Posts from 2003

This morning’s Penny Arcade just floored me (it makes more sense if you read the preceding comic first).  Say, did you know the Pants Association encourages you to wear your pants at least three times a day?  Yes, that’s a quote.  You get major geek points if you can identify the source, and about a million times more geek points if you know the exact episode name.

Some time later, I chuckled quite a bit at this joke:

Look inside a typical CSS flamer house.  What do you see?  Chairs, only chairs.  No tables.

That was followed by a post asking for realistic experts to explain how to use CSS effectively.  Hey, that’s me!  It’s what I strive to be, anyway, as I have for quite some time.  I hope it shows in my work.

I’m still trying to get a handle on this whole “CSS flamer” thing, a term I first encountered only a few days ago.  I can’t quite tell if there are people running around using CSS advocacy as a way to pummel others because it’s fun, or if strong advocacy of the use of CSS is interpreted as flaming, or what, exactly.  I mean, yeah, I think that if you can design without tables, then you should definitely do it.  Is that being a CSS flamer?  Even though the reasons are good things like reduced page weight, simplified page structure, and better accessibility?  I also think that if you need to do something CSS can’t handle, then use the next best tool—tables, Flash, public radio, whatever.  Is that some sort of betrayal of the Holy Path of CSS?  Help me out here, people, I’m trying to understand.  Are technologies forever dead because they aren’t perfect?  Did visual styling become a war?  How?  When?  Why?

I thought about ranting a while longer, but frankly everything I wrote sounded whiny (as if the above didn’t) and it was getting pointlessly angry, so I decided to stop.  Maybe I’ll come back to it later.  Summary: technologies are tools, not religions.  Use the best tool for a job.  Show other people how to better use a particular tool, if you can.  No matter how skilled you are with a tool, please don’t hit other people with it.

Every now and again, a little anger does indeed leak through.  I might be grouchier than usual today because of the spam I’ve been getting over the last few days.  Here’s one I got just this morning: “Remember Mom on Mother’s Day!”

Well gee, Mr. Spammer, thanks so much for reminding me that I can’t really do anything else.

• Laughter and Sorrow was published on Monday, May 5th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Personal categories.
• There have been no replies.

When you withdraw for a couple of weeks, all kinds of stuff piles up—in the house, in the Inbox, in life in general.

During our Passover seder on April 17, I spotted a label on a bottle that cracked me up.  Since I’d acquired a digital camera just the day before in hopes of taking pictures of both our families at one table, I couldn’t resist capturing the label for posterity, so I’ll share it with you. Somebody really needed to think a little harder about their domain name choice.  Then again, had they done so, I’d have been deprived of a good laugh.  Hey, maybe they’re going back to their original recipe!  Wouldn’t that be fun.

The day after Mom’s death, Netdiver published a close-ups* interview with me.  You’ve probably already seen it, but if not, there you go.  It’s long, but that’s mostly due to it having a lot of questions, some of which were actually difficult to answer.

Chris Casciano updated his PNH Developer Toolbar to fix some typos, add more links to useful tools, and make the toolbar work in Phoenix/Firebird as well as Netscape/Mozilla.  I don’t think I mentioned the toolbar here before, so let me just say it’s insanely useful and thoroughly awesome.  I’m already becoming addicted to it, especially in conjunction with the DevEdge Sidebar Tabs, which lets me drill into various W3C specifications quickly and easily.

Everyone got all upset at Dave Winer, who in turn got upset with everyone; things were said, mistakes were made, meanings were imposed and decomposed.  If it hadn’t started with a post about designers and CSS, I wouldn’t even bother to mention it.  My reaction: everyone over-reacted.  Dave didn’t say in that particular post that there was anything wrong with CSS, although he did make some interesting statements about what works and what doesn’t.  Of course the advantages of using CSS are fairly self-evident to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, and (to my eye) far too compelling to ignore or eschew.  There are indeed flaws and omissions both in browser support and the CSS specification itself, but that’s never stopped anyone.  Meanwhile, anyone who’s using CSS as a political club of some sort needs to cut it out.  CSS is a technology, and a good one that promises to get better.  It’s not a religion, despite the odd quasi-religious titles people keep affixing to my name (“CSS Pope” being one of the funniest).

On an oddly related note, Jeffrey and Tantek and Matt batted about thoughts on RSS, syndication, hand-rolling a weblog, and so on.  This particular journal (as I call it) is basically hand-rolled, and for a long time I manually updated the current entries and archives: when I added a new entry to the home page, I’d cut the least recent entry and paste it into the archive page.  That worked so long as I posted weekly and didn’t want to do anything else with the entries.

But then I started hearing from people who said that without an RSS feed, they couldn’t keep track of a site.  I write these entries so that people can see them, and I was sort of interested in RSS anyway, so I decided that I needed a way to set up a feed and automate the process of managing the entries.  As long-time readers will recall, I accomplished this by teaching myself XSLT and using it to create a very minimal content management system of my own.  Entries are written in an XML format I derived from RSS itself, and I run the XML file through a series of XSLT recipes to produce the most recent entries on the home page, the archives, and the RSS feeds.  I suppose I could also create messages to e-mail to people who signed up for them, but I’m not up to that yet.

