The other day while working my mojo developing a website on my Mac, I experienced something I’ve never experienced before. As I went to go open Safari to check my work, I clicked the dock’s icon and it disappeared (screenshot above).

My stomach instantly jumped in my throat. This is a new computer… what the hell just happened? The Safari icon just up and disappeared for no reason. I made a couple quick searches online and found some fixes but they all required stopping production, something I couldn’t afford at the moment.

As I continued working, I began to notice other icons disappearing–some document icons and even some icons to applications not previously in the dock. Something is seriously wrong. So, I did some more searching to find what the issue was and fix it. I came across this:

1. Drag the invisible icon out of dock.
2. Open Terminal and type this command to kill the dock: killall Dock
3. Drag the application icon back onto the dock.

I know “killall dock” doesn’t exactly sound like anything safe, especially in Terminal, but it worked. The  dock disappeared, reappeared and everything was good again. Back to my mojo.

This post isn’t exactly design related. I just hope it helps someone else out there fix the same issue I had and not have to search as long as I did for it.

There are thousands of free Social Media icon sets available for download out there …but some of them just don’t cut it for me. They’re lacking in some way, have too much going on or just look cheap. So I took it upon myself to create my own set. A set that’s clean, fresh and classy.

The set contains 55 icons at 16px and 55 32px counterparts. Which totals 110 icons and 70,400px.

I originally set out to do the “Ultimate” Social Media icon set, featuring all social media sites. That is, until I found out there are hundreds of them… on a list that seemed to keep expanding. So I limited the set to the more popular ones and the ones that count. If there are any social media icons you would to like to see included in the set, and I get enough requests, I may expand it or release a sister set.

You can download the free icon set here. If you like it, share it. If you love it, consider a donation by contacting me.Hope you like’em.

As every web designer experiences, we spend hours developing a website that looks perfect in all browsers. Once it’s all set, we cross our fingers and end up cringing at the horror that shows on our screen when we test for IE6. We curse the customers of our clients who don’t know better to upgrade and we curse the IT departments of major corporations that swear by it. However, one day soon, IE6 will no longer be in use and web designers everywhere will rejoice. The decline of IE6’s usage is due in part by users who voluntarily upgrade to newer browsers, users who buy new computers where IE7 or IE8 is the default installation (or those who are smart and switch to a Mac ;) ) or by websites that simply do not support IE6 anymore (like mine) and in turn educate users and suggest to upgrade.

There are a handful of sites out there offering free website add-ons and popups to display an upgrade message to an IE6 user, some of which are branded or require javascript to work. But none of which fit within the design of the site.

• StopIE6
• End6
• IEDeathMarch
• among others…

I recently created a set of popup window templates to suggest IE6 users to upgrade. I had originally attempted to sell them on Themeforest, but they got rejected due to lack of imagery and I wanted to keep them super simple, so I figured I would offer them as a free download. There are 5 different layouts which are extremely easy to implement as there is no javascript to add to your page. They have been coded in css for IE6 and no other browser, since IE6 is the only browser they’ll be seen in. They’re also easy to customize… no images, just html and css. Each template has:

• 1 html file to add to your server
• 1 line of css to add to your stylesheet
• 3 lines of html to add to your index page
• 0 images
• Original PSD

There is no more and no less than what you need, and instructions are included in the download. Let’s all join in the revolt against IE6 and save every designer a headache.

Here’s a preview. If you like them, share them.