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Advice for Internet Marketers with Ethics

While most internet marketers have turned to social media to sell their products and services, developing a strong email campaign is still an essential component to the entire internet marketing field. In fact, some experts forecast that consumers will contribute about $67.8 billion into the U.S. market simply from making purchases through email marketing this [...]

I’ve been blogging daily for nearly 14 months now. 2 years ago, I hardly would have believed that possible. But with the right software, it hasn’t been all that difficult. However, I’ve just committed to a few major projects with a business partner that are going to consume as much time as I can give them [...]

The other day, Robin over at Profit Blog shared some good tips on how to ensure that your blog comments get approved (rather than getting junked because they look like spam): The reason so many marketers are unsuccessful with blog commenting is because they cannot understand what it means to add value. So below are a [...]

Before we get to internet marketing, let’s talk about the “Stupid Tax”. According to the Urban Dictionary, it’s: The cost associated with engaging in any state sanctioned form of long odds gambling, i.e. playing the lottery. Why “Stupid Tax”? As I wrote back in July: I once calculated that winning the lottery is about like picking the right [...] Limited time offer (the biggest discount I've ever offered): get $616.59 worth of software and services for only $99. Visit http://customers.geckotribe.com/offers.php for details.

We finally got our pumpkins carved last night. The kids sketched out their designs and then drew them on the pumpkins for my wife and I to carve (they’re a little too young yet to do it themselves, but are old enough to enjoy seeing their designs finished.) For mine, I decided to try something a [...] Limited time offer (the biggest discount I've ever offered): get $616.59 worth of software and services for only $99. Visit http://customers.geckotribe.com/offers.php for details.

I saw an interesting tweet the other day from Dr. Mani, but I’m going to give it to you one half at a time. Raise your right hand and repeat after me, “I will not skip ahead and peek at the second half.” Okay, here’s the first half: Success Key: Leverage everything to your advantage… This is an [...] Limited time offer (the biggest discount I've ever offered): get $616.59 worth of software and services for only $99. Visit http://customers.geckotribe.com/offers.php for details.

Should you focus on one thing or diversify? No. You should do both. But in the right way. Today, Terry Dean posted a collection of 21 habits of successful entrepreneurs. Two that jumped out at me were: 3. Choose one market and focus on it. It’s tough for experienced marketers to manage several different markets at once. A beginner starting [...] Limited time offer (the biggest discount I've ever offered): get $616.59 worth of software and services for only $99. Visit http://customers.geckotribe.com/offers.php for details.

I was going to say “introductory premium price”, but I think we’re a little muddy on the meaning of “premium”. When I hear “premium”, I think “better”. But in fact, premium means “a sum added to an ordinary price or charge.” It’s what you pay extra to get something better. Normally, we expect introductory prices to be [...] Limited time offer (the biggest discount I've ever offered): get $616.59 worth of software and services for only $99. Visit http://customers.geckotribe.com/offers.php for details.

How do you get prospects to buy your products? Not by convincing them to want it, but by showing them that it’s what they already want. A few days ago, Bryan Eisenberg shared a list of 20 reasons why people buy. Here are a few (click the link to see the rest that he lists…and then [...] Limited time offer (the biggest discount I've ever offered): get $616.59 worth of software and services for only $99. Visit http://customers.geckotribe.com/offers.php for details.

I was browsing the archives of Dr. Mani’s blog today and came across this article about pricing (discussing something he learned from Dan Kennedy): That lesson in pricing remained one of my most profitable in the 15 years I?ve been creating and selling infoproducts online. It distills down to this simple principle: “Price lesser than value — [...] Limited time offer (the biggest discount I've ever offered): get $616.59 worth of software and services for only $99. Visit http://customers.geckotribe.com/offers.php for details.

Internet Marketing Tools

Hi All, A quick update on our progress in restoring Market Samurai functionality and some answers to common questions. First up, a big thank you to all of you who’ve posted, emailed and tweeted various encouraging words (our users are awesome!). As mentioned in our previous post, we’re genuinely sorry for the outage. The good news is that [...]

If you’ve tried to launch and use Market Samurai in the last few days you’ll have noticed that there are large areas of functionality that are broken. What Happened? As you know, Market Samurai pulls data from dozens of different search data providers so that you have all the data you need in a single place to [...]

