Archive for January 2004

Originally posted at InformIT.

The Internet has an overwhelming number of great resources for Web design-related information, tutorials, tips, and applications. These are my go to resources covering general Web design topics rather than specific areas:

• A List Apart
• Digital-Web
• Web Design References
• Webmonkey
• Webreference and its newsletter
• WebsiteTips

And, of course, we’re working to build InformIT to become a resource for Web design. You can also stay on top of InformIT’s Web design resource by subscribing to the newsletter – you can review an example here. Another newsletter for Web developer is Lockergnome’s Web developer newsletter, which focuses more on programming than mark up.

A great mailing list, the ultimate for Web designers, is Webdesign-L. It’s a busy list, but full of valuable exchanges.

I’ve got numerous resources in my bookmarks, but hardly touch them because I go straight to these resources, use a feed reader to scan for articles from many places, or use Google to quickly get what I need. Between these resources, Web design references are well covered.

I subscribe to many Web design feeds so I can quickly scan the latest news. There are online feed readers as well as downloads. Lockergnome has a long list of what’s available so you can determine which you like best. It also has a help page explaining how to use a reader. There is no “best” product because it’s like tennis shoes… you know what is most comfortable to you.

Paul Stanley, George Burns, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Bill Maher, David Lynch, DeForest Kelley, Joycelyn Powell (good friend of mine) S. Matsil (another good friend’s kid), Stacey Dash, Rudy Boesch, Peter Donat, and Sooz. Darn, I tried to do it in “We didn’t start the fire” style, but no time.

On this date in 1981, Iran released the 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days minutes after the presidency passed from Carter to Reagan. In 1986, the United States observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day for the first time.

I got up too early and am tired. Not a great way to start the day, but then I encountered lots of well wishers from Lockergnome fans. Thank you all!

Update: Dang! Paul has spoiled me with this and the kids spoiled me with this along with a bunch of blank DVDs and CDs to go with the first item. The kids tried to get Bob the Angry Flower, but none of the local bookstores had it (phooey!) and there wasn’t time to order it online. They have good taste!

I treated myself (which I rarely do) to a laptop, this sharp printer that works with my camera without being hooked up to the computer, and a memory card for the digital camera. Got rebates or coupons on it all. All in all, great savings month. I’m on a roll with the sales that I might be getting one more thing, but won’t say anything till it’s in my hands.

It’s done! The process of adding USB 2.0 ports took no time and the backup system is mighty fast. If you add USB 2.0 ports with a PCI port card, then you’ll still have your USB 1.1 ports, so whatever is plugged into those can stay.

Rob Foster from the UK sent me a port PCI USB card since he had a few extras. Thanks again, Rob. When installing hardware or devices, most situations require loading the software FIRST before doing anything else. This one didn’t – so be sure to check this out before attempting to put the card in. Before starting the process, be sure you have an open PCI slot, a standard slot that has one big connector with a small one behind it.

Turn off the computer, if it is not already. Take off the CPU case. How this is done depends on the CPU. If you lost or misplaced the manual, I’m sure your computer manufacturer has info online. Google it, if needed. Slide the PCI card into the open PCI slot.

At this point, you can cover up the CPU, but some people leave it off until turning on the computer and checking all is OK. When turning on this little feller, it found the new card right away and worked. I didn’t even have to run the software. The card came with four USB ports, one of which holds the backup system. It took under two hours to back up the computer (get size), faster and easier than the tape back up.

Well, it only took a year or so to get around to adding the USB 2.0 ports as that’s about how long the back up system has been sitting here taunting me.

One less item on the to do list and <mumbles> to go.

Dunstan has a comprehensive list of 404 handling pages specific to the problem. Nice work!

Ian Lloyd wrote The Perfect 404 for A List Apart.

I re-installed Internet Explorer 6 in hopes of fixing a problem, but it didn’t work. Instead, I got a kick out of it because it didn’t pass the Windows logo test. Click on the image to see the full evidence. If this one doesn’t pass, why should it matter if the others fail?

