Last night, I finished integrating my entire site into Wordpress. It took a little while, but I’ve finally got all of my content migrated.
Of course if you are reading this in your feed reader, it’s going to say that all of the feeds are new…but they are not.
Hopefully soon I will write more about the process of powering a whole site with Wordpress.
";s:10:"bodyBlocks";a:0:{}}i:1;a:6:{s:5:"title";s:24:"Weekly Link Round-Up #14";s:4:"slug";s:23:"weekly-link-round-up-14";s:2:"id";s:3:"249";s:10:"typeHandle";s:4:"blog";s:4:"body";s:2006:"Busy, busy weekend. I didn’t get a chance to write this on Friday, so I'll get right to it. This is what entertained me this week:
There is no reason for people to not make a site accessible. So make it happen people.
I love those little tips like these examples when you are using a well designed web application.
Nice little timeline showing the release period of browser versions.
I know I have this problem at times. I think sketching with paper and pencil is a great cure.
Nice little gradient text effect. Just one simple image.
This is big news for OpenID. If they can get a few other big name companies to implement it, I think it may really take off.
Very entertaining video. Well worth the 5 minutes.
Help the CSS Working Group set the priorities for CSS3
I cannot wait until Tuesday. I have been talking for about 2 years now about getting an Apple laptop, and I think the time has finally come. Depending on what is announced at MacWorld on Tuesday, I will most likely be ordering a brand spanking new Macbook on Wednesday. I'm so excited, that I feel like a little kid on Christmas.
Ok, well I guess here is the stuff that I found interesting this week.
I know exactly what Cameron is talking about. You go into furniture stores and places like that, you see these workers who have been working there for ages just flying through all of these DOS screens; they are really efficient.
Ok, this was one of the funniest things I have ever read. Click through and read the entire book. So weird…
Yeah, I think I am going to have to be doing this soon. Why do cable companies offer a promotional period for only 3 months and then like double the price? There is no way I am sticking with them if they don’t give me another promotion.
I love this article. We need to continue to solve specific problems on the web. Not just throw out the first solution that comes to mind. I know I am guilty of that at times, but it is something that I am working on.
This was an excellent article that debuted on 24ways, and it is great to read some further documentation.
Google, Facebook, Six Apart, Flickr, LinkedIn, and others all joined the Data Portability Working Group. This is awesome news. Imagine being able to manage all of those accounts with one login? Or by going Facebook and being able to access data from your Google account. This is a great step towards that.
As I have noted in previous posts: Using Dean Edwards’ IE7 Script, The Ultimate PNG Guide, I am a big advocate of the Dean Edwards’ IE7 scripts.
Thankfully, Dean has improved them even more. Instead of having a ton of different JavaScript files with large file sizes, he has compressed them into two light-weight JavaScript files.
The are now two scripts, IE7.js and IE8.js, and they are hosted on Google Code. The IE7.js file “fixes” IE5 and IE6 so that it is up to par with IE7. Then, IE8.js adds in some additional functionality that is missing from IE7. Note: If you include IE8.js, you do not need to include IE7.js.
There are a couple of different options here, you can either download the files and place them on your server or link directly to the Google Code version.
Include the script in the head of your document:
<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<script src="/ie7/IE8.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->
In this example, I am targeting all versions of Internet Explorer less than IE7, and applying the IE8 script to it. Or, you could apply the IE7 script instead, I just wanted the advanced CSS functionality.
You could also set it so that it is applied in IE7 as well:
<!--[if lte IE 7]>
<script src="/ie7/IE8.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->
Include the script in the head of your document:
<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<script src="http://ie7-js.googlecode.com/svn/version/2.0(beta)/IE8.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->
Hopefully that should get you started with what you need. My previous articles: Using Dean Edwards’ IE7 Script, The Ultimate PNG Guide have some other details about the previous version of the script, some of which still apply.
Let me know if you have questions.
";s:10:"bodyBlocks";a:0:{}}i:4;a:6:{s:5:"title";s:24:"Weekly Link Round-Up #12";s:4:"slug";s:23:"weekly-link-round-up-12";s:2:"id";s:3:"252";s:10:"typeHandle";s:4:"blog";s:4:"body";s:2728:"I’m glad this week is over. You know, it really didn’t feel like a short week, I guess it’s because I worked on Monday. Well here are the interesting links I found:
Really cool JavaScript that formats code. I could really use this as I am typing this post. I hate not being able to indent my list items. Check out the demonstration.