So you?ve found a great keyword ? It?s got good traffic levels, high commercial value and it?s extremely relevant to the product or service that you have for sale. Sounds like a winner right? Well ? maybe? You see the biggest mistake that new online business owners make is that they select keywords that are just too difficult [...]

In our last video, Dave Jenyns shared his “George Foreman Method” which is a proven 7 step process for building a team of ‘A Players’ that can help you to take your business to the next level. In the second video of this Outsourcing Series, Pete Williams is going to spill the beans on his incredible [...]

Following on from the great feedback we received from our recent Conversion series, today we want to kick off a new series targeted at another area in which a lot of online business owners have MAJOR problems, which is ‘Outsourcing’. You’ve probably already realized that with keyword research, content creation, article distribution, social media and all [...]

As we end our series on conversion, I want to reinforce that a low conversion rate will cripple everything else you do online. You can?t afford to bid in PPC, your efforts in SEO will yield small results and affiliates won?t promote you. In today?s increasingly competitive online space you need to focus attention on boosting [...]

Most folks know that inbound links to your website (when combined with on-site optimisation) are the key drivers of ranking, especially for high value keywords. Most of us also know that not all links are equal and that links from high authority sites carry a lot more power (or ?juice? as we like to call [...]

Get Your Free Checklist, plus, take our ?30 Minute Site Review Challenge? and win one of three website critiques by a Samurai staffer. Today we ?bring it home? on this whole topic of conversion. By now, I hope you?re totally convinced that testing is the easy path to increased profit, a better lifestyle and a real [...]

It’s with much disappointment and regret that we’ve decided to retire our plans to include an AdWords module in Market Samurai. Please believe us when we say that this hasn’t been an easy decision and it has not been made lightly. We realize that this decision will disappoint many of our users who have been waiting [...]

On Saturday the 2nd of July at 17:00, Australian Eastern Standard Time, our websites for Noble Samurai, Market Samurai and Domain Samurai will be brought down for approximately one hour in order for us to perform system maintenance. Alternate Timezones: PST – Midnight between 1st and 2nd of July EDT – 3am on the 2nd of [...]

Premium WordPress Themes

StudioPress is happy to announce the release of the Cre8tive Burst 1.0 child theme. This WordPress theme works on the Genesis Framework and can purchased here.

Cre8tive Burst was developed by Shannon Dow of EightCrazy Designs, and can be found in the StudioPress Marketplace. As a reminder, these are quality themes from our community and not included in the Pro Plus All-Themes package, but we assure you that the design and coding of them are top-notch.

Theme Features

The Cre8tive Burst child theme includes the following features: 4 color styles, 3 layout options, custom background, custom menus, featured images, fixed width, theme options, threaded comments.

Take it for a test drive…

Screenshot of the Cre8tive Burst Theme

StudioPress is happy to announce the release of the eleven40 1.0 child theme. This WordPress theme works on the Genesis Framework and can be downloaded by Pro Plus members in the support forum. All others can purchase the package here.

Mobile Responsive Design

The eleven40 theme is the second child theme released here at StudioPress which has been developed to be mobile responsive in design. It’s also the first theme we’ve developed that extends 1140px wide vs. our current themes which are 960px.

Click here to see how the eleven40 theme looks across mobile devices.

Theme Features

The eleven40 theme includes the following features: 6 layout options, 4 theme colors (blue, green, orange, red), custom background, featured images, footer widgets, mobile responsive design and threaded comments.

Take it for a test drive…

Screenshot of the eleven40 Theme

Genesis has a long tradition of being extremely flexible for the average user while at the same time remaining developer friendly. This latest release continues that tradition in a big way. Our sincere thanks to a group of Genesis power users for helping turn Genesis 1.8 into a developer’s dream, without sacrificing any of the usability that we’ve all come to know and love.

Front End Redesign

Genesis 1.8 ships with a hot new default style on the front end. And while we know that you would never activate Genesis directly, this new style can, and no doubt will serve as the basis of many of the beautiful creations our users continue to push out.

This modern new look takes a step into the realm of responsive design, adjusting to fit whatever device on which you happen to be viewing the site, including smart phones and tablet computers.

