Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Difference between pixels and em.

Here I tried to describe difference between pixels and em. This text is for those specially who are new in css. As a designer I am always face a question about this topic. So I decide to share my knowledge here because from my view this is a common mistake make every designer at the beginning.
First of all need to know about css. CSS means "Cascading Style Sheets".
It is a system of properties which directly effect the display properties of your web page. By using css you can handle your web site design easily. I think css is not so hard to learn. Because at first I don’t know about web design,css,html. But now I can design a site by css. All I do is just study the syntax of css and learn about every property and value. And at last know how to use css in a site. That’s it you are ready to go. You don’t need to have programming knowledge to learn css. So don’t be afraid keep going.
Now focus all of your thoughts or mental activity in following text to understand difference between pixels and em.

Content is the main power of any website. Those site are good who arrange their content in a clean way. To do this you must need to arrange your text give them perfect font style,size,color etc. You can give font size by css in couple of ways. Here I talk about pixel and em.

Apply font size with pixels
By setting font size with pixel you can fully control over the font size.

Example:

h1 {font-size:60px}

h2 {font-size:40px}

p {font-size:16px}

Above examples allows Chrome, Firefox, and Safari to resize the text, but not Internet Explorer.

The text can be resized in all browsers using the zoom tool (however, this resizes the entire page, not just the text).

Apply font size with em

To avoid the resizing problem in IE many web designer use em instead of pixel. And it is recommended by W3C.

The default font size in browser is 16px. And 1 em is equal to current font size it means 1 em is equal 16px.

Here is the formula to calculate pixel to em :

Pixels /16 = em

That means if font size is 60px it will be in em is 3.75em.

With the em size you can adjust the font size in all browser. But there is problem in IE . The problem is when you resizing the text, it becomes larger than it should when made larger, and smaller than it should when made smaller.

To solve this problem you need to set a default font size in percent (%) fot the body element.

Here is an Example:

body {font-size:100%}

h1 {font-size:3.75em} [is equal 60px]

h2 {font-size:2.5 em} [is equal 40px]

p {font-size:1 em} [is equal 16px]

Now our code works perfectly and shows the same text size in all browsers. It also allows all browsers to zoom or resize the text.

Hope this will help you guys. Enjoy and make something awesome.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Web graphics tips for web designers

Here are some Web graphics tips and techniques for novice web designers which will help you create images that look good and are as compact as they can be... The main Web graphics formats are GIF, JPG, and PNG. It's important to know the differences and choose the best format for each images, so that pictures look good and are as compact as
they can be so they appear quickly on your site visitor's screen. Below I explain this three web graphics format. If you read this you will never make mistake to choose the right graphic format.

GIF - Graphic Information Format
GIF graphics format is best for images with only a few colors: charts, graphs, or text set as graphics.
The fewer colors you use, the more efficient GIF files are. GIF files....
  • can contain up to 256 colors.
  • support a feature called transparency, in which one color out of the 256 colors is set to be transparent. This keeps your graphics from looking as if they're in boxes, because the background of the file is invisible, letting the Web page's background show through.
  • can be animated. Inside a single file is stored many picture frames and an index telling how long each frame should be shown. Animated GIF is treated as a standard image file, so it is loaded with the standard <IMG> tag.
  • are lossless, which means the image quality is not degraded by the compression

process.
  • can be interlaced so they appear to fade in, from lower to higher quality, while loading. This gives your visitors something to look at while they're waiting.
  • are not good for photographs - you lose quality and the files won't be compact. Use JPG graphics format for photos.

JPG - Joint Photographic Experts Group
JPG graphics format is best for images with many colors, such as photographs or scanned artwork. JPG
files...
  • can contain up to 16 million colors.
  • support variable compression. You can apply more or less compression to each individual image. The more compression you apply, the more quality you lose. While file sizes can be made quite small with this graphics format, you often have to compromise between file size and picture quality. Newer graphics software gives you a preview before you save - this allows you to experiment with various levels of compression to choose the best compromise between quality and file size.
  • come in three types: baseline or standard, baseline optimized or standard optimized, and progressive. Baseline was designed for browsers that we'd consider to be ancient these days (such as Internet Explorer version 1). Baseline optimized offers more compression over standard baseline, and practically every browser today can read such an image. A progressive JPG, like an interlaced GIF file, builds as it downloads, going from a crude representation of the image to its finished look. While this is a nice Web graphics format, older browsers don't all support this format.
  • are not good for images with only a few colors, such as text set as graphics or images with areas of flat colors. If you use JPG for these graphics, they will be larger than necessary, and look "mottled."

