Friday Focus #25
Friday, April 6th, 2007 11:59 am by
The Team 
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Friday Focus has returned to our regular schedule of being published on Fridays! Ronalfy has also rejoined us this week after taking some time off for the Reader Appreciation Project.
Sites of the Week
First up this week is a tourism site for Knoxville, Tennessee. The design is really fun, and I really like the active/energized approach they took instead of trying to make something too standard to draw people in. It looks much better than average tourism sites.
Next up is Scrapblog. The design was updated here and there, and I think they did and excellent job. Just looking at the homepage alone makes me want to register, regardless of all the pink 
.
And finally rounding out this week, is BubblesSOC. I first discovered this site when the designer joined Mintpages a few weeks ago, and I was impressed. It’s a very “cute” and fun design by 23 year old designer Sidney Collin, out of the University of Alabama.
Digg Weekly
Design - Choosing the right font for the job
A pretty good read on choosing the right font for your different projects. An issue frequently discussed by a lot of people, especially when cheap fonts are used instead of paying for premium ones.
Programming - Facebook Releases Thrift
Thrift is a software framework for scalable cross-language services development. It combines a powerful software stack with a code generation engine to build services that work efficiently and seamlessly between C++, Java, Python, PHP, and Ruby. Thrift was developed at Facebook, and they are now releasing it as open source.
Up and Coming
Design - 10 Tools to help you Select a Web 2.0 Color Palette
But where are the tools for a Web 3.0 color palette?
Programming - 12 More SEO Tips for 2007
A nice list of 12 things you can do for search engine optimization.
Design Dilemma
The purpose of Design Dilemma is to post one dilemma a week and allow the readers to voice their suggestions and/or opinions. If you have your own dilemma, please send Ronald yours using the Devlounge contact form.
Your newest client wants a new design, but wants the design up front before any cash changes hands. You’ve been screwed over in the past and are beyond working for free. How do you respectfully let your client know that this is not acceptable without burning the bridge.
WordPress Plugin Spotlight
Instant Upgrade allows you to upgrade your WordPress installation from your admin panel. Gene Steinberg told me it usually takes less than a minute.
WP Ajax Edit Comments is a plugin I wrote that allows users to edit comments inline via AJAX. This is a plugin you will have to try for yourself. There’s a test page where you can add your comment and edit.
Announcements
Just a couple of things to point out here today. The first is, if you have yet to get a design going for our refresh contest, get going now! The contest comes to a close on April 16th, so be sure to submit as soon as you can. Also, if you are participating, please let us know in the comments on the Refresh contest page so we know if we’ll be getting a decent amount of entries or not.
And finally, if you haven’t already, give our recent interview with the Digg Crew a read, as it was user-submitted questions that were used in composing the interview! While it is short compared to some of our others, the answers are worthwhile and to the point, so make sure you take a look!
Whenever multiple authors contribute to a certain article, that article is marked as posted by the entire team. You see, we all have our own bits and pieces to share, and this way, we can get it all out at once. See more posts by 
First time here, or frequent flyer. Whatever the case may be, we highly recommend 
You can now also see the plugin in action here
Another excellent contribution to the WP community from Ron
Making a test comment.
Edit: Sweetness. It works. Yay!
Re: the design dilemma.
I wont be the first, nor the last, but i’ve been burned several times for designs. Either I design it, and put it live expecting payment and then receive nothing, or spend months trying to liase with the clients, whilst producing a site before telling me that they no longer need my services when im at 90% with the work on their server…
So, now I always ask for money up-front. At least 50%, but that’s open to negotiation. As long as i get something.
To be quite honest, as i work my 9-5 job, and web-design is purely something i do in my spare time, i’m not too bothered. I love coding & designing and im not in it for the money.