While coding HTML pages, I have always wondered if there was a better, quicker and easier way to write lengthy and repetitive code that is present in almost every web page. I asked myself time and again, if there were people who thought on the same lines to make the code more crisp and abbreviated.

To my amusement, I recently came across an innovation by Sergey Chikuyonok called the “ZEN CODING“. Zen Coding provides a really fresh angle to write markup code for HTML & CSS. It was really interesting to read how Sergey gave a new definition to the old coding style and has created a landmark for software companies to follow.

To understand the basics, Zen Coding can be defined as a plugin to quicken coding. In layman terms, it can also be understood as a zip file that can be expanded or unzipped on demand. It is made up of two main components – one is the abbreviation expander and the other is the context-independent HTML-pair tag matcher.

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A very Happy New Year to all my readers!

For the new year, I am glad to announce the release of a new WordPress theme called “Impress”. This is a minimalistic, red-colored theme with automatic thumbnails, advertising space and a clean layout.

Thumbnails are used from the default ones that WordPress generates when you upload an image with the post. The theme uses jQuery for animated menu and sidebar. Impress has been tested with Firefox, IE, Chrome and Safari without any problems.
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I recently stumbled across a comic strip website called Thedoghousediaries.com. I really liked the stuff they had on there. Here are the good ones that I found. Enjoy and leave a comment!

Today, I have compiled a set of 10 CSS snippets that can save you a lot of time and effort. These codes are needed frequently when developing CSS-based websites or themes. Just bookmark these codes (Ctrl + D) so that you don’t have to look for them on the Internet every time.

1. CSS Tooltips

Through this code, you can have your own tooltips using just CSS. This is the CSS code :-

a:hover {background:#ffffff; text-decoration:none;} /*BG color is a must for IE6*/
a.tooltip span {display:none; padding:2px 3px; margin-left:8px; width:130px;}
a.tooltip:hover span{display:inline; position:absolute; background:#ffffff; border:1px solid #cccccc; color:#6c6c6c;}

Now, use the tooltips like this :-

Easy <a class="tooltip" href="#">Tooltip<span>This is the crazy little Easy Tooltip Text.</span></a>.

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LogoBee, one of the Internets most prominent online graphic design firms, is proud to resume its annual Logo Design Makeover for the fourth time. For a nominal price of $100, 10 selected nominees will get a complete Logo Design Golden Package (original value of $425). This package includes custom logo design, stationery design and 500 printed business cards. And that’s not all! The grand prize is a BundleBee Package. They are donating 2 BundleBee packages (logo design, stationery design and web design) for a nominal price of $500 (original value: $1199)! In the previous years, Logobee helped with the creation of a unique identity for 17 non-profit organizations. Seeing the results of one’s work is always a very pleasant experience. They got very positive feedback from these organizations. For instance, they helped the International Primate Protection League to refresh their website and magazine cover with the help of a brand new logo. LogoBee hopes that this year’s Makeover will be as successful as the previous years.
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This post is a continuation of the “WordPress Hacks” posts that I wrote earlier.

• 10 WordPress Hacks to Make your Life Easy
• 10 WordPress Hacks to Make your Life even Easier

If you liked those, you will love this one. Here goes :-

1. Fight Cross Browser Compatibility the WordPress Way

While designing a theme, there are numerous cross browser compatibility issues that raise their head, and most of the times we are left with no choice but revert to using conditional hacks. The following WordPress hacks can really save a lot of headache :-

Open your functions.php file in the theme folder and add the following code :-

<?php
add_filter('body_class','browser_body_class');
function browser_body_class($classes) {
 global $is_lynx, $is_gecko, $is_IE, $is_opera, $is_NS4, $is_safari, $is_chrome, $is_iphone;

 if($is_lynx) $classes[] = 'lynx';
 elseif($is_gecko) $classes[] = 'gecko';
 elseif($is_opera) $classes[] = 'opera';
 elseif($is_NS4) $classes[] = 'ns4';
 elseif($is_safari) $classes[] = 'safari';
 elseif($is_chrome) $classes[] = 'chrome';
 elseif($is_IE) $classes[] = 'ie';
 else $classes[] = 'unknown';

 if($is_iphone) $classes[] = 'iphone';
 return $classes;
}
?>

The above function adds the name of the browser (e.g, opera, safari etc.) to your tag like this :-

<body class="home blog logged-in safari">

Now you being a theme designer can take help of this custom class and write your CSS accordingly if you are facing any compatibility issues with any browser. This can be called as “planning in advance“!
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1. Triangular sandwiches taste better than square one
2. At the end of every party there is always a girl crying.
3. Sharpening a pencil with a knife makes you feel really manly.
4. You’re never quite sure whether it’s against the law or not to have a fire in your back garden.
5. You never know where to look when eating a banana.
6. Its impossible to describe the smell of a wet cat.
7. Prodding a fire with a stick makes you feel manly.
8. You always feel a bit scared when stroking horses.
9. Everyone always remembers the day a dog ran into your school.

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Please welcome another new Premium WordPress Theme from Blog Oh! Blog called “Tiny News”. This is a theme fit for anyone who quickly wants to start a NEWS website or a NEWS blog. All you do is specify what categories’ news should appear on the homepage and everything gets arranged automatically for you. Even thumbnails are generated on the fly by the theme.

Tiny News theme is a CMS theme with a professional style, and is bundled with lots of user-friendly functions that can be configured from the theme options page. Features include :-

• Homepage Category Management
• Automatic Thumbnail Creation
• Threaded Comments
• Widget Ready
• Advertisement Management
• Google Analytics/Stat Management
• Cross-Browser Compatibility
• Gravatar Ready
• Built-in Feedburner Support
• WordPress 2.8+ Compatible
• Dropdown Menu Navigation

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I am glad to announce a brand new free WordPress theme called “Urbane”.

This is a crisp rounded theme that comes with lots of features like built in drop-down menus, Feedburner settings (RSS and Subscribe by e-mail), Twitter, Tabs for Popular/Recent posts, Featured post section, 3 sections to pull posts from different categories on home page, auto generated thumbnails (for both home and the single entry page), threaded comments, widgetized sidebars and 3 widgetized sections on the bottom. On top of all this, Urbane comes with integrated theme options that let you specify categories to use on the home page, configure your feedburner/twitter settings and much more.

The theme has been tested with Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 and Safari and works without any problems.
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