The problem I’ve been having? First – I have ruled out everything and determined it’s a problem with Internet Explorer on my computer. IE and MyIE are the ones having the problem. Mozilla proved it. Opera proved it.

The two situations that are baffling me:

Online webmail. When I check webmail online, I have a choice of three applications: Neomail, Horde, and SquirrelMail. Squirrel is the one I use. Whenever I sign into it, it gives me the (error info). Wondering if it was the server, I went into Horde. Same problem. Neomail — NO PROBLEM! Logical? Not at the moment.

I went into Mozilla and other browsers and didn’t have the aforementioned problems. Uninstalling Google Bar did nothing. The firewall is not an issue. Re-installing IE6 was fruitless and a big waste of time as it took several hours to get it to install. Searching Microsoft’s knowledgebase, checking out the usual haunts like annoyances.org, and Google… can’t find the answer.

SurveyMonkey is the other one with a problem. Even when I cleaned out the cookies, it produces an error cookie. Sheesh! Of course, it works fine in the other browsers. I just can’t let these problems go. The repair person in me wants to find the solution and I KNOW there is one. I contacted Surveymonkey’s tech support — no clues yet.

This screen shot from Dori’s computer is priceless. Cussword alert.

Probably old news by now considering it’s in the top news everywhere, but the new say hey kid from my hometown was suspended from school for simply sending an pre-IM message to other computers in the school lab because it was considered hacking. Puleeeazze!

Interesting, but who cares fact? Richland, the place where the say hey kid is from, has a high school whose mascot is the Rebel. Yet, my high school in the same town was the Rebels (before I graduated) and they were forced to drop the name. Figure that out. Why does one school get to keep it and the other doesn’t? The whole Rebels discussion is another story and I won’t go into that as I have enough email right now.

10 mistakes writers don’t see that are easily fixed when they do is right on. I admit I have a few crutch words and it makes me crazy. I knew about this crutch word habit before reading the article and sometimes I admit I occasionally become lazy trying to look up alternatives.

William K. Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, taught me to avoid empty adverbs and I’ve been trying to pass on the lesson to other writers who ask me to edit their work. Such words are there to add an exclamation to a point, but they’re over-used that they don’t do the job anymore. Keep it to a minimum and they’ll do their job or find a way around it.

Lists are a challenge when doing software reviews in the process of describing the product’s features. Work around this by keeping the list short and describe a couple of features in detail. Though this article concentrates on fiction or storytelling, such tips work well in non-fiction works. Bryan Eisenberg shared his mentor’s(Roy H. Williams) advice, “to write non-fiction as if writing fiction and to write fiction as if writing non-fiction.” [Via Darren Barefoot]

Creative 404 Error page from Ultrashock.com and another from 1976. [Via Etc.]

No Mark of Distinction talks about book publishers who are considering removing colons from book titles. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, titles are getting ridiculously long thanks to the colon. However, I understand publishers are trying to stay it all with the title since people are in a hurry and rarely even take the time to read the synopsis.

On the other hand, just create a danged title that is short and to the point. On the other hand, a complete title motivates people to buy the book.

Yeah, thank goodness there are no ; in book titles!

Add the Accessibility Toolbar provided by the Accessible Information Solutions (AIS) team at the National Information and Library Service (NILS), Australia, which helps the user to interrogate aspects (structure/code/content) of an HTML document that can have an affect on the accessibility of that document.

Those using Mozilla will want to download Checky, a plug-in that accesses online validaton and analysis services. Such available services include HTML, XHTML, CSS, RDF, RSS, XML, WAI, Section 508, P3P, various viewer, valets and purifiers.

Firebird has a similar extension, which also has validation tools among others.

You can also download favelets or bookmarklets to validate Web sites from W3C and from Liorian @ web-graphics.