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July, 2001Archives by MonthSeptember, 2001

Archives by Month: August, 2001

Listed below are excerpts and links to all weblog, blog entries, posts published during August, 2001.

What’s DOCTYPE and Why Should I Care?

Eric Meyer has an easy-to-understand new tutorial at O'Reilly Network, DOCTYPE Explained. He does a superb job of telling all about the DOCTYPE, the differences between loose, strict, HTML 4.01 and other designations, switching, and how each one influences browsers (including bugs).... (43 words, 2 links)

06:37 pm, pdt31 August, 2001

Reaction to Internet Explorer 6 Among Web Designers?

Check out Metafilter’s discussion for one spot to see initial impressions from web designers about the new IE6. They also share tips and ideas.... (25 words, 2 links)

03:10 pm, pdt30 August, 2001

An Understandable Explanation of Tables vs. CSS-P

Joe Gillespie’s July issue at WPDFD is right on target with my latest explorations, tables vs. style sheet positioning (CSS-P)—The Layout is Dead, Long Live the Layout! by guest writer, Maxine Sherrin. What about older browsers or screen readers that don’t support CSS positioning? I’ll comment on that below, too. Maxine makes some realistic, very important, and helpful points about CSS, the evolution of tables, and explains many advantages to using CSS positioning. In the process, she also explains the actual purpose of tables (tabular data, not page layouts), the purpose of CSS positioning, and what’s possible,... (957 words, 11 links)

01:40 pm, pdt30 August, 2001

Nikolay Soltys is Caught!

Late-breaking news—I’m watching the helicopter on TV over the scene where Nikolay Soltys has just been taken into custody. For those who don’t know, he’s the man who murdered 6 of his family members last week, including his wife, 3-year-old son, his aunt and uncle, and his 9- and 10-year-old cousins in the Sacramento area. Soltys was taken into custody from the back yard of his own mother’s house also in the Sacramento area. He was apparently hiding in the back yard under a desk. He was shabbily dressed, no shoes, dirty, and it seems that he... (210 words, 3 links)

08:44 am, pdt30 August, 2001

How Is Your Emotional Intelligence Today?

Anita M. Harris has a new article at MSN’s Encarta Training Center, Emotional Intelligence. According to Harris, Richard Boyatzis says, There was a time when if you were smart and worked hard, you could pretty much expect to get ahead. But in today’s team-oriented companies, emotional intelligence--the ability to access, manage, and make use of your feelings--may be far more important to your ongoing success than intellectual knowledge, or even technical skill. The article explains more about it and what you can do to improve yours. Interesting reading. If you’re not yet familiar with the term 'emotional intelligence' here’s... (148 words, 5 links, 1 image)

07:52 pm, pdt29 August, 2001

Nightmares and Bad Managers

Most of us old enough to have an official paying job have had or have been a boss or a manager. Many of us have also worked on Web projects, some of which have been well organized and efficient, others of which have been living nightmares, perhaps falling apart at the seams due to poor management or communication. Meryl K. Evans has written an interesting article about the pitfalls of process management, Processes and the Bad Manager. What are processes and why does it even matter? The article will explain that, too. The above article is a follow-up to... (207 words, 6 links)

05:11 pm, pdt29 August, 2001

Ansel Adams at 100

From August 4, 2001 to January 13, 2002 SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) is displaying over 100 images by the well loved and amazing photographer Ansel Adams. You can visit the beautifully done Online interactive Program or visit San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art in person to view the Ansel Adams Exhibition. When I think of Ansel Adams I immediately think of the breathtaking black and white photographs he took all over Yosemite National Park. One of my favorite places in the world, Adams captures Yosemite’s captivating and majestic beauty in these unforgettable photographs. His photographs of many well-known... (756 words, 8 links, 1 image)

03:11 pm, pdt27 August, 2001

Using a Blogger-like Program: Which One?

WebReview has a new article by David Hauslaib, Which Blog Is Best for You? that provides a concise overview of several ways to go: Diaryland, LiveJournal, Blogger, and Greymatter. This new article gives a great starting point for exploration. Using one of these tools doesn’t have to be for writing a personal journal and sharing your innermost secrets with the world (unless you want to, of course). As I’ve looked around at how these tools are used around the Web, these simple content management systems are used for anything from personal journals to business updates to anything in between.... (436 words, 12 links)

09:21 pm, pdt26 August, 2001

Can Appealing Design, Great Content and Wide Accessibility Live in Harmony?

I continue to say yes, it can. And I’m always looking for more ways to prove that. The WDVL this week has a new article on this by Alan Richmond: Design and Architecture of a Content-Rich Web Site. Using his EncycloZine site as a case study, Richmond discusses: the need for flexible site architecture and design, well planned hierarchy that can also evolve and grow as needed, usability and accessibility (including font issues), the primary importance of content (keep clutter away), following traffic flow (consider a Most Popular page), and including a search engine. Richmond then tops it off... (127 words, 3 links)

03:15 pm, pdt24 August, 2001

What is "Standards Compliancy?"

