And here’s a little preview of my latest work, and no it isn’t a layout of the future. As of current I have officially run dry of ideas for new layouts, so I’ve started making layouts based off of the user interfaces for video games. This one is based off Battlefield 1942 but is nowhere near it’s completion yet (quite a few tweaks yet).

When it shall be done, I have no idea. But I’ll post more as it comes! Here’s the preview.

Here’s my latest website layout. Boxed In, it has no images whatsoever and is being used for the fourth installment of Glitches Exposed. Whether you love or it you hate it, please tell me! In other news, I’m also still working on some of those guides I said I’d be writing, but if you’d like to help please tell me!

Here’s a new layout I’ve been working on over the course of the day. It is, of course, not finished as of yet (still needs a navigation bar for one!). Here’s a picture.

In my last post, I said it would be more rounded. I didn’t lie, I was going to make a more rounded template. But to be honest, I changed my mind and also didn’t want to go through the trouble of making rounded corners so that it would look good in IE and it’s just too much trouble (this template’s only “big” image will most likely be just it’s header, that’s all I see it being at the moment).

And yes, Boxed In is the name of the layout (I suck at template names, from hereon you now know, :P).

…In the form of guides and possibly Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS). Soon I’ll be writing some very simple guides on Basic XHTML. I will be going straight to XHTML because it’s good to learn first, for anyone wanting to know. Any beginner web designer would learn it at some stage and because the W3C’s standards and rules for XHTML compliance are widely used and not as hard as some people may think, I will be using it. XHTML Transitional to be precise.

Transitional is obviously less strict then XHTML Strict. Hence why one is called “XHTML Transitional” and one is called “XHTML Strict”. I’m not an expert at Strict and I actually like some of the shortcuts that the Transitional standard allows. All my templates have always been coded under XHTML Transitional and future ones to come will always be as well. I don’t particularly want to change for anyone, unless absolutely necessary, of course.

Guides for HTML, XHTML and CSS will be made. That’s what I focus on. I do not focus on PHP or MySQL because I do not know anything about them myself. In truth, both PHP and MySQL both interest me quite a lot but I don’t have the patience to learn them and it’s harder for me to learn them via trial and error (I’m using the manual at the moment, I’ve heard it’s a good source for PHP information).

Trial and error is a damn good way to learn, IMO. I also believe people benefit from viewing other peoples source codes. Otherwise known as “open source”. I love open source products, with websites it’s not so much a problem because the source code of a website (even the style sheets used) are publicly available. With a software, the source code isn’t as easily obtainable but more and more programmers are giving people the chance to view their software’s source code, and I like how they’re accepting it just a little bit more all the time.

I’ll start off with teaching basic HTML. Questions like “What prerequisites do I need?”, “How hard is it?” and “What are HTML tags?” will be answered alongside examples of code. I will also recommend in every guide, that people try to follow me through things and I may even try to add a little quiz at the end of each guide for some “extra curricular activities” for people to test what they’ve learned.

What I do ask is that if anyone thinks I am a skilled writer, then please, think again. I am no writer, I have not written a small comic let alone a book or even a guide, for that matter (though I’ve tried). I will try to make it as understandable to newcomers as I possibly can but, if anyone doesn’t understand anything then never hesitate to contact me after my guides are written and I’ll be sure to try and help and explain further.

I’ve just found out, from a blog of a web developer (and a damn good designer at that!) that CSS3 exists. To anyone not familiar with web design of the sort then this entry is not for you, for everyone else, read on!

Yes, it seems I have been living under a rock for the past two years and the existence of CSS3 has somehow managed to escape my grasp. Until now, that is! I’m sure it’s common knowledge to most designers now, so you guys can probably just look away but to anyone uninformed, like I was, well CSS3 adds some pretty interest, and equally fun, opportunities for us designers.

CSS3 adds border radius styles, which I’ve known about for some time but never knew it was considered CSS3, as well as border images and the use of custom fonts (which you can ’scr’ link to). Custom fonts don’t really interest me though and quite frankly, I’m not up for the idea if people are going to abuse them and just use them all over the damn place. But border radius’ and border images will be of use, especially for me as I’ve wanted curved borders for a while now (without the fuss of images to aid you).

The problem however lies in the fact that most browsers do not support it. And I’m fairly certain there is no W3C standard for it. Internet Explorer 6 never supported it as far as I know and I’m unsure if Opera does. Mozilla/Firefox does support it but it seems Safari supports it best, at this time. As for IE7, I don’t think it supports it (not from my tests as of now). So even after two years people are still slow on the uptake there, which is sad really.

For more information and some live previews for CSS3, be sure to check out www.css3.info. And yes, I know I’m a bit slow on the uptake myself, =P.

And I’m done, for the three days I’ve been working on an Age of Conan based template (based off the game, not the site). 18-20 hours later and I’m done!

The end result can be seen right here! Don’t hesitate to tell me your thoughts and opinions on it.

Hey everyone, welcome to The Psychotic Factor. The personal blog for me, Joshua Smellie. Amateur web and graphic designer at your service.

Here you’ll find my online portfolio with all my current and previous work listed. This is also going to be my development journal where I post things regarding my other sites as well as my web design work. I may also post other daily happenings as it well… happens, I guess, heh.

Well, that’s it for now. See ya round — L8erz.