Flash Develop And Design

Keeping Your Web Servers Running Smoothly

As designers and developers we generally worry about the aesthetics and behavior of a website. But what about the server it runs on that has made it all possible for this site to operate swiftly? In order to provide your clients with the best possible service you should ensure that their websites server is running smoothly on a regular basis, and what better way to do so then with intelligently designed tools that can notify you of any disturbances or irregularities that your websites server may encounter.

The following tools manage and monitor various levels of quality relating to the uptime and security of your servers. These tools will help you identify any problems so that you’re able to resolve the issues as quickly as possible. Take a look at the ones we’ve compiled below, and then test whichever ones appeal to you the most in terms of functionality and reliability.

Webmetrics GlobalWatch

GlobalWatch is an interactive tool that allows you to monitor a variety of web applications and sites. It digs deep into the root of the problem and quickly identifies and diagnoses any downtime errors, and poor performance levels in detail reports and customizable alerts. With this tool you’ll always be informed of any of your websites irregular performance.

Pingdom

Pingdom ensures that your website is accessible and responds accordingly consistently. It’s able to monitor uptime, various levels of performance, multiple applications, FTP servers, email servers and any application that’s accessible from the Internet. Pingdom provides you with detailed email and SMS alerts if anything is wrong. It also lets you read results in the form of charts and tables that are extremely legible. This tool is also available as an iPhone application.

McAfee Secure

McAfee Secure strategically monitors any and all of your severs that may be at a potential security risk. This powerful tool will protect your servers against security breaches, the end-users from being subject to identity theft, credit card frauds, viruses, scams, and your dose of annoying spam. Your site will be in good hands since McAfee will test it and certify it on a daily basis. McAfee currently monitors and certifies over 80,000 websites ranging from a wide scope of business sizes and structures.

Nimsoft Monitoring Solutions (NMS)

NMS actively monitors your servers and any applications found on the servers. Everything from CPU to memory, server resources, even logs and more are accurately monitored and recorded. Being quick and easy to install is just the beginning, NMS is also a lightweight application that has the power to monitor thousands of servers at a time. NMS is also very easy to use, alerts and details are always clear, and it also visually shows you your servers interconnected, color-coded indicators, and the response times from server-to-server. It’s a great choice no matter the size of your servers.

Simple Server Monitor

Simple Server seems to understand the importance of having a valuable application that can effectively monitor your servers. It’s designed for those on a small budget and offers a free 30-day trial. Useful features such as the monitoring of uptimes, performance levels, and FTP/HTTP/POP/IMAP servers (to name a few) are included. It’s ideal for those who wish to receive updates and alerts within their desktop in the form of pop-up messages, SMS format, and charts.

Solarwinds Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM)

Orion’s NPM tool monitors all of your servers and ensures that their running without any problems every minute of the day. It also monitors all of your routers, switches and wireless access points within your network as well. It comes with a fairly easy set-up and the support of 100’s of expert network engineers. It’s extremely easy to use and Orion can be up and running in less than an hour right after it’s been downloaded!

ENVIROMUX Server Environment Monitoring System

Nagios hit the ball out of the park when they developed powerful tool that monitors your servers temperature, humidity, liquid presence, motion, intrusion and vibration all to ensure that your server’s in tip-top operating capacity. You’re able to create custom alarm signals, monitor and manage security conditions over IP, monitor/ping up to 64 IP network devices, and manage your servers using a single attractive web interface for all systems connected.

SiteUptime

SiteUptime works like clock-work by monitoring your website 24/7 365 days a year. SU provides free and advanced remote monitoring services that notifies you when your servers are down via email and or SMS text messaging. This will ensure that the errors are sent to you with priority and speed so that you’re able to quickly fix any problems with your connections. SU allows you to view detailed statistics about your website’s availability and server response times anytime you’d like. Overall, it’s a very useful multiple monitoring tool for servers that runs tests on specific intervals (every couple seconds).

Further Resources

Rss AD

Win 5 Must Read Web Design Books

Today we have a very special giveaway for our precious readers – five of the best and most popular design books currently available. Just have a look at the line up of books we have, the books are: A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web, jQuery: Novice To Ninja, Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog, Digging into Wordpress and finally, Rocket Surgery.

Who wouldn’t want these on their bookshelf. Read further on in this post to find out how to enter and, hopefully, win these fantastic books.

