It's very common to see people write <3 to represent a heart in email, but you can use a special character code and create the heart right in your HTML. I ♥ special characters. These articles will show you how to write hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds, arrows, male and female symbols, even musical notes, flats and sharps.

More Symbols and Special Characters

• Add Symbols to Your Web Page
• Punctuation and Other Characters
• Currency Characters
• Mathematical Characters

Follow me on Twitter

Working with Web design clients can be challenging. They often expect miracles to happen while they wait, preferably only a couple of seconds. They want Web pages built from nothing and costing nothing and they expect you to deliver them yesterday. There are many aspects of Web design that have vary different interpretations if you are a non-Web designer than they do to Web designers. Pass along the 6 Things Your Web Designer Wants You to Understand to all your clients. And don't forget to add your own thoughts as well.

More About Working with Customers

• 6 Things Your Web Designer Wants You to Understand
• Customers are Part of the Job
• Is the Customer Really Always Right?
• Have you ever done something a client wanted against your better judgement?

This week I'm curious to find out what Web editors are popular. I know that there are many more Web editors than the 9 I've listed here, so if you use one not on the list, please list it in the comments. Chances are I already know about it, but I didn't realize it was as popular now. Why do you use the editor you use? What features do you find most useful? How do you keep the cost of your Web editor to a minimum? Do you prefer WYSIWYG editors or text editors? (And if you use more than one, choose your favorite or the one you use most often.)

I've received several suggestions that Flash is the worst thing to happen to Web design in the 2000s. But is it really "boring bloatware" or "a waste of time" (the splash pages, that is), or is Flash just "over hyped"?

tnfan62 says no. He says:

Flash is fine, when used moderately. Too many web sites designers view it as a way to "glitz" up their web sites, and instead, it is more of a hindrance than a help.... More and more, Flash is being manipulated for malicious codes, such as malware.

What do you think? Is Flash the worst thing ever? Or is there something worse for Web design that came out of the 2000s?

Carol shows us what she's working on in December 2009.
What are you working on?

For the first time, About.com's Computing Channel will be running a coordinated Reader's Choice Award program. During January 2010, you'll be able to nominate your favorite sites, services and innovations in categories ranging from the best IM client and email service to best Web design and Web browser. Then, in February, check back to see if your favorite nominees made the cut, and cast your vote. Winners will be announced March 1. There's no prize -- just the bragging rights that come with getting recognized by the readers of one of the biggest tech networks on the Web.

On the Web design site, we'll be voting in 15 categories for who has:

• Best Web Design (7 categories)
• Best Web Hosting Company (4 categories)
• Best Web Design Software (4 categories)

So, start thinking of the sites, software, and companies that you think are the best of the best. Nominations will open on January 1, 2010. The complete content time line is:

January 1 - 24: Accept nominations
February 1 - 24: Voting
March 1 Winners Announced

Other computing sites that are participating include:

• Web Browsers
• Desktop Publishing
• Email
• Family Computing
• Google
• IM
• JavaScript
• Macs
• Mobile Games
• Smart Phones
• Visual Basic
• VOIP
• Web Search
• PC Hardware and Reviews

When you're working on a website, it's easy to think that everything will always go well and nothing will go wrong. Even if you don't think that, it can be easy to get hung up on the day-to-day elements of building your site and not think about the maintenance and other minutia.

This can turn out to be a problem.

Last year, when I accidentally deleted my entire home directory (including most of three websites in development) I realized that I needed to get a better backup system in place on my server.

But then this year, when my server hard drive decided to completely die with no notice, I had backups but no easy way to restore them.

It's like it takes crashes to show me where the points of failure are. After this crash we chose to do two things:

1. Change hosting providers. We are now going with a virtualization host, rather than a true co-location. Yes, we won't have as much flexibility when it comes to the server hardware, but if the hard drive fails, it won't be our problem. We switched to Linode.
2. Change backup systems. Instead of just backing up the data, we are now going to backup all the configuration information as well. Plus, we're sending it to an offsite storage location - not just our house. We switched to Dropbox.

I am looking at this not as a catastrophe but as an opportunity. I had a lot of files on the server that I really didn't need, as well as a lot of other cruft all over our website. Instead of restoring it all, I'm going in to the site in order of priority - client sites are first (and restored exactly as they were), followed by my personal sites, and finally my testing sites.

I am looking forward to checking out this new hosting service and new backup system. I'll post reviews later on.

As we come to the end of the first decade of the 21st century, I wonder how many people still use tables for layout. One of my favorite Web design tools to come out of this decade is the use of CSS for defining the look of your website. So I wonder how many people still use tables to define the layout rather than the more flexible CSS. Do you use tables for your layouts? I strongly recommend you avoid tables for web page layout.

I had the opportunity to review the iPhone app Color Stream, and I'm very impressed. It does all that you expect from a color palette tool on the iPhone, and it's fun to use. I love that you can generate palettes from photos and then go online right in the tool to see other photos that use similar palettes. With just a few tweaks, this could be a really great iPhone color app.

More Color Apps for iPhones

• Color Stream - iPhone App Review
• iPhone Color Tools - iPhone Apps for Web Designers - Color Pickers - Color Converters
• Palettes - 5 stars
• cliqcliq Colors - 5 stars
• HTML Colors - 4 stars

Mobile devices are getting more and more prevelant this year. In fact, many people who didn't get an iPhone last year, will probably get one (or some other smartphone) this year. And the first thing that they'll notice when they go to many of their favorite Web pages is that they look different. Writing a Web page for mobile devices that has stripped down content and faster loading pages is a great idea. But giving no way to get to the full site is just annoying. Give your mobile readers choices and they'll stay your readers whether they're on their phone or their PC.

More About Mobile Web Pages

• Give Your Mobile Readers Options
• Do you force your mobile page? Why or Why Not?
• Writing a Mobile Friendly Website
• How to Detect Mobile Devices
• How to Write Web Pages for the iPhone