Archive for February 2004

According to Lycos restructures, cuts U.S. staff, Webmonkey and its staff got the ax. I remember discovering this site for the first time in the mid-’90s or so and thinking it was a gold mine. I probably didn’t go there as often as I should have over the years, but as I did less Web designing and grew the family, I had no time to learn a few new Web design tricks from the Webmonkey crew.

Read a first person account of a Webmonkey employee. Thanks to everyone who has ever written or worked for Webmonkey. [ Via Anil ]

Update: Jeffrey Veen, one of the prolific contributors to Webmonkey shares his thoughts.

Over the years, O’Reilly & Associates has published a number of Open Books–books with various forms of “open” copyright. The reasons for “opening” copyright, as well as the specific license agreements under which they are opened, are as varied as our authors. [ Via Gadgetopia ]

The front of the card.

The inside of the card.

I found this card for S to give to Paul for Valentine’s Day. He said it’s a keeper. I got him something geeky from Thinkgeek. Nah, I’m not going to point it out.

Posted a new photo album titled Texas Valentine Snow. Yes, we really get snow in Texas. Here’s another album from 2002.

The editors and reviewers of ReadersRead share their favorite books of 2003.

Harry Potter is the only fiction book I read and it’s tops with me.

Since I review books, I’ve had plenty of nonfiction from which to choose. Tops: Speed up Your Site, Google Hacks, and Outwitting Writer’s Block.

There is a new initiative underway to standardize Web usability. The committee believes having standards is important in Web usability, which has little agreement on what makes a site usable. Standards are independent, encourage consistency, promote best practices, and push businesses to comply with them especially when a contract requires they be in compliance.

That sounds jolly good, but how do you set standards for something intangible? Web standards are tangible as they define what technologies to use and when, what markup to use and how. Instead, Web usability standards sound like something akin to the 10 Commandments. Thou shall be consistent. Thou shall make forms easy to use. How do you standardize such a topic in a set way so you ensure the result of 2+2 is always 4?

The standard is a work in progress based upon a model with three domains in which the design work is implemented: process domain, evaluation domain, and design domain.

PalmOS 6 has been nicknamed cobalt and here is a screenshot of the front interface. Not much to look at though.

The new PalmOS 5 receives the name Garnet. Was it born in January? My birth stone is Garnet and I was born in January.

Hmm… it makes me reconsider my PalmOS 6 hold off. I’d like to get a new PalmOS with a net connection, wireless, etc. etc. but I was going to hold off till 6 comes out.

Time to dump Web safe thinking and broaden our colorful horizons. Get rolling with the 4096 Color Wheel, a color chooser that presents the color information when hovering over the color on the wheel. It saves smart and unsafe colors in a hidden list that can easily be revealed by clicking the “show full list” link. [ Via wg ]

Mozilla Firebird 0.8 has been released and along with a new version comes a new name. It is known as Firefox. Firefox (BFKA – browser formerly known as) Firebird is Mozilla’s standalone browser, which should not be confused with Thunderbird, the email client. Oh yeah, Firebird and Thunderbird have previously been known as Phoenix and Minotaur just to keep things interesting and confusing, but there is an explanation for the latest name change, another, and another.

Yes, Mozilla is still offered as Mozilla, which is the browser slash email combo currently in v1.6.

There is also Camino, Mac OS X alternative to Firefox (Firebird or whatever) and Mozilla.

As to which one to use: Mozilla vs. Firefoxbird / Thunderbird vs. Camino, there is no strong recommendation for any. Some say Firefoxbird and Thunderbird are faster, sleeker than Mozilla while others say otherwise. In this case, it’s a matter of taste. Try it until you find the one is most comfortable. Here are comments or articles you can read debating which is better: article 1, article 2, article 3.

Personally, I use Mozilla v1.6 and MyIE (if you install MyIE2, be aware there are some uninstall problems — go here if you need to uninstall it) most often. I also have IE6, Netscape 7, Netscape 4.x, and Opera 7 loaded and use them for testing, historical research, or some other research.

Thanks, Molly, for giving me another 404 to add to my collection. This has bad language, so you’ve been warned.

New section is up at InformIT and it covers content. The link takes you to the print version so it’s all in one page. If you like multiple pages, then you’ll want to start here.

While you’re there, Molly has a new article on Integrated Web Design: CSS beyond the Retrofit.