« March 2004 Entries »

IE Slowdown = Standardization

Mar 31

Think about it.

What makes CSS development so aggravating? Inconsistency across the browsers.

Which are the worst offenders? Older browsers, and Internet Explorer.

What’s happening in today’s browser market? Absolutely everything is making leaps and bounds in improving its CSS support, except Internet Explorer.

Continue Reading… | Comments Closed (27) | posted to Browsers

In a former coal town on the western Canadian coast, nestled in a protected harbour which makes the surrounding area a boater’s paradise, inaccessible from mainland North America save for an hour and a half ferry ride, I received one of the most encouraging signs in a while that standards-based web design is really catching on.

Continue Reading… | comments off | posted to The Industry

Over-Exposéd

Mar 23

Those aren’t Post-Its. That’s Simon Willison’s Exposé setup. God bless OS X.

Comments Closed (22) | posted to Technology

The Price of Theft

Mar 19

The relative ease of stealing someone else’s CSS-based design has been at the top of my radar over the past few weeks. I really don’t have the time to write the analysis I’d like to, but suffice it to say that nobody wants this issue to go away more than me, and no one realizes yet how much of a problem this is going to become over the next few months/years.

What I want to draw your attention to is that, due to a few reasons revolving around re-use of his design, Andy Budd has asked me to remove his popular ‘sub:lime’ design from the CSS Zen Garden, the former #046. I have complied.

Continue Reading… | comments off | posted to Zen Garden

Hi-Fi Design with CSS

Mar 18

And at last, the transcript of Monday’s panel from SXSW 2004. Enjoy!

Continue Reading… | Comments Closed (31) | posted to CSS

CSS: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Mar 15

I took pretty aggressive notes during the panel that came after mine. Enjoy!

(You can tell I was paying more attention to the two people who were talking about things I hadn’t heard much about before; less notes from their portions. Both were very good.)

Continue Reading… | Comments Closed (11) | posted to CSS

SXSW 2004

Mar 13

To spare those not here this year, I’ll contain my entire SXSW experience in this post and just keep updating it. Chronological, with the most recent events up top. I expect it to get lengthy and full of photos, so you’ll have to pardon the cut, but I’m sure you know what to do.

I feel so blog.

Continue Reading… | comments off | posted to Ephemeral

CSS Problem-Solving

Mar 10

After spending an hour debugging CSS with Tim Bray this morning, it occurs to me that the most valuable skill to possess in the maddeningly complex minefield of today’s browser landscape isn’t, in fact, knowing which browsers do what to which properties. It’s problem-solving.

Continue Reading… | Comments Closed (42) | posted to CSS

Publishing, Coffee, Contracts

Mar 08

Welcome to mezzoblue expanded, a fresh Monday afternoon edition featuring commentary on items in the news that would have otherwise been relegated to sidebar status. (Because some days are more reflective than others.)

Continue Reading… | Comments Closed (13) | posted to Publishing

A List Apart

Mar 05

My first article for A List Apart was published this morning. “CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death” is an investigation of a new technique that has been formulating for the last six months or so.

Continue Reading… | comments off | posted to CSS

Positioning and the Cascade

Mar 04

Two quick CSS tricks that I’ve been relying on more and more lately:

Applying positioning to a parent element, to allow absolute positioning of a child element within the parent.
Context-sensitive elements. Chaining classes by applying two or three or more to the highest parent element possible allows cascading down to deep child elements.

Continue Reading… | Comments Closed (37) | posted to CSS