Category: ProductReview

Review: Smashing CSS: Professional Techniques for Modern Layout

Smashing CSS: Professional Techniques for Modern Layout by Eric A. Meyer is from Sitepoint, 2011. This is a very different sort of book by Eric Meyer. Not in subject matter, of course, but in tone and purpose. Instead of his previous rather pedantic and encyclopedic listing of every thing you might ever want to know about CSS, this book is light, humorous, and organized to be read from front to back.

If you’ve been paying attention to CSS for the last few years, most of this book will be old news to you. But the book isn’t aimed for those already literate with CSS. It’s meant to help the newbie learn enough to master the basics and go on to create some cool looks and layouts with CSS. Every chapter has lots of examples, screen shots, code, and advice.

The first section starts right at the beginning with a chapter on Tools such as Firebug and SelectORacle. Chapter 2 talks about every kind of selector with advice about what works best when there is more than one way to accomplish something. The second section of the book deals with Essentials. In the chapter called Tips you learn about things like unitless line-height values, image replacement, and list styles. The chapter called Layouts reviews float containment and explains layouts like faux columns, liquid bleach, the one true layout, fluid grids, and the holy grail. In the Effects chapter he explains how to create an effect like his complex spiral. He also explains CSS pop-ups, menus, rounded corners, sprites, sliding doors, parallax, ragged floats, and constrained images.

The final section of the book is Cutting Edge, in which he moves away from reviewing the foundation CSS knowledge of the past and jumps into new ideas. There’s a chapter on Tables that shows new techniques for styling tables. He gives tips on using head, body and foot for table design and shows how to use a table to make a graph or provide data on a map. The final chapter is Cutting Edge. This chapter looks at HTML5, media queries, occasional children, occasional columns, RGBa, shadows, multiple backgrounds and transforms.

From a web education perspective, this would be an excellent book for teaching a CSS class.

Summary: A perfect book for those just learning CSS.

A review by Virginia DeBolt of Smashing CSS: Professional Techniques for Modern Layout (rating: 5stars)

With luckychic, you’re thrilled or you’re screwed

I got a PR email from a site called Lucky Chic. The email talked about getting iPads and other tech toys for almost nothing. They guarantee that their products are the real thing. When I look at the site, I saw bidding on items that looked like this.

an iPad bid on Lucky Chic

I decided to register to check them out. Here’s what I learned.

  1. The price isn’t really $3.90, it’s $3.90 X 6 or $23.40, which is, of course, still insanely cheap for an iPad. But who knows how high the bidding would go in the next 2+ hours.
  2. You buy bid tokens for $.60 each. Each bid you place raises the price of an item $.10.
  3. You must buy bid tokens in advance in multiples of 10, 20, 30, etc. You cannot purchase more bid tokens in the midst of bidding on something. You cannot turn in unused bid tokens for a refund.
  4. If you don’t win the bidding war, the money is gone – spent. Once you fork over say, $18 for 30 bid tokens, the money is gone whether you end up with something or not. You pay to bid even if you don’t get the item.

I suppose if you are the person who wins the bidding and gets a fabulous tech toy for almost nothing you would be thrilled. The rest of the players are just screwed.

Really, lucky chic? That seems like a way to build loyalty and enthusiasm to you?

No thanks.

Review: World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet


affiliate link to Amazon.com

World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet by Michael Chorost is published by Free Press (2011).

The title of this book is a good summary of what it’s about. It’s not about web design or web education, it’s about how the human brain could connect with other human minds through the Internet.

Chorost describes the book as a thought experiment about things that are conceptually plausible, though not yet in practice. He gives many examples of how his ideas about the future are based in technology that is already in use. There are chapters on the technology that is used to detect brain activity, chapters on nanowires and optogenetics – both mechanisms that can read and write brain activity, chapters on communications protocols for sending perceptions and memories from one brain to another, chapters on examples of what might result from linking humans to the Internet, and chapters on a possible future collective mind. The writing style is accessible and clear. In an age when people talk about neural pathways over the dinner table, the science discussions in the book are open and written for the average informed person.

Woven in with all this science reporting and speculation, is a personal narrative about Chorost’s already wired brain – he has chochlear implants. He also uses stories about his personal life and relationships to introduce concepts about how the human mind works. The book is a surprisingly easy read.

Some of Chorost’s examples are part of pop culture. He talks about The Matrix and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for example. He doesn’t mention Dollhouse, but I think it contains the best example of hive mind as he describes it. I don’t mean the plot line in Dollhouse where new personalities are injected into people electronically and they can suddenly be doctors or kick boxing experts. Chorost’s says that brains can’t learn that way. But there is a particular episode of Dollhouse where the character Victor is linked to a group of soldiers, who all act with awareness of what the other soldiers are doing. Yet Victor can use his own will and thinking, even while being aware of what the others he’s linked to are doing and thinking.

