Category Archives: Web-Design

Last week, Joshua Kaufman noticed a site that used css extremely similar to some he wrote. The person that created the site in question denies it. Not knowing either one personally, but having exchanged e-mail with and read the weblog of the accused for quite a while, it just doesn’t strike me as something he would feel the need to do. On a happier note, you can read this interview with Haran Sivakumaran, who is one of my favorite web designers. You can see some of his products. Some of them may look familiar but it would not take much to give them a new look. That is what I did here the other day. If you look at the lower reaches of the sidebar, you can choose your own look for this site. They are all from this collection from Alex King. Just choose the one you like best. I found a tutorial on using WordPress without a weblog while composing this entry that I really need to read.

bq.Is there anyone out there who still doubts the real world benefits of developing with Web standards? – D. Keith Robinson When well-reasoned arguments fail, there are other possible methods.
bq.Oh, and everytime I meet an IE team member in the halls (which is quite often) I grab them by the shirt, give them a nugie, and ask them when they are gonna support standards. Someday that’s gotta affect them. – Robert Scoble I guess you have to try whatever you can.

If you are in the midst of developing sites or changing your cms or whatever is in vogue at the moment, one thing you can do is work from your local machine using a product like Sokkit. It is an easy way to temporarily turn LAMP into WAMP.

The New York Public Library has a new design for their website. That should the rest of us something to aspire to.

Everytime I read where Dean says “I want,” I can emphathize. Some days I just don’t know where to start. You can follow one of them over at one of the other sites. But enough about that, it is time to get back to work.

Someone asked me for a source of background patterns the other day and I had to think really hard to come up with the name of my favorite: squidfingers. I can now add bloggrounds as well.

Remember how I recommended everyone take a look at Bryan Bell’s Bookworm theme? I spent some time Saturday afternoon deconstructing how to work. I have three sites in mind that it would be perfect for. My only question was making changes to the graphics. That question has now been answered. I will show them to everyone as soon as I get them finished.

bq.Are they any benefits to using a full CSS integrated solution? No. There is no real benefit when you start to replace < table > tags with < DIV > tags and attempt to control it all in CSS. It’s one thing to use a css style to replace tech same fonts that will be used all over the place that may or may not change. But it’s another when you take the structure or placement of text out of the page. You essentially make it harder to figure out where things go in design view, and on top of that, maintain it in the first place. – DeCloak
bq.The article is a metric pantsload of distortions, half-truths, and self-serving assertions, sprinkled with an occasional out-of-context fact to create the appearance of reasoned opinion. The rationale seems to be that Decloak�s software uses tables for layout and does not support CSS layout except via user gymnastics; hence CSS layout is bad. One could refute each wrong-headed point, but why bother? – Jeffrey Zeldman The issue that came to my mind was creating a new site. I still consider myself a CSS novice, but the idea of using tables in place of divs gives me a headache. And I can’t imagine any existing site simply replacing every table with a div. It would be incorporated into an overall site makeover.

If you are looking to update your website to a modern look, but are not sure where to start, read this article on web standards by Heidi Adkisson and then visit Web Design Practices.

bq.Once there is a perceived cost and/or liability associated with web standards, they’ll be permanently relegated to the realm of weblogs and personal sites. No matter the true ROI of standards-based design and development, mandating proprietary hacks such as the NOEXTERNALDATA attribute contribute only to the fragmentation of the web � and of course, of the code used to power it. If the choice is between validity and functionality (albeit a proprietary, fragmented definition thereof), things don’t look too good for a unified approach to the web. So at the end of the day, changes are on the horizon � and we’ve Eolas founder/CEO/sole employee Mike Doyle to thank for them. You’ll pardon us, Mike, if we’re not exactly brimming over with gratitude. – Ethan Marcotte
bq.I guess the bright side is that work-arounds were created to keep the experience transparent to the end user. But a quick read through the steps involved confirms what you knew from the day the ruling was announced: the end result makes things worse. And I really have to question how a couple of extra hoops to jump through can satisfy any patent issues when the net result is identical to the so-called infringement. – Dave S.
bq.In any case, don�t blame the developers, and don�t blame Microsoft. All of this is because a judge who was not an internet expert made a decision with untold consequences for the health of the web. – Jeffrey Zeldman
bq.Eolas Technologies on Monday filed a motion to permanently enjoin Microsoft’s distribution of its Internet Explorer browser amid a flurry of court filings by both sides in the pivotal patent-infringement case. Eolas, the sole licensee and sublicensor of a browser plug-in patent owned by the University of California, asked the U.S. District Court in Chicago for an injunction against distributing copies of IE capable of running plug-in applications in a way covered by the Eolas patent. – Paul Festa