MyBackgrounds Blog

Read The 65 Most Annoying things about the Web Today and have a laugh, then use it as a checklist to inspect your website. How annoying is your site? Visitors should be able to know who you are, what you do and how to buy from you without road blocks like Flash, confusing navigation, pop-ups, auto-playing videos and other web nuisances.

Another reference to use in annoyance measurement is How Popular Website Designs Looked Like In Late 90’s. Some, like Apple.com, have aged for the better with sleeker, cleaner designs. Others, like Yahoo.com, are still plastered with links, banners and information overload. How does your site compare?

Free photo site Stock.XCHNG was recently acquired by Getty Images as part of Getty’s acquisition of JupiterImages. For now, SXC will still offer free images, “…but you’ll notice more opportunities to access iStockphoto, the world’s leading royalty-free stock multimedia destination.” according to Getty’s email announcement. More opportunities meaning “more iStockphoto ads.”

SXC has always listed iStockphoto images as “premium results” but links and banners to iStockphoto have increased. Hopefully Getty will keep SXC as a free photo exchange website, and invest some time and resources to make SXC faster-loading.

Jolie O’Dell presents a great round up of Photoshop alternatives with Free Alternatives to Photoshop With All the Bells, Whistles, Filters, & Layers. Each tool, like Splashup and The GIMP was tested with the same photo and given a numerical rating compared to Photoshop (Photoshop being a 10). The alternatives keep getting better with age!

TypeTester.org is an easy to use online tool that helps you set up your site’s type. Work with three columns simultaneously to test fonts, sizes, styles and color combinations. Your changes show up instantly!