Posts in the Personal Category

Last night, for a while I lay in bed having trouble falling asleep.  When I finally did drop off, I dreamed that I was lying in bed and having trouble falling asleep.

That was weird.

Mark Pilgrim has a nice entry on his site about creating a tab interface out of a simple unordered list and CSS.  His approach uses float: left; instead of display: inline;, which has some advantages and drawbacks.  Mark also says, “This CSS stuff is hard; don’t let anybody tell you different.”  Well, I’ll tell you different, although you can always reject what I have to say.  CSS is challenging, certainly, especially if you have old design habits to unlearn.  CSS doesn’t always act in intuitive ways.  Its learning curve sometimes seems too steep a climb for many people.  But CSS is very much consistent, once you dive into it far enough, and once you adjust to its way of doing things it becomes not so much easy as very, very powerful.

Some enterprising soul(s) managed to dig up the URL of the copy of the CSS mastergrid at ddj.com, but I wouldn’t get too used to it being there.  Plus the file isn’t using CSS to style the grid any more, which is really rather funny in its own way, but also makes the charts harder to use.  While I have suspected for a while that webreview.com would go away, the changeover was completely without warning, so I don’t even know who to talk to about fixing the problems.  It’s a touch frustrating.

I also found out, in the process of tracking down the new chart URL, that someone thinks I look like Luke Skywalker.

That was more weird.

• Restless was published on Thursday, April 3rd, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Personal categories.
• There have been no replies.

I’m back from User Interface 7 West, which was a most excellent time; and a four-day vacation at Ragged Point, which was a more excellent time, but in a completely different and much more relaxing way.  Upon my return, my personal e-mail account contained 2,280 messages, of which almost precisely half were spam.  The work account had 1,300+ messages, and I’d already downloaded 500+ while on the road.

I’m a little behind, is what I’m trying to say.

If you sent me a message recently, odds are it will be a while before I respond.  If I don’t respond in the next couple of weeks, your message was probably lost in the spam, so consider resending it after that time.  Yes, I know, Spam Assassin, Cloudmark, blah blah blah.  It’s more fun to complain about the spam, really.  Besides, deleting it manually is a good workout for my speed-reading and snap-evaluation skills.

I did notice a number of messages about webreview.com rerouting to Dr. Dobbs Journal, and the disappearance of the CSS support charts (a.k.a. “The Mastergrid”).  Yes, the charts are now offline, although since they hadn’t been updated in over two years this is not what I’d call a deep tragedy.  Fans of the charts will be glad to know I’d already been working (slowly, ever slowly) toward finding the charts a new home and getting them updated.  I’ll certainly make an announcement here once there is actual news, but for now, let’s pause a moment in silent tribute to the late, lamented Web Review.  They gave me my first paid writing gig and the charts a home, and I’ll always be grateful to Dale, Chuck, Derrick, and all the rest of the staff.

Oh, and for those interested in my RSS feed, you can pick the flavor you like best from the Eric’s Archived Thoughts page.

• Deluged was published on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS, Personal, RSS, and Writing categories.
• There have been no replies.

So here I am, sitting in Rockin’ Java in the upper Haight, surfing on the free wifi.  All kinds of cool people are (and have been) here, including Matt Haughey, Tantek Çelik, Erika Hall, Scott Andrew, Doug Bowman, Michael Leung, and Merlin.  Some other people have drifted through but I didn’t catch their names.  Sooner or later I ought to buy something.  Or not.

As is always the case for San Francisco, the weather is beautiful and the driving horrendous.  Tight parking I can handle, but the restrictions on turning, one-way streets, and general vehicular topography are a nightmare.  It makes Cleveland Heights look like nothing.  I can well understand the impulse to be a biker in this city, and I’d almost certainly be one if I lived here.

Regardless, it’s a thrill to be sitting with smart folks and talking about whatever comes to mind.  I’m looking forward to more of the same over the next few days.

• Rockin’ WiFi was published on Sunday, March 23rd, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal and Travel categories.
• There have been no replies.

This week on Netscape DevEdge is part one of a two-part interview with Mike Davidson of ESPN, who talks in depth about their curent redesign efforts.  On the ESPN home page they’re currently using CSS positioning to lay everything out.  That means they’ve dropped tables as a layout mechanism and, in the process, about 50KB of page weight.  Mike has some very strong opinions, and I imagine they’ll be controversial in certain circles, but he speaks from the perspective of a designer in charge of a commercial site that serves close to a billion page views every month.  His is a thoroughly practical point of view, and he’s not shy about it.  I highly recommend it, and not just because I wrote the questions.

Through the O’Reilly Network, I came across a link to an English-language blog called Where Is Raed?, written by a resident of Baghdad.  This past Sunday, he posted a rant against war and for democracy that should be read by anyone who wants to get insight into how the events of the past year and decade are viewed by those who had to pay the price.  A tiny exceprt:

how could “support democracy in Iraq” become to mean “bomb the hell out of Iraq”? why did it end up that democracy won’t happen unless we go thru war? Nobody minded an un-democratic Iraq for a very long time, now people have decided to bomb us to democracy? Well, thank you! how thoughtful.

Before you dismiss this as obvious propaganda, go read the piece in its entirety.

Note to those in the San Francisco area: I’ll be hanging out with some very cool people (like Doug and Tantek) at Rockin’ Java this Sunday at 2:00pm.  All are welcome for discussion, open wifi, and caffeinated drinks.  Be there or be, um, elsewhere.

• Through Another Pair of Eyes was published on Friday, March 21st, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Politics categories.
• There have been no replies.

