterclass video series, you will learn how to design simple yet professional looking minisites, and virtual covers using Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia, and GIMP (free tool) even if you aren’t good at art creation!

Follow this easy to under video series step by step to create your own minisites and before you know it your friends and customers will ask you “Who’d you hire to make those minisites?!”

Video Series 1:
Adobe Photoshop For Newbies
(8-Part Video Course)

Video #1: Understanding Adobe Photoshop Features You Will Use(9 minutes and 38 seconds) Adobe Photoshop can be a complex tool only because you can do so much with it, however for in this video series, we’re going to keep it as simple as possible. In fact, in this video you’ll see an overview of the few tools and Adobe Photoshop features we will use. When you see this video, you’ll see how you can do so much with so few features, but you’ll learn how to use them in depth in the future videos.

Video #2: The Importance of Royalty Free Images and How to Find Them(7 minutes and 39 seconds) When you create your own minisites, you’ll need to have access to professional photography to make your designs look great for whatever subject matter. Well, in this video, you’ll learn the importance of using Royalty free images and how you can find them to fulfill your needs.

Video #3: How to Use the Adobe Lasso and Crop Tool(7 minutes and 35 seconds) The Adobe Photoshop lasso and crop tools are the tools that you’ll use to take people and objects out of regular pictures and put into your minisite designs. I’m sure you’ve seen headers with people or objects in them right? We’ll that’s where the lasso tool and crop tools come into play. So you’ll learn what they can do for you, but most importantly how to use them correctly.

Video #4: How to Work with Layers to Make Art Creation Easier(5 minutes and 40 seconds) Layers are the big secret to making photos come to life. In Photoshop you can take several photos and merge them together to make it looks like it’s one picture. At the same time, layers will make your life as a minisite creator so much easier, you’ll save lots of time. In this video, you’ll learn how to use layers to your advantage.

Video #5: How to Understand the Art of Balancing Your Designs(7 minutes and 59 seconds) Do you remember looking at a picture and saying to yourself, nice picture, it’s looks right. Or maybe you thought, “that picture doesn’t look right”. We’ll this is when balancing your designs comes into play. If you learn how to balance your headers, footers, ecovers, and more correctly you’ll learn how to make your minisites look right when people look at them.

Video #6: How to Create a Minisite Header(11 minutes and 14 seconds) Here’s the fun part. You were shown videos 1-5 for a reason, that is, to help you understand the basic fundamental concepts before you got started creating the actual designs. The best part, is that you can take videos 1-5 and apply them to other things besides just minisites! So with that said in this video, you’ll learn how to create a professional minisite header using the tools Adobe Photoshop and what you learned earlier.

Video #7: How to Create a Minisite E-Book, DVD, E-cover(9 minutes and 47 seconds) Just as it says, you’ll learn how to take the header you designed in the previous video and create an ebook or dvd ecover. You see, creating the header first allows you to understand how to easily transfer the designs to the ecover and balance it out.

Video #8: How to Create a Minisite Background and Footer(6 minutes and 41 seconds) Lastly, you’ll learn how to create the final touches of the minisite, which is the background and the footer. These two are very easy to create, because you can use your learning experience from videos 6 and 7 to transfer those ideas to video 8.

Video Series 2:
Create Your Own eCover Graphics!
(8-Part Video Series)

Video #1

Getting Started Creating Your eCover From Scratch.

Video #2

Creating The Front Image For Your eCover.

Video #3

Creating The Front Of Your eCover Part II.

Video #4

Creating The Side Graphics For Your eCover.

Video #5

Making The Disc Image For Your eCover.

Video #6

Making The eCover Box And Disc Image.

Video #7

Making The eCover Box And Disc Image Part II

Video #8

Using eCover Software And It’s Functions

Video Series 3:
How To Create Web 2.0 Graphics Using Gimp!
(7-Part Video Course)

Video #1: How to Download and Install GIMP GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software that is like a scaled down version of Adobe Photoshop, yet of course it’s easy to use. You’ll be shown where to download GIMP and how to install it.

Video #2: Understanding GIMP’s Features and Tools Just like any software, knowing and understanding the features you will be using in the future videos is a must, so you save time trying to figure them out later.

Video #3: How to Make A Web 2.0 Shiny Buttons Using GIMP It’s the new trend of graphics, graphics that come to life. So, every wonder how people make those shiny buttons that come to life? We’ll you’ll learn just that in this video.

Video #4: How to Create Image Reflections and Shadows Using GIMP Have you noticed how companies create ecovers and screenshots and they have cool reflections and shadows that make them look like you’re staring at the real thing? In this video, you’ll learn how easy it is to actually take any picture and create a reflection and shadow with this free tool, GIMP.

Video #5: How to Create a Shiny Badge Using GIMP You’ve seen those shiny badges people use on their sales pages that announce special sales. Creating badges in GIMP is very straightforward. You’ll learn how to manipulate the shapes GIMP gives you to create a professional shiny looking badge so you can start adding them to your sales pages like the professionals.

