1. Mysql Format Date

MySQL Format Date helps you to format your dates using the MySQL DATE_FORMAT function. Just select a common date format and then change it to your suit your needs. The MySQL DATE_FORMAT code will be generated at the bottom of the page which you can then copy into your query.

2. Em Chart

I never been a fan of ems in CSS files, but sometimes you have to deal with it. In that case, Em chart will translate ems to pixels so you’ll save time and hassle.

3. Browser Sandbox

Cross browser compatibility is definitely one of the biggest problems a web developer has to face in his daily job. The browser sandbox lets you run any Windows browser from the web. The only bad thing is that you must run a Windows machine: The app does not work on Macs and GNU/Linux.

4. Twitter API Explorer

If you’re using the Twitter API in the site you build, you’ll for sure enjoy this very handy website which allow you to search through the Twitter API. Even better, the website can generate ready-to-use code snippets. A real time gain for you and your clients!

5. PHP Forms

Web forms are one of the most important part of a website, but creating them is also very time-consuming. So, what about using a website that can speed up your form development for free?
PHP forms allows you to create advanced forms that can fit the needs of most websites.

6. Smush it!

Images may be worth a thousand words, they’re also well known to use a lot of bandwidth. Images can be optimized for the web using programs like Photoshop; but if you don’t own a copy of this software or simply don’t have a clue how to do it, smush.it is what you need.
Brought to you by Yahoo developers network, Smush.it is an online tool that will reduce your image size without reducing their quality.
For WordPress users, a very handy plugin for your favorite blogging engine is available here.

7. Test everything

This site is a definitive must-have for your bookmarks: As the name says, Test everything allows you to test lot of things such as XHTML and CSS markup, PageRank, back-links, and a lot more.

8. CSS Compressor

Especially on site with many different page layouts, CSS files can become huge and use a lot of server bandwidth. This tool, named CSS Compressor, can consequently reduce the size of any CSS file by removing comments, indentation and more.
Even better, compression level can be configured to fit your needs.

9 .htaccess editor

A .htaccess file is a must have for any website. Don’t know how to write one? No problem, just visit this site to create your .htaccess file using a wizard. It doesn’t allow very advanced stuff, but the results are great for 95% of the websites you’ll make.

10. Script Src

Are you tired of hunting the Internet in order to find the script tag for the latest version of the Javascript library of your choice? ScriptSrc.net has compiled all the latest versions of jQuery, Mootools, Prototype and more in a single page which lets you copy it in your browser clipboard with a single click.

1. Email - Knowing how to check your email, and how to write an effective email are two entirely different topics – but both are useful to know! Your email provider should have a “How To” on checking your email through webmail and setting up an email client on almost any platform, but if it’s over your head, consider using a flexible, free service like Gmail, and forwarding your old email to your new one. Although almost any email address can be configured so that it’s accessible over the web via browser or smartphone, Gmail apps make it easy for even the non-technically inclined to access their email anywhere.

On the writing effective emails front, check out mindtools.com’s article on Writing Effective Emails.

2. Networks and Wi-Fi – Being unable to connect to the internet can derail a remote worker’s entire day. Being able to troubleshoot basic network and wi-fi problems is a must. Also, consider a backup plan, if a tree falls on the telecom lines outside your house, where is the closest wi-fi hot spot?

C-Net has a good primer video on basic wi-fi troubleshooting, which is worth a view if your productivity (and your paycheck) is dependent upon a wireless
connection.

3. “Instant” Communication, Skype, IM, etc. - Availability via IM can be either a blessing or a curse for a remote worker. Consider separating your business and personal life with separate logins for IM services so that you can tune out the chatter from friends, harness this tool for productivity, and gain a sense of “being there” with your colleagues even if you’re far away.

4. Tele- and Web conferencing – Be sure to familiarize yourself with your client’s preferred method of meeting. You can’t blame it on traffic when you’re late to a virtual meeting, and depending on your field, citing technical difficulties might make you look incompetent.

5. Collaborative Tools – Whether its as simple as Google Docs, or as involved as project management tools like BaseCamp, it’s important that you can effectively use the tools that you have at your disposal.