I’m trying to find out if there’s a country or other region in this world whose annual, monthly, or daily bandwidth consumption is in the vicinity of 700 terabytes (5.6 petabits).  Searches for this type of information have so far come up empty; I was pointed to the Internet Traffic Report but its figures are too abstract to be useful to me, plus they seem to be based on ping times instead of actual bandwidth.  Anyone have a pointer to freely available information along those lines?

Yesterday’s mail contained a copy of the shiny new book Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer’s Edge by Molly Holzschlag.  It’s very, um, red.  It’s also in full color throughout, chock full o’ information, presents some case studies of CSS-driven design, and talks about CSS and design as if they go together, which of course they do.  I did technical editing and wrote the Foreword, where I said:

…CSS is a visual language, one that was meant to be used by designers from the beginning.  Books aimed at that particular audience are long overdue, frankly, and I’m thrilled to see them emerging at long last.  I’m even more thrilled that we’re getting one from Molly Holzschlag.

Personally I think Molly’s a really truly wonderful person and my wife agrees with me, so if you’re particularly worried about bias, there’s mine.  One of them, at any rate.  I also have a fondness for hot chai drinks, in case anyone’s keeping track.

Dear God, but this is just so wrong.  That damn song they sing is still stuck in my head, which I’m sure was the point, but the visuals are even more vividly seared upon my memory.  Requires Flash to actually see the full extent of the wrongness.  Also requires that you not be at work or some other place of propriety, or in the presence of people who are easily offended, or be easily offended yourself.

Then again, far worse things are looming in the real world, and it won’t be cuddly cartoon characters who pay the price when the storm finally breaks.

• Close to the Edge was published on Wednesday, March 19th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Politics categories.
• There have been no replies.

Kat returns from San Francisco today, five days after we parted ways in Houston.  Then, on Saturday, I leave for… San Francisco (!).  I’ll be speaking at User Interface 7 West with Molly H. (someone totally different than Molly S., who I finally met last week in Austin).  The full-day session we delivered last October got great reviews from its attendees, so we’re doing it again, only with a better pace and less boring stretches.  Our short talk, on the other hand, is new to the UI7 series and is based on some of the stuff I’ve been talking about recently.  You can get more information from my Talks page, or else from the UI7 site itself.

I laughed pretty hard at some of Perry Hoberman‘s “OK/Cancel” series, but the “Infringement” series made me chuckle uncomfortably before thinking about it.  The series reminded me rather strongly of the Bang Interface Neologue by Natalie Jeremijenko (search her project page for that title if you’re curious).  I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Internet society as compared to physical-world societies, how they influence each other, and how they could improve each other.  In the process, my appreciation for what we have online has increased.  The challenge is in migrating what I see there into the “real” world.

It’s a beautiful day outside, and I have a window open to let in the clean scent of spring.  Birds are cheeping quietly to each other, as if asking in hushed tones if winter is finally over, afraid they’ll jinx it.  This is perhaps my favorite time of year, and one of the reasons I’ve stayed in a region that has a seasonal cycle.  The fresh scent carried on the breezes of spring, still chilled from leftover snow but bursting with life all the same, is one of life’s truest joys.

• O Lucky Day was published on Monday, March 17th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal category.
• There have been no replies.

Two interviews with me have come out in quick succession:

• Transitional Layouts Using (X)HTML and CSS: An Interview with Eric A. Meyer (User Interface 7 conference site)
• The XML.com Interview: Eric Meyer

I think a question got dropped from the UI7 interview text, although the answer is still there; I’m going to go e-mail them about it right now.

This morning I watched a freezing rain turn to snow.  All the tree branches and power lines look like bizarre combs, with ranks upon ranks of small icicles hanging every few inches.  I can’t quite decide if it’s beautiful or not.  Something to contemplate on my way to tonight’s meetup.

• Multiple Exposures was published on Thursday, March 13th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Interviews category.
• There have been no replies.

After a great breakfast at El Sol y La Luna and a quick chat with Tantek on der cellphonen, I spent most of the day on planes and arrived back in Cleveland this evening sans Kat; we parted ways in Houston as I flew back home and she flew to San Francisco for a conference of her own.  I miss her already.

A quick SxSW Interactive braindump:

• There was nowhere near enough time for me to talk with everyone I wanted to talk to, let alone spend time on it and really get in-depth.
• WiFi is a particularly sharp sword of the two-edged variety.  It’s great to be able to check mail and IM while you’re sitting in a session, but it’s also kind of rude.  I sat listening to Bruce Sterling talk, and sort of felt like I was the only one doing so as everyone around me typed furiously.
• Speaking of which, Tantek posted this journal entry while sitting on the podium during our panel.  While I was talking, in fact.
• Apparently the panel was very, very well received.  There was a good deal of positive feedback from various people, and I heard a rumor that we scored very high on the audience evaluation cards.
• If you’re going to have live entertainment in a small space, try not to deafen everyone with too much volume and way too much feedback.  (No, I’m not talking about Fray Café, which was very well mixed.)
• Now I am talking about Fray Café: Scott Andrew’s bet-winning song is both a hoot and a holler.  Although it was much funnier when Scott performed it.
• Apparently in Texas they spell it “Austin Geek Party” but pronounce it “Adult Webmasters Party.”  A small group of us found this out by dropping in to talk to the Austin geeks.  Imagine our surprise!
• If there’s one useful thing I’ve learned about Austin, it’s that you need to either stay downtown or rent a car.  We did neither, to the detriment of our overall experience.
• Cory Doctorow is a very high-speed guy.

Possibly I’ll have more to say, upon reflection.  For the moment, I’m going to go get some beauty sleep so I’ll be at my best for tomorrow’s Web Design Meetup.

• Back From SxSW was published on Wednesday, March 12th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the CSS, General, and Speaking categories.
• There have been no replies.