PNG - Progressive Network Graphics
PNG is the newest Web graphics format. PNG files...
  • are supported by all modern browsers. These files may not appear in older browsers, so using this graphics format may cause some of your Web site visitors to be unable to see your images.
  • are compact and versatile and can combine the best features of GIF and JPG, such as the ability to have transparent backgrounds or the ability to contain images with millions of colors.
  • are still not widely used, mostly because they're not supported by older browsers.
When to use which?
Choosing the right Web graphics format can ensure that your images look good and appear quickly on your
visitor's computer. Choosing the wrong format makes your images look bad and take forever to download.
The most common graphics mistake people make on the Web is to use the wrong graphics format for their
images. But the choice is really quite simple...

  • If your graphics have a lot of colors (such as a photo), choose JPG.
  • If your graphics have few colors, choose GIF. When using GIF, try optimized palettes that contain only the colors used - they can cut file sizes in half.
I hope you understand now when and how you can use web graphics. If you still aren't too sure on which
format to use when see the chart below. Hope it will give you clear idea about web graphics.

    * JPEG:
          o Good:
                + Photographs
                + Game

screenshots
                + Movie stills
                + Desktop

backgrounds
          o Bad:
                + Windows

application screenshots
                + Line art and text
                + Comic strips
                + Anywhere

where fine lines or sharp color contrast is needed
    * PNG:
          o Good:
                + Text, line

art, comic-style drawings, general web graphics
                + Windows

application screenshots
                + When

accurate reproduction (lossless) is required (24 bit PNG)
                + When alpha

channel support is required
                + As a general

replacement for anything that is a non-animated GIF
          o Bad:
                + Photos,

in-game screenshots (only when quality is not important and you're looking for small files)
                +

Disappointing browser support for 32 bit PNGs from Microsoft and others
    * GIF:
          o Good:
                + Where

animations are required
                + Widespread

browser support
          o Bad:
                + Large file

sizes compared to PNG for the same quality
                + Often

limited to 256 colors (8 bit)

Friday, March 5, 2010

Redirect visitors to a new site or page by using HTML code.

Some times we need to change our web url for various reason. When we change our page or site url visitors don’t know new location. They already linked to this location. Another factor is search engine. Because search ingine is already indexed the page To solve this problem we need to redirect visitors to new location.
From my view to do this its a good habit to replace the page with a new page and put the following html code into new page header section I mean between head Tags of html code.


<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html">

The content="0; means delay time of the redirecting the page. I prefer to show some message text for the visitors so that he will understand the reason of the redirecting the page. To show the message first you need to see how many second you need to read the message. If it needs 5 seconds the code will be look like this one :

<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="5; url=http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html">

Hope it will helps those who are new to web design. At last I want to say one thing that it is not the only way to redirect the page. If you want to know more about this go to www.google.com and search for the details.

Example html code :

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="2; url=http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html">
<title>Your website title</title>
</head>
<body>
Your message text here
</body>
</html>

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

SEO Basic - Search Engine Optimization Basic. Every novice web designer should know.

When I learn web design I don’t no more about SEO. But right now I know little bit about SEO. While I learning it I face some problem but it can’t stop me I continue my study and practice it day by day at last i overcome from it. So I write this note for those who want to know basic about Search engine optimization and want his site get indexed and listed in the major search engines. Here i discuss the most importance areas to get any website properly indexed by the search engines. The areas that we need to going through are the

1.Title Tag
2.Meta (Description and Keywords) Tags
3.Body text: a brief description of what you should write in the body text of your main (index) page.

This is just a very brief description, but it will nonetheless be very useful to the novice web designer to get a better understanding of the basics on how to get your website indexed and listed at the major search engines.
Below you can see  HTML code of a basic website. After This code I will give a brief description of each code tag you see.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<title>Enter your Title here</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="Enter your key words here">
<meta name="description" content="Enter your description here">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Enter your page's body text here
</BODY>
</HTML>

<title> Tag :
The first thing you need to do is identify the keyword phrases that are relevant to your company, products and services. When you have decided on your "keyword phrases" you need to put them in your page's <title> tag.
The title tag is definitely the most important tag in the header section of your web page. The title tag is displayed in the blue bar at the top of your browser window (SEO - Basic search engine tips - How to get indexed and listed at search engines). The title tag is a one-liner describing your business, and it includes the most important keywords. The search engines place a lot of relevance on the words contained
within the title tag, so be sure to include your targeted keyword phrases.
The title tag should not exceed 60 characters.