For more a quick primer on Google Apps, check out Google’s very own Google Apps Training Tutorial, and for some quick tips on how to use Basecamp more effectively, see Flatsourcing’s “We <3 Basecamp. How we use it effectively.”

6. Document creation and sharing – Being able to generate clear and concise documents, create the necessary delivery formats (ie, .doc, .pdf, .jpg), and share them via email attachment, web, ftp, or the collaborative tools mentioned above is an essential skill for any remote worker. A great free tool for creating PDF files is CutePDF, it’s free and, once installed, is as simple as clicking “print”.

7. Digital organization – Since the majority of remote work is digital, your computer desktop and local file structures are just as important as the desktop and filing cabinet you would keep at the office. It’s easy – create new folders by right clicking on the desktop, select “New”, select Folder, name it, put files and other folders in side of it according to the organizational structure that makes sense to you.

8. Screencasts/Screenshots - Sometimes its easier to just show someone what your talking about rather than trying to explain it. Being able to take a screenshot, circle part of the image and write notes can be a helpful way to illustrate a point. For explanations of more in-depth procedures, screencasts can be invaluable.

For more info, see About.com’s How To Capture a Screen Shot of your Desktop or the Active Window in  Windows.

For getting started quickly and easily with screencasts, check out NorthStarNerd.org’s Tutorial on Camstudio.

9. Maintenance - Keeping a good eye on the health of your computer can prevent disastrous delays. Anti-virus and anti-malware are a great start, but your hardware’s health is important too. Don’t ignore noisy fans and cranky sounding hard drives! Most hardware failures give warning signs, don’t ignore them.

For more info on computer maintenance see, Optimizing Computer Performance for Online Work Success, featured previous on the oDesk blog. For more advanced users, consider a hardware monitoring tool like SpeedFan, which can help you monitor CPU temperature, and overall hard drive health.

10. Security - Keep your sensitive data private. Run a good firewall, and keep your OS and browser up to date with security updates. For more security tips see, Securing Your Home Network, featured previous on the oDesk blog.

Alexa

• Alexa-Ranking
  Alexa page-rank-and-rating-results

Backlink

• Anchor Text Backlink Checker
  This tool is to check your backlinks and the anchor text used in those backlinks.
• Backlink Analyzer
  Research and analyze websites for link quality. Checks for Indexed Pages, Links to Website, EDU & .GOV Links, Domain Age & Expiration, Google PageRank, Alexa Traffic Rank, DMOZ Listing
• Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer
  This tools help you determine the backlinks of your website and link text used by your backlinks to Link to your website
• Backlink Builder
  Building Quality backlinks is one of the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization…

Domain Popularity, Domain Stats Tools…

• Domain Age Tool
  This tools displays the approximate age of a website on the Internet and allows you to view how the website looked when it first started
• Domain Dossier
  Investigate domains and IP addresses
• Domain Popularity
  This tool shows you all backlinks for the given domain, including up to 10 subpages per backlinking domain, host IP and Google PageRank
• Domain Stats Tool
  This tool helps you get all kind of statistics of your competitor’s domains. The statistics include Alexa Taffic Rank, Age of the domains, Yahoo WebRank, Dmoz listings, count of backlinks and number of pages indexed in Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, Msn etc.
• HTTP / HTTPS Header Check
  This tools allow you to inspect the HTTP headers that the web server returns when requesting a URL. Works with HTTP and HTTPS URLs
• View HTTP Headers
  This little tool lets you view the HTTP headers for a HTTP request
• View HTTP Path
  This little tool lets you view the path/redirects a request takes to get fulfilled