New SEO Controls

One of the biggest weaknesses of the Genesis SEO controls was the fact that you couldn’t actually control the text displayed on category, tag, and term archive pages. All you could do was decide whether or not you wanted the term title and description to display.

With Genesis 1.8, this all changes. You now have the ability to control EXACTLY what gets displayed on your term archive pages.

New Extendable Classes for Creating Admin Menus

Considering how many Genesis-specific plugins there are out there, we imagine that more than a few developers are frustrated at how difficult it was to add new Genesis admin menus. In Genesis 1.8, it gets about 100x easier. How much easier? See for yourself.

Completely Disable a Navigation Menu, from functions.php

If you’ve ever build a Genesis Child Theme for a client, and knew you’d have no use for the Primary or Secondary Navigation menu, you know how hard it can be to keep your client from messing with the Theme Settings and potentially ruining your beautiful design.

So, with one line of code, you can now disable either menu. It works using the “theme support” method. By default, both menus are enabled. But, you can use this line of code to change which menus are supported via your child theme.

remove_theme_support( 'genesis-menus' );

This line will remove both menus. But let’s say you just want to remove the secondary nav menu, and leave the primary menu intact. Easy.

add_theme_support( 'genesis-menus', array( 'primary' => 'Primary Navigation Menu' ) );

This line indicates that you ONLY want the primary nav menu to be enabled.

Color Style Options

If you’re building a child theme and want to give users the ability to choose a color scheme from the Theme Settings page, this option is for you.

add_theme_support( 'genesis-style-selector', array( 'theme-blue' => 'Blue', 'theme-green' => 'Green', 'theme-orange' => 'Orange', 'theme-red' => 'Red' ) );

Just add this to your child theme’s functions.php file, and Genesis will handle the rest. A new box will appear in Theme Settings, and users can choose the color scheme for their site.

Genesis handles the body class, and all you have to do is build the CSS. Less coding. More designing. You know you love it! More here.

Code Standards and Inline Documentation

One of the core values of the Genesis coding style is that we want you to be able to find what you need without using a Genesis dictionary. Clarity is king. But how awesome would it be if each of the functions in Genesis had an explanation of what it did right above it? Done!

Thanks to Gary Jones, Genesis 1.8 is chock-full of inline documentation.

In addition, Genesis has been trying to move towards the WordPress coding standards for a few versions now. As of 1.8, I think we’re pretty much all the way there. Code now has room to breath, with plenty of whitespace for readability.

The Rest

Since WordPress 3.3.1 was recently released, Genesis 1.8 does require this latest version of WordPress. It’s always good to stay up to date anyway, so go ahead and upgrade with confidence knowing that Genesis is fully compatible.

To see a more comprehensive list of changes in Genesis 1.8, check out this page.

Note: Users of WordPress 3.2.1 or older will not be prompted to upgrade to Genesis 1.8 via their dashboard. Please upgrade to WordPress 3.3.1 first, then our update servers will prompt you to update within 24 hours.

So what are you waiting for?! Go upgrade, already!

Contributors

A very special thanks goes out to the developers that helped make Genesis 1.8 happen. Jared Atchison, Charles Clarkson, Chris Cochran, Nick Croft, David Decker, Remkus de Vries, Bill Erickson, Gary Jones, Travis Smith and Ade Walker.

The holidays were a very happy time for StudioPress affiliates.

Sales for StudioPress themes stayed strong through the end of the year, letting us pay our top affiliate $6,235.65 in commissions last month, just for promoting Genesis and our themes.

(are you a StudioPress affiliate yet?)

To make our “most popular Genesis Framework child themes” posts more interesting, this month we’re going to start listing our Top 10 best selling themes instead of only our Top 5.

In December 2011, the top 10 selling StudioPress child themes were:

10. Driskill

Separating the best from the rest is the Driskill theme by Bill Erickson, StudioPress’ first responsive design. Clean and contemporary, it’s no surprise this is used for both personal and professional sites of all kinds.

9. Minimum

Sometimes less really is more. The popularity of StudioPress’ Minimum theme proves that solid content with great navigation can be all you need.