<META> Tags :
META tags are basically composed of the
description
<meta name="description" content="Enter your description here">
 and keyword
<meta name="keywords" content="Enter your key words here"> tags.

Description:
The description tag is used to describe your web page / business. Some search engines will use this
information to summarize your website in their search listings. It's again of utmost importance that you also include your keyword phrases in the description tag.
* The description tag should provide a 25-30 word description of your website.

Keywords:
 The keyword tag should of course include the "keyword phrases" that you are targeting in order of
importance. Start with the most important and then proceed to less important but still relevant keywords.

Do not include keywords that are not relevant to the theme of your site.
*  Do not repeat any word more than 3 times within the keyword tag.

<Body> Tag :
In the body tag section of your website, you should describe and explain the nature of your business, products, scope of the website, etc. You should generally include around 500-600 words in this area. Make
sure to repeat your "keyword phrases" a few times so that search engines will consider these to be very
important and relevant to your website. For nearly all search engines content is still king, and having lots of quality content will help you to increase your ranking with the major search engines.
After completing your site you have one last job to do. That is :

* Submission to Search engines
* and Submission to Directories.

SUBMITTING TO THE SEARCH ENGINES
Once your web page is fully optimized, it is time to submit it to the major search engines. Although there are hundreds of search engines on the Internet such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, USFreeAds, OPN, BusinessSeek, Searchwarp, Searchsight, National Directory, Quango, Homerweb, HiddenStreet, killerInfo, SearchIt, AdlandPro and many more., only a handful are truly important.

I know there must be a question arise in evry novice person how can i and where can I add my site url ?
Don’t worry Here I give you top three search engines add url link.
Google (Add URL)
Yahoo! (Add URL)
BING(msn of old) (Add URL)

It's recommended that you submit your website to the search engines manually instead of using any automated submission tool, because some search engines regard those as spam, and won't list your site. Keep in mind that it can take months before you get listed, so be patient.

SUBMITTING TO DIRECTORIES
Search engines need a starting point. That's why human edited directories are important to be listed in.

There are couple of major web directories at this moment:
       DMOZ - Free listings.
       The Yahoo directory  - Free listings for non-commercial sites.
If  any thing I miss here don’t hesitate. Share it by youre valuable comment.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

My favorite inspirational quotes about design

I have always collected design and arts inspirational quotes because Simple quotes can hold timeless and moving lessons. We are so lucky that we have a lot of exceptional people who have this curious habit to inspire us with their tremendous quotes. So i read those quotes again and again and I think it makes my work more powerful. That’s why I share this quotes collection and hope you will be inspire as I am .


Brenda Laurel
A design isn’t finished until somebody is using it.

Frank Chimero
Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.

Steve Rogers
Designing a product is designing a relationship.

Henrik Fiskar
If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.

Robynne Raye
For me, design is like choosing what I’m going to wear for the day - only much more complicated and not really the same at all.

James Randolph Adams
Great designers seldom make great advertising men, because they get overcome by the beauty of the picture – and forget that merchandise must be sold.

Charles Eames
Design is an expression of the purpose, and it may (if it is good enough) later be judged as art; design depends largely on constraints and it is a method of action (there are always constraints and these usually include ethic).

Clement Mok
Design, in its broadest sense, is the enabler of the digital era – it’s a process that creates order out of chaos, that renders technology usable to business. Design means being good, not just looking good.

Scott Adams
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep.

Freeman Thomas
Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition.

Milton Glaser
There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.

Jenaiha Woods
Design is the contrast of the core of limitations therefore there are no boundaries. It is simply an interpretation of creativity.


Massimo Vignelli
The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.

Steve Jobs
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Robin Mathew
Design is where science and art break even.

David Carson
Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.

Thomas J. Watson Jr.
Good design is good business.

What’s your favourite quote? Share your thoughts by your valuable comment.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Do You Use Reset.CSS?

