Here are the coolest, most interesting links I checked out this week.

Design

50 Best Sites To Get Design Inspiration

25 Sites to Download Royalty-Free Stock Photos and Textures

55 Extremely Useful Online Generators for Designers

Top 37 Design Blogs to Follow

Web Design and Development

How to Spot Quality within Web Design: Examples & Tips

25 Important Web Design Tools

8 Layout Solutions To Improve Your Designs

30 HTML Best Practices for Beginners

9 Signs You Shouldn’t Hire THAT Web Guy

Blogging

5 Ways To Stop Your Blog From Going Viral

How To Write Headlines For Google Vs Twitter Vs Digg

13 blogging lessons learned from Stephen King’s On Writing

How to Write Magnetic Headlines

Internet Marketing

5 Effective Linkbait And Link Generation Strategies

Freelancing

101 Ideas to Get More Freelance Work and Generate New Client Leads

This is my second installment of “Saturday Round-Up”, where I showcase all the cool stuff I have found throughout the week that relates to Web and graphic design. Enjoy!

Freelancing

“40 resources to become a freelance Graphic/Web Designer”
from HeinMaas, February 18 2009

Hey, today i will try to help those who wants to make it as an successful Freelance Graphic/Web Designer. I’m 90% convinced that when you’ll visit these 40 resources carefully then you will be successful, these resources are covering all types of tips, tricks and sites where you can get some passive income and the most important where you’ll learn from the best of the best. Read more »

“25 lies told by freelancers and clients”
from Flying Solo, May 13 2009

Liars are everywhere, but they’re hard to spot, even if their pants are on fire. Never fear, I’ve researched the top 25 business lies told by freelancers and clients. Actually, there are only 14, but 25 will attract more RSS and Twitter readers. Read more »

Video Humor

“Your business card is CRAP!”
from YouTube

Words of advice from the greatest pitchman alive today. Watch the video »

Marketing

“50 Simple Marketing Ideas All Freelancers Can Use”
from Freelance Switch, May 1 2009

As a freelancer, you have a wide variety of marketing options available to you. Just which ones will bring you the clients you prefer to work with depends — it’s important to make sure that the methods you use allow you to reach the places prospective clients will be. Read more »

Networking

“Why I’ll Only Follow 500 People On Twitter.”
from Gordie Rogers, May 11 2009

I know I’m going against the trend by limiting myself to only following 500 people on Twitter, but there is a method to my madness. Hear me out. Read more »

“85+ of the Best Twitterers Designers Should Follow”
from Mashable, May 4 2009

There are thousands of designers on Twitter (Twitter reviews) tweeting about everything from ongoing projects to their personal lives. But only a small percentage of those tweet about design topics of interest to other designers and design addicts. These people cover everything from their design process to their own projects, and design resources from all over the web. Below is a list of more than 85 of those Twitterers. Read more »

Web Design

“Small web design elements tutorials collection”
from Design Notes

Web design is about details. Details that audience do not pay attention to tells how well or how bad your design is. Today we are looking into some tutorials and techniques on the smallest elements in web layout design. Read more »

“10 Great CSS Selectors you must know”
from TutorialFeed, April 30 2009

Selectors define which part(s) of your (X)HTML document will be affected by the declarations you’ve specified. Several types of selectors are available in CSS. Note that some of them are not supported in all browsers. Read more »

Animation

“This one time…”
from Vimeo

A gorgeous animation with a fun story and fluid movements. By nelson boles
Watch the video »

Workspaces

“Advantages and Disadvantages: Working with Multiple Screens”
from Web Designer Depot, May 11 2009

Two characteristics that represent most web designers are a need for productivity and a love for technology.

This desire for increased efficiency and productivity leads many designers to look to technology for methods that will improve their work flow.