Here is an overview of the books you can win:

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web aims to teach you techniques for designing your website using the principles of graphic design. Featuring five sections, each covering a core aspect of graphic design: Getting Started, Research, Typography, Colour, and Layout. Learn solid graphic design theory that you can simply apply to your designs, making the difference from a good design to a great one.

jQuery: Novice To Ninja

jQuery: Novice to Ninja, from sitepoint.com, will show you how to unleash the amazing power of jQuery. In this easy-to-follow guide, youâ��ll master all the major tricks and techniques that jQuery offersâ��within hours.

jQuery has quickly become the JavaScript library of choice, and itâ��s easy to see why. This JavaScript framework dramatically improves how you add interactivity and animation to your website.

Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog

Smashing WordPress shows you how to utilize the power of the WordPress platform, and provides a creative spark to help you build WordPress-powered sites that go beyond the obvious. You will learn the core concepts used to build just about anything in WordPress, resulting in fast deployments and greater design flexibility.

Inside, WordPress expert Thord Daniel Hedengren takes you beyond the blog and shows you how WordPress can serve as a CMS, a photo gallery, an e-commerce site, and more.

Digging into Wordpress

There is much to learn about the Worldâ��s most popular publishing platform. From your first steps of learning about WordPress all the way through maintaining a site throughout the years, this book is packed with truly practical information.

Rocket Surgery

Rocket Surgery, written by Steve Krug, it’s a how-to book that explains exactly how to do your own web site usability testing.

How can you win these books?

To Enter the Competition:

Join Design Reviver Answers and ask or answer a question.
Tweet this message: Win 5 must read web design books from @DesignReviver http://bit.ly/aFYQ1L RT to enter the giveaway!

The winners will be announced next week.

Rss AD

40 Extraordinary Photoshop Text Effects

The trouble with Photoshop Tutorials is that there are a lot of them out there, but you only want the very best, most creative ones.

In this post, we’ve collected 40 of the very best and most extravagant tutorials for working with type. After working through a few of the most appealing looking ones to you, you should have more than a few ideas for creating your own, unique effects!

Tutorials:

How to Create a Stereoscopic Image for Crossed Eye Image Viewing
This tutorial will teach you how to create a stereoscopic image for cross eye viewing and you will be able to view the final image in 3D and full color without any other objects.

Lost in Space Typography in Photoshop
Learn how to create an easy and super quick text effect in Photoshop. You will play with different Brushes, Blend Modes and basic filters like Blur and Liquify.

3D explosion using Photoshop Tools
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a 3d explosion with the Brush Tool and Smudge Tool using Photoshop and its default settings. This tutorial also features a few steps guiding on how to create and implement your own 3d text.

Design an Awesome Splashing Ocean Text Effect with Lightning Background in Photoshop
A step by step tutorial on creating a really cool-looking, Splashing Ocean Text Effect with Lightning Background in Photoshop.

Maddening Text Effect in Photoshop – Unlimited Variations
Create a breathtaking maddening text effect and composition that can be used for advertising.

Photoshop Tutorial: Metallic Text
Learn how to create a simple metallic effect for a text.

How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop
This tutorial will teach you on how to create an eroded metal text effect. You will also get to learn various drawing techniques, channels, and patterns.

How to Create an Elegant Text Effect
Know how to create an elegant text effect in only 13 steps.

Create realistic type on wood
This tutorial will show you how to make a regular text look like it has been painted or printed on wood using different text effects. This is a great way to give your text that natural look. This can be applied to any solid shape, text, images, logos, etc.

Create Simple Candy Cane Text in Photoshop
In this quick tutorial will how you how to make some simple candy cane text.

Create A Beautiful 3D Text Composition
This tutorial is jam-packed with techniques, tips and tricks to improve your work flow and design skills. You will find a ton of useful information in this tutorial.

Create a Transparent Text Effect with Fresh Grass
Create a cool looking Trasparent Text Effect, mixing with Fresh Grass Texture and Cloud Brush set. You can use the text effect in a wide range of occasions â�� such as website header background, part of a natural themed design, etc.

Jelly Fish Delight â�� Photoshop Tutorial
An inspiring tutorial created using different techniques to create a soft background with glowing jellyfish.

