April 2008
10 posts
How to Disagree →
For having so much discourse, the Internet sometimes seem more like a playground than a place for intellectuals. Something like this could help. From John Gruber.
March 2008
25 posts
“A managed democracy is a wonderful thing, Manuel, for the managers… and...”
– From Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Web-specific settings for Adobe Illustrator →
I’ve commented before that Illustrator, out-of-the-box, is a nightmare for production. This article gives some tips on how to make illustrator behave sanely when designing for the screen. Don’t let the title fool you—these tips should not just apply to wireframes.
Fixing flickering background images in IE6. →
This issue has been no end of pain to me. Wish I had found this earlier.
“If you truly demand the right to be able to shoot yourself in the foot with the...”
– By John Gruber. Most compelling rationale for my buying the AT&T Tilt that I’ve seen. It’s converse is true as well: If you want a smartphone and aren’t willing to research your hardware, eschew Windows Mobile and buy and iPhone.
A solidus is not a virgule
…or a slash is not a slash.
Used the wrong term today in a ticket trying to be smart. According to wikipedia and elsewhere the “forward slash” ( / ) and the “fraction slash” ( ⁄ ) are two very different typographical marks. Although the more crass do not distinguish.
NFL.com Live nominated for an Emmy →
Waaaaaaay down the page, category: “Outstanding New Approaches ‑ Coverage”. It looks like most of our competition is fantasy stuff.
7th Son: Podcast Sci-Fi Novel →
This guy asked some good questions at SXSW panel on monetization. He’s going print so it’s hopefully decent.
“Some people have bad taste, and that “some” is the large part of pie...”
– Anil Dash on Designing for Freedom.
IE8 WAI ARIA Support →
The W3C defines ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) as a syntax for making dynamic Web content and custom UI controls accessible. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers uses ARIA role, state, and property information to communicate with assistive technologies. Instead of building separate simplified Web pages for accessibility, you can use ARIA to markup your rich Web applications...
Non-Visual Desktop Access Project →
NVDA is a free and open source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows Operating System. This software can enable blind or vision impaired people to access computers running Windows, for no more cost than a sighted person.
I didn’t know that a FOSS screen reader existed. No excuses for not testing anymore.
Adobe color scheme guide →
Opinion: Michiganders need to suck it up. No new...
MoveOn.org:
The Michigan Democratic Party broke the national Democratic Party’s election rules when they held their primary to select Michigan delegates ahead of most other states. As a result, Hillary Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot, and Michigan was stripped of its delegates to the national convention.
Hillary Clinton won, and now her campaign is arguing that...
Extending The JavaScript Date Object with User... →
This article should be required reading for anyone who teaches Web Design. Not only is it useful code with very readable examples, but it’s also an excellent primer on facets of JavaScript that don’t come easily to beginning Web Developers: the differences between static and class methods, copying versus referencing objects, and more.
How do I make my site 'light up' with Internet... →
CSS 2.1 Compliance
Developer Tools and Versioning
Better AJAX development
DOM Core Improvements
Selectors API
Platform Performance Improvements
Circular Memory Leak Mitigation
HTML Improvements and ACID2
Improved Namespace Support
With the exception of an embrace-and-extend move on a hAtom, this stuff looks pretty good.
Allen Ginsberg - Howl: Unedited MP3 →
Via danklyn. MP3 is downloadable, but you’ll have to figure out how yourself.
1 tag
Ask.com scales back in makeover →
Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google Inc. and will instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives.
Ask.com was my engine of choice in High School, when it would try and guess my natural language questions and had structured search based on them. Their Web search was always third-rate, and I stopped...
1 tag
“Our feeling is that D.R.M. is not actually doing anything to prevent piracy”
– Madeline McIntosh, a senior vice president at the Random House Audio Group. From the New York Times, via Cameron.
3 tags
FactCheck.org: Fear and False Claims →
Excellent analysis from FactCheck.org in response to a FUD-filled video by a mysteriously-funded, freedom-hating, buzzword-loving propaganda group. Their critique:
The [Restore Act] has long been known to be unacceptable — the Administration announced that the president would not sign it and the Democrat-controlled Senate overwhelmingly supported … a provision the House bill rejected.
...
Microsoft's Interoperability Principles and IE8 →
Microsoft is finally building to standards, yet I can’t shake the feeling that there is something bad about this. I thought we already decided their initial proposal was correct? Is that why their changing it? My gerbils are falling off their wheels with all this conflict.
best of craigslist : Star Wars Guide to the... →
[T]his is for those of you who … are more interested in voting for a candidate based on snap judgments and small pop culture sound bites. … look how Bush turned out… can you really expect these people to act predictably based on what they say in the election cycle? Heck no!
Obama in a bikini on a chain FTW!