Google Page Rank Checker, Adwords Keyword Tools,Google Banned Tools…

• Advanced Google searches
  Use this tool to search google in many special ways. A useful resource for search engine optimization (especially keyword research) among other things
• Check Google Pagerank
  Now you can check the Google PageRank of any web page without installing the Google toolbar
• Check PageRank by Google data center
  With this tool you can check the PageRank from different data centers
• Free Google Adsense Keywords & YPN Keywords Search Tool
  With the ability to search a growing database of tens of thousands of high-dollar Adsense keywords, Iotaweb allows publishers to find the keywords and key phrases that will allow them to focus their content to monetize their site most effectively.
• Google Adwords Keyword Tool
  Keyword tool from Google that provides Specific and Similar keywords.
• Google Banned Tool
  This tool uses two methods to check to see if a URL you enter is in the Google database. Its a great way to check to see if you have been banned by Google for various reasons….
• Google Keyword Ranking Tool
  Search with list of keywords from differnet Google search sites
• Google Page Rank Checker
  Instantly check the PageRank of any website or web page
• Google Page Rank Checker
  A simple tool that checks and your PageRank so you can display it on your website
• Google Sets
  Automatically create sets of items from a few examples.
• PageRank Authenticity Check
  This tool shows you the PageRank of a given domain. Also the PageRank will be checked of authenticity
• Page Rank Tool
  Our PageRank Tool will query and return the Google PageRank values for submitted URL from various Google datacenters…
• Visual PageRank
  The Visual PageRank – Tool shows all links and there corresponding PageRanks

Keyword Analysis Tool, Keyword Density, Keyword Suggestion Tools…

• McDar Keyword Analysis Tool
  Enter URL and keyword, it will display Pagerank and Back links pages for the Top 10 websites.
• Keyword Density
  This tool shows you how often appears which word in content of given domain
• Keyword Density
  The keyword density tool is useful for helping webmasters and SEOs achieve their optimum keyword density for a set of key terms.
• Keyword Density Checker
  Keyword Density is the percentage of occurrence of your keywords to the text in the rest of your webpage. This tool will crawl the specified URL, extract text as a search engine would, remove common stop words and Analyze the density of the keywords.
• Keyword Difficulty Tool
  The keyword difficulty tool is used to analyze the competitive landscape of a particular search term or phrase, this tool issues a percentage score and provides a detailed analysis of the top ranking sites at Google and Yahoo…
• KwMap.net
  A Keyword Map For the Whole Internet
• Keyword Suggestion Tool
  This keyword suggestion tool will help you with the choosing of the right keywords for your website. You can see which keyword combinations are more popular and also get ideas for more keyword combinations..
• Website Keyword Suggestions
  This tools tries to determine the theme of your website and provides keyword suggestions along with keyword traffic estimates.
• Ontology Finder
  Related Keywords Lookup Tool

Link Popularity Check, Site Link Analyzer, Link Value…

• Deep Link Ratio Tool
  This tool was created to analyze how the deep link ratio of a site affects its rank in search engines. We can use this tool to compare the DLRs for the best ranking sites for a search phrase.
• Link Popularity Check
  Link popularity check is one of the best ways to quantifiably and independently measure your website’s online awareness and overall visibility…
• Link Popularity Checker
  The Link Popularity Checker tells you how many websites are linking to yours…
• LINK VALIDATION SPIDER
  Free Online Broken Link Checker
• Link Price Calculator
  This tools will help you determine the approximate amount you should be paying (or charging) per month for a text link (ad) from each and every page of the specified website
• Link Value
  This tool calculates the link value per month of a given website.
• Reciprocal Link Check
  This tool helps you ensure that your link partners are linking back to your website. It also determines the anchor text used by your link partners to link to your website.
• Site Link Analyzer
  This tool will analyze a given web page and return a table of data containing columns of outbound links and their associated anchor text…
• The Link Reputation Measurement Tool
  Reveals backlinks pointing to your target url along with the following: Link Survey – Link Reputation Score – Text used in links pointing to you – Alexa traffic analysis for the site corresponding to each backlink
• Outbound Links
  This tool shows every outgoing link from the given domain. Separated in external and internal links

Meta Tag Generators

• Meta Tag Generator
  Our Meta Tag Generator will read the page you specify, remove common words from it, and pick the most used words on the page. It will then generate a Meta Keywords tag using the words it has found…
• Meta Tag Generator
  Use this tool to generate a search engine friendly Head Tag for your web site
• Title & Meta Tags Generator
  his code generator will build the title and meta tags for your site to help improve your website’s search engine ranking using our Meta Tag Generator

