When completely branding a website with flashy graphics, don’t overlook the favicon and iPhone dock icons.

Favicons are super quick and easy to generate online using the favicon.ico generator. FTP into your website and save the created file on your web server.

Here’s my favicon: 

You can also display a custom iPhone icon that displays if your website is saved as a bookmark to the dock (home screen). Create a 57px by 57px image and save it in the root of your web directory as “apple-touch-icon.png”. Mobile Safari looks for that file and if it exists, will use it by default. I prefer to be more explicit and define it with a LINK element along with the favicon.

Here’s how mine looks on my iPhone dock. Not bad.

Now for the code. Add these two LINK elements to the head of your document:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="relative/path/to/favicon.ico" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="relative/path/to/apple-touch-icon.png" />

This is a really simple way to add some nice detail to your branding efforts.

Protect your bandwidth whenever possible. By adding a few lines of code to your root level .htaccess file you can prevent external websites from directly loading your images, audio, and video files.

Add the following code to your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://www.?your-domain.com/.$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.gif|jpe?g|png|mov|avi|wmv|mpe?g$ - [F]

[AaronHalford.com]

See the backs of these flyers along with many more designs or visit the portfolio of the artist.

[ abduzeedo ]

Show your excitement for the coming changes with President Obama! Proud of our country for finally bucking the trend of old guys in office who seem to kinda mess things up? Rock this shirt and keep people psyched about the future. Getcha sum

[ etsy ]

Made from a vintage Krylon can in Portland, Oregon by artist Jake Rankin. The arm clips onto any tabletop or bookshelf surface and swivels to shed light on any situation. The on/off switch is the paint nozzle!

Light bulb included – standard 30watt flood light, easy to change.

Each lamp is custom made , just choose your color preference (anything!) after ordering and if you would like a Krylon or Montana spray paint can.  For all you b-boys and b-girls. Chillin at your desk.

[ etsy ]

I’ve got a few big projects on deck at the moment. Highest priority is getting my portfolio whipped into shape so it’s presentable to the public. Getting close.

Also on deck is a forthcoming web site for The Longevity Doctor promoting healthy living and wellness. Development is moving right along and Dr. Mayer Horensten is a great client. He’s provided plenty of content and and imagery and is very good about getting back to me with feedback. This allows me to maintain momentum and keep the ball rolling. Current release date for this website will be July 5, 2008. Look for it.

Current weather: Mostly Cloudy 81°F. Tonight we can expect a Low of 54° with Isolated Thunderstorms and a 30% chance of rain.

This weekend was fairly relaxing despite the 8 hours I put in on Sunday. I just worked on my blog a little, set up Howard’s first newsletter from Washington DC and watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Always a great (and funny) movie.

One short week to our 4-day Christmas weekend. It’ll be fast and furious, but I can already see the light at the end of the tunnel. Friday is our floating holiday so the extra day makes it a really nice break. I can hear the lodge hot tub calling my name.

Right now it’s 22°F and Mostly Cloudy. Today we can expect a high of 38°F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.

Rico Open source JavaScript library. Full AJAX support, drag & drop management and cinematic effects library.

script.aculo.us Drag & drop AJAX shopping cart, autocompleting text fields, multiple effects and more.

Doesn’t get much better than this.