That Dollhouse episode is an example of Chorost’s vision of the collective awareness that would come with linking the human brain to the Internet: an awareness, a perception, but not an abandonment of one’s own thinking, one’s own self. He thinks this would be a good thing.

The ways of making that a reality involve wiring the brain with tiny wires and/or devices, or possibly using genetically modified genes that are triggered into action with light (optogenetics). The part of the process that he accepts without comment is that people would be willing to step forward and allow these things to be done to their brains. That seems like a pretty big sticking point to me.

The book has notes, a bibliography, and an index for those who want to explore in depth.

Summary: Theoretical and speculative, but fascinating.

A review by Virginia DeBolt of World Wide Mind (rating: 3 stars)

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Find the perfect font combinations

There’s FontFuse and there’s WebINK. They go together like oatmeal goes with brown sugar. One of them suggests pairs of fonts that look really good together. The other one offers up the fonts for embedding in your web pages at a reasonable price.

FontFuse offers great font pair suggestions, like this one:

font fuse

They invite you to submit your own ideas for font pairs to the site. Right now, WebINK is sponsoring a font pairing contest on the site. To enter, create a font pairing and submit it for the design community to vote on. The entrant with the most votes by Feb. 25 will receive a VIP trip for two to the 2011 SXSW Interactive event in Austin, TX in March. More details on the contest.

Which brings us to WebINK. What are you supposed to do once you have a nice font pair in mind? Why, get them from WebINK, of course.

WebINK has fonts, lots of fonts. And their pricing is pretty darn good.

webink pricing

You get the fonts at WebINK and embed them in your page using CSS.

Use the @font-face rule in your CSS.

@font-face {
font-family:'BluejackURWTMed';
src:url('http://fnt.webink.com/?drawer=9499E74E-1234-EFAP&font=1D852-7559-20B3');}

Style any element with that font:

body {font-family:'BlueJackURWTMed',san-serif;}

WebINK may not be any better than any other font source out there – I’m not trying to convince you of that. But they get points for the creative use of the sister site FontFuse. In a world where a good marketing idea can take you a long way, this seems like a winning idea to me.

I am not affiliated with either of the sites mentioned, nor did I receive anything in return for this review.

How to Find the Right Online Shopping Cart for You

coins

An efficient and user-friendly online shopping cart is an essential tool for any business or website owner involved in e-commerce product sales. But with so many online shopping carts available, it can be hard to decide which cart application will be up to the task at hand.

To begin with, there is the issue of selecting a free product or opting for one that has service charges. Naturally, everyone would choose the free option if they could, but there are occasions when free software may not possess the level of sophistication required. If this is the case, then purchasing a licensed product may be necessary, but then which one will be the right shopping cart for your transactional requirements?

Free Shopping Carts versus Paid E-Commerce Platforms

There are many well designed and functional free online shopping carts available. Most of these are open-source and operate under a GPL (General Public License). A lot of high-end shopping cart designers also produce free versions for smaller businesses or individual users.

Businesses or websites that have a larger product base or high sale yield may need to opt for a more substantial e-commerce platform. This will be a commercial licensed product that has advanced features and greater transactional control. Some of these platforms will charge a reoccurring monthly fee, while others may simply charge a one-off license payment.

The first decision should be whether the online business or product-based website can justify the price of a fully-fledged e-commerce platform, or will a good free GPL product suffice? This depends on stock levels, projected sales and expected consumer interaction. Once this decision has been made, it is then time to evaluate available products that meet the necessary criteria.

Online Shopping Carts: The Essential Features

In order to clarify things, it is probably best to initially outline a few necessary features that every online shopping cart and e-commerce platform should possess. This will help eliminate some feature-deficient products and help focus on only those products that meet, or surpass, the primary criteria.

  • Catalogue Support – The ability to arrange products into accessible sections
  • Customer Database – Keep track of customer information
  • Order Management – Real-time status of current orders and refund organization
  • Payment Processing – Wide range of commercially acceptable payment options
  • Shipping & Handling – Email notification of orders and delivery fee calculation
  • Statistical Analysis – Analyze orders, sales and conversion rates
  • Multi-Lingual Capability – Translate into other languages
  • Localization – Accept foreign currency and calculate taxes
  • SEO Consideration – URL rewriting and provision for sitemap creation
  • Security Measures – Secure logins. SSL compatible.
  • Efficient Administration – User management and site maintenance
  • Optional Customization – Advert insertion and featured product options

These features should come as standard, even in free versions. The more exceptional e-commerce platforms will come incorporated with more advanced features. Many of these full-feature platforms may charge for their product.