Here’s a down-to-earth explanation that’s terrific: Iconologic and Standards by Aaron at youngpup.net thanks via little green weblog’s referral logs - all kinds of great finds there!... (28 words, 3 links)

09:24 pm, pdt22 August, 2001

Wilson’s Fonts and Readability Survey

Interesting discussion today via Evolt.org’s TheList about readability and font sizes. In March Dr. Ralph Wilson of Wilson’s Internet ran a survey for feedback about fonts for his HTML-formatted E-mail newsletter. He shared the results in his article, HTML E-Mail: Text Font Readability Study. Wilson’s final conclusions: "My readers clearly prefer sans serif fonts to serif fonts for body text. Therefore, in my HTML e-mail newsletters—and on my websites—I am moving toward 12 pt. Arial for body text, and Verdana for 10 pt. and 9 p. fonts. I haven’t done adequate studies comparing Georgia against Verdana... (222 words, 7 links)

06:46 pm, pdt22 August, 2001

We’ve Got To Find Him

If you’ve heard much of the news the past couple of days, you may have heard about the 27-year-old man who’s murdered 6 family members Monday in the Sacramento area (Rancho Cordova, North Highlands), the last of which was his 3-year-old son found Tuesday afternoon. My hands shake as I write this thinking about the fact that this man apparently lured his little blonde-haired 3-year-old son with new toys to get into a TV-sized 2'x3' cardboard box on a trash heap surrounded by beautiful California valley oak trees in a field. He then proceeded to brutally "violate" and murder... (317 words, 8 links)

11:00 am, pdt22 August, 2001

Search Engines: Pay For Inclusion or Not?

Search engine guru Danny Sullivan has an excellent new article out at ClickZ, The Evolution of Paid Inclusion. Some assume that if you pay for submission that it automatically means you’ll be on the first page of the search engine. Nope. It only guarantees that your site will be listed. You can, however, pay for placement, which does guarantee placement but is also quite expensive. (334 words, 10 links)

09:36 pm, pdt21 August, 2001

Usable Web Sites

Building a Web site that’s usable seems like a logical thing to do; however, how many sites have you visited in which you get lost, or the main page is a bandwidth hog and you leave because it’s taking too long to open? The Summer Issue of Usability News covers a lot of good ground with articles on link locations, the best fonts to use for readability, the best layouts for multi-column pages, how to shave off image file sizes to help pages load quicker, e-commerce issues, and more.... (90 words, 2 links)

01:47 pm, pdt21 August, 2001

New Photoshop Tricks Tutorial

WDVL has a new tutorial for Photoshop 6: Photoshop 6 Down and Dirty Tricks, by Scott Kelby, Editor of Photoshop User magazine and author of the book by the same name (New Riders, Publishers) Photoshop 6 Down and Dirty Tricks. This multi-page tutorial provides step-by-step detail with image samples for chrome metal effects and arched cut-out text. In the process, the tutorial leads through many aspects of Photoshop that can help with other work you may do, too. (122 words, 7 links)

10:13 am, pdt21 August, 2001

Fun and Handy Blogger Add-ons

When adding resources to the new Links section I came across quite a few Blogger add-ons and features. And if you’re a Blogger user or otherwise visit Blogger’s main page, you may have seen that there are more new ways to tap into blogging your blog, even using your cell phone! For those not familiar with Blogger, it’s a handy, convenient content management system with optional archiving capabilities and much more—and you can use it even if you don’t know HTML. I initially tried it with clients in mind so they could easily make content changes to their... (968 words, 15 links, 1 image)

04:52 am, pdt20 August, 2001

Design Experiments and Moving

Brainstorms & Raves has just moved into its new home with an all new design and its own domain name. A new Links section has been added with lots of great sites to distract you, too—weblogs, online magazines, online games, and quite an eclectic mix. WebsiteTips.com’s Tips & Tidbits also recently merged with Brainstorms & Raves (I’d been writing them both). While I’ll continue to write my usual brainstorms, reviews, and more, I’ll also be including the short tips, gold mine finds around the Internet, and software reviews that I’d been doing via WebsiteTips.com. The Fun of... (406 words, 8 links)

05:35 am, pdt19 August, 2001

Practical CSS at A List Apart

Mark Newhouse has written a new tutorial for A List Apart on how to create a layout using CSS rather than tables. The major shift toward web standards has brought about increasing interest from designers in separating structure from presentation. Newhouse provides the basics in an easy-to-understand writing style with all the code. Naturally there are also links to more resources, samples, and related info. Practical CSS Layout, Tips, Tricks & Techniques by Mark Newhouse, A List Apart.... (79 words, 4 links)