Miscellaneous Tools

• Directory Submission Manager
  Use this free tool to track your submissions to various web directories….
• Copyscape
  Search for copies of your page on the Web
• Site Analysis including Link Popularity
  This tool generates a complete site analysis e.g. amount of backlinks, indexed sites, Google PageRank and also if your domain is listed in DMOZ and Yahoo directory
• Sitemap Generator
  Create your Google Sitemap Online
• Similar Page Checker
  Search Engines are known to penalize websites that contain Duplicate / Similar content. Your content could be similar to other websites on the Internet, or pages from within your own website could be similar to each other. This tool allows you to determine the percentage of similarity between two pages
• Speedtester
  This tool shows the duration of a given website. This value can be used for showing how long a website take to load and if it is better to optimize the website or change a (slow) ISP.
• mod_rewrite RewriteRule Generator
  Our mod_rewrite RewriteRule generator will take a dynamic url given to it, and generate the correct syntax to place in a .htaccess file to allow the url to be rewritten in a spiderable format
• URL Rewrite (mod_rewrite)
  With this tool you can generate dynamic urls to search engine friendly urls..
• URL Rewriting Tool
  Create Search Engine Friendly URLs
• User Agent Cloaking Detector
  This tool simulates the Googlebot (based on User-Agent) to detect cloaked content
• What is Hosted on that IP
  This little tool lets you view the virtual hosts on a particular IP

Search Engine Position Checker, Spider Simulator, Ranking Report, SERP Tracker

• Google vs Yahoo Graph
  This tool looks at the results from Yahoo and Google, finds the similarities and then gives you a graphical display of what results are in both search engines
• Search Engine Position Checker
  The Search Engine Position Checker tool will automatically query the search engines you specify and check if your URL appears in the first 50 results for your chosen keywords….
• Search Engine Spider Simulator
  With this tool you see all informations a search engine spider receive from a website.
• Marketleap Search Engine Verification Tool
  Our verification tool checks to see if your site is in the top three pages of a search engine result for a specific keyword
• Number of pages indexed
  This tool will generate a report showing how many pages of your website has been indexed by the search engines so far. It supports all major search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alltheweb, Hotbot and AltaVista.
• Search Engine Ranking Report
  Input key phrase list get Google rankings
• Serps Position
  Use this tool to find out, on which position your domain is ranked for the given keyword and compare the first 100 results by Google, search.MSN and Yahoo.
• SERP Tracker
  The SERP Tracker reports on search engine results and charts performance over time

SEO Analyzer, Scanner

• Free SEO Tools
  SEOToolSet
• Cool SEO Tool!
  This internet marketing tool checks the top 10 sites that rank in Google. After that, it checks to see how those 10 sites rank in Yahoo and in MSN….
• SEO Analyzer
  The SEO Analyzer is a FREE tool that uses a sophisticated algorithm that detects how optimized your web design is for search engines
• SEO Scanner
  An all-in-one advanced SEO analysis, tracking, and reporting tool
• Siteopsys
  Another An all-in-one advanced SEO analysis, tracking, and reporting tool

Robots.txt Tools

• Robots Txt Generator
  Use this tool to generate a simple robots file for your website…
• Robots.txt syntax checker
  This robots.txt syntax checker checks the contents of a site’s robots.txt…

If you are looking for a quick and easy fix for symbols or icons, using dingbat fonts can help you save lots of time. Dingbats are symbols and shapes that are created to describe fonts in the position designated for alphabetical or numerical characters. Remember to take extra care on your choice of symbol. They should be understandable and intuitive.

Here are 17 Dingbat fonts available for free. Get them for your next interface project!

1. Symbol Signs

2. Notice 1

3. Notice 2

4. Travel Icons

5. Symbolix

6. Rally Symbols

7. Siruca Pictograms

8. Ding Dongs

9. Zeichen Hundert Alt

10. Road Signs

11. Warning Tables

12. Geo Type

13. Hazard

14. Cartographer

15. Glyphyx

16. Pictogramz

17. Waves

1. Using Custom Taxonomies to Create a Movie Database

Custom taxonomies in WordPress are similar to tags and categories, but they provide almost endless possibilities. In this tutorial Justin Tadlock shows a practical use for custom taxonomies while working on a movie database website. He shows how to set up custom taxonomies for actor, director, genre, producer, studio, and writer. This will make it easier for visitors to navigate the site as they can click on the actors name and see all of his/her movies. Justin also wrote an introductory post to Custom Taxonomies in WordPress 2.8.

