So this is how web designers get all those of links. This might work for most folks, but not me. Recently I asked for an estimate from several web design firms for a new project. One of the web design firms replied with a rather lengthy questionairre for to fill out and return. When I saw number 5, I stopped cold, yelled loudly, then closed the questionairre. One thing I am not going to do is pay a web designer 20% of the project price to keep his link off of my site.

I found this when checking a random page with the W3C Validation service tool. Is this a case of a really bad web designer with no budget? Nope. The page belongs to a fortune 500 company. I’ll spare them the embarassment and keep them nameless.

“This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!” — What an understandment!

PS as soon as I get the template uploaded on my site I will send you a link to it.

Hi Ron,

Thanks very much for the kind remarks about the template. I hope template serves you well.

The search box is there in case you have an existing database you can connect to. How the search box is coded would depend on the type of database installed on your web server. There are also search services hosted offsite that can return results from your website. The easiest thing to do to make your site searchable is to create a Google Custom Search Engine with Google Co-op.

You can even see your search stats with a Google CSE.

I use Google Custom Search on Clickfire at the top right of every page. You can even use it with Google AdSense if you have an account. Let me know how it works, if you try it.

Thanks again,

Emory

This metallic web template is one of my favorite designs and I assure you that I have spent long periods of time starring at her silvery white metallic finish. This is also the last of six free website templates released for the Clickfire 10th anniversary. I have a feeling more free web templates are ahead.

Tired of web hosting reviews? Well, can I interest you in a free web hosting template then? I promise it is truly free and no pixels were harmed or code malformed during its creation.  This template is valid xhtml 1.0 and css with original photshop psd inside. It is commented and contains SEO elements. You can see from the screen cap that it is businessy but also kind of gothic for lack of a better term–just in time for Halloween.

The web hosting template is part of a batch of free website templates we decided to give away in the countdown to our 10 year anniversary. Customize, enjoy, save precious time and build yourself a cool web hosting site. Post your comments below por favor.

The August free website template is now live!

We rustled up some free website templates to give away as part of the Clickfire ten year anniversary countdown that climaxes this December. This month’s theme is gaming, a subject very dear to my heart and an intergral part of my Internet life. Customize, enjoy, save time and build out something cool. Post comments on the free gaming website template below.

A while back I had some web templates done up with the thought of selling them as part of a project that never materialized. Recently I started thinking about these templates just sitting there on my hard-drive not benefitting anyone. The more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. Not that they are the sexiest designs or most Web 2.0 looking graphics that you will see.  They are simple, HTML table templates–not done with divs. But, they are what I would consider professional grade and not bad looking in my opinion.  So, I decided to post some of the good ones so you can download and use them if you want. The designer who originally put the templates together for me didn’t code them with valid HTML/CSS, so I had to go back into the code and tidy them up. I have created a free website templates section where these and any future templates will be posted. Here are the first templates:

Really, why are you doing this?

It hurts to give these away, but it also feels good. There is an indescribable blessing that I’ve enjoyed over the years of having given away free stuff on Clickfire. As a Christian believer, I can’t help but recall scriptures like “it is more blessed to give than receive” and “give and it shall be given unto you.” Giving can be addictive, especially when site visitors write in and say how much they appreciate it or how something you gave away has helped them do their job easier.

A less dignified reason also comes to mind. There are one or two large template download sites that annoy me for reasons I don’t want to talk about. I will say that I have personally purchased web templates from one particular popular template site and found them painfully difficult to edit because of graphical slugs and other code anomalies, probably a result of someone trying to design a template to make a quick buck. So here am I having bought a template that is supposedly going to save time and money because I should be able to just change the “company name” text and throw this little baby online in minutes. Hours later I am starring into my screen wondering why I didn’t just design the site from scratch. To my recollection, none of the templates that I have used from this large template site have ever validated. Many seem heavy on Flash and not at all designed with SEO in mind. Oh, and the prices. Exclusive licenses can be 40 times the price of the regular cheap templates that they resell ad infinitum.

There is actually one more reason I am doing this, but I can’t tell you yet. Hint: this is a big year, er, decade for Clickfire.

I like customizing templates for my own projects and am not ashamed to say so. Sometimes I’d honestly prefer to play a PC game than design a custom website, as much as I might enjoy it. Here’s a secret if you haven’t guessed already: I am not an outstanding web designer. I get impatient and tend to take shortcuts. I am actually color deficient as well.

These free website templates should be an option if you need to get a quick site up and running that looks decent. I truly hope that you get some benefit from these. I will update this post and the newsletter as more templates are published. Please post your impressions of the templates here. Are they usable? Did you find any bugs? Do you like them or are they a waste of time? Be honest, I can take it.

The new Clickfire site design is finished!

Some things about the new design that I really like are:

The Logo – Even though the previous logo went through some serious obsessive compulsive iterations, I am convinced that the new one is fresher, more cheerful and colorful. I admit an attachment to the heavy handed mouse and fire components, but I believe the less overt new one is going to better serve.

Code Improvements – No more table containers. To my surprise, I was able to drop the content into the CSS divs in my favorite WYSIWYG editor (the name begins with a “F,” not a “D,” by the way. I have cleaned up most of the old pages, some dating back years ago to when I first started learning CSS. The new pages are in XHTML and tend to have a better chance at validating. A few hybrid pages are still floating around.

Colors – It’s goodbye green, beige and black and hello red, green blue on white. I got complaints about the previous colors being to loud and this finally sank in. I struggled with going to a white background because white just plain hurts my eyes as do fluorescent lights and flash grenades. Toning down the contrast and brightness in my LCD monitor pretty much gets rid of the pain. I hope the new color scheme will improve the user experience. From what I’ve read, dark text on white backgrounds seems to be the preferred user interface scheme.

Credits – Thanks to Sergios Singeridis (site?) for taking our rough ideas and turning them into a reality. He’s a rock star web designer and very pleasant to work with. Terima kasih to my wife for helping get the content and graphics integrated. I am so completely in love with WordPress. Most of all, thanks to God for giving me the patience to undertake this!

Overall, I think the new design is cleaner, faster and easier to navigate. There is no turning back, especially considering the time invested in plopping all the old content into the new static XHTML pages. Now, I can finally do what I really intended on doing with the site, publishing viewpoints, tools and content.

My question to you: What do you think of the new design?

Okay, time to head out for some sun.