As the year of 2008 is coming to an end. I set this post goal in my mind. That I want to feature top 50 best looking blog designs of 2008. I needed a lot of help in doing this, so I contacted a lot of few people. I reached out to you guys through the recommendation post. I also searched through Top CSS Galleries which I will list below:

Css Drive
Best Web Gallery
CSS Beauty
CSS Elite

Now I know that a lot of you guys started to nominate your own blogs, and I did approve some but a lot of them were rejected. I do not have time to personally email each individual to tell them why their blog was not worthy. Therefore the criteria’s are below:

- Creativity
- Clean Designs
- User Friendly
- Layout Structure
- Organization

Note: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Having that said, I think that there are a lot of blogs out there that are worthy. I might have not looked at them, or in my eyes they weren’t good enough. This list is in no such order, so the first design does not mean that it is the best one. I am sorry for the all the great designs that are out there in the web that I probably didn’t even reach to. But if you think you have a great design, please submit to the galleries that I have mentioned above.

Free Lance Switch

Recommended by Chris Garrett

N. Design Studio

Recommended by Ryan Lineker

Css Tricks

Recommended by Alex Frasier

Oat.org

Recommended by Tamar Weinberg

Veerle’s Blog

Recommended by Neil Patel

Web Worker Daily

Recommended by Neil Patel

Thou Shall Blog

Smashing Magazine

Function

PSDTuts

Recommended by Simon

These are just a few. The rest of these are in full post, so please read that.

I wanted to do this, and there was really no tutorial out there. So I looked into wordpress codex and found this. Basically what I want to do is organize wordpress blogroll into the way that I want. By default it is organized alphabetically. And sometimes it gives you a pain. Specially when your client demands otherwise.

By default your code looks like: <?php wp_list_bookmarks(); ?>

And that is what displays all the links in your sidebar. But what if you are using wordpress as a CMS. You want different links on different pages? Well then all you do is simply make different link categories, and assign a link category to each custom page.

So then you would post a code like: <?php wp_list_bookmarks(‘title_li=&category=2′); ?>

Replace the number above with the category id, and you will get the links sorted by different categories, but that still does not solve my problem. Because links inside the category is still organized alphabetically.

So basically then you would have to use Wordpress parameters.

You can have the link in the following orders:

Orderby

- ‘id’
- ‘url’
- ‘name’
- ‘target’
- ‘description’
- ‘owner’ – User who added bookmark through bookmarks Manager.
- ‘rating’
- ‘updated’
- ‘rel’ – bookmark relationship (XFN).
- ‘notes’
- ‘rss’
- ‘length’ – The length of the bookmark name, shortest to longest.
- ‘rand’ – Display bookmarks in random order.

So then you would have to do this:

<?php wp_list_bookmarks(‘title_li=&category=2&orderby=id’); ?>

Now the above will display the oldest id meaning Id 1 first and then on. So by default it is in ascending order. You can change it to Descending order by simply changing the code a bit.

<?php wp_list_bookmarks(‘title_li=&category=2&orderby=id&order=DESC’); ?>

Ok so now all you really have to do is add & and enter the parameter.

This way you can organize your wordpress blogroll the way you like.

Now there are tons of other ways you can organize your blogroll. For example, you skip one category. Or you don’t want one category to be included so you exclude etc etc.

To find those parameters, head over to Wordpress Codex

Follow the instructions that I showed you and you would get your wordpress blogrolls organized.

I got this question over the email. How to limit the number of Archive months displayed in Wordpress? It is pretty easy if you read the wordpress documentation. But I will save you some time and show you here. But why do you even need to bother with this?

Well there are some people who like to have archive links in the sidebar because they want their user to browse easily. Then some just want to show how old their blog really is. On the other hand some people absolutely think archives is waste of space on the sidebar. It is too long for older blogs. Well this snippet of code will let you make a compromise. Instead of showing monthly archives like it comes with wordpress default:

<h2>Archives</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_get_archives(‘type=monthly’); ?>
</ul>

The above codes is built in default wordpress which is fine until the first few months or maybe upto a year. Then you start to get this set of useless links on your sidebar that not everyone visits, so you would have to simply edit the codes and change it like this:

<h2>Archives</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_get_archives(‘type=monthly&limit=6′); ?>
</ul>

Now this code above will limit your number of archives month displayed on the sidebar to 6. Change the limit number as you please. Now the idea of this is that you have a separate archive page. That contains all the other years and what ever else you want. But the above codes you use to display on the sidebar.

I hope you guys find this useful.

Ok lets get some reader interaction here. I decided to make a list of one of the best looking blogs on the internet. So I would need your help on that. I think together we can do it and get it done. But I know just because I want to do it, won’t make a difference to you. Here is what you will get if you help me.

I will post a link to your website in the post when I display all sort of links. It will be something like

Site XXXX nominated by YOU (With a Hyperlink to your site)

So now what are another advantage. I know some blogs out here have really good looking designs. So point out those. You can also point out your own good looking blogs as well.

So here is how you will submit the blogs. Post the urls below. You can post as many blogs that you like.

If you help me promote this idea of list. For example by writing a post on your blog. Simply send a trackback. And When I write a final post with the list. I will get your site mentioned in there.

So the idea is that we come up with at least 100 best looking blogs on the web if not more. I want it to be 500 but that depends on you guys now doesn’t it. So guys please please help me, and this will be one of the design inspiration you can later use.

We will be helping the blogging industry as more and more bloggers are entering the industry, this will be an inspirational list. For those new bloggers who haven’t had a custom design yet. You can look at these as you talk to your designers later and make a decision.

So lets get this show on the road.

Start commenting below with the links that you have.

So a few years back the only real browser designers and web developers really worried about was Internet Explorer. Now even though IE is still the majority, there is too much competition. Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome. So now designers like me and webmasters like you have to worry about all these 4 browsers. Now it doesn’t end here. These 4 have their versions. Like IE 6, 7, and 8. Firefox 2 and 3. I mean all of them are still widely used, so which one should you design for. Features that work on newer versions, does not work on older versions. So how exactly do you make it compatible, or how do you go about it?

Know your users and their preferences

It is pretty simple. Monitor your users and see which browsers they are using. And then determine your priorities. I can assure you that if you are running a webmaster related blog, most likely your users are using Firefox. But you can check this simply head over to AWStats, or your stat tracker. Then find the browser area. In AWStats simply just scroll down and there will be a screen that will look like the picture attatched here.

Know your Competitors

Your service will not be the best if your competitor is offering something that you don’t have. So always check your competitor’s website. See how many browsers are they compatible with. If they are all bad, then check one of the better websites around. Your customers will compare you to sites like amazon and others because they use those so often. So make sure that you got this area covered.

Well now by evaluating the two you should already know which browsers you want your site compatible with. I suggest you make it compatible with ALL BROWSERS. Even though [Read the whole Post]