Posts in the Personal Category

Okay, here’s the deal: when Eric Meyer on CSS arrived at the New Riders warehouse, it apparently wasn’t a full shipment.  This led to the book being taken off the “coming soon” list without actually landing on the “available now” list.  I guess it landed on the “incomplete shipment” list, and the New Riders Web site took that to mean “no longer available.”  Or something.  Either way, the book is now available for order from the New Riders Web site!  Let the bells ring out in celebration!

As for Amazon, Borders, etc., the Web sites still claim the book will be published on 15 August 2002.  Not true: it’s already been published.  Somehow the data feed got polluted.  In fact, the book should be available for shipping somewhere around 9 July, as the Barnes & Noble site correctly states (or did when I wrote this).  So feel free to pre-order!  You won’t have to wait six weeks, but more like one or two.

And the book really is gorgeous.  I keep flipping it open to random points just to admire its design.  This means that I have to get moving on an update of the companion Web site.  Soon to come: project files for all 13 projects, bonus material that was cut from the theatrical release, and more!

• Really, You Can Buy EMOC! was published on Monday, July 1st, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Books and Writing categories.
• There have been no replies.

I now have in my possession two real physical paper copies of Eric Meyer on CSS.  It looks as beautiful as I could have hoped—better.  310 pages of practical CSS, divided into 13 projects, each and every page in glorious full color to really show what CSS can do.  I’m really, really, really very happy right now.

Sadly, this joy is tempered by the fact that most e-tailers think the book will become available in August; Barnes & Noble is the exception, with a fairly realistic 9 July availability date.  Even the New Riders Web site claims the book isn’t available, and encourages you to search for a newer edition(!).  Trust me, folks: this baby is revved up and ready to go.  There just seem to be a few annoying roadblocks in front of the starting gate.  If you’re interested in ordering a copy, and of course I hope you are, please try again in a few days.  I’m looking at the two copies as I type this (please excuse any typos), so I know the book actually exists.

• Friday, 28 June 2002 was published on Friday, June 28th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Books category.
• There have been no replies.

The first review of my new book, Eric Meyer on CSS, is now available at Digital Web.  The reviewer seems to have liked it.  The book should be available this coming Friday, despite what Amazon says.  Better to trust the information on New Riders site—I double-checked with my editor and she says it’s on track to start shipping within the next few days.  Two words: “ya” and “hoo.”  (Yodeling not required.)

• Wednesday, 26 June 2002 was published on Wednesday, June 26th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Books category.
• There have been no replies.

As some of you know, I have a weekly radio show on a local community/college radio station.  We’ve been Webcasting for a while now.  So yes, this is going to be another rant against the recent ruling of the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (or CARP; feel free to rearrange letters as you like).

It isn’t necessarily the fees that I mind so much, although they obviously could be ruinous to any highly popular Webcaster.  They also don’t make a lot of sense, since we don’t have to pay anyone to broadcast our air signal to (potentially) about two million people in the greater Cleveland metropolitan area.  No, what I find so objectionable are the parts that regulate what you can play in a given period of time.  For example (and thanks to Jim Gilliland for pointing me to this information), per Section 114(j)(13): In any three hour period, [a Webcaster] may not play more than:

• three songs from the same record, two consecutively
• four songs by the same artist, three consecutively
• four songs from the same box set (even if “various artists”), three consecutively

On my most recent show, as it happens, I played a number of album sides and live recordings.  When you’re a non-profit, non-commercial radio station staffed by community volunteers, you can do that kind of thing.  My playlist included:

• Duke Ellington: “Small Band Shorts (1928-1935)” – Side 1 (soundtrack to the short film Black and Tan Fantasy)
• Louis Prima: “1944” – Side 1 (recording of a live broadcast from 1944)
• “From Spirituals To Swing” – Side 3 (concert recordings of various artists at Carnegie Hall, 1938-1939)
• Benny Goodman: “On the Air (1938-1939)” – Disc 1, Tracks 2-11 (recordings of radio broadcasts from 1938-1939)

Under the new CARP rules, I spent two hours violating the law with that show.  The same would be true of my D-Day special, which draws fairly heavily on the compilation “Swing Out To Victory.”  If I can’t come up with enough war-themed recordings on different records or compilations, then I’ll have to discontinue the D-Day special, which has become an annual tradition and always draws appreciative calls from listeners.  Ditto for my occasional broadcasts of the first Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington concerts at Carnegie Hall.  History?  Eh, who needs it?