Video #6: How to Create a Web 2.0 Text Logo with a Reflection Using GIMP By now, you’ve probably realized that when people say Web 2.0 graphics, what they mean is new style or new look graphics are being given. Well, long long ago, text logos looked bland and normally were made up one purely one color, no gradients and no shiny look. In this video, you’ll learn how to give your text logos a cool shiny gradient look, as well as a reflection. This is something many designers create nowadays.

Video #7: How to Create a Cool Web 2.0 Striped Style Header Using GIMP Don’t know how to draw and don’t have a sense of creativity? Don’t worry, we’ll take everything you’ve learned so far and create an eye catchy Web 2.0 header that has stripes. You can use these headers on the top of your sales pages, or even any other landing pages.

With ‘Graphic Design Masterclass’ You Will Learn..

How You Can Create Your Own Professional eCover In Less Than An Hour! - All you need is Adobe Photoshop program installed in your PC. You don’t need to engage a graphics designer or even use any external plug-ins or third party software in the process yet I show you how you can still have your own quality eCover designed to look as expensive and exotic as possible – whether your product is selling for $7 or $1497!

The Secrets To Creating A Realistic eCover! - This manual is not about those that you already know so well. No, the techniques have nothing to do with the usual effects one would apply when creating an eCover in Photoshop environment such as Distortions and Free Transformation.

What Most eCover Designers Don’t Know! - Because this is what will part you from the rest of the crowd and can very well be responsible for making you the next expert graphic designer!

The Inner Secret Techniques - Which will place you years ahead of other graphic designers who charge $97 for an eCover and put them to shame.

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The integration works the same way it has since last February; when images are available, a small box labeled “User Photos” will appear in the upper right of the Street View interface. But with all the new photos in the system, Google’s found a novel way to show nearby and related photos.

Read the full article >>>

Thus this post is not intended to share some advanced tips for web developers: instead it lists three quick ways to test a web design in FireFox:

1. Check how a website looks in other browsers

There are a number of FireFox addons that allow to view the current page in an alternative browser:

• Chrome View;
• IE view (or this handy IE button);
• Safari view;
• Opera view

OR: install one combined addon: Browser view plus is an experimental addon that lets the user load Firefox links, bookmarks, or pages in Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Chrome Application Window, Safari, Opera, or any other external browser. It also allows to change context menu text, language, or selected browsers, at any time, without restarting Firefox.

Read the full article >>>

I noticed this when I at first posted, incorrectly, that Google was skipping out on the Valentine’s Day logos in exchange for the Olympics. But it turns out, as spotted by Michel, that the Olympics logo is also a Valentine’s Day logo. Here is a picture:

A very nice touch by Google. If you want to see all the Valentine’s Day logos out there from the search industry, click here. To see an updated gallery of Olympics logos, click here.

I should point out that Google had two logos for the Olympics up yesterday. They took down their Luge logo due to the sad death of an Olympics Luge athlete, in exchange for a snowboarder.

Credits to: Barry Schwartz

Yahoo and Bing also have special logos or themes up already. Here they are:

Google said:

Images taken in 1943 show the effect of wartime bombing on more than 35 European towns and cities. Imagery for Warsaw, which was heavily destroyed at the time, is available from both years 1935 and 1945. They remind us all of the devastating impact of war on the people in those cities and also the remarkable way in which urban environments are reconstructed and regenerated over time.

Here is a picture, side by side, of German city of Stuttgart:

Credits to: Barry Schwartz

Custom Website design is a striking combination of design and web contents to deliver the right identity of the company. With custom web design a company can place their products and services strategically to attract business and expand business. Thus, if you want your business to outshine in the cutting edge competition opting for custom website design would be the most sensible decision.

• As You Like It: You can construct and incorporate the designs of your company, the way you want it. See your business strategy turn into reality as you incorporate web content to site to arrest the attention of user.
• Stay a Step Ahead: Carefully and professionally made custom web design can help you and your business to stay ahead in cutting edge competitive environment. Whenever the browser finds that your website is different in terms of quality of content and design, your products and services are guaranteed to stand out.
• You Own Your Design: A custom website design turns to be your property and under the copyright law your online corporate identity remains protected.
• Pocket Friendly: As majority of the companies are relying on custom website design the prices are highly competitive. Thus, you can expect a tailor made design at economical cost.

And remember to consider these points for custom website design,

• Proper Navigation: Proper navigation assures smooth experience for its browsers. Simultaneously, proper navigation helps search engine in indexing pages of website. This is one of the most important point that one should consider.
• Look and Feel: Emphasize on consistent web design for the right look and feel for your website. A professional look and feel of a website makes the site more acceptable to its user. In this connection keep in mind the selection of colors, page backgrounds, page size, graphic design application etc.
• Proper Communication: Communicate your requirements clearly to make sure you get the right custom web design for your company. Make sure that you have included “About Us” AND FAQ or frequently asked question page to let the people know who you are and how they can contact you.

Thus, with so many advantages of custom website design more and more websites are opting for it.

