CSS has fundamentally changed web design, it has provided designers with a set of properties that can be tweaked to make various techniques to make your pages just look right. Today we are presenting a round-up of 101 CSS techniques designers use all the time. Definitely worth taking a very close look at! This is just the first series , the second part will be coming soon, stay tuned and Enjoy! Update: You can check Part2 here. CSS Sprites CSS sprites save HTTP requests by using CSS positioning to selectively display composite background images. To maximize accessibility and usability, CSS sprites are best used for icons or decorative effects. CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death- Say goodbye to old-school slicing and dicing when creating image maps, buttons, and navigation menus. Instead, say hello to a deceptively simple yet powerful sprite-based CSS solution. CSS Sprites: What They Are, Why They’re Cool, and How To Use Them - CSS-Tricks CSS Sprites: How Yahoo.com and AOL.com Improve Web Performance- Learn how AOL and Yahoo! use CSS sprites to improve performance for their busy home pages CSS Rounded Corners Rounded corners is one of the most popular and frequently requested CSS techniques. There lots of ways to create rounded corners with CSS, but they always require lots of complex HTML and CSS. Here are easy ways to achieve this effect. Even More Rounded Corners With CSS- Single-image, PNG-based, fluid rounded corner dialogs with support for borders, alpha transparency throughout, gradients, patterns and whatever else you could want. Demo : Rounded corners in CSS- Simple bordered div which contained four divs that each had a background-image and that were positioned in each of the corners. Liquid rounded corners- For liquid design and transparent scrolling - tutorial and stylesheet Mountaintop Corners- easier way for creating decent rounded corners. Image Replacements Technique Thierry Image Placement: Image Placement vs. Image Replacement (FIR) This technique is mostly for headlines by using CSS to replace normal HTML text, with a background image in order to achieve a particular look.Several different image replacement methods have been proposed, each with their pros and cons. when you need image replacement you can check the Gilder/Levin Method as described by Dave Shea or, if the replaced text is linked and CSS support for IE/Mac is required, the Gilder Follow

Which are the best and most important plugins that must be installed and used? In this post I will present you some Plugins every blogger uses on his blog. You should use them too! 1. Akismet the best comment spam protection this side of dodge. It fortunately comes pre-installed, though you’ll still need an API key from WordPress.com. 2. Smart Archives A simple, clean, and future-proof way to present your archives. Smart Archives is a rather simple WordPressplugin that will allow you to display your archives in a much “cleaner” format. You can see it in action on my archives page. 3. AdSense-Deluxe With this free plugin, you can insert contextual ads from Google or Yahoo closer to your content where they are more effective, PLUS manage multiple ad sizes and formats with a simple control panel that is integrated directly into the WordPress Admin area. 4. All In One SEO Pack This is the ultimate SEO Plugin you were waiting for. The plugin brings what is missing in WP: description, keywords, blog title, post titles and many more 5. Related Posts This is one of my favorites. It returns a list of the related entries based on active/passive keyword matches. This will help you bring out those posts that are hidden in your Archives. 6. Feedburner Feed Replacement Forwards all feed traffic to Feedburner while creating a randomized feed for Feedburner to pull from. 7.WP-PageNavi adds a more advanced paging navigation your WordPress blog. You can have a page navigation bar with page numbers, previous page, next page, first and the last page button. You can also format the navigation bar easily with CSS. 8.Google Sitemaps This plugin will automatically create a Google compliant sitemap of your Wordpress blog to ensure that all of your pages are indexed in Google. This is one plugin you definitely don’t want to be without. 9.WP-ContactForm If you’re looking to avoid email spam, then this is the plugin for you. This plugin allows people to contact you without actually emailing you. 10. Popularity Contest This will enable ranking of your posts by popularity; using the behavior of your visitors to determine each post’s popularity. You set a value (or use the default value) for every post view, comment, etc. and the popularity of your posts is calculated based on those values. 11 AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget Help your visitor promote your website or blog. Put the AddThis Social Follow