Advanced Features

  • Additional Levels of Security – PC DSS (Payment Application Data Security Standard) compliant. This is a regulation enforced by the PCI SSC (Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council). You can find more information about these regulations and standards at the official PCI DSS website.
  • Gift Card and Coupon Facility – Customers can purchase physical cards and use coupon codes
  • Store Credit Available – Issue store credit for refunds etc.
  • Rewards Systems – Ability to encourage return custom by awarding customers with redeemable loyalty points
  • Customer Subscription – Allow customers to subscribe to newsletters, promotional emails etc.
  • Advanced Analytics – Geo-location statistics, integration with Google Analytics.
  • Social Media Compliant – Ready for integration with your favorite social media sites
  • Advanced Customer Assistance – Breadcrumb trails and one-click bookmarking features

This is not an exhaustible list. Nor should a product be penalized if it happens to neglect one or two advance features, but then excels in most of the others. These are simply guidelines to help weed out the lower-quality shopping carts and e-commerce platforms.

Recommended Shopping Carts and E-Commerce Platforms

Now that the required and desired features have been highlighted, here are a few products that readily possess the above features and functions. (Note: Some of the free versions may not possess advanced features).

Shop Around to Find Your Ideal Cart

The selections above are an ideal place to start looking for an online shopping cart. But there are many alternative options. For anyone that has never used e-commerce software, it may be prudent to start with one of the free platforms and see what features and functions are preferred.

Every platform will have its own user interface and different modules and sometimes finding the best online shopping cart is a matter of locating a respectable product that you feel comfortable with. It is true that some versions will require more interaction and individual development while others will be more novice-friendly and possess almost one-click functionality. Finding a platform that you can use with ease is a large part of the selection process.

Don’t be afraid to try before you buy. Many paid versions will offer limited-time trials and even if that option does not appear available, in many cases the designers will gladly allow you a free test if you contact them directly.

Finding the right e-commerce platform will optimize you online business, help you to organize your storefronts, generate return business, and efficiently process and manage sales and transactions.

About the Author: This guest post is contributed by Roko Nastic of WebmasterFormat.com, a website focused on delivering advice and actionable tips on writing, website promotion techniques, best web hosts and the latest trends in web development technologies.

I’m loving paper.li

A while back I put together a Twitter list of the women in web education. Right now there are 45 women on the list. Here’s my original post explaining the list: Where are the Women in Web Education? When I started the list, I wasn’t thinking about paper.li, I was thinking about finding a group of women who could speak about web education at conferences.

Once I had the list, I quickly realized that I could aggregate the tweets from the list using paper.li. I created the Women in Web Education Daily, described in this post.

Now, paper.li publishes a daily compilation of stories, blog posts, event announcements, coding news, videos, photos, and technology information from the tweeters on the list. Take a look.

Here’s what I’m loving about paper.li.

  • The quality of information that the women on the list post to Twitter is reliably interesting and worthy of my attention in terms of my main interests. Great list = great daily paper.
  • There’s a menu of topics so you can jump to the full day’s news on specific areas. You can also subscribe.
    the menu
  • There’s an archive of past issues.
  • There’s a constantly refreshing Twitter feed.
  • I don’t have to watch Twitter all day to see what’s going on in my area of interest. I can catch up once a day.
  • It’s intelligently and attractively laid out so it’s easy to read and navigate. There are ads, but they aren’t annoying.

I’m impressed with paper.li because I have a great list that produces great content for the daily read. I think it’s a brilliant idea. It takes something as unmanageable and unfiltered as Twitter and concentrates it into something both manageable and filtered. It’s the most useful thing I’ve discovered in a long time. I’m loving it.

Web Design Book Review: HTML5 for Web Designers

HTML5 for Web Designers

HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith is the first book under the A Book Apart imprint, published by Jeffrey Zeldman (2010). It’s available from A Book Apart.

It’s a small book, less than 100 pages, with only 6 chapters. The chapters are A Brief History of Markup, The Design of HTML5, Rich Media, Web Forms 2.0, Semantics, and Using HTML5 Today. If you watched the video of Keith in Jeremy Keith on the Design of HTML5, you have a basic idea what the first two chapters are about. The book, of course, contains more detail than the video.

The Rich Media chapter goes into some detail at the code level about the new <canvas>, <audio> and <video> elements. Code examples help clarify the Web Forms chapter, as well. Form enhancements he talks about include placeholder attributes, autofocus, the required attribute, the autocomplete attribute, the datalist element, and new input types and what they mean right now.

The Semantics chapter talks about microformats, new elements such as <mark>, <time>, <meter>, and <progress>. Everyone is most interested in the new structural elements or sectioning elements, and he explains each of them, including <section>, <header>, <footer>, <aside>, <nav> and <article>. The book ends with a mention of what can be used today and how to help the nonsupporting browsers use HTML5 by adding ARIA roles or scripts like the HTM5 shiv and modernizr.

The book is clear and well-written so it’s easy to read. You could probably read the whole thing in less than an hour. But the simplicity of the book is a bit deceptive, because there is a lot of depth to the material. If you are hesitant about starting to use HTML5, the book can give you the basic knowledge you need to being exploring and trying it out.

Summary: An excellent book for web designers who want to learn how HTML5 can be used now.

A review by Virginia DeBolt of HTML5 for Web Designers (rating: 5 stars)

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