Years ago in times long forgotten, the web was a much uglier place — java applets here, flashing text there, animated GIFseverywhere, and lots of boring typography. Most of these problems were the result of poor taste or misguided content decisions and they have gradually disappeared as the collective consciousness has grown to despise them. However, one problem that has only recently been solved is the issue of lackluster typography.

Please note: This article was originally published on October 19, 2011 but has been updated and republished to reflect changes to Facebook's custom page tab layout for timeline view. Keeping up with Facebook can be a challenge. It was just a couple of years ago that we published this tutorial on setting up custom tabs on Facebook pages using FBML.

Most of you likely already know that Facebook offers a handful of social plugins which can be used to integrate Facebook's functionality with your own website. One of the most intriguing of these plugins is the Facebook Comments Plugin. With Facebook Comments your site visitors can leave comments on your website just as if they were commenting on Facebook.

Since LightCMS gives you full control over your HTML, CSS and JS, it is possible to create designs that position elements in a way that obstructs the view of certain admin controls when the user is in admin mode. The best approach to correct such issues is to modify your CSS. But what if you can't find an easy CSS solution?

The world of SEO is anything but black and white. Use tags, but not too many. That's probably too much.

If you haven't tried out the new online store, you're really missing out on some of the best features of LightCMS. Plus, it's so easy to get started, there's really no reason not to give it a try. To help point you in the right direction, here's a little overview of the amazingly easy process of adding products to a LightCMS website.  In any editable region, click on "add element," scroll to "product listing" in the drop down menu, and hit the "add" button.

If you craft and cut up your web designs in Photoshop, chances are you've run into transparent PNGs that have gradients or drop shadows or outer glows that don't behave properly. Maybe you wanted to enrich the layer beneath's background color through the use of a color burn gradient. Or maybe you use the multiply blend effect to create a drop shadow.

The new functions and features available in CSS3 can be intimidating and overwhelming at first. The best way to gain a foothold and get comfortable with it is to find the "low hanging fruit" in its new features. I've put together several of the ones I use personally, but I should also caution you in their use.

If you're like most designers, you've probably spent at least some time looking over the new features of "HTML5" and considering if or when you should switch over to it. Inevitably you're going to also run into the topic of CSS3. The changes can seem intimidating at first, but there are a lots of great reasons to start using the new features.

Have you started using HTML5 in your Light CMS designs yet? One reason to switch over to HTML5 now is that the updates to the language have made it more semantic—meaning, reading the HTML5 code is more intuitive if you don’t already know what you’re looking at. And Light CMS, unlike many other CMS platforms, gives you complete control over your design code.