Andy Boyd

Thomas Baekdal wrote the following review of the things to consider when designing a website for browsers/monitors of different sizes:
http://www.baekdal.com/articles/usability/browser-size-design/

I think this was a great article. I thought the following points were especially interesting:

Text

Let’s start with text. We know from countless of studies that the optimal width of a block of text is between 65-80 characters (with a line-height of about 1.15). This is the optimal size of text, and it has been proven to be:

• Easier to move from one line to the next
• It is much faster to read in general
• The brain use less mental effort (which increases understanding and learnability)

Designing text on a website is simply about 3 things:

• Make it readable (use a readable font and adequate size)
• Prevent scrolling as much as you can
• Make the width of the text box 65-85 characters per line.

Images

As rule of thumb the best way to present an image is to balance its size between two things:

• To prevent unnecessary eye movements (mental strain)
• Make it big enough to see the details

The correct size of an image depends on the number of details in it. Many details require a larger image - while a few can easily be seen in a smaller area. But you can generally size your images based on a 14:5 ratio. The distance from your eyes should be about 2.8 times further away (14:5) than the width/height of your image.

Ok, so this isn’t really web-related, but this is still pretty cool…  For those of you out there that love using the command line, now you can order pizza using the command line.

http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/pizza_party/

Communities that bring freelancers and clients together are poping up all over the web. Freelancers no longer need to find their own clients, now they come to you.

Here are a few

• http://www.sologig.com/
• http://freelanceswitch.com/jobs
• http://www.elance.com/
• http://getafreelancer.com/
• http://www.RentACoder/
• http://www.designoutpost.com/
• http://logoworks.com/

These sites are not just web design and graphic design. They also offer writing, programming, marketing, and more…