You can also find more about custom taxonomies in Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr’s new book, Digging into WordPress, which I highly recommend.

2. Automatic WordPress Thumbnail Without Custom Field

This tutorial from Pro Blog Design shows how to use DarrenHoyt’s Tim Thumb script and the theme’s functions.php file to automatically grab and re-size the first image used in the post.

3. Design a Client Development Site with Wordpress MU

Another tutorial from Pro Blog Design. This one shows how WordPress theme designers and developers can save themselves some time and improve the process of developing themes for clients. It uses WordPress MU to be able to work on multiple themes with various clients at the same time.

4. Create Custom Single Post Template for Specific Posts or Sections in WordPress

WP Beginner shows how to create a custom single post template for each specific post, specific author, or a specific category. For designers or bloggers who want to use a number of different styles for their posts, this is a good option.

5. Creating Custom Write Panels in WordPress

Spencer from Function wrote a great tutorial that shows how you can create custom write panels in your WordPress themes. An example use for this would be post thumbnails without a custom field, but there are plenty of other ways that you could use this to improve your themes. Spencer has also written a follow up to the orginal article where he makes some improvements the to code being used.

6. Using Action Hooks in Child Themes and Using Filter Hooks in Child Themes

These two posts from Ian Stewart will help you to learn more about using child themes and customizations. Using the information here you can modify parent themes without impairing your ability to upgrade when a new version of the theme is released.

7. How to Make a Control Panel for Your WordPress Theme

Cats Who Code has a nice tutorial that shows how theme designers can create a simple options panel that allows users to make some modifications to the theme. Control panels can make themes more user-friendly and reduce the need to edit theme code. Starscape also has a tutorial for creating a settings page.

8. How to Integrate Pagination in Your WordPress Theme

Pagination is a little more user-friendly than the default “next” and “previous” links. The WP Page Navi plugin is the most popular option, but this post from Cats Who Code shows how you can integrate it directly into the theme.

9. How to Show Related Posts Without a Plugin

Plugins are commonly used to display a list of related posts at the end of a blog post. This post at WP Recipes shows the code for getting a list of related posts without the use of a plugin.

10. Display Thumbnails for Related Posts in WordPress

Still on the subject of related posts, Build Internet has a tutorial for creating a better-looking related post list that included thumbnails. It’s a customization of the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In this post we’ll look at a few aspects of blog posts and showcase some design elements that are used to make the post more helpful, inviting, or attractive.

1. Design Reviver

Design Reviver also includes a large lead image above the post title.

Sub-Headers:

Readability is obviously important to any blog in order to build an audience and encourage repeat visits. One of the best ways to improve readability in posts is to make use of sub-headers, and to have them styled effectively.

2. UX Booth

UX Booth uses different colors for h3 and h4 tags, which helps to visualize the flow or outline of the post.

End of Post Area/Promotion:

At the end of posts and before the comments, many blogs are including things like buttons and links for social media voting, and calls to action that will encourage readers to subscribe.

3. Well Medicated


Well Mediacated has an area for encouraging social media votes and an “about the author” section.

4. Tutorial9

Tutorial9 posts start with a lead graphic and links for social media voting/sharing.

5. Creative Tempest

Above posts on the Creative Tempest is a large lead image.

6. Viget Inspire

Viget Inspire also uses uppercase styling, and if you click through to this post you will see that their use of sub-headers and bold text helps to make the post scannable.

7. ANidea

ANidea’s appraoch is pretty unique. Each post has a lead image that appears above the right sidebar, and just below that is a list of related posts.

8. Web Design Ledger

Above each post on Web Design Ledger is a lead image. Between the image and the post title is a comment count, date of publication and category link.