8. Modern Blogger

A strong seller since its introduction to the Genesis Child Theme Marketplace in September, Lindsey Riel’s Modern Blogger theme marries comfortable design with modern sensibilities.

7. Associate

When your company’s image is on the line, you need to be sure you’re putting your best foot forward. The Associate theme empowers you to do just that.

6. Generate

If this theme had another day or two to sell, it would have likely made the Top 5. Released last month to rave reviews, Generate is the theme to use if you’re serious about growing your email list.

5. Magazine

When you have a ton of content and need a sleek way to organize it on your site, the Magazine theme is an excellent choice. With lots of customization options and easy navigation, your content is free to steal the spotlight.

4. Lifestyle

The Lifestyle theme never ceases to amaze me. People are using this flexible theme for every kind of site imaginable, and considering the number of design options provided, Lifestyle isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

3. Enterprise

The Enterprise theme offers a professional frame for corporate-style sites, giving you the approachability you desire and the trustworthy image you require.

2. News

Savvy publishers know that the key to content-heavy sites is simple, yet stunning, navigation. The News theme offers that and more for publishers of every type of media.

1. AgentPress

Boasting 5 color styles, smart homepage designs, IDX integration and simplified posting options for listings, AgentPress continues to lead the StudioPress theme charge. Check out the AgentPress showcase to see how smart real estate professionals are letting Genesis work for them.

Were these the themes you expected? Have a favorite you think should be in the Top 10 for January?

Sound off in the comments!

We are very pleased to announce that Genesis 1.8 Beta is now available for users to test. Please remember that with all beta versions, we suggest that you do not use it on production sites. This update isn’t packed with features, but does have a few cool things to mention. (read the full list)

New Look for Genesis

As you can see, the default look for Genesis has been updated. We’ve also added 2 media queries to the style sheet, which makes it mobile responsive for devices such as the iPad and iPhone.

Click to view the updated Genesis demo.

We’ve also consolidated some of the CSS required for menus, which you can read about here.

New Features with Genesis 1.8

Check out the Genesis 1.8 changelog and you’ll see that a number of things were fixed, added and modified. One of the biggest features that we’ve added is the Color Styles function.

Many of our child themes have color styles, which are currently being made available by code that’s included in the child theme’s function file as well as an additional file found within a ‘lib’ folder.

The new code that is required in the child themes would look like this:

/** Create additional color style options */ add_theme_support( 'genesis-style-selector', array( 'agentpress-gray' => 'Gray', 'agentpress-green' => 'Green', 'agentpress-red' => 'Red', 'agentpress-tan' => 'Tan' ) );

As with all functions that end up being placed into a number of child themes (custom header, footer widgets, etc) we’ve extracted that code out of them and placed it in to Genesis core.

How to Upgrade to Genesis 1.8 Beta

One of the very cool features that we’ve included in Genesis 1.8 is the ability to automatically update to Beta versions of Genesis. This is similar to the WordPress Beta Tester plugin that exists – the only difference is that users won’t have access to the bleeding version of Genesis.

Because the Genesis Beta Tester plugin relies on code that’s in Genesis 1.8, users will have to force the auto update script by replacing code. (This will only be required this time around.)

Inside the lib/functions/upgrade.php file, on line 29 you’ll see this:

'genesis_version' => PARENT_THEME_VERSION,

Replace that with this:

'genesis_version' => '0.1.3.3.7',

Once you have that uploaded the file to your server, click on the Appearance link in your WordPress dashboard, then head to the Dashboard main page and you should see a notification to update to Genesis 1.8 Beta.

Moving forward, once users have Genesis 1.8 any beta versions that are released will prompt an auto update notice for those who have the Genesis Beta Tester plugin active.

Reporting Bugs with Genesis 1.8 Beta

If you are testing Genesis 1.8 Beta and would like to report a bug, please reply to this thread on our forums. Please do not use that for feature requests, as we are done adding those into Genesis 1.8.

Special Thanks to Our Community

We’d like to thank the following developers for their contributions with the update to Genesis v1.8: Jared Atchison, Charles Clarkson, Chris Cochran, Nick Croft, David Decker, Remkus de Vries, Bill Erickson, Gary Jones, Travis Smith and Ade Walker.

