DesignHammer blog - past archive

There is more to life than just developing websites. In a more casual format, we will post links to interesting articles, as well as insight into what we are up to both in and out of DesignHammer's offices.


Design a favicon for multiple browsers

Thursday July 16, 2009
By: Frank Yonnetti

Create and preview a favicon easily in Photoshop so it looks good in all browsers.

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Verified by Twitter!

Monday June 22, 2009
By: Caroline Silver

Following a lawsuit brought by Major League Baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals' Manager, Tony La Russa, Twitter is taking a hard stance on users creating profiles that pose as celebrities and is testing out verified accounts on their website.

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Amazon threatens to cancel associate program for North Carolina residents

Thursday June 18, 2009
By: David Minton

On Wednesday, June 17th, Amazon.com sent an “Important Notice from the Amazon Associates Program” email to all affiliates in North Carolina. While Amazon.com is not terminating North Carolina-based affiliates, they intend to if legislation being considered by the North Carlolina General Assembly is passed in its present form. Amazon claims the bill includes an  "unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates." What is it really about?

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A user's guide to understanding the Twitpocalypse

Sunday June 14, 2009
By: David Minton

Twitter logoDid your favorite third-party Twitter application begin acting strangely, or quit working altogether Friday evening? If so, don't panic, you are probably just experiencing a Year 2000 Bug for the new millennium, dubbed the Twitpocalypse. Who would have thought 2 billion tweets could cause so much trouble? Read on to learn how we got into this mess, and what will have to be done to dig us out.

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Don’t miss your chance for custom Facebook URLs for your profiles and pages

Thursday June 11, 2009
By: Caroline Silver

Facebook logoWe want to bring your attention to "changes announced on Tuesday" that will have a great impact upon individuals and organizations using the popular social network website, Facebook, for business. As of Saturday, June 13th, at 12:01AM, users, and administrators of pages, will be able to choose their own user names to direct people to the webpage through a self-chosen, recognizable URL. Up until this point, the URL for individuals and pages has been an assigned series of numbers. Prior to this update, we would just like to take a moment to alert you to potential pitfalls regarding the usernames. As there are more than 200 million active users and an increasing number of companies using Facebook, acquiring the most desirable company Facebook URL could become problematic if one is not chosen soon after the selection period becomes active at 12:01pm on Saturday.

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17 Black Hat SEO Techniques to Avoid

Wednesday May 13, 2009
By: Tevan Alexander

Google logoBlack hat SEO has a negative reputation, and rightly so: It's a shady set of deceptive practices that degrade the user experience and are adopted mostly to make a quick buck. To keep a business legitimate and afloat on the Web, avoid black hat SEO techniques and embrace white hat SEO techniques.

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The World Wide Web Celebrates Anniversary of Milestone

Monday March 16, 2009
By: David Minton

It was twenty years ago that two scientist working at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland, developed a plan for a computer network combining hypertext, and the Internet, that evolved into what we know today as the World Wide Web, or simply, the Web.

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Slick new web service geared at tracking hot topics

Thursday March 12, 2009
By: David Minton

A new web-based service will offer a wealth of information, including graphing, of the most read pages on Wikipedia. The service has a very slick user interface, and looks to be a great source for gauging interest in different subjects.

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The publishing pitfalls of republishing content on websites and blogs

Monday March 2, 2009
By: David Minton

Is it ok to copy entire articles from other websites? If not what about parts, and what is this whole "fair use" thing anyway?

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The Intersection of Usability, Accessibility, and SEO (Part I)

Wednesday February 25, 2009
By: David Minton

What could Usability, Accessibility, and SEO (search engine optimization) have in common? Besides industry jargon that website designers/developers need to know, they are in some ways three aspects of the same process.

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