So anyway, I agree with what Jeffrey says about pouring an entire site’s contents into an RSS feed: why would I bother?  Part of the experience of reading a personal site is how it looks, the way the words are arranged, the layout of the content.  So I’ve been doing basically what Jeffrey is now doing, and dropping the first sentence of each entry into the feed.  That keeps the feed small, it allows people to know when I’ve posted something new, and gives them enough information to decide if they want to go read the new entry.  It also forces me to think about writing good lead sentences, since an entry description of “I just had a thought….” isn’t nearly is interesting as “I was pondering the relationship between XSLT and CSS, and had an idea I think is pretty cool….”

(Incidentally, those of you chastising Jeffrey for “selling out” need a serious perspective check.  Try some deep-breathing exercises while you’re at it.)

Matt observed that I should drop the plink class on the permalinks and use a contextual selector to style them, and that I should add rel="bookmark" to the permalinks.  The latter I’ll implement in my next XSLT update, as I should have done long ago.  The former, however, I’ll probably not do just because I like having a class that applies only to the permalinks and nothing else.  I might decide in the future to move the permalinks from one element to another, and I don’t want to have to juggle a bunch of selectors when I do.  The structure and design of the site are always in a slow state of evolution, so I try to plan for future mutations as best I can.

That’s one benefit of hand-rolling the whole system.  I can plan ahead with the greatest possible clarity because I know exactly how everything is put together, and how changes to the structure will affect the layout and experience.  I can also make sure the site’s markup is as lean and relevant as possible, because the most advanced document optimization tool ever devised is still the human brain.

• Randomatters was published on Friday, May 2nd, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS, Interviews, Personal, RSS, and Web categories.
• There have been no replies.

I tried to believe But you know it’s no good This is something That just can’t be understood

I’ve moved the memorial page into another directory, which feels like a file-system expression of the process of moving on with life.  A lot of people told me that the eulogy I delivered at Mom’s service touched them, and since I wrote the text out in advance, I’ve decided to make it available.  I think it helps illuminate my state of mind, which is one of deep sorrow but not of hysterical grieving.  At some level I’m devastated, but at another I’m at peace, and I think my father and sister feel basically the same.  The end was swift, it was relatively painless, and it was gentle.  She was not alone, and she knew how much we all loved her.  If a cherished person must die, one cannot ask for much better than that.

Our good friend Tantek was probably the first to publicly note Mom’s passing, and beautiful journal entries were written by both Gini and Ferrett (also good friends) about the celebratory service, and Mom, and us.  Comforting words were received from many, many more people, both by Web and by e-mail, and Kat and I thank you all.  Your words have helped sustain and comfort us through a very difficult event.

It’s still very difficult to grasp.  By definition, of course, my mother existed for my entire life.  She always seemed eternal because, in my personal timeline, she had always existed; there was no time when she was not.  Until now.  How does one come to terms with that?  I don’t know yet.  I’ll find out over time, as most people eventually must.

I learned your love for life I feel the way that you would —I feel your presence I remember—

• Afterimage was published on Thursday, May 1st, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal category.
• There have been no replies.

Carol S. Meyer, 59, died Thursday, April 17, 2003 at home.  She left us after a courageous and eloquent battle with cancer.  Carol celebrated life, touching many lives through her caring, teaching, and loving support of others.  She was a wife, mother, and best friend to her family.  She is survived by her husband, Art; son, Eric, and his wife Kat; daughter, Julie, and her husband, Joe; two sisters, Bonnie and Shannon; two brothers, Steve and Mark; and numerous family and friends.

Carol taught elementary school, having spent the last two decades at Bellville Elementary School.  She held several leadership positions within the Clear Fork Valley Teachers Association.  She enjoyed gardening and was a Master Gardener for many years.

Friends may call at the Ontario Home of Wappner Funeral Directors Monday, April 21, from 4-8 p.m.  A service celebrating Carol’s life will be held at the First Congregational Church in Mansfield at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 22, conducted by Rev. Clifford D. Schutjer.  A reception for family and friends will follow the service.  Memorial contributions may be made to the Community Health Access Project, 445 Bowman Street, Mansfield, Ohio 44903.

• In Memoriam was published on Friday, April 18th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal category.
• There have been no replies.

The css-discuss archives are back into active and complete form, although the URL changed slightly.  If you’re looking for something in the annals of our little community (1,966 members and counting), go to it.  The archive makes for a handy way to publicly link to list posts… say, if I wanted to point out a post I made about the issues with creating a monthly calendar without using a table. The archive upgrade happened a little while ago, and I’ve been utterly remiss in mentioning it.  I’d like to thank the fine folks at Incutio for their support and services in keeping the archive going and growing.