Putting The User First

If you strip all the fancy stuff away from Web design, pages are ultimately being built for people to use. Forget showcasing every Flash gimmick you can muster from your repertoire or bombarding people’s browsers with bandwidth busting images, and you’re left with providing the best content delivery service you can offer. Before you even start formulating ideas or beginning to think about firing up Dreamweaver, you should have it clear in your mind that usability is about putting the needs of the user first. Remember that designing anything from shoes to sites is judged on how the final product performs.

This will then help you conduct one of the most important stages in most design processes and especially software engineering: requirements elicitation. Most professional new media agencies will already be familiar with this procedure, and will use it to establish a stable understanding of what it is the user expects to see, with project success dependent upon meeting it. Whether you are being commissioned to create a site for a specific client or hope to launch something that will more directly attract traffic, it will be an essential exercise to acknowledge what the end user’s expectations are.

Requirements Elicitation

The key point to remember about understanding user requirements is that you’re unlikely to get them spot on first time. This means that a consistent stream of communication throughout the design process is paramount to getting as close to their expectations as possible. Talking to the users, recording what they say and trying to pin down exactly what they mean is the only sure-fire way to meet their needs.

It’s also important to bear in mind that the people you’re designing for are not necessarily privy to the kind of ‘developer speak’ you might be comfortable using. This is where the production of graphical diagrams or descriptive case studies can be effectively used to portray how you see the project going. Navigational flowcharts, example site maps and perhaps data flow diagrams for eCommerce solutions are all good ways of presenting complex info without bewildering others with technical jargon.
Similarly, there’s no reason why a shared direction for the way visual elements are going can’t be achieved with page mock ups. Flat digital drawings of possible template designs can be put forward and scrutinised, before a period of prototyping more sophisticated page elements, interfaces and navigational structures gets under way.

Read the full article >>>

Facebook Essential Training with: Susan Cline

It’s the first time when Google uses an animated doodle on its homepage. Now that users got used to the fade-in animation that exposes Google’s navigation links, Google will try new ways to make the homepage more interactive.

Credits to: Google Operating System ]]> http://www.deondesigns.ca/blog/googles-animated-doodle/feed/ 0 http://www.deondesigns.ca/blog/happy-new-years-2010-logos/ http://www.deondesigns.ca/blog/happy-new-years-2010-logos/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:13:35 +0000 admin http://www.deondesigns.ca/blog/?p=5975 Happy New Years! The Search Engine Land team would like to wish everyone a happy, healthy and successful 2010. Just for fun, I wanted to share the various logos from the search engines and also Google’s surprise.

Let’s start with Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” count down to New Years. Remember when you hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google.com, it would show you how many minutes to 2010? Well, when 2010 hits, it then shows you a fireworks display. Here is a video I made of it.

Now for the logos, which is basically a repost of my listing from the Search Engine Roundtable:

Google:

Yahoo (Animated):

Bing:

AOL:

Ask.com:

DogPile:

Baidu:

Read the full article >>>

Here are the logos:

Read the full article >>>

“If you live and breathe code, now you can set your default text style to a monospace font. If your life is purple, your email can be, too. But remember: whatever you see is what your recipients will see, so be nice to them and try not to clog the intertubes with ginormous bold italicized red script,” suggests Google.

The new text styling is only used when you type some text, so the signature will use Gmail’s original settings.

Credits to: Google Operating System

Google has already solved this problem by adding real-time translation in Google Toolbar and by offering a translation bar that can be embedded into any web page.

If you don’t want to use Google Toolbar, add the translation bar by bookmarking some Javascript code:

1. Make sure the bookmarks toolbar is visible in your browser. You can enable it if you go to the “View” menu in your browser, click on “Toolbars” and check: “Links” in Internet Explorer, “Bookmarks Toolbar” in Firefox and “Personal Bar” in Opera. In Google Chrome, you can enable the bookmarks toolbar by typing Ctrl+B.

2. In Google Chrome and Firefox, drag the bookmarklet below to the bookmarks toolbar. In IE, right-click on the bookmarklet, click on “Add to Favorites” and select “Favorites Bar” or “Links” from the list of folders. In Opera, right-click on the bookmarklet, click on “Bookmark Link”, then click on “Details” and check “Show on Personal Bar”.

Credits to: Google Operating System

Along with turkey, Macys, pumpkin pecan pie, the Lions, the Cowboys, Tums and other Thanksgiving traditions also comes the Thanksgiving logos from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft’s Bing and other search engines.

Google serves up a Peanuts logo with Snoopy & Woodstock :

Yahoo’s Animated Thanskgiving Turkey Logo :

Bing’s Overhead View of a Turkey Float :

Ask.com Pays Tribute to the Pilgrims :

Dogpile.com Also Goes Pilgrim with a nice Thanksgiving Theme :

Credits to: Loren Baker

The new design has more stories and images, has personalization features, search and a neat “jump” to section feature. Here are screen captures:

Credits to: Barry Schwartz