Really good reflection from the designer of Wufoo. I love this quote:
Good designers, however, are more like matchmakers. They design for the relationships between the tool and the user. If you know anything about relationships, then you know that this is extremely difficult. To be good at relationships you have to not only be selfless, but listening…constantly and carefully.
Ok, this isn’t really from this week, but I read it this week. This article is amazing. This quote even makes me think about things differently:
Their [the client’s] tendency will be to try to improve the design, however that should be your problem not theirs. The role of a client should be to defend the needs of their users and business not do the design. Encourage the client to make comments such as “I am not sure that my female users will like the masculine colours” rather than “can we make the whole design pink.” It is down to them to identify the problems and for you as the designer to find the most appropriate solution.
TechCrunch’s resolutions for some of the major players in the tech industry. I really hope Apple follows through with this one. I want the damn iPhone, but there is no way I’m switching to AT&T.
This commercial is amazing. So creative.
Apple never ceases to amaze me. Too bad this new slim MacBook is a little too small for my liking. Where is a damn 15 inch MacBook Pro?! That’s what I want.
I had to go to the FedEx website to track a package this week, and I was pretty disappointed. While, I was able to track my package, I was surprised to see that the little tracking box was built in Flash. You can see the exact box that I am talking about in the image that follows.
So I thought, whatever it’s done in Flash, I’m sure they have an HTML equivalent if someone does not have the Flash plugin installed or if they have Javascript disabled. Boy was I wrong…
Below is a screenshot of the page when Javascript is enabled:
Now, here is what the page looks like when Javascript is disabled:
Jesus, it looks like the page exploded. Not only does the tracking box go away, but the page looks completely awful.
I know, I know, you are saying, “but everyone has Javascript enabled and a Flash plugin installed”. Ah, I beg to differ, approximately 4% of users have Javascript disabled. Yeah that looks like a small number, but when you are huge company like FedEx, that turns out to be a lot of people.
Honestly, how hard is it to have an HTML alternative to the little Flash tracking box? A textbox and a button, how complicated!
It’s pathetic that huge companies are still making terrible decisions like this on their web site. When will they learn?
";s:10:"bodyBlocks";a:0:{}}i:6;a:6:{s:5:"title";s:24:"Weekly Link Round-Up #11";s:4:"slug";s:23:"weekly-link-round-up-11";s:2:"id";s:3:"254";s:10:"typeHandle";s:4:"blog";s:4:"body";s:1801:"Well, I hope everyone had a nice holiday break. I only worked 2 days this week, and there weren’t many good links that I could find since most people were enjoying the holidays. I have finally recovered from my busy week at work, and I only have the last 15 days of 24 Ways to read. I think I’m going to cherish them though, since we have to wait a whole year for it again.
Anyways, these are the interesting links I found this week:
Not that I’m a coffee drinker, but this is an awesome idea. I would like to see this implemented in all kinds of retail stores. I also want to see the damn iPhone available to all carriers!
Andy Rutledge’s 10-year old son approached him saying that he wanted a website. This is just awesome. I hope one day my kids (when I have them) do this to me.
Not like anyone uses Netscape anymore, but at one time Netscape did have 90% of the market share, and they had a large role in pushing browser makers to improve their browsers. They are part of the reason that we have awesome browsers like Safari and Firefox.
This is dangerous territory if you ask me. I don’t think I will ever sell hosting to my freelance clients; I will only make recommendations of hosts to use.
I would say one of the coolest things in web development/design is the creative use of PNGs. Although, it’s a little hard because of the way that IE6 handles them.
I have already written about Using Dean Edwards’ IE7 Script, but I wanted to take it a step further and talk more about PNGs.
First, download the Dean Edwards script. Next, extract the files to the root of your webserver in a folder called ie7. It needs to be in this folder, because some of the scripts have a dependency on the folder.
Finally, just include the script in the head of your document using conditional comments:
<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<script src="/ie7/ie7-standard-p.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->
Ok, so now when you want to have the script “fix” the PNG in IE6, you just have to have -trans.png as the suffix of the filename of the image.
Now, I am no designer, but I have mocked-up a simple page to show some usage of PNGs.