The 1 Layer Bubbly Text Effect!
A interesting tutorial on creating a Bubbly Text Effect with just One Layer.

Subtle Reflection Tutorial
Know how to create a “Subtle Reflection” text effect. You can experiment with different settings than you will learn and might be a mandatory if you are working in a different sizes.

AVIAN Studios Logo
Recreate a col AVIAN Studios Logo using Photoshop.

Tutorial: Killer 3D Poster Design with 3DS Max & Photoshop
Learn how to create a killer 3D Poster Design with 3DS Max & Photoshop.

3D Jungle Text Effect
This Photoshop tutorial will explain how to realize a 3D jungle text effect. You will create the text in Xara3d and use Photoshop to texturize the letters.

Extinction Text Effect
In this tutorial you will know how to create a good 3D type explosion with Adobe Illustrator, Cinema 4D and Adobe Photoshop using basic tools to make this artwork.

Striking Text Effect Using Glows and Blends
This tutorial will show you how to create striking text using a combination of glows and blends in 7 steps.

Basic Candy Cane Text Effect in Photoshop
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a candy cane like text effect with the help of some simple Photoshop techniques.

Create a gel text effect photoshop – Gelatinous Text
This tutorial will teach you how to make a Gel text in photoshop, you can make it within a few steps, using photoshop layer style and character menu, this is a very beautiful and easy tutorial.

Create a RENU Typography Effect
Create some really cool-looking effects to decorate a Typography. You will be using a combination of layer styles, color blending, lens flare and images. The end effect is quite stunning and hopefully youâ��ll pick up some tips you didnâ��t know before.

Create a New Retro Text Effect in Photoshop
This effect is good for all sorts of projects, flyers, websites, posters. It works particularly well with music based projects. It will take you through the motions for type.

Create Pillowed Text Using Various Effects
Learn how to create that pillowed effect on text.

3D Typography in Photoshop
In this tutorial you will go over various techniques you may haven’t seen before, as well as a bulk of techniques that may be new to you. After you have completed this intense walk though, you will be able to explore even more new ways of creating typefaces as well as other types of ideas.

Create a Unique Burning Text Effect
Learn how to create a superb, unique burning text effect, whereby areas of flaming text actually peel off to expose an under layer.

Create Gloomy Text Effect
Know ow to create a stunning Gloomy Text Effect by Utilizing the Amazing Cloud Filter in Photoshop.

Glorious Starburst Photoshop Tutorial
This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to create a cool background swirl effect for websites, twitter pages, etc. Learn how to make text pop out of the background, add dust particles and more.

Ultra Glossy Liquid Metal Text Effect
In this tutorial you will learn techniques mostly based on Layer style settings and a combination of a lot of Curves. When combined together, they give a rich, deep and glossy look to the text.

Create a Shiny Text & Effect in Photoshop
Learn how to create a shiny text effect in photoshop.

Create a Glass Text effect in Photoshop and Shatter it
This tutorial with respect to the Blending modes and Layer styles. Infact, to achieve the glass text effect, we will experiment with a lot of layer styles which are very much required to get the realistic effect.

Create a spectacular SF looking wallpaper
In this tutorial we are going to create the mosaic background and a cool radioactive looking text, combine this two elements and you will get an amazing desktop wallpaper.

Aurora Borealis Typopgraphy Wallpaper

A great tutorial on creating Aurora Borealis typopgraphy wallpaper

Design a Brilliant Product Advertisement
In this tutorial, youâ��ll learn the steps and techniques involved in creating a brilliant product advertisement. Youâ��ll start with a stock image of an Adidas shoe, extract it from the background, then combine it with various photo stocks to create a liquifying product advertisement.

Old style typography tutorial
Create a old style typography tutorial.

How to create an impressive-looking text effect
This tutorial will show you on how to create a strong and eye-catching text effect using gradient overlay, pattern overlay styles and combination of different techniques.

Photoshop Grungy metal effect
This tutorial you will be learning how to create a text effect using textures from stock images. The final image is a grungy picture with text being illuminated in the dark.

3D Valentine’s Day Typography (Exclusive Tutorial)
In this tutorial you will walk through different steps in creating this illustration. This technique can be used in a variety of ways and also for different themes besides Valentine’s Day.

Create a Psd Geek Wallpaper From Scratch
In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a high quality wallpaper for your desktop from scratch.

