Building a social network isn’t an easy task, let alone a successful one. As developers our job is to create, build, and bring to life the gears and functions of a social network. When it comes to marketing, well that’s a different department in most cases. We build then later deploy, and in order to develop a highly efficient and functional social network we’ll need to use a few tools.
Most developers are switching from building networks from scratch using PHP to highly-customizable social network platforms that give way to flexibility. Below we’re going to cover several of the most sought after open-source platforms that allow you create your very own social network and run it on a server of your choice. These networks will give you a hyphened control over the front/back end design along with a social networks most valuable asset; the database. Let us know if we’ve missed any and which ones appeal to you the most through the form of a comment!

BuddyPress

BuddyPress is the social network platform version of WordPress. As you can guess WordPress is one of the most popular CMS’s available due to its quality, same goes for BuddyPress, this is one of the most widely used platforms. It’s absolutely free, allows you to fully customize your social network, and offer your users a unique experience through the use of features such as friend connections, extended profiles, discussion forums, private messaging, and powerful plugins.
On top of the social network platform, you also receive the option to integrate WordPress as your ultimate blogging solution for each of your users. Here you’ll find a massive collection of quality plugins.

Sites Running on BuddyPress

CUNY Academic Commons

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If you strive to be a great designer (like most), then you’re more than likely to know that a web application or websites success many times rely solely on how well designed the User Interface may be. As you scale the web and even read books, there can be an influx of misleading information pertaining to the way you should design your UI.

When in reality you should do what works best for you and your users. Below you will find a variety of excellent User Interface resources that will allow you to access, redefine, and create a well designed User Interface. You should use these resources first as inspiration, and second as somewhat of a guide as to what your users may need when they come face to face with your UI.

Interface Design Libraries

1.) MephoBox

MephoBox houses various interface patterns and designs that showcase the different trends within them. Their goal is mainly to inspire designers and hopefully allow them to conceive a greater design then they had first planned out to make. You’re even able to vote on designs and leave insightful comments. You can also search and sort results in an organized fashion allowing you to easily and quickly find just what you need. Read the rest of this entry »

Css3 have a capacity to revolutionize the way we design/develop website. css3 is intoducing loads of new and exciting features. Most of the browsers such as Firefox, Safari already support some of the CSS3 properties

It is essential today for a web designer to know about CSS3 and there are many tutorials and resources for the CSS3. Below i’ve listed 25 Useful CSS3 Techniques and Tutorials to get you started with CSS3, hope you find this collection useful

1.) Create a Dynamic Stack of Index Cards using CSS3

We will create a dynamic stack of index cards solely with HTML and CSS3 and use such CSS3 features as transform and transition (for the dynamic effects) and @font-face, box-shadow and border-radius (for the styling).

2.) CSS3 Analogue Clock

Analogue clock created using webkit transition and transform CSS. JavaScript is only used to pull in the current time

3.) Awesome Overlays with CSS3

The trick with these overlays is the gradient border, going form a lighter to darker orange as you go from top to bottom. To create that effect we used to the border-image property, which is a tricky little addition to CSS.
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When it comes to designing a website Photoshop is an excellent tool for it, No design Software gives you quite so much control as Adobe Photoshop in designing a website.

Most Designers share their Creative design stuffs to others for free. so that others can learn from their works, At sometimes these collection will become marvelous time saver. and a learning source for beginner web designers

Here I’ve listed 30+ Quality PSD web templates to Download, hope you like the download list, Also be aware about license terms and agreements before You put them in use.

1.) Shape

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For those of you that don’t know, jQuery is a rich JavaScript library that makes it possible for web developers to produce quite remarkable effects with just a few lines of code. It makes writing lengthy JavaScript code bearable, by turning long, repetitive tasks into shorter, more understandable ones. It’s simple to use, saving you time and effort. jQuery is massively popular, for obvious reasons, and everybody’s using it. To make sure you stand out, it’s vital you incorporate some of the more quirky capabilities of jQuery into your web sites. That’s where this list comes in!

We bring you 20 tricks capable of transforming a boring site into a slick, cool and interesting one that users will want to engage with again and again. Some of these tricks are more suited to beginners, while others will teach even the biggest jQuery geeks a thing or two.

1.) Image Cross Fade Transition

Learn how to fade one image into another. Three different methods of achieving this aim are discussed here: using two images, using a single image and simply using CSS.

2.) Vertically Scrolling Menu

Create an innovative and slick vertically scrolling menu for your website that’s really easy for visitors to use.

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A dingbat is an ornament, character or spacer used in typesetting, sometimes more formally known as a “printer’s ornament” or “printer’s character”.

The simple shapes and pictures found in Dingbat fonts are awesome for making your own unique digital scrapbooking papers, embellishments, trims, borders , frames and so many other uses. Your imagination is the limit!!!

Here i’ve collected a list of 30 beautiful free dingbats for you resource collection, hope you find this collection usefu Enjoy!

1. )Dj Horses 1

2. )Sexyrexy Smitten

3. )Damask Dings1

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Forms are such a common element on the Internet we tend to blunder through them without too much thought. However, if the web site has added a few nice touches that make the process easier, it tends to speed up the process and reduce any frustration, hence i’ve collected these 18 Impressive Web Form Validation Scripts that will help you to enhance the user experience in your site

1.) Valid8 – An input field validation plugin for Jquery

2.) Easy Form Validation Requires No Javascript Library

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Graffiti is often seen as having become intertwined with hip hop culture and the myriad of international styles derived from City Subway graffiti. However, there are many other instances of notable graffiti this century. Graffiti has long appeared on railroad boxcars and subways. and also in digital media

Graffiti fonts are one of the most sought after free fonts available online. However, finding the best graffiti font for your  hip-hop themed or grunge-style artwork could be a bit difficult,

Below you will find a great collection 30 Superb Free Street Graffiti Art Fonts from various font artists, hope you like this
collection

1.) Most Wanted Font

2.) Street Soul

3.) West Side

4.) Writers t

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Now a days you can see the usage of beautiful Seamless pattern for complete website backgrounds, A Designer can make a design more stylish and lively by using patterns creatively, usage of patterns doesn’t stops with website, pattern designs are used in clothing, Posters, Billboards and other print ads as well

Searching for a perfect background for your design is always a bit difficult process, To make the Pattern Searching process little bit easier for you, here i’ve listed 27 best websites to download beautiful seamless patterns, hope you find this collection useful

1.) Pattern 8

2.) Huge Magazine

3.) Bg Patterns

4.) Din Pattern

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The term Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of web development incorporating websites designed to encourage sharing and collaboration between users, like social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), video sharing sites (e.g. Youtube), wikis (e.g. Wikipedia) and blogs (e.g. this one).

Of course, Web 2.0 sites are not only accessed through desktop computers with large displays. They are increasingly being viewed on portable web-ready devices, from mobile phones to netbooks and car dashboards, not to mention on TVs and through a plethora of video game consoles. The best Web 2.0 fonts, therefore, must look great at a range of scales regardless of what device is being used.

Web 2.0 sites aim to encourage participation and Web 2.0 fonts must do the same. In addition to being highly legible, the best are inclusive and accessible to all. They are cool, original and striking, but not to the extent that they are only appreciated by certain groups with specific aesthetic sensibilities.

Here are 15 great ones to download and start using in your designs!

1. Corpulent

Corpulent is a simple font that looks at its best in uppercase.

2. Airstrip Four

Airstrip Four combines straight and curved edges to great effect.

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