Click image to see hexcode values for each color palette. (view entire gallery)

1. Chocolate Sprinkles

2. Cup of Green

3. Friendship

4. Fuchsia

5. Harmony

6. Mosaic

7. Patience

8. Peaches and Cream

9. Simply Mine

10. Slice

11. Sorbet

12. Steamed

13. Swirlicious

14. Terra Cotta

15. Windblown

StudioPress is happy to announce the release of the Pure Elegance 1.0 child theme. This WordPress theme works on the Genesis Framework and can purchased here.

Pure Elegance was developed by Auxano Creative, and can be found on the StudioPress Marketplace. As a reminder, these themes are not included in the Pro Plus All-Themes package, but we assure you that the design and coding of the themes are top-notch.

Theme Features

The Pure Elegance child theme includes the following features: 3 color styles, 6 layout options, custom background, custom header, featured images, fixed width, theme options, threaded comments.

Take it for a test drive…

Screenshot of the Pure Elegance Theme

The team here at StudioPress has put together a basic guide for you on how to navigate Genesis (as well as a good bit of WordPress), and get your site going right out of the box.

Whether you’re just starting out with the Genesis Framework for WordPress, or you’ve been enjoying its power and flexibility for a while, this download should prove very helpful.

The guide is packed with 44 pages of useful and specific instructions on getting started with Genesis, including:

Ever wonder what a functions file is? … Check page 6 Need a quick tutorial on getting those widgets going? … Head over to page 26 Wondering what the heck all those SEO settings mean? … Find out on page 19 Want to install Genesis from inside WordPress? … We’ve got you covered on page 8

This is also a living document, so be sure to check back often for updates and improvements as Genesis itself evolves with the future web.

Click here to download The Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners (PDF) 1.4 MB

StudioPress is happy to announce the release of the Generate 1.0 child theme. This WordPress theme works on the Genesis Framework and can be downloaded by Pro Plus members in the support forum. All others can purchase the package here.

Mobile Responsive Design

The Generate theme is the first child theme released here at StudioPress which has been developed to be mobile responsive in design.

Theme Features

The Generate theme includes the following features: 6 layout options, 4 theme colors (blue, green, orange, red), custom background, featured images, footer widgets, mobile responsive and threaded comments.

Take it for a test drive…

Screenshot of the Generate Theme

I love movies. There’s nothing better than experiencing a movie that drops your jaw or makes you go quiet for a minute, contemplating what you just witnessed. This can happen when the story takes a turn you never saw coming. The end of the Sixth Sense or when Brad Pitt finds out what’s in the box at the end of Seven are particular favorites of mine.

Sometimes the director brings a moment to the screen that just isn’t possible in real life. One of these moments happened for me when I first watched The Matrix and encountered “bullet time.” I didn’t get to see it in the theater but I remember rewinding that initial rooftop scene at least ten times while watching at a friend’s apartment. Another awe-inspiring experience was flying with the camera as it panned over and revealed the massive structure of Minas Tirith in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

These effects create profound experiences that enhance the movie and take the storytelling to another level entirely.

Would The Matrix have been a good movie without ?bullet time?? Sure, it possessed both a good story, and good cinematography. But it was the ?bullet time? effect that sent it over the top, that made you remember.

Would Lord of the Rings have been a good movie without its visual effects? Yes, because the story is so incredible. But with the amazing effects, the story was taken to a whole new level that gave us a truly magical experience.

The same can be said for CSS3.

Is it absolutely necessary to use CSS3 on our sites today? No. You still need a good foundation of content, usability and markup. But using it to enhance these things can take a site over the top and give the user a wonderful experience.

Some have said that using CSS3 is akin to cheap parlor tricks and that by using them we’re trying to pull the wool over the eyes of our users. This may be true in some cases where the content is weak, but our job is much like a movie effects designer in that we want our users to have the best experience possible. Consider what John Gaeta, the head of effects for The Matrix said about this:

My job has nothing to do with making zingers. The point is not to knock you over with a visual trick. The point is to be able to construct events that are so complex, in terms of what human bodies need to do, that the total ‘effect’ is impossible choreography. ‘My God! It looks real, but it just can’t be.’

