Archive for the 'CSS' Category

Somewhere, the design gods are laughing

Marty March 25th, 2005

Okay, my company has been lagging behind seriously in the design department but we were making some major headway in changing the corporate thinking about web design from “Take this PowerPoint and make it a website” to real design. When the new homepage comes out, I think lots of people will be impressed. Along those lines, we started searching for a way to improve one major aspect of our business - and I went out to find the people to do it. Given a rather long tether, I brainstormed with a couple other people and we came up with a good list of designers to hit up for their interest.

In the end, one in particular bit - Cameron Moll of Authentic Boredom fame. Turns out he’s as cool to speak with as he seems on his site. But it got better - he asked if we would mind if Dave Shea helped with the project. MIND? Is he nuts? So, here I am, getting the opportunity to work with two of the designers that I respect the most … and I’m leaving my job. It almost makes me want to go back and beg for my job.

And somewhere out there, the Diety of Irony is rolling on the floor, cackling like Dom DeLuise after emptying out a buffet. The asshat.

How long does it take to fill up an iPod?

Marty March 3rd, 2005

Well, in my case, about 2.5 months - and I’m not even partway through my CD collection. It seems that I hit the limit last night, although I’m not sure why. I was adding the last of the MP3 from my system and hit the 20.1GB level on iTunes. Hmmm, that might be a problem with a 20.0GB iPod. So, I started looking at what I had. After removing a few duplicates, bad tracks or stuff that I really didn’t want, I was still at 19.9GB. So, I removed entire sections of music that I’ll keep on MP3 but not necessarily store on the iPod - I’ll never really listen to it there.

So, I got my iTunes list down to 18.8GB - cool, now let’s synchronize. And behold, I get a message that I can’t upload all of the songs because the iPod is full. What? How does 18.8GB on iTunes = <20GB on the iPod? I’m not sure, but until I deleted the 1.1GB of Depeche Mode tunes (Depeche Mode Singles Box set is a biggun’), it wouldn’t load.

Strange thing is, now my iPod is showing 8.8GB of free space (and 3715 songs). What gives? Obviously, I’m missing something that is on iTunes, but I’m not sure what yet. But the bigger problem is this:

what the heck is on the iPod that requires 1.1GB of space? Obviously since my ceiling of transfer was less than 18.8GB, there is something going on. Okay, I could maybe understand a quarter-gig of space for programs (although I think that’s still excessive), but 1.1GB? What gives?

Also, if anyone knows the answer to this, I’d appreciate it - when I have my iTunes set to auto-sync, does it remove songs from the iPod that I removed from iTunes? I thought that it did, but it was my one thought of what might be happening - that I might have a couple extra songs on the iPod that weren’t showing up on iTunes. Also, how does one clear the iPod completely to start fresh with what you have on iTunes currently?

Now, I just have to figure out just how I have 8.8GB of free space on the iPod after syncing it last night…

in other news…

I just discovered a cool new tool for Flickr - the Flickr Zeitgeist. It’s a small JavaScript that allows you to put a zeitgeist of your pictures (or those of your contacts, the newest on Flickr or a combination) on your site in a compact little box. Check out the upper right-hand corner for mine.

Funny Fact of the Day
“When he was the prinicpal owner of the Texas Rangers, George W. Bush briefly flirted with the idea of changing the team’s name to The Texas Alamos, until an assistant told him that Texas lost the Battle of the Alamo.” - from Gullible.info

Where Have I Been?

Marty March 2nd, 2005

Where have I been, one might ask (if one really cared, which I am almost assure one does not, unless one is someone involved with poker, pharmaceuticals or porn)? Well, the fact is, I have been very busy both at work and home. The tally of projects occupying my time lately:

  • Work
    Lots of stuff happening at the job that have both made it more interesting, more scary and more stressful. There’s a severance package going around, and I’m not sure who will be left once it has run its course - but its definite the the general environment will be greatly altered. I know some of the people I work with closely will be moving on, but I’m not sure what that will leave - not to mention how much more work will be there for me. Lots o’ fun, lots o’ fun…
  • Office Rebuild
    We finally got it most of the way done. I hope to take some pictures once I finish cleaning up the mess I made.
  • eBay auctions
    Star Wars books, old CD collections, picture frames - it’s all up there. But I forgot how long it took to put it all up there.
  • The dogs
    Man, these dogs like to wear us out - they are on for 23 hours a day, and that one hour is usually when we aren’t there. But they are getting better every day as they learn our routine, and we learn theirs. Now, if we can just get them to stop trying to dig their way to the mantle of the Earth.
  • Weather
    The weather has been giving us a little of a beating lately, too.

Latest Images

I haven’t had the chance to take many, but here are a few shots…

We came, we saw, we foundered

Marty February 7th, 2005

Well, I have to admit that althought I am a Dallas Cowboys fan, I have been enjoying watching the Eagles over the last few years. You have to respect the way that they have been putting their team together - there are a lot of hard-working, personable, respectable players on that team. They players genuinely like to play for them, and seem to want to stay. I like Andy Reid and although I was dubious, I actually like Jeffrey Lurie. So, it was with great sorrow that I watched yesterday’s loss in the Super Bowl.