Some More Photoshop Resources

If you know of any other awesome text tutorials, share the link in the comments!

Rss AD

FYI Monday: Geometric Grunge by Niklas Lundberg

This post is part of the For Your Inspiration Monday Series showcasing the most inspiring designs out there. Each week a new artist or design style will be presented in order to get your creative juices flowing for the upcoming week. I hope you enjoy the series.

Niklas Lundberg is a 22-year old freelance graphic designer & illustrator based in the northern region of Sweden. His style is a mixture of geometric grunge art combined with eclectic compositions. Niklas uses strong, yet not overpowering colour schemes. Follow him on Twitter and visit his online showcase at Diftype.com for more inspiration.

Rss AD

Folding Dining Table Folds into a Mirror

The Folding Dining Table from Italian company Porada is a really interesting piece of furniture. This piece of furniture can be used as a mirror and ganged on the wall when folded, and it can also be used as a neat folding table especially when your dining space is limited. Don’t know how many of you would have the time to fold and unfold this “mirror table” but I thought that is a really cool idea. – Via – Bornrich

Rss AD

Breathe New Life to Your Space with Wall Stickers

Wall stickers are a great way to dress up any interior decorating and design project. The nice thing about them is they can easily be removed and placed elsewhere in a room. Here are a few wall stickers ideas from Sticasa, unique and stylish wall stickers are great substitutions for wall-paper, pictures, and posters and can breathe new life to spaces in your home or office at minimal cost and impact. STICASA stickers are highly customizable and are individually crafted in Italy and shipped via Fed-Ex to the USA. The materials are top-quality and non-toxic. Application is extremely easy, simply peel and stick them. The same goes if you want to remove the sticker.

Rss AD

New Shelf System : Konnex by Florian Gross

Konnex is a new shelf system by German designer Florian Gross. It is super versatile and can be put together in several ways. It has a contemporary appearance and would fit in most places. The shelf system is a basic cube set, which can be assembled according to the need of the house. It can also be moved into a similar cubicle shape already present at home. The design in total features about six cubes with slits. Each cube can be fixed to the slit of the other and a compact voluminous shelf can be created. When not in use, the cubes can be placed one inside the other, allowing it to occupy minimal space. Most importantly, its basic design will complement any home decor style.

Rss AD

Fashionable Home in Denver, A Showcase of Luxury And Style

Located in Cherry Creek, one of the most “trendy” neighborhoods in Denver, this property amazes through luxury, style and design. The fashionable home catches one’s attention from a great distance, due to its large windows and the combination of stone and stainless steel used to style up the exterior. The overall costs of this building were $4,695,000, a striking sum, but one that justifies what the place houses. When stepping inside, a live-life-to-the-fullest interior is revealed. The residence features an impressive wine room, a library, an indoor office and of course, a well defined entrainment area. We also like the interior design of this house, with interesting furniture elements and the inspiring decorating ideas. We are waiting for you to highlight the things you enjoy seeing and the ones you dislike in the pictures below. -via DigsDigs

Rss AD

Imposing Residence From Shun Hirayama Architecture : â��Les Aventuriersâ��

“Les Aventuriers” comes from Shun Hirayama Architecture and is an imposing hillside residence located in Kanagawa Prefecture, an area with beautiful surroundings. The owners wanted a peaceful home that would be integrated in a natural environment. However, when it came to design and architecture, the land was not as peaceful. The house is built on a slope which means you will find angled walls and various ceiling heights. We really liked a concept put together by the developers of the project, as it brings an unique interpretation of the overall design. And here it is: “We produced a path that possesses comfortable straight eyesight, analogous to walking between trees. The path connects the inside and the outside, and again backs to the inside without a dead-end.” We hope you will like the “tree-house feel” of this place and we are looking forward to your comments.-via Design Boom

Rss AD

Free Texture Tuesday: Scraped Grunge

The other day I was wandering around some back allies in my town and came across all of these cool poles that had been painted and scraped and repainted over and over again. I thought it gave these grunge textures a very cool feel, almost like an abstract acrylic painting or something. I’ve got all kinds of cool textures coming your way in the next few weeks, so get excited! Enjoy!

Preview

About The Author:

Caleb Kimbrough is the man behind LostAndTaken.com, a blog solely focused on giving away free high-res textures.

Rss AD