1. Sublime Video - An HTML 5 vide player

Sublime Video is a HTML5 Video Player. The beauty of HTML video players is that users can play videos without the need of plugins like Flash, which are sluggish and often cause a browser to crash. It has Full-window mode with nice zoom-in/out transitions. There are more advanced controls on a draggable pane. Sublime Video will be soon released for free (at least for non-commercial use).

Sublime Video Player Screen Capture

After a few minutes using the player in Safri 4.0.3 (according to the website it requires 4.0.4) the experience was not perfect. The demo video they have took about 30 seconds to start playing before freezing the web browser. Once the video was playing, after switching from full screen back to window mode, I lost the play controls. The video quality is great, but the functionality is still a little rough for older browser versions. Of course it is to be expected since it is one of the first HTML 5 players out there and very few people have the latest version of their browser.

Requirements: Safari 4.0.4+, Google Chrome 4.0+, IE with Chrome Frame

Demo: http://jilion.com/sublime/video

License: License Free

2. SimpleDiagrams

SimpleDiagrams is an Adobe AIR desktop application for diagramming. It's a simple tool for creating basic illustrations that one might typically create on a whiteboard. There's a free version, which lets you use built in stencil libraries and export to PNG. The paid version gets rid of upgrade reminders, allows you to export to Basecamp, import libraries, and install on multiple machines.

SimpleDiagrams

Requirements: Adobe Air plugin

Demo: http://www.simplediagrams.com/home

License: License Free, Paid Upgrade

3.  Ecommerce plugin for Wordpress: GetShopped

GetShopped is a free WordPress plugin for adding e-commerce capabilities into WordPress. It is a very easy-to-setup plugin which can work with any standards compliant WordPress theme (and WordPress MU).

GetShopped Wordpress Plugin

The plugin offers a flexible pricing structure for products with features like:

• flexible coupon/discount pricing rules
• product specific sales
• quantity discounts
• free shipping options
• multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts
• and supports multiple payment providers like Google Checkout, Paypal & Payment Express.

GetShopped makes it possible to complete the shopping process quickly with a one-page-checkout & optionally, guest checkouts is supported. It is easy to manage orders with the help of a powerful admin interface, print invoices, packing slips & more.

Requirements: WordPress

Website: http://getshopped.org/

Demo: http://getshopped.org/showcase/

4. 25 User Experience Videos That Are Worth Your Time

Smashing Magazine have published a collection of videos covering the wonderful topic of "User Experience" titled 25 User Experience Videos That Are Worth Your Time. Notable personalities include:

• Jesse James Garett
• Nick Finck
• Don Norman
• Jeffrey Veen
• Leah Buley of Adaptive Path
• Peter Merholz
• Robert Fabricant
• Luke Wroblewsky

That's it for this week. If you try out any of the resources discussed here, we would love to hear about it in the comments.

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1. Design Project SB Project Name: SB Service: Web Design Budget: $4700 Specialties: Information...

Designer: "Would you like your quotation to include an CMS quote or do you want XHTML compatibility?"

Customer: "Umm... yes?"

The more you know about what you want, the better the end product is going to be and the better deal you are going to get. So let's have a look at the six major types of websites and their typical features.

1. Static Website

Pros: Cheap to build

Cons: Expensive to maintain

Used by: Start ups and small service based businesses

A static website is the most common website for small businesses. The word 'static' refers to way the information on a web page is loaded. The best way to explain this is to compare a 'static' photo gallery with a 'dynamic' photo gallery.

A static photo gallery has the gallery photos inserted into the web page. Click to see an example of a static photo gallery. When the website owner wants to add photos to this gallery, they will need to employ the skills of a web programmer because the photos are part of the code. They are loaded from inside the web page.

A dynamic photo gallery has it's photos stored in a database and loads the files from the database and into the web page. Click to see an example of a dynamic photo gallery. When the website owner wants to add photos to this gallery, all they need to do is upload the photos to the database using a web interface. This makes updating the gallery much easier.

Example Static Websites:

• http://www.melbournedailoong.com.au/

Get static website quotes at Design Quotes

2. eCommerce Website

Pros: Sell products online and take payments online

Cons: Time consuming and expensive to set up

Used by: Retailers

eCommerce has quickly become the most popular type of website. With the wild success of eBay and Amazon, more and more businesses are looking for ways to sell their products online. The main factors that make a website an eCommerce website is not just that it sells products, but that it provides a special administrator's area where the website owner can add new products at any time. Much like the dynamic photo gallery, an eCommerce website is a dynamic product gallery.

Example eCommerce Websites:

• http://www.millandmia.com

• http://www.harveynorman.com.au/
• http://www.davidjones.com.au/

Get eCommerce quotes at Design Quotes

3. Flash Website

Pros: Looks fantastic

Cons: Slow load times and can negatively affect search engine rankings

Used by: Fashion industry, web application, web games

Flash websites use a special kind of graphics by Adobe. Flash allows designers to be very creative without worrying about the limitations of technology. Flash allows for lots of animation and interactive elements. Fashion catalogues often use Flash so that there is an added level of glitz. One of the main criticisms of using Flash is that the text in your website cannot easily be read by search engines such as Google. This means that a flash website is much less likely to rank highly in search results.

Example Flash Websites:

• http://www.gettheglass.com/
• http://www.speakvisual.com/

Get Flash website quotes at Design Quotes

4. Content Management System Website

Pros: Article and news management

Cons: Difficult to set up, often hard to learn to use

Used by: News portals, article websites, review websites

A Content Managment System (CMS) is a website which focuses on the authoring, editing and publishing of website articles and news. The articles in a CMS are stored in a database and are displayed in the website the same way photos from a dynamic photo gallery are. The advantage  is that a CMS can allow many users (editors, authors, admins etc) to update the websites content through the website itself. This means that a web programmer does not need to be employed every time an article is added. Another feature of many CMS platforms is plugins. Plugins allow you to extend the functionality of your website. For example, you could install a dynamic photo gallery plugin in your CMS, giving you both articles and photos.

Example CMS Websites:

• http://www.travancoresch.vic.edu.au/school/index.php
• http://www.cnet.com.au/

Get CMS quotes at Design Quotes

5. Blog Website

Pros: Simplistic article and news management

Cons: Not as flexible as a CMS

Used by: Individuals with an opinion

A blog is a recent type of website. It is a simplified CMS that allows everyday users to post their thoughts and opinions as often as they like. Blogs are more and more often being used to manage articles as well. Blogs are often seen as part of a corporate site because it gives a friendly voice to the company.

Example Blog Websites:

• http://www.adelle.com.au/
• http://www.techcrunch.com/

Get blog website quotes at Design Quotes

6. Social Network Website

Pros: Allows groups of people to interact, provides lots of advertising space

Cons: Expensive to set up, hard to attract a user base

A social network is the most recent website phenomenon. A social network is like a community of blogs, email and games all rolled into one. Social network websites are few and far between because the success of a social network depends on having a large community of users. However more and more organisations are beginning to create their own small niche social network websites.

Example Social Network Websites:

• http://www.facebook.com/
• http://www.whosonyourblacklist.com/

Get social network website quotes at Design Quotes

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