07:03 am, pdt17 August, 2001

Community: Digital Web’s Latest Issue

They’ve outdone themselves again. Digital Web’s latest issue on community includes the creators of several much loved and well known communities, including an interview with Derek Powazek of {the fray}, the feature article by Daniel Cody of Evolt.org, Matt Haughey of Metafilter writing this issue’s tutorial, and a beautiful cover for the issue by Molly Sokolow of ParisFranceInc. Daniel Cody talks about creating the evolt.org community in his feature article: "Love what you’re trying to build, and love it for the right reasons . . . Evolt.org, Metafilter, and NewsTrolls are just a few examples of online communities that love what they’re doing, are... (434 words, 16 links)

09:27 pm, pdt15 August, 2001

DreamSuite: New Application from Auto FX

Auto FX has released a new application, DreamSuite, Series 1, packed with photorealistic visual effects. With over 100 precise onscreen effect controls, there are seemingly limitless possibilities to make visual effects for your graphics work easier, faster, and more precisely. Designed for everyday projects, with PhotoDepth, for example, you can brush in depth effects to photos and other images (I especially like this one - very unique!). Other visual effects help you create frames, liquid metal, bevel, creases, crackles, ripple and so much more, many of which have not been seen in any other programs or applications to date, according... (202 words, 4 links)

01:14 am, pdt15 August, 2001

WaSP Clarifies Role

WaSP, in its Expectations and Misunderstandings response dated August 11th, provides clarification of several positions that have been sorely misunderstood, especially regarding WYSIWYG editors, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe GoLive. Why do standards even matter? WaSP’s site explains it best in their faq, What are Web standards and why should I use them? I also think of my analogy about light bulbs suggested here before. Light bulb and lamp companies have agreed on standard sizes for their light bulb sockets and electrical currents. This doesn’t prevent the companies from creating a million varieties of light bulbs or lamps at... (371 words, 6 links)

01:12 pm, pdt14 August, 2001

ICANN’s Latest: Are We All Equal on the Internet?

Alan Herrell, also known as the head lemur, wrote an open letter dated August 11 to the ICANN At Large Study Group to remind ICANN of this. ". . . with the adoption of the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy on 24 October 1999 as referenced in the original White Paper, you stepped out of the technical management and into 'running the internet' . . . The whole point of this policy was to level the playing field between individuals and large corporations. . .  A 14 year old girl should not be threatened or dragged into court because her website uses the word Jaguar and the site is... (171 words, 4 links)

01:40 am, pdt13 August, 2001

Design For Community: Powazek’s New Book!

Derek Powazek is well known on the Web for creating {fray}, Kvetch!, and San Francisco Stories. He has clearly become quite an expert at creating community sites and promoting community. So it comes as no surprise that he’s written a book on the subject and has a new Web site, too, designforcommunity.com. The site is brand new but already has fascinating dialogs and a new community is blossoming. In addition to a community conversations area, Derek has included essays, excerpts from his new book, and updates about the latest goings on in communities, his book, and whatever else is... (284 words, 9 links, 1 image)

12:37 pm, pdt12 August, 2001

More on Viruses, PDF files, the Future?

With the latest SirCam and Code Red viruses, there’s lots of interest and articles all over the Web about dealing with viruses, virus protection programs, educating users, Windows XP’s vulnerability, and lots more. Here’s an overview of some of the latest. News Third version of Code Red detected, Reuters, August 10, 2001 5:03 AM PT New virus spreads using Acrobat files, InfoWorld, By Héctor Calabia, August 8, 2001 7:56 am PT Virus Information Computer Viruses and "False Authority Syndrome", Vmyths.com (Truth About Computer Virus Myths and Hoaxes) Norton Anti-Virus, MIMEsweeper, McAfee ActiveShield Not 100% Effective with Catching the SirCam... (170 words, 8 links)

02:55 pm, pdt11 August, 2001

WebVisions: A Successful New Web Design Conference

As I mentioned in my previous post, I attended Portland’s new WebVisions conference this past Tuesday evening, organized by Portland’s Multimedia Internet Developers Group. The keynote speaker was Jeffrey Zeldman, an important figure on the Web, with one of his roles being founder and major voice for the Web Standards Project (WaSP), and another being the author of the new book, Taking Your Talent To The Web. (992 words, 29 links, 2 images)

12:20 pm, pdt10 August, 2001

Inspiration, Refueling, WebVisions, and Portland

The past week has been a quiet one for Brainstorms and Raves but not at all quiet for the person typing away to make Brainstorms and Raves happen. I was in Portland, Oregon visiting and also attending WebVisions, Exploring the future of the web, a new conference organized by the Multimedia Internet Developers Group. The conference, with Jeffrey Zeldman as keynote speaker, and the entire experience in Portland were remarkable and memorable. (215 words, 7 links)

06:59 am, pdt 9 August, 2001

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