One common approach for designers (and others who want to improve productivity) is to use multiple monitors. Using two or more monitors can bring a number of significant advantages to designers. Read more »

Blogging

“How Not to Promote Your Blog: Top 10 Broken Blog Promotion Strategies”
from Problogger, May 13 2009

For every great blog promotion strategy, there are five that suck. Really suck. They suck so bad that using them can get you blacklisted by real bloggers, ignored by annoyed readers, unfollowed on Twitter, and possibly placed on the terrorist watch list. Read more »

“How Not to Promote Your Blog: Top 10 Broken Blog Promotion Strategies”
from 1st Web Designer

Since I use social bookmarking/voting sites to promote my articles a lot, I thought I might share these sites with You too – I know if You submit every article in each of these sites regularly, You’ll get many new and regular readers in short time period. I, for example, got 4,000-5,000 unique readers everyday using this method. Read more »

Did I miss anything cool and groovy? Tell me in the comments below!

I’m starting a new feature today called Saturday Round-Up. On Saturdays, I will showcase all the cool stuff I have found throughout the week that relates to Web and graphic design. Enjoy!

Networking

“How Social Networks Are Changing Everything”
from Business Week, May 7 2009

Facebook and its ilk offer platforms to explore all the Web with one’s relevant data in tow, and they’re set to overtake the big portals Read more »

“Twitter Search to Become Real Search”
from Mashable.com, May 7 2009

The fact that Twitter (Twitter reviews)’s search is now often faster and more relevant than any other search engine out there is not a secret anymore. It is, however, a very limited search engine: it merely indexes a bunch of tweets. In its current state, it’s great for tracking conversations, but it will never be a competitor to Google (Google reviews). This is about to change. Read more »

BackTweets

Search links in Twitter Try this tool »

Scoopler

Real-time search. Try this tool »

Web Design

“101 Techniques for a Powerful CMS using WordPress”
from Noupe.com, May 5 2009

Throughout this article, we’ll be focus on many WordPress Theme hacks, ideas, tips and useful tutorials you need to have ready in hand when developing WordPress websites. Let’s take a look at useful, yet rather unknown techniques for a powerful CMS using WordPress. Each section of the article presents a suggestion and provides you with an explanation of the solution for each suggestion. Read more »

Website Grader

Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective. Try this tool »

“Worldwide Conferences for Web Designers”
from Web Designer Depot, May 8 2009

We’ve arranged a massive list of events of interest to graphic design professionals. Read more »

“73 Best Free Design Resource Website Help You To Use In Your Designs ”
from VisionWidget, May 9 2009

As a designer its always handy to have a collection of Photoshop brushes & vector & Free Quality PSD objects to use in your designs, but finding a best/perfect piece is not an easy task, even though there are quite a few resources around the web, some of the websites are best and others are not worth checking, here I’ve collected best 73 websites of them where you can download free files, all these sites are worth bookmarking. Read more »

“Flash vs. Silverlight: What Suits Your Needs Best?”
from Smashing Magazine, May 9 2009

With the release of Silverlight 1.0 and its subsequent versions, a debate started among designers and developers regarding choosing between Flash and Silverlight. Silverlight faces difficulties in capturing the market because of the maturity of Flash. However, Silverlight has managed to keep up by including certain features that designers and developers have always wanted to see in Flash, such as search engine optimization. In this article, we will discuss some of the technical differences between Flash and Silverlight to help you choose the technology that best suits your needs. Read more »

“The ‘Semantic Video Web’ is Essential, Pluggd’s Alex Castro”
from Beet.TV, May 20 2008

Video search is key to discovery and consumption of video. Also essential is the organization of metadata. Pluggd, a Seattle-based start up, does both. The company provides its enterprise solution to CNET Networks and others. View video »

Blogging

“How to Create a Highly Viral Blog”
from Write to Done, May 6 2009

Despite all the buzz about creating “viral content” and a “viral blog,” not many people really understand how this is done. I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure I’ve got it all figured out. There aren’t really any secrets. But, there are a lot of little tactics that can add up to creating something contagious. Read more »

Did I miss anything cool and groovy? Tell me in the comments below!