9. Reality Equation

Reality Equation has a colorful theme, and the purple sub-headers fit well with the approach of the design and they look nice.

10. GoMediaZine

GoMediaZine has a dark, textured area with social media icons and links, as well as related posts and subscription options.

11. AppStorm

AppStorm uses a box that contains two simple lists for related posts and popular posts.

12. Carbon Sugar

Carbon Sugar includes two large areas for voting and for subscribing.

If we look at web design today, it’s anything but simple. Sometimes you need that extra Photoshop knowledge in order to achieve the look we need.In this step-by-step tutorial, we are going to show you how to create five killer effects for your site.

1. Faded Shadow
With a little bit of Blur and Quick Mask we can create shadows that fade out in any direction we want to. With this effect you can make boxes look like they pop out of the background. This example is from mint.com.

Step 1
First thing first, the background. As usual by now, within New Document same dimensions like previous ones.

Step 2
Draw in a white Rectangle.

Step 3
Create a New Layer and place it under the white rectangle layer. Cmnd (Ctrl) + Click white rectangle shape. Fill the empty layer with Black.

Step 4
Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and enter Radius: 12px.

Step 5
Add a Quick Mask to this layer. Select a 300px Soft Brush Tool and carefully mask all

Step 6
Now this was pretty easy, don’t you think? Now you can play around with this technique and who knows what awesome results you’ll get.

2. Depth and 3D Space
More and more interesting 3D elements are being used in web design lately. Here you can see how with just few extra layers, you can create an illusion of 3D space. This example is from mosaiko.com.br.

Step 1
New Document filled with Black.

Step 2
With Rectangle Toll draw in rectangle and fill it with #21262a.

Step 3
With same tool selected draw in another, this time smaller rectangle and fill it with #191b1d. These two rectangles will create our space on canvas. It will look like a wall is passing through it.

Step 4
Cmnd (Ctrl) + Click bigger rectangle shape to get a selection. Create a New layer. Choose 300px Soft Brush, color Black and click few times in top center of the selection.

Step 5
Do the same with smaller rectangle but this time click on bottom center part of the rectangle.

Step 6
Now, do the same for the background layer itself just use White as Brush color.

Step 7
Draw in a 85×20 px rectangle, fill it with #555759.

Step 8
Add following effects. Drop Shadow – Color: Black, Opacity: 25%, Angle: 90, Distance: 1px, Size:4px. Inner Shadow – Color: White, Opacity: 7%, Angle: -90, Distance: 1px, Size: 2px. Gradient Overlay, use values provided in the image.

Step 9
Choose Pen Tool and draw in a shape like you see in the image. Fill it with #555759.

Step 10
With a little use of Quick Mask and some Brushing we will create the illusion of 3D space. First add a Quick Mask to the layer and with 100 px Soft Brush mask the sides of the stripe.

Step 11
Next, select the whole stripe and choose 100px Soft Brush again. Create New Layer, set color to white and click few times at the beginning of the path but only with the top of the brush just like shown in the image.

Step 12
I added some navigation links, copied few more stripes, modified the perspective a bit and there we have it.

If we look at web design today, it’s anything but simple. Sometimes you need that extra Photoshop knowledge in order to achieve the look we need.In this step-by-step tutorial, we are going to show you how to create five killer effects for your site.

1. Navigation Menus
The most important part of a website: the navigation. I’ve chosen the example that uses some transparency and fade out effect (taken from legacylocker.com).

Step 1
Open a New Document, same dimensions from previous example. Create a New Layer and fill it with Gradient Overlay using the color hex values you can see in the image.

Step 2
For the purpose of this example I added few clouds

Step 3
Draw in a Rectangle, paint it with #6bb9ec and set Opacity to 65%.

Step 4
Add a Quick Mask to this layer. Choose 200px radius Soft Brush, set the color to Black and mask the ends of this rectangle, like you see it in the image.

Step 5
Draw in another Rectangle, but much higher. Put it under the small rectangle. Use the same color and Opacity. Again add a Quick Mask to this layer

Step 6
Choose 600px Soft Brush and carefully mask bottom of the rectangle os that top line stays visible across the document.