As web designers we want to enhance our content to the point where it gives the user pleasure to be on our site. Much like advances in technology have allowed amazing effects to be brought to the silver screen, CSS3 allows us to bring really cool enhancements for our users to experience.

What is CSS3?

CSS3 is the third iteration of the CSS specification recommended by the W3C.

So, way back in the day, around 1996, a group of people called the World Wide Web Consortium put together a document called a specification or spec that officially recommended ways for browsers to handle CSS. It included suggested standards for things like font properties, text color, alignments and so on. This was CSS1.

Always wanting to push the boundaries as to what browsers could possibly display, the CSS2 specification was officially recommended in 1998 and included things such as positioning and layering attributes. There were a number of errors in this spec which were corrected. And the spec was enhanced in what was called CSS2.1 which was officially recommended in June 2011.

The Consortium decided to split up the next iteration of the spec — CSS3 — into modules. Theoretically this spec would allow browsers to adopt and support new selectors getting them into the hands of designers more quickly. And that’s where we are at right now.

Browser Support

Since the spec has been split into modules — and with the introduction of CSS3 — browser support for new selectors has been good across the board with the exception of Internet Explorer.

Generally IE6, 7 or 8 do not support CSS3. The good news is that the current version, IE9, implements a majority of the working draft and IE10 supports even more.

So Realistically Can I Use it?

My answer is yes—regardless of browser support.

In Dan Cederholm’s book CSS3 for Web Designers he talked about the reality of implementing CSS3:

…the truth is everyone can begin using CSS3 right now. And fortunately you don’t have to think differently or make drastic changes to the way you craft websites in order to do so. How can anyone use CSS3 on any project? Because we’re going to carefully choose the situations where we apply CSS3, focusing squarely on the experience layer.

As I stated above, we don’t absolutely need these things, because we still have our content and markup. CSS3 serves to enhance the experience.

What About the Poor IE Users?

The latest browser statistics have the market share of IE anywhere from 30%-50% depending on which study you look at. So is it realistic to not give half of my users an experience? I’ll defer again to Cederholm as he says we need to group the elements of our sites into critical and non-critical categories.

table.reference {border: 1px solid #999999;border-collapse: collapse;font-size: 13px;margin-bottom:20px;} .reference td {border:1px solid #999; padding:5px 20px;} .reference th {background:#efefef; text-align:left; padding: 5px 20px;} Critical Non-Critical Branding Interaction Usability Visual Rewards Accessibility Feedback Layout Movement

For those items that are critical we would not use elements that are not compatible with all of our target browsers.

For example, if part of the branding and distinct look of your site is to have all of your containers with rounded corners you’re probably going to have to use images, or a different solution than the CSS3 border-radius selector. But, if having rounded borders is just an enhancement — not critical to the site?s look — you can freely use it now.

Fixes and Workarounds

There are a couple decent solutions to using CSS3 with all versions of IE now.

Filters – You can use css filters to enable CSS3 features for IE. Smashing Magazine has a great article on how to use these. CSS PIE – Progressive Internet Explorer is a script that allows you to use CSS3 elements without the use of filters in your css. The Case for Progressive Enhancement

In the past, when presented with the problem of designing for multiple browsers, the typical solution was to make sure our sites “degraded gracefully.”

We would design sites for the latest browsers, but would make sure they would look ok in the older ones. I always pictured the user wincing and shying away from their computer as the page loaded, not sure if their computer would explode …

Progressive Enhancement takes the exact opposite approach.

We design initially for the lowest common denominator and then progressively build in enhancements. This is one reason this idea works so well with mobile sites and responsive design.

Using progressive enhancement as a design philosophy caters more to users that can’t upgrade because of IT policies. It also saves the designer loads of time and headaches because they aren’t forced to come up with crazy hacks and solutions to make everything look the same.

A Case Study using Drop Shadows

Say I want to use drop shadows on images in my blog posts. I have basically three options:

Import all of my images into a graphics editor and apply a drop shadow to each image Create an shadow in a graphics editor and then have each image use that shadow as a background with css Use the box-shadow element to apply a shadow to your image or container

All three will work, but:

- I’m spending loads of time creating these shadows for every image and increasing my file size
- I have to have crazy markup and rules to fit every image size or be restricted to one size. I also lose the ability to use the background selector for other purposes.

