Posts in the CSS Category

Happy Valentine’s Day, or whatever.

Okay, I’m not actually bitter this year (for once!), but the holiday still drags at me a bit.  I think it’s the obligatory nature of the whole thing, the sense that if I don’t observe the holiday then I will suffer mightily for it.  And that’s not even coming from Kat, who is perfectly happy to buy herself a present and then say, “Look what you got me!”  I love her for that (and a whole lot more).  What I’m talking about is the general all-pervasive air of expectation which the holiday creates all on its own.  It isn’t nearly so bad as the anti-joy field which Christmas seems to generate, but it’s still there, taunting me.  Like, I don’t know, some kind of taunting thing.  Hm, apparently today is not a day for brilliance in letters.

Anyway, time to fill in the blanks in what’s been a very blankless life.  Kat started a new job two days ago, working as a labor and delivery nurse at a hospital in Bedford, and is interviewing for midwifery positions in and around the Cleveland area.  So she’s exchanged the stress of having no job for the stress of having to get up early in the morning.  She’s also been doing some volunteer work which takes two nights a week, so some days are fifteen hours long.  You’d think she was in my line of work.  Not that I pull fifteen-hour days, of course, but I hear that some people do.  She’s also been asked to write an article on Kangaroo Care for an online resource, and I suspect that once it’s done we’ll be reprinting it here on the site.

Speaking of writing, I’m wrapping up two books in the next week.  The easy one is the CSS Pocket Reference for O’Reilly & Associates, which required not much more than repackaging portions of the first book, polishing the text a bit, and running with it.  The second, the CSS2.0 Programmer’s Reference for Osborne/McGraw-Hill, required substantially more work in many ways.  For example, I had to figure out some of the nuances of parts of CSS2 which I’ve never really visited.  Since it isn’t a tutorial, though, it meant that I could just concentrate on explaining properties and values and not worrying about stuff like illustrations.  I suspect they’ll both hit shelves within a month of each other.  And, of course, there’s the start of my HWG-sponsored CSS2 class this coming Monday.  Is this too much Eric all at once?  You decide.

• Wednesday, 14 February 2001 was published on Wednesday, February 14th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the Books and CSS categories.
• There have been no replies.

We’re back.  Again.  Not that twelve days in San Francisco and Ragged Point is anything to complain about, really, but we discovered that we miss home after a while.  This even though the weather during our trip was as close to perfect as one could possibly ask, and the venues were nothing to sneeze at either.  My talks and other activities at Web2000SF were what scientists call a “huge peck o’ fun,” but even better was meeting and greeting so many cool people.  Some I already knew well via e-mail, like Molly; and some I’d met before, like Tantek and Jeff and Sherry (from Terry!); but many others were effectively met for the first time—Bryan and Lori and Jennifer and Steven and what seemed like dozens more.

In a way, I felt bad about the situation at “Real World CSS,” my Wednesday presentation.  I didn’t have any network access, so the presentation suffered, and the room was packed to overflowing (and fire code violations) by interested audience members.  The interest was profoundly gratifying in an ego-centric fashion, but it wasn’t the best job I could have done, and the environment was less than ideal for those trying to find seats.  The Friday talk was less of a hit—especially among those who didn’t want to hear that the user controls the browsing experience—but there was very good attendance without the need for sitting in the aisles, and a lot of appreciative comments and exclamations from the audience, so that was good.  It was interesting to be giving a talk called “CSS For Anarchists” while the President of the United States of America was giving a speech a floor above me.  As I’ve always said, timing is everything.  I don’t know how many background checks got run on me, but I’d like to know.  Fortunately, the Secret Service decided to not arrest me for seditious activities or some such thing.  In sum, I don’t know about others, but I had a darned good time.

So did Kat, who got to play tourist and jaunt down to L.A. without me to see various college friends.  It was a short jaunt, and she got back in time for the election.  Being on the West Coast, we could watch most of it unfold without the massive sleep deprivation which the network anchors, all based in the east, were obviously suffering.  We were watching ABC when Florida was moved back into the “undecided” category for the second time; the sense of history-in-progress was fairly palpable.  Or else we were starting to experience sleep deprivation ourselves.

I’m not going to comment on the election process beyond this: the whole situation is intellectually fascinating, and I’m very ambivalent about how I’d like to see it resolved.  In process terms, I mean; I know who I’d like to see win—but if you think I’m going anywhere near that particular bear trap in a public forum, you’ve got another think coming.  The closest I’ll come is to say that, as I write this, I’m finding that every time a campaign spokesman from either side opens his mouth, my opinion of him drops.  Every time.  That’s just, you know, depressing.

Just a side comment: the format of these posts has shifted from “third person objective reporting” to “whatever Eric feels like saying, generally at some length.”  You probably noticed that already, but I thought I’d mention it explicitly.  Mostly because I can.

• Friday, 11 November 2000 was published on Saturday, November 11th, 2000.
• It was assigned to the CSS, Politics, Speaking, and Travel categories.
• There have been no replies.

CSS:TDG will be entering a second print run soon, thanks to strong sales.  It’s had an Amazon.com sales ranking as high as 113, and there are rumors that it went higher when we weren’t looking.  On a related note, the recently published Amazon.com editorial review of CSS:TDG is very kind indeed.  Here are a few quotes:  “…enthusiasm for [CSS] spills out of the pages, making a strong case for even the most skeptical reader to give CSS a whirl and count on its future… attention to both detail and architecture helps readers build a well-rounded knowledge of CSS…  This fine guide delivers on its promise as an indispensable tool for CSS coders.”

• Saturday, 20 May 2000 was published on Saturday, May 20th, 2000.
• It was assigned to the Books and CSS categories.
• There have been no replies.

Eric says: Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide has been published and is available.  I have held a copy in my hands (I got two last night via Federal Express); somehow I expected it to be bigger.  I suppose that’s probably an effect of the book’s psychological significance.  Preorders, as of the end of April, totaled 6,307.  …wow.

• Wednesday, 3 May 2000 was published on Wednesday, May 3rd, 2000.
• It was assigned to the Books and CSS categories.
• There have been no replies.

Kat is back in Cleveland!  Eric could be happier, maybe, but he isn’t really sure how.  Other good things happening: orders for CSS:TDG have already passed 5,200 copies, and the book won’t be available until the beginning of May.  Looks like we might have a winner on our hands, folks…

• Thursday, 13 April 2000 was published on Thursday, April 13th, 2000.
• It was assigned to the Books and CSS categories.
• There have been no replies.

Well, the fish is out of the net now!  O’Reilly & Associates has officially announced the upcoming publication of Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide.  There are also listings at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Fatbrain.com, and Amazon.com; the Amazon.com sales ranking as of today is really funny: 729,716.  That’s up from its earlier ranking of 729,769!

• Thursday, 2 March 2000 was published on Thursday, March 2nd, 2000.
• It was assigned to the Books and CSS categories.
• There have been no replies.