So, how does it work?  You can use their easy to use website interface to add text, images, shapes and more to your own business card layout.  When you are done – you have the option to print it or save it to print out in another program.  This is a very simple website idea that does one job and does it well.  You have the option of choosing either a round or rectangle layout (although, I have never seen too many round business cards). There are also a couple of templates you can use if your not sure what all you should include on your business card:

Makebadge.com will help you get a business card created, saved or printed in a flash.  I would highly recommend everybody go check out their website and try designing your own business card today.

Sometimes, when you are looking for a new website design – or inspiration for things you can bring to your own website, it is best to check with those who do it best first.  CSSbake is a resource where you can do exactly that.  It features all the perfect ingredients when it comes to baking your proverbial website.

I really like the whole theme of this website, as far as the idea goes.  They break the website designs they feature into ingredients.  So, if you wanted to check out websites with great 404 pages – you would check out the 404 page ingredients category.  If you wanted to see nice form examples, visit the forms ingredients page.  Here are some of the other ingredients they feature:

• Archives
• Navigation
• Post Data
• Pagination
• Headers
• Footers
• Sidebars
• Backgrounds

Not only is this a great place to check out some amazing design work – it also serves as a way to contact tons of fantastic web designers, just in case you are looking for somebody to help you with your next website redesign.

Want to start your web design cooking class? Visit CSSbake.com.

htaccess Cheatsheet

mod_rewrite Cheat Sheet

htaccess cheatsheet from Google Groups

There you have it.  Know of anymore good htaccess tips or cheat sheets?  Leave me a link in the comments and I’ll go check them all out.

Mystique

This is the best free WordPress theme I have seen in a while.  It really does a great job at creating top commercial template features in a theme that is free for everybody to use.  You can learn more about it, and download it at its official website.

AllTuts

This theme, put out by Site5 looks great and gives off that vibe of a really professional theme.  The entire theme is very polished looking and doesn’t hold back when it comes to features.  You can grab it (and a few more great WordPress themes) over at Site5′s free WordPress themes website.

LightWord

I really love the simple themes out there too, so LightWord has to go on my list.  This theme comes with two or three column support, it is AdSense ready, and just looks really nice.  If you are looking for a sleek, yet simple WordPress theme, you could not go wrong with LightWord.  You can pick it up on its official website.

Arras Theme

Magazine themes for WordPress are growing in popularity these days, and if you need a free magazine-like theme to get started with, Arras theme is the one to pick.  Simply put, it has tons of features, alternative styles, includes a slideshow feature and really the list goes on and on.  You can pick it up on ArrasTheme.com.

Thematic

Now you might say this theme is a little simple, right?  Well that is the best thing about it.  The Thematic theme for WordPress is simply a framework to use to design your own great looking WordPress powered blog.  You can pick it up at  Themeshaper.com.

There you have it.  These are some of the best WordPress themes I’ve run into that simply do not suck.  Have another theme in mind that should have made it on the list?  Want to tell me which one is your favorite?  Drop your feedback, thoughts and suggestions into the comments.

I hope you have enjoyed the evolution over the years and this new version of the website too.  If you have any feedback – or there is something you would like to see me cover, be sure to leave a comment and let me know. 

Thanks to you all, I appreciate all my wonderful RSS subscribers and website visitors.  Without you guys and gals, I’d just be rambling on to myself. (I’m not, am I?)

Looking for a specific type or kind of icon for your next big design project?  Well, I have found three different icon search engines to help you in your pursuit of the perfect icon.

FindIcons – This tool features a sophisticated search filtering and result matching system both make it possible for you to get an icon you need in every design tasks. In other words, you type in the keyword that describes your icon, hit search and then grab the one you need.

Iconfinder – This is one I have been using for a while now.  Featuring over 164,000 icons and over 550 icon sets, you are bound to find an icon you like or that will fit in perfectly with your design here.

ICONlook – Last, but not least – you have ICONlook, which also serves as a great way to search and find new icons from all over the web.  It also includes search filters, so you can search for a file 12×12, 16×16, 22×22 and well, you get the general idea here.

So there you have it, three great ways to go search for new icons and images.  Out of the three, I really like Iconfinder the best.  If you have another you think does the job better – be sure to leave it in the comments!

Want to create a color palette out of an image?  Look no further than Pictaculous.  This online tool will let you upload any picture and then with wacky server side voodoo magic will turn it into a selection of colors you can use in your next web site layout.

How does it work? First thing you do is browse to the picture you wish to upload and base your color palette on.

Next, you grab your color palette!  Not any rocket science needed here.

You can copy and past the HTML color codes into your CSS files, or download the color scheme as an Adobe swatch file.  You can also socially share your color selection (although I am not sure why you would want to) or e-mail it to yourself to have for later use.

So why is this handy to have? Well, when designing your web page, you might have one big main picture as your focus point – and you want the rest of the layout to match it.  This gives you a very simple way to do this.  Also, you might just be looking for a unique source for color inspiration when designing.

You can try it out for yourself at Pictaculous.com.

Are you a web designer wanting to submit your awesome web site design to a ton of galleries at once?  Look no further than cssGallerySubmission. It is the easiest way to submit your web design to all the CSS galleries around the Web.

To get started, all you have to do is visit the submission page, and give them a few details such as your name, e-mail address, design URL, site description, tags and the like.  Then you can use this information to fill in the “submission” pages for each CSS or design gallery you wish to submit to.

Some of the web site design galleries supported include:

• WordPress.org
• CSSMania.com
• Designm.ag
• CSSdrive.com
• DesignShack.co.uk

Right now there are 281 active web site design galleries you can submit your layout and design to.  This tool is perfect for designers that need an easy way to get their free themes out to the public on all of the Web most popular places for getting such galleries.

Give it a shot for yourself at cssgallerysubmission.com.

Once you load the tools up, you can pick from a number of different template designs, or browse through some of the most popular ones.  Then all you do is pick a color, change it – then move onto the next.  The entire thing is a very zen-like experience.  Well, it is if you were ever into coloring as a kid.

Here is a little ‘bit more about the tool from the developers:

Use themeleon to customize the way Twitter looks for you and how your profile looks to others. Use any of the more than 685,085 background patterns & 1,043,054 color palettes on COLOURlovers or customize any of the colors or patterns to get just the right design for you.

Here is what I was able to do with my own Twitter page after just a few minutes of playing with the Twitter design tools:

You know, you can always come tweet with me @mitchkeeler, anytime!

Go color your own Twitter page over at the Twitter Profile Designer, and leave me a comment if you are impressed!  Would love to see what design you come up with using this Twitter designer toolkit.

Sticky posts, will let you bump a story to the top of the homepage – without the need of editing the time stamp over and over again.  This is handy for me, because with the Web Hosting Show’s site, I wanted to keep the most recent podcast pinned to the top of WebHostingShow.com – with new content following bellow it.  With a little template editing, WordPress interface knowledge and some hard work – you can do the same.

How to Get Started with Sticky Posts

The best guide thus far on how to use this WordPress feature that was introduced back in WordPress 2.7 is Nathan Rice’s Definitive Sticky Posts Guide.  Here you can learn how to make a post sticky from within WordPress, and how to edit your theme’s templates to reflect the changes.

Show More Than One Sticky Post

What if you want to get more than just one sticky post in your WordPress blog?  Then you might need to check out how to get the latest sticky posts via WPRecipies.com.  That have a code snippet up that goes right before the loop, that retrieves X most recent sticky posts.

All in all, it is a fun weekend side project to try out – if your looking to add a little something special to your WordPress powered web site.