When I use the css3 box-shadow element I save myself developing time. I can preview changes quickly in the browser without having to create multiple images. I have the option to use my background for something other than a shadow and I save file size and processing time.

Just because some people are color blind doesn’t mean we design a site without color.

Examples of CSS3 You Can Use Right Now

Multiple Backgrounds
This property allows you to specify multiple backgrounds in a container with nothing more than a comma separated list in your css. The image listed first will appear on top of all others. In this example I’ve actually used only two images but have re-used the airmail strip to have it appear on the bottom of my container.

.envelope { background-color: #e3dfba; background: url(images/airmail.png) top repeat-x, url(images/airmail.png) bottom repeat-x, url(images/grunge.jpg) no-repeat; height: 400px; width: 600px; } .envelope { background-color: #e3dfba; background: url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/airmail.png) top repeat-x, url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/airmail.png) bottom repeat-x, url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/grunge.jpg) no-repeat; height: 400px; margin-bottom: 20px; width: 600px; }

Border Radius
The border-radius property allows you to round the borders of your element. To learn more visit The Art of the Web.

.envelope { -moz-border-radius: 10px; -webkit-border-radius: 10px; border-radius: 10px; } .env-inner { background-color: #1699e5; background: url(images/blue-grunge.jpg); -moz-border-radius: 20px; -webkit-border-radius: 20px; border-radius: 20px; height: 319px; float: left; margin: 42px 20px; width: 560px; } .radius { -moz-border-radius: 10px; -webkit-border-radius: 10px; border-radius: 10px; } .env-inner { background-color: #1699e5; background: url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/blue-grunge.jpg); -moz-border-radius: 20px; -webkit-border-radius: 20px; border-radius: 20px; height: 319px; float: left; margin: 42px 20px; overflow: hidden; width: 560px; }

Box Shadow
In the example below we’ve added a shadow to our container. There are four parts to box shadow:

The horizontal offset of the shadow. A positive value means the shadow will be on the right of the box, a negative offset will put the shadow on the left of the box. The vertical offset of the shadow. A negative value means the box-shadow will be above the box, a positive one means the shadow will be below the box. The blur radius. If the value is set to 0 the shadow will be sharp. The higher the value the blur will increase. The color of the shadow .shadow { -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 5px #666; -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 5px #666; box-shadow: 0 0 5px #666; } .shadow { -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 5px #666; -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 5px #666; box-shadow: 0 0 5px #666; }

CSS Transforms
The transform property is used to rotate, skew and scale elements. It can be applied to images, containers, and text elements.

In our example below we’ve rotated our containing element basically 1 degree backwards. It would have also worked to use -1deg for our value.

We’ve also used a scale transform on the sun graphic. Most often this property is used in conjunction with a hover action. Make sure you hover over the sun to see it in action. The last example in the article shows how this can be done smoothly with a transition property added.

For more information on using the transform property click over to zenelements.

.rotate { -moz-transform: rotate(359deg); -webkit-transform: rotate(359deg); transform: rotate(359deg); } .sun { -moz-transform: scale(1); -webkit-transform: scale(1); transform: scale(1); } .sun:hover { -moz-transform: scale(2); -webkit-transform: scale(2); cursor: pointer; transform: scale(2); } .rotate {-moz-transform: rotate(359deg);-webkit-transform: rotate(359deg);transform: rotate(359deg);} .sun {-moz-transform: scale(1);-webkit-transform: scale(1);transform: scale(1);} .sun:hover {cursor: pointer; -moz-transform: scale(2);-webkit-transform: scale(2);}transform: scale(2);

