Archive for November 2001

Independents Day is presenting essays every six hours on the topic of "The Future Independent Web: Visions of What’s To Come." Watch for my embarrassing entry. I enjoyed Halcyon’s 15 predictions. Not to worry, if you miss an essay, check the archives.

CSS King, Eric Meyer has conducted an experiment of where we haven’t been with CSS. He writes, &quotIt’s a search for new ways to approach Web-based design. It’s a cry for creativity, and a stab at innovation. It’s a playground and a proving ground. It’s a rejection of what’s practical in favor of what’s possible."

My favorite part? The Complex Spiral doesn’t view correctly in IE! Yes, Netscape 6+ does it right. Mark one for Netscape. It has hover effects WITHOUT JavaScript! How cool is that? Eric also offers some alternative fun you can have with the spiral page.

Let’s check out the Pure CSS Popups where Eric demonstrates mouse rollover effects (both text and graphical) WITHOUT JavaScript. No lie!

Check out those curves! No, not on that lady – get your mind out of the gutter. Through the magic of CSS and a curve graphics, he creates a page with a curved edge. If curves aren’t your thing or they’ve been overdone, take a look at the slants. He does this with three div elements, some borders, and no content. At first, I didn’t like it when I checked it out in IE5.5. But then, I opened the page in NN 6 and it looks great. IE 5.5 doesn’t display it correctly.

Now, if could get myself to push my Web site to the edge and give it a new edge <sigh>.

Ever since intro of Wayback Machine made news everywhere… It feels like we’re experiencing a flashes from the past each day. Not only do we get a 50th anniversary celebration of “I Love Lucy,” but also we get Michael Jackson in a 30th anniversary TV deal. I still say the gloved one was at his best during Thriller and shouldn’t have done any additional plastic surgery beyond that. Now, he looks like Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones’ twin. Here are some of the flashes I’ve experienced:

BBSes
BBSes are mainly the reason why I got sucked into the Internet world so early in 1993. I got my first modem in 1986 and found a few BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems), but most of the places I went to were run by 12-year-old C-64 SysOps (Systems Operator) who had to take it down because “Mommy needed to use the phone.” So, I took a break from trying BBSes for a little while. I picked it up again in late ’86 or early ’87 and had better luck with some of the places I founded including Dark Side of the Moon, Doc’s Office (before it moved to Northern Virginia), and a few others whose names I can’t recall. Plus, I used Prodigy and it was a great tool that allowed me to communicate with family when I moved to Washington, DC.

The reason I got into BBSing is because it opened a whole new world for me, a hearing impaired individual. I couldn’t make my own phone calls when I was in my teens and here BBSing let me email with others, discuss things on bulletin boards, join chat rooms, and eventually meet my future better half. I ran my own BBS for about a year and couldn’t believe that I couldn’t remember the name of it. I think it was Bear’s Cave because of my stupid handle, “Purple Bear.” I did finally remember one thing: the software it ran on, but I needed help to dig through the cobwebs and this is what prompted the flashback: BBS Documentary. Jason Scott is the person behind this huge project, which includes a list of BBS software and List of BBSes by area code.

The software I used was GBBS Pro and I ran it on an Apple //e that I bought because I couldn’t take the ][+’s inabilities any longer. In looking at the List of BBSes for 202 and 817, I recognized quite a few from 202 because most of the places on the list are from the ’90s and I moved to DC in 1989. I had to look up the ’80s for 817 and I recognized Acropolis (run by Mitch Hill who went to my high school, but I had never met him) and that was it! Dang it, I wish I had that 817 list I used to keep for ages so I could submit it to the project. Hah, I remember the day I got my 1200 BPS modem from Dallas since no place in Fort Worth carried it! Whew, that was fast!

I can’t help but shake my head for not tackling the Internet and really getting into it from a HTML standpoint. I mean, yes, I put up my Web site relatively early (1993)… but I just didn’t try to learn all the tips of the HTML-trade and keep up with it until later. I’ve got to Molly’s advice and stop dwelling on "I shoud’ves."

Merlin
Christine mentioned Merlin in her blog and it didn’t ring any bells until I went to look at it. Oh my gosh, I used to play with this thing all the time and my parents had it in my house after I moved out. They moved to a new home and probably got rid of all these games I kept over the years including Electronic Detective, which I was too scared to play with at times.