Browser compatibility issues with how they render HTML differently is a common problem for web designers and developers. Reset.CSS, if you are not already using it, can save some time from the CSS editing process.
What is Reset.CSS?
Reset.CSS is simply a collection of CSS styles which removes and neutralizes the inconsistent default styling of HTML elements.
By using Reset.CSS, you simply clear the default values of web browsers and you wont need to alter these differences for every element again.
There are 2 popular Reset.CSS styles:
  • YUI Reset CSS
  • Eric meyer Reset CSS
First, the Yahoo version:

abbr,acronym
 border:0;
}
address,cite,code,dfn,em,strong,var {
 font-style:normal;
font-weight:normal;
}
blockquote {
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
body {
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
caption {
font-style:normal;
font-weight:normal;
 text-align:left;
}
fieldset
margin:0;
padding:0;
border:0;
}
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
margin:0;
padding:0;
font-size:100%;
font-weight:normal;
}
img {
 border:0;
}
ol,ul {
margin:0;
padding:0;
list-style:none;
}
table {
border-collapse:collapse;
border-spacing:0;
}
td {
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
th {
margin:0;
padding:0;
font-style:normal;
font-weight:normal;
 text-align:left;
}
q:before,q:after {
content:'';
}
div,dl,dt,dd,li,pre,form,p
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
/*
 * THESE ARE ONLY DEFINED IN YAHOO VERSION
 */
input,textarea
margin:0;
padding:0
}



Now, Eric's version:

abbr, acronym {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
}
address,cite,code,dfn,em,strong,var {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
}
blockquote {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
quotes: "" "";
}
body {
 margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
line-height: 1;
color: black;
background: white;
}
caption {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
text-align: left;
font-weight: normal;
}
fieldset {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
}
img {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
}
ol, ul {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
list-style: none;
}
/* tables still need 'cellspacing="0"' in the markup */
table {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
border-collapse: collapse;
border-spacing: 0;
}
td {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
text-align: left;
font-weight: normal;
}
th {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
text-align: left;
font-weight: normal;
}
q:before, q:after {
content: "";
}
div,dl,dt,dd,li,pre,form, p {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
}
/* THESE STYLE ONLY EXIST IN MEYER'S VERSION */
/* remember to define focus styles! */
:focus {
outline: 0;
}
blockquote:before, blockquote:after {
 content: "";
}
html, applet, object, span, iframe, a, big,
del, font, ins, kbd, s, samp, 
small, strike, sub, sup, tt,
label, legend, 
tbody, tfoot, thead, tr {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
}
q {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
outline: 0;
font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
vertical-align: baseline;
background-image: transparent;
quotes: "" "";
}

Every of us have different needs and approach. So i think every serious CSS coder should have CSS-reset system, written by himself. Hope this will help you guys who are new with css.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Learn how to do keyword research ? My Favorite Keyword Research Tools list.

Keyword research is one of the vitally important aspect of your search engine optimization campaign. If you target wrong keyword, the search engines and your customers may never find you and also you don’t get a good rank Without good rank you cannot do good business by your website. To do that you need to spend much time to select keyword. Here i try to give you some advice and usefull keyword research tools link. Hope this will help you.
The initial idea of keyword research can be daunting. Trying to come up with the perfect combination of words to drive customers to your site, rev up your conversion rate and allow the engines to see you as an expert would easily give anyone a tension headache.

The trick is to start slowly.

The first step in this process is to create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorm all the words you think a customer would type into their search box when trying to find you. This includes thinking of phrases that are broad and targeted, buying and research-oriented, and single and multi-word. What is your site hoping to do or promote? Come up with enough words to cover all the services your site offers. Avoid overly generic terms like 'shoes' or 'clothes'. These words are incredibly difficult to rank for and won't drive qualified traffic to your site. Focus on words that are relevant, but not overly used.

If you need help brainstorming ideas, ask friends, colleagues or past customers for help. Sometimes they are able to see your site differently than the way you yourself see it. Also, don't be afraid to take a peek at your competitor's Meta Keyword tag. What words are they targeting? How can you expand on their keyword list to make yours better? It's okay to get a little sneaky here. All's fair in love and search engine rankings.
After selecting keywords your next step is to determine the activity for each of your proposed keywords. You want to narrow your list to only include highly attainable, sought-after phrases that will bring the most qualified traffic to your site.

In the early days of SEO, measuring the "popularity" of your search terms was done by performing a search for that phrase in one of the various engines and seeing how many results it turned up. As you can imagine, this was a tedious and ineffective method of keyword research. Luckily, times have changes and we now have tools to do the hard part for us.