Child Pseudo-Selectors

ul.envelope-list li { background-color: #e3dfba; background: url(images/airmail.png) top repeat-x, url(images/airmail.png) bottom repeat-x, url(images/grunge.jpg) no-repeat; float: left; height: 98px; list-style-type: none; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0; width: 98px; } ul.envelope-list li:last-child { margin: 10px 0 10px 0; } ul.envelope-list li,ul.envelope-list-2 li,ul.envelope-list-3 li { background-color: #e3dfba; background: url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/airmail.png) top repeat-x, url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/airmail.png) bottom repeat-x, url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/grunge.jpg) no-repeat; float: left; height: 98px; list-style-type: none; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0; width: 98px; } ul.envelope-list li:last-child,ul.envelope-list-2 li:last-child,ul.envelope-list-3 li:last-child {margin: 10px 0 10px 0;} ul.envelope-list-2 li:nth-child(2) {background: url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/airmail.png) top repeat-x, url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/grunge.jpg) no-repeat;} ul.envelope-list-3 li:nth-child(3n) {background: url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/airmail.png) bottom repeat-x, url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/grunge.jpg) no-repeat;}

In this example we are changing the margin for the last list item. Last child refers to the last child of the parent item. So in this case the css will be applied to last li of the ul with the class of evelope-list.

ul.envelope-list-2 li:nth-child(2) { background: url(images/airmail.png) top repeat-x, url(images/grunge.jpg) no-repeat; }

In this example we are changing the background for the second item in the list. So nth-child lets us specify a specific numbered item of the parent element to change.

ul.envelope-list-3 li:nth-child(3n) { background: url(images/airmail.png) bottom repeat-x, url(images/grunge.jpg) no-repeat; }

In this last example we are applying a formula where the css is being applied to every 3rd item in the list. So every 3rd list item in the ul will have a different background.

Having a Bit of Fun

In this last example we’ll combine several of the examples we’ve already done plus add in some transitions to smooth everything out.

<div class="envelope radius"> <div class="env-inner shadow airplane"> <div class="text"> <div class="wave">Wave Next Time</div> <div class="iowa">Iowa</div> <div class="fly">You Fly Over</div> </div> <div class="sun-animate"><img src="sun.png"></div> </div> </div> .airplane { -moz-transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out; background: url(images/airplane.png) no-repeat 600px -34px, url(images/blue-grunge.jpg); transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out; } .airplane:hover { background: url(images/airplane.png) no-repeat 0 -34px, url(images/blue-grunge.jpg); } .sun-animate { -moz-transform: scale(1); -webkit-transform: scale(1); -moz-transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out; float:left; margin-top:-270px; opacity: 1; transform: scale(1); transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out; } .sun-animate:hover { -moz-transform: scale(10); -webkit-transform: scale(10); cursor: pointer; opacity: 0; transform: scale(10); } .text { color:#efefef; float:left; font-family: Oswald; margin-top:60px; text-align:center; text-transform:uppercase; width:100%; } .iowa { font-size: 130px; height: 116px; line-height: 107px; } .wave { font-size: 40px; height:36px; line-height:35px; margin:5px 0; } .fly { font-size: 45px; height:40px; line-height:37px; } .airplane {background:url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/airplane.png) no-repeat 600px -34px, url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/blue-grunge.jpg);-moz-transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out;-webkit-transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out;transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out;} .airplane:hover {background:url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/airplane.png) no-repeat 0 -34px, url(http://www.studiopress.com/wp-content/uploads/blue-grunge.jpg);} .sun-animate {-moz-transform: scaleY(1);-webkit-transform: scaleY(1);transform: scaleY(1); -moz-transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out;-webkit-transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out;transition: all 0.7s ease-in-out; opacity: 1;float:left;margin-top:-270px;} .sun-animate:hover {cursor: pointer; -moz-transform: scale(10);-webkit-transform: scale(10); transform: scale(10);opacity: 0;} .text {width:100%;text-align:center;text-transform:uppercase; font-family: Oswald;color:#efefef;float:left;margin-top:60px;} .iowa {font-size: 130px;height: 116px;line-height: 107px;} .wave {font-size: 40px; height:36px; line-height:35px;margin:5px 0;} .fly {font-size: 45px; height:40px; line-height:37px;} Iowa Wave Next Time You Fly Over Resources

Find out what CSS3 properties and selectors can be used by today’s browsers:
http://www.findmebyip.com/litmus/
http://caniuse.com

All Around CSS Information and Goodness:
http://css-tricks.com
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp
http://www.zenelements.com/blog/
http://trentwalton.com/category/articles/

Experimental Uses of CSS3
http://tympanus.net/codrops/

Books
CSS3 For Web Designers
Stunning CSS3

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