Friday Focus #26
Friday, April 13th, 2007 2:18 pm by
aj 
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In the midst of Reader Appreciation Week comes Friday Focus #26. This is a much smaller Friday Focus compared to next week’s, because next week we will showcase all of the submitted designs from the Refresh contest as well as the usual weekly three. So without further a due, here we go.
Sites of the Week
RocketSurgeon is a great looking, simple one page portfolio. They have done a lot of nice work, definitely worth a look.
Next up is Dara’s Garden. I was wholly impressed with this site, and I think it looks absolutely superb. An excellent job was done mixing flash and rollovers with a simple layout, and it all leads to a very impressing result.
And rounding out this weeks top three is the Habitat for Humanity youth site. A fun and colorful site, with a good purpose behind it. Also features some minor use of Flash.
Digg Weekly
Design: 7 Things You Don’t See in Websites Today
A list of 7 things you don’t see in websites these days, with a few added extras based on user comments. And I agree with some of these things listed here, I’m glad we don’t see them anymore!
Programming: 10 Tips for Optimizing MySQL Queries (That Don’t Suck)
Ten ways you can speed up your MySQL Queries to help ease the load on your server and the wait time for visitors.
Submission Deadline Reminder
Just a reminder for all of our Refresh contest participants, the submission deadline is Monday, April 16, 2007. That does not mean you have to wait until then to submit if you have already finished. Please make sure your submission is in PSD, ZIP, PNG, JPG, or GIF format, and remember to keep a PSD handy (unless you went straight to code and didn’t use a psd, as is sometimes the case). A question that has come up is, can I use the work as part of my portfolio? Of course you can! Whether you win or not, we want you to showcase your hard work! And as stated about, all submissions will be showcased in next week’s Friday Focus as well.
Another Color Picker
Some of you may remember our review on Colourlovers. I recently stumbled upon another color picker that can be downloaded or used online. It shows schemes and different variations of colors based on whatever original color you pick. It’s called Genopal, so give it a look if you’re struggling with selecting colors for your next project.
I am a young designer who has been doing this longer than most other people my age. I had an early start, and have built upon it over the last few years. Devlounge was my first major successful project, which I hope is the first of many. DL is now officially out of my hands, but I hope to continue contributing for as long as I can. See more posts by 
First time here, or frequent flyer. Whatever the case may be, we highly recommend 
Beautiful sites of the week! Especially Dara’s Garden
Hi, Thanks for including my blog in your Digg Weekly.
Appreciate it, please visit again
Dara’s Garden is nice - specially the background with the leaves. Rocketsurgeon is somehow queer cause it’s so damn narrow!
I have to agree with Robert about the Rocketsurgeon page being way too narrow. Otherwise, it looks really nice but the width made me not want to look at it for very long.
Yeah, the width is a bit odd
There’s some fantastic designs there once again! I get feeds from various Gallery’s showcasing good design, but DL consistently provides fantastic examples!
Just a quick note to say that i couldn’t get the Genopal link to work. But these one’s worked for me just in case anyone else is interested in giving it a go!
http://www.genopal.com/genopal.htm and http://www.genopal.com/online.htm