Tips, web design book reviews, resources and observations for teaching and learning web development.
The Christmas cactus is about to bloom. A sure sign that winter is here.
Check out my latest on eHow.
At 71, Physics Professor is a Web Star. That’s the wrong headline. It should read: Physics Professor is a Web Star. Age is not a factor, just great teaching. Making Physics fascinating is the achievement here.
Top 10 Hottest Women in Tech from AskMen.com shows ten gorgeous, young, female geeks. Not to be outdone, Susan Bratton at MishyMix posted her own list of the 10 hottest women in tech. Being geeky is hot, girls. Study computer science, study engineering. You, too, can be hot.
Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2. IEBlog announces that IE8 passed the Acid 2 test. (The Acid test is explained, for those in the dark.) IE 8 is scheduled for release sometime in ’08.
Killing Some Bad Layout Conventions by Andy Rutledge offers up some fresh thinking for layouts.
Do you use Dreamweaver’s built-in layouts and sample pages to start a new design? Then this information is for you.
My precise topic is the ability to add more than one style sheet when you select a CSS layout. In Dreamweaver, when you open a brand new page, go to Blank Page > HTML. You can select a built in CSS layout, such as the 2-column elastic left sidebar one shown here. Among other options on the lower right, you have the option to attach a second style sheet to your layout page when it is created.
That’s really swell, if you have another style sheet all ready and waiting. Since the CSS layouts are all just shades of gray, it would nice to have a color scheme and some font choices all ready to go and to attach them from the first step. Click the link icon, browse for the style sheet, and when you click the Create button, your new page has both attached. Easy, right?
But here’s where it gets tricky. What if you don’t have a style sheet ready and waiting? What if you want to use one of the color schemes built in to Dreamweaver? These are found in the new file dialog under Page from Sample > CSS Style Sheet. They sport names like “Full design Arial Blue/Green/Gray.
It will be easy to use this style sheet. The trick is that you have to start by picking this Page from Sample before you pick your CSS Layout. When you’ve picked one and click the Create button, you get this message.
Click View. You get an untitled style sheet that you can save by any name you want. Now you have a style sheet ready and waiting to link to your CSS Layout. Go through the new dialog again, pick your layout, and attach this style sheet at the same time.
You still have some work to do integrating the rules in your two style sheets so that they aren’t conflicting with each other. But you are off to a built-in Dreamweaver start.
Scientists put this composite image together using photos from the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Dan Evans, the study leader at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge explained, “What we’ve identified is an act of violence by a black hole, with an unfortunate nearby galaxy in the line of fire.”
That’s right. A black hole is blasting an entire galaxy. According to a report in The Washington Post, “That energy, often in the form of highly charged gamma rays and X-rays, shoots out in powerful jets that can be millions of light-years long and 1,000 light-years wide.”
I don’t know what you think about when you look at this stunning image, but I wonder about the life forms that might exist in that far off galaxy. I marvel at the power of nature to prevail over puny organisms with an agenda of its own, planet Earth included.
Wikipedia Competitor Being Tested by Google is mentioned at the NY Times. The service, called Knol, allows multiple entries by competing writers and develops a sort of reputation rating for the authors. The article mentions some of Knol potential competitors, but does not specifically mention eHow. Since I’m an eHow writer and am getting familiar the user generated content there, I would certainly consider eHow competition for Google’s new service, too.
Letting Them Know It’s Christmas in Liberia by Kim Pearson isn’t the kind of link I normally provide here. It has nothing to do with web design, and everything to do with the spirit of Christmas. It begins, “This is a story about an extraordinary young woman—really, three extraordinary young women—who will make you believe in angels all over again. At its center is MacDella Cooper, who literally walked out of the Liberian civil war at the age of 13 to triumph in the fashion world and create an eponymous foundation that brings the treasures of home and love to so many of the children she left behind.”
Hannah Montana Tickets on Sale! Oops, They’re Gone. I was royally ticked off because I couldn’t connect by Internet or phone to ticket sales for Hannah Montana tickets for over an hour, at which point they were all sold. I immediately went to eBay and found some already there for about $250 each. How can a slimeball profiteer get a batch of tickets when someone like me who just wants to thrill some of Miley Cyrus’ pre-teen fans cannot? The New York Times has the sordid tale. A plague upon StubHub and their damnable software.
Too Much Accessibility by Patrick Lauke has slides, audio, and information about getting carried away with a little accessibility knowledge and making a mess of things.
My humiliating score on the how many HTML elements can you name in five minutes test proves once again that I can’t think on my feet.
Interesting exercise, but if you do it, watch out for the line of code adding a link for an ad to your score widget if you choose to post it on your blog like I did.
24 Ways: CSS for Accessibility by Ann McMeekin is a nice set of CSS tips that would make a good handout or class discussion.
Six Tech Predictions for 2008 from Web Worker Daily is a quick and interesting read.
Bad Timing is Eric Meyer’s look at the flip side of the suit Opera brought against Microsoft in Europe this week.
Why Accessibility? Because it’s Our Job by brothercake argues, “If we call ourselves professionals, we owe it to our clients, their clients, and ourselves, to do our job properly. A chef must care about health, a builder must care about safety, and we must care about accessibility.”