Step 7
Now we can play a bit with the small Rectangle by adding some light and shadows. Cmnd (Ctrl) + Click small Rectangle to make a selection out of it. Go to Select>Modify>Contract and enter 1px. Create a New layer and set Mode to Overlay. Choose 200px Soft Brush, color white and click few times the top part of the rectangle just like you see in the image.

Step 8
Do the same with bottom part just change the Brush color to Black.

Step 9
Here you can see how this looks like. It’s really a subtle effect of light and shadow which you can use wherever you want.

Step 10
With Line Tool draw in a line just the same width as small rectangle. For color choose #8dd1fe.

Step 11
Mask the ends of the line just like we did in Step 4. Copy this line and shift it to the bottom of the small rectangle

Step 12
Finally I added some Navigation items and that’s it!

2. Typography Inset
Even though we’re used to seeing this technique now, it’s still a good skill to add to your toolbox. Please use it only if you have to The example was taken from forabeautifulweb.com.

Step 2
I added some floral brushes just to recreate the same background from the example

Step 3
Choose Type Tool, set font to Times New Roman. Choose color #591e0d and type something.

Step 4
Add Inner Shadow filter and use settings like shown in the image.

Step 5
Add 2px Outside Stroke with color set to #bc9f6c.

Step 6
Done! What, that’s it? Yes, that’s it! Simple and effective.

If we look at web design today, it’s anything but simple. Sometimes you need that extra Photoshop knowledge in order to achieve the look we need.In this step-by-step tutorial, we are going to show you how to create five killer effects for your site.

1. Awesome Buttons
Now what is a site without a great “Call to action” button? The design style and colors will depend on your overall site style and importance of each button. Here is one example of a simple but effective button that we’ll be trying to recreate (taken from transmissionapps.com).

Step 1
Open New Document, set canvas to 470px wide and 350px high. Create a new layer and draw in this shape with Rounded Rectangle Tool with radius set to 80px.

Step 2
Right after that we will add some layer filters to make this button immediately awesome. Drop Shadow – Color: Black, Opacity:65%, Distance: 2px, Size:2px, the rest leave by default.

Step 3
Gradient Overlay. Just copy these hex codes for gradient colors and place color buckets in approximately same position as you can see in the image.

Step 4
Inner Shadow will make this button stand out even more. Notice that this is just a subtle effect.
Inner Shadow – Color: Black, Opacity: 15%, Distance: 0px, Size: 5px;

Step 5
Finally add some Stroke. You will notice that this is a Gradient Stroke with same colors as our buttons Gradient Overlay. The only difference here is that gradient direction is set -90, which is the opposite of buttons Gradient Overlay. With this little trick we made a nice light effect to our button and made it stand out a bit more.

Step 6
Done with effects, time for some shine! Create a new layer above others.

Step 7
Cmnd (Ctrl) + Click on Button shape layer. We have made a selection out of it.

Step 8
Choose Marquee Tool. Hold down the Alt key and Subtract the half from selection.

Step 9
Choose Black to White Gradient Tool, set the layer mode to Screen and pull upwards from bottom of selection to about 30px outside the selection. There you have it! A nice shiny button.

Step 10
Add some text like I did here. Draw in a circle and position it like you see it in the picture. Add a Gradient Overlay with same values like shown in the screenshot. Finally give it a 2px white Inside stroke.

Step 11
Choose Shape Tool. From presets choose an Arrow. Rotate it.

Step 12
Like the image says, position the arrow in bottom direction.

Step 13
Now choose Direct Selection Tool and select the shape. Next, select two points from upper part of the arrow and move them with Arrow Keys few pixels to the right. Do the same with the right top side of the arrow, just shift it to the left. This way our top part will become a bit thiner. With the same tool adjust the bottom part (triangle).

Step 14
This is how it should look like. You can also see the layer structure.

1.Dejan Beljic

2. Football Made in Africa

3.BAR-T

4. Aspired Mind

5. Ndesign Studio

6. Sam-sys

7.VixML

8. Getting Crazy

9. The Rox

10. Lyrical Media

11.Corvus Art

12. Wild About Gardening

13. Sprocket House