CSS and Flash web galleries are great places to get inspiration from. Most galleries showcase loads of good and original concepts which can get you over these kind of moments.

CSS Beauty

Probably the oldest (it was started in 2004) and most known and appreciated CSS gallery. It’s maintained by Alex Giron, co-founder and senior consultant of nclud and includes besides the web gallery a job board, a design news section and one of the best CSS forums on the web.

Info :

• Alexa : 100828
• Google Pagerank : 7 / 10
• Technorati Rank : 10135
• Submission page link

Design Snack

Design Snack is our personal favorite (except CLD Web Gallery of course) CSS and Flash web gallery. It’s a user controlled web design showcase, meaning that the content is decided by the users, not by the admins.

Info :

• Alexa : 114653
• Google Pagerank : 3 / 10
• Technorati Rank : n/a
• Submission page link

CSS Mania

CSS Mania is another great web gallery with a 4 year tradition behind. Currently it indexes over 10000 websites and has over 13000 RSS subscribers. Started by Gabriel Segura, one of the founders of Blogs Media, featuring a powerful perl/php/mysql script mix, CSS Mania offers besides the web gallery a really nice job board.

Info :

• Alexa : 83986
• Google Pagerank : 7 / 10
• Technorati Rank : 7740
• Submission page link

CSS Remix

“A fresh blend of the best-designed Web 2.0 sites” as they call themselves, CSS Remix is one of the giants of the niche with over 13000 readers. It’s powered by the strong content management system Expresion Engine which makes CSS Remix one of the most reliable websites of its kind.

Info :

• Alexa : 189754
• Google Pagerank : 4 / 10
• Technorati Rank : 20303
• Submission page link

Best Web Gallery

Best Web Gallery is a really stylish CSS and Flash websites showcase. It’s maintained by Nick La, the founder of Web Designer Wall and N.Design-Studio . Powered by Wordpress, this web gallery has quickly became one of the top names of the niche.

Info :

• Alexa : 94154
• Google Pagerank : 7 / 10
• Technorati Rank : 8374
• Submission page link

CSS Elite

CSS Elite, started in March 2006, is a great CSS gallery and web development resources website. Also powered by Wordpress, what sets this gallery apart is the great collection of design resources, fit for any web developer.

Info :

• Alexa : 106707
• Google Pagerank : 6 / 10
• Technorati Rank : 34741
• Submission page link

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If you can’t see this video click here.

Sharebrain describes itself as being the best resource for webworkers. The resource section, the tutorials, the CSS showcase and the design blog make Sharebrain a complete resource package for designers and a must see.

• Love

• Dreams of Youth

Designs by Larissa Meek

Wordpress Magazine - Demo | Download

Rihanna - Demo | Download

Mag on Wood - Demo | Download

Yoghourt - Demo | Download

Polaroid - Demo | Download

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It seems the first time motorcycles were used by police forces was ate the beginning of the 20th century. Chief August Vollmer of the Berkeley, California Police Department is credited with organizing the first official police motorcycle patrol in the United States in 1911. However a few police departments used motorcycles before 1911. It’s documented that the first Harley-Davidson police motorcycle was delivered to the Detroit Police Department in 1908. Also, the police department in Evanston, Illinois purchased a belt-driven motorcycle for its first motorcycle police officer in 1908, and the Portland, Oregon Police Bureau had a police officer who used his personal motorcycle to patrol the city as early as 1909.

Back on the home front in the 1920s, state police forces were being formed in several states of the US to protect rural areas from lawlessness and to enforce Prohibition. The motorized vehicle of choice on rutted rural roads was the motorcycle.

Police motorcycles in the United States typically use purpose-built motorcycles marketed by Harley-Davidson, Kawasaki, Honda, or BMW. Kawasaki Police Motorcycles, which were built for the US market in Lincoln, Nebraska, ceased production in September 2005.

In Germany, BMW is by far the largest provider of motorcycles for authority use.

In the United Kingdom the most common police motorcycles are the BMW RT series, the Honda ST series and the Yamaha FJR1300, although most forces have withdrawn the ST1300 Pan European since the death of an officer was blamed on the machine. Some police forces also use scooters within towns.

In 2004, BMW claimed to be the largest seller of motorcycles for authority use, as more than 80,000 BMW motorcycles were in official use in over 150 countries on five continents. BMW produce police-specific models such as the R1200RT and R900RT, the latter not available to the general public. More than 140 U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, had BMW authority motorcycles in their fleets of patrol vehicles.

Harley-Davidson has maintained a long relationship with police departments and law-enforcement agencies. As of 2007, Harley-Davidson offered the FLHTP Electra Glide, the FLHP Road King and the XL883 Sportster in police and fire/rescue editions.

Police Motorcycle Designs old and new organized by countries :
Austria

Australia

Belgium

China

Czech Republic

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Free Icons download has a very exclusive collection which you can not find on other popular icons websites. The quality of the icons is really good and most of the icons are 256×256px.

The icons are organized by 15 categories, and can also be organized by “Most Downloaded” or “Most Popular“.

The website also offers individual designers or design companies the possibility to upload their designs and showcase them to the world. So if you want to showcase your icons, or you are looking for great, high-quality, free icons for your designs, Free Icons Download is what you are looking for.

Q : I know you are really passionate about art. Before you started as a graphic designer, what sort of work did you do ?