I looked through the ’70s and ’80s lists from Yesterdayland and kept remarking, "Oh yeah! I remember that! That, too!! Oh man, I remember when we played with that…" and so on. As strange as it was, I had a Speak & Spell. Strange because you had to be able to hear to play with it, but somehow it sharpened my hearing skills. Think it’s an innocent child’s toy? Think again… a childhood buddy managed to use it in some unforgettable (unfortunately) ways.

I want my MTV!
My generation welcomed MTV into our lives and new words sprung up such as “music videos” and “veejays.” The veejays I remember are Martha Quinn, Adam Curry, and JJ Jackson. Well, guess what? Adam Curry has a blog and he has moved out of the country with his family.

Whew boy, I think that’s enough reminiscing for now. Time to look to the future and I want one of these when they come out! Hey, it’s a Fossil, it can’t be too geeky.

No, it’s not a video game, PC game, card game or old-fashioned board game. It’s a 5th grader’s math homework! Rudy has a challenging puzzle where you try to get to or as close to 500,000 without going over. I came up with three words so far, but I’ll let you give it a shot before I share it. Dang, this is one time when I wish I had a comments link on this blog.

Also, merci beaucoup to Rudy for catching a lot of mistakes.

Boy, has ALA got a big present for us this week! Håkon Lie, the CTO of Opera, takes a shot at Micros$oft and its standards compliance claims. He took the time to test 63 MSN-related Web pages using the W3C validator and he shares the eye-opening report. Only 10 of the 63 documents accurately used the DOCTYPE indicator.

Webreview has an article you can use over and over. OK, bad pun intended. Hardcore programmers reuse code all the time in the form of functions. Don’t panic if you’re not into Java, C or C++ since this is about Reusing Javascript. It’s an opportunity for Web designers not into hard stuff to learn a big trick of the trade: reusing and sharing code. Author Al Williams includes files for downloading and walking you through an example — one of my favorite ways to learn.

Let’s go to the CSS broadcast football game where Chuck looks at Clipping, not the penalty. It explains how to score a touchdown by having content in a window display in its entirety using the new CSS properties: Overflow and Clip. What’s the difference?

Can’t get enough of Harry? Here’s a Dallas Morning News article to help you get your Harry fix before and after the movie. I know the first paragraph is missing. DMN should be working to remedy the problem. Also, I did *not* write that translation of the Latin phrase. It’s actually the Patronus Charm.

If Potter is not your thing, then how about Star Trek? There are many PC Star Trek games and you can see how one of the newest, Away Team fares.

The new set of gotchas is up to make you laugh. Warning! I am running low on gotchas and need a few extra pairs of eyes to find more.

Richard Seltzer, author of How to find and be found on the Internet kindly takes a moment to share a brief insight on the key things to do a "how to find."

First, distinguish between a vague category search (looking for a college in southern California — you can’t remember the name of it), a need for the answer to a common question (who was president of the US in 1844? what is the tallest mountain in the Western Hemisphere?), and detailed background information on a specific topic (need for and side effects of splenectomy — removal of the spleen).

For a category search, you should use a directory rather than a search engine — e.g., Yahoo, Open Directory, or LookSmart. Browser through their cascading menus looking for the clues you need to prompt you and help home in on what you really want .

For answers to questions, go to AskJeeves. Simply type in your questions, in ordinary English. Then choose among the related options they show you in the first-level results.

For detailed info on a specific topic, use a full-text search engine, such as Google, AltaVista, AlltheWeb, Excite, Hotbot, etc. Don’t just type in one or two words. Rather enter every word and phrase that you can think of that is directly related to your target topic. Enclose the phrases in quotation marks (some search engines, like AltaVista will then look for those particular words in that particular order). Pages on which all those words and phrases appear should come out on the top of your list of matches.

Meryl here. Thanks for sharing, Richard.

That smarts! I get my first perfect score in Word Power from Reader’s Digest and they don’t have it online. Oh, sure they have a Word Power game, but it doesn’t the one I want to show you guys. It covers the language of the Internet. Not trying to show off here… like I said, it’s the first one I got all correct in the years I’ve been doing Word Power. Why do I do it?

Sit down, children, let me tell you a story. OK, not a story or even a tall tale. When I was a young’un, my parents sent me to tutoring that covered vocabulary words, reading comprehension (gag), and idioms. Born with a profound hearing loss, my knowledge of vocabulary was growing slower than my peers. Because I couldn’t hear conversations all around me, I missed the big words and how they’re used.