Since the background on the body is the repeated diagonal lines, we cannot use a GIF for the rounded corners, because we aren’t sure where the corners will intersect with the lines on the bottom.
In an ideal world, this is how I would want to mark the page up.
But, in IE6, the PNGs have a blue glow around them. So if we apply the Dean Edwards scripts to the page, we see the bottom image disappears (keep in mind you have to be looking in IE6 to see this problem). This is because the script is applying the IE proprietary filter property, and once this applied, we cannot position or repeat a PNG.
So let’s change the way we are marking it up so that the bottom shows up in IE6. Basically, we have just added an empty div that contains the bottom background PNG.
Now we just have to worry about the repeated background of our main content area. In order to get rid of the blue glow, we have to apply IE’s filter property, which means that we can't repeat it.
But, if we apply the filter property manually and change the sizingMethod to scale, we can give the effect of repeating the background.
div#container div.inner {
background-image: url(blank.gif);
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader (src='/images/content/2008/01/container-bg.png', sizingMethod='scale');
}
Basically, it’s just stretching the image to fit the area, but since it’s a simple image that we were going to repeat anyways, it looks fine stretched.
Hopefully using a combination of these two PNG fixes can provide you with enough to get things looking good in all browsers.
Anyone have any other solutions?
";s:10:"bodyBlocks";a:0:{}}i:8;a:6:{s:5:"title";s:24:"Weekly Link Round-Up #10";s:4:"slug";s:23:"weekly-link-round-up-10";s:2:"id";s:3:"256";s:10:"typeHandle";s:4:"blog";s:4:"body";s:3115:"Damn I have been busy!
So I missed a week of the weekly link round-up. Last weekend I had 2 holiday parties to go to, football to watch, and Christmas presents to buy. Not only that, but I have been extremely busy with freelance work and work at my full time job. So busy that I had well over 200 feeds to read! So after a quick skim of my feeds, this is what I found link worthy in the past 2 weeks.
Nice, simple article discussing the ways to create typographic contrast.
Great news, the internal build of IE8 passed the Acid2 test in standards mode. While I guess this is a step in the right direction, it’s probably still going to take a good 3 or 4 years for IE8 to even come out. Plus, what is this “standards mode”? From what I have read, it’s some special mode that the developer has to trigger, and this is different than a DOCTYPE. What kind of crap is that?
Very good discussion about 9 essential principals for good web design. Lots of examples and links to more reading.
So Yahoo! wants to support 100% of the recommendations made by the Email Standards Project. That’s pretty cool. Now how about those desktop email applications (I’m looking at you Outlook)?
I feel like I have to link to this since it caused so much controversy this past week. I think Andy Clarke has gone a little crazy. Sometimes I don’t even think he knows what he is actually writing. Yeah, Microsoft really dropped the ball by not updating IE6 for so long, but they are finally showing progress, and he wants the CSS Working Group to disband now? Now is the time to keep pushing, Microsoft is showing signs of playing ball.
Nice breakdown of the BBC beta homepage. I don’t really like it very much either. Especially that stupid clock. Yeah it’s a pretty cool little Flash application, but it’s so useless.
Discussion of some attributes that are used to try and help accessibility, but really they are either not helping or hindering in some situations. I love the alt attribute example.
Stay tuned for The Ultimate PNG Guide coming sometime next week.
";s:10:"bodyBlocks";a:0:{}}i:9;a:6:{s:5:"title";s:23:"Weekly Link Round-Up #9";s:4:"slug";s:22:"weekly-link-round-up-9";s:2:"id";s:3:"257";s:10:"typeHandle";s:4:"blog";s:4:"body";s:1541:"Yeah, so I didn’t get a chance to post last night because I was at the Wizards game.
I’ve still got some clean-up to do on the redesign, which I hope to take care of this weekend. Here is what I found interesting this week.
It’s that time of the year again, 24 Ways to Impress Your Friends, already on day 8! If you haven’t read the previous years, I would definitely recommend doing it
A library using jQuery to create charts and graphs…this is so awesome.
A Javascript library to have text wrap in non-traditional ways. I don’t think you could use this much in production, but still an interesting concept.
10 Ways to make your stylesheets “sexy”. Some good stuff here.
When you are like me, and don’t really design, but do the front-end, you have to have a good relationship with your designer. Some good hints here to make that hand-off smoother. I’m interested to see the other parts when they come out.