Of course, all this becomes moot if we stop Webcasting.  So we have a choice: interesting and diverse music or worldwide reach.  One gets the feeling that the media conglomerates, who obviously chose reach over diversity, are trying to impose that same choice on the rest of us.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for honoring the rights of artists, and seeing that they’re fairly compensated for their work.  The CARP ruling isn’t the way to do it.  For that matter, neither are the contracts offered by media conglomerates—but I suppose that’s a whole different story.

• Saturday, 22 June 2002 was published on Saturday, June 22nd, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Culture and Politics categories.
• There have been no replies.

Digital Web has published an interview with yours truly, conducted by Meryl K. Evans.  I get to babble on for a bit about CSS, the W3C, Netscape, and my radio show.  Now, if only I could figure out what they did with the picture I sent them… I just hope I don’t get Photoshopped onto Salacious Crumb’s body, or something.  (Update: I found out what they did with the picture.  Whew!)

Scott Andrew LePera’s brilliant Netscape 4 birthday gallery has a new home on his site.  If you haven’t seen it already, go forth and partake of its artistically acid bounty.

• Wednesday, 12 June 2002 was published on Wednesday, June 12th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Browsers and Interviews categories.
• There have been no replies.

I experienced a touch of techno-frisson this evening.  The phone rang, and when I answered it, it turned out to be a sales call offering to refinance my mortgage.  Just as the words “we’re calling to offer competitive interest rates on mortgage refinancing” left the guy’s mouth and grated across my eardrum, e-mail dropped into my Inbox with the subject line current mortgage interest rate.

I had no idea I seemed so desperate for a new mortgage.  (Which I’m not, thanks.)

Spam continues to stay in the forefront of my (mostly negative) thinking.  I do have to give major honesty points to a message I received a few weeks back.  When I opened it up (I still don’t know why I did) I found what’s depicted in the accompanying graphic.  They may be the scum of humanity, but at least they’re up front about what they do.  I have to respect that.  I admit I laughed out loud when I saw it, then took a screenshot and deleted the message.

The other thing I wanted to mention is from the “this is funny but I’m laughing as much at the audacity as the humor” department:  The Onion managed this week to put a surreal  perspective on current events.  You know, it almost does make sense…

Brief correction: apparently the painting I liked so much isn’t called “Deception” any more.  Now it’s called “Ear Drops”.  Personally, I think the original title worked better.

• Thursday, 30 May 2002 was published on Thursday, May 30th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Technovertigo category.
• There have been no replies.

Now available: the pre-publication Web site for Eric Meyer on CSS, which contains information about the book and its author, a preview of some project files, and more.

I was particularly proud of this morning’s edition of “Your Father’s Oldsmobile.”  You can grab a copy to listen for yourself by going to WRUW‘s Wednesday archive.  It will be a 56kpbs copy of what I broadcast this morning, which for two hours of music still clocks in at almost 50MB—but if you like Big Band-era music, you might get a kick out of the show.

I realized just recently that I was out of my home state for 17 of the last 33 days, spread out over three trips.  Bleah.

• Wednesday, 29 May 2002 was published on Wednesday, May 29th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Books category.
• There have been no replies.

Issue 144 of A List Apart (“for people who make websites”) has been published and contains an article by yours truly.  Title: “Going to Print”.  Subject: creating print-specific styles for A List Apart, thus illustrating how to style documents for print so that no “click here for a printer-friendly version” page is needed.  In tone, “Going to Print” is very similar to the projects in my forthcoming book, Eric Meyer on CSS, so you could consider it a very short preview of what to expect there.

• Friday, 10 May 2002 was published on Friday, May 10th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Writing category.
• There have been no replies.