A : I was originally studying Psychology and Spanish but when I met my (now) husband, he was at Design school. He started showing me how to edit pictures in Photoshop and I fell in love (with design and him!). I’ve always liked art, but had been told it’s not a way to make a living because it can be so unpredictable. This is a way to be an artist (of sorts) and still make money!

Q : You’re running quite a lovely design blog. Tell us a little about how you started blogging and what drove you into it?

A : Thank you! I started getting into the blog world back in May 2007 when I found Tara’s Graphic Design Blog. I commented (a reeeeally long comment) on her post about inspiration, that Vivien invited me to post as an actual article on Inspiration Bit. I guest posted one more time for Vivien, another time for Tara and started a meme (with help from Tara), When Do You Consider Yourself a Successful Designer? After much pushing from the bloggers I had become quite active with, I started my own blog focused on learning graphic design.

Q : You graduated in 2006 as BS in Multimedia Design Technology from Mt Sierra College, Monrovia, Summa Cum Laude. There’s a well known debate in the design community regarding the role of education in a designer’s work versus no design education and loads of design experience. What do you think about this ?

A : Experience is the most important teacher, hands down. I think it’s good to go to school for design, but it’s certainly not the only way to learn. School gives you a head start and for the less self-motivated lot, it provides a structure for learning the craft. But it really is very recent that schools have even started offering graphic design specific majors (formerly they were generally art majors). And even if you do go school, you’ll learn more about the field in your first six months than you did your whole time in school! There are some things only experience can help you learn.

Q : You are curently a graphic designer for Prudential Real Estate and Relocation. Tell us a little bit about that.

A : Most of the work I do for Prudential is internal. The national advertising and such is handled by another firm. I have created graphics for our intranet, annual sales convention, individual broker marketing materials and a whole lot of recruiting materials (to convince real estate brokers to buy a Prudential franchise and sell under our name). 98% of the work I do is for print and I really love it!

Q : As your resume mentiones you are very well qualified for both bitmap and vectorial graphic design. Do you enjoy one type more than other and what’s your favorite graphic design software?

A : I am by far the most familiar with Photoshop, so it’s what I tend to work in. Because of the heavy emphasis of my print work, though, InDesign is becoming one of my favorite programs! I can’t stand trying to lay out text in Photoshop or Illustrator!

Q : Your websites are packed with quotes from famous people. It’s quite clear you are very well read. What’s your favorite quote regarding art / design ?

A : Oh man, there are just so many good ones!

Art is either plagiarism or revolution. - Paul Gauguin

Creativity without strategy is called ‘art.’ Creativity with strategy is called ‘advertising.’ - Jef I. Richards

Or I like to replace “art” (first quote) and “advertising” (second quote) with “design”!

Q : You are an active member of one of the best design forums on the web, Estetica Design Forum. Do you follow other design communities?

A : Hehe, yes, I wish I could get involved more often. Estetica is the only forum I am a member of right now, but I try to get around to quite a few design and writing blogs.

Q : In your opinion what are the top 3 resource websites for designers?

A : This is a hard one, because a lot of it depends on what kind of designer you are (web, print, motion graphics, etc) and what you are looking for (technical help, inspiration, resources, business advice, etc). If I had to only pick three…
I Love Typography
Smashing Magazine
Google.com - because I couldn’t decide on one more, I didn’t want to leave out anybody, and it really is the best place to find everything!

Q : Besides design, what do you like to do in your spare time?

A : I am a person of many interests! Among my favorites are blogging, scrapbook, backpack, SCUBA dive, waste time online (read: social media!), airsoft, bellydance, read, video games (RPG/adventure, FPS like UT, and MMOs), letterpress, theater (as in going to stage productions) um… that’s all I can think of right now!

Q : And for the last question … a classic : Where do you see yourself in 5 years ?

A : I hope to still be running my blog and keeping up with design, but I’ll probably be in the full swing of parenthood by then! I hope to continue designing by moving more into freelancing and/or consulting.

Here are some of Lauren Marie’s designs :

View Lauren Marie’s Portfolio

Visit Creative Curio Graphic Design blog

Some of the most important features for developers are the improved compatibility and interoperability and the new developer toolbar which enables developers to quickly debug HTML, cascading style sheets, and JavaScript in a visual development environment. Other improvements are the full integration for cascading style sheets, version 2.1 as well as the HTML improvements like the separate URL handing for attributes.

Easier and faster, Internet Explorer 8 will offer three different rendering modes :

• Quirks mode which supports Internet Explorer 5 and legacy browsers
• Strict mode which supports Internet Explorer 7 and is accessed through the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button
• Internet Explorer 8 standards mode

Some new features are also added. For example Activities and WebSlices.

Activities are contextual services that provide quick access to external services from any webpage.

WebSlices behave just like feeds in that users can subscribe to them and receive update notifications when the content changes.

View the full list of features on the Microsoft website

Download Internet Explorer 8 public beta (for web designers and developers)

Eric Kass | design by funnel.tv

Heads Inc | design by headsinc.com

Melvin | design by www.jenimattson.com

Thielen Designs | design by thielendesigns.com

Diesel Design | design by dieseldesign.com

Promptt | design by promptt.com

National Greyhound Adoption Program | design by lauriedemartinodesign.com

Steven Belkowitz | design by lauriedemartinodesign.com

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