Thanks to Mrs. Kleinman, she taught me the difference between imply and infer and I never had trouble distinguishing them. I also learned funny stuff like "hold your horses", "it’s raining cats and dogs" and "money doesn’t grow on trees". These may not sound that funny, but when you were 10-years-old and seeing these phrases with a picture matching the phrase — it’s funnier than it sounds.

Over the years, I saw her a few times. Once my mom told me that she said that I am doing great with vocabulary and it isn’t a problem anymore (something like that). That stuck with me. So, once a month when I get my Reader’s Digest, I always save the Word Power and do it when I find the time. Also, I try to read A Daily Dose of Useless Knowledge on the PDA, which provides "Word of the Day" along with other useless, but interesting facts.

Another computer related item from Reader’s Digest: I want to know what good is a web search engine that returns 324,909,188 matches to my key word. That’s like saying, "Good news! We’ve located the product you’re looking for. It’s on Earth." — W. Bruce Cameron.

How I’ve missed thee, let me count the ways, dear digital-web. No October issue went up, but the November issue is literally full of “content,” which is the topic of the month. Now, before we get into the details of the cool issue, are you upset there was no October issue? I certainly hope not. Nick Finck and Co. are providing a free service that is as good (if not better) quality as the fee-based magazines. Sure, it was disappointing and I missed the October issue, but there is plenty to keep me busy on the Web until the next issue is available – for starters, check the d-w blog with links to quality articles and news relating to Web design.

Funny, I was seriously considering coming up with my own online zine. It certainly wouldn’t be as big or as well designed as d-w, but at least I could contribute articles with my own requirements. Despite having the site map figured out and the logo look, I decided against it. Why? (1) We are blessed with many high quality online content covering the topics I considered, (2) Fear of not being able to keep it up, and (3) Fear of not being able to offer content of interest to you. I am still brainstorming ideas on what content I can offer that would be of interest and value to you, my dear reader (kiss up, suck up, brownnose). Drop me an e-line (meryl at onramp dot net) if you want to suggest something. Every suggestion seriously considered! If ya want updates on this project, come on — put your email address in the form on the left of this blog. Please please please !

Enough whining. On with the show! One of the things I look forward to in each new d-w zine is the cover art. It’s like opening a gift and getting a surprise. Drew Europeo’s cover reminds me of a Greek heroine (I am sure this is so far off-base, hey it’s just my thought) sitting on a pile of books with lots of content coming at her. I feel like her almost everyday with information overload, but on the other hand… I know most Web designers get frustrated with content because they never can get it from the client or on time.

Christopher Schmitt authors the feature article, Content as Navigation Tool. He points out what so many of us forget… that users don’t like to do more than two clicks to get where they’re going. He quotes Section 508, "Subpart B – Technical Standards – 1194.22 (o) A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links." That’s good information, people. Teach me a lesson… do you have trouble finding anything in meryl.net? Too many clicks to get anywhere? PLEASEEEEEE email me so I can fix it! Again, that’s m e r y l at o n r a m p dot n e t .

Check out the tutorial by Miraz Jordan. She trains new users who are frustrated with some of the things we have taken for granted. Think that SUBMIT button is OK? Are you sure? Really, really sure???? Some users aren’t sure that’s what they should press when finishing a form. All right, so if you’re developing a Web site targeted to Gen X (dumb name) or Gen Y (just as dumb, too), then it may not be relevant. These users are as young as 40, so take heed!

If I talk about the rest of them, we’ll be here all night. Go on and head over to d-w… but not before you finish reading my drivel!

I went to the dentist today for a check up. Everything is fine. Not the best week for it, but when is it ever the best time? My department is moving to another building about a mile north of here, so I’m having to scramble to pack up all the stuff here and cough my way through a whirlwind of dust. Not feeling too uppity lately, I decided to make a stop on my way back to the office from the dentist. A very dangerous stop, indeed, to Half Price Books. What do I end up doing? Buying a armload of books! What can I say? My willpower was weakened from a previous stop to Best Buy to look for a travel battery recharger for the Palm Vx. I looked for it and confirmed that they didn’t have it — so I quickly exited without looking at anything else (thankfully the PDA stuff was near the front doors). I got a book on PHP (probably not the best one, but they had so few), one on software engineering / processes, couple of humor books, and a couple of books about names. Geez, like I have time to read all these books in addition to the few I got last week (one is Jason Kottke’s fault!).