Before You Claim Will your expenses decrease after you retire? It's good to plan ahead. If you're planning an active retirement or carry a mortgage or other debt, your first few years in retirement may be more expensive than you expect. Many people find retirement is more expensive than expected. Future expenses are difficult to predict. You can protect your lifestyle by planning ahead. Do you expect to have additional sources of retirement income beyond Social Security? Continue saving in the coming years. Social Security won't replace all of your pre-retirement income. You have an opportunity to continue growing your money. If you can, get the highest monthly Social Security benefit possible by claiming at your full Social Security benefit age or later. It's a perfect time to start saving. You could save through your employer's 401(k) , an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) , or myRA to fill the gap. It's never too late to start saving! IRAs are types of retirement savings plans with special tax incentives.
thoughtbot Showcase of Cartoon Style Web Designs By Peteris Kelle Do you remember yourself as a kid watching cartoons all the time — even when parents didn’t allow you to? Most of us have watched cartoons and even now, as we get older, cartoons don’t lose popularity. Basically, cartoons are animated illustrations that are mainly designed for kids but which some adults also enjoy watching. Cartoons can be drawn by hand or they can be drawn on digital devices, too. Web design is a creative art and that’s why cartoon elements can also be used for web design. [fblike] Showcase of Cartoon Style Web Designs Inspiredology Inspiredology website has a well-made cartoon header background that draws immediate attention to the central point of the site content. Attack Of The WebAttack of the Web is a simple website with a simple layout and the action cartoon illustration in the middle of the page portrays a precise personality description of this website owner. Super Landing PageSuper Landing Page’s website is very much linear-based. (afb)
fightTIPS Fight Like Series Play all In this series, I'll show you 3 signature moves from your favorite fighters so you can fight like a champion. 2:00 2:33 5:20 2:32 7:16 2:36 2:18 3:14 2:04 2:12 2:33 2:18 View 8 more This item has been hidden This item has been hidden This item has been hidden This item has been hidden This item has been hidden Motivation || Mental Strength + Fighting Fear Play all This group of videos will have you feeling mentally prepared before and during a fight, whether it's on the street or in the ring. Increasing confidence is an important part of training, as well as life in general. Beating your bully, getting that job, acing that test.. if you're motivated and self-assured, you can do anything!
What’s new for designers, November 2013 The November edition of what’s new for web designers and developers includes new web apps, graphic design tools, coding resources, project management tools, icons, mapping resources, and some really great new fonts. Many of the resources below are free or very low cost, and are sure to be useful to a lot of designers and developers out there. As always, if we’ve missed something you think should have been included, please let us know in the comments. And if you have an app or other resource you’d like to see included next month, tweet it to @cameron_chapman for consideration. Flaticon Flaticon is a huge repository of downloadable free vector icons. GlyphSearch GlyphSearch makes it simple to search for icons from Glyphicons, Ionicons, and Font Awesome. Content Snippets Content Snippets collects specific snippets of written content from around the web, and puts them together in one place for you to get inspiration. Layers CSS Free Vector Maps Slidr.js Merry Icons Sir Trevor Knock Ionicons Temper Slack
User Experience Design I’ve been practicing information architecture since 1994, and from Gopher to Google have seen dramatic changes in the landscape of organization, search and retrieval. Through these ten tempestuous years, I’ve found the infamous three circle diagram to be a great tool for explaining how and why we must strike a unique balance on each project between business goals and context, user needs and behavior, and content. Three Circles of Information Architecture While this diagram was conceived with IA in mind, it’s equally useful for explaining UX. In conjunction with Jesse’s masterpiece, I use the three circles to illustrate the distinction between user experience and user-centered design. I’m still not convinced UCD exists outside the realm of theory, but I practice user experience design every day. Facets of the User Experience User Experience Honeycomb Here’s how I explain each facet or quality of the user experience: Useful. Second, this model supports a modular approach to web design.
Jazz Guitar Lessons | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR What’s new for designers, February 2014 The February edition of what’s new for web designers includes new web apps, icons, color resources, webmaster tools, graphics programs, CSS frameworks, JavaScript resources, and some really great new fonts. Many of the resources below are free or very low cost, and are sure to be useful to a lot of designers and developers out there. As always, if we’ve missed something you think should have been included, please let us know in the comments. And if you have an app or other resource you’d like to see included next month, tweet it to @cameron_chapman for consideration. GV Library The Google Ventures Library is a great resource for entrepreneurs and designers alike, straight from Google. Nasty Icons Need something to spice up your designs? CSS Colours Want to call your colors by name rather than hex code? Feedthebot Feedthebot offers up a complete guide to complying with Google’s webmaster guidelines. DevArt DevArt is a new gallery from Google of art created with code by developers. Rrrepo 900dpi
Case Study: Interactive Comic Books | Billy Garretsen - Brand Development and UX Design The comics medium has undergone a pretty major shift in the past 10 years with the widespread adoption of e-readers, tablets and digital distribution. Only now have enhanced interactive comics become widely popular among fans and creators alike. I have been a long time advocate of transmedia and have always seen a strong connection between game interaction design and comics storytelling. I wanted to bring game technology to the comics medium. Goals & Constraints: Create enhanced yet authentic comic book presentationCreate compelling touch interaction for narrative impact and user engagementEnhance storytelling using animation, particle effects, motion and soundCreate a reusable template for future interactive comic book projects Contributions: Project Direction and Design, User Experience and Interface Design, Prototyping, Illustration, Project Assembly Tools Used: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, GameSalad Problems with e-comics: Problems with motion comics: Senior Artist: Rolf Mohr Like this:
20 Word Usage Mistakes Even Smart People Make English vocabulary is full of pitfalls that you might not be aware of. Don't let them trip you up. If something happens invariably, it always happens. A whole comprises its parts. The words rein and reign are commonly confused. There is only one s in the desert of just deserts. Tortuous is not the same as torturous. When you want to talk about the influence of one thing on another, effect is the noun and affect is the verb. People rarely use accept when they mean except, but often put except where they shouldn’t. Discreet means hush-hush or private. When you add information to a sentence with parentheses, you’re more likely to need e.g., which means “for example,” than i.e., which means “in other words” or “which is to say ...” People didn’t have as much trouble with these two before websites came along and everyone started talking about sites a lot more than they used to. People sometimes use disinterested when they really mean uninterested. Are you talking about showing off?
eCommerce Website Pricing | Cost of eCommerce Website Design | Price Your Site by Justin Smith, CEO - Updated Jan. 1, 2016 With so many options to consider when budgeting for development of an eCommerce website, it can be a bit confusing. Some eCommerce websites, like most things, are easier to build than others and there are many eCommerce website design companies to choose from. Some perform like Kia's and some give results like Ferraris. One option or the other may be better suited for your business. Ecommerce sites can range from $5,000 - $500,000 +, so it's important to know the factors that go into pricing. The main question I ask a potential client is "what are your goals?". eCommerce Functionality / Custom Programming We all know the basics of an eCommerce website. Above: Custom functionality to preview an engraving is an example of a feature that can increase the price of an eCommerce website. Design Now that we've discussed functionality, we have to consider how the website will look. The low-cost route is using a pre-made template or design.