That being said, I have to question if the Eagles were ready to play yesterday. Brian Westbrook, Terrell Owens and Greg Lewis all looked great. But some of the play-calling was questionable, and I will never understand the clock-management in the 4th quarter. I think that they could have pulled this one off, but they crumbled. Call it first-time jitters but they choked. Well, hopefully they’ll make it back next year and do better the second time around.

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You’ve Got to Know When to Hold ‘Em

Marty January 30th, 2005

Well, I played in my third poker tournament this weekend. There were 34 of us playing in this memorial tournament, a mixture my friends and my buddy’s father’s friends. It was a great time - lots of great vibes and a lot of good hands of poker. The last tournament was a bit more mellow, but this time was more active and fun. And best of all, I won! Got to love that part.

I finally played well, too. My poker face is more readable than the large-print version of Jack and Jill. My buddy Jim loves playing against me because he can usually bluff his way in close hands. But on Saturday, I was on fire. I was finally getting cards and I was playing them well, and … heaven forbid … bluffing. I started by trying to be the man, wearing the hat and sunglasses. And I got 15 straight hands where my cards were combinations of everything from 2 - 10. I literally had one or two face cards in that entire time. Except for blinds, I never made a bet. Then I removed the sunglasses - and my luck changed. I won 2 of 3, including a pretty large pot. I was flying.

Then the tables condensed and Jim sat down next to me. My mojo was gone. I went down 3 straight hands that I stayed in on. Jim took me for a big hand. I was ready to lace his beer with a little Visine to get back my advantage when I won a big hand - and then moved to another table. At that table, I was against a young kid with a huge stack. He was a bully, relying on his pot to take him through some ludicrous bets and raises. I was lucky enough to not take him on until I had the makings of a straight - and then I dragged him in heavy when I got it on the river. I took probably 50% of his chips, then bluffed my way to taking his buddy’s stack. I was back.

In the end, I found my groove for the first time in a LONG while. I played last month and did well, mostly on opening hands of flush, straight, full house in the first 3 hands. I never looked back from there, but that was luck of the cards, not playing ability. But who knows - maybe this was a turning point and I will actually be able to start winning some on skill instead of luck of the draw.

It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas

Marty December 13th, 2004

The Christmas tree is up and decorated, the presents are bought (mostly) … yep, I think it’s Xmas! This weekend was nice - I got to go out and celebrate my birthday with a delicious dinner at Rangoon in Philly, followed by a visit to Fergie’s for a wee draft of beer (or five); I went out shopping on Saturday to nearly finish the Xmas shopping (only stocking stuffers left to get), and yesterday we picked out our tree. It’s funny how much getting the tree means to me in terms of being the official start of Xmas. Sure, I’ve been buying gifts for months, but until that tree is up and decorated, it’s just not full the holiday. We did it a lot earlier this year than the last two, which makes me happy…

Only a few more small gifts to get and then I can settle back with Xmas beers, fattening treats and retro Christmas specials (although I think the best ones are already over - who the heck schedules this stuff?).

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CSS Editors for Windows

Marty November 30th, 2004

It seems that most of my favorite blogs are done by people based on Macs. I would have LOVED to switch when I got a new computer, but I couldn’t afford the software changes even if I wanted to spend 2-3x as much for the computer itself. Someday, but I’m far away from that step. But in the meantime, I get to hear about all of these sweet programs for the Mac by the likes of Jon Hicks, but have a hard time figuring out a great one for the PC.

I use Dreamweaver MX for most of my core design, although I use StyleMaster 3.5 for a lot of the basic CSS (the wizards are good time-savers, even if I have go in and fix them). A lot of the designers I know swear by Homesite 5, although I can’t seem to find it anymore - Macromedia seems to have stopped production of it. Others swear by TopStyle, although I made the choice earlier to opt for StyleMaster 3.5. However, after beta testing StyleMaster 4.0, I’m thinking that I might need alternatives unless they manage to work out all of the bugs before release.

Supposedly Dreamweaver MX 2004 has Homesite +, which is an upgraded version of Homesite 5.5, but I think having a bare-bones editor (without the processor lag of DW) would be nice option. But are there other options out there that I don’t know of?

Of Beta Testing and Demos

Marty November 1st, 2004

I finally got some time this weekend to do some stuff on the side that I had been meaning to do. The first was trying out the new beta of a CSS-editor program. I’ve used the previous version, and enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to seeing the new version and seeing if I could help iron out some of the bugs that I had found/quirks that I hadn’t liked. This is my second beta-test of a program (first real one, though) and I have to say I’m hoping that it gets better.

The program I am working on is a complete mess - while the functionality is marginally better, it seems that they have spent more time on interface design than architecture. In fact, the processing of this program is so slow that the program is nary unusable. I have put my comments in, and hopefully will see some fixes in the near future. If not, this program is doomed…

The other was a demo of a game that I have loved in the past in both board game and PC versions - Axis & Allies. I have always liked the board game version, but can’t find anyone willing to spend the hours to play. The first PC version was a mess, but the Iron Blitz version was more playable and fun. Far from perfect, as the AI was nearly incomprehensibly stupid, but at least close to the flavor of the board game. So, when I heard that Atari was putting out a new version, I was excited.