By inputting your proposed keywords into a keyword research tool, you can quickly learn how many users are conducting searches for that term every day, how many of those searches actually converted, and other important analytical information. It may also tune you in to words you had previously forgotten or synonyms you weren't aware of.
There are lots of great tools out there to help you determine how much activity your keywords are receiving. Here's a few of my personal favorites:



Google AdWords Keyword Tool : Google's keyword PPC tool doesn't provide actual search numbers for keywords. Instead, it displays a colored bar, giving users only an approximation. Still, it may be useful.

Check Traffic tool : This tool will produce an estimate of daily search activity for a specific keyword phrase on the internet across the major search engines. This is only an estimate, and on a daily basis your mileage may vary.


Wordtracker :  Wordtracker's leading-edge research tool gives you the keywords you need to rise above your competitors in search engine rankings. Even better, we also show you how keyword research can help you discover untapped market niches, get inspiration for new products, & create compelling content that distinguishes your site from the pack.

Trellian Keyword Discovery tool :  Keyword Discovery compiles keyword search statistics from all the major search engines world wide, to create the most powerful Keyword Research tool.

http://www.keywordspy.com :  FREE SEO & PPC Keyword Research software tool, that unveil your competitors’ most profitable Ad copies & keywords. Learn from time-tested Ad campaigns.

Apogee-web-consulting :  FREE  KEYWORD  RESEARCH TOOL

After tested your keywords it's time to narrow down the field and decide which terms will make it into your coveted final keyword list.
I recommend creating a spreadsheet or some other visual that will allow you to easily see each word's conversion rate, search volume and competition rate (as given to you by the tools mentioned above). These three figures will allow you to calculate how viable that term is for your site and will be a great aid as you try and narrow down your focus.
The first step in narrowing down your list is to go through and highlight the terms that most closely target the subject and theme of your web site. These are the terms you want to hold on to. Kill all words that are not relevant to your site or that you don't have sufficient content to support (unless you're willing to write some). You can't optimize for words that you don't have content for.
Create a mix of both broad and targeted keywords. You'll need both to rank well. Broad terms are important because they describe what your web site does; however, they won't increase the level of qualified traffic coming into your site.
After made up your highly focused keywords, now what do you do with them? You prepare them for launch!



Chances are, if you did your keyword research right, at least some of the words on your list already appear in your site content, but some of them may not. Start thinking about how many pages you'll need to create to support these new words, and how and where your keyword phrases will be used.
I typically recommend only going after three or four related keywords per page (five if you can balance them properly). Any more than that and you run the risk of diluting your page to the point where you rank for nothing. Make sure to naturally work the keywords into your content and avoid over-repetition that may be interpreted as spamming. Your content should never sound forced.
Your on-page content isn't the only place where you can insert keywords. Keywords should also be used in several other elements on your site:
•    Title Tag
•    Meta Description Tags
•    Meta Keywords Tag
•    Headings
•    Alt text
•    Anchor Text/ Navigational Links
You've spent a lot of time molding your keywords; make sure you use them in all the appropriate fields to get the maximum benefit.
Congratulations. Your initial keyword research process is behind you. You've created your list, checked it twice, made friends with the keyword research tools and are now off to go plan your attack. You're done, right?
Unfortunately, no. As your customer's and your site's needs change over time, so will your keywords. It's important to keep monitoring your keywords and make tweaks as necessary. Doing so will allow you to stay ahead of your competition and keep moving forward.
Best of luck!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Find your great domain name

There are lots of Good domain names out there, but they can be hard to find. Here are some tools to help you in your search.

Dislexicon – Takes common words and adds suffixes and prefixes. It even gives you the meaning. This site is great for finding short domain names that look like they could be real words.
JustDropped – This site lets you search for domain names that have recently expired. You get a few searches for free with limited results. I’ve found that the free searches are usually adequate for my needs.

DomainsBot – This search engine is geared specifically towards finding a domain name. It works best if you’re looking for a compound-word domain rather than an invented word.

Word Mixer – This one lets you enter up to five words which are mixed up into new, semi-pronouncable words. The same website also has a couple other tools that are useful such as the random words tool which is hit or miss, and the mixer seeds page.

WordFinder – This is actually a tool for crossword puzzles, but it can also be very useful for finding a domain name.

Once you’ve found one, there are about a million places to purchase it. Good luck.