This is kind of cool: a design generator for CSS columnar layout.  Simon says that it “appears to use Big John’s source ordered columns technique,” which wouldn’t surprise me.  Either way, it’s an interesting tool.

Spring is well underway hereabouts, and the days are once again sunny and beautiful.  Cleveland is an interesting city; through the winter we’re one of the least sunny spots in the country, but during the rest of the year we’re one of the sunniest.  Right now, there’s a flawless blue sky backing up barely-budded trees swaying in the wind, and I wish this spring could last the better part of forever.

• Renewals was published on Sunday, April 13th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Personal categories.
• There have been no replies.

The CSS1 support chart known as the mastergrid disappeared when Web Review’s servers got shut off, which has apparently caused some anguish in the community.  Anguish no more!  It’s back online now, thanks to Netscape DevEdge.  Actually, there are three charts now, with more planned for the future.

There are also plans afoot to (finally!) get the charts expanded to include browsers that have been released since the end of 2000.  You know, like two three major releases of Opera, three of Netscape, Mozilla 1.0, IE6, and so on.  I don’t know if Linux browsers will be added or not, but I’ll see what can be done.  Also, I’d really like to add Safari, but since I don’t have Jaguar, I’m kind of stuck until I can find time to upgrade my laptop.

The charts are also now licensed under a Creative Commons license (specifically, Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 1.0) so that they can always be available to the community, regardless of what happens in the future.  They can also be extended, should somebody wish to undertake the effort, without removing the extended works from the community.  I’d like to thank the folks at Netscape for not only giving the charts a home, but also for being very supportive of this licensing approach.

• Master of Your Cascade was published on Friday, April 11th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS category.
• There have been no replies.

I thought Squidfingers was cool, but Jesse Ruderman’s bookmarklets are about a zillion times cooler, only in a really geeky way.  Want to see, in the status bar, the document-tree path of whatever element your mouse pointer is over?  Jesse’s got your back.  Look up the WHOIS record for whatever site you’re visiting?  Check.  View style sheets, see the generated source, show the values for named anchors, kill off CSS temporarily, go up a directory level, view whatever cookies relate to the site you’re visiting, sort tables, view HTTP headers, zoom images, or even resize fixed-pixel layouts?  Oh yeah.  And that’s only a fraction of what Jesse has on tap.  My only real problem is that there’s nowhere near enough room on my personal toolbar to hold all the bookmarklets I want to install.  Even with dropdown folders it’s going to be a tight fit.

That reminds me of another cool bookmarklet I saw a while back but never pointed out: Simon Willison’s Image Drag.  Visit a page, click the bookmarklet, and drag images around to see if you like them better in other spots.  Wow.  Talk about making design-change previews easier!

Those bookmarklets, plus the features that Henrik Gemal just recently wrote about, makes Mozilla a nearly ideal Web development environment all on its own.  Invest a little time in setting things up to your liking, and the Web is your oyster.  Amazing stuff.

• So Square It’s Hip was published on Tuesday, April 8th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Web category.
• There have been no replies.

Holy cow, there’s some cool stuff over at Squidfingers.  One of his offered patterns may well find its way into the next redesign of this here site.  And, if you’ll notice, the pages are very structural markup that’s laid out with CSS.  No layout tables for our cephalopodic pal!

(Last week, while watching a video on octopi, it occurred to me to wonder if scientists who study octopi and squid tentacles are called cephalopodiatrists.  Do cephalopods ever get tenticular cancer?  And is it illegal in Georgia to cuttlefish?  Even stuffed ones?  Even if the stuffing is a really nice Gulf shrimp stuffing?)

I’m currently reading a book called Conspiracy, which is actually an exploration of people’s readiness to believe in conspiracy theories and the roots of such theories.  For a couple of days, though, I couldn’t find the book anywhere in the house.  I began to wonder if it had been stolen by the Illuminati or something, but then it turned up on Kat’s desk.  Very suspicious.  Maybe she’s actually an agent of the Illuminati, keeping an eye on me to ensure that I don’t uncover the real truth.  Yeah, that seems reasonable.  I’ll need to look into making some tin hats to block out their mind-control rays.

The book I read before Conspiracy was James Gleick’s Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything.  Ironically, it took me almost a month to finish.

As I was working on something late last night, FX showed a program called “UFOs: The Best Evidence Ever (Caught On Tape) 2.”  Leaving the odd punctuation aside, how is it that there was more than one of these shows?  I mean, once you’ve shown the Best Evidence Ever, then shouldn’t the next show be called something like “The Next-Best Evidence Ever?”  Then I saw Denis Leary doing a Quaker State commercial, which seemed really sad somehow.  That was immediately followed by a double shot (sorry) of ads for a “natural male enhancement” product.  As if I don’t get enough of that kind of spam in my Inbox—now I’m getting it on TV as well.  So when do we get mainstream-media spam for breast enhancement products?  It would only be fair.

• Tentacle Alert was published on Monday, April 7th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Personal categories.
• There have been no replies.