Smart Linking and Wikipedia

Wikipedia is great for all research work. One thing I really like about it is the easy with which millions of links have been placed under it. The links are in totally understandable form. Many times I just type what I am looking for in the link itself and nine out of ten times I am taken to the correct page. It really amazes me that if such a gigantic site is able to keep their links so simple and clear, of course having an awesome engine like MediaWiki helps but I fail to understand why other small scaled sites aren't able to do so. So learn from wikipedia, if they can keep their links simple so can you.

New Design : Ganesh01 - Sunshine

A new opensource design by me is up for download. I used to use it for one of my blogs but I stopped using the blog so I have put it up for download.

It is a very special design because it marks the beginning of the "Ganesh##" design series, inspired by how Andreas had created the "Andreas##" series.

The design is public domain. If you use the design then please keep the "Designed by Ganesh Iyer" and the link to this site intact.

You can download it from : OpenDesigns

The Anatomy Of Liquid Layouts (Part 1)

Liquid layouts have been around for quite some time. Some while ago it was thought that liquid layouts are dead. But liquid layouts are far from dead. Designers have shown that when implemented properly liquid designs can look as beautiful as fixed width layouts.

What are liquid Layouts?
As the name suggests liquid layouts are fluid and flexible. In liquid layouts widths are defined in percentages instead of pixels. The characteristic which makes liquid layouts special is that the layout scales with the size of the browser. So if you resize the browser the layout will resize accordingly.

So whats the big deal?
Liquid designs are very helpful in making the site accessible. These days there are so many diverse ways to access a site. People use different screens, resolutions, browsers, operating systems and even devices to view websites. Liquid layouts ensure that the layout of a site doesnt distort even when viewed in different resolutions.

Fixed Width
Fixed width layouts are made keeping a particular screen resolution in mind. They have fixed dimensions The layouts can at times look undersized over oversized if viewed from different screen resolutions. For example a site designed for 1024 x 768 px would distort when viewed from 800 x 600 px resolutions.
There are many advantages of using fixed widths, which make them so popular. They give the designer more control over the structure of the site.

This is the Part I of this post. I am working on the part two of this post which will feature the implementation of liquid layouts and some other stuff :)

Orkut: Send Scrap(Spam) To All

I agree that Orkut doesn't stand against Myspace or Facebook, but still it has been my social network of choice because most of my friends are on it.

In Orkut, friends can write stuff to each other in the form of scraps. Over the past few weeks some people have unofficially implemented a "scrap all friends" feature. The problem with this feature is that they just made life easier for all the spammers on orkut. Over the past few days I have received all sorts of spam scraps, ranging from buying used laptops to getting free domain names. Plus these scraps come with an advertisement to make people join the community of the creator of this feature.

If Orkut is not going to come up with an official version of this feature then they shouldn't allow these to spring up.