Now, I’m very disappointed.The whole point of moving the board game to the PC was so that people like me whose friends think spending time with their kids is more important than playing games can still play some of their favorite games. It’s to take a relatively finite board game and jazz it up with moving graphics, new features and single-player playability. The old versions had this (well, mostly). The Atari version … well, it’s just a mess. First of all, it IS NOT Axis and Allies. This uses the name in an ostensible manner for what becomes a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game. Instead of creating units and using strategic oversight (as a general does), now you control individual units, supply chains, ammo dumps, and the minutiae of warfare in WWII. Using what seems like the old Age of Empires engine, you micromanage units as they go and try to achieve objectives handed to you by the generals. You decide what units you want to build and then deploy them in lengthy animations. Granted, this is a demo and my graphics card needs a serious update, but I found myself hating this.

What happened to simply making the game better? If I wanted a RTS, I’d pick up Battlefield: 1942, which is infinitely better than this game. I want Axis and Allies, albeit an improved version, and this is nothing of the sort. They’ve taken Monopoly and made you analyze construction contracts and real estate zoning regs. They’ve taken Life and now you have to add auto maintenance, stock portfolio management and local crime stats to how you play the game. It was a complete disappointment that the folks who have made such a fantastic board game have killed themselves with this PC version. Now, this might be a good game for what it is, I didn’t get that far. But it isn’t Axis and Allies, and THAT is what I was looking for.

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Hi, We’re From Corporate and We’d Like You To Do It Our Way Instead of the Right Way

Marty September 30th, 2004

Man, September has been rough - lots of long weeks (they all seem at least 8 days long) punctuated by all too-short weekends. And now, with a vision of a better world (or website, as the case may be), I’m finding the harsh realities of corporate American getting me down.

We are in the process of redesigning our corporate Customer-facing website. My area has made great strides in getting those around us to understand the applicability and importance of web standards and well-designed sites (instead of the PowerPoint-into-HTML method that has long been popular). Many of our newest designs are being produced to be completely valid and accessible, mostly thanks to the two lead guys next to me, although I’d like to think I’ve been able to help push us in that direction. To that end, we have been using our design skills, our info architecture skills and our programming knowledge to wire-frame and even flesh out some good designs, using heuristic studies, Customer feedback and our own experiences. I created one design that I am really partial to (obviously), and while the idea was well-received, there is a snag (isn’t there always). The situation - our internal ‘programming’ group manages the current authenticated customer access site, while we are able to manage our
external, non-authenticated (NA) site (just recently we have taken this over from the previous khan). We will have almost unilateral freedom to redesign the NA site, and will probably be able to introduce the same design aesthetic - whatever the final result is - onto the Authenticated Site as well. However, the interal programming group - I’ll call them IT for short - is probably going to be able to require that they do the programming. So what, you think? Well, they suck at it. I mean REALLY badly. Our Authenticated Site is about 10% compliant, 0% usable to those with visual disabilities, and requires a ton of maintenance just to make it do what they want it to do. Plus, because of our corporate structure, we have to pay them to do development - and the cost will probably be in the $3-4MM range, and take 8-12 months. ANY later updates will require more money and 3 months to do.

So, I’ve suggested and been supported in the fact that we should move the whole project externally - or at least let us do the HTML/XML programming on the front end (why external? Because we don’t have the resources to take this on and all of the other projects we have right now, and quite frankly, it needs a bit more expertise than we have in-house). The cost estimate is probably $700k and 4-6 months. Updates - because we are going to put a content management system in - should be able to be done on a daily or weekly basis. Sounds like a no brainer, right?

But I’ve been told that we’ll never be able to get this through because we are supporting our IT department and our job - as the interactive agency for the Internet - isn’t to manage the projects and programming, it’s to make the things look nice. I’m dumb-founded. I can’t believe that a company can legitimately think that customer experience - usability, accessibility and interface - stops at how the site looks and what you click. Instead, we’ll spend 4x as much and 2x as long to develop a system that can’t be updated quickly or easily and will most likely fail to meet the needs of our customers. Is it me, or do others have this same problem when trying to develop good websites?

A Designer’s Bookshelf

Marty September 7th, 2004

Greg Storey has answered the question that I myself have had for a long while - what are the books that designers use to help them and hone their craft? Greg’s list of his bookshelf has a lot of the more common tomes (Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards, Van Duyne’s Design of Sites) as well as some more uncommon but very sensible ones (Advertising Campaign Planning by Jim Avery made me think a bit). I know that others are out there with their own lists (I seem to remember Dave Shea putting out a list at one point), but it’s always interesting to see other designers that I admire (read: study, mimic, learn from) giving me some insights into where they get their smarts.

My own list (so far):

I’ve learned a lot, but there is so much more to learn - Greg’s list shows me that much. Oh well, onto the Amazon wish list they go… Feel free to add to my list of books I need to pick up to really get a hang of this CSS, PHP, XML design thing…

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